Hello...?

 I guess it's been a while.

Declan loves to climb on everything and Annalyn is growing so fast! She's been in dance classes and is now taking swimming lessons (Declan too!)

The pursuit of becoming an actuary has been put by the wayside. Family has just become so much more important that any new changes just haven't been worth it. It's time to just settle down.

Rachel loves sewing, and has such a knack for interior design. She has been revamping our living room and our basement to make it much more vibrant and enjoyable. She is the love of my life!

I figure a few updated photos will help close out this update. Hopefully I will return again soon.

Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?

  Annalyn has found a new toy to play with around the house. On the surface it may seem like an interesting choice for a 3-year-old, but considering how she's playing with it, it's not all that surprising. Annalyn loves playing with doors. But not just opening and slamming them anymore (we thought that would never end). It's actually quite cute to see her sing to them the same way Anna sings to the doors in the movie, Frozen.

  In the movie, for those who haven't seen it, Anna, a little girl of about 5, is singing to her sister Elsa through her bedroom door trying to her her to come out and play with her, singing, "Do you wanna build a snowman?" It's a cute montage showing them growing up into young adults and still she won't come out to play. 

  Annalyn has picked up on the key words of the song, namely snowman, door and play - the rest kind of sounds like gibberish, but having seen the movie, we know what she's doing when she's singing through an imaginary keyhole, and hanging from the knob.

  Maybe she's just in desperate need of friends and she can relate? Hopefully as soon as this wicked cold front is over we can let her out of the house to play.

Happy Birthday Annalyn!

  Today is Annalyn's third birthday! All month she has been increasingly excited to break off links on her paper chain leading up to her birthday, and finally the day has arrived.

  A couple days ago she was quite distraught when Rachel took away her pacifier...for good. She had to grow up a little bit. And after a few tantrums, she realized she's never getting it back. As hard as it was for her, and as difficult as she's been for Rachel to handle, the biggest surprise came to me when I realized she is growing up! I couldn't believe it - I had my first inclination to want to keep her as a little girl. Alas, she must grow up, and I certainly don't want her still attached to it when we send her off to college.

To kick things of for her birthday we all went to The Magic House on Friday. She's been before, so she knew what we were talking about when we told her we were taking her there.

  Luckily she's a bit older now, and she wanted to explore more things that she was too afraid of before. She's always loved slides but was too timid to go through with actually sliding down many of the ones they have. Not this time. She loved every slide she was old enough to go down! She also enjoyed her favorites: the sand table and the water table. She also wanted to tackle the giant 3-story beanstalk that they have, but once it got crowded, she panicked and wanted out. Maybe she's a little agoraphobic?

  And she found her little mouse house again too!

  We then took her to the attic, which is a cosy little nook where she can have tea time with Raggedy Ann. That little girl loves playing tea time!

  On her actual birthday, it's been freezing. Yesterday we woke up to a blizzard and the high was 19. Today it was just as cold and windy. 32 degrees felt like 2. To make sure she didn't have to wait till an hour before she went to bed  to get her presents when I got home from work, we woke her up to open them before I left. She got an art easel and Rachel wrapped a bunch of markers, chalk and paint to go with it. It took her a minute of waking up to realize what today was.

  For her cake, Rachel got a little creative and made a giant cupcake out of lots of individual cupcakes, complete with her own cherry on top!

  Yes, we spent her birthday as a family, but I think it made all of us enjoy each other all the more. Annalyn is growing up. She's talking more, listening more (thank heavens), and she's getting along great with her growing baby brother.

Where's My Binki?

  Most mornings our sweet little Annalyn isn't so sweet. There's no middle ground with this child, unless she's not feeling well. She's full throttle, either happy or upset. 

  The other day, Annalyn woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Her usual grumpiness screamed for us to come turn on the light for her and open her window. Eventually she came out of her room, like a slug, wondering if she had made the right choice to take on another day. She spent a little time by Rachel's side, following her around the house. She got some juice in her, and was starting to wake for the day.

  Evidently, she was still quite groggy when in a bit of a panic: she was asking for her binki. "Where's binki!? Binki!" We didn't have to look far though, for one hand was clutching her favorite blanket, and the other was holding her pacifier! Once we pointed this out to her, she laughed, and thought it was the funniest thing! She was wide awake and happy for the rest of the day...mostly.

Resolved

It's time to return to the blog. It was unexpectedly placed on hiatus while adjusting to becoming a parent of two. Now we are more adjusted (just not all the way), at least to the point where I can justify returning here to update, and occasionally stand on my soap box.

Since last post, we both had family come out to visit with the new baby - Rachel's mother two weeks prior to Thanksgiving, and my parents the week of. We had a very good Christmas. Annalyn was very excited about opening presents, so we made sure to wrap as many individual things we could for her to unwrap. Even then it wasn't quite enough, as she got into opening our presents too.

New Year's Eve was fairly uneventful. I had to work all day to finish up our year-end inventory, and we fell asleep on the couch watching movies once midnight rolled around. But at least we were together, enjoying one another's company.

Now we stand on the threshold of a new year. A new beginning. Among my few resolutions this year, I'm tying to commit to witing here much more regularly, as I had originally anticipated. So here we are catching up, during the worst cold snap the Midwest has seen in over two decades. We're in the middle of a 2-3 day streak of being below zero, with wind chills dipping into the negative 40's. We all have faith and prayers that it'll pass, and that this isn't a curse that'll stick forever. In the meantime, we're hunkering down, doing our best to stay warm.

Circumcision

Last Friday we got Declan circumcised. Admittedly, as I'm sure with any new parent of a boy, we were pretty nervous. But rather than getting it done at the hospital, Rachel's midwife Jennifer recommended a Mohel that is very experienced. We did some research and were surprised about how circumcisions are generally done.

If you're unaware, hospital circumcisions are usually a 20- to 30-minute procedure that you are not allowed to be there for. The baby boy is strapped down on a mini plastic board to restrain him and then his foreskin is essentially cotterized. 

Not what we wanted to suffer through, let alone have Declan suffer through either. We were told that Rabbi Rovinsky was great and had a lot of experience. He has performed over 8,000 circumcisions over the last 20 plus years. Not only that, but by Jewish law, it is suppose to be as quick and painless as possible for the little boy. 20 seconds. 20 seconds! That was it! He explained everything ahead of time and answered all our questions before beginning. When actually doing the procedure, he even offered to have me perform the actual circumcision myself. I declined (didn't wanna screw up and end up with another daughter, no matter how much I love Annalyn), but I did get to be there and hold him while the rabbi did it. 

Yes, Declan still cried a little, but no where near what my preconceived notions were. Rabbi Rovinsky gave us our instructions for caring for him for the next few days while it heals and really put us at ease as to the whole process.

Even as I'm writing this, Declan is right beside me, sound asleep. He's a tough little guy. After going through with it, any question of whether or not we should do it was cleared up: I'm glad we decided to get it done. I feel a new bond with my son - closer to him than ever before. I think the next most traumatizing thing to worry about next after facing this though is Annalyn dating. Luckily, that's still at least 30 years away.

Declan Matthew Peck

We have a new member in our family! Declan was born October 17th, 2013 at 12:51 pm. At 8 lbs. 7 oz. and 22" long, he was a healthy happy baby.

At first, Rachel didn't think she was going into labor, since her due date wasn't until October 29th. We had originally calculated it to be on the 15th, but apparently neither of us were right...it was the 17th! So Rachel's contractions started at about 3:30 in the morning and they were regular and strong enough that she wasn't able to go back to sleep. Once I woke up at the usual time for work we started timing her contractions. Turns out, despite Rachel thinking they weren't regular enough, they warranted a call to Jennifer, her midwife, who came out to check. 

I took off for work, knowing there was nothing immediate that was going to happen that I'd miss by leaving right then. Shortly after I started loading drivers, I got a call saying that the baby was definitely coming today! The challenge was in me now getting back home; my assistant Floyd was on vacation that week and so I had to stay - no one else could watch the place. In despiration, I called Floyd to see if he would be willing to come in during his vacation to cover while I left to be with Rachel during the delivery.

An hour later he was there, and I was on my way home. Once I arrived, my first assignment was to leave - to take Annalyn over to Britney Lewis, one of Rachel's friends. Understandably, we needed her away so as to not be a possible distraction when Rachel needs to focus.

She progressed very well during labor. It was only an hour after transition started that he arrived, and pushing was only 20 minutes of that! He was making his first sounds right away, and surprised the midwives with how healthy and responsive he was.  It was a beautiful experience; I would not have missed it for anything. Rachel loved having him at home! So much so, that she wants the rest of out kids born at home. She really liked being able to look around and see familiar things, especially photos of family.

Mom and baby are still doing great. Everyone's healthy and happy, and Declan continues to put on weight. And now, we just need to adjust to living off very little sleep...