Brothers

Neither one too interested in picture taking


Big brother Nate helping feed little brother



Chilling out on the couch again

I love that I can go back to when I started my blog-when Nate was around the same age that Aaron is now (almost two months!) It's neat to remember what Nate's favorite/not so favorite things were and what he was up to. It's also neat now to compare the two. Already, like many of my friends have said, the two are different :) At two months old :

--Aaron prefers to sleep being held/cuddled with. Today in fact, after holding Aaron a few different times for him to go to sleep, he woke up within five minutes each time of me putting him down.
-Nate could sleep anywhere, including the swing and bouncer. Aaron doesn't care for the two yet.

--Both boys love their changing tables with views out their bedroom windows. When Nate was fussy I'd take him outside on the swing. Obviously, now that we're hitting 110 degrees here we aren't outside much but I'm sure he'd like it if we did :) It's fun watching Aaron stare out his window, get excited and start kicking and swinging his arms, cooing.

--Aaron is on/off with his pacifier. Doesn't always need it.

--Aaron is exclusively formula fed. I discontinued nursing after not being able to produce enough. It was at the point that we were supplementing more formula and Aaron needed to play catch up with weight-sure way for him to gain was being formula fed.
-Nursed Nate for six months, but supplemented formula at the same time. Probably could have done the same with Aaron if I didn't have Nate to worry about :)My time is a bit more limited.

--Nate was sensitive to loud noises. Aaron is learning to be the opposite :)

--Both around ten pounds (Aaron has gained almost three pounds in the last three weeks!), wearing three month clothes (goodbye, newborn :( )

--I want to say that Aaron is sleeping better at night than Nate because of the formula, but we still feed him about three times between 9pm and 6am. At least now we don't have to forcefully wake him up every three hours to eat, just as needed.

For now those are some tidbits I can think of. Nate continues to be a very kind big brother. This last week he took up helping feed Aaron his "milk". Having Aaron has been handy in ways of getting Nate to peacefully do things he may not want to do otherwise-such as taking a bath, cutting his fingernails, even changing his diaper. As long as I do the same to Aaron, Nate doesn't mind doing them. Gee if only I could potty train Aaron :) Yep, we're still working on that step.

So our smallest member is doing well. I just can't believe how old and big he's getting already :(

Aaron's Baptism

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Adjusting...

Sort of even surprising to myself-even though Aaron is barely three weeks old he's been on some field trips since daddy returned to work. Yes, I've ventured out with both kids! One day I was out for a total of five-six hours, on my own! Some of the activities we've been up to:


"My Gym" play classes




New toy from Aaron


Getting to open the Disney store!

I'm starting to kinda get the hang of being on my own with two kiddos.Meaning-I brush my teeth with one hand, bopping Aaron in my other arm, and trying to reach a Pop-Tart for Nate with my foot. Any free limbs are being used! In all seriousness though, I'm trying to settle into a morning routine of doing this first,that second...frankly trying to be somewhat organized so it's not a madhouse. Josh, for instance, usually gets Nate started with breakfast in the morning while I feed Aaron and get ready. Then I always get Aaron ready next so that Nate is ready and willing to copy "what baby brother does". Still lucky for me, Nate has been great with Aaron. It probably helps that Nate has discovered playing games on my iPad so that keeps him occupied while I feed Aaron :)

While the kids are doing great, Josh and I...well it's just like being new parents again :) We eat dinner with toothpicks keeping our eyes open and pretty much go to bed with the little ones. Aaron still gets up four times or so to eat and Nate enjoys his daddy sleeping with him so he still gets up each night at least once. Sleep will come back, one of these days.









First bath


Still curious Nate

Some recent pictures of Aaron. Typical newborn-eats and sleeps. I'm so glad he's past his birth weight-I'm so relieved not to have to deal with the stress of him losing weight as I did with Nate. I hope it stays that way! It's fun taking him places to get the ooh's and aaah's :)

Monday is our wedding anniversary-tomorrow Josh and I are going out to a nice dinner and maybe a movie or something else earlier. Our first date since Aaron was born! I'm super excited. Now we'll really get the chance to talk to each about things before we get interrupted or fall asleep! The weekend after Aaron is getting baptized-the Kucenski's have a very busy June!

Well, while daddy is playing with Nate and Aaron is napping...I'm back to catching up on some reading!

Aaron Michael

Well it's been a bit since my last post :) Aaron Michael has since made his grand arrival-May 12 @ 6:30pm, 19 inches and 7 pounds. I ended up being induced the day after my due date. I had a gel inserted into my cervix to help me dilate faster-a process that could be repeated up to three times before they would send me home if I didn't progress. Thankfully, after one shot of the gel, I dilated an extra cm/cm and a half-enough progress to let me stay. Next I received Pitocin to help things along even further and soon after an epidural. I was very clear with the nurses that I didn't want to dilate too fast, that I wanted to be sure I had time to have the drugs :) From start to finish, Aaron was born within six hours. Delivery was smooth and we're both doing well. I stayed in the hospital for two nights before coming home.








Nate was unsure about Aaron at first, he didn't want to get too close let alone hold him or touch him. Now that we've been home for a week, he likes to stroke Aaron's head, hold his hand and he's been a great helper. He'll pick out Aaron's outfits, give me diapers and put his dirty clothes in the hamper. He hasn't been jealous of Aaron at all, even when I'm feeding him.

Josh has been home since the day I was induced and will go back to work this coming Thursday. It has been such a great help to have him home and of course start to bond as a bigger family. It's nice that I'll have only two days by myself before it's time for a three day weekend. I'm hoping we settle into a routine fairly quick.

We have also been blessed to have the help of our close family and friends with watching Nate and having meals provided for us. What a difference that all makes. I'm so thankful.




So the next few weeks at least we'll be trying to figure out the balancing act-just wanted to post a quick update for now. Aaron is such a sweet little boy, Nate an awesome big brother, and Josh such a helpful and supportive husband with me and all our boys-trying to help us all out. I wish he was a permanent stay at home daddy with me! :)

Easter

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We had another fun (though busy and tiring!) Easter holiday. We went to church in the morning, spent time at my parents and then hopped over to Josh's parents. I'm actually surprised that Nate didn't fall asleep on the way home from our last stop-I thought for sure he'd zonk out from the fun day. It was a beautiful breezy afternoon for an egg hunt that my parents usually do for Nate (eggs full of either candy or dollar bills, woohoo!) The Easter bunny had visited each house to leave a basket for Nate. He got stickers, a variety of different Thomas toys, stuffed animals, games...we were happy he didn't get much candy.

It was a fun day but I'm glad it has passed. I'm ready for some early Mother's Day pampering! :)

Mr. Bossypants

Funny how you go through each age and people tell you, "Oh just wait until he/she turns...". Funny how with each age Nate turns, I automatically think it's the worst one yet. What I will say : each age has its own pros and cons. There isn't always going to be all pros, and there isn't always going to be all cons! (in my experience,anyway). I'm happy that at age three that Nate can communicate to tell me what he wants or doesn't want, what he's feeling, occasionally if he needs to go potty...however, he's also turned into-what my title says-Mr. Bossypants! He'll tell us to "sit down", "stay here", "wait a minute first", "no thank you", "pick it up"...a bunch of not so fun, demanding phrases. He'll also copy a lot of what he hears us tell him, like "Tell you what.How about we...." Nate just gets smarter and soaks up information like a sponge week by week. Just this past week he counted to ten on his own! Thanks to our pals, Mickey's Clubhouse, he'll probably learn his ABC's pretty soon (he loves the learning audio books we've gotten him-each of them Mickey!) In most ways, it's awesome to see his vocabulary grow all the time.

I wish his vocabulary and understanding was at a point to explain why potty training isn't so popular lately, though ;) We have good, "things are looking up" days and then others where all our patience and time at home has gone down the drain. Patience isn't one of my best traits but it's something (especially since having a child) that I work on all the time. I had thought that once Nate started potty training that it would be a fast and "done and over with" process within a week. For us it's been a continuous on and off switch! It's hard. On the one hand I feel pressure to get Nate trained before Aaron arrives (and the start of summer when I'd like to enroll him in classes,camps and other activities to help keep him busy that require a potty trained kiddo) but on the other, I'm trying hard not to put pressure on him so that he doesn't resist or back off even more. Each day is different-he'll go once one day, five times the next, then back to none...I find the whole process completely confusing :)

Can't believe April is just about over. I would post updated pictures of Aaron's basically done bedroom, but we still may work on it some more over the next two weeks. We're hoping to get blinds/shades in now that it's already hitting the 90 degree mark and the sun is coming up earlier. I just need to get the diaper bag and hospital bag ready to go, and then that's pretty much it! Nate is already having a blast pushing the baby swing ("for baby brother"), checking out the vibrating glider, unloading all Aaron's clean clothes from his drawers....it's cool to see that he's getting an idea that a baby will be in the household within a few weeks. We bought Nate a few gifts, "from Aaron" once he is born. I also bought him a Thomas on the go train track/Thomas car that he can fold up and bring with him to/home from the hospital while I'm in there. I wasn't planning on giving it to him until it's time.

Looking forward to a three day weekend with the hubby home for the Easter holiday. We'll be busy jumping from house to house on the actual day. Speaking of holidays-we've decided to celebrate Mother's Day the Sunday before, not knowing how the actual day will play out. Sounded like a good idea to me-if I haven't had Aaron yet by that point, I may be at the point of just wanting to sit my bum on the couch all day :) I'm hoping to have him by that point, however. It would be nice since Nate was late.

Well, speaking of sitting on my bum-I'm ready to put my feet up for the night. Probably some Easter pictures next week!

House Remodel

This past weekend we got our carpet in! We're so happy with how it turned out. It looks great with our tile and much to my happiness, it's darker than what our ivory carpet was so it'll hide dirt and such much better! A few pictures:







We also started to put new blinds/shades in. We still have our bedrooms to go, but our kitchen is a lot nicer. Interesting how a little change can make a difference!




Now that we have the carpet in, we can finally start working on getting Aaron's room together. I'm hoping to get some time during this week to compile a list of everything we need for him yet and go shopping next weekend. Then it'll just be a matter of piecing everything together, doing laundry, etc. Can't believe we're just about a month away!

Fun Weekend

We had a great weekend-it started Saturday morning, with the simple act of Nate sleeping in until 7:30am. Yay! I had a charity run/walk in the morning so I wasn't able to take advantage of it, but it was a good thing I went to the race. I was motivated by the rest of the runners to try and run some of the race-I ended up running two of the 3.5 miles. That was plenty. In fact, I'm still sore today. My last run was beginning of February so that probably has something to do with it (and the aches and pains of being thirty four weeks pregnant!) After the race the charity held a raffle drawing for different baskets of prizes and an iPad 2. Lucky me, I ended up winning the iPad! I was speechless. I had my sister and BIL walk me to my car to be sure I was protected ;) What a nifty toy. I haven't had a lot of time to download applications and play with the different programs but I'm super excited.

Later that day, my parents took Nate that afternoon so hubby and I could see a movie and have dinner together-and enjoy a quiet night at home! We picked Nate up the next morning. It was nice to get a good night's rest. The following morning I got some time to myself, got my haircut and then headed off to our Baby Sprinkle (shower) for Aaron! It was so much fun to celebrate Aaron with family and friends. Here are a few pictures--



My sister made a diaper cake--it had bottles,pacifiers,shampoo/lotion,washcloth and a gift card at the top. And of course diapers! :)


My sister also made these awesome cupcakes-recipe is from Magnolia's (a famous shop in NYC)



Super yum bruschetta


Awesome wine bar where the sprinkle took place


Socializing with friends



Chilling with my sisters



34 weeks pregnant!

Aaron is so loved, already! I can't wait to finish shopping for him. Also on the positive side: we're getting new carpet in our bedrooms this upcoming weekend,hooray! The house really needs it. I'm tired of steam cleaning our ivory carpet it feels like every other month-it shows EVERYTHING. I'm so happy we got carpet that matches our dark tile, I can't wait to walk on something softer as well. Then we can get Aaron's room ready. We also started to buy new shades/blinds for our windows-something else our house really needs to help keep heat and light out. So far we have Nate's playroom and the kitchen done but we'd like to do all the bedrooms and our great room too. I'll have to post pictures when things get more completed :)

I have been blessed the last two weeks to have Josh's mom watch Nate one day a week for four hours. I'm missing her now though-she is on vacation for three to four weeks. It has been a win-win situation for everyone! Josh's mom recently retired so I imagine she will be a huge help to me in the future. In some ways I think we planned having another child right as far as the age difference-but I'm bummed that Nate doesn't nap anymore or doesn't go to school, so that doesn't allow me to have much of a break. He also wakes up between 6-7am usually in the morning and Josh doesn't get home until 6pm, so that leaves me with a twelve hour day five days a week to keep him busy and occupied. I cherish the time I have with Nate,don't get me wrong, but especially now that I'm eight months pregnant, I wish I had some sit down/me time during the day. I'm too busy keeping him busy-partly because I'm feeling some early guilt about being more home bound this summer when Aaron is around and the weather is warm.

I could have Nate in school if he was potty trained...things were looking up in that area for a while but now he doesn't have interest again. He has a ton of interest in watching me go potty (mostly in public places,for whatever reason) but when we're home, notta. I don't pressure him much,but I wonder when that day will come when he snaps and is fully ready to embrace it. I'd love to have him in summer camps or other classes that allow me to drop him off. We're anxious on one hand and yet on the other we're thinking he could regress when Aaron is born anyway. We'll just have to wait and see, as frustrating as that can be. It would be nice not to have two in diapers!

We're also trying to work on keeping Nate in his room at night. We've gotten into a bad habit of letting him lay with us (poor us, just wanting some sleep). Some nights are fine and he doesn't even try- others take some coaxing and usually one of us laying with him until he falls asleep. Ugh. Another up and down coaster.

That's about the latest and greatest going on with our household!

A Day With Thomas!

This past weekend my parents and I took Nate to see one of his favorite characters-Thomas the train! The main point of excitement for the kids was being able to see Thomas the train in real life form and get to take a ride. We drove about an hour and a half to get to the railroad where the event was taking place. I ended up being so glad that we got there fairly early in the morning to do all of the other fun Thomas related activities before we did the actual Thomas ride around noon. It was such a busy and popular event, parking would have been hard to come by later in the afternoon (plus it was warm and you were almost shoulder to shoulder with people!) Nate is also a little shy around large crowds of kids-he'll usually stand back and watch them all rather than participate, so it was nice in the morning that we fairly had toys and activity areas to ourselves.

We started out playing with stamps, coloring, playing with train sets...and Nate's second favorite part of all, getting Thomas tattoos! Ultimately he loved seeing the actual Thomas train riding into the station and just wanted to sit and stare at it as it sat waiting for people to board/get off. There was an inside area where Thomas movies played and storytime took place every few minutes (I'm so proud of my little boy-he was the only one who sat still in his seat throughout the whole story!) He was so proud to show off his tattoos to any kids who would look his way.

The actual train ride itself wasn't too exciting-not great scenery or anything and the train just moved backwards a few minutes and then forward to where we started. We did however get the closest seats to the Thomas train and our seats happened to be in a comfy lounge area, so we didn't do bad! After the ride we visited the gift shop-oh so dangerous. Nate was a great boy inside there. It was so hard to decide what to get for him, there were so many fun things. Anything from Thomas umbrellas, lunchboxes, cards, bath toys, sunglasses, plates....you could get whatever you wanted in Thomas! I bought a couple things and my parents bought him a handful too. Nate didn't see the majority of what we got so he may find them later in his Easter baskets ;)

I was surprised he didn't pass out coming home from all the excitement. I was happy he seemed to have a good time and was still excited about Thomas this morning-playing with the balloon he got, wanting to watch Thomas videos...really glad we got him tickets to go for his birthday.

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We were busy with this event while Josh was hiking in the Grand Canyon with friends from work. He had a good time overall, but not surprisingly came home tired and with sore legs and feet. He took a lot of great canyon pictures and even got to see some deer,a fox, squirrels and heard bats. I think it was an experience he might be interested in repeating-sometime :)

Goodbye, Charlie

No, our beta fish didn't take a dive off the deep end...today we gave him away to a good home (just as good as ours,anyway!) After some thought we decided to give him away to a friend we knew who wanted one and would continue to take good care of him. With only eight weeks left or so left until Aaron makes his debut, we're starting to re-evaluate some responsibilities. Unfortunately, we decided until the kids were old enough to take care of their own fish that Charlie needed to go.

I continuously get more shocked that time is passing us by so quickly. Eight more weeks! I'm now almost thirty one weeks along. I've been seeing a PA at my OBGYN office lately, and basically after my next appt in two weeks she would like for me to schedule the rest of my appointments with the doctors. Not for any medical conditions or anything, just to get to know them each a little-because within a month it's possible one of them will be there with me at 2am! What seemed like a slow start to the pregnancy hasn't turned out that way. If anything, I'm starting to get anxious to get Aaron's room finished up and everything cleaned,bought,etc. Here's a recent bump picture from last week :



Josh is leaving later this week for his hiking excursion to the Grand Canyon with some friends from work. As long as I'm not feeling crummy, Nate and I already have lots of plans while he's gone. In particular-on Saturday I'm taking him up north to Globe to see Thomas the Train! It's called "A Day with Thomas"-he'll get to take a 25 minute ride on a Thomas engine and then there's lots of Thomas related activities to do there. I can't wait to see his reaction.

Here are some other pictures from the last two weeks--


Jousting at the Rennaissance Festival-Nate enjoyed seeing the horses



Checking out the wooden toys with daddy


Intently watching the drum show



Meet The Creature--Nate is too scared to really pet or hold any exotic animals (that aren't dogs anyway!) so he preferred just watching the hen,bunny and guinea pigs from a distance



The view at the Arizona Diamondbacks spring training game-they have a gorgeous new training facility!


Barely got a few autographs (sorry, don't know the player!)



This is the life