Warning - Contains Graphic (but cute) Image

This is the sight that greeted Ev yesterday morning when she came by to drop off some stuff. She promptly snapped the shot:

He sits like this every meal, and after every meal we pick him up and he starts crying/whining because his legs have fallen asleep. Poor guy never learns.

And how adorable are these dishes from Dawn? Leelee requests his daily and points to the face on the plate and says "Leelee". Notice Olin's accurate hedgehog hair.

Back to Work

D-day (dreaded day), second time around, was harder than expected! I missed the boys and being home much, much more than I had expected and I think the logistics of the daycare drop-off, the nanny, and pumping were a little tricky. Here was today's layout. I'm going to need to streamline some of this:

5:30am: Dae leaves for work. I wake up, nurse Olin, and pray both boys will stay asleep long enough for me to shower and get ready and maybe eat a little breakfast.

6:30am: Success - both boys have stayed asleep! Christian gets up, I pump, and change Christian's clothes and get him ready for daycare, packing his usual 4-5 extra outfits and undies for the pottytraining accidents (this usually takes about 20 minutes). Actually, he has only had about one accident/day at Daycare, which is great. Olin awakes around 6:45am, which is very early for him. I change his diaper.

7:00am: The nanny arrives. I hand off Olin and leave with Christian in tow literally the moment she arrives. (Luckily, she came over last night to get oriented with Olin's schedule and feeding.)

Drive to daycare and drop off Christian.

7:27am: Arrive at work. I am 3 minutes early, which is a far cry from the 15-20 minutes I wanted to be early for my first day back. Luckily for me, my first patient does not show. A perfectly timed no-show! I start checking my 211 e-mails and pile of charts on my desk. I also manage to squeeze into a size Medium scrub bottom, which used to be a little loose. Ugh.

1:15pm: I am a little late leaving for lunch since my patient runs over. I drive home, pump, heat up some soup from Kelly, hug a smiley Olin for about 5-10 minutes (not long enough!) and rush back to work.

5:30pm: Leave work (on time!) through rush hour to pick up Christian from daycare.

6:15pm: Arrive home. All I want to do is nurse and hold Olin after his first long day with the nanny, but Christian is needing dinner asap and it's getting late.

6:30pm: Feed Christian spaghetti, my go-to meal when I have absolutely nothing planned. I actually completely forgot about dinner and was fretting a little at work.

6:45pm: Finally, I get to nurse Olin! Leelee makes a huge spaghetti mess in the background.

7:30pm: Dae arrives home after a long day at work (hooray!). Sadly, 14 hour days like today are his norm! Plus the poor guy didn't even get lunch. He scarfs down spaghetti, entertains Christian and puts him to bed, then holds Olin while I am currently blogging :)

So, it's 8:30pm and I'm not really tired from the day, I just feel like I barely was able to scrape by and feed everyone and keep everyone alive, and the day's over! I assume, as with everything in my life, that I am just slow on the uptake and as soon as I get the hang of it, we'll find a groove. I hope!

p.s. Nanny washed and put away all the dishes, totally cleaned & organized our messy Tupperware drawer, folded our laundry, started organizing Christian's dresser clothes and folded the bins of Olin's clothes. It is so nice, I cannot even explain. :)

Bangs

My new bangs. Pic taken in bed, Olin and Dae asleep, listening to my movie with my earphones in. My hair looks short here but it's not. My bangs, however, are too short! (Used my new IncrediBooth App. Thanks Dawn, it's so fun!)

Olin Hates the Car

Did I mention Olin hates the car? Hates it. Cries from the moment the carseat is buckled til a few seconds after he is lifted out to the comfort of someone's arms. Otherwise, he is offering us great joy on a daily basis :)

Potty Training!

Last week I had my first Kindercare conference with Ms. Jessie, Christian's main caretaker. She told me, very nicely, that she would like to "focus on pottytraining in the upcoming weeks". I took that as my cue that....uh...it's time (Overall, Christian's report was pretty good. She said he is learning to share - haha - as well as a few other carefully worded constructive feedback. I was wondering how the caretakers worded their feedback, because I can only imagine how touchy a lot of parents, including myself, are when it comes to their own children. So she said he is progressing well, and her main concerns were his pottytraining [or lack thereof] and his beginning to acknowledge other children's feelings by sharing, etc.).

Armed with the challenge, I overcame my laziness and procrastinating tendencies and decided this was the weekend to pottytrain Leelee. Ev gave me a quick tutorial on the Boot Camp pottytraining method so Saturday morning Leelee got up at 5:40am and I immediately put him in undies and set about a half day spent in the bathroom. We had gummy bears, chocolate, and lots and lots of milk. He was in hog heaven and by the time the half day was over I think he kind of got it. In the beginning there were two full-on accidents, where he peed all over the floor, but after that he would just wet a little dribble and tell me right away that he needed to go to the potty. (As far as #2, his first poo happened in his underpants at Church on Sunday. hehe) So, we are far from done with pottytraining, but this morning he did tell me he needed to poo and I put him on the potty and he poo'd! Hooray!

As an aside, thanks to Selynn for his first pack of Thomas undies. He loves them :) All of his other undies are hand-me-downs from cousin Didi so I think he appreciates a fresh pair!

I kept meaning to take body-length shots of the two boys for comparison over time, and kept forgetting. This was last week. Olin's real happy.

Out Like a Light

I was totally laughing when I came home from my work meeting last night and saw this little spectacle. Totally passed out, similarly angled heads, Dae wearing headphones... Since both were so content I took advantage of about 20 minutes of alone time and watched TV by myself. A rare treat!

Olin is a smiley boy. I can usually get him to smile on command - sometimes it takes a few tries but he usually comes around. He is also a fairly good sleeper (although I admit he does sleep on me, which is probably nice and warm and cozy for him. I am procrastinating the transition to crib.) All in all he seems like a very sweet little guy. I was totally dreading the 6-8 week colicky period but he passed 6 weeks without much fanfare besides a little increase in daytime crying...then 8 weeks hit and he most definitely experienced an increase in crying! So I'd say from 8-10 weeks he was probably at his most frequent crying, but at the same time, during this period I have been able to set him down more frequently without immediate crying. So I guess with the bad comes the good, which keeps us sane.

We haven't really been calling Olin by his name. He's pretty much "baby". Either that or Didi Two. haha. Didi is Chinese for younger brother, so I bet Christian is confused as to why there is an older Didi and a younger Didi!

I thought I would welcome the 'break' of going back to work, but I am totally dreading it. I am actually enjoying being at home with the boys (albeit with Christian at daycare 3x/week!). Dae is also on his worst 4-month rotation again, so at this moment he's home about every other day or so!

Alright, off to do a daycare drop-off!

Parks and Recreation

We had a blast in California this weekend. Ev and I got to tour the set of Parks and Recreation, see two scenes being shot, and meet Amy Poehler and Adam Scott! (and see Chris Pratt in action) The whole experience was pretty surreal...we had no idea how the entire shooting worked, and how many minute details were involved in every aspect of shooting. Alan really hooked us up and guided us around for about 3 hours before heading back to work. Then we stayed on our own and watched a scene with Adam Scott and Chris Pratt :) They shot the first scene, Amy Poehler giving a press conference, about 10-11 times and I was amazed at how many lines she had to memorize and how many different takes they did with just a little bit of tweaking each time.

Anyway, we met and 'talked to' Amy Poehler and Adam Scott, who were so nice. Amy's son was even there for part of the shooting. And it's true that everyone is smaller in person (well except Chris Pratt who is just as large as he looks on-screen!). We would be enormous on screen, I am sure. We weren't really sure about asking to take photos so I just pulled a couple of pics from the internet and we'll call it good :)

(By the way, the set was so authentic looking. I really thought we were in city hall - I could barely tell what was real and what was set.)

Amy Poehler

Adam Scott

Chris Pratt

Dad and Joanne were game enough to babysit for about 9 hours on Friday, for which we were very appreciative! Four kids 5-years-old and under are no piece of cake.

Saturday, we visited Knott's Berry Farm. It was a scaled down version of Disneyland for sure, but less exorbitant ticket prices, no lines, and a great selection of small kids' rides were right up our alley. The kids walked for a grand total of about 6 hours, with no complaints and very few breakdowns. All in all...success!!!

Olin experienced Knott's Berry Farm in the comfort of the Beco Carrier

This Speedway ride whipped us around those turns surprisingly fast!

Leelee's favorite School Bus ride - rode it 3 times.

Snoopy

This next series of photos I will call the Many Faces of Olin (along with the one outfit of Olin's. He wore the same outfit the entire weekend until this morning, when he decided to blow through two):

Something about the combination of Olin's face, Didi's face, and the fire flaming over Ev's head on the TV I find very funny!

Leaves Changing

This was just down the street from Ev's house. It was so pretty.

We're going back to Cali, Cali, Cali...this weekend! We head out tonight; me, Ev, and all the kids. Joanne's son Alan has nicely allowed us to visit the set of Parks and Recreation and possibly see some scenes being shot. We never see any celebrities or anything in the 'biz' so we are very, very excited!

Other news: I cut leelee's hair for the big trip and it was probably my worst cut yet. Strangely, it was the most well-behaved he has ever been for a haircut. Cooperation and a good haircut must be inversely proportional! Anyway, his Kindercare report card the next day said he had a "handsome new haircut" and I was so embarrassed...

One snip too many over that tricky ear

Another self portrait. Not sure why I find these so funny!

When Leelee needs something now he says "I need help you!". (Probably from hearing us asking him "Do you need me to help you?")

Napping: Olin is napping 3 hours in the afternoon! I put him on his side wrapped in a blanket on the Boppy and he is happy as a clam. Oh, the loveliness of 3 hours to get things done!

Leelee is really getting to understand things. A couple days ago I had the stroller parked right behind my car at Ev's house and Leelee saw a garbage truck coming a block away. He was very concerned and said "Mommy, move the stroller! Garbage truck is coming! I sad." I assume that meant he would be sad if the stroller got run over. As would I...

Girls' Weekend (& Dae's a Champ)

Missed this little guy!!!

Jessica, Terra and Trena came down for the weekend and we had a fest of shopping, lounging, eating and of course a little bit of partying :). We stayed at a hotel downtown and took full advantage of the shopping options within about a 2 block radius. It is so nice to walk everywhere!

I had a bit of trepidation about leaving Dae with both boys for an entire weekend, as Olin is pretty used to sleeping on me and nursing on demand, however Dae fully stepped up. When I arrived home Sunday night all were alive, well, and 2 out of the 3 Lee boys were sleeping (and Dae was well on his way to unconsciousness). To say the house was clean would be a stretch, but all in all, I was very grateful. Thank you Dae!!

So proud of our Huskies. We had to represent in very under-represented Portland.

Family Friday at the MAC with Ev and kids. The boys were going crrr-azy! Sweaty messes...

10 G's

In September, Dae attended the annual OHSU Golf tournament in Vancouver, Washington. I arrived for the dinner portion (and my first time away from Olin, at 3 weeks old - I was nervous!) just in time for Dae to tell me he had made it to the finals of a putting competition and was competing for $10,000. I half-listened but figured the chances of actually winning $10,000 were slim to negative.

Well, what do you know...he won the $10,000!!! All those golfing outings finally paid off, literally :)

The magical putt

All smiles

So it was pretty awesome. A representative from the sponsor of the golf tournament (an insurance company I believe) said they put on these golf tournaments all the time for various companies and he has never seen anyone actually win the money. It was probably a 40 foot putt, and in order to even qualify for the 'finals' Dae had to putt his way out of the preliminary rounds over 25 other people. This is the closest he will get to any PGA glory and I for one was certainly impressed! (I think there was even a small roar from the crowd - haha).

With our big win we felt like people were kind of expecting us to bid on something to give back to OHSU during the silent and live auction. So we bid on and won a UW golf bag (Go Dawgs!), a trip to Cabo (yeah!), and donated $1000 to the school. Looking forward to some sun next spring in Mexico...

BTW Dae just got the golf photos from the school yesterday, so I took photos of the photos. Hence grainy, real grainy.

Below is a shot of me and Olin in his new borrowed sling from Auntie Ev. Handy little thing for around the house, and he is snug as a bug in it.