Double Whammy & Mommy Stuff

I’m finally feeling better – yippee!  However Jacob is still hanging out with a fever around 104 – it fluctuates between 101 and 104 something. So we took him in to see the Ped.  Other than a nasty cold there didn’t seem to be much wrong with him. Until the doc check his ears. Both ears are loaded – the poor little guy has a double ear infection so he got loaded up on antibiotics today – with the thought that the antibiotics will help knock off anything else might be hanging around in his body.

He looks so pitiful, you can tell the poor kid just feels nasty.  At least we know what it is and we can stop worrying for the most part. 🙂

***

The following is to be read with a sense of humor please – as I am not really complaining, just chuckling at the fun (rather sarcastic on the fun) moments after child birth (that I know every mom can relate to):

So now that I am over my stomach virus, I am doing a major happy dance.  I just have to deal with the other sweet pains of being a new mom once again. 

Last night was the first night I didn’t wake up with massive after birth pains (compounded I am sure by the stomach cramps from my little virus).  I slept well and it felt good – James slept well too – blessed boy. 🙂

James is a champion nurser – which means I am in total pain – anyone comes with in 5 feet of my chest and I squeal in protest – not to mention a sick toddler who needs to climb on my lap for comfort – why do the elbows ALWAYS find the sore chest? WHY?  It is so unjust. 🙂  My milk finally came in last night so now I am a sore soaking mess – though I must say James is much happier – and sleeping better.  So I suppose I can accept a bit of pain and wetness for being able to sleep more.

My tummy still feels like a bowl full of jelly and we made the mistake of watching an old hillarious movie last night – “Support Your Local Sheriff” – my tummy is still sore from laughing, but I figure that might be a good thing as in I’m working on strengthening those muscles some more – so maybe I can keep laughing – as long as it doesn’t hurt TOO much. 🙂

I am rejoicing at being able to see my feet once again – they had become strangers to me, and I am thrilled at the prospect of shaving my legs without trying to work around the tummy – they are a bit furry – amazon forest legs as hubby teases – thank goodness he doesn’t really mind, because they still might not get shaved for a while still as shower and bath time is precious and short.  I am sure it will be a happy dance moment when it finally happens.

And let us not forget to do our kegals and take our vitamins – which I am always forgetting to do.  I would like to report that my brain has bounded back to me from its pregnancy vacation, but I think it is enjoying the tropics way too much and will be taking an extended vacation…

Oh and one last thing – a supply of chucks pads always comes in handy with a new baby for two reasons:

1. For those nights when you are overflowing – if you are the overflowing type that is (I am – I will never forget the time I was at church and a dear kind lady discreetly pointed out my damp, and rapidly growing damper, blouse- ahhhhh! I think I hid in the mother’s lounge until it was time to go)- they serve to keep the bed from getting soaked.
2. We have found from numerous years of diaper experience that bright yellow baby poo can be jet propelled…  (in which case it is best to place one under the baby and wear one like a bib – a face mask wouldn’t be such a bad idea as well – heh)

Of course while I joke and jest, none of these little “pains” shadows the immense joy of our dear new little James and the rest of our clan.

Wee One

Taken by Storm

What a week! And it isn’t even over yet. 🙂 So after our thrilling experience on Christmas Eve day we settled in for what we thought would be a typical Christmas and week.  Maybe the contractions on Christmas Eve night should have fore-warned me – after all I did catch myself praying as a strongish one woke me, “Please, no baby on Christmas.”  But the contractions tapered off and I shrugged them off along with all the others that weren’t “really there” figuring that I would have contractions for at least a week or two leading up to the birth of baby.

The 26th rolled around and we were all having fun playing with new toys and watching new movies.  Paul was at work again and I did manage to call him to let him know that I was having contractions – but nothing I though was serious.  Then, at one point I noticed they were somewhat regular – say every 5-8 minutes or so and just a bit stronger.  So, I made a call to my midwife to let her know.

“Do you want me to stop by?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I dunno, it’s probably nothing.”  This comment based off of the numerous times in the past where contractions would go on for days or weeks with no real progress.

“Well, why don’t I go ahead and stop by and check you. Then we might have a slight idea of if it might be soon or not.”

I agreed to the idea and she planned on stopping by in the evening when Paul would be home.  I made dinner and got the kids fed.  When the midwife came by we found that I was dialated to a 2.  That might mean a lot to some people, but to me it meant the baby MIGHT come by the due date – or be late as usual.  Our midwife guestimated sometime within the next week or so – none of us expected to be greeting James so soon. 🙂

After the children were in bed that night and I was quietly sitting in my chair unwinding from the craziness of the day I began to occasionally mention to Paul whenever I had a contraction.  After the first few he commented to me, “Those are pretty close together, lets time them.”  He timed them regularly for over an hour and we discovered they were gaining strength and averaging 4 minutes apart and about 45 seconds long.  So once again we called and talked with the midwife and decided that I would attempt to go to sleep and see if the contractions died off, or kept going.

Off to bed I went and when it got to be 12:00 and I still couldn’t sleep because the contractions were even stronger I decided that this might indeed be the real thing.  Somewhat still skeptical we called our friends to come stay with the children while they slept, grabbed our bag (which I had finally finished packing that day) and headed up to the birth center.  The contractions were really getting strong now, as I walked into the birth center I had to continually stop and breathe through them.

So, to make a long story short James was born at 4:06 – about 4 hours of really active labor and the shortest pushing period after my water broke ever – he just wanted out of there.

We headed home later that day as I was yearning for my bed and the comfort of my own home.  Kids were still farmed out to friends so we slept the rest of the evening away and a good portion of Friday, though I was having terrible after-birth pains compounded by stomach cramps as I seemed to have caught some kind of intestinal bug or something – (which seems to finally be passing thank goodness – I have chugged more water today than I ever thought possible. 🙂  )  Paul also took James in to see the pediatrician to have a routine check-up to make sure everything was looking good, probably more for ours, and our ped’s santity than anything else.  James passed with flying colors and appears to be a healthy happy baby boy.  While we are definitely put more at ease after the ped visit, we are still watching him like a hawk, which is natural I suppose after our experience with Jacob.

Our whirlwind week continued this morning when, on top of my not feeling well on top of just having had a baby, Jacob awoke vomitting and with a fever of 102.6 and climbing.  Poor Paul was put through the paces as he juggled between trying to take care of a toddler who was vommitting multiple times and feeling absolutely miserable, three active little girls, and a me. He fared farely well though by evening when I was feeling slightly better and Paul had finally managed to snag a nap on the couch I hadn’t the heart to wake him and threw together a fast and easy dinner casserole (shame on me for not being prepared as usual with casseroles for such occasions waiting in the freezer).  I also tossed some laundry through (didn’t need the sicky germs getting around) after which my energy was zapped, Paul woke up and growled at me (such a sweet hubby) and I crashed again in bed and fed baby. 

A highlight from the day was a surprise visit (they let us know last night) from my Uncle and Aunt who were visiting from St. George, UT.  Since they were on the road they didn’t know about James, so it was fun and exciting all around for us to see them, and for them to meet our new arrival.  Jacob even managed to stagger out from his bedroom for a hello.

So, that has been our exciting week – we even had snow on Christmas day, which I failed to mention. So this evening Jacob seems to be feeling better, though still sporting a fever of 102 something, and I am feeling better – tired and sore, but at least not the other stuff too (I think I was dehydrated, but I am definitely not now).  Tomorrow will hopefully bring no more sickies and a healthier Jacob. 🙂

Now, I leave you with another photo of James and a promise of more photos still to come…

This is James’ going home photo – see his arms are even raised in a cheer, “YAY! I’m going home!” Ok, so it is his sleeve sticking up and not his arms, but it makes for a cute photo just the same. 🙂

Its a Boy!

James is born. Everyone is healthy. Born at 4:06 AM. He is 7lbs 15oz and 20 inches long. More info and pictures will appear soon.

Merry Christmas (and I’m still standing! – sort of)

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. 🙂 I was all set to write steadily the last time I blogged, yada yada yada – and then reality hit me as I still had to finish everyone’s pajamas, and help Elizabeth finish making piano bags for everyone, and  do at least some baking, oh, and clean the house, and…and…and….

 I got it all done.  Three nightgowns, one set of boy pajamas, and two pair pajama pants for Paul, plus 5 piano bags that Elizabeth “made”. It was her first introduction to the sewing machine and she learned how to release and put down the pressure foot, guide material through while I was sewing, etc.  So everyone now has a piano bookbag made from left over material I had laying around that had music notes and such on it.  Everyone but Jacob that is – we’ll have to make him one when he is older. 🙂  I never did get the corn heating bags made for people though – oh well. 🙂

I managed to do some baking, though the majority of it ended up being on the 23rd.  We have our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve so Mom doesn’t end up in the kitchen all day on Christmas and we can snack and eat as we go and enjoy the kids.  I suppose it could be that I overdid things a tad bit during the week, but on Christmas Eve morning I woke to a rather unpleasant surprise that sent everyone into a whirlwind of worry.

Vaginal bleeding – not exactly the kind of Christmas presant I was hoping for, and as I have never had such problems I was a tad bit panicked and stressed.  My midwife came  over (at 5:30 a.m.) to check and things with baby seemed to be fine – the heart rate was fine, etc..  As soon as she things opened up in the morning I was scheduled for an ultrasound.  I was ordered to bed and to stay there until we could be sure that things were ok.  But what to do about Christmas dinner?

Paul stepped up to the plate, marvelous man that he is, and cooked the whole thing.  Anyway, I digress. We found a wonderful girl who was willing to babysit on Christmas Eve and took off to the hospital where (even though we were there at the scheduled time) waited for 30 minutes before the ultrasound took place.

Everything was and is fine. No placenta abruption, nothing wrong with the cervix, they aren’t really sure what caused the bleeding though there are several different things it could be.  Plenty of amniotic fluid and baby’s heart rate was healthy and baby was and is active.  I was allowed to move around more, though Paul still wouldn’t let me set foot in the kitchen – I think his theory was that I overdid things a bit.  Stress was allieviated, though there still were a number of clots and light bleeding. After a lot of rest we still managed to have a wonderful and normal Christmas Eve with all our usual festivities and traditions.

During the night as Christmas morning approached I remember feeling a few quite strong contractions and praying, “please not tonight – I don’t want to spoil Christmas, etc.” Thankfull nothing happened.  No bleeding and feeling quite “normal”.  Paul is still forcing me to take it easy – though honestly I want to – I’m not taking any chances.  So while I am up and about I am focusing on not doing too much no matter how the messy house after Christmas bugs me. 😉

Our Christmas day was splendid and filled with marvelous fun – there was even less squabling and such than usual – which is pretty good considering all the new things that everyone wants to play with.

Baby now has permision to come whenever he (no, we don’t know that the baby is a boy, but can’t stand saying ‘it’) wishes and apparantly is working on it.  Contractions, though not frequent (or spaced close together) have picked up quite a bit in potency – they are actually starting to hurt! So maybe, just maybe I might be early for a change.  Due date is a week from tomorrow, so who knows.  I have another prenatal on Friday, so will shoot for any more updates at that time.

Until then all is well, and we had a wonderful Christmas.  I sure hope all of you had a wonderful one as well!

A Memory Remembered

It is amazing how the mind remembers and forgets and how the tiniest thing will spark a flood of memories cherished and warm and you wonder, “How did I ever forget?”  And then you have the greatest desire to share it with your own family.

 My favorite mornings as a child were when I would awake to the sound of the bread mixer. It ment delicious hot fresh bread that day and there was nothing better, especially with butter melting on top.  As I would climb the stairs from my basement bedroom I would emerge from the dark into the warm cozy glow of the kitchen. Mom would be making breakfast usually as the bread mixed and the sound would fill the kitchen and house.  Usually breakfast would consist of oatmeal, or some other kind of mush which I didn’t care for too much.  There were times of eggs, or pancakes and sometimes even bacon.  Cold cereal was something that we only had on trips and Christmas (I remember often that there would be one of those mini boxes of cold cereal tucked into our stocking on Christmas morning – we were always so excited at the novelty).  Then there were these mornings when sometimes, espeically if there were some special occasion, when Mom would make the most wonderful thing ever.  We called them scones – though they weren’t really, I suppose the correct name would be fry bread, or something like that, but to me the will always and forever be known as scones.

Mom would roll out the bread dough, cut it into pieces and fry it.  The funnest times were when we got to help with the cutting out.  We would get all creative and make letters – the first initial of each person’s name. We would do shapes and braids.  Sometimes we would even grab the cookie cutters and do fancier shapes.

Mom would drop them in the hot oil and we would watch as the bubbled and browned until the were fetched dripping hot from the pan. We would carefully pat them down dry in paper towls and add them to the growing stack on the table.

Soon it was eating time.  Hot maple syrup was poured over them – sometimes even fresh using maple from trees the boys had tapped.  And, then there was always peanut butter. I don’t know who started the peanut butter, but the most devine thing was to spread peanut butter, always chunky, over the scone and then pour the hot syrup on top.  The peanut but would melt and go all gooey. Mmmmmm  Then you sank your teeth in and tasted the gooey goodness, and nothing could ever go wrong in the world.  I’m sure we put other things on the scones as well, but the syrup and peanut butter was the staple.  We actually did peanut butter and syrup on pancakes and waffles too, but it never tasted as good as it did on our scones.

 I never thought to forget about scones, I mean how could I? They were a childhood favorite. I made them a few times when Paul and I were just married – and introduced him to the peanut butter and syrup combination – after a brief moment where he thought I was insane, he quickly discovered just how wonderful it was. 🙂  Then a few weeks ago we were doing something and the memory of scones in the morning came flooding back with the force of a two by four smacking me right between the eyes.

I couldn’t wait for the next Saturday to arrive as I got up early and began mixing bread dough.  We didn’t do all the shapes we did as kids, I was just excited to eat scones again 🙂 but that will come later.  The kids loved the novelty of peanut butter and syrup together – another generation of warped kids coming up 😉 and my kitchen was flooded with cherished memories from my childhood as I made scones for my little family.  They were readily devoured by all of us, and I can promise, I’m not going to be forgetting now.  I have four little people who will eagerly remind me of our devine breakfast, and maybe, just maybe, someday they will have a few little people reminding them of their devine breakfast, and the memories will cross generations and bind us all together.

Ward Christmas Party and Nativity

Last Saturday was a huge undertaking of a day.  It was my husband’s last day out of town, he had been gone since Wednesday A.M. and the kids were missing him dreadfully. And, probably, dreadfully sick of me.  I dreaded the day like a plague wondering how the kids would behave and hold up.  For that matter, I wondered how I would behave and hold up.  😉 

The day started early with us driving and hour to my niece’s baptism which was wonderful.  I almost wondered who the four little angels with me were they children were so good.  It was a wonderful baptism and after we got to go to my brother’s house and enjoy a delicious lunch with him, his wife, and their two children.  We had a birthday party for my niece and the kids played and had so much fun together.  Things were going well.

It came time to head home, I had organized the trip so that I would arrive home an hour before I needed to be at the church for our Ward Christmas party, figuring I would need some down time.

The kids were starting to fall apart and I was half tempted to back out of the Christmas party, except for one major problem. I was committed and, I knew I would let a bunch of people down if I and the children didn’t attend.  Dorothy was to be Mary in the Nativity, and Elizabeth and Emily were angels.  I had been asked to be the pianist, as well as perform a special duet as a musical number.  There was no way I could avoid it. 

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. There were plenty of people to help with the children and the dinner was served to our tables, so I didn’t have to wait in a long line with four wiggly starving kids trying to balance four plates and forgetting to eat myself.

The Nativity was so sweet and Dorothy made such a sweet little Mary, and the other two very sweet angels.

The duet was awesome.  My friend and I had been wanting to perform this particular duet for over a year now.  It is called C.S. Theme and Variations – its a combination of Chopsticks and Franz Lizt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.  We created an entire comedic routine using Victor Borge (piano comedian) as our inspiration.  We began with our music upside down trying to play over each other, finally stopping to realize what was ‘wrong’ and flipping the music over. Then things got fun.  We swapped hands and parts, got slapped and water dumped on me. The whole piece was a battle between, as we called ourselves, The Dueling Divas.  It finally ended in a mad dash to the frenzied end where I yanked out the bench from beneath my duet partner and sent her crashing to the ground as I stepped over her to claim my victory.  We were so worried that no one would laugh or find it as funny as we did, and much to our delight the audience was roaring.  We had SO much fun.  The only bummer was that in all the craziness to get ready to go I forgot my video camera and Paul didn’t get to see it.  So, I am sure we will do an encore performance sometime and record it.  Maybe  then I will figure out how to upload the video and post it here. 🙂

So the night turned out to be a success, and though I was exhausted by the end of the day, we had had a grand time. 

It’s Coming in January!

And, I’m not just talking about the baby. 🙂  Elizabeth brought the mail in today and handed me a manila envelope.  It was adressed to me from the Ensign.  It felt like a magazine. “Could this be?” I wondered.  I opened the envelope and there in my hands sat the January issue, not yet released to the general public.  I flipped to the index, expecting to find my article, “Not Just A Blanket” located in the back, Latter-day Voices, section.  I was surprised to find it listed as a feature article on page 25! 🙂  I think I’ve read it at least 5 times now and just sit in awe holding the magazine thinking – there is my name in print.  Of course, I didn’t write the article with the anticipation of being ‘published’ and I was genuinely surprised when the informed me they would be publishing it. I wrote it because I felt inspired to do so, but there is still something amazing about seeing something your wrote officially published. Must be the writer in me. 🙂

So there you have it, keep your eye out for the January publication (if you get the Ensign) and look on page 25 for my short little blurb – oh, and if you don’t keep your Ensigns eternally, I would love any extra copies you can send – once you are done reading it and everything of course! 🙂  Also, if you don’t receive the Ensign and want to read the article I will post a link to it once it is up on the website – probably later this month, or beginning of Jan.

Cleaning

I was bit by the cleaning bug today – I woke up and every little dirty thing was bugging me to no end. I cleaned the kitchen, caught up on all the dishes and swept and mopped the floor.  Straightened the living room and family room and vacuumed them.  Cleaned both bathrooms thoroughly and swept and mopped those floors. Cleaned our bedroom and vacuumed it. I even vacuumed my hubby’s office – skipped mine though since I am still working on sewing projects. 

Paul had brought down, from the attic,  the wood cradle/bassinet that he had found during the summer at a garage sale, so I scrubbed that clean as well.  Paul was teasing me about the meaning of my cleaning, to which I vehemently denied the possibility.

 But then, when I went to get Emily from Kindergarten and I was sitting waiting for her to get out of school. The car started bugging me and I began to pick up all the garbage and stray clothes flung about.  Hmmm….

 I’ve done all the laundry as well (6 loads) and will fold it tonight while I watch the new Harry Potter movie.

Now, does this really mean anything?  In my opinion not really.  I am having some contractions, though for me that doesn’t mean much. I was having contractions 5-6 weeks before Jacob was born and they continued up until they finally came.  The contractions actually started when I was sick the last week of November.  They were more frequent today after my crazy cleaning, but are already fading away and petering off as I sit and type. 

So, it will be interesting to see when the baby decides to come join our family.

At the very least I have a wonderful clean house to enjoy. Yippee!!

Toddler Corner

Ok, some of the funnier tidbits that I had forgotten:

The last week of November, when I was trying desperately to finish my novel, Emily, Jacob and I got sick. Emily started it off by throwing up in the middle of the night – super early Tuesday A.M.  Jacob followed suit Tuesday evening.  The nice thing with the older kids when they are sick is that you can at least give them a bowl and they know how to use it.  With two-year-olds the idea is rather pointless.  They put the bowl on their heads and march around banging it with a stick.  We gave Jacob a bowl anyway figuring he just MIGHT catch on.  So I fetched a large silver mixing bowl from the kitchen and proceeded to demonstrate to Jacob what it was to be used for.

“Jacob look at mommy.  When you tummy feels icky-” I point to my oversized tummy.”

“Baby,” Jacob proudly announces.

“Yes Jacob there is a baby in Mommy’s tummy. But when your tummy feels icky you go blech in the bowl.”  I accompanied my blech with sticking my tongue out over the bowl to demonstrate the art of throwing up in a bowl.  “Blech,” I demonstrated again, “in the bowl.”

Jacob eyeballed me like I was an alien for a moment and decided to join the game.  He leaned over the bowl. “Blaaaaa,” he said sticking out his tongue. 

“That’s right,” I say grinning.

“Blaaaaa,” he says again leaning over the bowl then looks at me with a big grin. “I did it!”  So for the duration of the week everytime he saw a silver bowl he leaned over it and said “Blaaaa! I did it!”  Accompanied by moments of, “You do to, mommy.” In which I had the bowl thrust in my face and my expectant toddler waited for my ‘blech’ to sound.

I don’t think I succeeded in teaching him this time around about throwing up in a bowl – though I am fairly certain I succeeded in warping him for life.

 ****

Last week Paul was gone on a business trip to Ohio.  He left Wednesday morning and returned home on Saturday evening.  Jacob missed his daddy terribly.  On Sunday Jacob must have wrestled with Papa for a half hour straight. (Though not a typical Sunday activity for our fam – there are exceptions that have to made from time to time to release the pent up toddler boy energy).  At one point Jacob smacked into Daddy’s knee.  He propmptly began crying.

 “What did you hurt?” We asked – not really sure what part of his anatomy he was crying over, though it was in the vicinity of his head.

“My beep beep,” came the tearful answer.

“What did you hurt?” I asked again, confused by his answer.

This time he sorrowfully touched his nose. “My beep beep.”

Oh, how Paul and I collapsed in laughter.

***

There might have been more – but my brain is flaking out again…