First "bath" (March 3rd)

Just like Tim gave James his first bird bath (prior to the umbilical cord falling off) so did he give Robert his first bird bath.  We turned up the baseboard heater in the bathroom to make it nice and cosy- put out a thick pad of towels on the counter, filled one sink with warm soapy water and the second with clean water and Tim went to work getting over a week's worth of oil, sweat and milk off of Robert.

Not sure who looks sillier :)  Robert's stomach looks so odd when held up under his arms!  Those legs look even skinnier next to that huge stomach.

Post bath.  His hair looked about 3 shades lighter without all the sweat and oil in it.

Our main activity for the first two weeks (not sure that my eyes look any better even now after 3 weeks).

Sunday hill climb

James watching Tim shear a few Christmas trees (we have to get all 4,500 sheared before the middle of May).

Showing off his treasure of a grass (with hermit crab in hand of course).

Unbathed, no makeup, and pale like all new mommas are from slight anemia post-birth- but oh so loving the sunshine and warm weather!

Also enjoying the sunshine- my little monkey.

Tim, Sharon and James decided some exercise after being cooped up sounded superb.  Despite my desire to join them I decided it was just too soon after surgery to go up the hill (the picture doesn't do justice in showing how steep and tall it is).

This one gives a slightly better perspective as you can just see Sharon's red coat.

Robert and I hung out around the house and orchard doing a little bit of work here and there- but in general just enjoying the beautiful day.

Robert's first real day outside

Saturday was BEAUTIFUL so I bundled up Robert (thank you dear gals for the bunting!) and James and headed out to the apple orchard to do some work.

Robert's rooting reflex was highly triggered by the hood rubbing his cheek :)

As I've said before I thought I was having a large baby, but didn't in the end (except for head circumference) so he is somewhere inside that bunting.

Cookies with James

James and Tim (and I!) all love Grandma's oatmeal cookies, so today on a gray day James and I decided to bake up a batch from her recipe.  I premeasured out all the ingredients (I learned as a nanny that relying on a small child to make accurate measurements while baking was completely unreasonable) so that James could just dump in the appropriate bowl.  

What he loved most of all was the flour.  Here he is mixing in the salt and baking soda.  Note the flour all over his shirt.

Walnuts in...

Most of the chocolate chips going in (some were diverted to his mouth).

And two of three pans baked...the first (top left 6 cookies) are a bit dark and crispy due to my attempts to multitask while they were baking.  I did get the woodstove's fire lit, but while doing that I head Robert fill his diaper- so upstairs we went to change it and it was a blow-out diaper so while dealing with that I heard the timer go off downstairs and couldn't get back down right away.  But they couldn't be that bad as only 6 of the original 12 remained by the time I took the picture.  James just kept going into the kitchen and grabbing one to eat.  On his third trip I caught him pulling one down off the counter and he looked up at me with big eyes and said "you want one too?".  I think he thought I was giving him a look because he hadn't offered one to me, not because I thought he'd already had plenty cookies seeing as it was before lunch.  But as Sharon says- they have oats and nuts so they can't be all that bad for you.

Robert's "bone"

Robert and James "playing" together this morning.

Before bringing Robert home from the hospital we asked the nurse if they were going to take off the clip from the umbilical stump and she said yes.  But when we got home and changed his diaper we discovered it still on.  James was there when we made the discovery, sitting on the bed next to me and he asked me if we could take off Robert's "bone".  I suppose it does look a bit like a bone, pale & skinny.  Not too bad a deduction for 3-yr old.
After looking it over and not seeing an obvious way to remove it I called the hospital and asked if there was a trick to getting it off.  I was told that they have a special knife they use to cut it open and I could just bring him in- alternatively the nurse told me that there is a way to use a safety pin to pry it open.  There was no way I was making the  30 minute trip into the hospital at that point (I was still incredibly sore and uncomfortable from the c-section) so instead Tim got out his clippers we used when putting up the deer fence around the apple orchard and I held the clip as steady as I could so as not to pull on poor Robert's tender belly button and Tim snipped the end of the clip open.

Robert is wearing the sweater I knit for James- he is so nice to snuggle in his baby alpaca squishiness!

Still Not a Raisin (March 5th)

On day 17 of Robert's life his umbilical stump finally fell off after holding on by a thread of tissue for almost a day.  So far he is following James' schedule who also gained a belly button on his 17th day.

These pictures were taken the morning of March 9th- a few days later than the event, but such is the life of a second child.

Post nursing picture...hence the stream of milk on his right cheek.

Still not a raisin!

A little trim to get ready for the beach! (Dec. 16, 2012)

 For Christmas 2012 we decided to meet Tim's sister, Tonya, on Grand Bahama to celebrate as she couldn't make it back to the states from Botswana.  James' hair was getting quite long and I didn't want it ruining his beach fun by dripping in his eyes all week long.

 Sharon offered to trim it- and when I asked James who he wanted to cut his hair he also requested that she do it.

He did a great job holding still and cooperating with instructions to move this way and that.