The Boys - Spring 2011

Ribbon Dot Boy Birth Announcement

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Welcome Eli!!

Announcing our newest edition!!!
Elijah Garrett Claypool was born on
March 26 at 8:52pm.
He weighed in at 7lbs 14oz, 20.5".
He joined us a very welcomed 2 weeks early!!

After 2 false alarm trips into the ER in a week, we were getting antsy for his arrival. Turns out, all I had to do was practice jumping with Jack (seriously...one jump did the trick), and my water broke at home on Saturday afternoon. It was a pretty quick and easy delivery, in fact, our nurse had gone on break thinking it would be a few hours at least before we met our little guy. She came back from break to quite a surprise.

As for Jack, he is going through quite an adjustment. We are definitely seeing a whole new side of him. We had been worried that he wouldn't really understand the new baby being home with us - especially seeing mommy give so much attention to someone besides him. He is having some jealousy issues, but we are hoping they will be short lived, and he will start to be happy about his new little brother. There have been a couple cute little moments between them, but for the most part, Jack is very suspicious of this new little bundle that cries and gets in the way of him crawling under the swing (because today he actually crawled under the swing - while Eli was in it - while it was swinging - and yes, it did hit him in the head...awesome).

Anyway, here are just a few pics of Eli's first days in the world...

It's Been A While...

Somehow time flew by, and we haven't posted since November. The holidays were hectic and crazy with snippets of family time in Philadelphia and West Michigan that we managed to squeeze in despite mother nature's attempts to keep us barricaded in by blizzards up here in New England.

Baby boy Claypool will be joining us sometime in the next 6-8 weeks. This pregnancy has definitely been a world better than with Jack. I still get boughts of nausea, but I am better medicated this time around, and find that it's much more tolerable than before. We haven't been able to settle on a name for this little guy yet. Nothing seems to be that perfect name...oh well, there's still time.

Our next big challenge comes on Friday for John as he will be having back surgery (discectomy and laminectomy) to repair his spinal stenosis and two bulging discs in his lower back. This has been getting progressively worse over the past couple years, and more conservative treatments have been unsuccessful. After an overnight stay, he will home recovering for 2 weeks, then back to work, but even then, no lifting for 2 months. Hopefully Jack will understand why Daddy can't pick him up and play with him like usual, and hopefully a fully pregnant Mommy can fill the gap and baby #2 can hang in there until Daddy is fully recovered. : )