Brother and Sister

The first thing Drew said on Sunday morning (the day after visiting the fire station) was, "Where is my fire engine?" While Drew enjoyed his morning cup of milk, he put on his new fire helmet and pushed around his fire engine. Saturday night we acquiesced to his request for his fire engine pajamas at bedtime. For the next few days EVERYTHING is going to revolve around fire fighting!!Drew has consistently been interested in Kate, but yesterday for the first time he asked to hold her. We were a bit surprised at his request and we're not sure if all the adults asking to hold her gave him the idea. Jana and I happily agreed to help him hold her for the first time. We've talked a lot with him about being gentle with her and how he needs to support her head, and now we put it to the test. Drew loved holding Kate! He did a great job, although Jana and I were pretty nervous the whole time (see Jana hovering with her hands close!!).

This marked the end of the holding session as Kate started to flop over a bit. Drew started to get distracted by us and his attention left supporting Kate. Both Drew and Kate enjoyed the experience, so we weren't surprised when today Drew asked again if he could hold Kate.

This time we decided to put both Kate and Drew in Jana's lap to supervise the process of Drew holding Kate a little more closely. Right away Drew got her in his arms and gently kissed her head! It was so sweet!

Drew did an excellent job with Kate. He held her hand ,he gently touched her head and her face, and he gave her hugs and kisses. We are so impressed by how well he does with Kate. His interactions with her are different than with anyone else, but he's done a great job of picking up how to interact with a baby. Below are a few pictures of Drew holding Kate.

Jana and I were beside ourselves with excitement watching our children interact. Kate was alert and focused on Drew, and Drew never stopped being gentle and caring with Kate. In the picture below he is making sure that her bib is off her face. Kate had just finished eating, and Drew was fascinated because "Baby Kate has milk in her mouth. I see milk in there."

I also took some video of Drew holding Kate. As you'll notice, we've been doing lots of positive reinforcement of Drew whenever he positively interacts with Kate. Jana does a pretty good job of translating for us, so everything that Drew says is fairly clear.

We had another weight check today for Kate and she is starting to fill out. Yay!!! She weighed a hefty 6 pounds 14 ounces, which is an impressive 13 ounce weight gain in the past week. Our efforts are paying off! We might be imagining it, but Jana and I think Kate's cheeks are filling out a little bit and we've noticed a little bit more bulk in her belly. Kate is still not a very good nurser, so Jana and I have been working hard at finger feeding. Every meal Kate nurses for a while and then gets topped off with the finger feeder. We keep waiting for the day that nursing clicks for Kate and she starts eating like a champ. It took a little while with Drew too, so we're trying to be patient!

Fire station

Today Drew and I had one of the coolest days of Drew's young life . . . we went to Battle Creek to visit Uncle Todd's fire station!! Jana and I started talking about the trip with Drew last night and the poor kid could hardly sleep he was so excited. This morning we woke up bright and early for the trip to Battle Creek. Upon arriving at Uncle Todd's apartment, he had a surprise for Drew: a new fire engine toy! Drew was THRILLED with his new toy. I put him to bed a little while ago, and until then he has spent every waking moment at home today playing with his fire engine. It makes fire engine noises, and the batteries are probably going to die soon because he listens to the sounds constantly. Drew's excitement is infectious and Jana and I have been able to block out all the noise (so far :)

Drew saw Uncle Todd's old-school fire fighter helmet at his apartment and couldn't wait to try it on. Unlike Todd's current helmet, these were much lighter, so Drew had an easier time with having it on. You'll notice that Drew needed his fire engine shirt for this special day!

Here we are at Uncle Todd's fire station! The first thing we got to see was the wall where all the firefighters have their turnouts. Drew is checking out Todd's gear, which is the yellow helmet and coat beneath it. Since Todd is in his probationary period, his gear says "Lowe" on the back. After a year, Todd will get fitted with his own personalized coat saying "Aupperlee" on the back (if they can fit that whole name on :) Drew talked all evening tonight about "Uncle Todd's firefighter helmet," so right from the beginning the fire station had a big impact on Drew!

When we first arrived at the station, the fire rescue was out, so we checked out the Medical Response Unit truck. Drew is not that difficult to please, and he thought riding in the truck (Todd let him sit in the driver's seat) was the coolest thing ever. You'll find that with each thing we did, it became the new "coolest thing ever!" The M.R.U. goes out on medical calls and could be used for brush fires.

Drew was totally fascinated by everything Uncle Todd had to say about the fire trucks. We checked out all the equipment and got to hear what it is used for.

After a few minutes, the fire rescue (that's the correct name for the fire truck that Todd rides on) came back to the station. Once the truck was parked in the station, Drew climbed into the spot in the fire rescue where Todd usually rides. I love this picture because it comes close to capturing how totally excited Drew was. He had huge eyes and a smile plastered on his face the whole morning!

Next, Todd shut the door for Drew (you can see Todd sitting across from Drew) and put on the headset. All the firefighters communicate during the ride using these headsets. The ones in the back are push-button activated, whereas the driver and lieutenant (who rides in the passenger seat) up front both have voice-activated headsets. I was paying attention to what Todd was saying too!

We looked at all the tools on the fire rescue and here in the back Todd is showing Drew the jaws of life. I got to pick up the heaviest tool on the far right, which weighs about 70 pounds! The firefighters have to be strong to use a tool that heavy!! After we left the station Todd showed us two abandoned cars that got dropped off behind their station. The firefighters are going to use those cars to practice extractions. Cool!

Drew stood on the back of Rescue 4. Every part of the big Fire Rescue truck made him look so small!

Moving around the truck to the front, Uncle Todd grabbed Drew and took him into the driver's seat. Drew loves to "drive," so he was positively giddy at this point.

We finished checking out Rescue 4 by looking at the lights and siren on the front of the truck. Next, Todd went to ask if we could turn on the lights to show Drew.We were thrilled when a nice firefighter not only offered to turn the lights on, but to also drive the truck out of the station so that Drew could see it outside while it was running. I'm not sure who got more excited about that, me or Drew! I took a video of the fire rescue leaving the station. While filming I was keeping an eye on Drew, who had HUGE eyes as the truck began to move. Once it was outside, you can kind of see that the lights turn on. We walked around to the driver's side of the vehicle, and Drew asked, "Can I drive??"

Well, of course, we scooted Drew up there and let him drive the fire engine a little bit. He wanted the door shut (he says, "Shut the door. Shut the door."), so Uncle Todd got in to drive with him.

Who had more fun at the fire station? A) Drew, B) Todd, or C) Mark.

Answer: D) all of the above! All three of us were grinning and having a great time! Showing Drew around the fire rescue made both Todd and I feel like little kids again. It was lots of fun.

Here's a video of Drew in action driving the rescue truck. It was pretty loud!

I couldn't let Drew have all the fun, so I took a turn as well sitting in the driver's seat of the truck. Within a year Todd will be driving for the Battle Creek fire department. In preparation, he is learning the names of every street in Battle Creek. Wow!!

Drew joined me for one last session of "driving" the fire rescue. He was so proud to be sitting up there!

We had an excellent time seeing Uncle Todd's fire station and now Drew's only question is, "Again?" :)

First bath

Kate has been growing this past week! Well, I have to admit that we THINK she's been growing this week. After our humbling doctor's visit a week ago, we're not quite as confident as we were initially, but she is eating VERY well. Between breast feeding and finger feeding she's regularly taking down 3 ounces of milk at each feeding. With that much going into her, Kate has to be bulking up! Even if we make it back to her birth weight, Kate will still be a little six pounder. She's very easy to pick up and hold. We've had wonderful warm weather this week and as a result, our front door has been open a lot to let the spring air in. Drew absolutely loves standing at the door and looking out at the street. Jana and I think that someday he's going to be one of those old people that set up their recliner to look out at the street and "keep an eye on things."

With the door open there are all sorts of fun noises to figure out. Drew runs to the door at the sound of birds, cars, trucks, squirrels, ambulances (going to the hospital near our house), and dogs barking. Every sound is an opportunity to look for the source!

Drew continues to be an excellent big brother and Jana and I are very proud of him. He's getting to be such a big boy!

I basically threw this picture in because like the one before it, it reminds me how much Drew is growing up. His face continues to change and Drew is growing like crazy. He's thinned out into a sturdy young boy.

All the successful efforts to feed Kate have left Jana and I exhausted. We both came down with colds this week. Without enough sleep we weren't able to fight it off! I'm excited though because unlike with Drew, I've been much more helpful this time around. Almost every night I do one feeding independently so that Jana can get some sleep. As with Drew, Jana is our anchor and she does the majority of the care for Kate. She is tremendous despite her lack of sleep! One more thing to note about this picture is to look at how tiny Kate is in comparison to me. She normally looks small, but she looks even smaller when I am holding her.

Jana zoomed in for a closer look at Kate sound asleep on my chest.Quite often after eating Kate gets VERY sleepy. She's getting ready for a diaper change here, and she's totally oblivious to the impending clean diaper that's coming.

We've been having fun taking pictures of Drew and Kate (as you might have noticed), so here's another one of her sleeping. Jana and I are continuing to have a lot of fun with Kate, despite the lack of sleep and runny noses we're experiencing!

Kate is so much fun to hold on your chest! She's a much better eater now than she was even a week ago, but sometimes she'd rather do this than eat. If she's sleepy, then we get tough with her and strip her down to her onesie to wake her up. If that doesn't work, she gets flicks on her feet! Sometimes we have to be mean to get her to eat :)

This is Kate's first official bath! Her cord fell off now, so we can put her in the bath. She got in and immediately loved it. She was alert and wide-eyed the entire time Jana bathed her.

I think with Drew I used a black bar to protect his modesty, but here Jana threw a washcloth over Kate. It's fun to see her little body in the water, but you don't need to see her WHOLE body! :)

This remains one of my favorite parts of bathing Drew, and it is fun with Kate too: wrapping them up in a towel after a bath!

Grandma Lynn has already made a couple trips to Lansing to help out Jana for the day (and to see her grandchildren, of course). It has been wonderful to have the two Grandmas be willing to come to Lansing and watch Drew and Kate so that Jana can get some extra rest or get some things done.

Kate is getting stronger and stronger, which I love because her floppy neck makes me nervous. I can't wait until she can hold her head up on her own! Kate makes my hands look HUGE, doesn't she?

We've been able to spend some time outside in the evenings as a family. Drew basically runs all over while Jana and I watch him. He's playing here on our deck with his fire engine toy while Jana and Kate relax and watch him go.

Drew was squirming away as soon as we got the camera, but this was easily the highlight of my day today. Kate and Drew were both sitting with me until we got out the camera, and then Drew wanted to "see pictures of Drew." We haven't been able to get it across to him that in order to see pictures of himself, Drew needs to sit still and let us take his picture first!

We've got another weight check of Kate on Monday, so when I get results of Kate's weight, I'll try to get them on here. We're looking forward to the weekend and some rest!

feeding, feeding, feeding

We had an exciting weekend with LOTS of feeding Kate. Everything has been going very smoothly with Kate and this past Friday we were looking forward to her weight check. She's been eating better than Drew ever did at this stage, so we were quite surprised when we put Kate on the scale on Friday and found that she's been losing weight! While we will always encourage Kate to be active and eat healthful food, we did NOT want her to get any smaller. She tipped the scales at a petite 5 pounds 13 ounces, and we were all concerned.

Jana and I resolved to increase our feeding efforts, and thus we spent this past weekend completely focused on bulking Kate up! (I'll let you know if it worked later in the post :) Kate continues to look like a little old man. Jana and I agree that without the pink clothes we'd have no idea if she was a boy or a girl. However, we do think that she's adorable and the cutest "little old man" girl!!

Drew has been helping us look out for Kate, and in this picture he was tickling her. Drew likes to go up to people and gently touch them saying, "Tickle, tickle!"

This past Saturday Jana and Drew went to MSU's small animal day, which involved checking out some of MSU's farm animals. Drew went with two of his friends from church and daycare, Ella and Maddie (and their mom and dad too :) Maddie is almost exactly Drew's age and is one of his good friends at daycare.

Jana learned that it is pretty difficult to keep track of Drew at a farm and to take pictures, so I'll only post this picture. The highlight of the day for Drew was getting to milk a cow. The rest of the day on Saturday he would look up at me and say, "Dad, I milked a cow. Dad, I milked a cow. . . ." I am happy that Jana and Drew got some mother-son time because Jana's been keeping busy with feeding Kate. The other thing that Drew liked about the trip was riding a "city bus" from farm to farm. He's seen buses around for quite a while, but this was his first time riding on one.

Also on Saturday, our friends Nate and Meg and Dan and Sandra visited. Dan and Sandra also have a new baby girl, Lorelei, and Nate and Meg are expecting a baby in July. It's so much fun to all be having babies at the same time. Lorelei and Kate are only about five weeks apart in age. Kate's got some growing to do to catch up!

In an effort to bulk Kate up, Jana and I have given her lots of TLC. We carry her all around the house enjoying her snuggly warmth.

We've been doing this a lot lately: finger feeding! I can literally almost do this in my sleep. I've been trying to help out Jana as much as possible, so after almost every time Jana breast feeds I step in and give Kate some additional food via finger feeding.

Now that the work week has started, Jana has taken over on the finger feeding and continues to make sure Kate is taking in enough. She's just not doing well enough to get all her meals through breast feeding yet! Due to all our efforts over the weekend, Kate gained several ounces in weight. Yay! We had another weight check this morning and Kate had gained back several of her lost ounces. Now that we've got forward progress on Kate growing, we're going to continue our efforts and we'll check back next week. We are so excited that Kate is getting bigger!!

Here's one last picture of our tiny little girl. She is still so small at just over 6 pounds. Who would have guessed that Jana and I would produce such a tiny one?!