Birthday Season

We've had 2 birthdays in the last week and are preparing diligently for a big birthday bash on Sunday.

Our party theme is Thomas the Tank Engine meets raccoons. That's what they picked! Nate chose Thomas, of course.

Raccoon decorations made from paper hanging lanterns. In the process of making five more!

I like to make a big deal of birthdays, especially since we will do the boys' party together for the foreseeable future. We have a little celebration at home on their actual birthday, but for their real party with grandparents and aunts and uncles, it's just too hard for people to come to parties two weekends in a row (right around Memorial Day weekend and lots of graduation parties, no less). So for now, we pick a theme and do some fun decorations, a pinata, things like that. No pony rides or anything super spendy. ;) Is it for me as much as them? Maybe, a little bit. But I love it. I enjoy making cakes and decorations. It's my thing. :)

and the fire department came...

I took Nate to an eye appointment this morning, and dear sister Meagan graciously offered to keep the younger boys so I could take him alone. She planned to run into the grocery store with the boys to grab something for our mom, and then take it over to her and stay and play for a while, so I left the carseats.

After the appointment, my mom called me. The conversation started with: "Don't worry, everything is fine now, but there was a little bit of an accident..." Meagan had gone out to put Ben's carseat in her car, and he locked her out of the house. Key-less. and phone-less. Andrew was nestled safely in his carseat inside, asleep, and Ben was peering out the window grinning (oblivious to what he had actually done - he knew he had disobeyed by locking the door but he doesn't understand that locking a door means you can't get back through it).

She knocked on some doors but the neighbors weren't home, and by that point, the neighborhood mowers who happened to be around noticed something was wrong. One of them let her borrow their phone, and she called my mom (apparently the message went something like: "This is Meagan. Someone NEEDS to pick up the phone right now. This is serious. Pick up the phone!"), who told her she needed to call 911 because "you can't leave that baby in the house alone!" So, 4 firefighters came to unlock the door (must have been a slow day at the station).

Ben & Aunt Meagan riding in a fire truck last fall. there has to be some connection here...

Yesterday we were at Granny & Grandpa's (my parents) and I was teaching piano lessons. My dad walked into the kitchen to find Ben with a cup pressed up against the water dispenser on the fridge, with water just pouring on out... all over the floor. He smiled and said, "I getting a dink, Grandpa!" Everyone else does it! Can't argue too much with that.

                           

Tonight, Nate was climbing on the bean bag chair in their room and fell against the window and hit his head pretty hard (I think that poor boy just needs a helmet). Brian was comforting him and his sympathy and attention were duly noted by Ben, who proceeded to walk over to the window, bang his head against it, and fake cry.

wearing a coonskin cap while eating Rice Krispies with his hands; that's how we do it!

oh, dear Ben. I love you. you are such an imp.

Little Sister

My cute sister blogged about my little wooden people! Months ago. I didn't even know she had a blog. How embarrassing.

{is my title misleading? the boys are not getting a little sister yet.} ;)

Andrew Ryan

Months have gone by since this little guy was born.

But memories of the day haven't faded, although they get a little foggier as the weeks go by. I've been meaning to write a few of the memories down for a while now, but life has gone on without me taking the time to sit down to do it.

I was convinced he was a girl. Absolutely convinced. Not because I necessarily wanted a girl more than a boy - we told everyone that we would take what we were given - but because my pregnancy was SO. DIFFERENT. I spent the first 20 weeks not wanting to eat a thing. The nausea wasn't too bad (and only from about weeks 6-9?), but the total loss of appetite helped me hit the halfway mark without gaining a pound. I had acne. My belly was small. Tiny, really, compared to my other pregnancies. This MUST be a girl pregnancy.

20 weeks

My pregnancy was uneventful, and went by FAST. I would blink and another trimester would be gone. The 3rd trimester especially flew by, because we had Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and all the hustle & bustle surrounding them, and then suddenly I was full-term. I walked into my appointment at 38 weeks and my doctor said "Wow, that went by really fast!" And then we talked about eviction. My due date was January 26. The other boys didn't come on their own, and we were all really hoping this one would. He didn't. We checked into the hospital in the evening of January 31. I've started with prostaglandin gel every time, and once my water is broken my labor starts. I've never needed Pitocin (which I've heard referred to as "from the devil" enough times that I'm grateful I've never needed it!)

in the hospital before gowning up

But something different happened this time. The gel actually put me into labor without my water being broken. It was WEIRD, but an experience I'm really grateful for. I'd never experienced "textbook labor" - where you start off having contractions, not very painful, far apart, that get closer and closer together and more painful. Both of my other labors went from 0 to 100 as soon as my water broke, both on the speed and pain scale. But this? These contractions were manageable! I was actually in labor but I could still chat on Facebook! (which I did, for a while. I stopped checking in around midnight.) I walked around the room. Over and over and over. Brian dozed for a little bit. And then it got hard. And after many hours of "wow, this is pretty hard, I hope morning comes quickly!"... no progress. "I think the doctor really just needs to come in and break your water!" my nurse said to me, at least 3 times. I had a lot of back labor and he was sitting in an awkward position.

I decided against the epidural - I had one with Ben and got it too late, so not only did it not work all that great or for very long, but I also had a lot of residual back pain. My doctor warned me that once he broke my water I couldn't get it because I would probably go super fast, and my thought was, "I've been doing this for 10 hours now, if I wanted an epi I would have gotten it a long time ago! I've made it this far..." And really, I wasn't at that "Am I Going To SURVIVE This!?!?" point. Yet. And in retrospect, I'm really glad I didn't get it. Minus the Cervadil at the beginning, my labor & delivery was literally totally drug-free (normally I get sick a lot during labor so I have Zofran to help, but I didn't even get that this time).

Andrew was born a crazy 45 minutes later, at 9:10am, weighing 8lb, 5oz. That part is always a little bit of a blur to me - they handed him to me, Brian was chuckling and said "It's a boy!" and I said "REALLY!?!?". He was SO sweet. I fell instantly in love. He seemed SO SMALL! He screamed for about the first half hour of his life outside the womb, but then was perfectly content to snuggle and snooze.

Some people don't like to name their babies until they've seen them and figure out what name fits them. I'm the opposite - I like to have a name ahead of time. I like looking at the baby for the first time and calling him by his name. I figure they grow into their names. ;)

Later that day, grandparents and aunts and uncles and BIG BROTHERS came up to visit. Everyone loves a new baby. Ben was especially enamored.

One of the first things the nurses who cleaned him up after he was born noticed was that he was tongue-tied. Our doctor thought it would be best to get his frenulum clipped right away, but the ENT who came to see us in the hospital wanted to wait a few weeks because of the risk of infection. In those few weeks, Andrew gained plenty of weight and didn't seem to struggle with nursing too much, but it was pretty painful for me. The surgery was a quick office visit, nothing super serious, but it was still hard for me to watch. Most people I had talked to whose kids had the same thing said it was fairly painless and hardly bled; not the case with Andrew. But it was over quick and he seemed normal by the next day. He kept rolling his tongue around in his mouth and sticking it out, almost like he was thinking, "What's this thing!?" And nursing suddenly became SO MUCH BETTER.

Immediately after he was born, my reaction was "that was so hard!" because it was so much LONGER than my other two (Nate's was just over 6 hours and Ben's was 3.) But in retrospect, it was also the one that I "enjoyed" the most (that sounds crazy! but I felt like it went better than the other two.) I always find things to be really raw and emotional right afterwards, and I immediately swore I was getting pain meds next time. I don't get those euphoric pain-free moments after birth. I'm in love with the new baby, of course, but I'm usually asking for ibuprofen and saying "ow ow ow" as I bond with the new little guy. But now that a little time has passed, the memories are a little rosier in my mind. Time really does heal. 

Little Andrew, you are the best baby. I thought the others were easy, but you? You have the sweetest and most mellow temperament. You hardly ever cry. I feed you when you are hungry and change you when you are wet, and that's all it really takes to keep you happy. If you are fed and changed, you just grin and grin. You love to be held, but you also don't mind laying on the couch or on the blanket next to all the action. You LIKE your carseat and will fall asleep in it (unusual in our house!). You like your bed. We got a new full-size bassinet/playpen for Christmas from Granny & Grandpa because the old one was sinking in, and you sleep in it! Without fussing! For hours and hours every night! God had mercy on me and gave me a good sleeper because He knows sleep deprivation is the biggest cross for me. I thought it was a fluke and refused to talk about it at first, because once you brag about your good sleeper then suddenly they aren't. But you seem to be holding steady. I was a little worried that you were going to be colicky your first few weeks, because you were pretty fussy in the evenings, but that dissipated and now you are RARELY fussy.

I'm so grateful that God gave you to us. You have given me yet another perspective on the beauty of new life, the wonder of babies, and the love a mother has for her children. I already can't imagine my life without you.

Another Semester Over...

and now I should have a little more free time. whew! 3 more classes down, about 8 more to go. And a whole summer to catch up on the little things that have fallen by the wayside.

I've been blogging a little for Catholic Sistas lately - 30 Things Every Mother Should Have and Should Know last week, and another post coming on Friday. :)