Happy 2 month birthday to Simran!

Oh yeah...and Merry Christmas and Happy 2010!!! As you can see from my lack of blog posts, Simran has been keeping us very BUSY!!

I can't believe she is two months old already! And she is such a different baby than the boys were. The main thing I remember about the boys is how mellow they both were and how they loved to SLEEP, ALL the time, I might add. Simran doesn't like to sleep that much, during the day anyway. Fortunately, he is sleeping pretty well at night.

She was quite fussy during her first few weeks and we've attributed this to reflux. She is on medication (Zantac) twice a day and it is working quite nicely :)


When I look at her and talk to her, she responds by smiling and she looks at me with her big eyes and tries to figure out what I'm saying to her. She is very alert for only being 8 weeks old!


The boys are having a lot of fun with her. They love to give to snuggle and kiss her when they come home from school. It's so helpful to have them in school right now, especially since Simran does like to be held a lot during the day. It's hard for me to play with the boys and nurse/pay attention to Simi...harder than I thought it would be! But the boys are adjusting well. I'm adjusting well too, still getting used to my lack of independence that I deeply enjoyed when the boys left for school in the morning. I'm having to prioritize my errands so I'm not lugging the heavy carseat in and out the grocery store, post office, etc...with time everything will get easier, I hope!

Right now, everyone is enjoying watching little Simi smile and occasionally 'coo' while watching her mobile.

My mom visited for a couple of weeks and enjoyed her time with Simi and the boys. It was so nice to have her around and help take care of Simi (mainly to hold her b/c she loves being held) while Tim was at work.

We didn't venture out and do too much simply b/c I was too tired and Simi was so little. But we did take a trip to the Hakone hot springs near Mt. Fuji and had a blast!

Holiday Season 2009

This holiday season has definitely been eventful with two toddler boys running around and our little Simran turning two weeks old on Christmas!

The boys were absolutely spoiled, as usual, and received many of the Christmas gifts they had asked for. They opened gifts from family and friends on Christmas Eve and opened gifts from Santa on Christmas morning. The rest of the morning was spent taking out all of these gifts from their boxes, what a difficult task!! We needed a screwdriver to remove some of the toys from their boxes!

We were fortunate to spend Christmas and New Year's with friends on base. We went to Joe and Jen Insley's home for Christmas dinner and had a great time. Their daughter Isabel and Arjun are only a couple months apart in age and get along very well. They have fun playing together and let Rowen in on the fun sometimes too :)

On New Year's Eve, we and the Insley's and went to Jeff and Linda Walker's house. Linda is a good friend of mine and is also my OB/surgeon. She took such great care of me during my pregnancy and was my surgeon during my c-section. It's been so nice having my friend be my doctor as well!
NYE was pretty mellow, considering that between our three families, there were 7 kids (well-behaved!!), so how crazy could the evening be?
But the kids played well together and they did a good job giving us some adult time too.
The evening lasted longer than I thought it would...we didn't get home until around 10 pm! So we toasted to a wonderful 2009 with some tasty Vueve and rang in the New Year a little early.

Happy New Year to you!

Holiday Photos

Introducing...

Simran Kaur Wimmer

Born December 11th at 8:45 am. She weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces and was 21 inches long!



Everything in the hospital went well. I arrived at Labor and Delivery that morning for my scheduled c-section (my third, b/c Rowen/Arjun were breech) around 6:30 am. The plan was for Tim and I to come in together but the boys were sleeping so peacefully that morning that I decided to come in alone so the boys could sleep in a bit longer. Our friend Yuki Pierson watched them that morning (thanks Yuki!!).

It was reassuring that morning to see many familiar faces getting me ready for surgery. Most of the nurses and doctors, I either knew or recognized, so that really put me at ease. My OB, Linda Walker, is a good friend of mine and I was SO happy that she was doing my surgery. The c-section went well and my spinal anesthesia worked (yeah!) so I was awake when Simran was born. It was amazing to hear her cry!! I briefly saw her b/f they whisked her away to get her cleaned up, etc.




My recovery period was a bit rocky for a few hours, well, more like 8 hours. Unfortunately, my blood pressure was low, due to the anesthesia, so I was nauseous on/off for the rest of the day. I cannot really explain the feeling of having to vomit when you cannot move your body b/c you are completely numb...it is not a fun experience though! Luckily, with lots of medicine, my blood pressure stabilized around 10 pm on Friday night and I was able to eat/drink and I even got out of bed to walk around for a bit.

I was alone on Friday night b/c Tim was home with the boys, but Simran and I did just fine. The L&D staff on the floor took very good care of us! Thanks to our friends Jamison and Jen, they stayed with our boys on Sat/Sun night so Tim could stay with us in the hospital.

For a little while on Saturday morning, our babysitter Claire watched Rowen/Arjun so Tim could come to the hospital for a bit. I got up and walked around a bit more and finally took a shower. I felt like a whole new person on Saturday, compared to how yucky I felt on Friday.

We had lots of visitors over the weekend as well. It was so nice to have people come visit us and bring me Starbucks coffee and non-hospital food! We have the greatest friends here!

Monday morning came fairly quickly and before I knew it, we were being discharged. Where did 3 nights go? After the boys got off to school, Tim came by to pick us up. Simran received a clean bill of health, except that she had a little Jaundice (her bilirubin levels were elevated). So our pediatrician asked us to come in the next day for a level check, instead of waiting until Wednesday for her 2 day check. On Tuesday, her bilirubin had jumped from 13 to 18, which is not ideal. We had it checked again on Wednesday, and it was 20.5, a level high enough that warranted phototherapy in the hospital. I was so tired already, that I was not looking forward to her being admitted and having to endure 'billilights' overnight in the hospital. And let me tell you, that night was probably worse than being in the hospital for her birth. She did not want to lay in the crib, especially on her back, AND with the goggles on. She kept taking the goggles/mask off, which then exposed her face/eyes to the UV lights that were shining on her!!
I was basically miserable the entire night b/c I had to stay awake and make sure she kept her eyewear on. NOT fun!!

Fortunately, the next day, her level had dropped to 16. She remained under the lights all of Thursday (except when I was nursing her) and they let us go home instead of staying another night, thank goodness! When we had her bilirubin level checked on Friday morning, it was down to 13, and the doctor was happy with that. Did I mention that in order to check the bilirubin level, the nurse had to prick her heel and squeeze her little foot until they got enough blood for the lab test? Simi's poor heels must have been pricked 10 times!
To learn more about Newborn Jaundice and why it's not that serious but important to treat it early, click here.

Today, as I am writing this, Simran is almost two weeks old. She is thriving and her big brothers just adore her!! They kiss her and hold her whenever they get the chance! We are truly enjoying every minute with our precious baby girl :)

First Photos of Simran

62nd annual Seika Christmas Pageant

Seika had their annual Christmas pageant on Sunday.

We were very excited to see Rowen perform in his class dance that he had been preparing for all month!

Again, since this year he's doing everything for the second time, everything came easier for him at the event. He had more patience to sit through the principal's speech (can be almost 30-45 minutes), he knew all the words to the Christmas songs, Japanese and English, and actually performed in his Rudolph dance.

Of course, being the proud mother that I am, I could take my eyes off of him when he was dancing. I just thought (as every mom there thought about their child), that he was just the cutest thing in the world! Tim was laughing at me...even after the event and we were just hanging out home, I think I watched the video a few more times!

I hope you enjoy watching him dance too!

Rowen's Christmas Pageant Rudolph Dance

PS-Tonight is our last night as a family of 4!!!!! I am going in tomorrow morning for my scheduled c-section and our little girl will be here! Stay tuned for baby news and pics :-)

A PINK baby shower

I have such a wonderful group of girlfriends here. Two of them, Nancy and Victoria, threw me a 'cherry blossom-themed' baby shower last weekend, and I had an amazing time!



There were 15 great women there to share in my excitement of finally having a baby girl! I loved the cherry blossom theme because it is very Japanese and symbolic of where I'm having our baby.
The food was delicious, Nancy and Victoria provided baked ham, hash brown casserole, and various pastries from a Japanese bakery, and it was all washed down with refreshing mimosas :)


Opening all the great gifts was so much fun! There was pink everywhere! I received some really cute clothes/accessories as well as some useful baby tools/gear from some Japanese stores. The Japanese baby items that are available here are really quite interested and useful. They have great diapers, glass bottles and sippy cups, to name a few. The cutest thing of all is the baby leggings that a lot of Japanese babies where. I received a few of those that will look so adorable on our baby girl.

Thank you to my great friends who threw me such a memorable baby shower and all of you who attended! It was a day I'll always remember and cherish.

Our 2nd Chibikko Bazaar at Seika

Last weekend, we headed to Rowen's school for their annual bazaar event. The bazaar is a fund-raising opportunity for the school to make some money by providing lots of games, food, and fun for all the kids.

Rowen and Arjun's favorite thing to do at the bazaar is ride the Shinkansen (the bullet train) that is set up around the school playground. I think the boys rode it 2-3 times before we even got started on the rest of the games or food that was offered at the bazaar.


Other games they played included 'fishing', where the Seika pool is filled with an assortment of toys and the kids get throw a fishing pole into the pool and try to wrap the hook around one of the toys. They also enjoyed some kettle corn, little frankfurter hot dogs, and Japanese candy necklaces (pieces of Japanese candy tied together to make a necklace). After the games, we went upstairs to go inside and enjoy some lunch and baked goods. This year, we were sure to remember our indoor shoes/slippers, which we had forgotten last year! Since it was our first bazaar last year, we either didn't know or had forgotten to bring them, and I remember my feet being really cold walking through the school halls with no shoes on!


After lunch, the boys took one last ride on the Shinkansen before we headed home so Arjun could take a nap. Since Rowen has made lots of friends at school over the past year, he has a lot of fun at these weekend school events, and so does Arjun! And because of a weekend school event, which the kids have to be in full winter uniform for, there was no school for Rowen on Monday :-)