Bowties and bacon.  That's what we had for dinner tonight.   Because that's what Cody requested and it's his birthday.  So bowties and bacon it was.  And chocolate cupcakes with blue frosting for dessert.

So at least if the world ends tonight, we had a good last meal.  ;)

You guys, this baby has been smiling for a few weeks now, sporadically at first, and slowly becoming more purposeful and in response to people.  I have been killing myself trying to get pictures of those first sweet smiles.  Finally, I resorted to videos.  Enjoy:




MVI 1046 from Bethany Weed on Vimeo.

MVI 1057 from Bethany Weed on Vimeo.



Isn't he sweet?

And to top it off, I got one picture of him smiling.

Oh my word, this is the sweetest baby ever.  He is so sweet.  So mild.  So mellow.  SO easy.  He sleeps all night.  He sleeps all morning.  He has awake time in the evening.  I think this is wise, as he is very awake when it's just calm mom and dad, and he has our undivided attention.

He's fine to be held.  Or fine to be left alone if that's the deal.  His cries amount to this, "Hey guys?"  (Pause.)  "Guys?"  (Pause.)  "Hey, just, whenever you get a chance, I'm mildly uncomfortable."  (Pause.)  "Just, whenever you get around to it, I mean, I see you have stuff going on, so if you get a chance, maybe you could change my bum?"  Maybe?  I mean, these cries are so soft, so easy to calm.  It's like someone told him, "Hey, Spence, babies cry.  And when they do, they go, "Waa."  So, dutifully, he "waa's."  But his heart isn't really in it.  :)  He's just a sweet, sweet, mellow, easy guy. 

These boys begged me to take a picture of their snowman, so I did.  Seconds after posing with their proud creation, they kicked and bashed him to pieces.

Boys are weird.

I go to pick up Cody from Kindergarten.  A boy comes racing after me, heedless of his own safety in the parking lot, yelling, "Cody's mom!  Cody's mom!  Cody's MOM!"
"Yes?"
"Can Cody come over to my house?"

Repeat this scenario pretty much every day that I go to pick up my child, accompanied by a chorus of "Bye Cody, Bye Cody, BYE CODY!" from every other kid in his class.

Every Friday, Cody comes home with popcorn.  As I know I didn't send the 25 cents required for him to buy the popcorn, I ask him where he got it.  He tells me which friend bought popcorn for him this week.  It changes.  But every Friday, he comes home with popcorn that he didn't buy.  Sometimes with two bags.  I guess there were two kids that week, dying to be Cody's popcorn supplier.

This Saturday, I am spending half my day shuttling Cody to his 2 birthday parties.  The day before that, he had a play date with a kid from church.  And the day before that, I had a mom stop me in the school parking lot and tell me how much her daughter wants to have a play date with Cody, and how she talks about Cody all the time, and how they must just be absolute best friends and does Cody talk about her daughter all the time, too?

I didn't have the heart to tell her (and her daughter) to get in line because everyone wants a piece of this kid and there's only so much Cody to go around.

Said Nathan, "I was crying in my bed last night."
Said Mama, "Oh really?  Why's that?"
Nathan, "Because of all my problems."
Mama, "What problems?"
Nathan, "Like how I'll never be able to read all the books in the world."

Oh for the problems of a 3rd grader...


Said Cody before school, "Why do I have to go to school?  It's too hard to go to school when you have a baby you want to spend time with."


Said Leah, "I like babies.  Who are Spencers."  As a group.  Generally.


Said Cody while patting his sister on the shoulder, as she was crying after losing a game, "Don't worry.  Nationwide is on your side."  I'm not sure that's the point of insurance...


Said Leah after sneezing, "I blessed away from the baby." (Get it?  Because we say "bless you" after sneezing?  She thinks the act of sneezing is called "blessing."  Cute.  :)


Said Cody when he was ready to be done holding Spencer, "Mama, can you take him?  He's getting kind of lousy."


Said Nathan, "I needed an adventure.  So I ate a Lemonhead."  Slow down, you wild and crazy adventurer, you.


Said Leah to Mama after Mama had gotten dressed and done her hair but not her make up, "Oh Mama.  You look so beautiful.  Your dress is beautiful and your hair is beautiful... (studious pause.)  But not your eyes."  Call it like you see it, sister.  No danger of false compliments from you.


Said Nathan after dodging a high thrown ball at the last minute,  "Sometimes I am afraid of the impact's outcome."  Does Harvard even HAVE a football team?

 Small girl and I went to Disney on Ice-just a little Mommy/Daughter date. 

 I think my little princess enjoyed the show, but what I know is that she loved spending time alone with me.


I enjoyed spending time with her, too.  She's my peach.  Before she was born, I would have been absolutely thrilled to have just boys, but now that I have her, I would be lost without her.  And it's not because she's my only girl, it's because she's my only Leah.

Cody lost his first tooth on Thanksgiving Day!  And he swallowed it or something, because it's no where to be found.  But never fear, the Tooth Fairy made an exception and gave him some good faith money under his pillow.  :)

Oh, I lied.  Kind of.  There are two other pictures from Thanksgiving, but Ryan took them.  Here.  The only other ones from Thanksgiving day...

Look at 'im.  Wasn't he sweet??  Nate was just barely 3 in this picture.  He was the nicest, most obedient little boy.  Never went through "terrible" anything.  Not at two or three, or ever really.



Oh he was smirkle-y (see above), but never terrible.  Just sweet and obedient and wanted to follow the rules and have everything just right.   (Dang man, look at those legs, though.  Even at age 3, he had much more leg than he could handle.)

I can't believe that today our little Nater turned nine.  Nine is a super big number.  I can't think about it because it boggles my mind too much.  We had a pretty great little party today.  (PS, remember the days when I threw elaborate, amazing parties?  Yeah, me too.  Lets all take a moment to remember those days because I'm not sure if they are ever coming back!)  For today's party, we went to open play at a gymnastics place.  He invited 3 friends, they played for 2 hours, opened presents and that was it.  Done and done.  They had a great time and let's be real, it was the only sort of "party" I could manage at this time. 



In the evening, we had cupcakes and did a little family celebration, and called it a day.  

Mr. Spencer made his church debut today.

Sadly, I think he was a disappointment to many.  People kept coming up to me asking to see "the manchild" or "the monster."   They said, "I heard he was born half grown," or "I heard it's time for that kid to get a job" or things like that.  I think they were expecting more of a circus freak, a small man in a circus uniform with bulging muscles or something...  Maybe like this:

 And instead they got this:




A dapper lookin' sleepy baby, who still actually looks like an infant.

Sorry to disappoint... ;)

Everyone seems to be quite concerned about how Leah is handling the advent of Spencer.  Let me assure you, she's doing just fine.  (She's probably happier than she's ever been in her whole life because our usually well controlled "screen time" has of late become quite lax, so she's had more time watching PBS Kids and playing on the iPad than she's ever had before and she loves it.)  Perhaps people were worried because she's the only one I didn't show holding him in that last post about him. Well if that's the trouble, then here:

She enjoys holding him, too, it's just that her holding sessions last about 5 minutes, as compared to the boys who would literally hold him for hours... all afternoon, if they can.

She loves her baby, and is always telling me how she plans to be so helpful to me, and how he's so cute and so sweet.  I decided to take a little video to ask her what she thinks of him:



MVI 0815 from Bethany Weed on Vimeo.



So you see, she's doing fine.  But while I had the camera out, I decided to take a video of her singing a few songs.  Here:




So there you go, friends.  Miss Leah is doing great, but I'm sure she'd thank you for your interest in her well being.  :) 

That's my casual and friendly name for the NICU.  Not really.  I don't feel casual and friendly about it at all.  In fact, I'm still a little confused about the whole experience.  When all's said and done, I'm not 100% sure he even needed to be in there.  I think it is possible that we fell victim to an over eager resident...?  BUT it is also possible that I really don't understand all the ins and outs of things and maybe he really did need to be there and I'll never know how much it benefited him.  Or something.  I guess I'm just not sure we needed to be there because they didn't DO anything.  We just... waited for his lungs to catch up to him, which we could have done in or out of the NIC.  When he was in the regular newborn nursery, they tested his oxygen levels.  They vacillated between 86% and 93%.  They told us that they wanted them to be between 95 and 100.  So down to the NICU we went.  In the NICU, they told us on the day that we left that they just wanted to see that he routinely kept above 86% and that all newborn babies desaturate sometimes.  I was like, "Kay, if THAT had been the requirement in the newborn nursery, we would never have been sent down here in the first place!"  It just doesn't make sense.  But at that point, I just wanted out, so I nodded, unplugged my baby and ran.

The NICU is a weird place.  Please don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that it's there.  I think they work MIRACLES down there.  In fact, so miraculous that it's almost creepy.  Spencer shared a room with two little babies-one of whom was born at 27 weeks gestation and the other who was born at 25 weeks gestation.  There was an air of the surreal in his room.  I kept thinking... wow.  Those two babies probably should not be alive.  And yet there they are.  It's weird.  Strange.  And amazing. 

But for us, the NICU was more... fearful.  I kept fearing that some vigilant nurse would hear some tiny squeak from Spencer and say, "Oop!  Can't go home now for another 3 days while we test that completely innocuous newborn squeak."  It's a weird thing to have your baby plugged in constantly.  To not be able to hold him the way you'd like because if you do, his monitors will go off.  Just... weird.  And it's weird that you have this baby, and then they take him away, and you have to go to visit him.  Visit your own child? 

I don't think I ever said this, but after I was discharged, we rented the hospital's equivalent of a hotel room.  This was a lifesaver for me as I was not planning to leave the hospital without the baby I came there with, but once you're out of your hospital room, what else would you do??  So Ryan and I stayed in this little hotel room for a few nights, and it was great.  Well, as great as staying in the hospital for 5 days can be.

But I'd wake up in the night with a mixture of crazy things happening to me.  Sometimes I'd wake up crying.  I'd wake up feeling heavy, and like I couldn't breathe.  One night I had a dream.  It actually wasn't about Spencer, it was about my other kids.  I was in this building about a block away from my kids.  There was water in between us, and Nathan and Cody were out playing in the water.  The tides were strong and I was worried about them.  I kept yelling for them to get out of the water, to go back inside.  I was worried that Nathan wasn't a strong enough swimmer, and even though Cody had a life jacket, this man I didn't know kept tossing him into the water over and over again.  I was screaming, yelling, trying to get them back to what I saw as safety, but they couldn't hear me.  Yeah.  That was a bad dream.  I think my subconscious hadn't quite caught up to Spencer's existence, which is why the dream wasn't about HIM specifically, but that's how I felt about him.  I was separated from him, like in my dream.  I was constantly worried about him, like in my dream.  I wasn't fully in control of his wellbeing.  People who I don't KNOW are in his physical presence and responsible for his well being, and no matter how much I scream, I can't get him.  It was entirely unsettling.

So even though the whole experience wasn't great, not even good, there are a few nice things that I want to remember about it.

First, we really did have lovely nurses.  With the exception of one who will remain unnamed (Belinda), they were all amazing, sweet, competent, kind, professional... really just lovely.  In fact, since I've been home, I had another dream that was all about ladies who had been NICU nurses in life, but now they were dead, and as angels they were surrounding me, encouraging me that if I could just make it through the night, if I could just get him well fed tonight, that we'd be okay.  Or just encouraging me in general.  They were great even in my dreams.  Our favorite we called Kim Senior.  She was calm and grandmotherly and she loved Spencer and his grand fatness.  (PS, can you imagine being a NICU nurse and routinely holding 4 pound babies, and then WHAMMO here comes Spencer??)   Randomly, we later found out that Ryan's grandpa delivered all of Kim Senior's children.  What a coincidence is that?  Anyway, all of our nurses were great.

What I really want to remember about the experience, though, is the support of my husband.  He basically didn't leave my side during our whole time at the hospital.  He got up with me every single night for every single feeding, loaded me up in the wheelchair and started pushing me the long walk from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor NICU.  (The walk is even longer at 3 in the morning.)  He stayed awake with me, encouraged me, helped me with the tricky feeding devices they were having us use.  In fact, one night, our nurse Sarah, who we'd had a few nights in a row, said, "Ryan, I have to tell you how totally impressed I am with you.  Most dads come for the first few feedings, then they kind of taper off.  You've been here every time I've been here and I'm really impressed."  Little did she know that he had literally been there every time.  I could not have survived my time at the hospital without him.  Once, someone was asking me about something... vague, I know, but I just can't remember exactly what they wanted to know, but what I do remember is the instant response I wanted to give.  I wanted to say, "But my partner won't be there."  I stopped myself from saying that because I realized that would make it sound like we weren't married, but I really literally meant, my partner.  He has been my partner 100% throughout this whole thing, and I have been soooooo grateful.  If I didn't have such a supportive and helpful husband, I would have been done having babies long since. 

So there you go.  That's all I want to remember about the NICU.  I would be perfectly satisfied to forget everything else!  But I guess it was all worth it because in the end, we got this:

I keep thinking I'll get some pictures of Spencer all by himself, all nice on a blanket so you can see all of him. But the plain truth of the matter is that this is how Spencer spends all his time: being held by someone.

Nathan has just started his basketball season and Cody is just finishing his soccer season.  Thankfully, today was the only day that Nathan's basketball and Cody's soccer collided, with a basketball game for Nate at 9 and a soccer game for Cody at 11 and a frantic feeding of an infant in between.  (It's so different having a baby when you've got real kids with real activities to attend to as well!)

Anyway, a few pictures from our sporty day:

 






This is Cody's team.  They play 3 on 3, and everyone else on Cody's team quit.  So it's been these 3 fellas all season.  They've all played every minute of every game, with nary a sub.  Connor, Brody and Cody.  The Three Musketeers.

Well everyone, we're home as of Monday evening and doing fine.  It is soooooooooooo niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice to be home after all that time and stress in the hospital.  Thank you for any prayers you sent our way.  :)

But NOW let's talk the details that make you glad you have a blog:  the birth story.  And frankly, my friends, this one's a doozy.  Buckle up.  :)

So Grandma Heidi arrived Wednesday at 8pm.  (I would here like to state that she didn't come for the purpose of having the baby, after all, we were still almost 2 weeks early.  She just had some days off from work, so decided she'd pop in to pay us a long weekend visit.  Ok.)  So Grandma got there, we got the (excited) kids to bed and started folding laundry.  Because people, as I said, it was Wednesday and Wednesday is laundry day, come rain, come shine, come snow, come labor, whatever.  Got the laundry done and talked until midnight, when we finally let Grandma get some rest. 

At 2, I had a contraction that was hard enough to wake me up.  This, however, is not super unusual, as this has been my life for the last few months.  Tons of contractions this pregnancy.  Just crazy tons.  So I just got up, went to the bathroom, and figured that when I found a more comfortable sleeping position (like that exists), they would go away.  Sadly, they didn't.  Also not totally unusual.  So I just went out to my comfy chair to wait them out.  So I'm trying to relax and trying to get some sleep, so I'm not real aware of things, but eventually, it occurs to me that they're not only not going away, but they might be coming faster?  So I had to go wake up Ryan, just to ask him to please time these for me because I'm just concentrating on being okay.  He timed like 2 and said, "Well, maybe I'd better throw those last few things in the hospital bag, just in case."  Contractions were every 3-5 minutes, and we left the house at about 3:45.

30 minutes later, we arrive at the hospital, and try to get ourselves checked in.  Despite the clear sign that indicates that there IS valet service, and that you just have to bring your keys in, the ladies at the front desk sent Ryan away to go park our car, and sent for a man to wheel me up to labor and delivery.  I'm sitting in the waiting room, trying to just be okay, trying to deal with the (fairly substantial) pain.  One of the front desk ladies goes, "So, what number of baby is this for you?"
Gritting teeth, "Four."
Her:  "Oh.  Okay."  Then she turned to her little partner at the front desk and goes, "Where is he (the man who was supposed to wheel me away) coming from, Canada?  Radio him back and tell him that if he doesn't get here quick, he'd better bring a catcher's mitt!"

Finally, dude does come and wheels me off to the labor and delivery triage, where the idiot nurse (my blog, I'm callin' it like I see it), gives me paperwork.  Paperwork.  Please.  I am having a fairly hard time here, and I HAVE preregistered, so why am I filling out my name and birthdate and address?  Moreover, why am I doing this while she is also asking me the same questions?  ALL of these same questions that were on my pre-registration forms???  Makes no sense and is making me mad because it's hard to talk and have contractions, hard to write and have contractions, well, frankly, it's just hard to live and have contractions.  FINALLY, Ryan arrives, just about in time for me to be done with all this rigamarole and to hear her ask me, "So.  What brings you in here tonight?"  See why the idiot nurse label was warranted?  As we have discussed, I usually do try to be socially appropriate.  I try to help people who behave stupidly not feel stupid for their stupid behavior.  This is how I live my life.  But I elected not to mask my feelings when I looked at her like she was an idiot and said, "I'm really pretty sure I'm in labor." 

So they take me back to the triage unit.  This is the place where you stay while they decide if you really are in legitimate labor, they like to monitor your contractions and the baby for like an hour, and if you're progressing and the baby's doing okay and all that, then they admit you.  So my new nurse (nice-not the idiot) has me go to the bathroom, get changed, and then get on the table.  She straps the monitors on and goes for the check.  As she pulls her hands out from checking me, she very kindly says to me, "Okay, and were you planning on having an epidural tonight?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah I was, so could we get the epidural man on the hook because I'm ready for one, like, now."
Kindly she says, "Well, yes, we can do that, but I just need you to know that you are fully dialated and your bag of waters is hanging out.  I am pretty sure that it would be much faster just to go in and have the baby than to wait for an epidural."

Mmmmmmm hm.  Okay.  Now this is a quandry.  You seem to be telling me that this can be over for me really really very quickly if I just blast through and go natural, and that I would have to deal with this pain for longer if I have the epidural.

FINE fine fine, let's do it.  Let's get this thing ON.  So we head over to the delivery room, where people are frantically scurrying to get anything and everything ready.  No time to call my sweet doctor.  Doctor Whoever Is On Duty will have to do.  So they get me in there, get ready, and say, "We'd like to pop in an IV just in case you start bleeding heavily or we have to administer some other medication after delivery.  Is that okay?"  Sure, sure, whatever, do your thing.

That was the wrong answer because in seconds, blood was spurting from my hand.  I don't know what she did wrong and I don't even want to know, but within seconds, my entire hand was swollen like a bad bad bee sting and I had a huge pocket of blood hanging out on the top of my hand.  She apologizes and asks the doctor if she should try on the other hand.  I was like, "NO!  No, this is the deal, if I go natural, I get to go quick!  No more IV, let's just have the baby!"  The doctor was like, "Okay, if there's a problem, you'll just have to do the IV afterwards."  With that, she pops the water and the real badness begins.

Friends, neighbors and countrymen, there are no words.  The wall of pain.  Blinding, searing, death defying pain.  I was totally unprepared.  I have never gone natural before.  I have never wanted to go natural.  I have never taken a breathing class or a mental preparedness class-nothing.  I mean, obviously, I have my own methods for dealing with pain.  I got myself dilated to a 10 this time around without any pain medication.  With Nathan, I arrived at the hospital dilated to an 8.  I still got an epidural, and am GLAD I did, but obviously, I went quite a ways dealing with the pain.  With Cody, I got dilated to a 6 before I asked for the epidural.  Of course, he was induced, so that was a 6 of pitocin contractions, and those are kind of different.  With Leah, I just don't know how far along I was before I got the epidural because I had a little Pakistani nurse with tiny fingers who couldn't find my cervix.  Let's not go into that at this time.  But anyway, my point is, I have done a lot of laboring without medication and I about passed into the other world at the moment that the doctor broke the water.

What followed were some of worst minutes ever, I cannot describe them.  After she broke that water, she started telling me to push and I was in so much pain, such a fog of pain in my head that I couldn't figure out how to do it, couldn't even figure out what she was talking about.  I was just trying to live and breathe for another moment.  Finally, though, I realized that this would never end if I didn't do something, so I did start pushing.  And I did not stop for a solid... I don't know ... forever?  Time has no meaning under such pain and duress.  At one point they asked me to stop pushing.

Ha.

Ha.

I said no and kept pushing.  At one point, I just started gasping, "Can't you just pull him out??"  Like, hello, I am doing everything I can on this end, can't you do anything from your end?  At all?  Like, ANYTHING???

I pushed like the devil until the little Tank emerged.  4:55 am.  We had been in the hospital a total of 40 minutes. 

If you had told me the day before (while I was being harrangued in the parking lot by the old "is it twins lady") that I would give birth naturally the next day, I would have laughed at you.  Natural.  Scoff.  Why would I do that?  I dig drugs!  And THEN if you would have told me that NOT ONLY would I go natural, but my first "natural" experience would be giving birth to a child with the very UNNATURAL weight of ELEVEN POUNDS AND SEVEN OUNCES, I would have rolled around on the floor laughing at you.  Who would DO such a thing?  What hilarious madness.  And yet, this is the truth my friends.  The horrible painful truth.

I, Bethany R. Weed, on the date of October 18th, 2012, did in fact give birth to a child of unusually large size without the assistance of any pain medication.  Oh and also?  I didn't tear.  Maybe that's too much information, but then again, maybe it will persuade you into thinking that I am something of a superhero, and I'm going to need that boost because I'm pretty sure I'm going to LOOK pregnant for the rest of my life, and it would be nice to hear, "Oh, look here comes PregnantWoman!" rather than "Geez, didn't that lady give birth already???" 

Of course, the pain didn't end there (a fact of which I was blissfully unaware, as I had never done the whole "afterbirth" thing without the aid of drugs!)

I would now like to tell you something which not many people know.  It's a rare and unique talent that I have, and I feel the time has come for me to stop hiding it under a bushel.  Let my light so shine, if you will.

I grow amazing placentas.  Yeah, I do.  I have been complimented on them pretty much every pregnancy.  But THIS time around, they gave me some numbers and details so I can explain to you exactly what medical professionals find so exciting about my placentas.  Like my babies, they are huge.  As in, the nurse told me that a normal placenta is about 1 to 1.5 to 2 pounds at the heaviest.  A 2 pound placenta is a pretty darn big one.  This time around?  Mine was 3.8 pounds.  Combine that with a baby weighing in at 11.7 pounds and we are carrying about 15 pounds of baby material.  I should just start telling people that yes, it is twins, because weight wise, it is.  15 pounds?  Divide that in half and that's two normal sized babies.  So yeah.  Now you know.  Medical professionals from here to Dallas all remember the day when they delivered that lady with the amazing placentas.

Though seriously?  After our baby was born, I DID start to feel like somewhat of a celebrity, as nurses kept peeking cautiously into our room and saying, "I heard that an eleven pound baby was born..."  to which I say, yes madam, here is your admittance to the circus show, come on in and oogle the manchild.  I did, however, make one requirement.  If you're commenting on the size of my baby and you say "11 pounds," I will correct you.  You will either say 11 pounds 7 ounces, or if you want to be casual about it, you can say 11 and a half pounds, but you will not short me those ounces.  I earned every blasted one of them.  I did NOT have an eleven pound baby.  I had an eleven and a HALF pound baby.  Come correct.

And that's my story, friends.  Comment away.  When I've got the time and can stand the sitting down, I will post about the follow up story of the NICU and I'll post pictures of the little man.  (He's really nice.)

So our little guy in in the NICU.  I'll still have to be brief, because I'm still typing one fingered from the iPad, but essentially our robustly healthy baby is too robust to be all the way healthy.  He's having a hard time saturating his oxygen.  So he's working harder than he should have to in order to get the oxygen he needs.  They've done test after test and nothing *appears* to be wrong.  They just think that maybe because his body is the body of a two or three month old, but his other organs are those of an infant, he might be having a hard time meeting his big old body's needs.  They think that just given a little time, he'll transition and be just fine.  Until then, he's on oxygen down in the NICU and I have to go through quite the rigmarole to see him.

I just want him.  So I'm soliciting your prayers.

And it's me because I'm not pregnant any more.

But as far as my contest goes, Aunt Jan, you crafty lady, you win.

Spencer Mark Weed.
Thursday, October 18
4:55 am
22 and a half inches


ELEVEN POUNDS SEVEN OUNCES.

Oh yeah, and I accidentally went natural.

I'll have to give you all the details later, as I'm currently on the iPad.

Just wanted you to know.  We'll talk later.

Usually I'm really good natured about being called big.  It happens to me every pregnancy, and it used to bother me more than it does now.  Now I'm just cool with it.  It is what it is.  And it's happened... oh, just a round guess... probably about 3 dozen times this pregnancy.  And usually, I just smile and pleasantly say, "No, but it looks like it, doesn't it?"  I do this because I am socially appropriate.  The other person has just asked me a socially inappropriate question, and essentially called me fat, but I'm big (both literally and figuratively), so I try to help them not feel awkward.  See how nice I am?  I'm nice like that.

But today, for whatever reason... maybe it's because I was at the end of my fourth errand.  (FOURTH errand?  TWO of which involved dragging kids into grocery stores?  Errands are hard at this stage of pregnancy, and getting any sort of groceries?  That's just torture.)  Maybe it's because my back hurt and my belly hurt and those little ligaments at the front of my belly hurt (you know, the ones who are straining their guts out to hold all my girth units up).  Maybe it's because my feet are too swollen to fit into shoes except my sandals (and even that's a pretty tight fit.)  Maybe it's because I was trying to get my kids and my groceries loaded into the car (always a bit of a hassle, right moms?)  Maybe it's because it was the third time I'd been asked the question in literally 10 minutes.  I don't know, but when the old lady in the parking lot asked me if it was twins, I gritted my teeth and said "No."  Not happy, not friendly, no situation smoothing explanation, just straight up, "No."  But when she asked me if I was sure, I decked her.

Too far?

In retrospect, perhaps I should have invited her to roll out her own ultrasound machine to check the fetus for herself.  Really?  She's going to ask me if I'm sure?  What is that?  Like her eyeballing my belly is a better judge of how many babies are inside than all of the doctors appointments I've been to combined.  

Baaaaaaaaagh.  Baby, just come out.

Hey, so let's play that game where you guess when this baby will be born.  I had kind of forgotten about doing it, but at this moment, I'm 38 weeks, dilated to a 2, and I measure like I'm forty three weeks pregnant.  Yeah.  I went in on Wednesday, my sweet doctor measured me and he demurely goes, "You're measuring a little big..."  I'm like, "Duh, man, look at me.  Um, how big, just out of general curiosity?"  "You measure like you're 43 weeks pregnant."  And we both had a good laugh.  Because at that time, I was technically 37 weeks pregnant, and who doesn't think it's funny to look like you're SIX WEEKS more pregnant than you actually are?  Yeah, that is kind of funny.

So.  I guess you'll want to know that stuff to make your guess.  My actual due date has been changed from Halloween to October 27th (but really?  Like that matters.)  I've been having real contractions occasionally for some time now.  As far as previous birth stats that might make a difference to your guess:


Nathan, 9 days early, came on his own, 9lbs, 6 oz, 11:57pm.

Cody, 11 days early, induced, 8lbs 6 oz, 1:20 pm.

Leah, 1 day early, came on her own, 9lbs, 6 oz, 5:13 am.


So?  What do you say about our new little fella? 

What day?

What time?

What weight?

And yeah, sure, yeah, I'll sweeten the deal.  I'll send you a pair of earrings if you're closest to right on day and time.  And if we need a tie breaker, then we'll go with weight.  Of course I sponsor this activity with the understanding that I can take my sweet time making and sending those out, right?  I mean, you wouldn't hold a new mom to any sort of strict timeline, would you?  No, you wouldn't.  But I will send out a pair of earrings to whoever wins... so... go!

So we're driving home from soccer.  Already tired, long day, got all the kids in the car, it's 7:00 and no dinner food has been had.  (Just setting the scene here, people.)  We come to a major intersection near our house.  Light's green, everything is smooth sailing... until... it's not.  And the van just... dies.  I'm about 10 feet from reaching the intersection when it stops dead.  Well that's a little heart palpitation right there (lets DO be grateful that the van didn't die IN the intersection or I am sure we literally WOULD have died.)  So the car dies.  Well, you know what, this has happened to me before in the self-same van, so I just put it in park and tried to start it up again.  This has always worked in the past.  (PS, I would like to state for the record, that after this car dying stuff had happened before, we took it into the mechanic, who kept it for three days, running all sorts of tests on it, and his final word was that there's nothing wrong with it.  Well, really.)  But, strangely, our van does not start up again.  Again and again and again it won't start.  It's making the noise like it's GOING to start, but it doesn't.  And doesn't.  And doesn't.  And doesn't.  And here's me, my SUPER pregnant self with 3 kids at a major intersection and I have LITERALLY no idea what to do.  There's no shoulder, it's too busy of an intersection.  No place to even HOPE to push this car to, even if I COULD push it, which obviously, hello, look at me.  I'm 37+ weeks pregnant.  So I'm holding up lots of traffic, feeling pretty stressed and flushed and panicky.  My kids are freaking out.  FUH-REAKING out.  Squealing and whimpering and crying and saying how we're never going to get home.  This does not help a mom who already feels pretty helpless and panicky.  So I told them to quit it, none of that is helping anybody, and if they want to do something, why don't they say a prayer.

At this point, a man finally gets out of his car to come over to see if he can help.  Bless you, dear man.  I probably sat there through 3 lights, trying to get the car to start, before he came out to help.  He said, "Well, your fuel tank is probably dry."  I was like, "Well, no, I have gas, I don't think I stopped because I was out of gas..."  He's like, "Yeah, well, your fuel tank is all over the ground now."  Sure enough, gas.  Tons and tons of gas all over the ground, emanating from our van.  And I'm no car expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not great.

His wife hops out and starts to call a friend of hers who has a tow truck.  Another guy stops to help push or whatever needs to be done.  The first man gets on the ground under my van and starts tinkering.  Really pretty quickly, he finds a problem and snaps it together and has me try starting the van.  A few tries, and it starts.

OH my word people.  There are no words to describe what it feels like to be in a situation like that with absolutely no ability to help yourself OUT of that situation.  I was completely powerless.  Just SO GRATEFUL that that guy stopped and knew what to do to get that darn van working again.

We finally make it home, and everyone digs into the dinner that thankfully, I've had going in the crock pot all day.  Nathan says the dinner prayer.  It went something like this, "Thank you that even though our van died, you answered our prayers and helped us get it started again and that we were able to make it home."  This tells me that while I was outside, talking with the guys who stopped, my kids were indeed in the van, saying prayers that we'd be able to make it out of that situation.  And their sweet little prayers were answered, and that is really wonderful.  I'm so glad that out of a rotten situation, my kids were able to have a faith building experience.  So that's a good thing.

The van, on the other hand?  The van is a bad thing, and is now top on my hit list. 

There's a lot of great stuff happening 'round our place.

First, Ryan says he feels like BYU won a bowl game.  And this because of his political leanings.  Heaven help us, but he's celebrating.

Second, Cody got to be the "helpuh fwog" two days in a row.  I perish at how adorable it is when he says "helper frog" and the fact that a "helper frog" exists in his little kindergarten world is really quite wonderful.  So proud of our little helper frog.  :)

Also, in school related news, Nathan was accepted to be on student council.  This is pretty great because third grade is the youngest you can even be on student council.  (Do I dare admit ever so quietly that I secretly wanted to discourage him from trying because I didn't know if he would make it and didn't want him to be disappointed?  I'm a bad mother for thinking that, it's true, but I'm a good mother for not doing it, and just encouraging him-even though I had my doubts.  But, the little Turbo did great!)  FURTHERMORE, he then tried out to be the Advertising Director.  This is the kid who gets to make announcements to the whole school.  When he told me he wanted to do that, again, (SOOOOOO SECRETLY), I was like, "What are the chances that a third grader would win the position that every kid must certainly want to do??!?"  But I kept my small doubts to myself and just helped him write his speech (yeah, he had to campaign for it).  And he won!  Note to self:  Just get the heck out of Nathan's way.  He's got places to go.

Since we're still on school stuff, this is not necessarily something to be celebrated, but I just want to say it.  So Nathan had a field trip.  I am in a vaguely pregnant fog, so even though I signed the form and packed the lunch, I admit to not REALLY cluing in to where they were going.  So when he got back, I asked him.  He couldn't (or wouldn't?) tell me.  All he had for evidence of his trip was this:

Some creepy BEEF coloring book??  Who even knew that BEEF had a coloring book?  This can only lead me to believe that they took the third graders to some strange underground BEEF indoctrination site that's been hidden there since the 1960's.  Bizarro.

Also school related for Nathan-he wrote a story wherein the main characters are twins named Farenheit and Celsius, and their friends Barometer, Wind Sock and Anemometer.  For the record, I don't know what an anemometer is.  

My celebration?  It's not going to be hotter than 62 degrees today!  YAAAAAY!  The happiness!  The joy!  The slight chill that causes my constant over heated-ness to feel mildly pleasant?  And the first order of business?  THE SOUP.

The soup.  This may be the reason that you have stuck around reading this blog for so long.  You had the vague belief that some good may come of your being here.  And today, well, today my friends, your hard waiting has paid off.  I am about to give you the best creamy tomato soup recipe and you will bless my name all fall.  Let's put it this way-the first chilly day and I'm RUNNING my pregnant self to the store to get the ingredients.  It's so good.  Here you go:

2 bottles Classico Sweet Basil pasta sauce, pureed
2 cans chicken broth (I only had one and you know what, everything is fine.)
2 pints cream

Throw it all in there and heat it and get some tasty bread and you are welcome.  It's embarrassingly easy and SOOOOO good. 

So there you go, friends.  A few things to celebrate on a random Thursday in October.

Today, Leah started singing me a song in that sweet, tuneless sort of way that all kids do when they're making up a song.  It went something like this:

I love maaaaaaaa-maaaaaaaaaa
She is so beauuuuuuuuuu-tifuuuuuuulllllllll
I like her necklace
Because it is so pretty
And I love mama
She is nice
Her sweater is
preeeeeeeeeettttttyyyyyyyyyyy
And her hair is prettttyyyyyyyyy
Maaaaaa-maaaaaa, I love maaaaaa-maaaaaaa
(etc)

She was singing it loud and proud for everyone in Costco to hear, and suddenly I realized that this is the sweetest thing in the world.

Today he is 32 years old!

Today is Ryan's 32 birthday and oh my did we keep busy.  First, the man worked his regular Saturday shift.  Then we ran off to Cody's soccer game, which, since our regular coach wasn't going to be there, we had volunteered to coach.  And when I say "we," of course what I really mean is "he."  RYAN ran around coaching a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds on the field.  The kiddles did great.  Cody LOVES his soccer.  Loves, loves, loves, loves.  We're only partly through the season, so I've still got time to get pictures, but what may or may not be able to be captured in a photo is his undying excitement and focus about soccer. 

And then, immediately following Cody's game (which he won 13-2), we went out to the Idaho Bird Observatory, where they were catching and tagging hawks.  Hawks, mind you, so my kids got to see them catch hawks and they each got to hold one.

Now I was all excited about this Saturday because I knew we had so many photograph-able activities.  In my preparation for this event, I placed the camera in my purse.  Even though the camera has been malfunctioning, I thought I'd take it out to a store and have them put it on a cd or something.  I was going to take pictures of Cody's game and the bird observatory and all of these things.  THEN, in my pregnant stupor, when it was time to go, I thought to myself, "Hey, I don't need to carry my purse around because I've got Ryan with me.  He'll carry keys and a wallet and what do I need it for??"  So I left it.  I'm an idiot.

LOOK PEOPLE.  HERE'S HOW IT IS.  I have actually received a lot of flack lately from various individuals chiding me for not posting.  I feel bad about it, you know I do, but THEN I realized that posting takes some amount of creativity, and my daily allotment of creativity is spent trying to get my behemoth body dressed every morning.  That's no easy task.  And by the time I get that done, I've got no mental creativity left for writing nice posts.  Please.  And with my camera a little out of commission, all that's left to me is mental creativity for posting.  So there you go.  The choice seems to be between being socially appropriate and being dressed or posting.  So I guess you know what I have chosen and that's why it has become real difficult for me to post.    And that is why I don't have pictures of Cody's two goals today, and why I didn't take any pictures of the Idaho Bird Observatory.
Fortuntately, Ryan's an Eagle Scout.  Always prepared.  So he had his phone and took a few pictures with that.

So here's my offspring.  Holding freaking hawks.

  




And look, I am not going to lie, they did way better at it than I did.  I probably held the thing for a few seconds, but she was staring me in the eye, all mad like, and then she started to squirm and I squeaked and apologized for inconveniencing her and promptly let go.  I usually don't consider myself a wimp, but when a bird of prey is staring you real mad like in the eye, well, you just let 'er go.  At least I did.

So then we raced on home... so that I could make a nice birthday dinner for my sweetheart?  Hah.  Uh, no.  So that I could jet off to my church meeting, leaving the birthday man to feed himself and our children.  Chicken nuggets and french fries.  (And I see the residue of carrots and ranch, so I assume they ate that, as well.)  Seriously everyone, you should feel bad for this man.  He's a saint.  He's been dealing with an overly pregnant, overly emotional, under-ly helpful wife for far too long now.  And he takes it like he takes everything else.  Just steady and easy and he picks up the slack that I am far too pregnant to bend down and pick up anymore.  He gets home, finds me with my feet propped up, dinner made?  Hah.  No.  Children ready for bed or soccer or whatever else we're supposed to take them to?  No.  And he just calmly asks if I'd like more lemonade, and then goes about doing whatever I have not done.  Seriously.  The man is a saint.

So I left him to fend for himself and our kids on his birthday, went to my meeting, and then came home to do a little present opening and partying. 

Happy Birthday, dear man.  We are all so lucky to have you.  Hopefully, today's busyness was a decent way to spend your 32nd birthday.  :)

because Jayna fixed up my blog.  She might not want the credit for doing it because she's horrified at the lack of pink and floral herein exhibited, but as the proprietress of a home that is soon to be dominated by boys 2 to 1, I'm really pretty okay with that. 

However, the problem with being inspired to post is that I don't *actually* have that much to post about.  Or that much of substance to post about.  Or I DO, but my camera is malfunctioning, so I can't get the pictures off it, so I can't SHOW you the stuff, which makes it hard to really want to post about something good, right?

So here's what I've got that doesn't require a picture and isn't TOO in depth.

A.) And this is maybe the most important thing I want to say to you today... if I could have Simply Lemonade delivered to my body through an IV drip all day long, I would.  Simply Lemonade is the best, most refreshing item on this planet as far as I am aware.  It is SO good.  It's tangy without being too tart.  It's sweet without being too sweet.  It's cold and so very refreshing.  I receive an instant mood boost immediately following my consumption of this beverage.  I apologized to Ryan the other day for how much we must have spent on Simply Lemonade throughout the course of this pregnancy.  He brushed it off and said, "No, I just lump it all in with all of the costs associated with pregnancy."  As though Simply Lemonade were just as vital as the doctor's visits or the lab work.  He's probably right. 

B.) Hey, so I'm 35, almost 36 weeks pregnant.  And that's kind of a lot.  One day I was browsing through a children's store when the lovely and helpful 50-something saleslady came bustling over to see how I was doing and discuss the current state of my pregnancy, etc.  Eventually, she wistfully asked if I had the nursery ready.  I was like, "Weeeeeeeeeeeeelllllll, to be honest, he's sleeping in a closet."  She was taken aback, but soon recovered enough to gush, "Oh, yes, a nice big walk in closet, lots of people are doing that now days..."  I didn't have the heart to tell her that nope, it's a closet under the stairs.  Like, think Harry Potter's little space.  What she doesn't know won't hurt her.

C.) Hmmmmm, what else?  I don't know.  Sadly, this much has taken me like 4 days to write.  So maybe I'll just post it.  We're fixin' to have a big day on Saturday, so maybe I can post then.  :)

Cheers.

First day was great.  Both boys were SO excited.  We celebrated the end of summer last night with some fireworks we'd saved since the 4th of July.  Both were begging time to go faster, and this morning saw them racing around the house to get ready.  I think they got to the bus stop 15 minutes early.  :) 

The best part for Cody?  Riding the bus with Nathan.  He was SO excited to do that.  I didn't even take him.  Didn't walk him to his class, nothing, because he wanted to ride the bus with Nathan, and Nathan said he'd make sure to get him to the right place (so many nice things about having such a responsible oldest!)   After school when I picked him up, he seemed a little disappointed because they didn't do very much learning today.  He is ready to get at it already.  Both like their teachers so far (however I have learned that I cannot ever go to volunteer in Nathan's class because his teacher has a    f a k e   e y e), and it looks like it's going to be another fantastic year!