Our New Little Miracle

We are reviving the blog... I just can't help myself from sharing all the gory details of our newest little guy's birth.

I went into labor Wednesday night. My sisters were here with me, trying to get me to laugh hard enough that labor would start. Contractions started before they even got here, so they timed me and took me for a walk and just sat with me. Nikki took D home with her, so that we wouldn't have to shuffle him around in the middle of the night when I went to the hospital. As soon as they left, my contractions stopped. I had a few strong enough to wake me up in the night, but they weren't consistent at all. I stayed home from work, knowing I really was in labor, and sat around waiting for something to happen. I had a Dr's appointment in the afternoon, and when I saw him, he told me I was dilated to 3 cm. He told me that breaking my water wasn't an option quite yet, because the baby's head was still floating too high. He told me we could wait a few days and see what happened, or I could go over to the hospital and start on Pitocin. I really didn't want to have any Pitocin, but I wanted to be done being pregnant even more. I agreed to let them induce me, hopeful that a small dose would be all I would need to get things going. They told me to go get something to eat and that the hospital would call me when they were ready for me. Since we had some downtime, we went and picked up D and we all went to Wendy's. Before we dropped him back off to my sister, he started crying and saying that he was going to live at Nikki's from now on, because the baby was going to be living at our house now. It was very sad. We consoled him the best we could, dropped him off, and went home to wait. I laid down to rest while I could, and my contractions started. Within the hour, they were about 3 minutes apart, so we headed up to the hospital It was a very busy night for having babies, and we got the last empty room. Once we were settled in, the contractions had slowed back down, but they had done enough to bring the baby down that I was able to have my water broken.  I was having lots of back labor, and the nurse told me that from her exam, she was pretty sure the baby was face-up. When my doctor got there, he said he thought the baby had his head turned sideways. Either way, I was in agony and not progressing very quickly. I got stuck at about 5 cm for quite awhile. I got up and got in the bath, sat on the birthing ball, laid in bed in several different positions, and nothing brought me any comfort. But the moving around did seem to get things going again, and I started progressing very quickly. I felt like I needed to push, but they kept telling me that it wasn't time. I was really losing it, yelling and screaming at the nurse and at the doctor. Finally, I looked at the nurse, and yelled "I need to push, NOW!" She said ok, brought the doctor back in, and they started to have me push. Pushing was much more difficult than it was with D. Because the baby was in a weird position, they had my lay more on my back than I would have liked, but it made my pushes more productive. I pushed for maybe half an hour, and then he was here! He was born at 1:41 am, weighed 7 lbs 11 oz (no wonder he was harder than D!) and was 20 inches long. And I did it without any drugs (not even the Pitocin!) and didn't even need any stitches.
They laid him on my chest for a minute, and then he stopped breathing on his own. They told me that he had aspirated on some fluid as he was coming out. They took him over to the warmer and put him on some oxygen. I guess that didn't work as well as they wanted, because pretty soon they took him down to the NICU to hook him up to the baby CPAP machine. They told me they'd have for an hour.When they took me to my room, we stopped to see him. He was all hooked up to machines and monitors and had an IV in his hand. His oxygen levels weren't stable enough for them to let him go yet, so I went to my room with out him. I rested for a while, and finally at 7 am, they told me to come down to nurse him. It is a strange thing to have a baby, and not get to hold him for the first time until 5 1/2 hours later. I went down and nursed him and snuggled with him, and went back to my room without him. They finally brought him to me at about 9:30, just in time to meet the rest of his family. D was overjoyed with him and James just marveled about how much he looked like him. I spent a lovely day receiving visitors and cuddling with my new boy. That night, I got more sleep than I had had in quite awhile (nearly 8 hours!). The baby was still choking and spitting up a lot of mucous and wasn't interested in eating at all. I did go down to the nursery at about 4:00 am just to hold him and see how he was. By about 6:30, he was ready to eat and he's been eating well ever since. We brought him home that afternoon.
We are all in love with our new little guy. He is so, so cute, and very sweet. He's finally worked out all of the mucous and is a great little eater. He's a great sleeper, too. I should be sleeping more while he sleeps, but I just can't bear to put him down. I just know how very quickly these precious days will pass and I want to soak it all up. 

For Prosperity

I suck at blogging. I've accepted this about myself. But today, I was thinking about all of the silly and cute and frustrating things Little Mas does these days and thought I should record them somewhere. So here we go.

In no particular order, here are some amusing things he has done in the recent weeks.

• A few days ago, I lost LM at Wal-Mart. After 15 minutes of frantic searching for him, I finally had a manager help me find him. They got on the intercom and shouted out his description. Less than 30 seconds later, someone called the manager on the radio saying they'd found him. He had been in the men's room, and had buckled himself into the child seat in one of the stalls. On the way home, I was trying to explain to him that someone mean could have stolen him and he would have had to live with a mean family. He said, "Well, Mom, I would just teach them how to be nice!" That kid has no fear. He also has a solution for everything.
• LM LOVES his Mama. And he has some hilarious ways of telling me. In the last week, he has said to me: "Mom, you're a beautiful woman," "Mom, you are my popular lover," and "You are the mom of my dreams." He sure has a knack for compliments. He'll make his wife very happy someday.
• LM is growing up. Today, I had to get out the 4T clothes I've been saving in the closet. After I said that I wished he would stay little forever, he told me, "Don't worry, Mama. I'll always be your Love Bug and I'll still cuddle with you, even when I'm big."
• LM has started reading. He can sound out very simple words. He gets frustrated fairly quickly with it, but he's definitely on his way. Heaven help his Kindergarten teacher.
• I've been thinking more and more about what it will be like when he's in school and getting more and more nervous for it. He's very smart and very outgoing. And he's not scared of anything. He told me the other day that you only have to follow the rules if a grownup is watching. Is this normal for a 3 1/2 year old?? I keep imagining the trouble he's going to get himself into at school one day.
• LM got a haircut last week. He kept telling me that he wanted his hair to be short as can be, so I took him to the beauty college for a buzz cut. He loves it. His hairy is always nice and flat now, just how he likes it.

To end, here's a picture of LM taken this fall. I think I'll keep him.

A Conversation

I know I haven't blogged in a long time, and I have lots to catch up on, but that will have to wait. I just have to record the conversation I just had with Little Man.

LM: One day Daddy will die and there will be a new Dad!!
Me: What?!!
LM: Uhh... Just kidding. There will be two Daddies!!
Me: What?!! .... Wait, who will be the new Daddy?
LM: ME!!
Me: Umm... sweetie.... when you're a daddy, who do you think your wife will be?
LM: YOU!!
Me: I'm already Daddy's wife. I can only be the wife of one boy. A different girl will be your wife someday.
LM (with tears in his voice): But how will I find her?
Me: You'll have a long, long time to look. You'll find her one day, I promise.
LM: But I don't know where the temple is!!
Me: Oh, sweetie. Finding a temple will be the easy part.

The things this child worries about. He's such a little sweetie. It is starting to make sense why he wants to be a Daddy when he grows up. I think he thinks he'll get to stay with me forever if he's a Daddy. I am going to enjoy this time, when he still likes me and thinks he'll get to marry me one day. I know it won't last forever.

How did this happen?

Wow. My baby is three years old today. I can no longer even pretend there is anything "baby" about him, though. He's a full-fledged pre-schooler at this point. He is fiercely independent, cares about other peoples' opinions, and is curious about everything. He is finally starting to do some "boy" things... his most recent obsession is Spiderman and he runs around shooting webs and fighting bad guys. He jumps off of things and climbs things. He is also very, very sweet. Earlier this week, after he expounded on the Solar System, I asked him if he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. He said, "No, I'm going to have a special job." I asked him what kind of special job he wanted to have and he replied, "I just want to go on missions and be a dad." I love him more than I even knew was possible. He is a wonderful, smart, sassy, loving little man.

UPDATE: I just remembered something that I meant to blog about the big birthday bash. After LM blew out the candles, he exclaimed, "I made a wish about a dinosaur, Mom!" Super cute by itself, but I was also impressed because I hadn't coached him about what to do with his flaming cake at all. He just knew that he was supposed to blow out the candles then make a wish. What a kid!

Song and Dance

Here are a few videos of Little Man singing and dancing. I think he's got a future!

Special Boy

This is the conversation I had with Little Man this morning as I was putting him in his car seat:

LM: Mom, I really like your hair.
Me: Oh, thank you. That is really nice of you.
LM: Do you have some earrings on? Which ones do you have? (I then showed him my earrings.) I really like those earrings, Mom! I really like all of the earrings that you make!

I am feeling very grateful for my little guy today. He can be sassy and a general stinker (like any kid his age), but he is really a sweet, loving little person. He notices when I have a new pair of earrings or a new shirt and always compliments me on them. He notices when I give an exasperated sigh, and always asks why I'm feeling frustrated. He is so sensitive and so quick to notice things about people. I hope that he never loses that gift.

And have I mentioned lately how smart he is? He knows all of his letters by sight now and most of their sounds, too. He loves looking for letters ("Hey, Mom! That sign says S-T-O-P!") and figuring out what letter different words start with ("Vacuum...vvv...vvv... vacuum starts with V!"). He knows how to spell his name and can even write the first three letters of it. He's also got a great ear for music. One of the little games we play involves me humming the tune to a song he knows and him telling me what song it is. He's also really good at listening to a song and telling me what instruments he can hear. He's a big fan of jazz right now, can pick out a John Mayer song after hearing just the first few notes, and walks around singing Black Eyed Peas a lot of the time ("I've got a feeling... ").

Now if I could just get him to stay in his bed at night...

Spanish Lessons

Little Man has been doing so well on the potty. Except for today (well, yesterday wasn't great either, actually). Today was the most terrible day we've had in quite awhile. The day started off with him crapping his pants. But at least I didn't get smeared with poo like I did yesterday. Later, we were at the craft store when I looked down and noticed that he was standing in a puddle. Have you ever had to walk up to a store employee and say, "Excuse me. My son just had an accident and now there is a puddle in the bead aisle." It is mortifying. Then, as I was dragging him out to the car, I noticed that his tiny little fist was full of beads. We had to turn around and march back in to the store and return the stolen beads. Again, mortifying.

On the way home, I was very calmly asking him why he hadn't told me he needed to go potty.
LM: "But I did, Mommy."
Me:"You did? I didn't hear you say anything about the potty."
LM:"Well, I was speaking in Spanish!"