"nice to meet cha"

ben loves to hold cole's hand, but he gets really frustrated when cole doesn't cooperate. usually coles hands are in little fists or all spread out and he doesn't quite grasp the concept of holding hands. so ben says,"mommy help!" so i try and help the boys hold hands. today when ben grabbed cole's hand he shook it and said,"nice to meet cha." where does he get this stuff? i had no idea he knew how to do that. ben is full of surprises. gotta love him.

best buddies

ben, cole and i went on a walk this morning which was pretty adventurous for me since i can count on one hand the number of times i have left the house in the last two weeks. we went to the sand park and dug some big holes, buried ben's truck and dug it back out, and attempted to chase down a garbage truck (ben is totally obsessed with everything garbage truck right now.) usually at some point in our walks ben decides he wants to walk and not ride. as we were walking he saw this huge grassy area over by the pool and he wanted to go exploring. so we tromped through the soggy grass. ben was running and i was trying to keep up with cole strapped to me and pushing the jog stroller. ben saw the hills and decided to climb and of course he wanted me to race him up and down the hills. so i pushed the empty stroller up and down the hills hauling cole and huffing and puffing while ben raced ahead yelling, " ready! set! start your engines!" then we had to poke our fingers in all the holes that had filled up with water. i was getting a  bit exasperated, and not to mention exhausted with all of ben's antics. but then i stopped and realized that right now i am his best friend in the whole world. he wants to do everything with me and show me everything. before i know it i won't be so cool anymore. so i changed me attitude and soaked in every minute of his wild ideas and happily did whatever he wanted.

dat called? . . . dat doo?

ben is already following in his daddy's steps as an engineer. i can't tell you how many times a day ben asks me, "dat called mommy? dat doo?" i never realized how hard it is to explain things to a little person who has no idea how some things work. like smoke. what does smoke do? or flowers, what do they do? clouds, grass? etc. etc. etc. it cracks me up. sometimes i admit i get really frustrated because i can't effectively communicate to ben what things do. and sometimes he finds my answers inadequate and so he continually demands, "a DO mommy?!" until either he grasps the concept or my answer is finally acceptable.

as i type this

right now as i am typing and trying to start this blog. ben is climbing in and out from under my skirt. he thinks it is a car wash. the problem is that it is super cute right now, but when he does it when we are in line at the grocery store it is not so cute as much as it is embarrassing.

bathroom breaks

one of the things i miss the most about my life pre-kids is going to the bathroom alone. being able to thumb through a magazine while in the loo instead of having to read thomas the tank engine to your two year old while he sits on your lap and you try to take care of some business.
my mom sent me an article and a talk about why motherhood is worth it and so important. she had been nagging me to read it. it isn't that i didn't want to. it is that there is no time. so i decided that since scott was home and i am still just a week out from having baby and going to the bathroom was still and ordeal that it would be the perfect time to read that stuff. i had just sat down and pulled out the article and i hear,"mommy are you?" then i hear ben wander into my bathroom. i knew then my opportunity was gone. so he finds me in the bathroom. then he runs out and starts saying,"where she is? where she is?" as he sneaks back into the bathroom. he comes around the corner where i am and roars really loud. he repeats this fun game at least ten times. i laughed and laughed because the other option was crying.

joys of motherhood

ben hates pooping. i mean really hates it. we can't figure out if he just hates pushing or is so constipated he can't push it out. either way poop time is so not fun. he used to do a little dance and find his own private corner and do his business. now he does a really dramatic hopping/skipping dance and yells,"change my bum! change my bum!!" but of course there is no poop in the diaper yet. so when my mom was here helping after cole was born she was convinced that he was just really really constipated and needed an enema. so scott and i barricaded ourselves in the bathroom with ben for battle. we laid out towels on the floor to catch drips and had a stack of diapers and wipes at the ready. i felt so evil when i laid ben down and told him i was giving him medicine to help him poop as i was pushing the enema up his bum and squeezing out the contents. i can still remember my mother giving me enemas when i was little. pretty soon ben was doing a major major poop dance up and down and screaming for a new diaper. he broke out into a cold sweat and squeezing his "bit" (stuffed frog) saying, "bit help ben. make him feel better." we went through four disgusting poopy diapers before the ordeal was over. my mom came up and looked at me knowingly and said, "the joys of motherhood." i looked back at her totally defeated and said, "the hits just keep on coming!" it's true. some days i just can't catch a break and being a mom is horrifying. like watching your son scream in pain and knowing you made it happen, and then cleaning up the mass of poop that you also brought on yourself.

doctor's office

i am not sure where to start and stop my entries since my days are still super blurred together. i don't know that i really "go to sleep" at night because cole is still waking up every few hours to eat and ben has decided that maybe sleeping through the night isn't all it is cracked up to be. luckily, scott is still off work until tomorrow night so he got up with ben and cole at six this morning while i slept for a while longer.
today was cole's two week check up so we had to have all of us dressed and presentable by 10:45am. today i am proud to say that we did it!! ben even got in the shower with scott! hallelujah. he was such a stinky boy but refused to get in the tub. we made it to dr. duffy's office by 11:00! hooray! he has the coolest office i have ever seen. his wife has painted all the halls and every room with a different theme: winnie the pooh, toy story, alice in wonderland, dr. seuss, etc. It is so cute and looks amazing. we were in the winnie the pooh room today. cole has gained almost a whole pound since he was born. he is going to be a chunky roly poly baby before i know it. cole had to get his heel pricked again.ben was so worried about his baby brother. cole checked out to be perfect which is always reassuring. ben had to get a flu shot, but now they have a mist that they just spray up their nose instead of a shot. i wasn't sure ben was going to handle that much better than a regular shot but he did great. he even thanked the nurse after she was done!
after the doctor we went to lunch at training table as a family. when we got in the car the radio came on. ben started singing the minute to win it theme song in the back seat. i had no idea he knew the chorus, but sure enough he was singing, "get up get up. the part don't stop now!" scott and i were laughing so hard so of course ben just kept right on singing it! so funny.

a new use for this blog

everyone always tells you that time goes by way to fast. when you are young you think it is just a crazy way for people to say they love you, or tell you how grown up you are. but then you become a parent and you realize that they are right, time goes too fast. once you have kids time shifts into hyper-speed. as a stay at home mom i admit that i took pride in the fact that i was going to be at home every day with my kids and therefore cherish every minute and not miss a thing. wrong answer. i have been here almost every day, but i still feel like i have missed everything! ben is 2 and a half and cole is two weeks old! how did that happen. i was paying attention right? kinda. as a human i can't log away all the memories and moments i thought i could. i looked through the pictures on my cell phone the other day and cried when the realization hit me like a ton of bricks that ben is in fact no longer a baby. he is a big boy and has grown up so much. i feel like cole is already growing way too fast. so how on earth can i hang on to every moment/ how do i not forget? i can attempt to document as much as i can. but i find that is not enough. nor do i have the time to sort it all out, post it on our blog, plus write a journal of all the things i want to remember. hence this blog/journal was born. i want to write down the moments that pictures and video miss. i want to be able to read about my boys when they are grown and remember these fleeting days of having munchkins running wild. because although i am on my knees begging for mercy by the end of most days i konw these days will go by so fast and i will miss them. ben is so funny right now i was to freeze dry him forever so that he will always say things a little off like most toddlers do or bust out full sentences that i didn't know he knew. i really hope the big man has a dvr of our lives because that is the only way i will ever be able to relive all of these sweet moments and fast forward through the bad ones.

1 week old!!!

brothers

Miracle of miracles Benjamin still adores his baby brother! He loves to hold him, but as soon as Cole cries Ben will push him off gently and say, "Cole go take a sleep." Ben loves to hold his hand and find all of Cole's body parts. Ben is a pro at giving Cole his binki. Let's hope this trend stays. I was so worried that Ben would be super jealous and resentful of a new little creature taking up valuable attention time, but he has been great!

Finally!

Coleson Scott Bruderer
September 14, 2010
7 lbs. 0 oz.
19 inches

Cole has been thinking and trying to come for over two months now. I started having serious contractions during week 29 of my pregnancy. I ended up spending a night in labor and delivery trying to stop them. Ever since then it was normal for me to have regular contractions for hours at a time. By the time I got to 38 weeks my doctor and I thought enough was enough. On Monday he stripped my membranes hoping that would speed up the labor process. He told me to do anything I could to have just one contraction on Tuesday morning and come into the hospital at 9:00 am. He was the doctor on call and he was not going to send me home. I started contracting Monday night around 11:00 pm, but I decided to ride them out till morning so that I could sleep one more night and so I wouldn't be in labor in the middle of the night. In the morning I was still having contractions, they weren't as bad as other contractions I had had during this pregnancy. But I was done being pregnant and my doctor told me to come in a nine no matter what. So we went to the hospital. I went into a triage room to get checked out. The nurse said I was a 4, but she could stretch me to a five. After she did that my contractions picked up. My nurse said they would keep me. I told her that my doctor wouldn't let her send me home. She knew my doc was out in the hall so she decided to mess with him. As soon as she walked out into the hall all my doc said was, "Admit her." The nurse said, "I don't know, she just isn't contracting or progressing." He said, "Too bad. Admit her." She told him she was just joking and that she was admitting me. Once I was in the delivery room they weren't sure when the anesthesiologist could come in to do my epidural because there was a scheduled c-section that he had to do. But lucky me he ate his lunch fast and he came in and did it before the c-section. So I never even had painful contractions before I had my epidural! I went numb and sat there happy as a clam watching movies (What Happens in Vegas and Failure to Launch). My wonderful photographer friend Logan Walker came to photographall the excitement. About an hour and a half later I noticed I could move my legs and toes. I thought, "That's weird." But I wasn't feeling any pain and I was barely feeling pressure so I didn't say anything. (I found out later that my epidural had indeed become detached at some point. Awesome. Shortly after that I started feeling crazy pressure. So I called my nurse. She checked me and said, " Oh! You are there! Let's start pushing!" She was running around trying to find the doctor, meanwhile I swear Cole was going to go fall out! I was a little panicked. The nurse came in and we did one round of practice pushed through one contraction, then the nurse ran out to get the doctor. My mom and Ben snuck in to say hi really quick and then they went behind the curtain to wait. Dr. Hutchison came in and I pushed five time and Cole was out! Seriously, it was less than five minutes. Crazy! Ben and my mom came in shortly after. Ben was saying, "Baby cry-ning." The first thing he said about Cole was, "Baby has a weenie!" Leave it to my boy to point out the man parts. Ben fell in love just as quickly as the rest of us with Cole. All he wanted to do was sit on the bed with me and Cole and point out Cole's body parts. He kept saying, "He kinda cute!" Ben and I rode in matching wheelchairs to recovery. He had to have his garbage truck (Cole gave him the garbage truck as a peace offering) on his lap the whole time.We had the hardest time deciding on Cole's name. With Ben I just instantly knew what his name was. With Cole I was clueless. We were debating between William and Coleson for a few days. But we had to have a name on the birth certificate before we left for the hospital. It is safe to say that we were agonizing over which name to go with. So literally as we were walking out the door we still hadn't filled out the form. We looked at Ben and said, "Ben, what is that baby's name?" And very matter of factly he said, "He name is Coleson." Scott and I were stunned! We had talked about Cole and Will but never Coleson with him. So Coleson he is!