This morning...

So Lizzy came into our room this morning telling us that, "this is yucky" I look in her hand and see what looks like a partially chewed frosted mini wheat and a glob of poop. Yes indeedy, poop. She found it under her bed, I assume it rolled out of a diaper when I was changing her. Yucky is right! When I had her show me where she found it I found one more little pebble of poop. I cleaned it up and had to laugh. Now we know to stay away from poop! Hope it makes your day better!

One month, but whose counting...

So today marks one month that Charles has been with us. So many things have happened. Charles was born, yep. Lizzy adjusts to having a brother. This is an ongoing process. We adjust to having 4 in a family. I had my 30Th birthday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Chinese food! Yum! So easy. Charles saw his pediatrician for the first time. He had to go to a Urologist to get circumcised.
Crazy story: So the Pediatrician would not let him get circumcised at the hospital stating that his boy parts were too small for the procedure. Ask his pediatrician in a week. So we do, she says it looks alright, but lets ask a specialist just to be sure. So we set up and appointment and go in after I wrote down the wrong address and we had to turn around. Needless to say we were late. The Urologist says it looks fine and they must have been worried about the loose skin. This makes no sense to me, but I am new to all this boy stuff. So we sign off to have him perform the procedure and wait for the scream. I hear it, but it isn't prolonged. about 10 mins later the Dr. comes out with him. Charles was sleeping nicely sucking on his sugar coated Binky. Then the Dr. proceeds to tell us that he put stitches in so that we won't hurt him when we clean him and that because of this "loose skin" issue, we need to be extra diligent in changing and cleaning him. At this point I'm a little freaked, but we take him home and Daniel volunteers to do the first diaper change. He opens the diaper and stares in astonishment. He then looks up at me and says, "Where did it go?" It looked like the doctor had cut his penis off! Now I am thinking, "OK, maybe that pediatrician was right, it was too small." Also we didn't understand exactly what the doctor wanted us to do to clean it. I wish I had the foresight to ask for a demonstration. I mean how dare they send two new parents out with an injured baby and not demonstrate what we should do to care for him. Really! Well, we more or less figured it out, I think.
So back to this month of milestones, Charles rolled over at 2 weeks and is smiling now. His cord stump was accidentally pulled off by me, (this must be my super power as I did the same thing to Lizzy.) What else? We braved the last minute Christmas shoppers to play at the Mills Mall with the Purdys. That was fun. I am just glad I didn't need to do a lot of shopping as it was quite mad there. Charles got to see both Grandmas and one Grandpa. Yep, I think that about covers it. All in all, a great first month!

From One Month

Table for 4

I am at last mostly on my own. Daniel is back to work and Mom is back in Washington so it is up to me now. Ahhhh!! Gasp, Deep breath. There. Exhale. I am also now out of those wonderful pain meds they gave me in the hospital. Ouch. But thanks to a very kind Heavenly Father I am mostly functioning and able to change 2 sets of diapers in a row. My biggest problem is refraining from picking up Lizzy. She wants to sit on my lap or get down from a chair and I tend to just pick her up. Big No No! I feel the pain immediately afterwards, so I keep reminding myself: You can't do that right now. Lizzy is mostly understanding and quite patient with me. Although she does occasionally walk hunched over holding her abdomen saying "I hurts." I'm not sure if I should be flattered that she still wants to emulate me or if it is all just mockery. Alas, who knows. Charles is a dear. He rarely crys and is just so sweet. Now if only I could nap during the day like him I'd be golden. Last night we were getting the kids ready for bed and there we were, Daniel and I each with a squirming child changing diapers side by side. I looked over at Daniel and thought, " Yes, this is the life!"

To the Hospital and Beyond...

What an experience! The morning was quite relaxed as we finished our preparations and headed out to the hospital. I was feeling a little anxious, but composed. We found the wrong entrance and had to ask for directions to the actual hospital. That was fun; it was a bit of a walk, but we made it. I said good bye to Mom and Lizzy and then Daniel and I headed into the maternity ward. I filled out the paperwork and then we went back to the prep room. Daniel left to give Mom some directions and I got all hooked up and prepped for the surgery. The next part was the worst, we had to wait for an hour before the actual procedure was to take place. Yea. I had to drink this awful stuff which was to minimize stomach acidity. It is much worse then the sugar drink you have to take for a gestational diabetes test. EWW! Then they rolled me down to the operating room and while the nurses counted all the various surgical equipment, I received my Spinal. Then I lay on the table and waited some more.... Do dodo to do.
After a while they put up the tent and let Daniel come in and sit next to me. Then the party really started. The anesthetist said that he'd warn me when they were ready to pull Charles out, but they were distracted so I heard and felt them pull him out before he told me. Charles cried a bit and then they took him and cleaned him up. I didn't get to see him of course, but Daniel did. Then they sewed me up and rolled me back to the recovery room where we waited some more. About 2 and 1/2 hours. I was beginning to think they forgot about us. I threw up and then they brought Charles in to us. I got rolled into my room and they took Charles to do his tests. We waited some more. I finally got to feed him when they came back. Mom and Lizzy came by and we enjoyed the visit. Charles was born at 1:34 in the afternoon, he weighed 6 lbs and 10 oz. and was 20 and 1/2 inches long. He is so tiny and perfect. He is a sweet baby too. We are so very blessed. Daniel stayed with us the first night, in the morning I asked how he was and he said it was like being back on the sub. Same amount of traffic and same hard bed. Poor thing. I told him to go home to sleep after that. The hospital staff were awesome and Dr. Lieberman did a wonderful job. He is a great doctor. I really lucked out. They let me go home Thanksgiving Day and we are here recovering. It has been an adventure, but well worth it. Charles is such a blessing. Lizzy is so good with him. And I am so glad to have my Mom here to help out. I couldn't do it without her.

Baby news

So this is the day I get to see my baby. I am so excited and feel so blessed to have this experience. My pregnancy has been good. There are the usual aches and pains, but on the whole I am actually healthier when I am pregnant. The only thing I really don't like is the fact that I don't really look pregnant. Here I am at 40 weeks and people still didn't know that I am pregnant. I get told all the time how I don't look pregnant. Alas, whats a girl to do? Maybe I should get a pillow to stuff my shirt just to shirk comments. Oh well, it is almost over. This is definitely going to be different then Lizzy's birth. It's like I'm going in for any other procedure. Arrive 2 hrs. early, be fasting, get prepped, have surgery, recover oh and here's your Baby. Thank you. How wild is that? I am so glad that we have modern medicine. I hope all goes well. I really like my doctor. He is really confidant and thorough. Well, that's enough chatter from me. Keep us in your prayers!

Doctor Doctor

Lizzy has been sick lately and on Sunday she got a bloody nose. So I took her to the doctors to see if there was anything wrong, or anything I could do to help her. With all these medication recalls I didn't know what to give her for her cold and cough. As we entered the doctors office Lizzy started saying over and over how she didn't want the doctor to touch her belly. I had no idea where this came from so I explained that the doctor was going to look in her ears and nose and mouth, not at her belly. She seemed pacified for the moment, but when the nurse came into the exam room she started up again. I explained again and showed her the tools the doctor would use to look in her ears and mouth. She said OK and we read a book and waited for the doctor. The prognosis was good, no ear infections! Yea! And no antibiotics needed. I was able to pick up some over the counter cold medicine and she is doing fine now. I still was confused about the whole tummy thing though. Well on Wednesday all was revealed. I took Lizzy to my weekly appointment at my Obgyn's office. She has been to nearly every appointment with me. And what do they do there? They check my tummy of course! Ha, no wonder she was concerned. She sees me get checked all the time. Too funny.

Halloween

Since Halloween was on Sunday we didn't do anything too festive. Plus Daniel was working again this year. Trick-or-treaters don't come to our door so it was a relatively quiet night. We had the Primary program and as a teacher I got to sit up in the stand and help. It was fun. the kids did great. Lizzy slept through the whole thing. A huge thank you to Sue for watching her for me! I made cookies for my class as a job well done. They were so tired. I think they must have all had a candy overload that morning. 3 were trying to sleep when we hit our second hour. Lizzy got a bloody nose during Nursery, I'm not sure what happened, but it started up again when we got home. So that was our Halloween scare.
Later Lizzy put her stroller basket over her head and said, "I'm a turtle, I in water." I laughed and told Daniel that's what she should be for Halloween. He said, "She is." It was cute. Quite appropriate.