list addition

Corn is now added to the list, in the "not quite as evil" category. We've gone through 3 burp cloths today. A new record!

I'm still in early April.......

I cannot believe it is May. The Gordo is almost 1 month old. Life is slooowwwly returning to normal, provided I eat the way I'm supposed to. Gordon has a word, or actually a grunt and fuss to say about my diet. Chocolate and broccoli are EVIL. Citrus juices are not quite as evil. Onions, garlic, spices, beans, acidic foods (strawberries and citric acid, what you find in candy and in Fruit Loops) and sun-dried tomatoes are suspected evils. We'll see if that list gets any longer over the next few weeks. I hope not. This list eliminates about 15% of my diet and makes cooking more interesting.

The little guy is really quite sweet most of the time. As long as I get him the sleep he needs and avoid the evil foods, he does fine. He's even flashed me some good smiles, none of which I've gotten pictures of yet. He does have personal space issues with his sisters, who are guilty only of loving him a little too much and driving their parens crazy sometimes. Evelyn likes to come in close and give him 5 kisses, and by the end of this Gordon is waving his arms around, grunting, and trying to get away from her.

About 3 weeks

I have 3 kids. 3 kids. Crazy. Gordo is approaching 10 pounds. Maybe he'll be my first chubby baby.
My hair is getting chopped off. It's driving me nuts. I've finally realized you do a lot of looking down with a little baby, and I can't stand it in my face. How much will go is still being decided. This position is the dude's favorite.
The girls have been really good at entertaining each other the last month, for which I am so grateful. Now I'm glad they are close in age. It's sometimes bad for Jilly though, who I expect much more of because she is so mature for her 2 1/2 years. She's had potty-training trouble on and off all month, and while it drives me nuts I have to remember that she's not as old as Evelyn.

Evelyn had her first experience with motion sickness today. I was at a friend's house for a primary meeting, and my friend has a swing anchored to the ceiling in the basement. If any of you have seen the pouch swing at IKEA, it's the same thing. At the end of the meeting, Evelyn comes running up the stairs, kind of staggering all over the place, and plops on the couch. I ask her what's the matter because she's whining, pale, and sweaty all over, and then acts like she's going to hurl. I get her to the bathroom and only a little comes up. So I make her sit there for a while, and then we go home. Then this comes out: "Mommy, I was swinging around and around at Bella's house. And then I didn't feel good so I came to find you." I laughed and told her it was motion sickness. I don't think she quite got it. Thank heavens it was just that and not the stomach flu.

Hopefully in the next month I can accomplish getting ready for the day 5 days out of the week, instead of 2 or 3 and staying in my pajamas the other days. And get out of bed by 9 am on a regular basis. We'll see about that one. I'm awful about returing phone calls right now, so don't feel bad if you're one of those I don't get back to.

Normalcy. I crave it. I'll get it back soon though, and then I'll miss the little baby days. You can never have your cake and eat it too. That's why you take pictures and movies I guess.

Temporarily Out of Order

Hey all, we are currently without internet and we hope this doesn't last long. Our apartment complex went with Qwest as an exclusive provider of internet and since our promotion had just ended the only price we could get was $50/month. Ridiculous. Hopefully we can get something worked out soon otherwise we may just have intermittent posts here and there when we can make it to Ben's school.

We're alive!

We are surviving the 3 kid adjustment quite well. The biggest hurdle Ben and I have faced is getting enough sleep. Gordon is a good baby so far, the only thing was he had his days and nights mixed up until a few nights ago, and I wasn't getting more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. So that was fun. I go to bed early, and Ben stays up with him until 1 am or so, and then he brings the baby to bed. The strategy seems to be working, so we'll stick with it. Ben is very thankfully done with teaching for the semester, so I have his help with the kids for the next 2 weeks or so. Gordon hardly cries, and is a champion nurser. He's already filling out all his wrinkles.

1 week old

For the record, the C-section wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I don't feel like I really had a baby, minus the sleep deprivation and actual baby. I was more sore from the uncontrollable back and rib muscle spasms I experienced during the surgery. That was the painful part. Not a good time for your body to teach you about muscle spasms. I'm pretty sure Gordon and I would have ended up in worse shape had we not done a C-section. The OB doing the surgery said it looked like this kid was trying to backward dive into my rib cage (feet first, hands over his head), which is why it took them a good 5 minutes to unwedge him. I was going to name him "Mud" when we found out he was breech, but he's been too good of a baby for that. 

Day after coming gome from the hospital. Jilly adores him, but has had her regression issues as well. Like peeing on the floor 6 times in one day. She wore a diaper the next day. I was not going to deal with that again.

Evelyn has been a great helper, fetching stuff for me and helping Jilly do things she's too short to do herself.

The girls have been getting in a lot of Daddy time lately. Ben took them to Temple Square to check out the flowers with Aunt Lyndsey. They got to tour the top of the Conference Center, and Ben took some good pictures for me. Every time I've gone to see the top, it's been closed. 

Notes from a bizarre turn of birth events

1. The Irony. About 2/3 through this pregnancy, I picked up about 8 books on labor/delivery, and unmedicated childbirth. I wanted to do this one without an epidural or IV drugs if I could. So I read up on it. The chapters on C-sections? Skimmed through it. I got the general idea, but didn't digest it like I did other chapters.

2. I'm glad I asked questions when the c-section suggestion came up, because holy crap, once the nurses found out he was breech, there were six new people in there asking me to sign forms for this or that, the anethesiologist was there, and I was like, "Let's slow down the slice and dice train here! Do we have to do this?" So then they realized I was not an idiot and I wanted the info. I really just needed time to process it. 

3. And I'm glad I listened. It took them five minutes to get Gordon out because as the doctor put it, "It looks like he was trying to backward dive into your rib cage." His shoulders and head got super stuck. I'm glad I was kind of out of it, Ben couldn't believe all the pushing and pulling they were doing. Had we done a natural delivery, I really don't want to think about what would have happened. 

4. I'm really proud of Ben, he actually took some pictures of the surgery. (His history with blood and passing out isn't stellar). He told me he wouldn't look, but ended up taking about eight pictures without passing out or thowing up on me. I love him. He knew I would want to see those pictures sooner or later. 

5. The middle of surgery is not the time for your body to decide to teach you how uncontrollable back and rib muscle spasms feel. That was actually the worst part of the whole thing. The muscles are still recovering from that.

Retrospect (3 years later) - I should have just waited for him to arrive on his own. Chances are he would have just flipped back to a vertical position. Or he could have been turned. I know I am not a patient person.

Chapter 3: Wherin the Little Boy Tells His Story

Dear reader, the following is a dictated statement taken from baby Gordon at 9:05 pm MST, Wednesday April 8th, 2009. He is 7lbs, 10oz's, 20" long and, apparently, already talking. 

"Mom and Dad got a call from the hospital at 5:45am asking them to come in by 6:30, they took their time and got there after 7, making sure to say goodbye to little girl two before their trek. Mommy got hooked up to the I.V. shortly after arriving and nurse Brook, who helped deliver my older sisters, was assigned to take care of Mommy. Everything was going well and Dr. Harrison came to break Mommy's water at about 1:15.

About 45 minutes later the doctors figured out that I was bass ackwards. I was positioned the right way less than a week ago, the ultrasound lady said so, but I'm tricky and while nobody was looking I did a flip and stuck my head into Mommy's ribs. There was no way I was going to squeeze out of Mommy the regular way, so the doctors had to cut her tummy and take me out.

My head is big, 'cause I think I have a big brain, and so it got stuck. That made it hard to breath and I had some help breathing at first until I figured out how to cry. Then I gave a big long wail that made Daddy proud to have a man-child. Mommy was very brave in the operation room and Daddy got to wear a cool space suit that didn't breath very well. My big sisters and my aunt came to visit me in the hospital. They were very excited to hold me...I was really tired so I slept though the whole visit. I've already eaten twice, I'm going to be a good eater. I have the best Mommy in the world, I hope she recovers quickly."

Waiting...

This is what I am doing. Today was due day.

My sister flew in on Wednesday so I have some help with my kids, and at that point I gave this baby the green light.

I hoped I would have some cute, squishy baby pictures to post, but nope.

What do sisters do when they're waiting for a baby? Entertain the kids. Go shopping. Go to the library. Walk a lot (which I would do more of if it would stop SNOWING!!!!!!!!! Can anyone tell I am sick of winter?) We play xBox Lego Star Wars after the girls go to sleep, and take 1 1/2 hours to conquer the pod racing level. Ben then proceeds to show us how it's done and beats it in 7 minutes or something ridiculous like that. We play games......actually we haven't gotten to that one yet.

The morning after my sister got here, Evelyn asked me, "Mommy? Where are we going today? Can we get ready for the hospital now to get the baby out?" I guess I should have more clearly explained that the arrival of their aunt wouldn't mean an automatic baby.

Funny quote of the day from Evelyn: "Mommy, do you have something hungry in your purse?"
I laughed. "Like a green gremlin or something?"
"Huh? What?" she asked, thoroughly confused. "What did you say to me Mommy?"
"Did you mean to ask if I had something to eat in my purse?"
"Oh, yeah."

So. Little gordito. I'm talking to you.

You have the green light.

The turkey timer has popped.

Class is over.

The cake is done.

I'm waiting.

But only for a few more days.

So if you want to use your agency, better do it soon before the induction does it for you!