Happy Birthday Troyer!!!!

My oldest son turned 10 years old today! Wow I can't believe I have a child in the double digits already! I am just not old enough! ;-)

For his birthday today, he got to watch all the tv he wanted (he is a tv junkie, in spite of the fact that we only get 1 1/2 channels!). He watched the usual shows, but this time didn't have to bargain for them. His favorites are Arthur, Zaboomafoo, Between the Lions, and CyberChase. PBS just started showing George Shrinks in the afternoons, and he likes that one too. These are all kind of young shows for him, but we don't get Nickelodeon or Disney (I am *not* crying over that!) and these are semi-educational, so I am happy to let him watch them. Hey, he isn't picking Barney or Jay Jay or Caillou, LOL.

We had to go out shopping to get icing and cake supplies, because he chose to have a homemade cake instead of a bakery cake. All the other boys chose a bakery cake because they want the toys on top; Troyer designed his own cake and created the topper. We also had to pick up dough for pizza. I didn't have enough money to buy take out pizza (we went to McDonald's twice in the last 2 weeks, so bye bye money, lol), which he really wanted, but he was happy enough to have homemade. I also got some wrapping paper, and some milk. We got home in time for him to watch more tv, and I got to work on the cake.



I have to say, I think the cake turned out ok. I didn't have the right size decorating tool for writing, so I had to abbreviate and leave out his name, but he didn't mind. He made car forms out of clay, and saved foil wrappers from way back at Valentine's Day, lol, to wrap them in, and then drew up the Finish sign and taped it to straws. The roadway is chocolate sprinkles. Much tastier than black icing, if you ask me! All in all, it is certainly not a professional job, but he is soooo proud of it, and if he is happy then that is what counts :-)

I made 3 pizzas, because most of the kids will only eat plain cheese pizza, but Troyer wanted pineapple on his, and Chris likes pineapple and olives, and I like mushrooms. I decided to make some of each and make everyone happy. Yum!

The cake tasted even better than it looked, and then Chris had a surprise, he had stopped at DQ on the way home and gotten 2 Treatsa Pizzas. Double Yum! Of course by now no one was really that hungry any more, but there is always room for ice cream, lol.

Next Troyer got to open his presents. He had a theme this year, in that most of his gifts were Muppet stuff. He loves Kermit the Frog and The Muppets. He got The Muppet Movie on DVD (we have it on vhs but the dvd has all the extra interviews and stuff), a Muppet computer game, a Muppet beach towel, and a CD of Muppet songs from the tv show. He also got a Thomas DVD (yes, he still likes to watch Thomas the Tank Engine. This makes Micah very happy!) and some Ninja Turtle bubble bath. His aunt got him a stuffed lemur that looks a lot like Zaboomafoo, that was a big hit; and his other aunt got him a Bionicle, also a big hit.

After all the gifts were opened, we listened to some of the songs on the CD and then it was bed time. Chris actually let me take a picture of him and Troyer together, and it turned out great! There are precious few pictures of Chris anywhere that don't have him making faces or trying to hide, lol.

Blog Wandering

I have spent the last few days wandering through blog-land, reading strangers' blogs. I just followed a link from one, and followed a link from that one, and so on. It was pretty fun! Usually I don't have time for that sort of thing, but this weekend Levi was just on a weird sleeping (non-sleeping?) schedule, and some of my regular bloggers were away for the weekend or just not updating, so I had time on my hands. I must say, though, that I feel so inferior now! Not only is my writing style nothing to shout about, but I can't do the fancy stuff I've seen on the other sites. I haven't even figured out how to do the list of links yet. I know I know, once I stop procrastinating I can figure it out pretty easily; I just haven't felt like putting the effort into it.

It is really neat to be able to read about other people's daily lives and thoughts; some of them make me feel grateful for the pretty easy life I have, others just make me laugh, and sometimes I can even identify with a particular experience. Mostly, though, I think it helps me see my own life in a different perspective. As a SAHM in a somewhat rural setting, I can get kind of isolated and start to get bogged down in the annoying things in my life. For a while a few years back, I got so bogged down I became depressed enough that it affected my family, and it took a year or two of talking with a therapist to climb back out of it. It feels funny to admit that, but at the same time, I am glad that was all it took, and that I didn't need to take any medications, so it didn't affect my pregnancy/breastfeeding cycle. It also helped after the sessions stopped, because I can still use today what I learned then.

This period now, post-partum just 6 weeks out, I find myself coming closer to that edge again; add to that the stress of my dh's new job, plus having to move, and homeschooling 3 kids. I am sleep deprived and most likely nutrition deprived too. I have too much time to think about how fat I am, how messy/dirty my house is, what a bad job I'm probably doing teaching my kids, and all that kind of stuff. I think at least 10 times a day about how I am going to get into shape (I've been saying that for 15 years), how I am going to take better care of myself (like try to shower every day or at least every other day, and get dressed every day), and take better care of the house (should I consider it a victory that I have a laundry system that is still working for me? LOL) .

But surfing around and reading others' experiences, I see that lots of people are going through similar trials, and lots of them are going through much worse. I can laugh at a story about a trip to the store with all the kids, or about a big mess a toddler made, because I've BTDT. It makes it easier to laugh at myself when it happens to me.

I'm finding it hard to come and post here, because I feel like I can't write as well as others, and I don't have any fancy stuff in my posts or in my sidebar. I'm pleased with myself for just getting pictures on here! lol But I am also somewhat inspired too. One of these days I'll get it figured out.

Murphy's Law?

We went out yesterday, were gone for the whole day, from 7 am until 9:30 pm. So what do you think happened? One of the roofing guys FINALLY called me back!!! But was I here to take his call? Noooooo. Aaarghh!!!!! Luckily he gave me his cell phone number and I was able to call him today. He is going to come over on Sunday to look at the damage and see how much needs to be done. Let us hope we have good weather again next week!!!!



On Tuesday the boys were out playing in the yard until dusk. Samuel and Micah, as usual, attracted all the mosquitos. Samuel got quite a few bites on his face. On Wednesday morning his eyelid was swollen, and we figured he'd gotten a bite on the lid. His bites always swell up more than normal, but they usually don't bother him and they go away fine. We weren't really too worried about it. Well, today it was worse! Plus, there is no center to the swelling where the bite would be. I can't figure out what happened. He says it doesn't hurt, just itches a little when he touches it. He is really good at not bothering it. I hope I don't need to worry.

I got extra lucky last night, because Levi slept!!! He was up a lot, but kept going back to sleep in the bassinette, so I actually got some sleep last night!!! Wow, I wasn't expecting it. I even got a shower this morning; good thing, too, since I have my 6 week check up tonight. Wow, Levi will be 6 weeks old tomorrow, already! That went fast!

House Hunting

Today Chris and I went down to the area we are moving to, and drove around a bit to look at what is for sale. Chris had a meeting at the office of his company that he will be transfering to after we move, so I suggested we all go down together and while he was in his meeting, I'd drive around and look at houses. We got down there about 9:30 am and dropped Chris off at his building. We all got to go inside because he needed help carrying in papers and things. The office is in a renovated factory building, and is really neat inside. They have an elevator in the center of the building that has an open side with a window; the boys thought that was really cool, lol. After we dropped him off, and I nursed the baby, and changed Micah out of his pajamas into shorts (we waited to change him because it was pretty cold when we left, but knew it was going to get hot later in the day), and passed out some snacks, it was after 10.

First we drove west, and looked at 3 houses in that direction. The boys were terribly thirsty from the crackers they had eaten, but oops, there wasn't any water in the car, so I tried to stop at a McDonald's and get drinks. Unfortunately, the one that was right where we were had a delivery truck blocking the drive through, so we couldn't get any drinks there. That meant I had to hear about thirsty thirsty thirsty for 2 more hours, lol.

I liked the first house we found, but it is in a development, so I don't think Chris will go for it. He really wants a rural farmhouse type property. I think he is going to be out of luck, actually, because those are all pretty expensive, and our price range is pretty low. The second house was just as nice, but the neighborhood it is in was a little bit run down looking. The third house we saw was on a bigger road, and it looked even more run down that the other neighborhood.

We drove back out of that town, hoping to see that the delivery truck had moved away from the McDonald's drive through, but no luck, it was still there. From there I wanted to head north of where we started, but I had not printed out any maps that showed a way to drive that way directly. I didn't want to drive all the way back past Chris' office and then head north, that seemed too out of the way, so I just guessed at a left turn off the main road I was on and hoped it would take me to the main road north that I wanted. The boys got really freaked out that I didn't really know where I was going, LOL. I kept saying, I don't know where we are, but as long as the signs keep saying East it should take us where we want to go. They didn't like that, LOL. In the end, I was exactly right, it took us to exactly the right place. I'm so awesome, LOL.

I headed north, and soon came to house #4. It was a very nice looking house, in a quiet wooded neighborhood; unfortunately it was built in an area on top of a steep hill. The house itself was supposed to have almost a half acre of property, but if it did, the back half of it was all cliff. Certainly not a yard the kids could play in. Oh well. Darn, it had 6 bedrooms, I was excited about that! LOL On to #5.

#5 was just a bit further north, but I had promised the boys a drink, and I knew there was a McDonald's in the area we were at. It was now over an hour after the snacks, and they were all whining. I was pretty thirsty too, even though I hadn't eaten any of the crackers. So instead of taking the quick way to the next house, we drove past the McDonald's and got drinks. Caleb had fallen asleep and woke up grumpy, he complained and cried for the next half hour. blech. We got back on track and found #5 pretty easily. It looked like a nice property, but it was too hard to see the house from the road, it seemed to be back behind another house. It was a big property, 10 acres, so we are guessing that the house itself must be a pretty big dump. I just couldn't tell.

By now it was almost time we were supposed to meet Chris at his office to pick him up for lunch. I had miscalculated a bit when we arranged it, though, and hadn't figured in the getting ready to go at first and the stopping for drinks while out, so we were about 15 minutes late. We headed out of town to go to his sister's house and meet her for lunch. Unfortunately, Chris forgot the best way to get out of town towards where we wanted to go, and we ended up taking the long way. It made us pretty late, it was almost 2 when we got to his sister's house. I had arranged to meet a realtor down there and talk with her about properties, but she had to leave town at 3, so it was too late. Oops. Well, we got to relax at SILs for a few hours, and Chris took a little nap, so that was nice. She made us chicken rice soup for lunch/dinner (since we ate it at 3:30, LOL) and the boys watched some tv while Chris checked out some of the new improvements they had done to the house.

We had also arranged to meet his mother after she got out of work. She works in an elementary school, so she was home by 4. After eating and letting the boys run for a bit, we drove over to MILs to see her. She had surgery this summer, back in July, and was still recovering when Levi was born, so was unable to come up to visit and see him, so this was the first time she was getting to meet him. She also hadn't seen the rest of the boys since spring, so it was nice for them to have the chance to see her. We stopped in just for an hour because there was one more house I wanted to drive past that would be on the way home from her house, and I wanted to be sure we could see it before dark. We had a nice visit with her and left about 6. I think it was probably a nice thing for her to have the short visit; she had only started back to work this week after her recovery, and was still tired after being at work; so she got to see us but didn't have to cook or get worn out from the boys' noise and mess, lol.

The last house we drove past was very nice. It was on a short quiet dead and street and was very nice looking, as nice as the picture that I had found online. It was closer in to town than Chris liked, but it was not in a development, which was a plus. His only real objection with that one was the price, it was just out of our range. Darn, lol. But at least we found something that fit what we wanted! We got to that one just before dark, and then it was finally time to head home. Poor Chris was so afraid of getting lost, driving around on roads he normally doesn't drive on. I suppose he would have been freaked out earlier in the day, just like the boys, LOL, but I wasn't worried. Most of the roads out there will eventually lead to a main road that we recognize and we would know where we were going. I was right, and got us back on the route we usually take to get home from MILs, no problem.

About an hour later we were on the highway, heading home, when the van started making a ticking noise. It grew louder and louder, and was definitely from the engine. It grew to a knocking noise, and became pretty clear it was an oil issue. We had not planned to stop on the way home; Chris wanted to go in to work early the next day to make up some of the hours he had taken off to drive around house hunting, and so didn't want to get home late. Well, the van had other plans, so we stopped off at an exit with a McDonald's and I got the boys dinner while he put more oil in the van. It's a good thing he did, because he said it was about 3 quarts low. Oddly, the gauge hadn't shown a problem with oil pressure, we had had no idea about it until it started knocking. Luckily the McD's was next to a convenient store, because we only had 2 quarts in the van, he had to go buy 2 more. He said he got the last 2 on the shelf! lol The boys were pretty happy that we had to stop, because they got food out of it. Poor Levi was not so happy when it was time to get going again. He was soooo good all day, but he was really sick of his car seat! LOL

So we got home about 9:30 and put the boys right into bed. Levi actually didn't stay up much longer, which surprised me, I figured he'd be up all night after sleeping in the car so much; but maybe his crying from the McD's until home wore him out, lol. Of course, he is up now, and there is no telling when he will be going back to sleep. Oh well, LOL.

Wet Weekend

Overnight on Thursday night, the remnants of Ivan came north and dumped some rain on us. It rained from Friday morning until early morning Saturday. I had to run out for bread and milk on Friday afternoon, and we were probably lucky we got done when we did. I decided to try Levi out in my sling for the first time; I figured he'd stay drier than trying to carry the infant seat into the store. I think I was right, but we were still pretty wet. Yuck. We got home just at dark. By then it was raining pretty hard and the water was all over the roads. I am really glad that Chris had decided to clean the gutters earlier this summer, we had no water in our basement! Most of our neighbors were not so lucky. When we woke up Saturday morning, our neighbor to the right side of us had water in their yard all the way up to their front steps. Their back yard usually has water in it after a rain, but I had never seen it come up around the front of the house. The side road was washed out on either side of the culvert. It is just a gravel road, not paved, so all the stones were washed downstream. Our neighbor to the left has a gravel driveway that is parallel to the stream, and the stones had all been washed into the grass last week during Frances; this rain just took them further down the yard, lol. Our yard didn't have any water in it :-). I think we got about 6.5 inches of water or so, at least that is how much was in our pool, which we had emptied before the rain.

Chris took the boys to church and I had intended to follow him about an hour later with Levi, but I got a call from a friend who said Chris didn't want me to come after all. (Our church has no phone at the moment, so our friend had to go to a nearby house to call; Chris didn't call because he was busy cleaning the church basement of all the water down there) It turned out that he had to try several different ways to get to church, and all had roads closed from rising streams. He finally found a way in, but he had the big van; he didn't think I should chance it with the car. Wow, I was tempted to go out just to see lol. The water really didn't go down again until this morning. The weather was a bit deceptive, because it was bright and sunny all day; it seemed odd to be trapped at home when it was so nice out.

Today was even nicer, more sun, and it was much warmer. We had real estate agent #3 come over this morning. #2 had come over on Thursday. She was definitely not in the running. I could practically see her skin crawling as she walked through the house. She kept looking at the walls and such and wrinkling her nose, lol. She was very critical and not helpful with suggestions. Then she gave me a very low number for the house. I think she just didn't want to be chosen to show it, lol. No problem, there was definitely NOT a good match of personalities. She is the type more suited to list the expensive houses.

On Friday I was feeling pretty low after the numbers she had given me, and I decided to try one more agency. I called and set up an appointment for today. It turned out that the agent coming over lives just a mile down the road from me. She seemed excited to come over and see the house. As it turns out, she grew up in this neighborhood, and had often played in this house as a child! It was fun to walk her through, she was telling me what was different and what had changed. She recognized the wallpaper, LOL.

I think she ended up being a very good match for us. She likes older farmhouses and properties; she loves this area; and best of all, she said she knew at least 2 young couples who are searching our area for a house just like this right now, plus another person who is looking for houses to buy as rentals. Being in a college community, it is a very good market for renting. She was fun to talk with, had great suggestions, and came in with a number that sounded right to both me and Chris. What a relief, after realtor #2! So it looks like everything is a go, we will make an appointment to sign with her this week. It looks like our house may not even make it onto the market at all! Now we just have to find a place to move to......

One Realtor's Opinion

On Tuesday we had our first realtor walk through the house. I am having 3 or 4 come through and give me a spiel, then Chris and I will choose which one we like best to list our house. I liked this first realtor, she was very nice, not too "salesman-like." She had emailed me an initial guess at property value after just driving by the house last week. After walking through, however, she knocked the price down a few thousand dollars. Just confirming what I already knew, I live in a hovel, LOL. No really, not that bad, but it really does need a lot of work. Painting and carpet, etc. Even more frustrating is Chris' unwillingness to do any work on the house, any more than he is forced to. For instance, a few of our shutters (cheapie aluminum ones) had blown off our house, some before and one soon after, we moved in, years ago, and he never wanted to spend the money to replace them. It looks dumb, but how could I argue about the money, kwim? But now, for curb appeal, they need to be replaced; but he refuses. He sees it as a waste of money. If *we* bought the house with shutters missing, why wouldn't someone else? Well, because other people actually care what their house looks like??? Grrr. I'm wishing now we had gotten new carpet 5 years ago, so the old stuff we have now wouldn't be even older and more gross. I am now beginning to understand why Chris was thinking our house would be on the market a long time; if he isn't going to do any work to make it look nice OF COURSE it won't sell!!! Grrr.

We have another realtor coming today. Luckily for me the boys were on their best behavior on Tuesday, I hope they are as good again today.

I have to post this picture of Levi, just to remind myself that he *does* actually sleep sometimes, lol. Yesterday morning he was up from 3 am until 8:30! Aaaugghh. Obviously by the time he fell asleep, the rest of the boys were up and bickering and chasing and screaming and throwing cereal and making a mess in every room of the house, and probably doing some bleeding somewhere in there too, though I was trying to put them on /ignore, LOL. I yelled and screamed and threatened bodily harm, and they quieted down somewhat, but not enough for me to actually make up any sleep. Oh well. Last night went better, only because I put Chris on /ignore and brought Levi to bed, lol.

One Month Old Already!

Levi is one month old today! He has grown so much already, he is not a newborn anymore. He is finally starting to sleep better now. He sleeps best with me, unfortunately for chris, lol. But at least I have figured out how to get some sleep for myself ;-).

Getting Ready

Today I made appointments with 2 different realtors to come over this week and look at my house, and give me an evaluation of its worth, and maybe some hints on what to do to help it sell. Actually, I know already the number one tip will be, Declutter. My house is just full of piles of junk. It's all stuff I like and want to keep, but have nowhere to put it. I am going to have to let go and give it up.

Today I had a good start. I cleaned off my refrigerator. It might not be the place most people would think to start, but it was the least painful for me, LOL. The front of my fridge was virtually papered in pictures of the kids, and artwork, and a huge collection of magnets. Once I got that cleaned off, I took down a bunch of stuff from the walls of the kitchen. Birthday cards, more artwork, postcards. It looks a lot different now, and I haven't even finished yet, LOL. Caleb followed me around while I worked, and he is really getting into the whole move thing. He kept asking, will we take the dishes too? Will we take our coats? Will we take the peanut butter and jelly? LOL The answers to that being, yes, yes, and no, we will eat it all and buy more when we get there, lol.

I am thinking maybe I should take before and after pictures, and keep track of my progress; maybe that will motivate me to get more done. A big problem with trying to clean up for me is where to put the stuff I box up? The reason it is in piles everywhere is because there is no place for it! I will throw a lot away, but there is still a lot that I need to just store somewhere. I know I will be happy when I get it done, but it's hard to get started!

Catching Up

First I want to post a Happy Birthday to Chris! His birthday was last week, I just haven't had time to post about it until now. I spent the day cleaning up the kitchen and baking him a cake (he prefers homemade to store-bought; I guess he doesn't need all those cool cake topper toys like the boys want LOL), and getting the boys to sign a card for him. I had to run out the night before to buy the card, nothing like waiting until the last minute! Of course, it was the night that the remnants of Frances hit us, so lots of flooding and standing water on the roads, yuck. Also, Levi was having a growth spurt or something last week, he wasn't sleeping well, and wanted to eat constantly! That and dragging him out in the rain made for a pretty lousy shopping trip to WalMart, LOL.

It was worth it, though; Chris enjoyed his birthday. I had the cake ready by the time he got home, and made pizza for dinner. I even put olives on one for him, and as a special treat left off the mushrooms ;-). Chris is funny about them, he says he doesn't like to eat fungus on his pizza LOL. Poor Micah, he was very impatient for the cake. He ate quickly and finished first, and had a tantrum that he had to wait for everyone else to *gasp* have more than one piece, LOL. Finally he got his cake, and he was happy again.

I only put 5 candles on the cake; I didn't really want to try to light 38 candles, LOL.

Yesterday I had planned for a deep clean of the house. We are starting the motions for our move, so we need to get the house ready to sell. I have already been on line looking at the houses in the area we are moving to. It was a beautiful day, I had considered driving down to check out some of the houses I had seen, but then realized that we are not anywhere near ready to make any offers, and by the time we are, for sure the houses out there now will be sold already. So cleaning sounded good instead.

The day started out ok, I also planned to give the boys haircuts, desperately needed, since it was nice out. I did get that done, and Chris supervised the cleaning of the play room and the living room. Then for some inexplicable reason, he decided to go mess with the toilet. It has been clogging a lot lately, so he was just going to try to clear it. Then he decided the problem was that the toilet wasn't level, so he emptied it and took it up. Please note that he didn't warn anyone that he was going to do this, and give us all an opportunity to use it first before he took it out of commision! I had also planned to run to the bank and open an account for Levi, finally getting rid of the $34 in pennies and nickels I had rolled and sitting in my kitchen. I thought it was also a good chance to get Noah in for his birthday portrait. My trip was delayed a bit when Chris had to run to Lowe's to get a seal for the toilet. He left us here with nowhere to "go" lol.

Finally I got out with Noah and Levi, it was already after 2. Keep in mind that I had had to go to the bathroom since 11:30! I told him I couldn't wait any more to go out, I had to find a rest room! LOL Levi finally decided to behave and was perfect for our trip. We went to the bank, and he slept through it; we drove up to McDonald's to get Noah lunch, but oops, there was a power outage and they were closed. Oops, WalMart was also closed, so no portrait for Noah. It was after 3:15 now, and he was hungry (and I still had to go to the bathroom)! We drove across town to the other McDonald's, and ate inside. Levi slept through that too :-). Our last stop was the grocery store to use up my coupons that were going to expire that day. He slept all the way until the check out. I couldn't get mad at him for waking up as we stood on line. I fed him as soon as we got back out to the car, and he was good until we got home. I did have to feed him again when we got home, and the groceries had to wait to be unpacked, but again, he'd been so good, who could blame him?

I was disappointed when I got home that the boys hadn't really done any more cleaning. Chris had only just finished messing with the toilet, and when I got home he was cleaning more tomatoes. Have I mentioned that we are being crushed under the avalanche of tomatoes? And I have absolutely no taste for them at all. He is mad that I am not eating them quickly enough, but I can barely make myself look at them. I usually like tomatoes, but lately I haven't wanted any. It might have to do with last year's overabundance of tomatoes and how I got really sick of them. So yesterday was a waste, cleaning-wise. :-( And I hadn't even cared about the dumb toilet!

Visitors and Visiting

I had a busy weekend last week. My sister Aimee came to visit with her two kids, they stayed from Friday to Monday. Our birthday was Wednesday, so we figured we'd do something fun while she was here. We rented a bunch of "chick flicks" that our dhs would never sit through, and got lots of snacks. It was great! LOL We were disappointed by Drop Dead Gorgeous, it was much darker and less funny than we expected. I liked Miss Congeniality better (saw that one a while ago). We loved The Importance of Being Earnest, I think we will have to watch that one again, the kids kept interrupting and we missed some dialogue. We rented Osmosis Jones for the kids; I think it was more for older kids than the under 10 crowd we had here. I hope most of the referrences went over their heads! lol We also watched Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, which was ok, but I found kind of annoying. We almost got Love Actually and Laws of Attraction, I think we should have gone with those, lol.

On Saturday we all went to church together; it was the first time I took the baby in, and I was a little disappointed that more people didn't stop to say hi and take a peek at him. Oh well, that usually annoys me, lol. After church, Aimee and I took Levi and my niece and left early while Chris stayed with the other 6 boys to have lunch. Chris made the soup so he had to stay to serve it. He says it turned out really well, he didn't even burn it :-). We girls took a drive to go visit our sister Michelle, who was camping with her family at Raystown Lake. It is about an hour and 15 minute drive from my house, but since we left from the church I was going a different way, and missed a turn, so it ended up being almost 2 hours. Oops! lol Levi got hungry on the way, so we stopped at a McDonald's for a coke and directions, and Levi got a snack and a clean diaper. We finally reached the campground at 3. The weather was very warm in the car, but down at the lake it was beautiful, with just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs away. We stayed for dinner at the campsite, and left just after 7. I wanted to leave so that I'd have enough daylight left to find my way home. It was a much faster drive home, since I didn't get lost LOL.

The boys had a great time with their cousins, my nephew is a huge Bionicle fan along with my boys, so they were in heaven trading sets and building new stuff. My poor neice felt a little left out, as we have a shortage of girls here ;-). I had a beautiful Rapunzel Barbie for her, though. She loved that.

Here are the kids all together. Samuel was doing his best to get out of having his picture taken.

Monday was Chris' and my 12th anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been that long already. It doesn't feel like it! He got me flowers and a card, woo hoo! I love flowers, and I appreciate his getting them for me, especially because his philosophy about them is why spend the money when they will just die? But I like them, thank you. Unfortunately, Levi didn't cooperate with MY plans for our anniversary, for later that night :-( We're waiting for a raincheck on that LOL.

Monkey Chair

Today I got a package in the mail. A very large package. It was labelled Baby Style on the outside, so I knew it was a gift for the baby. Obviously an expensive one, so I knew it was from my aunt. I was intrigued what she could choose that would be so big. I opened it to find... a Monkey Chair. Yikes. Definitely not something I would have chosen, LOL. Absolutely not something I'd pay $60 for! (the price tag was still on it) That would have been about 6 packs of disposable diapers, something I'm *going* to be paying for, LOL.

Why is it that people who don't have small kids (my cousins are all grown now) have little taste and absolutely NO recollection that more big stuff is NOT good? LOL Well, the older boys are having a great time jumping on it and karate kicking it and in general treating it badly, lol.

Happy Birthday Me!

Well, actually, yesterday was my birthday, but I wanted to wait until the end of the day to post, just in case something special happened; silly me, lol. It's the mom's job to make her kids' days special, but who is around to make her day special? No one. Oh well. The kids did make me nice birthday cards, which they woke me up at 7 am to give to me, because they were so excited about them. This was after Levi was up from 1:30 to 5 am, and was on his way to sleeping until 9 am. I missed out on the last 2 hours, lol. I ended up not posting after all last night, because I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open to write.

I decided to skip school yesterday; I just wasn't up to fighting about it, so we took a holiday. Chris says he emailed me to say Happy Birthday, but I didn't get any, so I guess it got lost in cyberspace. He did get me a card and a bag of M&Ms, but I didn't know about them until he came home from work. I talked to my sister, A, whose birthday it was also :-), and we talked about nothing for probably over an hour. That's always fun! I decided to ask Chris when he got home if I could go out with the baby and just drive through at McDs and eat in the car, to have a little quiet time to myself. He wasn't thrilled at the idea, as he wanted to mow the lawn, but I (maybe not so gently) told him that I didn't consider mowing the lawn to be a good birthday present, LOL. He let me go ;-). The weather was really nice, so I enjoyed it a lot. It was just what I needed.

Once again last night, Levi was up a few hours in the middle of the night, so I didn't get enough sleep. Ugh, it's starting to take its toll on me. I'm thinking of skipping school again today. Well, that's why we started so early, way back at the end of July; I figured I'd be missing a few days here and there after the baby was born. I was right ;-)

Happy Birthday Noah!!!

Today Noah turned 8 years old! We didn't have a party this time, since the baby is still so little, and I got partied out with the last two, lol. That's ok, Noah had a great day anyway. He made a deal with his dad that if he worked hard this morning at cleaning up the house, he could earn himself some extra birthday presents, so he worked hard and did a good job. Chris took him out to pick up the birthday cake and while they were out he got a few more presents (along with the card, that I had forgotten, oops! lol)

After lunch, Noah opened his gifts and then had his cake. He had asked for a cake at the bakery that he had seen months ago, and so I ordered it based on the name of the cake without going back to the book to check and make sure it was still there. Oops, they changed it a bit. Well, luckily Noah didn't mind at all, Phew!

He also got some mint chocolate chip ice cream to go with it. Yum!

He was very happy with all his gifts, including those from his aunts. This has been an unusual year, in that the aunts' gifts have all arrived in time for the birthday! Usually they wait until a visit and then bring them rather than mail them; I don't really mind that method, but it's nice to see a big pile of gifts on the table lol.

After eating, Noah came up to show me his loose tooth. He had not wanted to finish his piece of cake because it was bothering his tooth. I looked at it, and it was hanging backwards in his mouth, ick! LOL He didn't have the nerve to pull it out, so he asked me to. When I was his age, I could never have left a tooth like that in my mouth. I think I pulled all my teeth out early by twisting and wiggling them out, LOL. All I had to do was twist Noah's tooth around once and out it came :-)

After playing with his Ninja Turtle Lair playset for a while, they all sat down to watch his new Scooby Doo movie. I got a great picture of all the boys together on the couch. Well, ok, it took about 7 tries, LOL, thank goodness for digital cameras!

I also took a nice picture of Levi earlier in the afternoon. It is hard to get him awake and not crying if I am not holding him! LOL

He is doing great, and it's easy to tell he's gaining weight. He is a very cute tiny baby now, instead of a miniature red-faced wrinkled old man, LOL

A Mini Vacation

Yesterday I got a little mini-vacation. A friend from church called and invited the 4 oldest boys over for the day. Chris dropped them off on his way to work, and picked them up on the way home. So I was home with just the 2 yo and the baby all day. It was actually a little harder than when they are all home, lol. I didn't have a 9 yo to follow the 2 yo and make sure he wasn't getting into trouble, or to get him water when he needed it, or to put in a video before his nap. I had to keep jumping up to keep an eye on him, and the baby didn't like that. I did get to stay online all morning, since no one cared about watching tv, and it was much quieter, which was nice. But by afternoon I was bored. I ended up going out to the drive through at McDonald's, just to get out of the house, lol. Chris stopped at WalMart to pick up the things he forgot/couldn't find the day before, so the boys didn't get home until 6:30. They had a great time with their friends, so I'm glad they got to go.

Today it's back to normal, we've got school done already :-) but I sure could use a nap!

Vacation Is Over

Chris went back to work this morning. He is officially starting his new job today. He was very nervous about it, but I'm sure it can't get too bad for him at least in the first week, lol. Now, on the other hand, I'm thinking it can get *very* bad for me! LOL Actually I'm feeling pretty good, so I'm hopeful that as long as I get a good routine going we'll do well. Unfortunately I think I'm getting a cold. The back of my throat is very sore, and I think I had a fever last night. I woke up pretty sweaty. Oh, and I should mention that I have been up since 3:30 am! Ugh. Levi woke up and then wouldn't go back to sleep without laying on me. I had to go to the bathroom, so I couldn't just fall asleep with him, but I couldn't lay him in his carseat either. That is what I ended up doing, but of course he cried himself back awake. About 5 am I came upstairs and got online, so he finally got bored to sleep, LOL, but then Micah, who was sleeping in my bed, started to cry so when I laid down in bed with him, he woke up and started playing with me. I never did get back to sleep. Waaah. Today might be a very long day.

I checked out the garden yesterday, and found a few of our vines starting to rot from all the rain, so I picked some fruits, even though they didn't look quite ripe. Hopefully they will ripen off the vine; it's better than them rotting on the vine. We have a beautiful pumpkin, plus another one that wasn't ready to pick yet. Our watermelons are very small, that is disappointing, but at least we have some. I got two cantelopes so far. We have tons and tons of green tomatoes, but Chris went out to pick and only got about 20 cherry tomatoes so far. He says it looks like they are going to turn all at once. That happened last year, and I got so sick from trying to eat them all before they went bad that I still don't have a taste for them yet, LOL. At least he is eager to eat them.

This is the pumpkin that wasn't ready to pick. When I went to pick it up, the stem gave me stickers that stuck in my fingers!

Here is the pumpkin that had a rotten stem. Isn't it pretty?

At the bottom of this picture you can see the cantelopes and the little watermelon I picked.

Our peas rotted in the rain, so Chris pulled the black plants up. We have a few more carrots left, but I thought I'd like them to get a few more days of sun before I pull them. I hope they don't rot first.

We have one pumpkin growing up by the house, It's a pretty nice size too, but it is still very green. Who knew pumpkins were so easy to grow? Too bad I have no intention of trying to cook them! LOL

A Perfect Baby

Levi is Perfect! Well, I already knew that, lol, but his dr pronounced him so today at his appointment :-)

Levi weighed exactly the same as his birthweight, which at 1 week old is pretty quick for regaining his weight; and he grew an inch, and is now 20 inches. I think he more likely stretched out his legs more than actually grew, lol. He also "has good color" so I guess my fears of jaundice were unfounded :-)

I was right when I suspected that I would never be able to hear this doctor if I brought all the boys in; he talks very quietly and with a heavy accent. Sorry to say, even though he told me I was doing everything right and Levi was great, I am still going to be switching doctors September 1. I hope I don't have too much trouble with that.

A Little Break

Today Chris took all the boys out but Troyer and Levi, and gave me a few hours break from them. They have been bickering and picking fights with each other all week, and it is getting on Chris' nerves, so I guess he thought they were getting on mine. I guess he doesn't realize that that is what they do EVERY day, whether he is here or not? LOL It was nice, anyway. Troyer did a great job of watching Levi and keeping him happy so I could make some pizzas for dinner. I was able to have them ready by the time Chris and the boys got home.

Tomorrow is Levi's first appointment with his pediatrician. He was supposed to go in at 10 days old, but that would be Monday and Chris will already be at work. I absolutely dread the idea of having to drag all the boys in to that office and trying to understand the foreign accent through the din of 5 boys fighting and whining. So I talked the office into letting me bring him in a little early. I hope his jaundice is cleared up enough that the dr won't make a big deal out of it. Also, Levi has had goopy eyes for a few days; I guess he has a cold. So I guess I will get a prescription for eye drops.

Levi has been eating very well and pooping a lot, so I know he is healthy. I wonder if the dr will have the same opinion. I don't really trust him after my horrible hospital experience, so I am prepared to completely dismiss whatever he tells me, LOL.

I will post tomorrow with updated stats on Levi :-)

Birth Story Part 2

First off, I want to throw in some details from part 1 that I just didn't fit into the story. One, while my doctor was a pain about the rupture thing, he was laid back about it, and never put pressure on me, and in the end was ok with the whole thing. I am mad in general at the medical community as a whole, and at those women who have run up malpractice insurance so high that doctors have to cover their butt to the point of leaving us VBACers with little choice. My doctor was put in the middle, and I appreciate his allowing me to make my own choice.

Second, I had been thinking towards the end that the baby was probably going to be face up; my suspicions turned out to be right. It made the pushing a little more difficult, and is probably the reason he didn't drop more quickly, but in the end, with the epidural, and the fact that he was smaller than my last two babies, it wasn't a problem.

Third, and this sort of ties in with today's post, I want to say specifically that there was one nurse at the hospital, Tina, who is a favorite of mine. She has been there for the last 2 or 3 babies, and is one of the few who has stayed there that long. After my experience this time around, I can see why there is a high turnover rate there :-(

Ok, on to my rant. I have to say, I am so glad I decided to go home a day early. If I had the nerve, maybe I would have gone home before 24 hours, even. The hospital has a whole bunch of new rules that I was unaware of, and informed of whenever I tried to break them unknowingly. The first offense was that I was not allowed to spend my whole stay in the LDR room. In the past I have stayed in that room for the whole 2 days pp, which actually means almost 3 days. It is a nice big room with comfortable chairs, and is a bit down the hall from the other rooms, so more private. Well, new policy says they need to keep two delivery rooms open, and since there is only one LDR that means I have to get out within hours after birth. I can only say I am glad I have gotten so good at giving birth that it was not hard for me to get up and walk down the hall. If I had had to do that after Noah or Samuel (#2 or 3) it would have been horrible. As it turns out, of course, no one else came in to give birth while I was there.

Next, the stupid kitchen fought with me about what foods I wanted and what I could have. They sent up coffee as my snack, even though Tina told them specifically NO COFFEE. I hate coffee. I wanted an alternate drink, as I am always thirsty. But nope, they sent up a nice big mug of the evil stuff. When they sent up a lady to ask my preferences for my upcoming meals, she mentioned that they had chocolate brownies for desert but I couldn't have one because I was breastfeeding, and we can't be giving caffiene to the baby. UGHH! She pointed out that the coffee was decaf. I wanted to slap her. Also, for my breakfast the next morning they put two of the nastiest looking pieces of bacon I have ever seen on my toast. I tell you, even if I were still eating pork, I would not have touched those. At least they didn't try to feed me a ham sandwich for my midnight snack, like last time. The last kitchen grievance is over the "candle light dinner" which they serve to each new mom and dad while baby is in the nursery, a chance for one last nice meal without baby interfering. It's really a nice thing, and we enjoy it. Well, this time there was a mom on the floor who had had a C section the day before I came in. She was a first time mom, so I figured there was no way she'd be going home a day early, and having my dinner Saturday night would be no problem. You can have the dinner at 5 pm or as a lunch at noon. I figured she'd be having hers at noon on Sunday. Well, it turns out she chose to have hers Saturday night. Go figure, she was getting so many drugs I didn't think she could even get out of bed yet, but nope, they let her have her dinner the same time as mine. They didn't even offer to schedule them an hour apart so we could take turns in the special room. It turns out I got to have the room, and I have no idea where she and her husband ate, but it makes me mad that they even let that sort of thing happen. I feel bad for her.

Next on my list: the nurses on the floor. I will qualify this whole section by saying there are 2 or 3 nice people, including Tina, and Brandy the overnight nursery nurse; but there were a few who I could not stand. Of course I don't even remember her name, but there was one who just insisted on treating me like I was stupid and didn't know anything, and a pain in the neck to boot. She came in to make sure Levi was nursing well and hovered right over us watching to see him latch on. As if I was lying for the last 12 hours that he was doing well. Of course he wouldn't latch on while she was watching. I had one incident where his nursing caused a large painful uterine contraction, bigger than I am used to, and it caused a bit of a mess. When she came by to ask if I wanted a shower, I said yes, and by the way I needed a new sheet. She was really peeved that I could be so inconsiderate as to make more work for her and lectured me about how nursing releases oxcytocin and causes the uterus to contract and I should be prepared for that and underwear would help keep the pad in place. She totally missed the point that it squirted right over the pad! And besides that, thank you but I think I would rather have them wash their sheet than ruin my underwear. As if I don't know that nursing causes that. DUH. Then she came in with a sheet, left the baby there while I took my shower (in the past they take the baby to the nursery if he is going to be unattended), and didn't change my sheet until I was out again and getting dressed. I have to confess that I muttered the whole while in the shower about her, and I think she might have heard all I said. Oh well, lol. Good thing I was leaving in a few hours!

Finally, a rant about the pediatrician. He is new on staff there, the one I had been taking my kids to had left at the end of July and he was the replacement. I had not met him before. He came in quickly on Friday to tell me that my baby looked good so far, and yuck, he had the soggiest handshake I have ever felt. I don't want to get flamed for being prejudiced or anything, so I will only add that English is not his first language, and it was *very* hard to understand him. I have no idea how I will be able to tell what he is saying when I have all 6 kids in the tiny examining room at his office, and they are all screaming and fighting over the rolling stool, and bored out of their skulls because the *pediatrician's* office has no toys or books in there to entertain them.

On Saturday, a different doctor came in and did the circumcision on Levi, then came to talk to me. He said he likes to keep the babies for 48 hours. I said, well, we were going home that evening. He said, that was fine, I could come back tomorrow and pick up the baby!!!! HELLO I'm breastfeeding him!!! How exactly was he going to eat if I was at home???? So I said, no I am taking him with me. And he pointed out I would have to sign an AMA form. I knew that already, thank you.

When I was checking out (finally!!) the nurse told me that the doctor likes to keep the babies to watch for jaundice. Well, my babies, being breastfed and very pale skinned, always have initial jaundice. None have ever had to be treated, we just put them in a sunny window and it clears up on its own, in about a week. I told her I know what to look for and that I could bring the baby back in if he looked bad. She said that this doctor doesn't even bother with outpatient treatments, he just readmits the baby if the levels are too high. Also, his first step with the baby is to cut out the breastmilk and put him on formula to see if that is the cause of the jaundice! Aaaaaghghh! Can anything be any more stupid??? Sure, let's just take him away from his mother for 24 or 48 hours, let the milk dry up, get him adjusted to formula, and then find out that wasn't it after all. Nothing about supplementing with formula first, or just trying to get him to eat more in general. Ugh, doesn't this guy know about bf jaundice, that it tends to last longer with bf babies and isn't harmful? Ugh ugh ugh. I can tell you now, when I take Levi in on Friday, if he has a problem, I am NOT going to have him admitted. No way. I feel very lucky that Chris' insurance changes over Sept 1, so his 3 week check up will be under new insurance and I can choose a new doctor. I will only have to go see this guy once, and then good bye!

Finally, the last insult; the hospital will not release the baby from the maternity floor without him being in a carseat. That sounds fair enough, I am glad they are being cautious. So Nasty Nurse hovers while she watches us put Levi in his seat (I am not even allowed to hold him on my lap while she wheels me downstairs, then put him in the seat). Does she think I have no experience at this? I am sure I know 50x more than her about car seats. So fine, Chris carries the carseat down and I have the bags on my lap. She makes Chris leave the baby at the door to drive the car around and get us. We were not allowed to just carry him out of the hosptial into the parking lot. Apparently she had to hover while she watched us install the carseat in the car as well. Not only that, but she left Chris out one door, and then wheeled me across the lobby to the other door, because she had to check me out at the desk. Hello, why couldn't Chris carry the baby to the other door? I had the baby on my lap (very awkward since he is in the carseat!) and she carried the bags. The lobby has a series of carpet sections, and each is edged with a rubber strip to prevent tripping. Well, guess how uncomfortable it is to be wheeled over each of those rubber strips? Every other time I have left that hospital with a baby, they have taken me through the back hallway, specifically to avoid those strips. I suspect that she did it on purpose, which is what makes me think she heard me muttering, and then complaining to Chris about her. I had thought she was gone after her shift but it turns out she was on a 12 hours shift. Oops, LOL. Small price to pay if she heard how I really felt about her. I doubt she will take any of it seriously and change her behavior though.

So now you know, I am sooooo glad to be out of that hospital, and that, if there are any more babies, they won't be in that hospital. It is nice to be home! :-)

Birth Story

Ok, here's the whole story, as best I can remember it ;-)

On Friday morning, we woke up by 6 am and got my stuff loaded into the car. I packed the usual stuff, but also a big bag full of books and stuff to do; I have learned that the hospital can be pretty boring! lol We were ready early, so we just left, it was hard to just sit around.

We got to the hospital 20 minutes early, but were able to check in right away. First they sent me down to the lab to get some blood work done. In the past they have always sent a tech up to my room to do that, but they said it was easier and quicker if I went there first. It made sense to me, and not much difference, so no problem. They have a nice little waiting room there so I didn't have to leave Troyer and Chris out in the lobby. Then from there we went upstairs to the maternity hall. After getting changed and everything, we just sat for a long time. Almost an hour. Boring! lol Finally someone came in and started me on an IV. I knew I was going to want an epidural, and the dr ordered that I have 2 liters of fluid in me before they started it, so they put that in first. My dr came in and examined me, and said I was up to almost a 5, so I guess I was doing something overnight!

Then a while later they came and started the pitocin. I guess that was around 10 am. My dr wanted to break my water as soon as possible, something to do with the increased chance of rupture if the baby is down but the membranes haven't broken. Blah blah, lol, I get glassy eyed when he starts with that "R" word, LOL. He started the pitocin really low, so my contractions were only 10 to 15 minutes apart, not much more than they had been already. They weren't hurting much either. Of course, the anesthesiologist got busy and didn't come and didn't come. My dr checked me about every hour, and by 11 I was around 7 cm. Finally the anesth. Dr Johnson came up at 12. I sent Chris and Troyer out for lunch, I figured Troyer wouldn't much enjoy watching the dr put the epidural in, and I know Chris doesn't like to watch. They went to Burger King, and their timing was perfect, I was all settled back in when they returned.

My OB came back then, and broke my water, checking me again at the same time. I can't tell you how much difference the drugs make! LOL It didn't hurt at all, as opposed to each time he had checked me before. He had to reach very far in because he was trying to feel the baby's head, but it was still floating. At that point I was still at 7 cm.

Chris had brought along his laptop and Troyer had a few books and a drawing pad and pencils, so they were all set, but with the iv needle in my left hand and the blood pressure cuff on my right arm, it was hard to hold a book to read. The epidural (combined with very little sleep the night before!) made me relaxed and sleepy, so I just settled in for a nice nap. I slept for about an hour. At about 2 pm I could start to feel the contractions again, and told them I wanted the epidural topped off soon, so it wouldn't wear off right when it was time to start pushing. Again it took a while for the anesth. nurse to get there, and at last check, I was up to 8.5-9 cm - it was almost time! The baby had descended, too, to about +1 station.

Finally the nurse arrived with more drugs, ahhh, lol. I asked her not to make it as strong as the first dose, as I wanted to be able to feel enough to push. She had trouble getting the fluid in the tube, she said it felt like there was a kink or something in the line. She ended up giving me more than I needed, because she felt that I wasn't getting it all. Oops. Oh well. So I was numb from knees to ribs again. I just hoped it would wear off enough in time for pushing.

The OB came back in and checked again at 2:30, I was fully dilated and ready to push. Well, except that I couldn't feel what to push! I hate that. So they had to tell me when a contraction started and to start pushing, and I did my best to push right, but couldn't really tell, and they would tell me when it was over and take a break. It felt like a long time but I guess it was not even 10 minutes, and I could just start to feel the baby's head coming down, so I told them that, and they confirmed it. A few more pushes, and I could feel the head coming out. No pain at all, which is amazing to me, but I could feel just enough to tell when he was through. In the end, I am glad it worked out that way, because I didn't have to worry about Troyer getting upset at my moans or screams, lol.

I felt amazingly good afterwards, not even any soreness; I guess that is because he was so small - my last baby was 9lb 7oz, so he seemed tiny to me, lol. I decided then that I would be checking out the next day rather than spend the extra day there. I'm glad I did.

Levi is up now, so I will finish the rest of the story (which will mosly be rants about the stupid hospital) later.

Levi is Here!

I'm just posting a short update now that I'm home; I'll write the whole birth story out later. Levi is here! He was born on Friday Aug 13, 2004, at 2:40 pm, after starting induction around 10 am. He weighed 7lb 14.5 oz, and is 19.5 inches long. He has a bit of hair, and it looks dark??? LOL A first for me, a baby with dark hair. His eyes look like they will also be turning dark. Have I actually gotten a baby who will have Chris' coloring? lol

We just got home Saturday night, I didn't feel like staying the extra day. The brothers are all very happy to see him. Troyer got to attend the birth, and his opinion was, " Wow, that was so gross! It was *so* gross it was cool!!!" LOL I think he got to see more than he planned on, lol.

I will write a longer story when I get the chance, I'm not up to 100% yet. :-)

Gretchen, Troyer, and baby Levi, just hours old

Levi

OMG I Can't Believe I Am Here Typing This!!!

I can't believe I am back home, and not in the hospital!!!!! I went to my appointment, and had nasty contractions the whole way there. Troyer came along, because we expected to be checking in at the hospital afterwards. The doctor checked me, and I am only a 4 "maybe" AARRRGGHHH! So he asked me when do I want the baby, and I said tonight! He pointed out that the hospital staff is on skeleton crew overnight, and how about tomorrow morning, so I had to go with that. So I will be checking in for induction tomorrow morning at 7 am. I suppose all around that's easier, with having to have someone watch the boys and everything. But I was all set to have the baby tonight! I am so mad, but also about to cry. So one more sleepless night. Sigh.

A Sleepless Night

Well, needless to say, nothing much happened yesterday, lol. I was pretty busy, so if I was having regular contractions, I didn't notice them. I did get them when sitting down to rest, but they were still the wimpy kind. I was much more tired yesterday than I have been the past few days, and that was disappointing. I was enjoying my energy spurt. :-) I even went to bed early last night, had some thoughts about Chris helping me out with labor, maybe ;-) but he was already fast asleep, so no go.

I woke up about 2 am because Micah had fallen out of bed and was crying. I went and got him back into bed, and laid down with him for a while till he fell asleep again. But then I couldn't get back to sleep. The baby had moved into an uncomfortable postition, so everytime he kicked it hurt my hips. And then the contractions got uncomfortable too. Not close enough to time them, but annoying enough to keep me awake. I told Chris this morning that maybe I might need to call him today. My appointment is tonight at 5 pm. Can I wait that long??? LOL He will be out of the office for the morning, so I won't even be able to find him until after lunch, and by that point, I might as well wait. But hey, if I ever actually do approach something like normal early labor, I will just drag all the boys with me to the hospital, just in case.

I am pretty sure that today will be my last day pg (with this baby, anyway! lol). Last week my doctor (who was sooooo sure I was going to deliver last weekend just because he stripped my membranes - DUH) told me that if I made it to this week's appointment, he was most likely going to want me to go straight to the hospital to check in from there. He said if I were 5 or more cm he would do that. I have no idea if all these contractions this week did anything or not. I need longer fingers! LOL

Anyway, if I end up going in before 5, I will come and post here first, but otherwise I may not be posting again before I am home to announce the baby!

Still Here

I was soooo close to having Chris take me in tonight; the contrax were a regular 15 min apart, and crampy but not really painful. But then I remembered that the epi doctor goes home at 3 pm, and I really really really didn't want the idiot nurse I had last time, so I decided to wait at least until morning. Now the contrax seem to have petered out some, so it's probably better that I waited. I guess we'll wait until morning.

The garage called and said the van passed inspection, so I told Chris to go ahead and go pick it up tonight, just in case we need to go in. Tomorrow we (the boys and I) will drive him in to work so he can drive his car home. It is spending the night up at the garage. I feel better having the van, just in case.

Maybe tomorrow morning we will be driving to the hospital instead? lol I can keep hoping, right? ;-)

Getting Closer?

Holy cow, I feel like a first time mom, wondering if these stupid contrax are real or not, lol. I am having a lot of them right now, but they don't really hurt, they are just enough to notice them. There is a little back ache with them. I know that if I wait until they are really awful that will mean I am in transition and it will only be 20 more minutes, so that is too late, lol. But I don't want to go in too early either. I'd rather be at home ignoring the contrax than in the hospital, bored, unable to ignore them. And they would undoubtedly start me on pitocin anyway, and then want to break my water, and then for sure it would hurt, lol. Aargh it would just be easier if I had this baby at home!


I can't do anything right now anyway, because Chris took the van to work so he could drop it off for inspection, so I am stuck at home with no vehicle. I would have to wait for him to get home, and then we would have to wait for someone to come watch the boys before he could drive me in. Hmm, so maybe I will have the baby at home LOL. But it is more likely that I will still be sitting here tomorrow and the next day, wondering. *sigh*

No Baby Yet

I confess, I was secretly hoping my doctor would have been right, and I would have actually gone into labor on my own this weekend. No such luck. Just wimpy contractions yesterday. Chris didn't go to his reunion; he was just sure that if he did I *would* go into labor, and I'd be home alone. He changed his plans then, to taking 2 boys (of my choice) with him into the office to start cleaning out his desk. He wanted to do it on the weekend when his boss wouldn't be there; they were not getting along so well last week. But in the end, he decided to wake up late and hang around the house, send me out shopping, then mow the lawn when I got home! Ugh, no break from the kids at all! He did at least make them lunch and dinner. I had plenty of useless contractions while out shopping, so I had to lay down for a while when I got home. Of course they went away as soon as I lay down.

Today would be a good day for me to have the baby, but I don't see it happening. Tomorrow is not so good, because we are supposed to drop the van off for inspection. I have no idea how Chris is planning to arrange getting me to the hospital when the van is gone, but hey, he scheduled it. Let him figure it out, lol.

Nothing Zilch Nada

Well, here's how it went yesterday. We did end up going to the homeschool meeting at the park. It was pretty dry, just some muddy patches, but it was windy and pretty cold. Low 60's I think. The kids warmed up easily enough by running around with the other kids and playing. They spent most of the time on the merry-go-round, and Troyer told me on the way home that he was feeling pretty sick from being on it so long, LOL. The moms all sat at a picnic table and talked. I got some good advice for when we move; one of the moms knows of a big group of homeschoolers in our new area and will give me the name of some contacts so I can find out what's up down there, and I won't be totally on my own. I was worried about that.

We were at the park about 2 hours; I had at least 4 good contrax during that time, and was generally crampy the whole rest of the time. Not pleasant. After the meeting I drove to the bank and got the kids McDonald's for lunch, as I had promised them. I had planned also to do some shopping while we were out, but I was not up for it, so we just drove back home, still feeling crampy. I don't know how many more contrax I had, since I was ignoring them.


I tried to get the kids off my back when we got home, I was tired from wondering if I was actually going to go into labor; I tried to take a little nap while they played legos and watched a movie. Chris got home late; I was imagining him getting cornered by his boss and being miserable, but nope, he was on the phone with a friend who was congratulating him on leaving, LOL. This friend had worked with Chris before, but left the company about 2 years ago. I was a little annoyed that he was late coming home; I needed a break. The boys were really wired, for some reason. He did let me come upstairs and hide from them for a while, and made them dinner for me, and then came up and let me vent for a little bit; I felt much better afterwards.


I was still having contrax last night, here and there, so I was hoping that maybe something really would happen this weekend, but I woke up this morning, and I hadn't had any all night, and I'm back to the whimpy b-h contrax again this morning. :-( So I guess it will not be today. At least the crampy feeling from having my membranes stripped is gone. So my goal is Monday again, lol. The baby is still floating pretty high, I am also hoping the head will engage soon. It always makes my doctor nervous to see them float because if the water breaks the cord may get compressed by the head. It would be nice to have just *one* thing he doesn't worry about this time, lol.


A friend of mine at chat last night found a few links to medical abstracts that directly contradicted what my doctor told me at my appointment, about being at greater risk for rupture the more VBACs I have. These actually quoted studies which showed that women with previous VBACs had a higher success rate of labor than those whose previous pg ended in a C section. It made me feel a little better to read those; I wonder what the heck stuff my doctor is reading.

Emotional

I have been very emotional the last few days. It is strange because for this whole pregnancy I have been so much on an even keel, not getting too upset about anything. I don't know, maybe it is the stress of the coming job change and move, plus knowing the baby is coming soon. Unfortunately it is surfacing in my brain as worry. My doctor had to point out once again that he had read even more studies about uterine rupture during VBACs. He even went so far as to say that women with successful previous VBACs were at higher risk. I'm sorry but that just sounds so dumb I can't believe it was published anywhere. I asked him, did these studies take into account the type of incision, or the quality of healing from the first C? What about the general health of the current pg when the rupture occurred? He didn't really have answers for me, which tells me it's not something I need to worry about, but of course he has planted it in my brain and I can't shake it loose. What if this is going to be my last baby, not by my choice? What if he has to do an emergency hysterectomy? What if he is using this as an excuse to do one? (See? now I've sunk into paranoia!) From there my brain makes an easy leap to What if there is something wrong with the baby? What if the baby is breech and I have no choice on the C section anyway? Etc etc etc. And it's driving me nuts. So now when I think about the baby coming in a few days, which I don't feel ready for yet, it makes me want to cry. What a waste, I should be anticipating it and getting excited, but instead it depresses me. I've always been normally worried about things with each pg, but now with this one, I'm actually bordering on being scared. My head tells me not to bother, what can I do about any of it? But the tears want to come out anyway.

Appointment Update

I had my appointment tonight. The doctor says I'm at 3.5 cm now, and the trip is definitely out. He thinks I will have the baby this weekend. I laughed at him. He said he wants me to come in in early labor, not wait until the heavy stuff; I laughed again. I told him for me, *now* is early labor. I don't have regular contrax that I have to wait to get closer. I don't have any at all. I just dilate. He didn't have an answer to that, lol. He stripped my membranes, which I didn't appreciate, but perhaps he misunderstood when I said that any time next week would be fine, because of Chris' new job. He also said that *if* I make it to next Thursday's appointment, to bring my hospital bag with me, because if I'm 5 cm or more he's going to make me go check in. He doubts still that I would make it to Thursday. I am trying to make it to just Monday or Tuesday, then I don't care. Actually, Monday is better, because Chris has the van scheduled for inspection on Tuesday, and it really needs to get done. It would be easier to arrange if the baby were already born.

Now, since my appointment, I've been having the same stupid contrax, only they hurt, and now I have to wonder if they are real or not. It was easier to ignore them before. I told Chris to go ahead and go on Sunday without me, I could use a nice quiet day with the boys gone, and that would insure the baby did not come, lol; but he is afraid to leave me alone. I guess I can't blame him, but what a pain. I hate to make him miss this reunion, he was really looking forward to it.

Tomorrow morning I am supposed to be taking the boys to a Homeschool Group picnic. It is at a park with lots of shade, which means it is likely to be soggy from yesterday's rain. It is also supposed to be quite cool tomorrow, not even getting up to 70, while our meeting is at 10 am. I'm not sure I want to go. But I know the boys do, so I guess we will.

Another Hot Day

We had another hot day here today, but not as bad as the last few days. I couldn't get the boys to go outside; why are my kids abnormal??? I thought you couldn't keep boys inside? Only my youngest wanted out. I finally lured them outside by telling them they could play Play Doh. They are only allowed to play out on the picnic table with it. They make such a complete mess with it that even in a kitchen with a vinyl floor, I couldn't control it. They step in it, they sit in it. Ugh. So it is only for outside. They did enjoy that, at least.

It finally rained here this afternoon, it was supposed to come yesterday. Boy, when it hit, it really hit! We had about an inch fall in just over an hour. Luckily it was that brief too, so no water in the basement. The rain was supposed to bring cooler weather with it, but so far that has not made its way into the house. Ick, still hot and sticky in here.

I have another prenatal appointment tomorrow evening. I am looking forward to it. I have been having annoying braxton-hicks contractions more and more often, and they are stronger and stronger. They have gone from annoying to distracting. But not disruptive yet. I am anxious to see if they have been doing any good.

Chris' 20th High School reunion is this Sunday; it is about 2.5 hours away. He has been looking forward to it for over a year (weird, I know, who actually wants to go to those things??? LOL) and we are planning to go, just for the day. Normally we would stay overnight, but his mother just had surgery a few weeks ago and we don't want to invade her house with all the kids while she is still recovering. So we are planning to go down just for the afternoon family picnic. It should be fun; all the alumni will be there with spouses and children. Chris actually wants to go to that more than the fancy dinner the night before. I am disappointed to miss the dinner, lol.

Anyway, depending on what the doctor says tomorrow, I may not make it. I was 2 cm last week; I think if I am past a 4 tomorrow, maybe I'd better not go. I am going to try to talk Chris into taking the kids down without me, though. I'd hate for him to miss it. Of course, I could still go; maybe I'd win a prize for something, like Youngest Baby at the Reunion? That would be after I pop it out on one of the picnic tables, LOL. Chris says if I went into labor, he'd stuff us in the van and drive me home to my own doctor. Oh joy, just what I'd want, to be in a 12 passenger van for 2.5 hours while in labor! Well, it probably wouldn't happen, anyway. But hey, if it did, what a post for my blog that would be! LOL

I will be updating tomorrow night with whatever my doctor has to say!

I Hate Mondays!

First off, let me say, we had a great weekend here. The weather cooled off slightly, though it was still hot at church. I have to wear sneakers, even with skirts, now, to avoid too much swelling in my ankles, but that meant I couldn't secretly slip my shoes off while sitting in the pews, lol. I felt a little better once we went downstairs for lunch afterwards, it's much cooler in the basement. I took all the boys home and let Chris stay to talk to his friends. Usually it's me staying while he brings everyone home; I thought it would be nice to give him a turn :-)

Saturday evening I made strawberry shortcakes for dinner. I have been buying blueberries and strawberries with the intent of making them for several weeks now, but each time I get the berries washed, I'd eat them before I made the shortcakes, lol. Finally I was good and shared. I make simple drop cakes with Bisquick, and use Cool Whip. Yum yum.

On Sunday we spent the morning cleaning up the house. We were invited to dinner at a friend's house, but we weren't sure if it was going to rain. We had already had to reschedule twice because of rain, so we offered to have the dinner inside at our house if it rained again. They are building an addition on the back of their house, and the yard is pure mud when it rains. We got lucky, though, and the weather stayed warm and clear all day. Sometime just after lunch Chris noticed a swarm of bugs out in the yard. We watched them for a while as they floated over a bush and into our pine tree. Finally they seemed to settle down so we went out to investigate; it was a HUGE swarm of bees! Now we have a huge nest in the tree, the kind you see on tv with the bees just dripping off of it. I will be calling the exterminator soon!

Finally it was time to leave, and we headed out. The boys were very excited to be visiting this family; they have 5 children also, and are part of our homeschool group, so they get along well. As soon as we got there the boys changed into suits and jumped right in the pool. It was chilly because they don't have a pool heater, and the rain had kept the water cool, so it took us a while to get all the way in. Troyer and Noah had fun playing with all the pool gear, goggles and snorkles and such, and diving after the sinking toys. Samuel and Caleb were more cautious, since they haven't had swim lessons yet, and are not used to water over their heads. The pool was about 4 ft deep. Micah loved every second of it, and has no fear of the water at all. We had to keep a close eye on him because he kept climbing down the ladder and expecting someone to be there to catch him!

Troyer enjoyed showing off his floating skills that he learned at camp:

Poor Samuel had a scare; he was trying out the snorkel, and accidentally floated too far from the ladder, and when he noticed he panicked. He went under and ended up swallowing all the water that poured in the submerged snorkel. Chris grabbed him and pulled him up and put him out, but that was the end of his swimming for the day. It took him a while to relax again, but by the time dinner was ready, he was feeling better.

We had pizza and chips for dinner, the boys ate a lot! The fresh air and exersize must have been good for them, lol. After eating, our friends took us for a tractor ride around their property. They live on a family farm and it is a good size. They are not career farmers, but they own some sheep and a llama, and grow a few crops. Their property is beautiful. They don't really farm most of it, mostly they hunt on it during hunting season. We saw a porquipine and a few deer during our ride.

After we got back we all had some ice cream, and finally headed home well after bed time! Poor Caleb begged and begged to be able to stay over, and really we all had such a great time, we could understand! The boys fell asleep almost immediately when we got them into bed.

Ok, now for why I hate Mondays, LOL.

I was woken up super early to be asked if they could play computer games. Lucky for them Chris had said it was better to play in the morning while it was cool than later in the afternoon. Sometimes we have trouble with their computer shutting down if it gets too hot. But of course that meant arguments about who should play first and how long a turn they were getting blah blah blah lol. Micah came in later, soaking wet; his diaper had leaked AGAIN. Ugh. Of course he wasn't really interested in changing his clothes, so he put up a fight. Then I went down to make breakfast. There was the usual fighting over who got his bowl first, and who got to pour out the cereal first and why was I taking so long to pour the milk. Ugh. I also had to get a batch of bread dough started because we are completely out of bread. I was interrupted at least 4 times, and what should have taken 15 minutes took over 30. Then just before I could get the last ingredients into the mixer, Micah threw his bowl of cereal on the floor, spilling chocolate cereal and milk everywhere, including over himself. Just what I need at 37 weeks pg is to be on the floor wiping up soggy marshmallows and milk. It went everywhere, did I say that already? LOL

I did finally get the bread dough set and rising; but now the boys are fighting over legos, and woke Micah up from the nap I JUST put him down for. He won't fall asleep without me next to him now, so I lost a half hour laying in his room waiting for him to nod off; and now he's up again. UGH! LOL

Let's hope the second half of the day goes better, please!