First Lost Tooth

We have a first lost tooth here, and Landon is so excited and proud!  The tooth had been slightly wiggly for the past few weeks, but over the last two day it got really loose.  Landon has been wiggling it and wiggling it, and this evening he got a tissue for gripping and pulled it out all by himself!  He placed it in a jewelry box under his pillow marked "private" (in adorable little kid handwriting) and left a note for the tooth fairy to please not take his first tooth.  He was so pleased with himself, and he feels like such a big kid now.  And he is.  My little boy, my first baby, is getting adult teeth.  It's a bit mind boggling.  I'm so proud of him and the amazing person he is becoming.

Spring at the Arboretum

We discovered the Finch Arboretum last fall, and it's one of our favorite places to go around here.  There are trees to climb and a stream to play in.  I usually let the boys run free while I wander around and enjoy being outside.  

 

Last week we went for the first time this year.  Everything was blooming, and it was lovely. 

Coleson headed straight for his favorite place, the stream.  I think he would have spent all morning throwing stuff in and watching it go down then small waterfall then float away downstream. 

Simon took a nap in the carrier, and I soaked up some sun.  

We climbed trees and checked out all the seeds and flowers growing on the trees.  Landon wanted to take some seeds home to plant our own trees in our yard.  

We actually made it more than a hundred yards into the park this time and discovered a cute little hiking trail and some unexplored (by us) parts of the stream.  We will definitely be heading back sometime soon.  

Worm Hunting

We have been working a lot in the yard lately, tearing out and re-planting some landscaping and getting the garden ready for summer.  Coleson decided that he needed to go worm hunting with all this fresh dirt surrounding us.  

 It was my job to turn over the dirt with the shovel, and then he sorted through it with his smaller shovel, adding the worms to his jar as he went.

We were quite successful at finding worms.  Every few minutes he would take pity on the poor things and let them all go again.  He kept a few for a whole morning, even giving them a bath with the hose and a small bucket.    

He talked to them and called them "friends."  He worried about what to feed them and how much dirt he needed in his jar to make them happy.  He gleefully found rolly-polys, centipedes, and spiders too. This boy of mine, he loves all living things.  Worm hunting kept us busy for hours over the course of a couple days.  And you know what?  I think I had almost as much fun as he did.  

Sleepy

I set Simon down in the bouncy seat this morning to make coffee and check Facebook, as I do pretty much every morning. Usually he is crying half-way through making coffee, and I end up checking Facebook with a protesting baby on my shoulder. But this morning, he went from quietly and seriously looking around, like this,

to this,

within a couple minutes. I guess maybe he wasn't quite ready to get up today.

Fitting In

This little baby of ours is fitting right in to our family. Not that I doubted he would, but it's been a pretty nice transition. Granted, Tyson has been home all week helping with everything but it's still been relatively easy. Thank goodness.

It helps that he has two big brothers who are good at taking things in stride. They don't seem too disturbed by this little person who takes up lots of mama's snuggle time. In fact, they talk to him, pat him, and kiss him, and then act like he doesn't exist the rest of the time. Landon actually told me yesterday while Simon was snuggled in the sling sleeping that he had completely forgotten about him! I prefer that over jealousy and acting out any day.

Yep, this having three kids thing just might work out after all.

Handwriting

I have waited with much anticipation for Landon to learn to read and write. He loves stories, so I know he will love to read once it finally makes sense to him. As an avid reader growing up, I know how wonderful getting lost in a good book can be, and I want that so badly for my boys.

In school, they learn a letter a week, and he is starting to put them together and recognize them and ask me how things are spelled. So when it came time to do Valentines for his classmates, Landon was eager to write all the names and sign them himself. He worked diligently on them for a couple mornings and was so proud to take them to school and hand them out to his friends. I didn't get any pictures of the ones for his class, but I did manage to get a shot of the one he made for the dog, complete with a portrait of Jasper.

I am charmed by this child's handwriting, especially the backward letters that crop up here and there. I love to see him work so hard on writing something, and the pride on his face when he shows off the finished product.

And then it got even better when he opened up the cards from his classmates, and almost every one was handwritten in similar shaky letters, carefully printed, and handed out, I'm sure, with much excitement and pride.

It's things like these that help me realized how blessed I am to be observing my children on this journey of theirs. What an amazing world is opening up to them every day!

Simon's Birth Story

I had a couple requests for Simon's birth story, and since I love to read birth stories myself, I took some time today to type up the story of his entrance into the world. It's pretty long, but I didn't want to forget anything. (Enjoy, Abby and Jenny!)

Simon’s Birth Story

Early in the morning of February 18, a week before my due date, I woke up with my three year old because he wasn’t feeling well and was running a bit of a fever. I got him some water and settled him back to sleep. I was laying in bed trying to fall back asleep myself when I realized that I was having some strong Braxton Hicks/mild cramps. I glanced at the clock and noted that it was about 3 a.m. Every time I felt another cramp I would look at the clock. I realized they were coming every 5-7 minutes or so, but they weren’t very strong or lasting very long. I dozed for the next hour and a half or so, timing the contractions with the bedside clock. I wasn’t totally convinced I was in labor, but I was hopeful this was the real thing because I was so ready to be done being pregnant.

Labor with my second son had gone very quickly, so my midwife and I had agreed that I would call her this time as soon as I thought that I might be in labor. She lives an hour and a half away, so we had discussed the fact that she needed to head toward my house as soon as I was having regular contractions. With that in mind, I decided to get out of bed, have a few contractions with the help of gravity to see what happened, and give her a call. I woke Tyson to tell him I was having contractions, told him I was going to call the midwife, and that he could keep sleeping until I needed him.

I went out to the kitchen and got on the computer so I could see how long the contractions were lasting using contractionmaster.com. They were coming every 5 minutes or so, and lasting about 20-45 seconds. I was handling them really well, but I decided to call the midwife anyway. It was about 4:30 a.m. She answered right away and we chatted for a minute or so. She told me to try to lie back down and get more rest, and to call her back when they got stronger. I was pretty annoyed at her for a few minutes, because we had agreed she would come as soon as she heard from me, but I decided that I would listen to my hypnobabies early labor track to see if I could get the contractions to intensify.

I lay on the couch with my iPod and put on the hypnobabies track. I listened to the whole thing, which lasted about 50 minutes. The last four or five contractions I had while listening to the track got really strong and I was having a hard time staying comfortable and relaxed through them. Right before the track ended I felt a gush of water, so I shut off the iPod and headed to the bathroom. It was definitely my water breaking. At this point it was about 5:30 a.m. and I noted that the contractions were coming about every three minutes or so and lasting around a minute and a half.

I changed into some dry pants and woke my husband to let him know I didn’t feel like being alone anymore. I called the midwife back and told her the contractions were really strong and much closer together so she needed to come. She said she would send her student midwife, who lives about 30 minutes away and then head out herself. At this point my husband also called my mom, who was coming to get the older boys, and asked her to head to our house.

By that point I was really working through contractions. I wasn’t vocalizing yet, but I was really focused on keeping my mouth loose, breathing, and relaxing my body through contractions. I was pacing the living room floor, breathing “open” and “relax” to myself, and visualizing the contractions working to open my cervix so baby could come meet us. I was starting to get resentful that the kids were still sleeping back in the bedroom because I really wanted to labor in that space and not in our living room. Right after that they woke up, though, and Tyson got them settled downstairs watching a show until my mom could get there. I immediately headed back to the bedroom, where the contractions got really intense. I was vaguely aware of Tyson putting the plastic and birth sheets on the bed, but I was working so hard to stay on top of contractions that I barely took note of anything else. He tried to turn on the overhead lights at one point and I snapped to leave them off, but I was pretty far into labor land. I think I had started vocalizing through contractions, but I was still focused on keeping a loose mouth and keeping my pitch low so I wouldn’t tense up and interfere with my body’s work.

The contractions were coming one on top of the other and I was having a hard time getting through them. I recall one of them triple-peaking, and started wondering why I had been so intent on having a baby. At one point I thought, “I just need a break. Stop for just a minute so I can have a break!” And they did. It was so nice to just breathe for a minute.

The logical part of my brain realized I was nearing the end, because baby’s head was making me feel like I needed to use the bathroom and I was having such a hard time coping with contractions. I glanced at the clock. It was 6:15 a.m., and I started hoping a midwife would get there soon. A minute or so later I heard the student midwife come through the front door. I was so glad she was there! I was starting to feel a bit pushy, but was certain that it couldn’t be time for that yet.

The student midwife hustled into the room and immediately began unpacking her stuff. I had one or two more contractions, and then told her I felt a little like pushing. She calmly responded, “Ok,” and then she went back to her bag. I was so glad she thought that pushing already wasn’t a big deal because I felt very uncertain about it. So, I headed for the bed and took a few deep breaths to refocus myself. She took a couple deep breaths too, and then helped me get on all fours, supported with pillows. And then I started to push in earnest, because it was such a relief to be at this stage.

Somewhere during pushing my mom came and got my older boys. I thought briefly of having them stay to see the birth because I knew it would be soon, but I just couldn’t focus on anything else at that point and really just wanted them gone so I didn’t have to think about them. I heard them leave, they were both crying about something, and then quickly refocused on the task at hand.

Pushing was odd, though. It felt like I was pushing so hard and nothing was happening. I felt like the baby didn’t have enough room to come out, so I put one foot flat on the bed to open up my pelvis, hoping that would help. I voiced concern to the midwife that pushing wasn’t doing anything because I couldn’t feel the baby move down. She assured me that it was working just fine, and that he would be here soon. That made me feel so much better and made it easier to keep pushing, even though it didn’t feel quite right. I was yelling through a lot of the contractions, and the midwife reminded me to take some breaths and focus on keeping my energy in. Not too long later, I could feel his head. Within another couple pushes he was crowning, and the midwife reminded me to breathe through the contractions so I had time to stretch around him. She supported my perineum, and I breathed through a couple contractions. Then I couldn’t stand it anymore and pushed really hard until his head came out. The midwife said, with surprise in her voice, “Oh, he’s completely posterior! He’s looking right at you!” I tried to look down and see him, but couldn’t. She reminded me to wait until he rotated before pushing again, and then he came right out on the next push. She helped me guide him under my legs, and I sat back to hold him. He was born at 6:38 a.m., about three and a half hours from when I started having contractions in bed.

Yay! My baby was here! We rubbed him and talked to him and wrapped him in warm receiving blankets. It felt so good to have him out! We shifted position on the bed so I could sit supported by pillows and waited for the placenta to come. We talked about how he was posterior (a surprise to all of us) and that was why pushing had felt so funny. The student midwife said she had never seen a fully posterior birth and was so glad she had gotten the opportunity. She said when she told me she could see that pushing was working it was because she could watch his head lifting my tailbone and moving down toward my perineum in a way that wouldn’t have happened if he had been positioned properly. She couldn’t believe I had pushed him out so fast and didn’t tear at all!

My actual midwife didn’t arrive until well after he was born, since she had such a long drive, but it all worked out great. The student midwife did a fantastic job, and my midwife still got to be there for all the newborn exam stuff and to help clean up. The baby weighed in at 7 pounds, 1 ounce and he was 20 inches long. He looks so tiny to me!

It was a really intense birth, but I felt great afterward and I have been healing really well. I am so glad my sweet baby is here and we are enjoying getting to know him. He will probably be our last baby, and I’m so glad I got to have one last, wonderful, positive homebirth experience!