Annabel::12 Months

We made it!!!! Tomorrow is Annabel's first birthday! I clearly remember nearly everything about this day a year ago. What the weather was like. How I spent my whole day from waking up with contractions, sending Rand to work (it was a Saturday), walking with the boys around the property, my sister coming over, my picture taking friend coming over, Rand taking care of the boys until bedtime, then Rand sleeping on the couch until about midnight when I said it was time to call the midwife....and then the rest of it! This year with her has been hard. Wonderful, but hard. I feel like breathing a sigh of relief that we have crossed over into the "she's over a year old" phase. Just got done teaching her how to sleep through the night, only  nursing her 1.5 times a day, she eats anything and everything, she is happy playing and being played with, she can walk herself (she may not go in the direction we are going yet, but still).

She is so girly, but SO one of the boys. She walks with such determination I wonder what she will do when she grows up! She is confident and unafraid almost all the time. Ready for anything. She is so much fun I can't even imagine not having her!

Happy Birthday, Annabel, lovely girl.

 

wish this one was in focus! This is in the gym at ORLA. In my dream-house, I have a room like this attached!

Annabel::11 Months

1 more month of the monthly posting! On December 29th, Annabel turned 11 months. She thinks she is pretty great, and we think she is pretty great too! She is the worst sleeper I have ever had (at this age) and Rand and I are as tired as if we had a newborn baby. It's going to end soon, right?

She is cute as all get out and we crack up at her all the time. She tries to talk (I can get her to say "up" instead of whining and yelling). She loves to try and say it. She loves dancing and singing and slobbering all over the faces of her new baby dolls. She is the best eater ever. She will eat anything and everything.

Since she has been with us for almost a year, I thought I would write down all the nicknames she has been given so far.

Annie
Bel
Belly
Annie-Bananie
Belzers
Baby
Little Sister

(sorry. bad pictures! only had my phone)

I

Annabel::10 Months

It really is fun to try and figure out what she is going to be like now that she is 10 months old. More and more little bits of who she is emerge and we find even more to love.

She loves to dance and sing. She is loud when she yells but she is quietly playing most of the time. She is ambitious, brave and tough. She doesn't get hurt easily, she is more likely to cry when she is frustrated. She seems older than her age. She knows what's going on, she walks like an 18 month old. She's quick and knows where she wants to go. She climbs and is right in the middle of her brothers all the time. It's crazy how UN-phased she is by the noise and wild antics that go on around her. It's like she was born for it. She eats just about any food offered to her. Just 2 teeth still, but several pair of shoes. :) Goodbye, baby. Hello, little girl.

How do you make a hand-me-down from a boy cousin look girlish? Add a tutu, of course!

 

She mastered the last hurdle in transitioning from baby to toddler....Getting to her feet from the middle of the room. There's no stopping this one!

Despite what it looks like, she actually leaves the Christmas tree alone.

 

We've got 6 people at our table for 6. It's feeling much smaller than when we first got it!

Annabel::9 Months

My, oh my! She is going so fast! She is quite the contrast to Easton. Easton was the smallest at birth, she was the largest. Easton waited the longest to start solids. She started much earlier and eats anything and everything....and an insane amount, too! Easton was my latest walker (14 months) and little miss Annabel is cruisin on her feet already...by far my earliest. She's ambitious and unafraid. The noise and craziness doesn't even faze her. She joins right in and makes her own noise. She can yell really loud! She is the first baby I've had where I can identify who she looks like without a doubt. And in case you can't tell, I think she looks EXACTLY like Rand. I'm thinking hair will change that a bit, but seriously, she looks just like him!

She is an awful sleeper and I am reaching the end of what I can handle. Something will have to change soon. I'm just hoping she'll figure it out on her own...... maybe? This is the fourth one and I have no doubt that it is me that creates this problem. I'm okay with that because I have made the best choices I can and done best by her, I know. BUT, she is 9 months old now, and waking every 2 hours or more and sometimes staying up for an hour is killing me! I would seriously consider having more kids if they slept. No sleep though makes everything so much harder and I absolutely couldn't handle doing this again. (don't hold me to that!)

Anyway....

She is napping peacefully now. I skipped church because I needed her to have this nap so bad. And it's quiet and lovely and I am happy even though I am ridiculously tired.

We absolutely love her.

Little Rand?



 

See those little teeth? Yeah, they are razor sharp and she bites me with them when we nurse during the day. At night, however, she nurses like a champ. Part of the problem??

 

 

She's off!

Annabel::6 Months

I'm always falling behind on these birthday posts. I had to get this one up because we have another birthday kid TOMORROW! We still haven't had the little girl's 6 month appointment yet, so I have no interesting facts like how incredibly chubby she is, but you can tell from the pictures!

Annabel has moved into her own bed, at least for naps and the first part of the night. She is too mobile to be trusted in a big bed by herself so now she is contained!

She is sitting up great and playing with toys and putting her own binki back in her mouth. Growing up! She is still just nursing but has had a taste of rice ceral and oatmeal and even a banana. She seems to like food, but doesn't know exactly what to do with it. We shall wait until the spoon and swallowing solids isn't such a strange thing.

She had her first cold and you will see she wasn't quite so smiley in these pictures. It has disrupted the broken sleep we were getting even more and she has lived in the ergo on my back while I do basically everything.

6 months. It feels like we survived something. :)

Annabel::4 Months

4 months. 18 lbs. I think that might be small for my kids? Easton was 23.5 lbs...so at least she isn't there, right? :) 99th percentile for weight and up from 61st to 92nd percentile for height! There's some major growing goin' on!

She is squealing and laughing and yelling and making herself quite known. She only wants mom to hold her when she is tired and she likes constant entertainment. No setting her in the saucer for 20 mins to get something done. More like just a couple minutes and then let's move on to something else, please. She likes to be outside, but what kid doesn't? And she still isn't all that great in the car. Give it a couple more months and those brothers of hers will be more entertaining to her and the car shouldn't be so bad.

Speaking of that. She is done doing what I have her doing right now. So, quick, pictures!
Let me just say...life with a baby, a toddler and 2 big kids that need lessons and lots and lots of food is really crazy. Crazy.

Annabel::6 Weeks

She's growing up fast. Literally. Every week I go back to church and see how she is passing up all those other little babes born weeks before her. She wore her newborn size clothing for about 2 weeks and is making the shift right on out of her 3 month size clothes as we speak. She is really "waking up" and becoming aware of the crazy world around her. She is smiley and sweet but definitely has a voice of her own.

These are the faces of 6 week old Annabel (this outfit is 6-9 months). I love her.

Annabel Rae Wagner {her birth story}

Baby #4. My third baby born at home. I really wanted to do this one different than the others.

With all my births, I spend the majority of the time with my eyes closed. I guess it is just how I stay grounded, calm and focused. But with that, I have very, very vivid memories from each of those experiences from when I did open my eyes.

Each birth I have been surrounded by friends and family. I loved sharing my experience with them, but it kind of didn't feel authentic to who I am. I clearly remember opening my eyes when I was having baby #1. There was my whole family, peeking around a curtain, huddled together in the doorway. With baby #2 I remember opening my eyes at one point and seeing my poor, newly pregnant sister standing in the doorway watching me, her face white as a ghost with sheer terror. With baby #3 there was less family there but more friends. I remember opening my eyes, and looking around at my friends, (who I love to death) and thinking, 'this feels a little chaotic', but in my head I was trying to keep this very simple calm going.

If anyone knows me well, you would know that being put on the spot, or performing is not my thing. In fact, I cringe at the thought of my first birth when everyone was just sitting there in silence staring at me while I went through pitocin induced contractions.

So I had this desire to have a much more private birth this time. I told my midwives what I was hoping for, and in their beautiful nature encouraged me to create the birth I wanted. However, they did suggest another adult be present to care for the other kids, just in case I had to transfer to a hospital or something. Duh. I hadn't even thought of that! So I asked my sister, Joanna to be here. Plus, she is a newly graduated massage therapist...that could probably come in handy!! A couple weeks later I got an email from my sweet friend, Jess. I call her my unprofessional-professional photographer friend. She offered to come take pictures for us if we wanted her to. I thought about it for a while. It doesn't go along with my "private birth" idea, but I knew the pictures would be invaluable and such good memories for us. Plus, then I wouldn't have to worry about capturing pictures myself while I was busy doing other important things. :)

So that's how it all got set up. On Saturday, (9 days past my due date) I woke up at 6 and knew I was having real contractions. They were no big deal, but I knew they were the real deal. Rand had to work that day. He had 2 services but assured me he could leave at any moment. I said, "okay. I'll let you know". So he left and I went about my day. I told Jo that I knew this thing was happening today and to come over whenever she was done working. She came over in the early afternoon. I told Rand, "Just so you know, I'm having a baby today." He said, "ok". After his day at work, he came home and started to help get things ready. Jess came over too. Still, it wasn't a big deal. I had told my mid-wife I was sure this was happening, but things were slow and still real easy. She said to let her know when things went to the next level.

I felt bad that Joanna and Jessie were there....just sitting around with me while we chatted at 10-20 minute intervals in between my contractions. They continued to slowly intensify, but stayed really far apart. That seemed to drag things on and on. Things picked up a tad once the kids went to bed....but not much.

Finally at midnight I called my midwife. I was still doing alright, but I knew she needed some time to get to us and it just felt like it was time. We all guesstimated how much progress I had made throughout the day. I said I was hoping to be a 7 but thought I was probably more like a 5. When Carolee got to our house she checked me. I was a 5. Then I contracted while she was checking me, my water broke and voila! I was a 7. Well, I know what that means for me. Craziness is about to happen!

I got into the tub at that point and was surprised still at how far apart my contractions were. The long breaks were nice, but it also just allowed more fear to creep in. I got through transition and started having that all too familiar, horrible urge to push, but I remember feeling afraid to push hard. I could tell she wasn't going anywhere. Carolee checked me again and said to breathe through a few contractions because there was still a little bit of cervix over the baby's head. Ummm, that was like the worst torture in the world. With the other 2 homebirths that urge to push was intense and when I did push (which I couldn't even help it if I tried), I could feel how much the baby was moving down. With this one, she was just stuck there. After a couple contractions they had me turn over from a sitting position in the water to my knees, leaning over the side of the tub. The next push moved the baby down and it wasn't long before she was out. Her chest was as big as her giant head, so I can't say it was easy and I swear they had to help pull her out, but finally, there she was! 2:47am, Sunday, Jan. 29

Holy sweet relief. She was huge. And she was chubby. And we all just looked at her sweet face for the longest time. Then it dawned on me. "Did anyone check to make sure she was a girl?" No one had. So I did. And it was true. She was a girl. :)

Rand cut the cord and I moved to the bed for the aftermath. I held her while I was sutured (for the 4th time...one of the lasting consequences of my first birth in the hospital) and she was ready to nurse, sucking on her hands like she'd been nursing for a month or something. Once I was cleaned up and had nursed the babe, we woke up the kiddos (except we couldn't wake up Easton so we just let him sleep) and they came in to meet her.

Then she got weighed and measured and checked out. My biggest (and latest) baby. 9lbs 7oz. 21.5inches long. 14.5 inch head. And she is lovely.

A word on her name

I don't remember where I heard the name Annabel first. But I instantly loved it. It is a combination of my middle name (Annette) and my sister's middle name (Isobel). And then her middle name is a part of my other sister's first name, (Rachel).

I really hadn't heard the name much before that....maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

Soon after (I didn't even know if I was having a girl at the time) one of my daily blog reads had a daughter and named her Annabel (same spelling and everything). I instantly thought, "shoot. Now I need to come up with another name." But then I thought, that was silly. I don't even know this person, and she is across the country and I can still have my own Annabel.

THEN, my sister in law adopted a beagle and low and behold the dog's name was Annabelle. I literally shouted at the computer, "NOOOOO". But then I talked myself down again. It's a dog, who is 15 years old. She doesn't own the name Annabelle. I still love it.

THEN, for a while Rand and I weren't in agreement on a middle name. He wanted it to be Grace, I wanted Rae. He came to my side eventually and then before Christmas we got a card from his uncle who's daughter (Rand's cousin) had had a baby girl and guess what they named her?.....Grace Annabelle.

What are the chances of that!!!???

And then we had our own Annabel.

The next day, my sister text me and said, "hey, I might be watching a baby girl after she is born. Her name is going to be Annabelle." Crazy, huh?

This was the first baby in which we really had decided on a name right a way. We will see what kind of crazy nicknames her brothers come up with as time goes by. So far she has been called "Agent Annie" "Annie-tooterpants" and "Belly".

We love our Annabel.

all photos courtesy of Jessica Ackley

The First Week

We survived the first week! It's always the hardest, right? Grandpa Mike, from Phoenix, came for a visit this weekend to meet the newest addition and left this morning. Rand is back to work this morning, too. My mom is helping by taking the big boys to their classes this morning (which I haven't even blogged about yet) and me and the 2 littlest are home alone until about 1:30 ish. Back to life....that's what it feels like! I have spent the entire week inside (despite our crazy beautiful weather we have been having here). The boys have all been outside most of the time. Rand put up the swing set with his Dad down in our lower yard. I could almost feel all the summer fun we are going to have. But me, well I spent the week just watching Annabel change before my very eyes. So fast! Maybe it's because she was born a tad late...or maybe because she is a girl, but I have been blown away by how fast she is going from that sleepy newborn to an alert baby. She is calm and content and she is already smiling at all of her admirers. Love her.

Quickly Changing

If you don't just sit around and stare and gaze and admire....you will just flat out miss it. She already looks so different. (She got pretty squished, so all that swelling has gone down now)

The newborn phase flies by. It is a blessing and a curse. I'm trying to love it as long as I can because soon it will be gone. So what if I can't do anything with her still so attached to me...and yes, I am scared to put her down anywhere because Easton is well....unpredictable and almost 2.  Every day it is a little different...and a little easier.