Andrew Earnest Russell

Andrew was born on his due date, August 30th, 2013 at 11:15 am. He weighed 9 lb 9 oz and was 20.5 inches long.

I had gone into labor the evening before but there was little progression through the night. Around 5 am on Friday morning, the contractions became stronger and closer and we decided to go to Sibley Hospital around 7 am. The ob/gyn practice has about five doctors and a couple more who are not members of the practice who rotate through the on-call schedule. As chances would have it, the same doctor who delivered Louis was on-call to deliver Andrew (Dr. Stany). We were also in the exact same delivery room as we were for Louis. There was a tense moment at the end of the delivery where Andrew’s should got stuck (shoulder dystocia) but Dr. Stany delivered him without any harm to Andrew or me.

Because we arrived at the beginning of a shift we had the same fantastic delivery nurse for the whole process.

The hospital offered baby portraits which I gladly purchased (and wish had been available for Louis).

Grandma Brooks had arrived in town the previous Tuesday so she watched Louis while Matt and I were in the hospital.

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Louis visited both evenings of our stay and was very excited to meet Andrew. From the start he has been very gentle with Andrew, softly patting his head or tickling his feet.

Sugar Plums

At the end of August, with Andrew’s birth, Louis said farewell to attending Sugar Plums on a daily basis. Louis enrolled at Sugar Plums when he was three months old. For most of his time there Ms. Olga was one of his teachers and she moved with him as he graduated from classroom to classroom (as a “Gumdrop”).

A few months ago he graduated to a classroom with new teachers that took pictures of the kids’ activities on a weekly, if not daily basis. Pictured below are two of his new teachers in the “Lemondrops” classroom and some classmates that have been with him since almost his first day (from left to right: Ms. Fatou, Ethan, Eliana, Nina, Ms. Yolanda).

Below are pictures of of the activities and classmates in the Lemondrops classroom. 

 

In recent weeks, Louis’s favorite toy was a large garbage truck, shown below:

Dance Moves

This video was taken the day we brought Andrew home from the hospital. Louis was very glad to have his parents home from the hospital and was fascinated by his little brother. Periodically he checks on Andrew by patting him or giving him a kiss on the head.

Louis is a ball of energy and loves to climb, jump, and “crash” into things. Seemingly overnight his vocabulary and personality have exploded on the scene. He can say full sentences and he parrots new words. With his expanding vocabulary he impresses us on a daily basis with the events and concepts he remembers.

Louis has been interested in trucks for several months but now he can distinguish between lawnmowers, garbage trucks, bulldozers (“dozers”), dump trucks, etc. Of these, his current favorite is the garbage truck. This is probably because his bedroom window overlooks the driveway into the parking garage of our building. On lucky days he watches a garbage truck lift and dump containers of garbage almost at eye level. He also sees garbage trucks empty containers at the apartment building across the street. The process impresses him enough to say “wow,” and more recently, “amazing.”