2 weeks old

Lucy is 2 weeks old today so we went to Day One yesterday to weigh her. She clocked in at 7lbs 7.5oz. She has regained her birth weight plus some by 13 days old! Atta girl! Here are a couple of pictures from our photo shoot today.


For comparison, here's Tommy at 2 weeks old. He was weighed at the doctor's office when he was 13 days old and he weighed 7lbs 3 oz, just an ounce UNDER his birth weight. Maybe it's Lucy's hair that pushes her up in the ounces?

All this is just a scary reminder of how much weight he lost at first and how hard those first weeks were with Tommy to get him eating (foreshadowing a life of picky eating?).

Lucy is a sweet baby, very quiet, loves to sleep during the day, enjoys late night tv watching with Daddy. She's going to have to get over that habit before Daddy goes back to school on Monday!

Gilroy Gardens - again

Lucy is going for some sort of record for most trips to Gilroy in the first 2 weeks of life. So Monday night we returned to Gilroy Gardens for one of the last nights of their holiday lights. Since we didn't do everything we wanted to when we went last week, the Galvins, along with G-ma C and Joey, met Sara H., Mary, and Kami for a rainy evening at the park. Tommy once again rode his beloved caterpillar, drove the classic cars with Daddy, rode the train around the park, rode two carousels, and spun in some strawberries. We also got to see the Peanuts-themed show (albeit a scaled down, rainy night version...). Tommy recognized Charlie Brown, Linus, and Lucy when they got on stage and we got to take pictures with them and SNOOPY (!!!) after the show. While he was a little tentative about the pictures, he was very excited to see his Peanuts friends. Our Lucy took a picture with her namesake, who was very touched when we told her the baby was named after her! Another great night at Gilroy Gardens and another "I can't believe she took that 11-day old baby out in the rain" kind of evening! Hey, Tom only has a few more days of vacation. We're making the most of this family time before he goes back to school!

A Christmas Story

We woke up Christmas morning and opened presents from Santa, as usual. This year we welcomed Tommy into a long-standing family tradition: the official watching (or multiple watchings) of A Christmas Story. We've always had great respect for TBS's 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story and this year was no exception with Tom and I watching almost 2 full times through while... waiting for Santa...on Christmas Eve and then having it on in the morning as we opened presents. Then we realized that instead of tuning it out, Tommy was totally engaged and watching the movie.



Later on he started telling me, "The little boy needed help but his friends ran away."

I asked him, "what little boy? What was wrong with the little boy?"

"His tongue was stuck to the pole and he needed help."

Awesome! A new tradition is christened.

Here are some other Christmas pics. We had a great Christmas Eve at Nana's, a yummy breakfast at home with Jen and Nana on Christmas morning, and Christmas Day in Gilroy.

Uncle Mike was in town and got to meet Lucy.





Trying out some new train tracks that Santa brought
... and new Legos





On the ride to Gilroy we took a PB&J sandwich to go. This is what he looked like about 20 minutes into the ride. It's hard to see the peanut butter smeared from ear to ear...




I think we need a bigger couch...

Merry Christmas 2009!

Sound Sleeper

People always ask parents of a newborn about how well the baby is sleeping. I think 9 months in the womb hearing dogs barking and a toddler whining/screaming/singing/whining has made Lucy a very sound sleeper.

On Sunday we went to Gilroy Gardens for their Christmas lights (yes, I took a 4 1/2 day old baby out into the cold... at night... it was her Grandma's idea! She was well-bundled and quite warm.) The finale of the evening was a laser light show over the lake. We did not camp out for a half hour for seats so we stood on the wrong side of the lake and listened to the music and watched the flashing lights. News to me: the laser light show also had fireworks and we were sitting right behind the cannons.

A video demonstration of Lucy's sound sleeping to wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Someone's in the kitchen with Nana

Carol and Gemma have an annual date for cookie baking and Tommy has joined in (though not been a big help) the last 2 years. This year he was totally into it and actually may have helped - a little! Gemma has incredible patience and helped Tommy cut out his cookies and later decorate them. He especially loved putting flour on the board and rolling out the dough. OK, but his favorite part was sampling his work.

Pics from week one

Jumping on Joey's bed with all the cousins:

Tommy & Daddy

Snuggling on the floor - an "eyes open" shot for those of you yet to see Lucy awake

Less awake - both kids sacked out on Mommy at Nana's house

Family story time - also first and only family picture so far! (You can't even see my arm holding the camera out)

Sorry for the brief descriptions... typing one-handed. We've had a great week. She's almost back up to her birth weight after a big initial loss of over 10%. Essentially we got her home and started making every effort to fatten her up. Cecchin cheeks and thunder thighs, here we come! Sleeping pretty well, nursing much better with a little help, big brother still in ove and having fun!

We're home!

Well we are all home now. Thanks to all who helped during the week with Tommy and the dogs. Everyone seems very happy to be home!

So back to Tuesday night... with just a few hours left of my due date, I finally started having some regular contractions. Of course, I figured they'd stop once I fell asleep (as had been the case the previous 2 weeks) so I tried to go to bed. Surprisingly that didn't work, so I got up and started timing while Tom got a little bit of sleep. We got the clear to come into the hospital around 1 am so we mobilized. Tommy woke up amazingly well as we packed him off to Nana's. All those early morning trips before school the last few weeks prepped him well for getting dropped off in the middle of the night. After dropping him off (thanks a million Nana!) we were off to the hospital arriving around 2:15am. At 2:30 I was 4cm dilated and they sent us upstairs to the Labor & Delivery floor. Glossing over all details in between.... 2 hours later she was born! The doctor said she'd have come even more quickly had she not been face up! Yikes! So after making us wait through the whole 40 weeks, she was at least quick to arrive on the big day.

She was great in the hospital. Continuing to gloss over some details, she's still working on nursing. Apparently I breed children with ridiculously small mouths (I know, right!) which is what's making it difficult for her (and was also probably Tommy's problem). So with a combination right now of pumping and other nursing aids we're getting the milk into her. It seems possible that once we've established a supply and the habit of nursing, she should be able to nail it as she gets a little bigger and we won't need to rely exclusively on the pump. But she's generally content, sleeps well, and hasn't given us much trouble up to this point.

Because of the H1N1 flu, the hospital does not currently allow visitors under the age of 16 so Tommy was not able to meet Lucy in the hospital. So learning from our experience with bringing home a second dog, we had Tommy and Lucy meet on "neutral ground." So on our way home from the hospital we met Tommy and Nana at Stow Lake. Tommy was so excited to finally meet Baby Lucy. She brought him a BIG slinky and the book "That's not my penguin" so he thinks she's pretty cool so far. Arriving at home also went smoothly, though was pretty busy at first. Thanks to Tim for feeding and outing the dogs but you can imagine what the house looks like when the two of them have been bored and crazy for 3 days with no one home! But now we're all comfy and cozy and are settling into our new routine.

Tommy is absolutely head over heels in love with Lucy. He wants to hold her constantly and is thus far understanding and content with me needing to hold both of them at the same time. Hopefully the novelty doesn't wear off too soon.

Here are a few new pictures. All of our pics so far are here for those of you who don't want to miss a thing! (link fixed now)

More pics and update

Just a few more pics. Lucy is doing great. She is making a much
better effort at nursing than Tommy did so that's good. We are still trying to get it, though. She and daddy
are sleeping well. I am blogging but feeling fine.
Big brother Tommy is having fun at nana's. Stupid h1n1 flu changed the hospital policies so no visitors under the age of 16! Poor Tommy and poor mommy! He did see a video of her and wanted to watch it four times before he sent Tom back to "go take care of Lucy". Sweet boy!

She's here!

Lucy Byrne Galvin arrived at 4:33am today December 16th! 7lbs 5oz. 19".
All are well!

Notes from Nana

Today, we went to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Meredith told me about a train exhibit they have - and then there was a very nice article in today's paper. I was hoping not too many people read the article so it would not be crowded - it was not. In fact, we had the room almost to ourselves. But before we got to the train room, Tommy looked at the gold fish, and the plants as we made our way there. He was really quite interested. He enjoyed the Conservatory even before we got into the train room.

They have set up trains on tracks that meander around various SF landmarks - GG Bridge, AT&T Park, City Hall, etc. He liked that but what kept his attention was the two-train Thomas the Train (Thomas and Annie) exhibit. We were there over an hour. The docent could not get over Tommy - and kept saying what a lovely boy he was. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera, but I took my first ever pictures on my cell phone - which I cannot forward because it keeps saying "out of network." So when "we" get that figured out, there will be pictures.

So here are the other pictures - Tommy was riding the rocking horse and the bear sat on his couch - things have been moved around in the living room. He has had a great time with the legos this week and copying what is on the outside of the box - so this is his town that he/we built. And then he dumped all the toys from Jennifer's bucket out and climbed in and watched Sesame Street. He has made the robot and other things from those toys as well. And then today, he fell asleep with his hands behind his head and basically stayed that way the entire time. It has been a great week.