1. I have three kids 2. Cutie Pie is three weeks old today 3. Porter turned three on Sunday
We had macaroni and cheese for dinner, which seems to be Porter's favorite, but only to the extent that he will actually eat some. (I swear, I don't know how my son is even still alive, let alone so sturdy and energetic. He doesn't eat anything.) Anyway, Porter's gifts from us were: a Curious George coloring book; two dinosaur T-shirts (Matt: "You got him clothes?" Porter, immediately upon unwrapping: "Can I wear it?" Joni: "See? I do know my kid!"); a Word World dump truck (he loooves Word World), and some Pixar figurines, which he's unwrapping in the photo above. He also got some dinosaurs, books, and cars. So basically, everything a 3-year-old boy could hope for. He folded his arms like it was a prayer when we were singing the birthday song - I'm not sure why he did that but it was really cute.
As a nice bonus on Monday, we got to see my grandparents (Graypa's mommy and daddy, is how we explained it to the kids) for a few hours in the evening. They stopped in on their way through to Cincinnati to visit relatives, since we are right on the way and have a cute new baby to boot. We hadn't seen them since Emily's wedding almost 2 years ago, so for my kids it was like getting some brand new relatives. And the general consensus was, "where have you been hiding Great-grandma and Great-grandpa all our lives?" My kids LOVED them. I think that the feeling was mutual.
I think that, in this case, the sentiment speaks for itself:
So anyway, in the interest of full disclosure and all that, I should tell you that this is going to be a very long and rambling post. You may find it boring, as it's comprised mostly of things I thought of when I was up at 3 a.m. Consider yourself warned.
We got a new bishop on Sunday. His name is Craig. This means that 3 out of the last 4 bishops we've had were Craigs. (I should make a list of them... harhar.) In fact, a previous bishopric even had an emergency backup Craig. He moved away to a different state... and promptly got called as bishop. Man, am I ever glad my husband is named Matt.
Yay, there's a new Death Cab for Cutie song! I think that my favorite Death Cab song is still this one, however (plus the video is neat).
I finished a dress I started working on, like, a month ago. (The colors in the photo are a little off, but trust me, it's the best fabric EVER. Hey Mom, can you guess the designer?) The pattern is Simplicity 3875, only I used the View B sleeves and the View C neck. I had to make a new pattern piece for that, plus I changed the back a little. Oh, and I added pockets.
I am really happy because this dress ACTUALLY FITS ME, RIGHT NOW, and it's NOT MATERNITY CLOTHES or ANYTHING. I knew there was a reason dresses were invented.
Porter's birthday is on Sunday. You know what I realized? I like cake a lot better than pie, but I am actually a lot better at making pie than cake. (I'm also pretty talented at making Pie.)
Amy is doing better at sleeping, but only in her carseat. I get the feeling she's going to love her baby swing, once she gets enough head support to use it. I got out my baby sling today, too. It's useful for when I'm on the computer and actually want to use two hands to type because I swear this baby wants to be held all the time. I am so going to miss it when she's a toddler, though (or a snotty teenager, right?)
Every time I have a new baby, Matt and I watch the entire series of Band of Brothers. We got started when Betsy was brand new and Matt went to Blockbuster (!) to rent a video (!!) that we could watch while I was sitting around nursing. Needless to say, we had to see the whole 10 hours of it (plus bonus features). It's sort of become a tradition since then, because as we all know nothing says "Welcome to the world, sweet baby!" like guys getting their legs blown off in the Ardennes forest...
I'm a bit late blogging about it, since the new episode airs tonight, but how great was this?
As someone who was fake-proposed to, I found that scene hilarious. Long story short: Matt took me out on a super romantic date, horse carriage ride, you name it, with a jewelry box in his shirt pocket. (I found out later the box was fake - he didn't even pick up the ring until the next day.) And took me home and kissed me goodnight and didn't propose to me. And stood on a street corner the next day holding a cardboard sign, you know, like a mendicant. So if Jim shows up in the season finale with a sign that says "Will Marry For Food," I will seriously die.
I think I may have run out of things to say for now. Aren't you relieved?
I was getting her ready for her little sponge bath last night (gotta wipe the puke off before church, ya know) and something about her seemed different. It actually took me a moment to realize that her cord stump had fallen off. I found the nasty, shriveled-up thing in the kitchen sink; it had apparently gotten knocked loose while Matt was undressing her.
So, we changed gears a little and have a real bath instead of a mere dabbing of flailing arms and limbs. And to my surprise, she loved it. (Betsy and Porter both screamed bloody murder during their first tub baths, although they love bath time now. In fact, I've had to stop Porter from taking a bath in his clothes. More than once, even.) She was laying in the little baby tub naked and ticked off, and as soon as she felt the warm water on her little body, she got really calm. I guess you can't underestimate the power of a nice warm bath. She even didn't hate having her hair washed (which seems to be a universally loathed experience) but she sure was ticked when I got her out.
I actualy felt it - what, you thought I was sleeping at 5:30 in the morning! Ho ho ho, surely you jest! - when the room started shaking and the handles on our dresser rattled. I just sat there thinking, "was that an earthquake?" It turns out it was. It was a 5.4 so that's something; enough that people could feel it but there were only, like, 2 buildings damaged across the entire Midwest.
Huh. I wonder what's next, an alien invasion? Just as long as it doesn't wake me up.
So. We've made it through the first seven days. I am really, really tired (but that's down from three reallys so that's actually an improvement).
The first night home (Friday) was probably the worst. Little Miss Amy, bless her stinkin' heart, was awake from midnight until 4 a.m. I'd nurse her, put her down, and in five minutes she'd start crying again. She only wanted to be held, having apparently decided that her bassinet was actually some sort of medieval torture device. (Just be glad we didn't spring for the Deluxe Model, baby; it comes with thumbscrews.) I finally let her sleep on top of me, which I hate to do, but I was so tired I couldn't even walk in a straight line. And I was thinking, oh great, we have a High Maintenance Baby.
Things got a lot better on Saturday, though. I think it helped that the milk factory was fully operational, and she was no longer convinced that she would starve to death if we left her for a few minutes. She slept for about a four-hour stretch that morning (why is that four and hour don't rhyme? They should) and I was able to focus my eyes and form complete sentences again, so that was great. She's doing a lot better with sleeping in her own bed now.
Another thing Amy doesn't like, along with hats, the evil bassinet, and the green pacifier (the blue one is fine) is burping. Amy says this is because she is a lady. Even Matt has a hard time coaxing more than a dainty 'urp' out of her after a feeding. The problem is, a baby who doesn't let loose like a trucker after nursing is a baby who's going to wake up crying five minutes down the road, just in time to douse her sympathetic parent with Pasteurized Dairy Food Product. All that puke necessitated a sponge bath on Sunday night, if only to clean out her neck folds and her little ears. I put her in the baby bathtub and filled a separate container with warm water; I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner, it's a lot easier than trying to wash a screaming slippery baby on the countertop. Amy, however, thought this was a Singularly Bad Idea and did not hesitate to say so. However, she survived the experience even though she insisted she wouldn't, and I only wish you could all feel how velvety-soft her head is when it's been freshly washed. Also, her hair looks a lot blonder when it's clean. Gross as that may be, I always found it to be a fairly reliable indicator of when Betsy needed a bath. I just wish babies were like the water filter in my fridge, where the green light turns to yellow and then red.
Mandy and Miles came up on Sunday, so we could get a picture of all five cousins together.
Check it out, Betsy is actually smiling at the camera! Which kind of makes up for what Porter is doing.
We also had a delicious cake and didn't give Amy a bite.
It turns out, yep, I was in labor. (We set up the VCR to tape NCIS; Matt did the grocery shopping the next day.) I left for the hospital at 8 p.m., and I was already 2.5 cm dilated by the time my doctor checked me. I didn't even have to go to triage first, because I was the only woman in the labor & delivery unit that night, and my OB said that if it was false labor, they'd just give me Pitocin and let me go ahead and have her, since I was scheduled to be induced so soon anyway. But I ended up not needing any Pitocin, which was a new experience for me. Since I was already dilated a few cm. I got to have the crack pipe, umm, the epidural pretty much as soon as the anesthesiologist could come in and drive a giant needle into my spine. My labor actually progressed pretty fast and I was all the way dilated at 1 a.m. I pushed for a little while and she was out at 1:08 on Wednesday, April 9.
Matt said he could tell right away that she was bigger than our other ones. I apparently have no frame of reference (all I could tell is that she's smaller than they are now) but he was right, she was 8 pounds, 4 ounces. She's also the only baby I've had who cried for more than a second or two after she came out. Amy actually screamed for twenty minutes straight until she was all weighed and eye-dropped and generally harrassed and I could nurse her. I thought it was pretty funny, actually - all the arm-flailing, eyes-closed yelling she did was actually pretty impressive for someone that small.
I am having a lot of contractions at this point. Ouch.
I am hoping that it's false labor, because a) I haven't seen the new NCIS yet and b) we have like NO groceries in the house.
The good news is, Emily came today instead of Thursday as we had originally planned. Otherwise I'd really be freaking out. As it is, I have someone to watch my kids, even if they don't have anything to eat.
Yes, I actually cleaned. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and my house is now... um, I'd be lying if I told you it was spotless, but it's pretty good. The toilets are scrubbed (yuck), the kids' rooms are picked up and vacuumed, the kitchen is wiped down and I only have one load of laundry waiting to be folded. I got most of this done during General Conference (which is, incidentally, the only time we ever use the baby monitor). So, the house is pretty much ready to bring a new baby home to. I still have the grocery shopping to do so we won't starve (at least I don't have to buy food for Cutie Pie).
I've been having a lot of contractions, but they are all totally irregular and therefore nothing other than a nuisance. Thank heavens for Pitocin. (I am a big fan of better living through chemistry.) In fact, I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for Pitocin, I would still be pregnant with Betsy, which would be really inconvenient now that she rides the school bus.
I also got some scrapbooking done. (This no-scanner thing is killing me. As soon as Matt gets a job offer, I think that's the first thing I'm buying!)
So, it's four more days until I go into the hospital to have my little girl. (Unless I actually go into labor, which I have the tiniest hunch might happen - but I also thought Cutie Pie was a boy.) My sister Emily is driving up tomorrow (or down, depending on your sense of direction) so I don't have to worry about the kids. I mean, she'll only be here a week, so she can't possibly scar them too badly. And the timing of that is good because the first new episode of NCIS since the writers' strike is going to be on tomorrow night. Not that I'm looking forward to that, or anything.
The weather is really, really nice right now. I have the windows open and everything. It was, like, forty degrees and raining the day we brought Porter home from the hospital and that was at the end of April - I sure hope this lasts!
(P.S. Who can guess what song the title of this post is from? I bet Mom knows it...)
I read something interesting in the USA Weekend today. It turns out that parents "hurt their own standard of living and diminish prospects for their own children" by having more than two children.
Still pregnant over here but with one very important difference: I have an actual number of days left to go. My doctor is going to induce me next Thursday, so Cutie Pie will be born on Friday, the 11th. (I actually could have had her today, only that was a no go because Matt's in Utah. Actually I think he's somewhere in the sky right now.) Not only is it nice to have a light at the end of the tunnel (try not to think too hard about that) but also, more importantly, it means that Emily can come up from Kentucky and stay with the kids. I've been a teensy bit worried about how that would work out, since all of our family is so far away.
Mainly, though, I just want to stop being pregnant.
I'm actually feeling pretty well prepared. The bassinet is set up, the suitcase is packed, the carseat is installed, all the teeny little socks and snap-side shirts have been washed and stashed away in the changing table. And I have a couple of packs of newborn diapers - it was kind of hilarious, actually, buying Porter's and Amy's diapers today. He wears the size 6 ones. Not all of the laundry is done but at least the bathrooms are clean, and this weekend (since it's General Conference) I think we will finish cleaning up the rest of the house. This is all very important to me because when I had Porter, almost none of that stuff had been done. Yeah, ask me about installing the infant seat in the store parking lot on the way to the hospital. In the rain. (It was pretty funny, I have to admit.) Also, my house was a mess and I worried about that while I was in labor. In the end my mother-in-law and a lady from church came and cleaned everything before we came home with Porter, which was really, really nice but also embarrassing.
So, I'm feeling pretty well set up for the whole thing, which probably means I'm forgetting something really important. I wonder what it is...
So, I finally got around to writing my resume last night. I've been meaning to do it for a while, but what actually happened was that the tutoring company that I've been working with for the past four years needed a copy of my resume. (They said they are being audited by one of the school district clients, so I'm guessing that they just need to prove that all the people the taxpayers are paying to help their students with math are, you know, competent.) The embarrassing thing is that my resume only takes up half a page. I think it actually took me longer to select a typeface than it did to write down my relevant experience.
People, it has three bullet points on it.
1. I went to college. (We're still paying for it. We probably always will be.) 2. I worked in a lab for a little while, actually using my degree like some sort of adult. That didn't last long, since I got pregnant and then got laid off in rapid succession. 3. I started tutoring a little while after that. I'm actually planning to hang on to this job for as long as I can because it's one of the few professions you can do in your pajamas. Not that I make a ton of money, but it pays for my scrapbook supplies, and it feels good to have an income right now.
And that's it. Sure, I had a lot of jobs before then (most memorably, I worked the switchboard at Butler and scooped ice cream for two summers) but they are completely irrelevant to my qualifications for, well, anything. I only wish that I was allowed to list all the other things I've been doing for the past seven years.
Used the phrase "Because I said so" in a non-ironic fashion
Blogged
I think I'd be a pretty impressive candidate for any job, don't you think? (And speaking of resumes, many congratulations to Susan and Beth on their new jobs! You gals rock!)
We had macaroni and cheese for dinner, which seems to be Porter's favorite, but only to the extent that he will actually eat some. (I swear, I don't know how my son is even still alive, let alone so sturdy and energetic. He doesn't eat anything.)
Anyway, Porter's gifts from us were: a Curious George coloring book; two dinosaur T-shirts (Matt: "You got him clothes?" Porter, immediately upon unwrapping: "Can I wear it?" Joni: "See? I do know my kid!"); a Word World dump truck (he loooves Word World), and some Pixar figurines, which he's unwrapping in the photo above. He also got some dinosaurs, books, and cars. So basically, everything a 3-year-old boy could hope for.
He folded his arms like it was a prayer when we were singing the birthday song - I'm not sure why he did that but it was really cute.
I think that the feeling was mutual.
