A Date with Cate

The Monday after Peter was born, Sam and I took Cate out on a Big Sister Date while my mom stayed home with Peter. We all had so much fun!

The highlight for me was the poor teenage boy pushing samples of Akido-somebody-or-other's Japanese food in the food court who, when I said, "No, thank you," responded with, "Are you sure? Baby wants some!" In the next moment, that boy learned an important lesson that I hope will stick with him throughout life. The moment came after nary a second's confused pause when I laughed and said, "Oh, no! There's no baby in there! I just had a baby ... on Friday!" I didn't know presumably healthy young people could turn that shade of purple. Poor kid.

But, alas, I digress ...

Here are some pics of all the fun things we did with our Cate!

The Merry-go-Round

(Weird face, but let's be honest: I look sort of close to normal size here. Can't pass up an opportunity to post that to the world wide interweb, right?)

(Shoot, my cover is blown.)

Ice cream!

New shoes!

First Big Girl Haircut!

Cruising in the Monstermobile Stroller!

What a day! Oh, and that hat she's sporting was a present Sam picked up for her when we stopped at Target on our way out for our date. What a lucky girl she is to have a Daddy who just couldn't resist that pink flowered hat for his girl!

Grandma and Peter had a fine afternoon without us: 

P.S.

In case you read this and thought, "What? Didn't she say this was Monday? And didn't she have Peter on Friday?" please let me clarify. And please don't be too impressed. Both when I had Cate and when I had Peter, I felt 99% back to myself within about 12 hours of delivering them. I wasn't powering through anything or being all-around awesome here. I was just getting on with things, because by Monday I'd honestly been feeling fine for two and a half days. It's a blessing that (almost) makes up for TWO 21-hour labors (and by "labor" I'm talking contractions-every-three-minutes-or-less LABOR). So really, I wasn't being any kind of martyr here. In fact, I don't think I'd even taken any Advil.

"Everyone Said I Looked Like ... "

There's a place in both Cate and Peter's baby books that says, "Everyone said I looked like _______" and when Cate was born there was no question the answer was, "DADDY!" (These days people seem to see a little more of me in her, but not at the beginning!)

So along Peter comes and he hadn't been here for two minutes before Sam and I were just staring at him marveling at how much he looks like CATE! Not one person has commented on him looking like either Sam or me. It's a genetic marvel, but I don't think anyone will ever doubt these two are siblings.

Here are a few pics of each of them to compare:

 Cate

Peter

Cate

Peter

Cate

Peter

Cate

 

Peter

I promise there really are two of them:

(Please don't tell Cate's pediatrician she still has a bottle before bed.)

Welcome, Peter Michael Major!

Peter's here and we couldn't be more thrilled about it! He arrived at 1:01 PM on Friday, June 29. He weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz., and was 21.25 in. long, making him the bruiser of the well baby nursery. Except for the one 10+ pounder.

He is the sweetest little guy and we basically haven't heard a cry from him since about a minute after he was born. He eats, wakes up, hangs out for a while, dozes off, wakes up, eats, repeats. He's so content when he's awake, just looking around checking us out.

Cate has been so great with him! She loves to give him kisses and will occasionally just stop whatever she's doing to go to whoever is holding him to ask to kiss him. Mealtime has turned in to a two bites, one kiss, two bites routine. Only two hair pulling incidents and one mysterious scratch on Peter's arm that none of us saw her do. One meltdown for both Cate and me the first time I fed Peter in front of her and she started crying. Then I started crying. It was all just so sad. But Sam swept in, got C's little boy baby doll (she named him Joe) and a bottle, pulled her in to his lap and before we knew it we were feeding and burping our babies together. She got the hang of it within about five minutes and we were good to go. Then tonight as I was snuggling her before bed and whispering to her about how much I love her she fell asleep in my arms for the first time in ages and all I could think was that she really isn't that big of a big girl yet. I'm truly overwhelmed by the blessing of having two little babes to love.

Here are a few photos of Peter in the hospital:

And a few from since we've been home:

And some not-to-be-missed shots of Cate's visits to us in the hospital:

I packed Cate's favorite book, Squeak, in my hospital bag so that we could read it when she came to visit. Wasn't it nice of her to bring me her hat to wear?

Cate really enjoyed that post-partum water bottle that's as big as she is.

We're working on uploading a video of Cate meeting Peter but after several attempts we're bagging it for now. Keep checking back and we'll see what we can do.

Happy Father's Day!

We took a few photos on Father's Day, including the one and only shot of my belly with Peter in utero. We had full on professional photos taken when Cate was in there, but, well ... it turns out what they say about second children is true. I figure it's lucky Peter's a boy, because how much is he going to care that we don't have pictures of my giant belly with him inside? Not too much, I don't think.

Here we are! As with Cate, it's hard not to wonder wehther Peter is all in my belly or whether he's also decided to spread out in my cheeks and arms, right?

Sure do love these two!

Cate loves giving kisses, and every one comes with a big "smooch" sound. And a wet cheek when she's done.

My girl and me.

I love how Cate's not even looking at me but she has her hand on her belly just like I do. So sweet.

Cate and me ... and Peter

I took a picture of Sam and Cate in this chair last Father's Day (the day we got the call from Mark's about Sam being invited to interview here!) but I can't find it. I'm bummed, because I really wanted to post both pictures.

A butterfly card from Cate and a caterpillar card from Peter attached to Daddy's present.

Cate loves to help open presents! Daddy got a pull-up bar for his new P90X workout plan. He knows it's really a present from Cate and Peter because I'm not at all thrilled about the idea of having a pull-up bar installed in our house! Ack!

Too bad Peter didn't join us for Father's Day, but hopefully he'll be here within another week or so! 

Cate's First Concert

Sam's childhood piano arrived yesterday and Cate hosted her first concert this afternoon:

Dessert

Some friends of ours went to Mark's recently and posted about dessert on their blog. I wasn't the one who made the dessert or who came out to visit them while they were there or who sent them a plate of chocolates because it was her birthday, but I still felt so flattered, as if I had been featured on their blog. When, really, it was Sam who was featured. Or, more precisely, Sam's dessert was featured. It made me realize that it's been a while since I've posted about any of Sam's creations. Here are a few things he's come up with for the restaurant recently:

Because really, if you're going to have dessert, HAVE DESSERT. And while you're at it, have some shell molded artisan chocolates, too. Or order a cake!

I'm pretty sure I'm going to get no better than the bronze this year in the Wife of the Year competition because I can't tell you exactly what all is in those delicious looking desserts, but I can assure you they are great. Sam brought me two mini german chocolate cake bite things last night and I wished he'd brought home a hundred more.

Daddy, Daddy!

Just about every day, Cate spends some time walking around the house finding pictures of Sam and saying, "Daddy! Daddy!" She doesn't even seem to recognize me in any of our family pictures, but then again, I was thinner before she got here. I blame my face fat, not her little brain, for her not being able to recognize me in, say, wedding photos. Some day she'll thank me for bringing her (AND a brother) into this world in less than two years and that will make up for it, I'm sure.

One of the cutest places Cate finds pictures of Daddy is in our wedding album. She honestly spends a few minutes each day, several times a day, flipping through the pages and finding Daddy. Here she required a little prompting, but typically she just goes from one page to the next, "Daddy!" "Daddy!" until she gets tired of it: