Baby Bliss

It’s really a shame that I have not posted for five months.  It seems so daunting now that I have so much to write about.  I need to get back to posting once a week.

Well, she’s here.  Little Hazel Marie.  I have been enjoying all the new baby feelings and marveling once again how this little being was formed in me and now I have her in my arms to caress and love.  She is already a joy to our family and we all adore her.  The children are in a battle every time I have her as to who gets to hold her.  She has been more aware lately and expressing her voice a lot more too.  I have a lot of “isms” from the kids, but I’ve got to share this one from Gabe now. 

It was the afternoon after my surgery and Gabe had crawled up on the bed carefully beside me.  He was amazed at the depletion of my belly and patted me gently.  I said, “Can you believe she came out of there, I don’t have a big belly anymore.”  He said as he looked over at the baby, “I just can’t believe we get to take her home, I can’t believe she is our baby.”  I just loved it.  He was making the connection that this little baby was a real live being and we have sole charge of her.  It really is an amazing thought, hubby and I felt it with Gabe,  it was neat to see our little 7-year-old have such strong feelings of love toward his little baby sister when she was only hours old. 

My recovery has been the most difficult this time than any of them.  I continue to have friends, family and professionals tell me that this was my fifth pregnancy, fifth major abdominal surgery and that I am getting older, it should be more difficult.  It’s hard though, when I have so many easy ones to compare it with.  During my pregnancy hubby and I had a few conversations about how hard this pregnancy was and now with this difficult recovery, hubby is ready to say we are done.  I’m not so ready to say that yet.  I know I’m wearing down and getting older, but I just have it in my head that we are not done quite yet.  Perhaps we need to start thinking about our adoption plans. 

I have already grown tired of typing and I have much more to share.  I think I will stop because if I make this too much of a chore I will not want to get back on for a while.  I don’t want that.  I will just post some of the cute things the kids have said in the past several months and call it quits.

I don’t remember what had happened but I apologized to Chloe for raising my voice to her and getting angry.  She replied, “I think it’s easier for you to yell because you can just get it out and you don’t have to spend a lot of time teaching us to behave.”  She hit it right on the nose, don’t ya think?  I spent time explaining to her that she was absolutely right and hopefully we can all chose to do the harder thing like keeping our voices low and sweet and taking our time to explain, rather than yell, which is truly much easier, but doesn’t show love, compassion, or patience.

Gabe was observing a wrestling practice with some friends of ours to see if he would be interested in joining.  He was chatting with his friends Mom about how he didn’t think he would care for it too much and it looked like stuff he could easily learn to do at home.  My friend said something like, “Well, what about Karate, would you like to do something like that?”  Gabe said, “Oh, that’s just a chop and a kick.”   

Upon returning inside from an unusually warm winter day Sophie said, “Guess what, birdies are perching everywhere out here.  It’s like summer, but flowers aren’t almost growing.” 

Caleb is so ready to be potty trained and whenever he dirties his diaper he says, “Please change my byper, Mama.”  Awhile back, I was changing an especially smelly one and he sniffed real loud and said, “Yuck, smells like eggs, Mama.”

Hubby made a comment that my last post was pretty funny at the end.  I asked him why and he said, “Because you were commenting on hoping the post was “legible”, but you put in “eligible” instead.  It wasn’t meant to be a joke at the time, just a mistake, but it’s pretty funny now.

Oh, there is always something I remember about each child that particularly sticks out to me when I first see them.  With Hazel I was especially struck with the thought that she didn’t really look like any of us.  She really just had her own look.  I think now she resembles the girls, upper half of the face, Chloe (minus the eyebrows!), lower half, Sophie.  She still has a distinct look all her own though.  A couple of other things I noticed later on, she has a large “stork bite” right between her eyes, doctor says it will diminish over time, but it’s still there after two and half weeks, maybe it will be a birthmark.  Also, her feet were so flexible, it was like her toes practically could touch her leg, just an effect of being so cramped up inside me.

Yes, it was brought to my attention that I need to edit my blog name, we are now House of Five + 2!

Until next time.

 

Dressing up

As I begin typing, I’m thinking, “There is so much else that I need to be doing right now.”  But for the past few weeks I have been thinking that I really need to post an update of sorts.  I have to remind myself that I’m mostly doing this blog for myself.  I like the idea of having memories to read back on and even when hubby started reading some things awhile back he asked me how he could ever access it if anything should happen to me.  I guess I want what I write not only to be a good memory for me, but readable and enjoyable to anyone else who is interested.  Thus, there is pressure to write well and, quite frankly, it takes me longer to do that than other people.  And I really don’t do it all that well anyway!

WIth that here is my update:  (as randomly as it comes into my brain)

I have pretty much finished up the costumes for the kids.  We have decided to not “celebrate” Halloween, but see it as a fun day to dress up and get lots of unnecessary candy (but I know who will appreciate the chocolate candy the most!).  This day has proven to be a very important one in the life of my son, the king of dress-up these days.  He is going to be an archer.  His costume is ”homemade” or more like “whatever we had on hand.”  Except we did purchase the  bow and arrows at the Dollar Store (I could have had a lot of fun making those things, but am glad that there was one or two less things to put together).  For his clothes, I just sewed an old t-shirt (well it was supposed to be old, but I ended up purchasing one for three dollars because hubby nor I had the right tan color) to fit him and cut zig-zags on the arms and body.  He will wear a black shirt, Chloe’s black tights and a pair of my grayish-black socks with a band cut from the tee-shirt to tie up at the top of the socks, as boots.  The tan zig-zag shirt will go over this with a wide banded belt.  I made the quiver out of a paper towel roll and covered it and made the strap with some blue fabric from my scrap box.  He’s done. 

Sophie is going to be a little witch.  I’m not sure what I think of her being a witch yet, but the costume is so cute that I’m allowing myself not to get too worked up over it.  It was inspired by our trip to the Dollar Store, she picked up a purple witch’s hat, put it on and said in a little crackly voice, “I’m going to get you!”  Up until that point we didn’t know what she was going to dress up as.  I purchased the hat and a straw broom and so far her costume has remained at a whopping two dollars.   Today I made her black dress out of an old t-shirt (this time it was really an old t-shirt).  I sewed it to fit her in an A frame and cut zig-zags like Gabe’s only bigger.  With the left over scraps I fashioned witches shoes to her crocks with a stapler, complete with silver buckles drawn on with one of Gabe’s silver markers.  Oh, yes, and she will wear my funky green and purple knee high socks, which will come to her waist, but I think I can work with it.  

Poor Chloe, I have done nothing for her costume.  She was so delighted to see the costume I made for Gabe and quite possibly wanted to change her mind about what she wanted to dress up as, but I reassured her that she will be fussed over plenty when Halloween comes.  She’s dressing up as a fairy princess and we have absolutely everything on hand for that, so I promised her that her hair would be the most beautiful she has ever seen it and that she would get lots and lots of glitter (much to my dismay).  Oh, I remember, we did get her pink hair extensions at the, eh-em, Dollar Store, so she did get one additional item for her costume. 

Hubby will be working for this event and we are all very disappointed in that.  I and the kids are going to someones house from our church and we will trick-or-treat in her neighborhood.  I wasn’t all that hyped about going out alone with the kids in our neighborhood, so I was happy when someone invited me to this gals house.  The kids should have fun and I will probably be able to get some chat time in with some of the other moms. 

I am two weeks from my scheduled c-section and was much relieved when my OB said today that the baby has “not” dropped and my cervix is firm.  Last week, after pressing on my belly and feeling around, she said that it looked like the baby had dropped and went on to say that if I came in 7-8 centimeters and baby and I were fine, she’d try for a vaginal delivery.  I know now that at that point I’m insisting on an internal exam.  I drove myself crazy this past week thinking that I could possibly have a vaginal delivery.  I shouldn’t have done this,  but I got on ICAN and read all the stories about women who had VBACs after 3 or 4 cesareans.  I think that would have been good for me if both my husband and I agreed wholeheartedly that going vaginally is what we should do.  But that is not our case.  I desire it with all my heart,  but also know that God has united us for so many reasons.  I wonder if my husband were as gung ho as those other husbands that I read about if we’d try and maybe succeed.  But I know God is protecting me and guiding me through my husband and I’m trusting that.  Hmmph, didn’t stop me from having dreams of bloody show and full on labor.  Only in my dreams…..

Seems there is much more to update on, but I’m tired and the pillow is calling my name.

 

SOLD

Some very good news.  It isn’t final of course, but we think our house has a buyer.  The lady accepted our counter-offer and they do the structural on the house next week.  I don’t think they’ll see anything major, and the gal who’s buying has been through the mill before so we hope she won’t be too picky.  If all goes well, the house should be under contract before we leave.

We’ve got one week from today before we head out.  I’ve got a lot packed, but as soon as I pack one box I realize how much more we need to do.  Hubby got a stash of boxes for me, which is a big relief, I’ve been saying, “We need more boxes!” 

I’m praying for our family to stay connected and be a good family unit through all of this.  Yesterday I went to the park with the kids and it was just them and Mama time.  It was good because lately I’ve felt that they’ve been on their own a lot as we get things ready to move.

The plan is for us to head out on Saturday.  Hubby will drive the moving truck while me and the kids drive the van.  I’ve been establishing a plan that will best suit this situation.  And have been praying that the kids will travel well.  We hope to make it an adventure and not put too much driving time in in one day.  We’ll take three days to get to TN, stop there for a day to look around, have a down day and put our stuff in storage.  Then off to OKC.  I’m in the process of making a map for Gabe and Chloe to track where we’re going and where we’ve gone.  Including our trip to Montana, we’ll be going through about 11 different states.  It should be fun for all of us to learn a little about each one and make a trail as we drive through (we’re flying to MT though).  And Gabe is such a map guy, I think he’ll be pulling it out the whole time, “Okay, Mama, where are we now?”  (Sadly, I need a little refresher in US geography too!)

My pregnancy is going well.  I thought that I was gaining more weight than I should be, but I saw yesterday that my prepregnancy weight was 140 and I now weigh, at 4 months, 144.   I guess there’s just a bit more cushion from my last three that make it look like I’m gaining more wieght.  Ugh.  The kids are so involved and it has been really fun discussing with them about the little baby growing in my belly.  When at the doctor yesterday, Chloe tried to quiet the other two while the midwife got the baby’s heartbeat on the Doppler.  She said, “Shh, quiet guys, that’s the baby’s heartbeat.”  Then last night I showed them a pamphlet that I really like that has great pictures of the fetus in utero at early stages.  Gabe was enthralled.  He went through every picture with a very close eye.  And Chloe would say, “When will our baby look like that, Mama.”  Just really fun stuff.  I’m excited for this baby’s arrival for many reasons.  One of them being the childrens involvment and another reason is so that Sophie is not our last!  Oh, man, she is a riot, but just not suitable for the last child!  She needs a little compitition on the lower end to put her in her place.  I do pray that it’s not too hard on her though and that she will adjust well.  She sure does love babies, but I don’t know if she will after she see’s this baby needing so much of her Mama! 

There is much on my list of things to do today.  I hope to document our trip and if all goes as I hope in OKC, I’ll have much time on my hands to do so.  I won’t expect it, I’m just hopeful.  But, for now, I’m off to pack some more boxes (and pay attention to my son who is desperatly trying to conversate with me as I grow irritated because I can’t finish this sentence more quickly).

“Yes, son.” 

 

 

The Latest

We didn’t get a letter, we got a phone call.  They didn’t say he would have to report to the facility in two weeks, they said he needs to go to the Academy first.  They gave him a choice of three dates.  Two in May and one in June.  He took the June date.

The Academy is in Oklahoma City and it lasts 6 weeks(I think).  He will have weekends off, but I’m pretty sure that will be filled with studying.

Things for us to be thinking about.

– My trip to see Sis, she is due in 11 days!

– Do we stay here if the house hasn’t sold or do we go to OK with hubby?  We could stay near Sis and visit Daddy on the weekends.

– Maybe we could use the time when Daddy is at the Academy to acquaint ourselves with Tennessee.

–Maybe we could go the Montana or Georgia.

Well, I’m sure we will have lots to discuss when Hubby gets home. 

Oh, yes I would like to start posting about some other news around here.  It is most probably my last so I’d like to have it documented.  We’ll be having baby number 4 in November.  Right now I’m feeling okay.  As the day goes on I start to feel less and less inclined to eat, but no major morning sickness as with all my pregnancies.  I am craving eggs though and I remember that craving with Gabe, hmmm, a boy?  Yum, I have to get off here and start my deviled eggs, I’ve been hankering for these for the last week.  Not sure what else we’ll have for dinner.  Deviled eggs and a salad?