They Meet

Claire nd Tyler met and it was a fantastic experience. Claire really enjoyed the experience and was a very good albiet not very cautious girl. Amazingly she didn't seem too interested in mom whom she hadn't seen in 36 hours and was more concerned with checking out the new baby. She immediately knew who it was and called him Baby Tyler and even brought grandpa over to show him off. She really wanted to hold her brother, but had to settle for touching his toes just to make sure she doesn't give him any weird bugs too early in his life.


Claire Hugging Tyler:

The first family portrait:

Grandma getting a turn with Tyler:

More Pictures

The first night was a good one as our zen baby was calm and collected. Here are some new photos. Claire will be meeting Tyler today.

Pictures

Stats

3/16/2011 4:48 pm
8lbs 2oz
20 1/4"
Sarah started pushing at 4:43pm

Welcome Tyler

Baby's here.... details soon.

Dilation Complete

Sarah is fully dilated. Pushing and baby are imminent.

Pain no more

Sarah has been stuck in her back with a big needle and now when her uterus squeezes itself from the inside, things don't hurt so bad. That's the unscientific explanation for "She got her epidural". The most interesting thing right now is the sound the epidural medicine makes when it gets shot deep into her back. For some reason it sounds like a cat meowing. Is it possible Tyler is a cat?

Crochet Time

Keeping with the theme of "0% Natural", the doctor just came in and broke Sarah's water bag. Things are moving as she is now 4cm dialated. Sarah is currently estimating a 5pm Eastern delivery and I'm estimating around 8pm.

193 Points

Sarah just scored 193 points in a game of word twist. This is by far the highest point value she's ever received. Here are some quotes from this moment:

"Do you realize how cool I am"
"This is like the highlight of my day.... don't tell Tyler"
"This is beyond my wildest dreams"
"Maybe its the pitocin, but I just rocked my old wordtwist score"
"People are going to think we're insane"
"I think I'm going to rock this delivery today... I mean I'm not going to be dumb about it, when the contractions get strong I'm just going to be like give me the epidural, give me the epidural. I'll have this baby and then I'll play more wordtwist"
"Wait... you're putting all this on the blog"
"I think its the fruit punch, I'm on a major sugar high. Did I tell you how good this fruit punch is"
"I'm not going to say anything else... I'll regret it later"

Here is a picture:

Pitocin

Pitocin bag is dripping and the process is under way. Sarah isn't showing any signs of labor yet. She's playing wordtwist.

At the Hospital

It is roughly 9:30am and Sarah is settling in at the hospital. She's got her IV started with fluid to make sure she's hydrated. Sarah is feeling great and smiling. Here is proof:

Tyler updates will begin soon...

While I'm personally pulling for Tyler to be born on the 17th because it is both St. Patty's day and the first day of the NCAA basketball tournement, Sarah will be much happier if he come tommorow as we'll be inducing starting around 8:30am. For her sake we're hoping the delivery is short and sweet and he's born before nightfall. Either way, I'll do my part and sit by her side 55 minutes of every hour and update the blog with the latest news during the other 5. Expect detailed updates, pictures, and stats as they become available. It will be hard to track the total number of contractions, but I'll try to keep stats on things like the number of times Sarah says "I hate you for doing this to me" or the number of times the nurses come and go during the day.

Eviction Notice

POSTED: The "waiting womb" (Thanks Steve!) will undergo a significant remodel on Wednesday. To make room for nothing, 99% of the current space will be removed. Tyler.... ready or not, you're moving on Wedensday.

Ellicott City Standoff

Ellicott City, MD (Sivitz.com) - The situation in Ellicott City continues to diminish as the standoff is now stretching into its fourth day. Given the ongoing events, officials at the Sivitz household could not be reached for immediate comment, but neighbors have told reporters that the youngest member of the Sivitz family continues to hold his mother Sarah hostage. Police have been called in to take action but were not equipped to handle a young child gripping to the inside of a womb. While Sarah anxiously waits to be freed she has been seen trying to escape by doing jumping jacks and spending hours in the garden. Yesterday the situation grew tense when the elder Sivitz's attempted to smoke the baby out of his hiding place. Details of the situation are not completely clear, but it appears the family baked a birthday cake, lit candles, and sung happy birthday to their unborn child. Refusing to accept these terms of surrender, Tyler continues to holdout for a higher birthdate. Doctors familiar with the situation do not appear ready to take action, but a meeting of the minds has been proposed for early on the 14th to assses the situation and discuss potential ways to coax Tyler to raise the white flag. Until this situation can be resolved, tensions will remain high but we will continue to report updates as we receive them.

Dear Unborn Tyler

Dear Unborn Tyler,

Today is your due date. This means that today you are supposed to exit the womb and join your family in the world. We're not bad people. In fact, we're very good and nice people. Let me take a minute to introduce us. Sarah, your mother, is a kind, caring, and beautiful young woman who will nurture you, feed you, and make you feel better when you get a boo-boo. Claire is your sister. She is a 2 year old ball of energy who loves to laugh and smile and has been practicing caring for her brother's arrival by pushing Pooh bear in the stroller, putting him in your bouncer, and pushing him in your swing. She has promised your mother to help as much as she can, but unfortunately she still doesn't know how to change diapers. Actually, that is something you'll both have in common. Aside from giggling and playing, her hobbies also include going wee-wee and woo-woo in her pants. I'm sure the two of you can share stories and bond while filling your pants together. I, Brian, am your father. You are not my father; you are my son. William Sivitz is my father. He's not your father, he's your grandfather. The world is confusing with things like this, but I promise to help you learn these things, teach you to play sports, and to help you find your place in this world. So you see, the world is a cool place. We live in Maryland which is a state within a country called the United States. The USA (an abbrevation for the United States of America) is on a planet called earth within a solar system made up of 8 or 9 planets. There is some debate about the number of planets in our solar system. This debate is not because we lack the technology to find planets, but because of semantics. Semantics is an advanced concept, but I'll help you learn this too. Either way, please come out soon as we are all anxiously awaiting your arrival. Our original plan was to force you from the womb today through a medical procedure called "inducing" but the doctors seem to think that you should come naturally. It's too bad the world hasn't advanced enough to accurately predict a newborn's arrival. We've done pretty good with weather, so let me see if I can give it a try and assign a % to the chance of baby today. First let's explore the factors involved.. About 50% of second born babies come before their due dates and about 50% come after. Most babies come within 2 weeks of their due date and the shape of that curve is very much like a bell curve where the due date has a higher percentage chance than any other day. But then you've got to add in the factors we already know. Because you didn't come before your due date, the odds you'll come today actually go up. Probability change is a source of confusion and lots of fun discussions in our world and is sometimes called the "Monty Hall paradox", the "Bertranad's Box Paradox", or the "Three Prisoner problem". Read here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem. Anyway, taking all of that into account, I'd put your odds of arrival today at roughly 18%. However, that only takes into account the physical, if you take into account the metaphysical you have to lower the odds. Since we really want you to come today, you probably won't. This is known as "reverse psychology". Also since both your mom and dad were born on the 11th of the month, you will more likely be born on that date. Additionally Grandma and Grandpa Koster won't be arriving until tommorow and you'll probably wait out of respect for them . Therefore taking into account both the physical and metaphysical, I put your odds of arrival today at 5% and tommorrow at 38%. Either way, you should come soon so that our blog readers can see pictures of you rather than suffering through more rambling posts like this one.

Love,
Dad

Welcome to the Family

The Sivitz family is proud to announce a new arrival today. We were graced with his presence at 9:42am on March 5th. Weighing in at a whopping 312lbs and a length of 69 3/8 inches our blessed bundle of joy arrived after less than 30 minutes of labor. So please join us in welcoming Chilly "High Tech" Samsung to our family. His arrival is bitter-sweet. Today we mourn the loss of Smoky "Wild Hot" Maytag. Fortunately he is in a better place after a long illness. He had good days and bad days but has never fully recovered since his internal temperature spiked to 60 degrees in early January. Chilly is a beautiful addition to our family and while he is curently bald and will likely never grow hair, we can already see a special shine about him that Smoky never had. Here are some pictures of the delivery:




Shortly before Smoky's Death:

The void left after Smoky was buried:

The arrival of Chilly:

Our Family Portrait

We took a family portrait this week. Most people nowadays sit for a photographer. We decided to go old school and sit for a portrait drawn by hand. It just so happens this particular artist used chalk. Here it is:

Counting and Jumping

Claire has perfected counting to 10. Well, in her own way that is. Counting to ten is usually 1-2-3-4-5-6-8-9-10, but as you might be able to discern from the video below, she sometimes shortens it to 4-5-6-8-9-10:

38.5 Weeks down, 1.5 to Go

Sarah is officially 96.25% of the way through her pregnancy and we are anxiously awaiting Tyler's arrival. Here's what each of us has been up to this week:

Claire's been practicing her writing skills:

Sarah's been working on crown moulding (yes at 38 weeks pregnant!)

Brian's been:

(No pictures... he's just been watching Quantum Leap this week and while we document a lot of stuff, it seems silly to take pictures of someone watching a TV program)

Eating Breakfast

Now that Claire is 2 years old she likes to read the morning "paper" while eating her cereal:
















And she is starting to take after daddy as well. When daddy was young he used to line his animals up on the stairs just like this:

Coincidence?

Claire has been 2 years old for just over a week now. Is it my imagination or during this past week has our daughter been more pushy? The other day when Daddy told her it was time to put her coat on (as we were leaving a restaurant), Claire yelled "no daddy no daddy!" and pushed him away. Since he persisted, she proceeded to snatch her coat away from him and throw it onto the floor! Both Daddy and I had to work very hard not to laugh, because it was clear she wanted to be taken seriously. It reminded me of all the times when I've yelled in an attempt to be taken seriously by my husband, who pleads "I didn't know you really meant it" when I know we've discussed the issue before. So is this a girl thing or a terrible-twos thing? Probably doesn't matter in the end, but it would be nice to know that Claire will someday grow out of it!

Belated birthday post!

Well it's official, our little girl is 2. And because we have another baby on the way we've been really talking up the whole "you're a big girl" thing in hopes that Claire will take pride in helping us out with the baby. Honestly, it just breaks my heart calling her a big girl and not a baby anymore. I now understand all the parents that I know who still call their 20-something year-olds "babies".

Claire was the youngest of everybody at her birthday party. She loves hanging out with big kids, and I like it too because she seems to know NOT to hit/slap them when they show interest in her toys. With younger kids she doesn't hesitate to threaten them with a raised hand, and then I'm on referee duty for the whole play date. I tell myself it's just a phase...it will pass too.

You can tell from the photos that Claire had fun and that she fully understands what cake is now.

Happy birthday to Claire!

Let it snow!

It snowed 10 inches this week, giving us a real taste of winter here in Maryland. We're awfully thankful that we have a relatively short driveway to shovel, but we did discover that our front-wheel drive cars do us no good if our cul-de-sac isn't plowed in the morning. Brian found this out when he confidently backed out of our driveway and immediately got the minivan stuck in the snow.




This mountain of snow was created in front of our house after the cul-de-sac was plowed.


Tromping over to the sledding hill a couple of houses over.




Claire is quite pleased about all the snow piles.

We have Aunt Ali to thank for Claire's first sled. She loves it!

7 Weeks

It is now appropriate to say we're on the final stretch here in the Sivitz household. I am literally stretching like I've never stretched before! My pregnant belly is itching from all the stretching so now I'm waking up in the middle of the night because of that, in addition to all of Tyler's midnight acrobatics. With less than 7 weeks to go, we've been cracking down on our final preparations for his arrival.



Tyler's room is ready to go! We spent a couple of weekends getting the ceiling fan installed, putting up crown molding and the chair rail, and painting. He has a new crib to boot! (Claire is still using hers plus it's a recalled drop-side kind.)








Claire is practicing her infant-care skills on Daddy.

You can't tell in this photo, but I'm actually working really hard on growing the baby belly. Whew! (Well, all right maybe it's just coming naturally for me.)

Turkish March by Claire

I was puzzled earlier today when I noticed Claire standing quietly, listening to piano music. She's usually extremely animated when we play music of any kind, so it was a shock to see her holding still. Then all of a sudden the song burst into a climax and Claire came alive too! She grabbed her maracas and jumped all over the room. When the music calmed down, so did she. I thought it was a coincidence, but I was wrong. She patiently waited for each of the musical swells before doing her dances. I just had to laugh. Who know music appreciation starts at such a young age? I caught a little of it on video:

Coolest Parents Ever

I think we might get voted coolest parents of the year. Check out what we bought Claire for her 2nd birthday. (And yes, we know her birthday technically isn't until the 30th)

Steeltown for the New Year

Pittsburgh is a wonderful city with much history. Once the center of the steel universe and still the center of the sports universe (in my opinion anyway), it was built at the intersection of 3 rivers. They start with M,A,and O. You'll have to look them up for yourself because the only one I can spell is the "Ohio". Anyway, my (Brian's) family has a lot of history there as after my great grandparents moved to the city, my grandma and grandpa stayed and raised my Dad and Uncle Josh. My Uncle and cousins still live there, so we decided that since its a mere 3 and half hour drive from our house that we'd spend New Year's there. It was a wonderful time and we Josh, Patty, Nat, Adam, Chrissy, Marcy, and Allison were wonderful hosts. We got a wonderful tour of the city, learned all about Justin Beber, and stayed up until almost 10:30pm on New Years! Here are some wonderful pictures courtesy of Aunt Patti:

Patti, Josh, and Claire overlooking the city on a cloudy but warm 57 degree day right before the Winter Classic at Heinz Field:

Uncle Josh and Claire at the farthest point from home plate at the old Forbe's field.



Josh and the Ellicott City Sivitz's still hanging at Forbe's field.

On the incline by Station Square.

Christmas tree near the Pittsburgh Plate Glass in downtown.

Claire and Josh made at fort at home. I think this was Claire's favorite part.

Cracking down and nesting

This whole "nesting" concept in relation to pregnancy is very amusing. For me, it means that I worry about getting Tyler's nursery in order but also I worry about getting all our home projects done before the baby comes. Worry worry worry. I can't actually DO any of the projects on my mental list since they require physical labor beyond my means at this point. So that's where my handy husband steps in to save the day! Nesting = Daddy working on the house. This blog entry is a huge THANK YOU to Brian. (Poor thing does not know the full extent of my nesting list.)

Fortunately Daddy has a little helper. This weekend they installed a closet organization system in the nursery.

We've got about 8 weeks before Tyler arrives! Where has the time gone? Daddy will be finishing up the nursery while I...get bigger and bigger. I'm also planning Claire's second birthday party. You can expect a post on that at the end of the month.