Kiawah 2014

The day after Hazel was 2 weeks old, we hopped on an airplane to South Carolina to spend the week at my mom's place on Kiawah Island. My week in Kiawah is one of the weeks I look forward to the most the entire year. Although we were nervous getting on a plane with not just Hazel, but Izzy as well, both were great on the plane. Hazel slept the entire way, so all those skeptical looks were undeserved and to the 2-year old who blabbered the entire way: I hope you are not a normal 2-year old.

At the Boston airport, getting ready  to check-in with Hazel and Izzy

I was motivated to make it to Kiawah so Hazel could meet her uncles, aunts, counsin and grandmother for the first time. I was hesitant to go, but Annie did a good job persuading us.

Hazel meets her Uncle Warren

Hazel meets her cousin Mellie

Kiawah typically involves bike rides, walks on the beach, hanging out in the ocean, hanging out on the screened-in porch, Monday night oyster roast, shrimping and crabbing, turtle patrol, looking for alligators, getting a beer at Osprey point golf club, and staring at all the massive mansions. While we did most of these things, our trip with a 2-week old was certainly very different from years past. One new activity was to travel to the end of the island and watch dolphins feed. So, we strapped Hazel into the moby wrap and walked the mile+ to see them. After waiting a good 30 minutes without any sign of dolphins and deciding that the 90+ degree temperatures were probably baking our infants, we decided to hang our heads and return home.

 

Heading out to watch dolphins feed

 

Waiting for the dolphins to show up with uncle warren

Another new activity was Battleshots, courtesy of Ashley and his fine wood-working skills. Battleshots was a game played on Jimmy Fallon's Late Night show and below is our version of the game. A tad more primitive than Jimmy's, but definitely entertaining and a new Kiawah tradition.

Uncle Ashley and his Battleshots board

Another first was using the puj tub to give Hazel a bath. She still is a champ when it comes to getting a bath -- no fussing at all and she might even enjoy the sound and feeling of warm water.

 

Bath time in the sink

Our last activity was turtle patrol (cruising the beach for a group of volunteers that monitor the turtle nests on the island). This is usually at 630am-700am in the morning and we drug ourselves out of bed on the final day at the promise of getting to see some baby loggerhead turtles being 'assisted' to the ocean. It's a cool experience. Although, this time it was a bust, there no turtles left in the nest to help waddle their way to the ocean.

Following turtle patrol with uncle Ashley and cousin Mellie

 Even though we didn't get to see dolphins or baby turtles, we did have a great time and I think Hazel (and her parents) will enjoy Kiawah much more on her second trip.

Hazel's first week

Hazel's first week went by in a flash. We had visitors arriving within hours of our return home from the hospital. We had our first visitor, Callie Elmore, take our first official family shot -- Izzy included. 

First family shot

 Hazel is also a HUGE fan of her SnugaBunny swing, thanks to Hillary and Gini Elmore. It's a nice place to plop her when your arms are tired of holding her, or you just need a 5 minute break to get dressed or scarf down some breakfast.

Steve and Krista come visit

Callie comes to visit

Stephanie comes to visit

 Hazel hangs out in her swing and acts cool as a cucumber with her Daddy's sunglasses. We haven't messed around with too many clothing options, although we have TONS of clothes. I put her into one outfit and within 60 seconds, she had pooped all over it. So, we went back to just white onesies to save myself some time and effort. Hazel's favorite outfit though appears to be her birthday suit (really, birthday suit plus diaper). She loves to hang out in just her diaper and when she promises not to use the bathroom on her blanket, completely naked.

Hangin out in my swing

41 weeks!

Our 41 week appointment was pretty exciting. At about 11am, Sean and I went in for some routine tests to make sure our little girl was still okay to incubate a little longer. They strapped me in bed with a fetal heartrate monitor and another monitor to look for contractions. About 10 minutes in to the 30 minute test, the technician came bounding into our room and said 'ummm. can you feel those??' referring to my contractions, and I said yes, but they were not painful so I thought they were the Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been having since my 2nd trimester. So, come to find out, I was having contractions every 2 minutes and after people running into my room with a panicked look on their face, surprise, my blood pressure was high. The combination of those things brought my ob/gyn walking into the room to talk us into getting induced that day because she was nervous about letting us go home for the weekend.
We were pretty easily convinced, so we went home, packed up our stuff, gave Izzy some snuggles and headed back into the hospital. The above picture is me with my hospital bag before we left the house.
We were admitted to the hospital at 3:06pm. I barfed, I got drugs, I pushed and she arrived at 6:36pm.  I was lucky enough that the ob/gyn that I saw for most of my visits stayed past her on-call shift to deliver our little girl. She was great, in fact, I could go on about all of our interactions with nurses, doctors, etc, but suffice it to say, that they were all great.

Hazel about 10 minutes old

 It took us about 30 minutes after she was born to decide on a name. We took over the labor room's whiteboard and wrote out all our 'maybe' names. I think the medical staff were a little disappointed that we hadn't chosen a name beforehand, but we narrowed it down quickly to Hazel Moseman Pfalzer. Hazel was initially my last choice, but I guess she didn't look like a Leah or a Fiona.
Hazel weighed 7 lbs and 1 ounce and 20 inches-- much to my surprise and relief. Throughout my entire pregnancy, I measured small when at the doctor's office and outside the doctor's office, I had the whole world commenting on how little my bump was -- well...take that!

Hazel about 1 hour old

Dad and Hazel

 We spent Friday and Saturday night at the hospital. During our stay, we had wonderful doctors and nurses who took great care of us. Sunday afternoon they let us have the option of staying an additional night, but with no fresh air for 36 hours and a loud, noisy hospital floor -- Sean and I both started packing our things and we went home... as a new family of 4 (including Izzy :) ).

Hazel's first car ride