Grandma Comes to Visit.

Over the last few days we have been blessed to have more family helpers. This week Nick's Mom came over and helped us out. Dianne and Diane perfected the art of daytime television and were terribly upset to see that Passions was no longer on the air.

Tomorrow Nick's cousin Erin is stopping by to give out some friendly advice, which we are looking forward to since she is a labor & delivery nurse. Hopefully she won't tell us that we're horrible parents. Only time (and a few trips to Juvee) will tell.

3, 2, 1... Projectile Poo!

Thought I wasn't there for the event, Linds-hey came over and helped with bath time. Apparently, in the transition from the bath to the crib to put on her diaper, Maddie decided that this would be a great time to unleash the hellish fury that is... Projectile Baby Poo!

I hear that hilarity ensued. Until clean up time.

Our 1st Trip to the Big City... Poulsbo.

Dianne and I found that we were starting to get Cabin Fever today and decided that it was about time we left the relative safety and comforts of our house and ventured into the dangerous and bustling city limits of Poulsbo. For those of you unfamiliar with Poulsbo, it is a small viking town of 7,000 people on the Puget Sound full of antique shops and peddlers of confectionery.

The trip was relatively uneventful. Maddie allowed us to push her around in her stroller for all of 10 minutes before insisting on being held. She fell asleep for lunch and conveniently woke up just as our food was being delivered, again insisting on being held.

We got back to the car just in time to miss the rain and returned home after a tiring yet exhilarating 2 hours outside of the home.

She wants to party all the time, party all the time...

Last night was our first one of "those nights." It all started out as normal, getting into bed at around 10pm, giving Maddie her before bedtime snack-aroo...

5 hours of straight crying later, we were wondering if having a baby was the right choice in our lives.

Thankfully, grandma Mimi and Papa came to the rescue and took our crying Maddie out of our hands so we could get some much needed shut eye. Hooray for grandparents.

This got me thinking: no one ever really told me what a typical night with a newborn would be like, so I figured I'd help a brother (or sister) out and give you a typical breakdown (and don't worry, last nights cry-a-pa-looza was not the norm).

9 - 9:30pm: Head up to bed. Start brushing teeth and other pre-bedtime rituals.

9:30 - 10: Start feeding the baby.

10 - 10:30: Finish feeding the baby and start trying to get her to sleep.

10:30 - 11:30: After several attempts and placing the sleeping baby in her crib, only to have her wake up 5 minutes later, she finally falls asleep.

11:30 - 12: Lie in bed listening to every sound emanating from the crib thinking that your baby is:

Choking
Dying
About to wake up
Pooping
Choking
Burping
Awake and about to cry
Choking

12 - 1: Bad sleep.

1 - 2: Baby wakes up, you feed her, you burp her, you try to get her to sleep, you think she is choking, you fall asleep.

2 - 5: The best sleep of your life.

5 on: Baby wakes up, you do the feed-burp-choke thing and realize that there is no way you'll be able to go back to bed. Thus your day begins.

There you have it friends. A typical night with a newborn. This is not meant to scare you off, but as an excuse to why I haven't called you back. Talk to you next year.

A Fond Farewell for Grandma Mimi

Grandma Mimi had to catch a flight an hour after Madeline was born, but Madeline was nice enough to send her off with an award wining smile before she left the hospital.

Great Grandpa Jack and Maddie

Nick's grandpa Jack came over and held his first great grandchild.

Our Baby Story

Well it finally happened! Madeline Tracy Johnson was born at 4:02am Saturday Morning. Here's a quick breakdown of our birth experience:

We were scheduled to induce at 7am Friday morning. At 8:30am they gave Dianne Petocin to start her contractions. Things were pretty uneventful until about about 3pm when she was dilated to 4cm and they broke her bag of waters. Her contractions got gradually stronger until 8pm when we decided to have a epidural. They administered the epi at 8:30pm which was just in time since her contractions were becoming unbearable. Not much happened for the next few hours, and we even managed to get some sleep.

At about 2:30am she was fully dilated and we started to push, this went on for about an hour and a half and was actually not as bad as we expected (we actually had a bet that if she yelled out "Kelly Clarkston" when the pain got really bad I would treat her to a movie, but she didn't so she owes me a movie).

Then at 4:02am, with Dianne's mom Kay and Nick's mom Diane in the room, baby Madeline was born!

The next few hours were a blur until we finally got to sleep for an hour or so. Then we spent a lot of time with family and friends until we kicked everyone out at 6pm so we could rest. Later that night we were moved to the overflow wing which was nice and quiet and we managed to get a pretty good nights sleep.

Sunday morning we relaxed, practiced feeding and eventually went home around 4pm. Great Grand Parents Jack and Peggy brought us dinner and visited with us for about and hour.

After they left we relaxed and settled in for our first night at home.

We're Almost There!

We went down to the Bremerton waterfront and shot a few pictures of the belly before it's too late. We can't wait till the baby comes and we finally get to meet little Parker or Madeline!