Becca 6 months

When I grow up...

Matsy age 4 + 2months

I'm going to be a 

Ballerina

Cheerleader 

Bug scientist

Police girl

Fire girl

4 months

First day of 2nd grade

New skills.

New skills this week.  Learned to stick out my tongue and grab my toes. 

1, 2, 3 ...

Soaking up the moments with my baby girl

I just don't want to forget ...

Love this little girl. 

Welcome Rebecca Reeves

After a miscarriage in 2014 that had some unusual medical complications, we sort of thought that our family just wasn't going to have a 3rd child. But in August 2015 - shortly after a car accident that totaled one of our cars - I took a pregnancy test that was positive.

I loved being pregnant with you, Becca! Of course, I loved my pregnancies with Weston and Matsy too, but somehow this one was extra special. Maybe because I didn't worry about doing a lot of things you're "supposed" to do when pregnant. Maybe because I had an easy semester at work. Maybe because daddy and I were just so happy.  

I probably didn't take enough pictures during pregnancy, but I loved just having you with me every day.



---


matsy's last night as the baby of the family

The due date was May 2nd, but because both Weston and Matsy were induced and Matsy was so large, we elected to have an induction on April 29th (my doctor's on call day).

We arrived at the hospital at 5am. After a slightly troublesome (mommy threw up!) scene getting my IV started, they started pitocin.  As they increased the pitocin, the baby's heart rate would drop during contractions, so they weren't able to increase the dose all the way. I had started the day at 1.5cm dilated and by around 1pm, I was still only at 4cm. At this time I got an epidural and the doctor broke my water (because I learned with Matsy that immediately after my water broke the contractions became SO painful).

I was hungry and bored and ready to have everything go faster.

The doctor came back around 3pm and I was at 9cm. Almost time.

The baby's heart rate had dropped again so the nurses rolled me over on my left side. The next contraction came before the doctor even left the room, I felt a lot of intense pressure low in my pelvis. My doctor said, "ok if you're feeling that much pressure it must be time."

WHAT? Suddenly, I realized I WASN'T ready! I'm not ready to have a baby. What it I can't push her out? 

I pushed only through about 4 contractions and Rebecca Reeves was born at 3:32pm. She's so beautiful! was all I could say. Becca was plump and healthy and I was able to hold her for the first hour of her life with us. (Both Weston and Matsy had to be taken to the nursery after birth, so this was a first for me!) They finally weighed and measured her : 8lb 13oz - 20.5 inches.



Welcome to our family baby Becca.

Questions I can't answer...

If crocodiles are related to dinosaurs why didn't they go extinct? 

That one we had to google. 

Can air go through anything?

Like bricks or concrete?

Airplanes space shuttle. Like airtight?

Is music lighter than air? 

Galileo

Indigo girls song Galileo comes on in the car...

M: what's this song called? (She asks this about almost every song that comes on)

Me: Galileo

M: what does Galileo do? 

Me: he was an astronomer. He studied the stars

M. He had a spaceship. 

Me. No. He just had a telescope. 

W: I bet he was alive when they invented cars. 

Me: no, this was way before cars

W: how did they get around

Me: I guess they used horses

M: was Galileo a boy or a girl?

Me: a boy

M. Did Galileo have a cat?

Me. I don't know

W. Do cats really have 9 lives?

Me. No

W. It would be cool if they did. 

(Yes. Cool. What would also be cool is if this conversation was over!)

God and Size and Multiplication

W: Is God the biggest thing in the universe?
Me: I don't know if God has a size.
W: Yeah, because God can be anything he wants to be, like a school bus or a plane. And he knows everything. Like if someone asks God, "what's 1000 times 1000?" he just knows. 

How are stars formed?

Weston drew this on the whiteboard in my office this week. 

His explanation:

You know how your cells are microscopic? When you bleed, your cells go into space and then become stars. First they look like this...then this...then they are a star. (Points to the different stages, shown in red in order)

I'm not certain but I feel like this is just a small glimpse of how we imagine the world. 

Milking a ... ?

Matsy's class learned about Texas this week, complete with a rodeo day on Friday.

They made stick horses...

In the car on the way home....

Mommy: what else did you do for rodeo day?
Matsy: I milked a .... horse.
Weston: Do you mean, you milked a cow?
Matsy: No, I milked a horse.
Weston: Matsy, you don't milk horses. Horses just ... milk themselves.

Hot-speriment

Mommy talking "... On the plus side my experiment in lab worked great."  

Matsy: "I did a speriment with colors." 

Mommy: "oh right, you did an experiment in sunshines. "

(Pause...other talking)

Matsy: I'm doing a hot-speriment. 

Mommy: a hot-speriment?

Matsy: nods yes

Mommy: what is it?

Matsy: (rolls around on the bed)

Mommy: that's your experiment?

Matsy: nods yes

Mommy: what are you testing?

Matsy: I'm doing hot-speriment with eyes and mouth and nose and knees and jeans. 

Fiction is boring.

Discussing what library book Weston wants to get at school library day tomorrow.  

Every week this school year, he has checked out a non-fiction book: cars, trains, space, police cars, insects, sharks, sharks, maybe reptiles? I can't recall them all!

I think tomorrow I'll get ... ... ... planes!

Mommy: Ok, didn't you already get planes?

Yeah, we had planes before, but I'll get it again.

Mommy: Do you ever look at books with stories? Stories about things that aren't real?

(Laughing) Books with stories make me bored.

Mommy: What does bored me?

Bored means when you don't want something you don't like.
(Or maybe he said "... when you don't like something you don't want.")

Either way.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's topic.

look-out treehouse

look at my hair blowing in the breeze

do you think i'll fall out?

is this the right way?

What's a byterian?

When Weston was admitted to the NICU at Presbyterian Hospital (Dallas, TX) at birth, they gave the parents a backpack with a bunch of information in it.  Our friends' son had been in the same NICU almost exactly 2 years earlier.  I noticed later that he used that backpack at preschool at our church in Dallas.

I came across this backpack again after we moved to Austin and made it Weston's school backpack when he started All Saints last year.  It has some child's handprints and he seemed to like it well enough. (Not yet aware that he could request some other type of backpack.)

Anyway, now that he is getting into letters and learning that they spell things, he recently asked me what his backpack said.
"Presbyterian Hospital"
"Presbyterian Hospital" he repeated.
"Yes, that's where you were born."

---

Several days pass and I hear him saying "Christbyterian Hospital"
"No, PRESbyterian"
"Christbyterian"
"No, PRESS. Like your seat belt buckle says PRESS."
"Presbyterian Hospital."

---

Several more days pass and he says again "Christbyterian Hospital"
"No, PRESbyterian"
"Presbyterian. What's a byterian?"
"No, it's Presbyterian."... I can't manage to recreate the rest of the conversation, to summarize, I tried to explain that Presbyterian was like a kind of church and that the people from the church started the hospital and that's why it was called Presbyterian.  I do not think I was successful.

If only the hospital had changed their name to Texas Health Resources before 2008!!

one year with Matsy

Can you believe Matilda Jean has been making us laugh for one whole year?

She started taking a few steps just before her birthday.

We spent her birthday week-end at Camp Allen Family camp - a family week-end at our Episcopal camp.  Matsy went on her first bounce house!

We then celebrated with some friends from Dallas who happened to be visiting Austin.  Weston chose her birthday cake several weeks ago. He insisted that she should have a lady bug cake.

First day!

Weston started his 2nd year at All Saints' Episcopal Day School.
He is in the Pre-KII class, which is essentially the "older 4's" and "young 5's."  All the classrooms are named by color so his is the Yellow Door.

Matsy: Months 8-11 and the Summer of '13

Matsy's 8 front teeth came in pretty quickly this summer and two more recently.
She moved into the "Infant 3" room in her daycare.

Matsy quickly grew tired of baby food.  She'd rather have something to pick up herself.   She also mastered a sippy cup in no time.  So she really loves lunch and snacktime at daycare.  She gets to sit at the table and eat like a "real big kid"!

Matsy is not quite walking.  She holds onto things and "cruises" and has let go a couple of times, but doesn't quite have her balance yet.

"DaDa" is her favorite word.
It seems to mean any of the following: daddy, weston, daphne, doggie, that, and possibly even mommy.
Just yesterday, daddy got her to say something that sounds like "up" = "bup"

We had some great vacations this summer.
In May, the whole family visited our friends the Clarksons in Atlanta for the baptism of their twin girls.

Then Mommy, Weston, and Matsy spent a week with nanna and poppa in Alabama.

In July, we were able to visit Michigan at the same time as the Coughlin family (minus Chris who is working in Qatar!).  It was the first time Aunt Anne, Ansley, Jack, and Piper had met Weston and Matsy.  As well as the first time that all **8** Leacock grandchildren had been together.  Such joy!!

July 4th - I do not like hats.