Our family of *FOUR*

Whew! It has been a long time since I´ve updated the ole´baby blog...too tired taking care of all these babies to write about it all! Elsa´s playschool was closed for all of July and will open again next week. We were very lucky to have a long visit from my mom (henceforth called ´Gamma´) and dad (´Gammpa´or simply ´Bitho´) and Unkka Thomas. Was lovely. We took a trip to Stykkisholmer and the Westman Islands. It was wonderful to get out into the country a bit, and even more wonderful to have such attentive babysitters. I am very excited to see them again this Thanksgiving-Christmastime. Tumi has been working his handsome Icelandic ass off as a journalist this summer, covering games, writing articles in the paper, and even commenting on TV!

Both kids are growing and healthy and amaze me everyday. Elsa is talking. And running, and climbing, and hilarious. Finn makes the sweetest coos and smily faces. He is growing so fast that he is now about the size of an average 3 or 4 month old (even though he is 8 weeks!).

All in all, life is grand. Not much time to be prolific, so I´ll let the pictures speak for themselves...

A sleeping little Finn

Elsa with her beautiful Aunt Gunnhildur

Multitasking like I invented it...

Boy-o

Gammpa Mattress

Happy Grandma!

Change the channel, Finn...we want to watch soccer!

Ah, smile...

Tourists!

That´s one big cuddly family

Sæta

Waterfalls go ´ROOAAARRR´

Yep. 2 kids. Holy crap. 2!

That´s how it´s done!

Elsa going out to play (or shop...with Mama´s purse)

Elsa, don´t stand on your little brother, please.

With Thomas and Heiða in line for HP7pt2...YAY!

Tumi + Kiddos = Happiness!

Welcome Mister Kolbeinsson!

He's here!

Our newest little addition arrived at 1:51 am on May 31st weighing in at 3.88kg and measuring 52cm long.

The birth was very long, and let's just say that I am very happy that I won't be doing that again anytime soon! I started having contractions at around 2am the 30th. They were around 10 minutes apart, but they were not very strong so I fell back asleep. When I woke up, the contractions were coming more often, but still were not very intense...just annoying. We took Elsa to playschool and then went to our midwife appointment in the early afternoon. She 'swept the membranes' and let me know I was already about 3cm dilated, and that the baby would come within the next day or so. After the midwife we waited a couple of hours and then went to the hospital. They checked me out and then suggested that we wait in the waiting room for things to pick up a bit more. Contractions were about 3 minutes apart and not coming any faster or stronger. It was then suggested that we might be more comfortable waiting for things to pick up at home, so we headed to Tumi's parents house for dinner and to hang with Elsa for a little while. We went home and waited there until around 10 when the contractions started getting much stronger...then back to the hospital.

The next several hours are a blur in my mind...there was a lot of intense contracting and discomfort (okay, pain!) and some 'happy gas' and some walking around and lots more pain. Tumi was a huge comfort, and made expert work of the massage oil they gave us. I hope his hand bones survived the intense squeezing they got those few scary hours! At 9.5 cm dilated, I told the midwife that I thought I was almost ready to push, but that I thought I should try and pee first. Once on the toilet, my water finally broke, and the baby's head was suddenly VERY ready to come out...I remember the midwife and Tumi telling me not to push while they tried to get me form the bathroom to the bed, and me screaming back, "NO! I HAVE TO PUSH!" I don't think there is anything harder then feeling the need to push and being told you can't...it's like you've been holding your breath underwater for minutes and when you finally break the surface to gasp for air and are told you can't!

Once we were back on the bed, I was allowed to push, and in two good pushes he was finally out! I think from the time my water broke until he was laying on my stomach was probably like 20 seconds...it was really fast and chaotic and actually kinda terrifying.

We stayed in the hospital until just after lunchtime the next day. On the way home, we got a call from Elsa's playschool letting us know that she had a fever and we should come pick her up. Poor thing! I settled in at home with the new baby and Tumi went to his parents' house to take care of the sick one. She stayed there for a couple more days and got a prescription for some antibiotics. Little man was a couple of days old before his sister met him for the first time. She seems pretty uninterested. She says 'hi' to him, and calls him 'ba-bee' and sometimes pats him on the head.

I am remembering life with a newborn. It's actually really nice. We sleep and eat a lot. Sometimes there is a lot of crying, but since Elsa has been so well taken care of by her Amma and Afi and Gunnhildur and Pabbi and playschool, the baby and I have had a chance to relax and bond over the past week and a half. It has been very hard for me to be away from Elsa during this time. I'm thankful she is so well taken care of, but I miss her terribly, since I only see her before school and for dinner/bedtime. I look forward to being able to go out with both my kids...I hope Elsa remembers me when it's time!

Our little boy is a good baby. He is growing like crazy, and when we went for his 5-day check up, we were astonished to see that his weight had gone up to 4.2kg! (usually they like to see that the baby has gotten back up to his birth weight by the 5-day mark...) It is generally agreed that he looks more like my family than Tumi's....truly a Davidson boy!

Our son arriving in the world!

Snuggling with Pabbi just after being born...

Elsa playing the piano

Mama and baby boy
Check out those feet!
Chub-bub
Baby's first bath!

Full Term... "the waiting game"

As of this week, Tumi is officially finished with school, I am officially finished with the UN University project I have been working on, Elsa is officially settled-in at her playschool, and I'm officially 38 weeks pregnant...full term.

Women are considered 'full term' at 37 weeks, which means that if the baby is born after this time it won't be considered 'pre-mature.' While the due date is still a couple of weeks away, this is the period in which medical professionals like to tease and torture most pregnant women by suggesting that the baby could come along 'any day now' and be perfectly healthy. We bloated, insomniac, hormonal, cranky, swollen souls hold onto hope that it really *could* happen any day now...maybe even today! Then we wouldn't have to be so pregnant anymore! Imagine, being able to reach your feet to put on your socks, to sleep on your stomach, to walk (not waddle) down the street without a bowling ball bumping up and down on your bladder! My leg-shaving, beer-drinking, forward-bending, innie-belly-buttoned days are so close!

I am trying to enjoy what I know is my last few weeks of pregnancy, possibly (probably) ever. I love feeling my son kick and wiggle and get the hiccups in my belly. I love watching the weird bubbly-alien-esque bump make its way across my stomach as a foot or elbow or knee moves from one side to another. I love the excuse to sleep whenever I want or eat whatever I feel like. I am also enjoying the fact that Elsa goes to sleep at 8 o'clock every night with very little support work from us and then wakes up 11.5-12 hours later. How nice to have such a reliable pattern! As I long for relief of later third trimester ailments, I savor the good things in my life that are about to change (albeit temporarily) when there is a brand new baby in the house. She was at least nine months old before I had eight hours of solid sleep...so those times are over for a while.

We are taking care of some small things around the house during the calm before the storm. Still settling in and deciding where things should go and sorting out lights and closets and storage and all that lovely moving-in stuff that will be so much harder to get around to when there is a new wiggly one.

Some videos:

Elsa exploring the new apartment

Elsa smelling basil

Some pictures from recent goings-on in Reykjavik:

Elsa had the flu for about a day after she started playschool. She spent about 24 hours in this position on her Pabbi's shoulder...

Elsa working on some pasta

Clapping for herself (since she did such a good job with her pasta/body paint)

Post-pasta, pre-bath

Ham for the cam face

This is what she did when I said, "Elsa, where did your tomato go?"

Attempted picture of BOTH the kiddos...

Ba-BOOM!

May 1st in Reykjavik this year...I kid you not. This was taken from our bedroom window. What a way to wake up in 'springtime'

This was the very next weekend (still in Reykjavik) when it was like 60 degrees and sunny all day. Go figure!

My favorite people~

It's all happening!

This spring has been full of big changes for our little family. To start with, Elsa María turned one. It was a fantastic party, complete with kids and cakes and a birthday girl who had no clue what it was all about. Our daredevil little one has made the transition into toddlerhood with a respectable number of big bumps and tumbles, the biggest of which was just last week when she fell down the basement stairs at her grandparents' house. It seems she is always collecting new and interesting bruises, and the two from the stairs fiasco are just now starting to fade (and are being replaced by one on her cheek from the coffee table...). We are all very thankful that despite all her nasty falls she is still in one (ever-gutsy) piece!

Elsa started playschool shortly after her birthday. She is going to one that is associated with the University of Iceland, and only has kids who are under two years old. There was an adjustment period, in which the parents come to the school with their child, and gradually leave them there for more and more time until they are staying there all day without their moms and dads. Elsa made it through this transition very gracefully. There were a few times she cried when we left her there, but the staff are amazingly adept at distracting and entertaining the little ones who are sad to see their parents leave. I'm grateful that she will be able to be there most of the time nowadays, since things are about to get even more crazy in about a month when her little brother arrives. It is comforting to see that she is thriving there...she seems to really like the new environment, new toys, and kids her size. She fits right in!

After that big change, there was an even bigger one when we moved to a wonderful new spacious apartment! There was much prep work (painting, packing, etc) so having Elsa well taken care of during the day was quite a blessing during that process. I discovered that 8 months into pregnancy is the perfect time to move...it felt like my role during the whole move was more of a supervisory position than the hands-on helping variety. I worked hard, but did the little things like packing and unpacking, and directing all the strong men who were lifting the boxes up and down the stairs where they should put things. We had a lot of help, so the moving day itself was a breeze. We are still working on making our new home comfortable and acquiring the things we need to settle in before the baby arrives, but it is wonderful to have so much more space, and a dishwasher, and a bathtub, and a room for each of our kids (born and un-).

This Easter finds us in a bit of a limbo...I feel like I've been using the word 'transition' a lot lately. Elsa made the transition to toddlerhood, the transition to playschool, we transitioned into a new home, and Tumi is transitioning from the role of student to one of journalist this summer. As for me, I am wrapping up the project I was working on this spring for the UN University, and transitioning into the 'new mom' thing once again. I am less apprehensive about birth and newborn-mothering than I was the last time around...all that stuff is still really fresh in my memory, so it isn't scary, just feels like more of the same. It is overwhelming to imagine taking care of a just-turned-one-year-old-daredevil AND a newborn baby, but I am trusting that the combination of playschool, Tumi, grandmas, and Aunt Gunnhildur will make it possible for me to hold onto some shred of sanity this summer. So for now, I'm trying to relax and enjoy the last month (or so) of pregnancy. I'm sure that like all 8-month pregnant moms, I find myself longing to not be pregnant anymore...I daydream about having a cold beer, wearing clothes that fit and look nice, being regular-sized, not being tired all the time, not having to use the bathroom every 15 minutes...but then I tell myself that it's only one more month, and who knows if I'll have another baby (certainly not anytime soon!) so I might as well kick-back and enjoy it.

Elsa enjoying a windy spring day on our old balcony

Showing off one of the infamous head-bruises and her spaghetti face
Elsa's Angel Food birthday cake (a Davidson family tradition)
The less-traditional (but far more impressive) 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' cake made by my dear friend Charlotte who is gifted with such crafty skills

More bruises
Ridin' in the car
Getting ready for an outing to escape the packing mess

Packing up the old apartment at Framnesvegur...extra credit points to those who can spot the baby girl (hint, bald, pink, window....)

Elsa's favorite spot in our new house...she'll have to find a new place to sit once the garbage starts to go there!
Elsa helping Mama unpack the new kitchen
Rocking in the rocking chair at our favorite coffeeshop

Tumi had hot chocolate and Elsa had 'toy lion fish'...both were quite satisfied.