Alexander James Lionhood...

Alexander James Lionhood was born on November 14th, 2010. At birth, he weighed in at 7 lbs 3 oz and was 20.5" in length. The bulk of this blog update is going to be the story of A.J.'s birth, with a bit of Billy mixed in here and there.

About a week and a half ago, Antoinette's Mother arrived in Jacksonville for the birth of her second Grandchild. We had scheduled her to arrive on Wednesday, thinking that the baby would be born Thursday or Friday of that week, since Antoinette was scheduled to be induced at that point. Over the course of the past couple months, at various points, we thought Antoinette's date for induction was Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of that week. It wasn't until after Antoinette's Mother arrived that we were told Antoinette had been bumped yet again from the induction calendar because her induction was not technically medically necessary until she was 41 weeks along. Because of that, she got moved yet again, this time until the following Tuesday (last Tuesday).

This created a significant problem since Antoinette's Mother was set to fly out of town the very next day, which meant there was a chance she wouldn't see the new baby at all. The doctor told us that the only advice she could give was to try several different tricks that could trigger oxytocin levels to increase. That increase could cause her to go into labor naturally.

So we began. Long walks, bumpy car rides, etc. Anything we could think of that according the doctor could help get this show on the road. Sure enough, after just a couple days of trying to move things along, at about 1 AM on Sunday morning, Antoinette told me that she had a particularly strong contraction. We started the clock and about 5 minutes later, the next one hit, equally strong. By the time the 4th contraction hit, they were about 4 to 5 minutes apart and I got up and began getting the bags ready to go. On contraction #5, we called the doctor's office and awaited the call back from the on-call physician. By #6, we got that call and the doctor advised us somewhere around #7 to pack up and head to the hospital.

So about an hour after contractions had started, we were loaded up in the car, left Billy and the dog with Charlotte (Antoinette's Mother), and were on our way to the hospital. The hospital was about 30 minutes from the house, so we arrived at about 2:30 in the morning. By 3 AM we had been signed in and transferred to an Observation Room on the Maternity floor where Antoinette was hooked up to some machines and checked, coming in at 3 cm. We were told that they would come back in one hour and if she was still at 3, we would be sent home to labor at the house for awhile. The thought of this was really freaking Antoinette out because the contractions and corresponding labor pains were really hitting hard.

An hour later, at about 4 AM, the nurse came in and checked Antoinette and sure enough, she had progressed to 4 cms. The process of moving her to a main suite on the floor began and in about 3 minutes they were walking her down the hall and getting her situated in a bed. While the nurse proceeded with the blood work and IV's, they had already paged the Anesthesiologist to work his way over to our floor for the epidural, which if you ask Antoinette, couldn't get there soon enough. By 4:45 AM, he was in the room, Antoinette was prepped, and the epidural was hooked up and ready to roll. Within two contractions, all pain had subsided and Antoinette was feeling like a million bucks by 5 AM, having dealt with roughly 4 hours of some pretty intense contractions.

Shortly after, Antoinette and I closed our eyes and tried to get some rest. By 7 AM, I woke up to Antoinette letting me know that the doctor said she was at 7 cms already and that it wouldn't be much longer now. They broke her water and administered some pitosin to speed up the contractions since the little guy's heart beat was a bit erratic. About 45 minutes later, Antoinette was at 10 cms and they were inserting a heart rate monitor into the baby's scalp to get a better and more accurate read in case of distress.

By 8:25 AM, everyone was ready to go and it was time to start pushing. About 15 minutes later, at 8:40 AM, the baby was out, the cord was cut, and the process of getting him situated began. Alexander James weighed in at 7 lbs 3 oz, which was the 30th percentile for infant boys, but was 20.5" long, good enough for the 75th percentile. In other words, like his older brother, he was a long and lanky baby. Both were 20.5" at birth, but A.J. was about a half pound heavier. During his checkup, he scored an 8-9 on his Apgar, which is excellent, and his heart rate had stabilized. He was hollering from the first minute of birth, but once he was comfortably under the warmer and people had stopped yanking on him, he began to settle down. That being said, every time someone pulled this kid's diaper off for anything, he would immediately respond by both peeing and pooping on them. Sort of a natural defense mechanism or something. Hilarious.

About 45 minutes later, his prints were taken and he was handed to his Mother to have his first meal. Antoinette felt pretty good, all things being considered, and the baby was in good health according to the doctor. It was a crazy morning, but both of us were the happiest parents around. Antoinette had just given birth to our second baby boy, and this one was just as healthy as the first, so what more could two parents ask for?

Later that morning, Charlotte showed up with Billy and they both got to meet the new arrival for the first time. Billy was fairly indifferent to his brother at first. He had been practicing how to say "baby", "A.J.", and "brother" for some time and got a little practice testing them out on the new guy, but he was quickly distracted with a couple new toys that he was given to help distract him from all the attention that was being paid to A.J. A few co-workers of mine showed up to say hello and give Antoinette and the baby a present, which was very nice, and a few others were unable to make it because Antoinette and the baby had to get some rest since they hadn't been asleep since the previous night due to the late labor and delivery. Plenty of thanks to Brian, Jeana, Treasa, Carli, Heath, and Hannah, all of who were either able to drop by or who have stated that you intended on making dinner for the family so Antoinette could rest or wanted to babysit the first chance you got. Your gestures are greatly appreciated.

Late that first night, the night nurse came in and had to wake Antoinette up to feed the baby. It had been 3.5 hours and A.J. hadn't woke to feed. So we woke him and she took care of that feeding, but it made me wonder since Billy was a 2 hour on the dot kind of feeder. An hour later, the doctor had to take him again for a night checkup and I let Antoinette sleep while I accompanied her down the hall with the little guy. They weighed him and checked him out again, restocking his little bassinet with all of the items he would need. He weighed in at 6 lbs 15.8 oz, having dropped about 3-4 oz since birth, roughly 18 hours before, which was perfectly normal as newborns tend to shed water weight shortly after birth.

The following morning, Antoinette was feeling great. The baby was on his way down for his circumcision and we were talking to the doctor about an early discharge. An hour later, A.J. had completed the period of recovery and observation and was getting a once over by the pediatrician, which he passed with flying colors. We left the hospital at 10 AM on Monday morning, just 26 hours after Antoinette had given birth to the little guy.

So Monday morning we brought A.J. home to introduce him to the house and give him a more formal introduction to Billy and Hunter, as well as to allow his Grandma to spend a little more time with him. He also had a chance to watch his very first Bears game (from TIVO, since Daddy was prepared just in case Mommy went into labor), which was a stomping of the Minnesota Vikings enjoyed by all the Lionhood men. Sorry, I got distracted there for a second. Anyway...on a more important note, we quickly discovered that the night in the hospital may not have been a fluke when A.J. slept 5 hours straight on the first night, followed by 6 hours straight each of the following two nights. Our pediatrician advised us that it was OK to let him sleep even thought the hospital thought otherwise. He said if he was eating well throughout the day and eliminating on schedule, then there was no cause for concern and that the hospital was just following a strict protocol for all Mothers and babies. As of this update, he's slept for at least 5-6 hours straight 80% of the time now, so we may have lucked out in this regard, but only time will truly tell.

A.J. is a very quiet baby. He cries little, spending the bulk of his day either sleeping or sitting there with his eyes wide open trying to take everything in. He'll hang out in Mom and Dad's room until he's about 10-12 weeks old, at which point we'll try and get him transferred into his crib in the boys' room. With Billy safely transitioned to his toddler bed, the crib is just sitting empty for the time being. As for A.J.'s hearing test, that should come in early December due to some issues getting it lined up before we left the hospital, but the pediatrician said he was showing no signs of not being able to hear. In fact, if you snap your fingers next to his ears when he's crying, he'll usually stop and try and look around at what's going on, so we're fairly confident that shouldn't be a problem, but I'll update the blog when the testing is complete.

At this age, A.J. has a short, reflexive smile that he's shown a couple times so far. He has good movement of all of his arms and legs, which is a sign of good health, as well as the ability to pick his head off the ground for short intervals during his "tummy time" sessions. While his vision is limited to 12-15" in front of his face and to high contrast patterns, he's clearly interested in familiar voices and faces. You can see him staring at you when you hold him, which for any parent is a great feeling that is very hard to describe in words.

Care for A.J. is fairly limited and regimented right now. Plenty of sleep, feedings, burping, and diaper changings, as well as constant supervision around his brother and the dog. He is scheduled for fairly frequent well checks with the doctor and we have to treat his umbilical and circumcision sites for the next week or so to ensure proper healing. He is also getting a sponge bath every couple days since he can't be fully immersed in the water until these two spots are fully healed up.

Finally, to wrap up some of the newborn stuff, the baby did have that first pediatrician appointment, at which point he received a clean bill of health. He has some tiny red bumps on him, which is perfectly normal in newborns in small patches that come and go in the first weeks of life. He also had his cry checked out as he has a bit of a raspiness to his tone, but the doctor said this is just normal variation in a child's cry. Surprisingly, in just 5 days, he had already recovered his lost weight since birth and surpassed his birth weight by 3 oz, coming in a 7 lbs 6 oz and moving him from the 30th to closer to the 35th percentile in weight, so the doctor advised he is cleared to sleep as long as he wants at night. While his eye color appeared to be lighter than Billy's, even looking bluish at certain angles, a closer look under the lights seems to indicate that the little guy is going to have lighter brown eyes than Daddy and Billy, more like his Momma, to go with what now is jet black hair.

So with Alexander's birth covered in pretty significant detail, let's take a look at what's going on in his brother's life, other than having a new little buddy to share the room with. On the whole, Billy has taken to his new brother quite well. He's overly interested in sharing, which has to be monitored, since he's willing to share anything from pretzels to toys, sippy cups to hugs. So far, the only outward signs of jealousy that have appeared are the occasional tugs on your pant legs if you're holding the baby, but we've been able to mitigate those with the other parent coming to the distracting rescue. Billy's had a chance to hold A.J. while sitting in his Mother and Grandmother's lap and done quite well. He's also had a chance to touch his hands and face and gets noticeably upset when the baby begins to cry, which is typically only when it's time to eat or during diaper changes (which A.J. seems to hate).

Billy is doing very well from a developmental standpoint. He's added quite a few words to his vocabulary and certainly seems to be able to understand quite a few more concepts when you explain them to him in plain language. He can show you up to half the letters in the alphabet (including handing his brother A.J. the letter "A" because "A is for A.J."), has a rudimentary understanding of how counting anywhere from three to five works, and can even identify 5 out of the 7 continents on a map that we gave him pretty consistently when asked to point them out. Not bad for an 18 month old.

His sleeping situation has continued without a hitch for the most part, aside from a couple additional terrible twos tantrums when he wants to play and not go to bed. Those are quickly addressed. They are normal, but so is the response coming from Mom and Dad, which is that they are not tolerated when in direct response to something it is time to do. It is explained to him very clearly what is being asked of him once the tantrums begin, which we don't always expect him to understand, but when the explanation is again met with resistance, discussion is over and the ability to perform the task on your own is no longer an option. He's learning. He can read the look on your face and see just how serious you are, gauging just how far he wants to push this matter, and even trying to push it with a smile to minimize any punishment that might occur when he's caught.

Since he's been sleeping in his toddler bed, he's only fallen out one night (the bed is just 12" off the ground or so, so it's not a far fall) despite the fact that he has a guardrail on the bed. That night, I actually picked him up off the ground twice and moved him back into his bed because he's such a heavy sleeper than when he falls off, he just continues his sleep on the floor. And is he ever a squirmer. Within hours of putting him to sleep, you'll find him with the covers kicked off, upside down, pillow off the bed, and out cold in some twisted up sleeping arrangement far from the one you left him in. Sometimes that flopping around at night leads to him appearing on the floor instead. On one occasion, I actually slept on the floor next to his toddler bed and woke up in the middle of the night when he came down to the floor to sleep there next to me after he realized I was in the room (I was probably snoring or something). Apparently his bed was more comfortable because that lasted for about 20 minutes before he realized he had a bed a foot away that was calling his name and he was climbing over me to get back up there before you knew it.

Billy's Grandmother had a great time with him when she was in town. She bought him a great new gift when she was here, which was a set of bongo drums. These things have several music settings with background noise from various drum related ethnic groups from around the world, such as Native American, Japanese, African, Indian, Latin American, and Carribean. Billy seems partial to the Native American and pushes the button for them so he can start dancing around the living room. It's pretty funny to watch him. If you try and change the sound to anything else, he freaks out, runs over and changes it back, and then starts dancing again.

On a final note for this very long blog update, the boys and I are going to sit down and watch our first Ohio State football game together as a family. The little guy is decked out in his "Poop on Michigan" onsie, while Billy and I are wearing more traditional Buckeye fanfare. Sorry to all you Iowa fans, but I think today is going to be a rough one for you as my newborn son, who was gracious enough to wait until after the Penn State win last week before trying to come into this world, needs to be treated to a big Buckeye victory to start out his life. And Michigan is next. Lot of company coming into town over the next few weeks, so I'll have a whole new enormous set of pictures after those visits. Until then, enjoy the slide show when I get it posted.

Last Week as a Family of Three...

Welcome to November and a quick apology for the two month delay since the last blog update. Had some issues with the website that have prevented me from getting a new video up here. The newest videos won't have a music soundtrack attached to them due to some issue with Youtube and the record label, so until that gets sorted out, they'll seem more like a Charlie Chaplin film.

In the meantime, let's get to Billy and his soon to arrive brother. Billy's growing up so fast that it's really hard to believe. As much as this Blog is for all of you, it's just as much for Antoinette and I so we can look back and see how much he's changed over the years. Crazy to believe that just a year ago, the little guy was just rolling over and holding his head up. Today he's sporting roughly half of his teeth and just recently got his first haircut. He's climbing on things, expanding his vocabulary and his understanding of the world around him daily (he can actually say the word "alligator" using four syllables), and is definitely his Daddy's son, climbing on everything, wrestling around, and watching football.

Billy has a favorite show now. We've talked about it before, but it's actually pretty funny because he gets so excited now over it. It's not football, Elmo, Sesame Street, cartoons, or some Disney movie. Nope. None of the above. His favorite TV show is Bill O'Reilly. How funny!!! We ask him if he wants to go watch Bill O'Reilly on TV and he stops what he's doing, begins shaking his head yes, and then runs into the living room at high speed and stands right in front of the TV. Then he waits there until we turn it on and start The Factor. He immediately starts pointing at Bill when he pops up on the screen and gets upset when he shifts to the other guests. It's really hilarious.

He also seems to really enjoy his books. Of all his toys, his books are clearly his favorite. He's often rooting around in his toy boxes and pulling one toy out of after another, only to pop out from the box with a book in his hand that's about trucks or random objects. He loves to play games with those where you ask him where any number of objects are on a page that could have up to 20-30 different objects on it and let him pick out the one you ask him about. We constantly practice saying each word, but they still sound awful similar to someone who doesn't live in our house. To us, we find that we can understand the point he's getting across more often than not, even if his annunciation is a bit limited.

Since the last blog update, we've had a boatload of new adventures. For one thing, Billy is old enough to hit up the park now. We have a couple in our subdivision, each with slides and rock climbing walls, tunnels and other fun stuff for kids. Even at just 18 months, Billy is all over those suckers. He's climbing up the stairs, running across the bridges, and heading down the slides (with some assistance for that part, of course). While he was reluctant at first, when his cousins were in town, watching his big cousin Ricky do big kid things meant he certainly had to give it a shot. He seems to learn quick from watching his cousins do something he can't. That's basically how he picked up crawling, walking, and most recently, jumping off furniture. Wow...

About a month ago, we took a visit to a local restaurant down here. It's one of Antoinette and I's favorites. A quiet little oceanfront restaurant called Sliders in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island. If you get a nice night, you can't beat it. Great breeze off the ocean with the waves and the smell of the surf just a couple hundred yards away. Outdoor patio dining with some live music next to a giant tiki bar. Food's pretty good, too. Anyway, as Billy gets older and we visit the place, he seems to dig the music more and more. One of these most recent visits in September, we had the pleasure of listening to a young lady playing the guitar and she was pretty good. So after dinner, we head over to the stage and Billy starts bouncing around in my arms. Now this kid absolutely loves to dance, so this wasn't a big shock to Antoinette and I, so we put him down. Well he ran right over to the stage and looked up at this lady who was now looking down at him, and he starts dancing up a storm. People around him from the tables to the bar are stopping what they're doing and watching this little 18 month old tapping his feet and swinging his arms to the beat. It was so funny. The girl said she was going to take a break, but for her #1 fan, she had no choice but to sing another song just for him, so off she went and Billy starting jumping all over the place. After she was done, she got a resounding round of applause from the little guy while he was getting applause of his own from the diners.

So I mentioned that Billy was learning a lot from his cousins, which was thanks to my brother and his wife deciding to take a little visit down to Jacksonville in mid October. This was just their second time visiting Jacksonville and the first time where they were going to get some really nice weather, so it really couldn't have gone any better. We had a chance to hit the beach a couple times to let the kids build sand castles and find shark's teeth, got to visit the local museum where the kids had a chance to see automated dinosaurs, play in little water tanks, and even run around in a giant tree house, and had an opportunity to go out to eat as a big family (all eight of us) to a couple of very nice waterfront restaurants to watch the sunset while we ate dinner. To top it all off, we had a chance to take them down to St. Augustine for their first time, which is always fun. We were able to stop at the Castillo San Marco so the kids could see real cannons and a three hundred year old fort, not to mention a little walk down St. George Street before heading home and calling it a week. Overall, Billy simply had a blast with his cousins, practically trying to climb out of his crib when we told him his cousins were waiting for him in the living room each morning.

Our little dancing machine had his 18 month checkup and everything looks good. He's 100% healthy, growing like a weed, and getting taller and leaner every day. He's now in the 80th percentile in height and the 45th in weight, meaning he actually lost weight since his last visit. Doc says that's perfectly normal since he's flying around like a bat out of Hell all day long. He's still eating well and healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, chicken breast, milk, water, etc. And of course there's desert every now and then with some cookies, cake, Popsicles, etc. He seems to have dropped most of his baby fat at this point, most likely from being so active, and you can see the little guy's muscles flexing in his legs when he's running around in his diaper. Getting back to Popsicles and cousins, Billy has fallen on his face while tearing around the house on multiple occasions, splitting his lip off the tile like crazy. Give that kid a Popsicle and when he's done, it's like nothing ever happened. He's back wrestling with his cousins or dancing in the living room or trying to tackle his Uncle.

In the funny story category, we decided we would take Billy, who is fascinated with airplanes, to the Air and Water Show in Jacksonville. It's a military town with a couple of very large military bases and we've been to the air show a couple times in the past, so we figured he'd really get a kick out of it. We packed up chairs, umbrellas, food, drinks, etc. Everything you could imagine. We head out to the local base and decide to setup shop at the Target right next door where we wouldn't be limited by what you can or can't bring onto a Naval Air Station. Here's a plane and there's a plane. Billy's very excited. There goes an A-10 Warthog, flying low and keeping his attention. Very exciting indeed. So I set up an umbrella for Antoinette and while I'm putting it in the ground, Billy's about 8-10 feet behind me playing with a cooler or something. To all of our dismay, there is an F-18 sitting on the runway about a quarter mile away with his engine pointed right at us while he waits to take off. BOOM!!!!!!!! That sucker opens up and starts hauling down the runway and creates a noise so loud it scared the crap out of me. I immediately turn for Billy to make sure his ears are covered and here comes this little guy running toward us scared out of his mind. Didn't know that airplanes made those kind of noises, I guess. Well, that plane looped over our head a couple times and it was way too loud so we decided to pack up and leave. We made it over to a local park and had a picnic instead where we could see the planes from a distance, occasionally looping over our heads to make another pass at the Air Base. Might have to wait a few more years before we try that again.

And then of course there was Halloween. Billy went as a Bumblebee last year, but this year, he was none other than Brian Urlacher for Halloween. We decked him out in his onsie, threw on a pair of dark blue sweat pants, and added a little eye black to complete the picture. His basket was a little football to put his candy in and he was ready to go. To finish getting ready, we threw an orange shirt on Antoinette, put some eyes and a mouth on her and turned her pregnant belly into a pumpkin, brought out a giant wheelbarrow (more for Antoinette than Billy at 9 months pregnant) and off we went. Billy went up to a few doors with the neighbor kids and didn't really know what was going on, but got scared pretty good by one of the neighbors when they came to the door in a scary outfit. Candy seemed to be a pretty good cure for what ailed him though and by the end of the night, he was back in the mix walking with Daddy door to door from then on.

The boys' room is nearly complete now. We have names mounted over the doors to their closets, added a giant Ohio State logo on the wall, hung the Ohio State pictures, ordered some additional Ohio State items to finish up the room, and bought Billy his first toddler bed, so now he can use the Ohio State blanket that his Nanny gave him. Speaking of that toddler bed, we figured we'd buy this bed for him now, get him used to looking at it and maybe reading or playing in it, and then by January, when the baby was ready to transition to the bedroom and out of the bassinet, Billy would've taken a couple naps in the toddler bed and the transition would be a much smoother one. We were wrong. Within a week of buying the toddler bed, Antoinette already had Billy taking his naps in it. Granted, he half fell out the first time we tried this, with Antoinette walking in to check on him and finding him with his legs over the side and resting on the floor with his chest and face on the bed...out cold. Anyway, he's doing much better now and while I'm typing this out, he's already sleeping in the bed for the first time tonight. That's 18 months to transition out of a crib and into a toddler bed for naps and nighttime sleeping. Excellent!!!

On a final note on Billy, his cousin (my cousin, so his cousin once removed or something like that) and her boyfriend have just moved down to Jacksonville this past weekend, so we've had them over a couple times and guess what? Billy absolutely loves his cousin. Carli seems like she never runs out of gas chasing the kid all over the place. Most people play with him for an hour at most before he wears them out, but she was still going strong after a couple hours the first night at my house. Now that we have them all moved in and just 15 minutes from us, I'm sure Billy and his brother will be excited to see them a whole lot more.

Speaking of his brother, the new baby finally has a new name. We decided on it quite a while ago, but have waited until now to break it out. The new baby's name will be Alexander James Lionhood and we'll call him A.J. I had to get this blog update in before his arrival since he'll be here before you know it with Antoinette's due date coming up on Tuesday. I'm sure the next update will be almost entirely devoted to our new arrival and his adjustment into the house, time with his Grandma who is coming to town soon, interaction with Billy, and Antoinette's overall well being, among other things.

He's obviously growing well. Last doctor visit was great, but Antoinette has barely begun the process of walking down that road to delivery. On the next visit, we'll discuss induction dates, but for now, we're just waiting him out. Like his brother Billy, he doesn't seem all that interested in leaving the current place he calls home. We've had a labor pain or two a couple times that started the clock, but they always seem to fall away without ever getting closer together.

Like all babies, A.J. has 300 bones in his body, which will likely fuse into a more compact and efficient 206 by adulthood. He's probably in the 19-20" range in height (Billy was 21.5" I want to say) and likely weighs 7-8 lbs (Billy was 6 pounds 13 ounces, I think). His pudge is starting to come in all around him to keep his little body nice and warm, which he's going to need in order to deal with a frosty Florida winter. He should have all of his parts from eyebrows to a nose, mouth to fingernails, arms and legs. It should all be in place. While his eyes are developed and fully intact, they won't exactly work correctly until he's nearly 8 weeks old, at which point he'll finally be able to focus.

Preparation for this little guy is in full swing. We have bags packed, car seats ready, action plans in place, hospital registrations complete, work schedules sorted, call trees ready, swings and bassinets built, infant clothes and diapers stocked and ready to go, etc. At this point, it's a tying up loose ends waiting game, as we count down the time until this little guy decides he's ready to be welcomed into the world.

This is the final blog update with just three of us. For the next one, we'll be a family of four. Expect that to come in the next couple weeks and be short and sweet, and more or less an explanation of A.J.'s story. Until then, enjoy this montage of pics.