Tuesday, August 20, 2013
The end of diapers...
Could it be? Aria is doing so well with potty training. There is still an occasional accident when she is having so much fun she doesn't want to take the time, but she is well on her way. Yay for spending less time in the bathroom and cleaning bottoms!
Xander's Fun Birthday Week
Xander's birthday was in the middle of the week this year. So, he pretty much had a whole week worth of celebrating.
We started off with a birthday donut and a shaggy head of hair.
Grandma and Grandpa got Xander a bicycle!
Xander requested a rainbow cake. So, all week long, we worked to build a rainbow jello cake. Before his party, Xander got a hair cut.
Then, we had a party at Pump-It-Up with all of Xander's friends and Aria, of course. They all had the hugest blast.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Who's parenting who?
Aria: I want my fairy ball
Me: Ok, go get it. It's in your room.
Aria: You do it.
Me: Why should I do it?
Aria: Because you're a good helper
Me: Ok, go get it. It's in your room.
Aria: You do it.
Me: Why should I do it?
Aria: Because you're a good helper
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Happy Birthday Xander - THEN
This year, I'm going to post a multitude of posts for Xander's birthday. The first is his birth story which I pulled out of email from 5 years ago:
Xander’s Birth Story
July 23, 2008 – At my regularly scheduled OB appointment, we did the
first cervical check. I was very pessimistic about showing any progress as I had not felt any contractions or experienced any signs of impending labor. Much to my surprise, my cervix was 2cm dilated and stretchable to 3cm. My doctor estimated 1-2 weeks, but
I didn’t give that much credibility because I had read so many stories about
the unpredictability of labor. We also went over my birth plan, and didn’t have any disagreements. My OB told me that we should call if the contractions were intense enough that I could not talk through them at an interval of 5 minutes for one hour or if my water broke.
July 30, 2008 – At my regularly scheduled OB appointment, my cervix
had progressed to 3cm dilated and 70% effaced. I had felt a few Braxton
hicks contractions but they were barely
noticeable. I also had tiny bit of
swelling in my ankles for a couple of days, but it went away. At this
appointment, my OB told me that she was leaving private practice to deal
with low income, high
risk births at the hospital. She told me she would be there for my birth,
but the other doctor in the office would do my post-partum checkup. She
reiterated her mantra of rules for when we should call.
August 6, 2008 – At my regularly scheduled OB appointment, the doctor
told me that she was surprised that I hadn’t given birth yet. At this
point, my cervix was 3.5cm dilated
and 80% effaced. This seemed like very
little progress and was somewhat depressing. She also brought up the
dreaded “I” word, induction. We had figured that this would come up since
he was measuring to be a larger baby. I
told her that I was neutral about induction, which was not entirely true.
While I trusted her judgment to suggest an
induction if necessary, I really did not want one. I really wanted things
to happen on a natural
schedule.
August 7, 2008 -- Perhaps it was the fear of induction itself that kicked
things off. Sometime before 5am,
I started to feel somewhat uncomfortable contractions. I suspected these
were real contractions
because the pain was in my back. I was
excited, but nervous that it was just false labor. I stayed in bed until
5am and then woke up to take a bath. I figured that if I was going into the
hospital, I should make sure my legs weren’t too hairy. While I took in the
bath, I used my cell
phone clock to measure contractions and observed that they were pretty
regular.
Between 5-7am, my
contractions were like clockwork, every 5 minutes. They just did not seem
that painful though so
I decided to rest, eat breakfast, read email for work, and watch TV. At
about 7:30am,
I was convinced something real enough was happening that I woke Dolphin up
so he could help finish packing what we wanted to bring to the hospital.
The next 5 hours were very, very boring. The contractions always timed to 5
minutes part. I kept hoping they would do
something to indicate that they were increasing in severity, but I could
always talk through them and they never seemed to get closer together. I worked
from home, took a few phone call,
and tried to clean up the house a little. One thing that surprised me was
how good the intervals between
contractions felt. I think there must be
natural pain killers generated because I felt so relaxed in the space
between.
Around noon, the
contractions appeared to slow to every 6-7 minutes. In hindsight, I think
we just don’t know how
to time contractions properly. However,
to me, they were getting longer in duration. So, we called the nurse to see
if we should go in. Since we told her that we thought the
contractions were slowing down, she told us to stay home.
So, we had some lunch. I kept getting more impatient, but I also was
convinced that I shouldn’t
go to the hospital because I didn’t want to be sent home for false labor. I
think it’s was a pride thing. Around 2:30pm the contractions were back to 5
minutes apart and starting to get slightly more
uncomfortable, so we called the nurse back and she said we could come in.
Finally!
I remember telling Dolphin not to drive crazy because there
was no hurry. He also kept asking me
weird questions while I was having a contraction to see if I could talk
through
them. Because I wasn’t telling him when
the contractions were, he wasn’t sure if they were happening.
When we got to the hospital, the registration desk said they
didn’t know I was supposed to be there. Grrr….I had pre-registered and we
called our OB in advance (what we were supposed to do) and they still had no
clue who we
were. Because I looked somewhat
distressed, I guess, they quickly got a nurse to take us to triage for
evaluation. This time, is when we met,
Tami, the most awesome nurse ever!
Tami asked me about a million questions. I kept thinking that she is trying
to test
whether I can talk through contractions and she was going to send me home.
However, after monitoring the contractions
with a machine for a while, she was convinced that active labor was going
on. She checked my cervix and said that
I was 5-6cm dilated, and said she was going to go call the doctor to let her
know that I was being admitted, but they didn’t have a room for me yet.
Since all my labor pains were in my back, she
gave Dolphin some advice about applying counter pressure to try to help. It
was the same advice that I read in the
Bradley method book that I read, but to be honest, it really didn’t seem to
make much of a difference easy the pain. Getting in the right position did
help though so, Tami also helped me
get into the side position that I wanted that was more comfortable.
As soon as Tami left the room, I had a mega-painful
contraction, heard or felt (not sure) a slight pop, and then felt a gush of
fluid. Dolphin ran out of the room to
tell them my water broke. At this point,
my labor went into hyper drive. The
contractions were very painful, and I felt like I was on fire. At one
point, in the triage room, I felt very
nauseous, which I had read as a sign of transition. However, I had no idea
how fast things were
really progressing.
A few weeks prior, I had finally decided that I was going to
have an epidural for pain relief. I had
gone back and forth about in my mind about a billion times, all natural or
epidural. It’s a tough choice. So, when my OB came
in, I immediately wanted her to get the epidural lined up. What I didn’t
realize is that it would take 2
hours to get the epidural. First, I
needed to get a room, draw some blood for tests, and then they needed to
hydrate me through an IV.
During this 2 hour period, I was quite noisy. I could always respond to
questions and talk
through contractions though. So, I think
the ability to talk through a contraction is a really stupid indicator of
whether you are in active labor. For
each contraction, I would grab on to Dolphin, moan, and tried to focus on
slow breaths. I do remember a few times,
where I was in so much pain, that I grabbed at my hair and pulled on it.
At least I didn’t bang my head to try to
knock myself out like our friend Kim. Also during this time, I started
shaking a lot. Dolphin was concerned and asked the
nurse about it. She told him that this
happens with a fast labor.
Finally, the epidural went in, just in time for me to be 9cm
dilated. Just 5 minutes after that, I
was 10cm and at 0 station, ready to push. I definitely felt the pressure of
the baby’s head. Even with the epidural that did not go
away. I also could feel that pressure
increase so I knew when to push. So,
Tami and Dolphin let me lead the way. I
would pull my legs back and push, while they counted.
After about an hour, I finally pushed the baby close to
delivery. I remember telling the nurse
that I hope that I didn’t have an experience like Jenny McCarthy. I had
recently read one of her books (which I
don’t recommend) and her story of pushing for 2 hours and ending up with a
C-section. Fortunately, my case was different and he finally was ready to be
delivered.
My OB and two infant nurses came in
the room. I had just a few pushes left,
but by this time, I was starting to feel a little defeated at how slow
things
were going. Fortunately, Dolphin kept me
motivated. I could tell from him facial
expression that I was making progress. With one big push, his head came out
and the doctor asked me to stop pushing. To this, I replied “no problem”
which Tami found
funny. Then, with two more pushes I
pushed the rest of him out.
The doctor laid Xander on my stomach while Dolphin cut the
umbilical chord. Xander looked at me
with one eye open and one eye closed and gave a few whimpers. I was
surprised, for some reason, how warm he
was. The nurse picked him up to wrap him
up and then he really started wailing. The placenta came out quickly after
that. Dolphin said it was pretty gross looking and
I didn’t miss not seeing it. I also told
the doctor that I didn’t want to eat it and then told her about the website
that I had found where a guy cooked it and served a big dinner party. Yuck!
About this time, my brother called. Good timing but we obviously didn’t
answer as we were busy. The doctor and her
assistant started to sew me up. I had
what she called a medium sized tear. (Note: to those experienced moms, they
don’t really do episiotomies much
any more because naturally tearing heals better). This sewing seemed to
take forever because I really just wanted to hold Xander. I
asked my OB if she was sewing a wedding dress down
there. She didn’t laugh…oh well.
After that, the nurse helped me breast feed Xander for the
first time. When he finished, the whole
family was taken to our postpartum room so we could start our new life
together.
Xander’s Birth Story
July 23, 2008 – At my regularly scheduled OB appointment, we did the
first cervical check. I was very pessimistic about showing any progress as I had not felt any contractions or experienced any signs of impending labor. Much to my surprise, my cervix was 2cm dilated and stretchable to 3cm. My doctor estimated 1-2 weeks, but
I didn’t give that much credibility because I had read so many stories about
the unpredictability of labor. We also went over my birth plan, and didn’t have any disagreements. My OB told me that we should call if the contractions were intense enough that I could not talk through them at an interval of 5 minutes for one hour or if my water broke.
July 30, 2008 – At my regularly scheduled OB appointment, my cervix
had progressed to 3cm dilated and 70% effaced. I had felt a few Braxton
hicks contractions but they were barely
noticeable. I also had tiny bit of
swelling in my ankles for a couple of days, but it went away. At this
appointment, my OB told me that she was leaving private practice to deal
with low income, high
risk births at the hospital. She told me she would be there for my birth,
but the other doctor in the office would do my post-partum checkup. She
reiterated her mantra of rules for when we should call.
August 6, 2008 – At my regularly scheduled OB appointment, the doctor
told me that she was surprised that I hadn’t given birth yet. At this
point, my cervix was 3.5cm dilated
and 80% effaced. This seemed like very
little progress and was somewhat depressing. She also brought up the
dreaded “I” word, induction. We had figured that this would come up since
he was measuring to be a larger baby. I
told her that I was neutral about induction, which was not entirely true.
While I trusted her judgment to suggest an
induction if necessary, I really did not want one. I really wanted things
to happen on a natural
schedule.
August 7, 2008 -- Perhaps it was the fear of induction itself that kicked
things off. Sometime before 5am,
I started to feel somewhat uncomfortable contractions. I suspected these
were real contractions
because the pain was in my back. I was
excited, but nervous that it was just false labor. I stayed in bed until
5am and then woke up to take a bath. I figured that if I was going into the
hospital, I should make sure my legs weren’t too hairy. While I took in the
bath, I used my cell
phone clock to measure contractions and observed that they were pretty
regular.
Between 5-7am, my
contractions were like clockwork, every 5 minutes. They just did not seem
that painful though so
I decided to rest, eat breakfast, read email for work, and watch TV. At
about 7:30am,
I was convinced something real enough was happening that I woke Dolphin up
so he could help finish packing what we wanted to bring to the hospital.
The next 5 hours were very, very boring. The contractions always timed to 5
minutes part. I kept hoping they would do
something to indicate that they were increasing in severity, but I could
always talk through them and they never seemed to get closer together. I worked
from home, took a few phone call,
and tried to clean up the house a little. One thing that surprised me was
how good the intervals between
contractions felt. I think there must be
natural pain killers generated because I felt so relaxed in the space
between.
Around noon, the
contractions appeared to slow to every 6-7 minutes. In hindsight, I think
we just don’t know how
to time contractions properly. However,
to me, they were getting longer in duration. So, we called the nurse to see
if we should go in. Since we told her that we thought the
contractions were slowing down, she told us to stay home.
So, we had some lunch. I kept getting more impatient, but I also was
convinced that I shouldn’t
go to the hospital because I didn’t want to be sent home for false labor. I
think it’s was a pride thing. Around 2:30pm the contractions were back to 5
minutes apart and starting to get slightly more
uncomfortable, so we called the nurse back and she said we could come in.
Finally!
I remember telling Dolphin not to drive crazy because there
was no hurry. He also kept asking me
weird questions while I was having a contraction to see if I could talk
through
them. Because I wasn’t telling him when
the contractions were, he wasn’t sure if they were happening.
When we got to the hospital, the registration desk said they
didn’t know I was supposed to be there. Grrr….I had pre-registered and we
called our OB in advance (what we were supposed to do) and they still had no
clue who we
were. Because I looked somewhat
distressed, I guess, they quickly got a nurse to take us to triage for
evaluation. This time, is when we met,
Tami, the most awesome nurse ever!
Tami asked me about a million questions. I kept thinking that she is trying
to test
whether I can talk through contractions and she was going to send me home.
However, after monitoring the contractions
with a machine for a while, she was convinced that active labor was going
on. She checked my cervix and said that
I was 5-6cm dilated, and said she was going to go call the doctor to let her
know that I was being admitted, but they didn’t have a room for me yet.
Since all my labor pains were in my back, she
gave Dolphin some advice about applying counter pressure to try to help. It
was the same advice that I read in the
Bradley method book that I read, but to be honest, it really didn’t seem to
make much of a difference easy the pain. Getting in the right position did
help though so, Tami also helped me
get into the side position that I wanted that was more comfortable.
As soon as Tami left the room, I had a mega-painful
contraction, heard or felt (not sure) a slight pop, and then felt a gush of
fluid. Dolphin ran out of the room to
tell them my water broke. At this point,
my labor went into hyper drive. The
contractions were very painful, and I felt like I was on fire. At one
point, in the triage room, I felt very
nauseous, which I had read as a sign of transition. However, I had no idea
how fast things were
really progressing.
A few weeks prior, I had finally decided that I was going to
have an epidural for pain relief. I had
gone back and forth about in my mind about a billion times, all natural or
epidural. It’s a tough choice. So, when my OB came
in, I immediately wanted her to get the epidural lined up. What I didn’t
realize is that it would take 2
hours to get the epidural. First, I
needed to get a room, draw some blood for tests, and then they needed to
hydrate me through an IV.
During this 2 hour period, I was quite noisy. I could always respond to
questions and talk
through contractions though. So, I think
the ability to talk through a contraction is a really stupid indicator of
whether you are in active labor. For
each contraction, I would grab on to Dolphin, moan, and tried to focus on
slow breaths. I do remember a few times,
where I was in so much pain, that I grabbed at my hair and pulled on it.
At least I didn’t bang my head to try to
knock myself out like our friend Kim. Also during this time, I started
shaking a lot. Dolphin was concerned and asked the
nurse about it. She told him that this
happens with a fast labor.
Finally, the epidural went in, just in time for me to be 9cm
dilated. Just 5 minutes after that, I
was 10cm and at 0 station, ready to push. I definitely felt the pressure of
the baby’s head. Even with the epidural that did not go
away. I also could feel that pressure
increase so I knew when to push. So,
Tami and Dolphin let me lead the way. I
would pull my legs back and push, while they counted.
After about an hour, I finally pushed the baby close to
delivery. I remember telling the nurse
that I hope that I didn’t have an experience like Jenny McCarthy. I had
recently read one of her books (which I
don’t recommend) and her story of pushing for 2 hours and ending up with a
C-section. Fortunately, my case was different and he finally was ready to be
delivered.
My OB and two infant nurses came in
the room. I had just a few pushes left,
but by this time, I was starting to feel a little defeated at how slow
things
were going. Fortunately, Dolphin kept me
motivated. I could tell from him facial
expression that I was making progress. With one big push, his head came out
and the doctor asked me to stop pushing. To this, I replied “no problem”
which Tami found
funny. Then, with two more pushes I
pushed the rest of him out.
The doctor laid Xander on my stomach while Dolphin cut the
umbilical chord. Xander looked at me
with one eye open and one eye closed and gave a few whimpers. I was
surprised, for some reason, how warm he
was. The nurse picked him up to wrap him
up and then he really started wailing. The placenta came out quickly after
that. Dolphin said it was pretty gross looking and
I didn’t miss not seeing it. I also told
the doctor that I didn’t want to eat it and then told her about the website
that I had found where a guy cooked it and served a big dinner party. Yuck!
About this time, my brother called. Good timing but we obviously didn’t
answer as we were busy. The doctor and her
assistant started to sew me up. I had
what she called a medium sized tear. (Note: to those experienced moms, they
don’t really do episiotomies much
any more because naturally tearing heals better). This sewing seemed to
take forever because I really just wanted to hold Xander. I
asked my OB if she was sewing a wedding dress down
there. She didn’t laugh…oh well.
After that, the nurse helped me breast feed Xander for the
first time. When he finished, the whole
family was taken to our postpartum room so we could start our new life
together.
Happy Birthday Xander - Now
It's hard to believe my little bug is 5 years old. He's grown to be independent and sensitive. Once a tiny bundle, Xander has nearly outgrown the toddler shoe sizes. He is now a size 13T. He's tall enough to do pretty much everything that we can do save driving a car. He has tousled curly hair that I love and I perpetually ask the salon to leave long.
Xander loves to run and loves to play in the water, inside or outside. He loves to read and has been doing surprisingly well reading early reader books. He absolutely loves math. His obsession with math is quite shocking at times. Recently, he was sick with a cold and had a headache. He asked me to ask him some math problems to help clear out his mind.
Xander has become a good big brother. He loves to teach Aria about the rules of the world and how her how to do things. He also loves to tickle her and play babies with her.
At school, he tends to have a small number of close friends that he wants to play with all of the time. For the past 3 years, his favorite friends have been girls in each of his classes: Celeste, Claire, and Roni.
He's a love of video games and puzzles. Two of his favorite games are Skylanders and a game on the Kindle that teaches pictorial algebra. He is a chip off the old block when it comes to computer and has already successfully hacked a computer at school and his own smartphone. His favorite TV show is "Adventure Time".
Xander's big asks for his birthday this year were: a rainbow cake, a party with his friends, and a dragon's gate Skylander. Pictures of these to come soon.
Xander loves to run and loves to play in the water, inside or outside. He loves to read and has been doing surprisingly well reading early reader books. He absolutely loves math. His obsession with math is quite shocking at times. Recently, he was sick with a cold and had a headache. He asked me to ask him some math problems to help clear out his mind.
Xander has become a good big brother. He loves to teach Aria about the rules of the world and how her how to do things. He also loves to tickle her and play babies with her.
At school, he tends to have a small number of close friends that he wants to play with all of the time. For the past 3 years, his favorite friends have been girls in each of his classes: Celeste, Claire, and Roni.
He's a love of video games and puzzles. Two of his favorite games are Skylanders and a game on the Kindle that teaches pictorial algebra. He is a chip off the old block when it comes to computer and has already successfully hacked a computer at school and his own smartphone. His favorite TV show is "Adventure Time".
Xander's big asks for his birthday this year were: a rainbow cake, a party with his friends, and a dragon's gate Skylander. Pictures of these to come soon.
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