2 week appointment

This little man had his two week appointment today. He was a champ getting his PKU shots, but did need a little comforting from his big sister jane.  Since his appointment last week when he was four days old he has gained over 1 pound!! When he was born he weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz., he left the hospital weighing 7 lbs. 9 oz. Today he weighed 8 lbs. 15 oz. the nurse and doctor were very impressed with his weight gain especially as that was all from nursing. He has also already grown half an inch! My little man is growing up too fast. 

Hairy face

Ally: "why does he have hair on his face like daddy?"

Benjamin: <grin>

And then there were 3

It was a long pregnancy. Two weeks before I was due I had a night of emotional break down, then after that I was fine. Mentally. Physically I was done. My body hurt. And I was ready to meet my little mister. Ready to sleep on my stomach. Ready to sleep comfortably, even if that meant in two hour increments. Ready to use the potty once every few hours instead of once every 15 minutes. Ready for the crazy life of three children. My due date was January 20th. At my last appointment, which was a Friday, I was dialated to a "tight three" and had my membranes stripped hoping that would jump start things. 

Rich and I enjoyed our weekend, then Sunday night, much like all other nights the past 2 weeks, I started having regular contractions in the evening. At 7:00 rich took over kid duty so I could lay down. The contractions, although not "regular" didn't stop and progressed until they were all under ten minutes sometimes less then 5 minutes by the time 1:00 AM rolled around. I hadn't slept. Rich got a little bit of sleep but not much. Being Strep B positive we wanted to be sure  we got to the hospital in time to have antibiotics in me for four hours before  giving birth. We were able to wake up mom and dad arnell, drop the girls off an be checked in to the hospital by 1:45 AM. I wasn't sure if it was the real thing or not and was afraid of being sent home       The contractions, although frequent, were not painful. After getting hooked up to machines, medication in, paperwork filled, Rich and I were both able to get some sleep. I woke up at 6 (I have no idea what time I fell asleep) and the contractions had completely stopped. I felt frustrated and foolish. Since we were at little misters due date we decided to go ahead and get started. I was joked up to pitocin with immediately got my contractions going at 3-4 minutes. They weren't terribly painful yet. Doctor Ann Blackett came in at 10:30 and broke my water. That's when things got intense. I labored in the tub for about 30 minutes until that was no longer comfortable. then tried different positions with Rich there being a great emotional support. To make a long story short I ended up laborinf on the bed on my knees with my body facing the back of the bed. No epidural. It was ... Painful. Due to some scar tissue the baby got stuck, crowned for several minutes. His heart rate plummeted and I was told I needed to turn around onto my back so Blackett could give me an appesiotomy and get the baby out. It turned into a stressful situation, the shoulders got stuck and the cord was wrapped around little misters neck. He finally came out officially bring born at 12:30 but wasn't breathing on is own. 

They got him hooked up to machines immediately. It was such a dramatic relief to have him born. If I can help it, I will never go "natural" again. Twice was enough. This birth was my deciding factor and the decision was easily made that I never want to go through that again. 

Little mister got all the junk cleaned out of his nose and lungs and finally started breathing on his own.  Although, his lungs were "sticky" and he was quite irritable for the 30-45 minutes we got to hold him. Then they took him away for some testing and to be hooked up to an "early lung" machine which would help with the stickiness. My parents came to meet him and we has to go down to the NICU where he was being watched and waiting for test results before coming back to our room. 

He was a different baby. Sleeping and breathing peacefully. I took him back to the room. Rich had gone to mom and dads to take the girls while they came to meet the baby. The girls were so excited I meet "baby brudder" but no one under 14 years old was allowed to visit. :( 

Because of being stuck, little mistrr has a nasty swelled bump on his head. After two weeks it still hasn't gone down. He sure is a cutie and so sweet. He tolerates his sisters well who are actually quite good and helpful with him. 

My latest love.

I have a new crush. He's sweet, innocent, forgiving, full of love and totally adorable. His smile makes melts my heart and I know it may sound creepy but... I love to watch him sleep. In fact, as long as we're being creepy I'll admit that I stare at him quite a bit throughout the day. My whole world and every hour of my day is wrapped around his finger and dependent on his mood, good or bad. Sweet little Benjamin. I love you. 

First bath

Today was Benjamin's first official bath. He enjoys getting his hair washed and overall enjoys his bath but that lame umbilical cord is still sensitive and caused  some mild discomfort. Such a sweet sweet baby boy. 

Week Nine Part II

Week Nine also consisted of a refreshing break from the Northern Utah freezing weather. We took a drive down south to Zion National Park. We packed a basket full of goodies and our bathing suits and were on our way. We left Thursday morning with one goal: Find a hotel with a pool. Simple enough right?

 WRONG! Believe me, we, ok, Rich - did a little bit of research on places to stay before we went, but in the end we decided we'd wing it and find a place when we got there. In case you're ever going to Zion's in the winter, don't plan on swimming. All the pools are OUTDOOR. With FRIGID UN-heated water. Sure they have little heated spas... outside... The girls were so excited to go swimming that Rich and I determined that we could not fail in the venture to find an inside pool, whatever the cost. After visiting and calling many hotels, motels ect, we ended up driving BACK to Hurricane which is the town through the canyon from Zion. Luckily, there was ONE hotel that had an inside pool! We actually stayed at the hotel across the street which was a LOT nicer and cheaper. They had an outside pool and had a deal with the hotel across the street that their customers could use the other's inside pool in the winter if the other's customers could use their pool in the summer... Make sense? Anyway, done deal. We settled into our room, got on our swimwear, went for dinner and then ended the night with a swim. The girls were in heaven. I was in heaven in the hot tub.

I didn't realize how much I needed this break until we were sitting by this little river with the sun shining down on us, the girls playing in the sand, throwing rocks, birds chirping. I felt a sudden recharge of my soul (which I believe only comes from relaxing by a beautiful body of water). It was like my whole being was filled with sunlight and happiness. It was sunny... but this was an inner sunshine that I had been missing. Ah, warmth, water, family and no schedule to keep.

Friday was our day for exploration. We went on some hikes, played on rocks (another requirement of Jane for the trip - there must be rocks to climb) and played lots of hide and seek.

 You know your child lives in snow country when the first thing she does when playing in the sand is make a sand angel. While growing up, we always made mermaids and fish.

We just played, and played....

And held hands. Usually while running.

And when the girls got tired and were ready to conk out we went for a drive. Yeah, that's snow. We drove up to Brian Head - and while the girls slept we drove and enjoyed the view, hopping out every once and a while to take in some views over the man-made view-spots.

We stopped in for dinner at the only restaurant in Brian Head. Rich wasn't hungry and just wanted to sleep. So us girls went in and stood in line which was about 15 people long. Suddenly, Jane needed to go potty. We got out of line and by the time we got back the line had grown to about 50 people. We decided to go to the little grocery store/shop which was connected to the restaurant/hotel. We got ourselves some microwavable dinner and cooked ourselves a nice little meal right in the store (i love when they have microwaves!). We went and sat ourselves in the lobby and ate. It sounds all nice and pleasant, but actually, that was the most stressful part of the trip. Besides my girls being tired and touching/rearranging everything in the store and the sauce from the dinner spilling all over - it just was one of those "it's the end of the day just get the kids in bed" kind of times. But we still had to drive back to Zion which took FOREVER. Seriously, I think it took two hours, felt like 5, but was probably only a little over an hour. It didn't help that we had to pull over twice for Jane to take a pee on the side of the road. That girl has a bladder the size of a peanut. Sigh.

Saturday morning we went swimming again. We had to take full advantage of the pool. Then we got ourselves cleaned up and checked out. We were planning on making one last hiking trip in Zion but thought it best we get on the road. We stopped in Cedar to see my brother Gary and his family and then made one more stop. Not every trip ends with a new dog. But this one did.

Meet Bear. The best, sweetest, most mellow tempered lab I've ever known. I have fallen fast and am in doggy love. So is Mazy.

Week Eight & Nine

Week Eight contained Jane's first trip to the dentist. We decided to try our local dentist whom Rich and I go to instead of jumping straight to a pediatric dentist. Jane did very well with her cleaning. She didn't really like the bright light shining in her eyes but she loved getting all the "bugs" off her pretty little teeth and she especially liked the little goodie bag she got at the end. It had a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss.... you know - boring things only a kid would find exciting. A month later she still treasures her undersized tube of paste and that one-time flosser she used 30 times.

 

Unfortunately, Jane has cavities on the "eating surface" of her back molars. Two to be exact, one on each side. She has super deep .... what are they called? Whatever the center of the tooth is called that is like a canyon in your tooth. She has super deep canyons where food gets shoved in there and you literally cannot get it out, even with extra good brushing. So, she would have to come in for a second visit to get those canyon cavities taken care of. That's where week nine comes in. 

WEEK NINE

This visit? Not so awesome. When Jane would get immunizations from the Pediatricians office she would call them "pinches." Without knowing this, our Dentist told her when she came back he would need to give her a little pinch in order to get the "cavity bugs" out. It was downhill from there. She talked about coming in and getting a pinch and seemed like it was going to be ok... but once we got in there and he pulled that needle out..... oh boy. She was having nothing to do with that. We tried three different times. Finally he gave up and referred us to a pediatric. That visit went a little better. Because there were no pinches. It was just another checkup where they counted teeth, took more x-rays ect. But Jane did get to watch a movie on the ceiling and she thought that was pretty awesome. She also got another little baggie of goodies. So now she has 2 extra toothbrushes, pastes and flossers (nevermind the flossers I bought that are the same... these are special and must be held sacred). The one thing I am grateful for that came out of this experience is that Jane has an overzealous desire to keep her teeth clean and get all the bugs out every night. Sometimes I get lazy and want to skip flossing her teeth but she won't have any of that. She loves to brush and floss.  But what she loves even more then taking care of her teeth, are her friends, and playgroup.
 

We have  6-8 kids who come to playgroup every Monday morning. I get to have it at my place once every 2 months. They learn about a letter, color or shape and they all love it. Ally loves when it is at our house because then she gets to join in. I am convinced Jane was meant to have multiple siblings. She thrives on noise and organized chaos caused by lots of children. And I actually like it quite a bit too.