The Maner Family Blog

"I'm Batman!"

Trying to take a pic of the two of them is nearly impossible

For Halloween this year, I took Paxton to the party store for him to pick out his own costume. He immediately gravitated toward Batman. He was very certain that’s who he wanted to be, it was so cute. So, we got his costume and he was so thrilled, that he wore the mask for the rest of the day.
We went to a couple different pumpkin patches, complete with hay rides, hay mazes, and a petting zoo. He had a great time running through the maze and picking his own pumpkin. At first, Pax was a little apprehensive about feeding the animals, but he warmed up to them quickly.
For Halloween, we went to our friend’s house and Paxton trick-or-treated with one of his best friends, Evan. They always have such a great time together! They trick-or-treated together last year too. One of the funniest things Pax did was he was bugging Alan and then myself for us to open a sucker for him as we were walking. We told him to finish trick-or-treating before he has a sucker so it doesn’t get his hands and costume all sticky, with as much as he drools. So, he reluctantly said ok. Next thing we know, he’s up at the next house getting candy and asking the lady handing out the candy to open a sucker for him. And she did! So, he comes running down the sidewalk back to us with a sucker in his mouth. The kid is pretty smart. Blakely was a cute little butterfly for Halloween. We dressed her in a black tutu, onesie, and leg warmers with orange butterfly wings. Adorable!

More Halloween pictures can be found here!

The First Three Months

The first 3 months after Blakely was born were a whirlwind. We all just got used to having another child in our lives. Sure, there were difficult times that you have to prioritize…when I’m feeding Blakely and Pax has a dirty diaper and Alan’s at work, what do you do? Or how about the time Alan was out of the country, Pax had a stomach bug and was getting sick all over the carpet and Blakely was crying for hours on end…what do you do? The answer to that one was call my mom, who so willingly drove all the way down to my house to help!
Blakely had colic up until she was about 10 ½ weeks old. It was not fun. She would cry and cry, nothing would help her. We’d feed her, burp her, rock her, swaddle her, play white noise for her, change her formula from one kind to the next, from a powder to ready feed, give her Zantac, change her meds to Prevacid, give her Chamomile tea, etc. Nothing at all worked except for just letting time pass us by. I’m already beginning to forget how difficult it was, thank goodness. Zinet helped us out a lot. She watched Paxton a couple days a week, which was nice because I knew he was getting more attention than what I could give him at home with a colicky baby.

Other things took some getting used to. Like taking both kids somewhere by myself. That was always a gamble. Sometimes I would take the single stroller and pray that Paxton would walk next to me…that turned into a disaster one time when we went to the mall where he ran off and was hiding behind clothes racks before I had to literally chase him down, pick his limp body up (you know how kids will make their legs go limp to make it nearly impossible to pick them up), and carry him out under one arm while I pushed Blakely with the other. I bet that looked awesome to any onlookers. Another change we came across is our tradition of going to Whole Foods each Sunday night as a family. Well, now with two kids, one of us has to push one cart with the kids while the other pushes a second cart for the food. I’m sure we look funny, but that’s our thing we do every weekend.

Other than the colic, Blakely has settled in well. She never lost any weight, which usually happens with newborns. She never misses a meal. She’s such a cute, chunky baby with some extra rolls in her thighs. She loves loves loves to be held and if you’re not holding her, do not lay her down, she hates laying down. Pretty much from day one, she will literally pull her head up as if she is trying to sit up…talk about a strong baby. You’ll see her in her carseat with her head moving forward as if she’s trying to sit up, it’s so funny! I’ll sit her up on the couch and she will just sit there so happy. Of course we think she is absolutely beautiful. She has olive skin tone (lucky girl!), dark brown hair, and dark blue eyes. People say she looks like Alan from her eyes up and me from her nose down…we totally see it that way too. She loves to cuddle and enjoys having a pacifier, specifically the WubbaNub. At first, she wasn’t too fond of pacis and would spit them out, but luckily she took a liking to them, which is great…for us! Her brother Paxton is in love with her. He makes sure to kiss and hug her every night before he goes to bed. He'll tell her he loves her. He likes holding her on his lap and even tries to feed her. He says that she’s cute. And the way he talks to her in his baby voice is enough to melt your heart. God has blessed us with two amazing children!

Party of Four

Wow, how time flies! We’ve been so busy lately, that I haven’t had a chance to update our blog. For starters, Blakely Madeleine Maner was born on September 9^th, 2012! She is such a little sweetheart and we’re so blessed to have her. A little about her…

I was scheduled to be induced the night of Sunday, September 9^th which meant that Blakely would be here the next day. We were trying our hardest to avoid having her on her actual due date, 9/11. We had the whole day planned. Wake up, get ready, go to church, have brunch, go home and relax while Paxton takes his nap, get the hospital bags ready, drop Pax off at Zinet’s, then head in to the hospital at 5pm. Funny how nothing went according to plan! Here’s what really happened…So, we wake up the morning of the 9^th and get ready to go to church. As I’m getting ready, I started feeling some cramping, but just figured it was nothing. Well, the cramps continued and were often enough that we decided to skip going to church…just in case things progressed, we wanted to be closer to the hospital. I called the on-call doctor and he said it sounds like they’re contractions (which I had never

experienced contractions before, not even with Paxton since we were induced and I got an epidural almost immediately). He said if they get to be more consistent and are causing pain, then to go to the hospital and they’ll check me out. So, we went out for breakfast. The contractions continued, but were manageable. After breakfast, Alan and I decided we’d just run up to the hospital to get checked out…thinking they’d send us home. So, we dropped Pax off at Zinet’s house and went to the hospital around noon. Turns out I was already 5 cm dilated! Needless to say, they checked me in. The contractions got worse and worse, they gave me a little Pitocin to help me progress, more pain, finally they gave me my epidural at about 7 cm (why they didn’t give it to me earlier is beyond me...I wasn't a happy camper), then 7 hours later, little miss Blakely was born at 7:19 pm…by the on-call doctor (dangit!). Although I would have preferred my doc, he was actually really nice and everything went smoothly.

My parents went to get Pax to come up and meet his new little sister. He wasn’t jealous or overly excited. His sister ‘brought’ him a couple of gifts…he was more interested in those than anything. Later on, my parents left and took Paxton with them so we could bond with our baby girl. The nurse brought Blakely into our room for a feeding around 1am (yes, we had her stay in the nursery so we could get some sleep, don’t judge) and she was very concerned about Blakely’s coloring, she said she looked really yellow and had already called the pediatrician and done some blood work on her to check her jaundice levels. Next thing I know, I’m getting a call from the pediatrician who tells me that Blakely is at an 11 which is really high for a baby who’s only 6 hours old and that if the level goes up, there is a possibility of her having to get an IV (which they usually administer into the baby’s head, yikes!) or even potentially a blood transfer! Needless to say, I was freaked out! So, they took her to the NICU and immediately put her under bilirubin lamps. It was so sad seeing her there with little goggles over her eyes and nothing else but a diaper. She had to stay in the NICU until the next day, then they moved the light set up to our room so we could be with her the entire time. She would cry in there, and the only thing that would calm her down was when Alan sat next to the light set up and held her hand. We were only allowed to take the goggles off and take her out to eat every 2 hours for only up to 30 minutes, that’s it. It was horrible. Not the experience I was hoping for during her first few days of her life. I was discharged from the maternity floor on Tuesday and the pediatrician wanted Blakely to stay in the hospital until her bilirubin levels went down some more. So, they let us stay with her in the pediatric unit for one more day. After that, her levels had dropped enough for us to safely take her home. She was under the lights for 62 hours. We were able to leave the hospital on Wednesday, but we had to rent a mobile bilirubin light that wraps around the baby and use that for the next couple of days at home. We were willing to do anything for our little girl, and were so thankful they let us go home.

Under the bilirubin lights

We’re so blessed by all of the visitors that came to the hospital and to our house. Family and friends brought us food and other goodies, prayed for us, and helped take care of Paxton.