2 months!!!

today baby O is 2 months old! i can't believe it. he is so big and has changed so much this month. he smiles and kicks, and loves to be talked and sung to, and look at his toys.
it's been raining most of the week and today we had to run some errands (including going to his doctor's appointment). so i felt like a real new yorker having oliver in the carrier and walking around in the rain. thankfully it wasn't raining too hard and i have some new rain boots!
the doctor said he is the best looking, smartest baby she's ever seen (i know she says that to all her patients, but this time she was telling the truth, right?) he is now 13.3lbs and 24.5 inches long, in the 90th percentile. he was all smiles for her, and then came the shots. poor ollie-bear. he did not like them, but he quieted down quickly and has been sleeping ever since (which is why i'm able to post this!) hopefully he won't have any side effects and will be a happy guy tomorrow.




as you can tell, i had a harder time with the sign this time because he loves to kick, kick, kick those legs!






look how much he's changed since last month!

first trip to oklahoma!

wow! i can't believe it's been so long since i was able to post anything. it's hard to find time when i have 2 hands free, but i've enjoyed every minute of it.
anyway, we spent last week in oklahoma! jamie was able to fly there with us (i was nervous to fly alone with oliver the very first time), but sadly had to leave just a day later. originally oliver and i were only going to spend a long weekend in OK, but then my mom had a brilliant idea for us to stay a little longer and we would drive with her to my sister's house in arkansas, then fly out of little rock. my sister was due any minute with the twins, so we were hoping that we might be able to meet the girls too. however, she went into labor the night we got to oklahoma, so my mom had to leave the very next morning. everything went smoothly and the babies were big and healthy! my mom came back sunday night and planned to spend a couple days with us then we would still head to AR as planned, but as the days went by we decided 3 babies might be a bit much, so oliver and i again changed our flight and we just flew out of oklahoma instead. my mom went on to arkansas without us, but we got to spend lots of time with the tallerico grandparents, which was really nice.

here are a few pictures from our trip:




oliver spent lots of time in his car seat, which he's never really done before. he was such a trooper!


danny's birthday was on tuesday, but we celebrated a little early while jamie was still in town.




the tallerico men


oliver finally got to meet his aunt elisa (and estella too, but i didn't get a picture)




then on danny's actual birthday we surprised him at work and went to lunch. (notice oliver's onesie. it says "i ♥ grandpa".)












granna squeezing as much oliver time in as she could before she had to leave.




finally home with dad!

by the way, oliver did AWESOME on all the flights. he is such a good boy.

oliver's a month old!

i can't believe it's been a month since ollie was born. it feels like a lifetime ago that we were in the hospital, but it doesn't seem like he should be a month old yet. in celebration of the day he and i went to a mom's group for babies born in august. there were only 2 other women at this gathering (and one was still pregnant), but it was fun and nice to be out of the house and talking to adults. we will be going once a week now, it will be nice to have something to look forward to.








(i took this photos this morning before the fussing began! these cards were a gift from my good friend christy. i'm so excited to use them each month!)

oliver has been such a perfect baby that i should have known it was too good to last. this week he has decided to be fussy. both monday and tuesday he was cranky and screaming ALL DAY LONG!!! and it was even worse in the afternoons. nothing seemed to really help. sweet jamie even brought me home beautiful flowers since i had such a stressful day. then today oliver was so good while we were at the mom's group, so i thought he was back to normal. unfortunately as soon as we got home he was angry and fussy again. i've decided he hates afternoons/evenings. i've never been so happy to see jamie! he has him right now which is why i'm able to post this. i'm just hoping he'll get back to normal because we are flying to oklahoma a week from tomorrow and everyone (including myself) is going to hate us if he's screaming on the plane!


there are really not any pictures of me with oliver so jamie took this last week.

we blend into the neighborhood

so i've been feeling a lot better and oliver, sophia and i usually take a quick walk in the evenings. however, i have not been brave enough to try to get the stroller out all by myself (it involves lugging oliver in his car seat down the stairs to the entryway, with sophia in tow. then getting the stroller base down the stoop and opened up. then getting the car seat attached to it, all while holding on to sophia's leash!) but yesterday i did it! we took a nice walk and oliver didn't cry (he's not a big fan of the car seat), and sophia didn't misbehave, and i blended in with everyone else in the neighborhood with my stroller, baby, and dog! it was really nice using the stroller, but it was a lot of work getting it down, and then back up. some days i really miss the suburbs.

growing growing growing

well, as you guessed, little ollie is getting bigger and bigger. i guess i can't really call him "little" ollie anymore! we took him to the doctor today (to have a clogged tear duct looked at) and he now weighs 11.2!

he no longer fits in this: (the sling part)

or the bassinet attachment on the pack-n-play:
last night he was promoted to the regular mattress (raised of course). he seemed to like it.











at this rate, by next week we will probably be buying him a king sized bed! we are having such a good time with him though. i'm kind of sad that he's growing so fast because i'm really enjoying the way things are right now. i know that i'll love each stage (at least parts of them!) but i just wish he would stay a little baby a little longer.

chubby monkey

i took oliver in to the doctor today to check his weight and to ask about his stomach problems. as i predicted, they said it's normal and there is nothing they can do to help. the big surprise was his weight. he now weighs 10.7lbs!!! i don't know why or how he is getting so big, but he is growing like CRAZY! the doctor said they are supposed to gain 1 ounce a day, and oliver gained 26 ounces in 10 days!!! he is a chubby monkey. he is so sweet and cuddly though. it makes me said that by next week i probably won't be able to lift him anymore though. j/k



today was a busy day for us. we had the doctor's appointment at 1, and my good friend lauren is in town visiting family and she came by to help me get there. then we went to lunch with her. 2 outings in 1 day! oliver was so good through it all. and then, right when i sat down to eat dinner, he got fussy. oh well, i guess you can't be perfect all day, right? i just hope we get more sleep tonight than last night.

it's a boy!!!

sorry i've been absent for so long! things have been hectic here, but for good reason: oliver james was born on august 1! it's already been 2 weeks, i can't believe it. he is such a good baby, we are really lucky. the only bad thing is he gets terrible stomach aches that i think hurt me more than him. i feel so awful not being able to help him. hopefully we will get that worked out soon.









anyway, i thought i'd share a little bit of the birth story with you guys. i started having contractions at 5am and they were coming strong and close together. we went to the hospital about 7:30. i was vomiting and shaking terribly the whole morning. once we were admitted my water broke (while vomiting). i was far enough along, and miserable enough that they went ahead and gave me an epidural. however, it didn't seem to be working. i could still feel everything and it wasn't just pressure, it was cramping. i also wasn't dilating as quickly as they wanted so they started pitocin. around 5:20pm i started pushing. it was extremely painful and i asked the doctor (who by the way wasn't my doctor, he was out of town) about the pain and she said "well... i turned your epidural off. i didn't want to tell you because i didn't want you to freak out." WHAT??? it turns out they were concerned about me not pushing correctly and the baby's heart rate being too high, so they turned it off. i ended up pushing for almost 3 hours (which is the limit before they do a c-section). i thought i was going to die! it was soooo painful and exhausting. i felt so bad because i was so tired and hurting that i wasn't even very emotional when the sweet little boy came out! i was just spent. he look HUGE but we wouldn't know what he weighed for several hours (they weigh them in the nursery). jamie and my mom were both in the room during the delivery and jamie's parents got there right after oliver was born. it was pretty good timing. and jamie's dad says it was a good thing he wasn't there during the delivery because he would have been raising hell! my eyes were swollen shut from the pushing and my right leg was completely numb from the epidural. it was from this moment on that the quality of care at the hospital (new york methodist) went drastically down hill! the orderly came in to take me to my room with a wheel chair and told me to get in it. i told her i couldn't walk, my leg was numb. she was dumbfounded. she didn't seem to understand this. so jamie and his dad had to help me into the chair while she just stood there, not even putting the foot rests down for me! we went upstairs to the rooms and no one checked me in or checked on me. they didn't bring the baby to us until 1am (and he weighed 9.3lbs!!!) and no one checked on me the rest of the night. the rest of the stay went like this. the nurses were kind and i loved the doctors, but i hardly ever saw any of them. it was always these nurses assistants who were extremely lazy and rude. i was in so much pain and unable to get out of bed and one of the assistants came in once and asked me if i took what i needed for when i got home (pads and such). i said no (did i mention this was at 5:30am and i had been sleeping???) she said "well get up then and come with me!" i was so confused "get up?" "get up and come with me! there's a cart in the hall and you can take what you need. come on!" i got jamie up and he got what he could. later the lady came back and asked if i got everything. i said "i didn't see any of the underwear, can i get some of those?" "they were on the bottom of the cart." i said "oh. we didn't see them." "did you look?" "we tried to." she says "but you didn't." i got mad "no, we DID!" this was all on the last day there and i also never received my breakfast. we were supposed to check out at 11, but they didn't get our paperwork ready until 2:30. still no breakfast. when we were finally discharged i asked for a wheel chair (can you believe i had to ask?) and the nurse said "why do you need a wheel chair, what did you do?" i said "i had a 9.3lb baby! and i can't walk that far." she was like "oh. well, if you want a wheel chair you're going to have to wait." and i did. then an orderly came with it and again, no assistance getting into it. thank god for my perfect, beautiful baby boy, but i will NEVER set foot in that hospital again if i can help it!