Anna Lee Stafford

And here she is! Anna Lee Stafford. Born March 7, 2009. She was 6 lbs 14 oz and 18.5 inches long. Sonja's water broke at 3:45am and Anna arrived less than 3.5 hours later at 7:08am (fast delivery!). So fast, in fact, that the doctor wasn't there and the nurses had to perform the delivery. Also so fast that by the time Sonja decided she wanted an epidural it was too late and she had no choice but to go natural - she did great! Mom and Anna are doing great.

We picked the name Anna Lee, keeping with our Bible/first name and Family/middle name pattern we started with Levi. Anna was faithful prophetess who worshiped day and night and who saw Jesus as a baby (Luke 2:36-38). Lee is my Dad's first name - a grandpa who's been waiting for a little girl for many years.

Levi's been doing great with it all and seems pretty excited about his little sister - we think he'll really be a big helper once he gets a little older.

And, here are the pictures (click on each one for the complete album):

Anna Lee

Anna - Week 1

Attachment Issues

Oftentimes when parents have a second child, they worry that the first child might have need or attachment issues. We're so grateful that Levi is displaying none of this sort of behavior.



(Okay, so I know everyone wants an Anna post, but I just had to put this up - I'm sure there'll be an Anna post coming soon...)

bye bye bottle

The experts tell us that we should start removing the bottle from our babies around 12 months. Since Levi was 6 weeks early I told myself I really didn't have to start this processes until he was 14 months.

14 months came and went and every time I thought about weening him off the bottle it just didn't seem like a good time. Really, who wants to put their child through the pain and misery of giving up their bottle - I sure didn't.

I knew it was getting bad when Levi started to get attached to his bottle - he really didn't care if he had milk in his bottle or not he just wanted it to hold and carry around and to be able to put it in his month and walk around (I know, that really isn't safe). I also knew I was feeling a little guilty when I would go in for my doctor check-ups and hide Levi's bottle in my bag so my doctor wouldn't see that I hadn't weened him off the bottle yet.

I had packed most of Levi's bottles and put them out in the garage - thinking if we had only a couple then we would most likely get tired of washing them and that would help us (Tycen and me) to stop giving Levi a bottle every time he asked for it.

Fortunately for us Levi has been getting in his 4 eye teeth - which means that he likes to chew on everything and especially his bottle nipples. Yesterday morning we found his last nipple had a rip in it and knew it was time to say good bye to the bottle.

Last night we braced ourselves for bedtime - knowing we could always run out to the garage and get another nipple. We did our bedtime routine - brush, bath, pj's, book, prayers and bed. Things were going well until we got to book time - he usually would get his bottle at this point and last night he was getting a big boy sippy cup. He continued to sit on Tycen's lap as Tycen read him his bedtime story but every time he was offered his big boy sippy cup he would get all stressed out. When we asked if he wanted to say prayers he said "no" - which he always says yes to. We said our prayers, Levi not being excited about it, and Tycen took him to bed. And then we sat and waited for him to cry, throw a fit, scream and call out for us. But we just waited and waited some more. He did make a couple small cries but that was it. He was asleep within 10 minutes!