Best Shot Monday

here he is, my newest love! i simultaneously can't believe he is here and can't believe i've known him less than a week!
sprout is a sweet, sweet angel. he sleeps ALL THE TIME. as a matter of fact, he is sleeping on my lap right now.

we will say this is my best shot monday for this week. although, i must say that the picture i posted here is probably my real favorite!

for more best shot fun don't forget to stop by tracey's!!

Meeting Brother

several people wanted to know what bean thinks of being a big sister. well, i took this picture when she saw him for the first time. i think it says it all.

she cooed and giggled and loved on him. she wanted to hold and hug and kiss him. she decided that she wouldn't hit him after all.

she is "in love" with her baby brother. how long that will last, i don't know. but so far she hasn't complained or whined about him getting attention. she hasn't gotten upset at me or her daddy. she is a really good helper. everything has gone rather smoothly.
(now picture me frantically knocking on wood)
;)

Sprout's Story

first of all, i'd like to thank everyone who said that they were hoping for a "quick and easy" delivery for me. i don't know who you talked to but they listened! ;) some how, even though sprouty was a full pound and a half bigger and his head was a half inch bigger around, he just came right out like nothin'! so thanks a bunch bloggy friends!!

we arrived at the hospital around 6:30ish. i was registered and put in a gown. got all hooked up to monitors. got i.v. (oh, that was fun, took three tries!) then the nurse checked me. "4 cm... well, almost 5 actually" is what she said. she calls anesthesia to prepare for my epidural. my back really starts to ache and i start to worry that this baby is "sunny side up" too. (but it isn't- thank god!)
they take me to the delivery room. we chat with the nurse as she prepares the room for delivery and we wait for that magical epidural. my nurse is funny and cool- SO unlike my nurse with bean!! i get the epidural and i enjoy the warm fuzzy sensation creeping up my legs. the nurse checks me, i'm a "good 7 cm". woo hoo! "call me if your water breaks", she says as she leaves the room.
mostly now we wait and discuss what to name this child since we still didn't have names picked out. the doctor comes in to introduce herself and to break my water. she is just about as cool and nice as the nurse. (my doctor was on call until 5:00pm so i just missed her) nurse and doctor tell me to call when i start feeling pressure, they will be back in 15-20 minutes. we sit and discuss names again.
the nurse comes back checks me. has me roll to one side for a while. then i roll to the other for a while. fun. i'm almost there according to her. (in my head i think she is full of it- it can't really be that close to being over with!) she checks again. she decides to stretch my cervix- there is just a "lip" left and she figures if she stretches and i push the baby down a little we can get rid of it. so i push a few times for her. she stops and says, "ok, let's push." i'm thinking, "is she for real? i can push now??" it wasn't a joke though. it is time to have a baby.
so, i push through one contraction. there is some intense pressure. the nurse tells me i'm doing a great job and grabs the call button. she needs the doctor now. (that is when it occurs to me that the pressure is the baby crowning! holy crap!)
the doctor comes in and says "how is everything going?" then she looks down at me, smirks and says, "so i bet you're feeling some pressure now!" i start laughing and say "uh, yeah, just a little!" (yes, i was laughing during delivery. crazy!) the doctor gets all set up and then it is go time.
i push through 2 contractions. they tell me i'm almost there. i push again, the head is out. the next contraction i push again, out come the shoulders. the nurse says, "look down, look down." i can see it is a boy before the doctor says anything but my first thought is, "he's huge."

his apgars were 9 and 9. his head was perfectly shaped. he looked great. it was 9:13pm, we hadn't even been at the hospital for a full three hours yet! none of our family made it to the hospital in time. it was all very surreal. wonderful but surreal.

that is the story. it is short and sweet. the exact opposite of my first birth experience. i was not unhappy with my first labor and delivery but it was difficult to say the least. this time was truly a blessing! i couldn't be happier.

It's a......

BOY!

"baby sprout"
march 25th, 9:13pm
8 pounds 9 ounces
20 inches long

thanks for all the well wishes and support! i'll share the story soon i promise... it's seems i'm a little busy right now! ;)

Soon

we will be leaving for the hospital soon. i'm close to reaching my pain thresh-hold... well, at least what i'm willing to let my daughter see. she knows it is supposed to hurt when the baby comes but i really don't want her to see how much it hurts!

contractions are still a little weird. but then again, they were with bean too. big one (lasting about a minute) then around 3 minutes later a smaller one (lasting about (40 seconds) then 2-3 minutes later another bigger one. obviously the "bigger" ones hurt more too.

daddy took a couple of mommy/daughter pictures a few hours ago but i don't have it in me to try to download them right now. sorry, the last hours of "blueberry and bean" will have to be picture-less. when next you see us it really will be blueberry and bean AND little sprout! ....unless of course we get to the hospital and they send me home! ;)

thanks for the well wishes! i'll get back to ya'll as soon as possible!

Last Sprouty Update

yep, this is the last sprouty update before the baby makes its appearance!

soooooo, yeah. today i feel like... uck. that's right, uck! not a word but a sound that best describes what i am currently feeling. i told the doctor that. i also told her that i wasn't sure if i'd had any contractions or not. (seems like if you are having your second kid you would know this, but i guess not.)
anyways, i'm now 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced. (woo hoo!) she pulled my cervix forward again and tried stretching it again to see if that would help move things along. she is fairly certain that i was having a contraction while i was trying to lie down on the exam table. she said she was very pleased with the progress i had made. AND...

she thinks that it is possible that i could have the baby today. that is right people, i said today. of course she has no way of knowing for sure but she said everything looked very favorable and she wouldn't be surprised if she saw me again. whoa!

so, today's doctor visit was a good one..... ok, except for the fact that i weighed in at 201.2 pounds. GAH! darn that easter candy! it gets me everytime!!!! ;)


(don't worry, if i go to the hospital i will let you know. unfortunately, once i'm there i have no way to let you know anything SO i guess you will have to wait 'till i bring sprout home to hear about it. sorry!)

Best Shot Monday

ahhh, the joy one experiences when one discovers that sometimes eggs are plastic and sometimes those plastic eggs contain... m&m's!!! seeing everything again for the first time is one of the greatest joys of having a child. :) and, since it is monday again (already!) we will say that this is my best shot monday.

i tried to take lots of adorable pictures of bean. bean didn't think this was particularly fun. i got pouty pictures, tongue pictures, back of head pictures, and down right silly pictures. sigh. some of them did turn out nice though. she doesn't look happy (she was ready to "hunt eggs NOW") but man does she look sweet clutching that easter bunny!

it was a good easter. we had an egg hunt. bean and i made chocolate chip pancakes (that were dyed pink... i guess i started a "thing" on st. pat's day that i may not be able to stop!). we also had dinner with grandma and grandpa and one of bean's aunts. overall, a nice family day.

this was also bean's last holiday as an only child. did i find it bitter sweet. no. i'm actually a little annoyed that the new member of our family hasn't arrived yet! i was hoping we would have him/her with us this easter... or at least he/she would be born on easter. sorry sprouty, i know you like it in mom's tum but your getting kicked out on thursday!

anyways, i hope you all had a lovely easter weekend! and don't forget to hop on over to tracey's and see what everyone else has to share this monday!

Nope, not yet!

no, sorry folks, no labor yet. just an update:

the induction has been scheduled. it will be thursday march 27th at 8:30 am.

there is and end in sight people! woo hoo!

Gimme a Little Attitude!

i had bean try on her easter dress. i needed to make sure it would fit and all. and she really did like it. she squealed with delight when she saw herself in the "big mirror". she though she looked pretty- which she does, of course.
but when i tried to take a picture, this is what i got...

little stinker!!
she still is darn cute though, isn't she?

Easter Eggs

yesterday (before the fever hit) bean and i dyed easter eggs. she seemed to enjoy it last year so i was really looking forward to doing it again. and since i have no idea when sprout is going to decide to make an appearance, i figured we better get our easter preparations taken care of!

she had quite a lot of fun picking out what colors to make. deciding what mommy should draw and write on each egg was important too. we made and egg with her name, one that said "i love mommy", one that said "i love daddy", one that said "magpie" and one that said "little babers"- because the baby needed an egg too don't you know! it was a good time and a lot less messy than it was last year!

we also learned that yellow and blue make green. she wanted sprout's egg to be green but we hadn't made green dye. so i told her to make it yellow then we'd put it in the blue and see what happened. she was a little skeptical but did what i said. she was quite pleased when the egg turned a soft green color! hooray!

as for the sickies that have hit our house.... bean's fever is basically gone now. she still isn't eating much- i think she may have a stomach ache, but i'm not sure. but i think we are on the mends..... oh gosh, i hope i didn't say that too soon!

The Sickies

bean is officially sick. i really didn't think much of her runny nose when it started on monday. i mean, toddlers get runny noses and 90% of the time it doesn't bother them a bit. i still didn't think anything was terribly amiss when she started coughing monday night. runny noses sometimes have a cough attached to them, especially at night. so no big deal, right?

well, this afternoon, after dying her easter eggs, she sat down with me and snuggled up real close. she felt warm. no, she actually felt hot. oh dear. i hunt down the thermometer. she has a fever- 102.5. lovely! just what i need.

we go to the computer to look at pictures- this usually cheers her up. after a while i notice she is awfully quiet. yep, you guessed it, she was sound asleep. this is a child that DOES NOT nap- EVER. clearly, she is NOT well.

she sleeps fitfully for about an hour. i make her some dinner of which she eats very little. she asks to take a bath. ok. so, she splashes around a bit. then i get her dressed in cozy jammies and try to think of something relaxing to do. i almost suggest tv- even though she has already watched a fair bit today- because i'm at a complete loss. then she says, "mommy, i want to go to bed. i'm tired. i don't feel good."
WHAT??
it was 6:25. she normally goes to bed at 8:00. she has NEVER asked to go to bed- especially not early. she must feel REALLY bad!! so, i started the bed time routine. i turned out her light at 6:50. she has been asleep for close to thirty minutes now.

what now? i'm praying she wakes up feeling better. i'm praying that she sleeps soundly until morning. (and i'm praying that i don't get whatever it is that she has!)

Sprouty Update

well, it is that time of the week again. the time when you find out more about my cervix than you care to know. ;)

anyways, there really isn't much change. i'm now a full 1 cm dilated, still 80% effaced, and baby is still at -1 station. i'm not really encouraged by that. sigh. but at least things changed a little, i guess. the doctor did pull my cervix forward and try to stretch it- and boy did that feel good! ahh!- to see if that would help. i guess we will have to wait and see on that one.

as for the induction it is in the process of being scheduled. it will either be the 25th or the 27th. the reason is the baby seems like it may be big. i had trouble delivering bean (she was delivered via vacuum) and she was only 6 pounds 15 ounces. a bigger baby may present even more difficulties. i really want to avoid a c-section if at all possible so we are going to try it. the doctor also said it is very common to go into labor after scheduling an induction, so we are hoping that sprout decides to come out on his/her own in the next couple of days and i won't even need the appointment. ;)

so that is that. by next week we should be a family of four. wish me luck!! :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

happy st. patrick's day everyone! bean and i celebrated with a green breakfast this morning. we had green pancakes and green grapes, yummy! bean loves to cook and was especially excited about stirring the batter after i added the food coloring. she loved watching the batter slowly swirl into the color green. here she is pictured waiting for the pancakes to "bubble" so she can tell me to flip them over. she is a very good helper!

then the very best part- eating the green pancakes!! bean learned that adding green didn't change the pancakes- they still tasted as delicious as always. as a matter of fact, she ate two! :)

this second shot here also shows her "nasty head wound" that she got saturday. it doesn't look like anything at all now. but on saturday (when it happened) it was a doozy! just ask her daddy!!

hope you all have a great st. patty's day AND we'll just call this our best shot monday too while we are at it! ;) stop by tracey's for more best shot fun!!

Sometimes the weekend isn't so relaxing....

it started saturday morning. the husband decided to take the bean to the recycling dumpster with him. woo hoo! i get a little break. she helped him load the car and i... well, i'll be honest, i went back to bed. a while later i hear this from the hall: "um, honey. we had a little accident and need some first aid."
so i stumble into the bathroom then turn back to reach for the girl. i'll say they had an accident! bean's hair, face and coat are covered in blood. delightful, what a way to wake up! so i wash her face and hair with a wash cloth while telling everything is just fine. it is just a little cut but when you cut your head it bleeds a lot because there are lots of blood vessels in your head (yeah, too much information for a 2 1/2 year old, i know. but she was going to ask why and i find it easier to just give her a reason, even if it is one she doesn't really understand completely!) we got a band aid on it and then i took her coat to the laundry room to see if i could get the blood off that.

the story is that daddy was letting bean grab small bags of recyclables from the car and run them to the dumpster where he would lift her up so she could throw them in. she was LOVING it. well, on the way back to the car she tripped and landed smack on her face. apparently we don't have a first aid kit in our car (yeah, we are on top of things aren't we) so the only thing that daddy could find to slow the bleeding was the lambswool padding on the dogs car harness- yes, i'm sure that was oh so clean BUT you gotta do what ya gotta do. then he brought her home for me to deal with.
what i find so odd is that i never freak out when i see blood all over my kid. i just calmly clean her up and talk to her in a soft voice. i would think that i would panic, but i don't. why do you suppose that is??

in "me" news.... the weekend is also much less relaxing when you are nauseas, crampy, and achy all the time. no contractions that i have noticed. just a general feeling of complete yuck that has lasted for about 2 days now.
sprout, if you are listening, it is time to come out! mommy wants to feel good again and having you in my arms instead of my belly is probably the only way that is going to happen!!

Look what bean learned today!

she can make the letter "e"! hooray! the coolest part is that she did it mostly on her own. she drew a line and asked me how to make it into an "e". i told her she had to add three lines and pointed to where they should go. she just went and did it, just like that. of course, a couple times she added a few too many lines or the lines weren't quite in the right spot, but i think this is pretty darn good for a 2 1/2 year old.
why the letter "e" you ask? well, it is the first letter in the name she goes by. i think she wants to write her name. she almost knows how to spell it, so writing it would be the next step i guess.
she is quite proud of herself right now. we had to email this picture to grandma, nana and daddy at work because she wanted to show them her "e's". i'm pretty proud of her too! :)

Good Intentions

good intentions. i'm sure bean was full of good intentions when this conversation occurred.

i was reading her a bed time story when i let out a very large yawn.
"you yawned mommy!" she declared
"i'm sorry honey, mommy is just really tired tonight. i'll try not to do it again, " i reply and start back into the story.
she lays her hand on my leg and says, "don't worry mommy. i'll sleep good tonight. i won't wake up in the night time. i won't wake up too early. i'll sleep good for you." she smiles up at me nodding her head.
"oh honey," i say, "that is so nice of you." i give her a hug and kiss. we finish the story and our bedtime routine. she falls asleep rather quickly.

oh yes, good intentions. but not good follow through....
no, she didn't wake up in the night, but she did wake up at 7:15am. and since she has been sleeping until 8:00am since the time change, 7:15 felt awfully early to mama! i might be yawning at story time again tonight. hmmm, i wonder what she will promise me this time? ;)

GAH!

due to a slight misunderstanding by the husband and a computer error we nearly lost 3 months of pictures of bean a few days ago! OMG!!! i thought i was going to die!
i think i recovered everything. i think. i'm not 100% sure... well, i'm fairly certain that i recovered all the originals- i'm not sure i have all the edited versions. sigh. but the originals are what is important, right?

so, for the past three nights i have reorganized, burned to cd, labeled the cds, and copied to an external hard drive all of bean's photos. this took a while because i was pretty far behind on archiving. (i'm now exhausted) i will not let this happen again! i have a system of sorts in place now- it seems pretty complex compared to what i used to do (which we will call the "deal with it when you have time" system) but i think i can handle it.

public service announcement: i highly recommend that no one else use my former "system" when dealing with their digital photos- unless of course you like having panic attacks. ;)

Baby Love

here is a picture that shows the monstrosity of my tum. admire the hugeness! it weighs a metic ton.... ok, so maybe not but it sure feels like it when i'm lumbering around the house!

bean likes to hug her baby. she talks to her baby. she likes to say, "daddy, look at mommy's big baby belly!!" (gah!) she declared yesterday "i think babers is ready to come out." unfortunately i don't think babers was listening.

i'm not sure she completely understands what life will be like when the baby comes home. she knows it all. baby sprout will sleep in her old crib in her old room. baby's don't talk, they can only cry. baby's don't eat food they only drink "special milk". she will go on and on telling you about all the stuff about babies. my worry is that she won't let daddy help her with anything. when i remind her that the baby will need mommy sometimes and daddy will have to help her she tells me that "daddy can take care of babers and you can take care of me." i have a feeling we are going to have an interesting first few days at home learning how to share mommy...
i'm really not all that worried about how she'll treat the baby. my concern is how she is going to react to me!

Nothing to report

sprout is happy where he/she is apparently. there has been no change at all. everything is exactly the same. it all looks good, of course. but still.....
this is very depressing to me.

i loved being pregnant when i was pregnant with bean. i was happy, relaxed, nothing really bothered me.
this time around- i'm irritable, uptight, impatient, and totally stressed out. everything is much more uncomfortable. i yell at my daughter over ridiculous things and then feel horrible. i'm so tired and cranky and i take it out on my husband. gah! i'm really starting to dislike myself.

you would think i would be getting nervous about the baby coming. you know, how to handle two kids at once and all that, but i'm not. i just want it over. i know it is only 16 days 'til my due date but that seems like a life time to me. is that pathetic or what?!?

so, we wait. we wait for a week and see what (if anything) happens.
yeah, waiting sucks.

Fort!

yesterday there was no school here (because of the snow, obviously) so daddy was home. when daddy plays you get to do things you don't normally get to do, like build snow forts!

i was tired and had to make dinner so i didn't get to enjoy the outdoor play this time. i had no idea what they were going to do but i was ever so curious when they went into the garage to "look for something". turns out they just needed a "mold" to build their fort and a bucket worked perfectly. i'm SO glad i made daddy take the camera out with him. othewise i never would have gotten to experience this! see that little face peeking out! akkk, i might die from the cuteness of it all!! ha!

i'm so glad they went out to play yesterday. the snow is melting quickly. the temperatures will be in the 40's today and tomorrow and in the 50's on thursday. sigh. our yard will be back to muddy swamp land and my house filled with muddy dog and toddler prints in no time at all!