mini me Monday: Freddie's birth story

I have been thankful since the moment I wrote it down that I have Hendrik's birth story on record - obviously one of the most momentous occasions of my life, and also something that made me feel so strong and proud (and yet some of the details manage to get hazy in my memory, of course the only reason that anyone would attempt to do it a second time, right?) - that I knew I wanted to write Freddie's too. But it's such a big thing - and not just because his was a 24+ hour process - that it was hard to get started. I was motivated by the ladies at The Girl Next Door to make it happen though, so I set an end of October goal for myself, and here we are! 

 

I'll place the whole thing after the break because it is LONG and try as I might I just couldn't shorten it. Mostly I wrote it for me to have all of those memories on paper (as it were), but I always find it fascinating to read any birth story of any variety, and found it very encouraging and empowering to read personal accounts like this before I went through it myself, so I thought I'd share here as well. 

Click through if you have some time/inclination to read, but otherwise, here's the shortest version I could come up with - some things I will always remember about Freddie's birth:

• The nurse helping me to the bathroom in between contractions and commenting how nice my toenail polish looked - so funny because I remember with Hendrik's delivery looking at my toes in the throes of it and thinking "oh darn, I was supposed to get that pedicure before the baby came, but he came early - and my toes look terrible!" I was not going to make that mistake again, and I didn't, ha! 
• Being between pushes and wondering what happened to Peter - with him coming back from the bathroom wiping his eyes with toilet paper and saying, "they really should have kleenex in here" - this was so momentous for both of us, the stress and pain at the tail end of a very long day/night of labor but also the excitement and anticipation of finally having a second child in our family.
• How absolutely tiny this baby felt when he was finally placed on my chest - I couldn't believe I had ever held one so small, and indeed it turned out that he was a pound smaller than Hendrik at birth.
• How absolutely huge and long-legged Hendrik seemed when he came into our recovery room to meet his baby brother a few hours later.
• The doctor and nurses asking us, "and what's his name?!" when he was screaming on my chest and they were doing all of the cord cutting and cleanup, and Peter and I meeting eyes across the chaos and nodding. After all of our back and forth all spring and summer about what to name "baby brother": yep, Freddie it is. 💙💙💙
  

a Freddie-cakes first birthday party

I love a good party theme, and when it came to celebrating Freddie's 1st last week, I had a built-in one ready to go: one of his silly nicknames from early on has been Freddie-Cakes, so what better theme than... cake!

It was a casual family gathering, so I kept things pretty simple with Paperless Post invites, a crockpot bbq dinner, and a balloon garland + banner as the main decor, which we set up in the outdoor tent space at our church. The best part of course was the cake display - my dad, our resident family cake baker, made my theme dreams come true by baking 3 different ones for us: chocolate with oreo mousse filling, butter cake with raspberry mouse and nutella frosting, and carrot cake (which might sound less exciting compared to the others, but his carrot cake is good). I don't super go in for the Pinterest-y smash cake thing, but Freddie loves textures of things so I thought he'd probably get a kick out of going at one, so I used a healthy-ish banana bread mix in a mini pan, frosted it up (yes, he got plenty o' sugar there), and let him at it. And yes, he loved it.

What fun - even if kind of mindblowing - to celebrate our Freddie's first! Didn't manage to get everything into a photo, but here's all of the supplies I used - plus cakes courtesy of my dad of course. Oh, and the tablecloth I actually dug up from Hendrik's first birthday party, where - surprise, surprise - the theme was pie.

invitations: Paperless Post

here for the cake tee: Stormy Ray on Etsy

banner: DIYed with Target garland + Squeakily Stickers decals

high-chair balloon garland: Glamfetti Co on Etsy

tassel banner: Glamfetti Co on Etsy

cake stands: Target (similar)

cake plates: Meri Meri

1 candle: Meri Meri

confetti napkins: Target

1 year of Freddie!

First birthdays bring out all of the clichés: time flies, certainly, and the days are long, but the years are short, for sure. Case-in-point is this lineup of all of Freddie's monthly photos. Gosh, it feels like a long time ago since I took that "one" photo - and what a different little guy he is from that time, in personality, playfulness, chunkiness, and dare I say even cuteness! - yet it's also hard to fathom how it's been a whole year since he arrived in our lives.  

Freddie at 12 months is generally easygoing and usually quite happy, especially when he spots flags or construction machines to point at or wave to or when he manages to crawl to Ginger in time to grab a chunk of fur before she escapes him - and except when he's waiting on anyone to cut up his food. Kid likes to eat any and all things, and NOW. He is sweet and smiley, doesn't have any discernable words (aside from "uh oh") but is still clear on indicating what he thinks or wants (lately it's lunging toward the Stanley the Builder book in order to request another reading, or squealing when I pick up the baby carrier to take him outside for a little stroll to look at said construction machines and flags), and he just brings joy to us all. 

Having a baby again - especially when so used to the big kid stage - has had its difficulties and anxieties for sure, but all I can think about today (aside from how glad I am that I'm never doing a 24-hour marathon labor/delivery again) is how lucky we are to have this little mister.

Also having all of the nostalgia for when Hendrik turned one after comparing his 1-year post to this one - so fun!

mini me Monday: hand-me-down style

Adding a second boy to the family comes with lots of wardrobe fun - there's the joy of dressing them in big brother/little brother gear (allll the matching stripes from Primary.com, of course, and also pjs and initial hats and sibling tees/onesies, like these mini/big latest acquisitions - might have also gotten the mom one), and then the maybe even greater joy of dressing Freddie in Hendrik's hand-me-downs. I had saved just a few very favorite things in a bin in the basement, and now not much beats getting to dress Freddie in them and compare our 2022 photos with the ones of Hendrik in 2014. Here's a little who wore it best roundup...

Unfortunately I somehow mixed some of the hand-me-downs in with the wrong sizes, so we came to them a bit late, like the plaid shirt and overalls, and only got one or two Freddie wears out of them, but you know I had to prop him up for a photo to mark the occasion (even in the same rocking chair some of the time!). Also kind of funny to see the side-by-sides when Hendrik was younger in the photo than Freddie in the comparison - makes Freddie look so huge, but I'm pretty sure he's going to be smaller than Hendrik in the end. He did start out a whole pound smaller at birth! And current-day Hendrik is getting SO tall.

Fun to have all of this cuteness back in my life, but of course all of it is old (mostly Baby Gap, a long-time fave of mine) - but I linked a few similar pieces below that would bring some 2022-available cuteness too!

mini me Monday: Freddie at 6 months!

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's something to put a lot of love in our hearts here: 6 months of Freddie 💖 He had his 1/2 birthday on Friday (celebrated with a nice helping of mashed avocado and then pureed pears for dessert), and it's hard to believe how quickly it feels like he's always been here as the completion of our family - yet how different our lives are from just 6 months ago, and from a year ago when we first told Hendrik that he was going to be a big brother.

Also hard to believe what a different creature he is already from that first month's photo, going from this scrawny but sweet little lump that couldn't do much to a baby who can hold his head up to watch and interact with the world and has food and toy preferences and particular things that make him laugh. There have been many long days (and nights!!) to get to this point, yet what a short amount of time to develop all of that - the saying "the days are long but the years are short" is a saying for a reason, clearly. 

At 6 months Freddie continues to be so smiley and sweet. He loves observing the world in general, and especially watching his big brother do anything; gnawing on a couple of particular teethers but mostly his hands (can almost get 2 fists in at once), anyone else's hands, or the beads of his pacifier clip; eating carrots, avocado, oatmeal, beans, any kind of fruit (and gets kind of mad when he sees us eating and he doesn't get to); singing Wheels on the Bus and Itsy Bitsy Spider; and talking to mommy and running his hands through her hair when laying on the changing table.

He's developing a delightful chunkiness and starting to get quite good at supported sitting, not so good at rolling yet since he still kind of hates tummy time, but he has rolled over a couple of times on his own. He finally is on a fairly consistent nap/eating schedule over the last couple of weeks, and thankfully has (mostly) been sleeping through the night since January, with some very painful weeks to get us there... Most impressive trick is getting his own pacifier into his mouth pretty consistently - he *loves* that thing - but we are impressed by and gush at  pretty much everything he does, from his baby noises to his toy grabbing to his attempts at making his big brother laugh. Can't get enough of that Freddie-cakes!

Speaking of big brother: admittedly, when I bought these monthly stickers it was partly to track Freddie's growth but also in big part so that I could do exactly this - a comparison image to Hendrik's first six months! I wasn't sure how much they looked alike at first, but I think they definitely look like brothers by the 6-month mark, don't you?

Freddie at one month

Freddie is a month old already! It's fun to see how much he's changed and grown and somehow gotten even more cute over the last month, but also makes me a little sad because he's never going to be this tiny again... He is just such a delightfully snuggly little peanut, and we can't get enough of that part. (Would love to sleep more at night though.)

The first 2 weeks were a true honeymoon period with how much he slept and how little he cried, though the feeding every 2-3 hours kept me quite busy. All of his eating and snoozing paid off though, with great weight gain over the month - he was above birth weight already at his 5-day-old weigh-in with the pediatrician, and at his 3-month appointment he measured 8lbs, 9 oz - over 2 pounds above birth weight! With the pudgier cheeks and legs he’s looking more and more like Hendrik (he started out a full pound smaller at birth, so there was a little catching up to do in cheek pudge).

At 2 weeks there was a definite change with a bit more fussiness (some gassy tummy troubles is usually the main source), but also with more alert time. Weeks 3-4 brought much more focus with his eyes - now he actually looks at the stuff dangling from his car seat and above his changing table, and he really is into his Lovevery kit, especially the black & white cards - and maybe even some actual responses to seeing his people. Though I've got the bittersweet feelings about the fleeting tiny baby days, it's so rewarding to see him grow and start to get a little more interaction.

Still adjusting across the board to family-of-4 life in how to divide attention, have a 7-year-old who has been extra in my personal space lately, oh and have time for a spouse... but we've had some very fun bright spots with our new crew in enjoying family movie night (okay, Freddie slept through the whole thing) and several back yard bonfires. Being with my big boys and having my baby wrapped up against my chest in his little carrier, or going on walks or farmer's market outings with all of us - this is what powered me through the tough moments of pregnancy (not to mention labor & delivery), and cheesy as it is, I'm trying to make sure to create "sense memories" of noting the smells, touches, sights of it all.

Photos are from 10 days old and then one month - you can see how he's filling that onesie much more now. And for funsies, here are some of our fave products at this stage:

around the house: nursery tour

Have been so excited to finish up and officially share baby brother's nursery - so much that I already put it on Instagram, but I wanted to save the blog post to have a few things scheduled in advance for when he arrived... So here's the official reveal + sources!

The ideas came together very quickly some time ago, since we've known for ages (since February) that we were having a boy, and it made sense to utilize almost all of the same furnishing from Hendrik's nursery, with a few accessory updates. But the implementation didn't happen until end of July because the room had been my mini Peloton studio since early last fall... before we knew baby brother was even a possibility. My brother and Peter eventually were able to muscle that veeerrry heavy bike down two flights of stairs, and it's now set up in our low-ceilinged, unfinished basement. A bit sad to lose my exercise room with a view, but it's nice and cool down there, not to mention that getting to have this baby nursery is 100% worth it!

Hendrik started coming in and reading old board books in the chair as soon as the bookshelf was set up, to get all prepared for his new role - and we're all thrilled to finally have the little one in here now.

Looking for any of the sources? See below... I've indicated what we re-used and what's new; I'm loving how it is similar to the previous setup (which I always loved) but still feels refreshed for a new little guy to have a space of his own.

Wall color: Benjamin Moore gray horse
Crib: Babyletto (old)
Chair: Pottery Barn Kids (old; similar)
Rug: West Elm
Bookshelf: Wayfair (similar)
Bookends: Target
Lamp: West Elm (old; similar)
Shelf baskets: Target
Rattan animal decor: Target (old; similar)
Pouf: Target
Side table: Target (old; similar)
Dresser: Ikea (with replacement pulls similar to this)
Dresser basket: Target
Changing pad cover: Pottery Barn Kids (old; similar)
Map: vintage buy for H's nursery (similar, similar)
Rainbow print: Urban Outfitters (similar, similar)
Mobile: West Elm x PB Kids
Crib sheet: West Elm
Blanket: Crate & Kids (similar)
Hamper basket: H&M (similar, similar)
Stuffed giraffe: Melissa & Doug
Throw pillow: Dwell (old; similar)
Diaper pail: Munchkin

mini me Monday: introducing Freddie!

Meet Freddie! Our long-awaited baby brother is finally here, and this sweet little peanut really brings the "mini" to mini me, coming in at a full pound smaller than Hendrik at birth, and about a million times smaller than him at present...

I love a good name origin story, so here's his: I've always wanted to name a girl in the tradition of my matriarchal family, where the name lineage starts with my great grandma Angeline, then grandma Evangeline, mom Angelea (and then I'm Angeline as well). When we found out we would be having another boy I realized we were going to have to find another way... which in the end (once we got over the fact that it's awfully similar to the name Hendrik) was to take my great grandma's middle name, Fredereka, and give him the male version. Bonus that there is a Frederik in the family tree on Peter's side too, plus the nickname Freddie is ADORABLE. (If I may say so myself.) Wasn't sure I would ever get to have any baby #2, so to get to name him in honor of my own namesake still makes me feel so lucky every time. His middle name is in honor of a couple of David's in our lives, my grandpa and Peter's brother.

It was a long and tiring labor, but worth it a million times over to finally meet Freddie and have this perfect little bundle in our arms. We're all tired, as to be expected, but doing great otherwise. Hendrik has been incredibly sweet, already reading him many board books a day and narrating our strolls around the neighborhood to fill him in on everything, though we certainly are seeing some high emotions from everyone at times - it's a big adjustment across the board.

Now back to sniffing my baby (cannot help myself), recreating photos/poses of Freddie in Hendrik's old gear, and feeding... so much feeding. That does provide ample time for spamming Instagram with big brother and his mini though, if you ever need another hit of sweetness to bring a smile to your day.

around the house: waiting for baby

While it's great to go into labor & delivery with a positive experience under my belt this time around, there's actually something to be said for being kinda clueless with the first baby. I fully expected to go overdue with Hendrik, so delivering at 39 weeks was a nice surprise - but now that has given me some expectations, and going into week 39 with this pregnancy, last weekend started to feel realllly long, especially as I started having some symptoms that (I realized only in retrospect) led up to Hendrik's delivery... but still no baby. Expectations are leading to much impatience here!

Here are some things I found to occupy myself with while on baby watch - trying to find a combination of relaxing/resting but also keeping my mind + hands busy and distracted! Especially as I had plenty of time to myself, with Hendrik off having fun at the cottage with my parents and at the golf course with Peter...

From the couch

• Watched tons of Olympics, of course
• Read the delightful One Last Stop and then most of Good Girl, Bad Blood 
• Wrote and scheduled ahead some blog posts, including some book reviews and a full nursery reveal
• Painted my nails with my favorite Olive & June color, GH
• Annnnnd maybe did a bit of online shopping for a few last-minute postpartum wants/needs

Around the house

• Did several random closet clean-outs, and even got the junk drawer looking amazing thanks to these super inexpensive organizer trays
• Also did some deep cleans of appliances - super easy/low effort, but I just never remember to get around to them! Did the dishwasher, the disposal, and even the washing machine with some handy tablets that just have to be tossed in 
• Finished the last couple of baby prep things: washing the pieces/parts for the pump, setting up our borrowed Mamaroo swing, getting the baby monitor into place
• Strolled on the treadmill (too hot outside) a bunch of times while watching Lupin season 2 - maybe this will get the baby on the move??

In the kitchen

I'm not particularly into freezer meal prep (or into it at all, to be honest), but my nesting instinct is all about the baked goods, I guess...

• Made a double batch of energy balls - to make sure there are still some left by the time the baby actually arrives - as a perfect snack for when we have our hands full
• Used some more of the blueberries Peter & Hendrik went to pick with this muffin recipe - super quick and easy and delish
• And used a zucchini delivered by my in-laws to make this one-bowl zucchini bread

In the driveway

• In a last minute surprise: said goodbye to our Subaru last Friday, the first car we officially bought together, and upgraded to have a 3rd row of seats in a bigger vehicle - not to mention some luxuries I am very pleased with (as the August weather headed toward 90 degrees I was tempted to just go out there and sit on my cooled seats, for one thing...)
• Reinstalled the baby seat in the new car, next to big brother's booster - and then took H for a little drive just for fun to test it all out, and listen to some Queen (his latest music obsession)

And now CLEARLY we are ready - come on, baby brother!

around the house: Hendrik's room

Though I haven't shared it yet, Hendrik's room in our new house was the first to be ready for it, for several reasons: (1) it was the most "done" room in our old house to begin with, (2) its size in the new house most closely matched the old out of any (vs. the living room, for instance, which is now twice the size and required much new furniture considerations), and (3) it needed to be settled the soonest - nap time is crucial! Now thanks to a little collaboration with Minted to style some of their new home products, I've finally photographed it to share:

All the furniture in the room, and most of the overall look/feel, is fairly similar to his nursery in our old house, which was nice continuity for him and also nice for me because I loved his nursery so much. In this iteration, to the loose travel/safari theme, I've added a couple of new accessories, most notably the fun woven animal bust, cute lion pillow, festive garlands, and statement-making lampshade from Minted. Still one of my favorite rooms in the house, though already starting to think about when we'll need to update to more of a big-boy space with a regular bed...

Sources:
Wall color: grey horse by Benjamin Moore
Crib: Baby Mod
Chandelier lampshade: c/o Minted
Dresser: Ikea
Drawer pulls: Lee Valley
Bookshelf: Ikea
Rocker: Pottery Barn Kids
Side table: Target (similar)
Footstool: Fab.com (similar)
Rug: West Elm
Faux sheepskin: Ikea
Crib sheet: Dwell Studio (similar)
Crib quilt: Pottery Barn Kids
Throw pillow: Dwell Studio (similar)
Blanket: TJ Maxx (similar)
Woven animal head: Target (similar, or also cute)
Woven hamper/basket: Land of Nod
Map: vintage school map from Tigertree, also check Etsy, or similar (non-vintage)
Giraffe: Amazon
Diaper caddy: Etsy
Lamp: West Elm (similar)
Wire globe: Pottery Barn Kids
House shadow box: Michaels (similar)
Elephant print: Etsy
Frame: Target
Garlands: wool balls (similar) strung on baker's twine