Little Jimmy

Isn't he adorable?! I know. I just can't get enough of his chubby little cheeks and soft head. And I never tire of snuggling with him.


Here he is checking out Mike. He was all snuggled up to him and all the sudden just looked up and started studying him. It was so cute.
It cracks me up how his face gets all scrunched up when he is in the swing.

This kid eats, and eats, and eats. If he's awake, he is wanting to eat. Here he was getting pretty impatient with me and just decided to eat his hands.

Speaking of babies eating their hands...when we were in the hospital, one nurse was always tucking his hands in the blanket so he couldn't get to them. She kept saying, "you don't want to suck on your fingers." I thought, why the heck not!! A major part of sensory development for babies is sucking on their hands. I just thought it was weird that she made a big deal out of it. He's not a fan of having his hands restrained (Jacob wasn't either) so as soon as she left the room I let him have his hands back.

Baby James

James Daniel

Born 3/27/10 @ 12:06am

8 lbs 9 oz and 21 inches long

He's finally here! We were told Friday morning that we were good to come in and get things started. It ended up taking us a little longer than expected to get there and they ended up giving my bed away. Soooo...the waiting game began. I ended up getting bumped twice by women who came in, in active labor. But they did finally get us in around 1 or 2pm and it took a few hours after that for them to get the pitocin started.

By the time we finally got in there my patience was wearing pretty thin. So when they started the pitocin and it wasn't doing anything (at least that I could tell) I was getting pretty annoyed. I wanted them to just crank it up and give me the full dose and get it over with, but they started at the lowest dose and sssslllllloooooowwwwwwlllllyyyyyy increased it over the next 6 or 7 hours. Finally they turned the dosage up to just below the max dosage and it actually started to kick in. When I got to the point where the contractions were actually pretty painful they decided to break my water and turn the pitocin down. Once they did that, things really got going. That's when the true pain began. I thought I was going to die and was seriously reconsidering my no epidural decision. But I figured at that point I may as well suck it up and go all the way. I think I may have caused permanent damage to Mike's fingers from squeezing them. Luckily that phase of labor only lasted about an hour. At the end of that hour I pushed for about 5 minutes and he was out.

He sure is a snuggly little guy.

The kids got to come see him the next afternoon, but only for a few minutes because they were sick. (Thank you Tara for watching my puking kids. I really hope your kids don't get it as well.)

Lizzie is pretty offish towards him, but Jacob sure likes him. He asks to hold him and is fascinated with his little feet and toes. I was kind of worried how he would react to the baby because on the way to the babysitters I was talking to him giving him a heads up that next time he saw me he'd have a baby brother. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Jacob, Mommy is going to the hospital and the baby is gonna come out of my tummy.

Jacob: Baby come out of mommy's tummy??

Me: Yes. Then we will get to take the baby home with us.

Jacob: Um...no.

Me: Ya, your gonna have a baby brother.

Jacob: I said no.

Me: Well, that's to bad, cause he's coming and we're gonna have a baby.

Jacob: I SAID NOOOOO!

He wasn't very excited about the prospect of having a baby around. When we would try to explain it to Lizzie she would just look at us like, "Whatever" and walk away. She still has the same attitude towards him. She's just not really interested. I was really glad to see Jacob take to him though. I am sure Lizzie will eventually come around, like Jacob finally warmed up to her when she was born.

We sure love the little guy, and we're so glad he's finally here.

Ready or Not

Mike called me at 7:30 this morning to inform me that I was scheduled to be induced tomorrow. lol. We had talked about it yesterday, but I really didn't think they'd go for it. I shouldn't be surprised. They've all been a little anxious for me to have this baby. Part of me would love nothing more than to sit back and just let the baby come. The other part of me thinks, if I wait until next week, who knows when they can get me in and if I don't have this baby by next Wednesday I'm really gonna freak out, cause Mike won't be able to take all the time off I want him to and I think will go nuts if he isn't here to help me with a new baby, oh my gosh what will I do, not to mention, what if I go into labor on my own and don't make it to the hospital on time, cause last time it snuck up on me and I almost didn't make it to the hospital and I was less than a mile away, and this time around the babysitter is 20+ minutes away and then it's another 30+ minutes to the hospital, what if I have this baby in the van, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Okay breath. So, I'm kind of relieved I get to plan it. Assuming they can get me in tomorrow. Either way, I now it will be in the next day or 2. :) In the mean time, I'm just hoping I go into labor on my own. So I would appreciate any labor vibes you can send me. That would be great. Thanks.

"Catch!"

I've been hearing this a lot lately, and it's usually followed by something being hurled at my head by Lizzie. And she doesn't give much warning. She usually throws the object as she is yelling "catch". So, it's best to just duck whenever you hear that in this house.

I looked out the window and what did I see...

Jacob standing in a puddle of pee.

Ya, then he proceeded to put his hands in it and make hand prints on the cement. So...I did what I had to do. I got out the hose and hosed him down before he could track it into the house. Good thing it's warm today.

I looked out a few minutes later to see that Lizzie had discarded her diaper in the middle of the lawn and both kids were walking around naked. I'm so glad it's spring now and they can do these things OUTSIDE. haha.

"NO! She a PRINCESS!!!!"

This morning I put Lizzie in her cute, spring dress that she got for her birthday. Jacob looks at her and says something that I THOUGHT was "Lizzie in a pretty dress". "Yes", I said. "Lizzie IS in a pretty dress." Again he says, "Lizzie in a pretty dress!". Again, "Yes, she is wearing a pretty dress." We went back and forth like this for several minutes, Jacob getting more and more frustrated with me.

Just so you know, Jacob has this weird hang up where he likes you to repeat what he says EXACTLY. You can't just acknowledge what he says by saying "yes" or "no" or "uh hu". No, you have to say the exact words as he just said. And he won't let it go until you do. Believe me, I've tried to break him of it, but he is one stubborn kid. He kept it up for a half hour once until I finally gave in and repeated him. Anyhooo....

So, I thought this is what he was doing. I thought that he was getting mad because I wasn't repeating his words exactly. I couldn't figure out what I was saying differently. Then finally, he gets so frustrated with me he yells at the top of his lungs, "UUUUUGH! NO! Lizzie a PRINCESS!!!!!" Ohhhhh. Okay. "Yes, Lizzie is a princess!" And peace was once again restored to the house.

Ready, but in no rush.

That is where I am at with this pregnancy. Mike IS however in a rush. Not that I blame him. I think he's pretty bored at work, since they won't schedule him any patients because they don't want to have to reschedule a bunch of people when I do have the baby. He was REALLY hoping I'd go into labor over the weekend so he'd get out of weekend call. lol. (I still can't figure out why they call it "on call" since it's basically a 24-36 hour shift. Depending on what your doing, sometimes you get to take a nap or 2 while your there. But he has been doing labor and delivery and they don't get breaks when they are doing L&D.) He has been on call for the last 3 weekends and 3 times just this week. So I don't blame him at all. The poor guy is exhausted. Anyhoo...

As for me, they offered to try and speed things up by stripping my membranes at my last appt. but I said "no thank you". Last week I was not feeling ready AT ALL. Yes, I am uncomfortable. My back has been killing me and I've been having painful contractions for weeks now, and the heart burn is just plain miserable, but there are still things I need to get done before this baby comes. Last week I felt like I had a million things I needed to do. I actually feel like I got quite a bit done over the weekend. I got the baby's bed set up, I got the kitchen floor mopped, I steam cleaned parts of the carpet that were in desperate need of it, I got some baby clothes out of storage and washed them. But the biggest reason I was feeling so unprepared was because of the other two crazy kids I was already dealing with. They have been little terrors for the last month and the thought of having to deal with the craziness plus a newborn brought tears to my eyes. This week things have miraculously calmed down considerably and I am feeling like I could handle it now if he were to come. I still want to freeze some meals and get the rest of the dishes done and a little more cleaning, but I'm close enough that I feel ready for whenever he wants to make his appearance.

I'm not expecting him to come any time soon, however. I am dilated to a 2, but I've been there for about 3 weeks now. I was a lot more effaced at this last appt. but not enough to give me any reason to believe labor is in sight. I'm thinking, if he hasn't come on his own by the first of next week, I will talk about getting that pitocin push, but for now, I'm just gonna use the time I have to get ready before even more craziness ensues. :)