Niece and Nephew

As you know, our family had an addition this past week. I haven't been able to post more about our new Clinton Joseph, because Brad and I have been in Illinois visiting the little guy! We left Nashville straight from work (which may have been useless since we sat in rush hour traffic for an hour getting out of town) and headed directly to the hospital. We visited TJ, Jennie, and baby Clinton in the hospital Friday night when he was just a day old. They were able to come home Saturday afternoon.

"Clinton" gave Rachel a new Cabbage Patch baby and stroller upon his arrival, which she loved. At first, Rachel wasn't quite sure about the new baby. She was surprised every time he moved, blinked, cried, etc. because her "babies" don't do any thing like that. She switched up calling him "Baby," "Bruddol," and "Tintin," but it wasn't too long before she added the "My" before any of those names, which I perceived as an acceptance into the family.

We had such a great time visiting with the Metcalfs, and I think they enjoyed having us there, as well. We were able to occupy Rachel while Jennie tended to the newborn, along with assisting in some of the more mundane but never-ending household duties such as meals and laundry. I don't want to say that it was necessarily good experience for having children, but it at least allowed us to witness and participate a little in the life. (I mean, I knew newborns would wake up all night long, but who knew that toddlers would wake up so early AND need to eat breakfast??)

Brad was the master at getting Clinton to sleep. When no one else could calm him down (and Jennie couldn't keep her eyes open any longer), Brad endured over an hour of holding him away from his body and rocking him back and forth as if in a swing. The minute Brad thought Clinton was sound asleep, and thus granting the permission to cease the arm-tiring duty, Clinton would wake up and start to cry. Yep, it's time to bring that baby-swing out of the storage and give it a nice cleaning. It will be put to much use.

Here's a little eye-candy for ya.

If you just have to see (a lot) more pictures of my adorable Niece and Nephew, check out the whole album.