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Trouble brewing?

Thursday morning we were all up early. The week prior Adrienne developed excruciating itching and a rash all over her body that would be diagnosed as PUPPPs. The only cure for the condition is delivery (and even then it could be some time), and so we eventually decided to induce labor, since everything else appeared ready – baby checked out and Adrienne’s body was well along its preparations. Even a few days of relief was a welcome prospect. And so we took a couple last photos before dropping Mal off at a friend’s and heading towards the hospital by 8am or so.

Since Adrienne was using the same midwives, she delivered at the same hospital – Morristown Hospital – about 30 miles south and west of our home in Bloomfield. It is a very well-regarded hospital with (what seem to me) very good facilities.

So here is where we insert the yadda yadda yadda part. No, not really, but I’ll give just minor details. It took 3 nurses and finally an anesthesiologist to have success getting an IV into Adrienne – she’s got hard veins already and the rash made it very difficult. Adrienne was already having decent-size braxton hicks contractions pretty regularly, and so a low dose of pitocin kicked things up pretty easily. Adrienne labored for about 2 hours 45 minutes and then spent 30 minutes in the water pushing. Baby girl Tallacksen (#2) was born at 1:15pm.

This birth was much less exciting than Mallory, and so the whole sense was of much more calm. In the birthing room there were us two, the midwife and the nurse and that was it. The nurse pretty much stayed back and just made preparations.

Sadly they’re using a new scale so it’s hard to get the weight and baby in the same frame. Measurements below:

Visiting hours are until 8pm, and so I was able to go pick up Mal from the friend by 5:15 and get back to the hospital so we could eat our first family dinner together. Mal proved to be quite the hit on the ward.

Mal enjoyed the double heart-shaped pretzels. They’re called heartzels.

This is what happens when you point a camera at Mal and ask her to smile:

Baby girl Tallacksen (#2) has more hair than Mal had at nearly 1 year old!

Mal immediately took to her little sister.

David and Mallory spent the nights back at home. We visited twice the following day (Friday the 5th) and celebrated Adrienne’s birthday with a candle (with a fake flame) in homemade oatmeal-chocolate chip-butterscotch cookies.

Saturday was the day to come home! David made Mallory a special breakfast of banana-chocolate chip pancakes. With sausage of course. That kid can pound back the sausage.

Discharge was pretty easy (we’re old pros!) and so we were on our way home, but not before finally deciding on a name – it took a while to figure out who this little person is and what fits her! And so we’ve got Mallory Lenora on the left below, and Hannah Lucille on the right. Both sisters passed out on the way home. Lightweights.

After a lunch of homemade pizza and some naps, we went for our first walk. I gave Hannah her first ride in the Ergo.

The neighborhood turkeys were out and about.

Hannah likes to sleep.

Celli likes to visit.

And Mallory sure seems attached. I figure it will be mutual.

Don’t get me wrong, I use and generally like the dictation abilities of iOS6, but Siri continues to be pretty useless to me. Perhaps I’m just a curmudgeon. Ok, so I am a curmudgeon. But whatever. Anyway, I’ve discovered that Siri is terrible at doing what I ask, but seems to have no problem understanding Mallory and her non-word babbling. Sometimes she gets a hold of my phone and has already learned how to cue up Siri, and that she should “talk” after the sound and that Siri will understand. A recent exchange:

It would seem Mallory likes Siri’s voice birthday and some real estate person in Orlando and knows something about Android 10 or at least wants to know something about Android 10. Which is impressive since the current release is only 4.x. I hope she’s not getting confused with Blackberry’s latest offering.

And with that, I present to you the effects of low humidity and fleece blankets.

For those of us who have to work tomorrow, boo! For those of us that get to celebrate Washington’s birthday with a day off: yeah!

(checking out the ducks at the creek across from the pediatrician)

Mal had her 18-month checkup today, right on time! Stats: 24.0lbs (50th percentile), 32.5″ (I think 70th percentile).

The pediatrician suggested we monitor the fact that she’s not really speaking yet and consider an ‘early intervention’ in a couple months if nothing changes. We’re not concerned, we figure she’s just a good Midwesterner at heart. Really. I mean, she is a product of her parents. She certainly understands everything we say to her!

The other day this recipe was shared with me: King Arthur Flour’s Cake in a Pan. Now, I’m not a big cake guy, but it looked pretty compelling so I whipped it up. And it’s pretty easy and handy, since no eggs or butter is involved. I first decided to kick it up a notch by adding chocolate chips inside the the cake:

Ah crap, I don’t have a photo of the plain cake. Oh well. Anyway, it was good (moist and dense, closer to a brownie than a light and airy cake), but I decided to kick it up another notch by adding frosting and more chocolate:

I have to wonder how many more notches are available for the kicking up. I don’t know if this is a regulated area or not.

Anyway, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted some pics, so here goes. It’s been more than two weeks since we put our xmas tree out, but that might have been too late:

No, that’s not what it looked like in the house. Here is a series I like to call, “Mallory in various seats.”

That last chair is  our new-to-us craigslist find chair. It is David-nap approved.

And finally the obligatory messy-baby-while-eating-something photo.

I guess Mal also agrees that more is better.

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And I know animated GIFs are all the rage, so here’s one for you.

I know all of you felt listless these last few days, since this very blog has been not working.

Actually, I just noticed this morning. Don’t know exactly how long it’s been down (other than some time after my Dec. 9th post). Odd. I was a bit worried as it was showing a database error. And while I do a weekly backup of the blog content, I’m a bit lax on backing up the all important SQL database.

I share because I know you care.

Anyway, after looking into it, it appears somehow a space was entered into the database password in my config file, so the solution was as quick and easy as the delete key.

So if you made it through all that, here’s a small reward. Last night we went to the local county zoo to check out their Christmas lights. It’s not quite the same without snow (are you listening, Mother Nature???!!!), but it was a nice little venture out.

Peacocks sleeping in the trees!

My beautiful wife!

Here’s a long-ish video (and big, i.e. might take a while to start playing) of Mal walking (aided) to the nearby park and then playing on one of the playsets.

Apologies for the shakiness – I was walking backwards and pushing a stroller at the same time. Once it’s playing you can go full-screen via the icon in the lower right-hand corner.

Don’t show up for bed late, or I’ll lose my place.

As some of you may know, the fiscal year is wrapping up (at least at David’s place of employ) and so it’s a good time to review budgets, strategies and organizational structure. Due to Mallory’s excellent productivity, general good attitude and willingness to go above and beyond, we’ve decided to promote her as of this coming April. She will hold the title: Big Sister.