These are the sweet little things I never want to forget! When Peter takes a bath he plays with a bunch of animal squirters. For whatever reason, the penguin always gets put in time out. He says “Penguin, time out!” Poor penguin. Overheard one morning as Peter was waking up and playing with his school bus in his room. “Uh oh bus. What happened? Need help? I coming. I help you. Okay?” He finishes most sentences with “okay?” He’s also starting to have lengthy conversations with his toys! Every morning when Peter leaves for Ms. Barbara’s I say “See you later alligator!” One morning he beat me to it and excitedly said “Bye bye alligator!” It was incredibly cute. One day we got a package in the mail and Peter decided that I needed to wear the box on my head. He had trouble getting it on my head but was polite enough to say “Sorry mommy” every time he bumped me. When I would take the box off and say “It’s too hot in there for mommy” he would put it right back on my head and say “It’s okay mommy” and pat me on the shoulder. I happily wore the box many times that afternoon. Peter has always liked Curious George. Recently, he’s started to like Timmy Time and Thomas the Train. When Peter realized that I had learned the words to the Thomas and Friends song he looked at me like I was the most magical mommy in the world. I think I’ll be learning many more songs! Peter has finally given up on Pajama Time, his favorite bedtime book. He still requests “Rocky Pig” every once in a while though. (we usually rock while reading it and it has a picture of a pig on the cover) We now read Tickling Tigers in his bed. He LOVES “Tickle Tigers.” He is most ticklish on his knees. Some nights we go through his Baby Einstein First Words book afterwards. Then we pray and I tuck him in. And he still sleeps at the foot of his bed- with his monkey pillow, tiger, otter, dog and giraffe! Charlotte is almost 2 months old now and he is finally starting to like having her around. When she fusses, he brings her a blankie and toys and says “Here you go sister. It’s okay.” He also asks to lay down with her in her play gym by saying “Lie down sister?” He then shows her all the hanging toys by saying “Look sister.”

Charlotte was born on April 10th, 2012. She was 8 pounds, 1 ounce and 20¾ inches long. She is perfect in every way! Her birth story begins on Easter Sunday. I woke up feeling super crampy so we ended up not going to church. My first thought was, “Not yet. I have one more week of school to get through!” We had a 3-on-3 student council fundraiser planned and I’m the StuCo sponsor. I ended up contracting all day long and by the evening they were fairly regular at about 9 minutes apart. By that time I had decided, “Who cares about next week! It’s baby time!” Well, I finally decided to just head to bed because the contractions weren’t getting any closer together. I woke up Monday morning (a school holiday) feeling great and had decided baby wasn’t coming. I now had to psych myself up for another week of school. I went to bed as usual Monday night and woke up about 1:30am having contractions. They were about 6 minutes apart, but not painful enough to convince me I was in labor. After about an hour I decided to take a shower to see if the contractions would stop (and also to be clean in case I really was in labor). After my shower the contractions were more like 3 minutes apart, but still not very painful. Since I was attempting a VBAC, I knew I wasn’t supposed to labor fully at home, but I still wasn’t totally sure this was the real thing. Finally, at 3:30 I lost my MP so I decided to call the doctor. He told me to go ahead to the hospital. We called Curtis’ parents to come pick up Peter and we started gathering things for the hospital. The contractions were getting stronger so I was finally convinced that I was really in labor! We left for the hospital around 4:30 and by the time the nurse checked me I was already a 6 (and still not in much pain). I guess that’s the difference between normal labor and the back labor I had experienced with Peter. Dr. Gaitonde got there at 6:00 and by that point I was a 7. We sent for the epidural, not for the pain though. This was agreed upon in advance. Because I was attempting a VBAC, I ran the slight risk of experiencing uterine rupture. If that were to happen (without an epidural), I would’ve been knocked out for an emergency c-section. And there was no way I was going to miss baby girl’s birth! I made it to a 10 by 7:30 and started pushing. Her heart rate dropped a few times, forcing us to stop and have me lay on my side. Finally, at 9:03 am I pushed her out! I wasn’t attempting a VBAC for the “experience” (more for medical reasons) but I have to admit, experiencing a normal delivery was unbelievably amazing. I got so excited when I felt her enter the birth canal and I remember yelling an excited “Oh!” when I felt her come out. Curtis got to cut the cord, which he was very proud to do. And no, he didn’t pass out from the blood! A few minutes later I was able to nurse Charlotte. After about 10 minutes, Charlotte suddenly turned blue (really blue). The nurse grabbed her and called the NICU. By the time everyone had arrived, Charlotte had regained her color and was crying. We tired nursing again. She turned blue again. Our nurse decided to send her to the nursery for observation. About an hour later I was able to go to the nursery and nurse Charlotte while she was hooked up to an oxygen monitor. No blue baby this time! They decided she just had a little trouble with learning to suck, swallow and breathe. After that, Charlotte was able to stay with me for the rest of our hospital stay!