Birthdays, 2014 Edition

So we've had a few birthdays: Luke #7 (WOW!) and Adrienne #4 (double WOW!).  Both kids wanted parties at "fun centers," but "fun" isn't quite the word I would use.  Nevertheless, Luke had a blast on the go - carts and Adrienne bounced her little heart.   Each birthday is so bittersweet. So bittersweet, in fact, that we take at least a week and a couple of cakes per birthday!

Attention!

Here ye, here ye, we have a grand milestone to document...princess baby finally rolled over. all the way. over.

Ok, so maybe it's not that exciting but what kind of mother would I be if this went undocumented?  At least I was around to see her do it for the first time (that, or the daycare ladies have learned the art of not spoiling "firsts").

High Tea

Anyone want to come to a tea party?  High tea will be served in Adrienne's room today!

Super Cup

Luke participated in his Taekwondo studio's annual Super Cup this year.  He chose to do the board breaking competition.  Each kid in the competition gets two boards to break: one upper body technique break and one lower body technique break.  Luke decided on the "palm hit" technique and the "axe kick" technique.  He broke both boards on the first try and actually looked like he knew what he was doing (despite mine and Matt's fear that he didn't).  He earned the silver medal for his group which he was super proud of. Go Luke!

Cute

Look at all of this cuteness!

Ready for gymnastics class!

Teaching Coco his Taekwondo moves

Just being cute on her play mat

A Day in the Life

As usual, I am wanting to be a little bit better about updating this blog so here's a quick snippet about my favorite part of today.  I was giving Corinna a bath and my lovely assistant Adrienne insisted on being the "head bather."  Pushing me out of the way with her elbows and boxing me out with her little booty, Adrienne did a fine job really scrubbing that one little part of Coco's stomach.  Although that one little part of Coco was probably already the cleanest part of her body, it's really clean now.  Adrienne was finally satisfied after the 43rd application of baby soap so then she moved on to rinsing Corinna's hair.  Which is really code for dumping water directly on Corinna's face.  But Coco seemed to like it so all was well in baby bath world.

And if you are wondering where Luke was during this time, I'm happy to report he being really cute, using plastic play dishes and pretending to be a waiter.  While busy with my bathing duties, I was served a fabulous meal of salad.  Maybe he was secretly trying to tell me something?

Just an ordinary day with some non - ordinary kids.

Who goes to Canada in February?

For the first time in my life, I went North instead of South for a winter break.  It must be that sleep deprivation affecting my judgement again.  It was dang cold up there!  Original thought, eh?  See how I threw in the "eh" there?  Well, despite the frozen tundra temperatures, Toronto is quite a nice city.  And by city, I mean, a real one!  We had a great time on our mini-trip and have already thought about what we'd like to do next time we visit.  And we will visit in the summer, next time.

For the next visit, I'd love to skip Legoland but apparently the kids kind of loved it.  sigh.  I would actually go to the aquarium again as it was the best one I've ever been to.  The aquarium was home to the biggest lobsters ever and some crazy shark tanks.  At one point, you can look up and see a shark swimming 3 feet directly above your head.  I think the kids enjoyed the hands-on exhibits the most.  They were able to "pet" some horseshoe crabs as much as one can call that petting.  They were also able to touch some small sharks.   There were a few Dory and Nemo sightings and Ade picked the plainest, small, silver fish you could find as her "favorite" and totally ignored the beautiful rainbow coral reef.  Of course the itty bitty indoor playground was also a hit.  These kids will do anything for a slide and a few climbing structures.  

Coco was a perfect baby as usual and coo'ed during the whole trip.  She really enjoyed watching the fish in the Dangerous Lagoon and the psychadelic jelly fish display.   It's kind of funny to think that this was her first trip and it was "international."  She's such a cultured 3 month old.

Another huge hit on the trip was the IKEA we hit up on the way home.  We picked up a nice desk for Luke although he really wanted to get a swivel chair.  And Ade wanted to purchase every fake computer set up in the store.

Here are some of our pictures.

Storm

We are weathering the storm known as having a newborn plus 2 other high maintenance children pretty well.  At least I think so, those of you who have witnessed this storm may think otherwise!  We've had some really sweet moments, some really funny moments and some really stressful moments.  I'll list out just a few of each category below:

Sweet:

• Snuggling a sleeping newborn
• First coos and first smiles
• Luke and Ade being so interested in Corinna and wanting to hold her
• Adrienne singing "Merry Christmas Baby" to Corinna when she's fussy
• Luke attempting to bottle feed Corinna and making more progress than any adult
• Adrienne saying "the baby needs me," or "it's ok baby, I'm right here," when the baby is crying

Funny:

• Luke calling my pump the "Boob Sucker"
• Adrienne very aggressively correcting people when they pronounce Corinna's name wrong
• Luke and Ade trying out all of the baby products and contraptions - Luke even got in the swing
• Adrienne getting cheese sticks for the baby when I say that she's hungry
• Adrienne literally pushing me out of the way when she was "helping" me bathe the baby so she could have better access to rubbing soap all over her
• Hearing all the exclamations when they help change a poopy diaper

Stressful:

• 2 cranky kids and a screaming baby in the car during the witching hour (5:30-6:30 pm)
• All 3 kids at the doctor at the same time (this will never happen again)
• Seeing Adrienne pick up Corinna without help and without permission
• Seeing Adrienne on the video monitor attempting to get in the crib when she's supposed to be asleep in the bed and the baby asleep in the crib

And while we know this storm will pass soon and quicker than we really want it to (in hindsight) right now we're making it through.  With little sleep and a lot of alcohol.

Princess x2 - She's here!

Ok, well, she's really been here for 10 whole weeks now but that's how long it's taken me to find time to sit down and write out her birth story.  Corinna made her grand debut to the world at 40 weeks and 2 days on 11/12/13 at 12:05 am weighing in at 7 lbs., 8.5 oz and 19.5 inches long.  Already showing her attention to detail,  she waited a few days so she  could have a fun birth date and an easy birthday for others to remember and she got it by a whole 5 minutes!


On Monday, November 11th (Veteran's Day), my mom came up to essentially be on-call for child care duty and since I was scheduled to be induced on Wednesday, November 13th, we knew the baby would come Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.  Adrienne was home with us as she was off from school (Luke went to vacation camp at the JCC) so we were out and about at Barnes and Nobles and then went the Distillery for lunch.  I'd been having contractions for months so when I was having them that day, I didn't think much of it.  Until they started to get more intense.  And then, I thought, well maybe I'll beat the induction and have the baby on Tuesday since it still didn't seem likely the baby would arrive that day.  We got home that afternoon and everyone took a small snooze and shortly after that, Matt and Luke arrived home for dinner.  During dinner, the contractions picked up in strength but still didn't have any sort of pattern.  And they tell you over and over again that you shouldn't think you are in labor or go to the hospital until there is a distinct pattern and they are 5 minutes apart.  So after struggling thru a few contractions that evening, at 9:30 pm, I thought I should probably head to the hospital just in case since the contractions were quite intense at that point.  We threw our bags in the car and made a sort of rushed exit.  We called the Dr.'s office on the way to the hospital and the on-call Dr. did not want us to delay any further since this was a 3rd baby.  That was the right call.  As soon as we got to the hospital and checked in (10:03 pm) things picked up very quickly.  I was in severe pain in triage and 6.5 centimeters so off we went to the "birthing center."  Fancy words meaning "across the hall from triage."

So this is where the fun starts.  As soon as we got over to said "Birthing Center," I was assigned one clumsy and one grumpy nurse - jackpot!  I guess that's what you get for going into labor late at night, silly me!  I guess I should have planned to go into labor at like 10:00 am instead of pm.  There's always next time, well, as long as you aren't talking to Matt :-)  Ok, back to the story.  Nurse Clumsy starts attempting to get an IV into my arm - into my already protruding, ideal, cannot miss them, veins. After she tried and failed 3 different times (spanning at least 45 minutes) which included dropping the IV kit on the ground what seemed like 6 times, another vein poker was called in to get the job done.  And after another 20 minutes, she did it, but it was.not.pretty.  Ok, awesome, finally got my IV, now I can finally get an epidural, right?  Wrong.  Of course, I hit the jackpot again and landed a shift change during what was a very transitional part of labor.  So I had to wait roughly 5 hours to get my epidural while the new epi guy came onto his shift.  Alright, I AM exaggerating but it felt like 5 hours.   So I'm in a lot of pain for  a while longer while the anestesiologist is placing the epidural.  At this point, I feel a shift in my belly and a "pop!" and that was my water breaking.  This happened at about 11:45 and the epi catheter was in at about 11:46.  I ask why the epidural isn't working at 11:47 and then they tell me it could take up to 30 minutes for it to work - WHAT?  Um, with my 2 other births, I had instantaneous relief!  Whaterver, no time to argue because my body just starts pushing the baby out on its own.  I had not really ever felt it quite like this but I was not in control of the pushing. That baby was coming out, stat!  The nurses attempted to try to have me wait a few minutes while the doc got set up.  I started intentionally pushing somewhere in the neighborhood of 11:55 pm and out she came 10 minutes later.

Corinna was perfect upon birth and I was very relieved to not be in pain any longer.  I forgot to mention the part where the epidural didn't actually go to the right parts.  Who knew the epi could make your face numb instead of down yonder?  Certainly not me but that is exactly what I got.  A few days later I ended up with an epidural headache and a lovely trip to the Geneva ER (thank God for G-ma!) for a blood patch.  Not so fun but this baby girl was worth it!

Here are a few pictures:

Moments before leaving for the hospital - looks like this was snapped mid-contraction by the look on my face: