Bliss...

Oh yes, this is what bliss looks like...

Welcoming....

Lucas Elliott Rose

Born at 10:29am on Wednesday, Feb 22nd, 2011

9lbs 9 oz and 22.5 inches long

Labor was hard, but recovery is going smoothly and we are tucking in as the snow falls outside in this beautiful snowpocalypse we are supposed to have all week.

He is nursing like a champ. (The overcooked ones usually do.) More to come....

Welcome sweet boy!

Val, Past Due

Here I am, two days over due.

Dear friends of mine, Sarah and Karyn, decided to cheer me up and take some last minute maternity photos. I was terribly grateful from the distraction of everyone asking me 'how I am doing' and random store clerks that ask me when I am due acting like I am a bomb that may go off at any moment when I answer "last Tuesday".

Even my phone apps are stalking me now... One of mine says "Congratulations!!" and another one says "you are past your due date" and nothing else where there are usually little tips, tidbits, and the estimated size of the baby now, etc.

Considering 40% of moms go over I think that programs that don't keep going for at least a bit after DD are dumb. But don't mind the hormonal pregnant lady. She may just be irrational. (lol...)

I am feeling ok, considering. He is COMPLETELY posterior, which I have found much more comfortable than the "under my right rib" position he had taken up for so long. I know it isn't supposed to be ideal for birth, but honestly, I am so much more comfortable that I think it may be fine for me. All his little limbs are facing front, which means that I feel him all the time, wiggling, and shifting all his little fingers and toes (and knees... must not forget those pointy knees!). Perhaps in the next day or so he will switch to a left side, rear position and be ready to greet the world... but for now, the idea of being able to take a walk without pain has been a nice treat.... even if I do have the gait of a very fat duck.

Apparently the little one does not want to be an Aquarius, cuz he is hanging out at least for now... so Pisces it is. ;)

And still a no

That is all.

It's still a no...

I am being stalked. Even my Starbucks ladies know that I was due days ago and am still pregnant. Everyone calls me just to 'see how I am'. Especially relatives. Friends know how that would drive me crazy and they have been great about only calling once every couple of days or texting things like "thinking of you" instead of the typical "any baby news yet?" which makes you feel like a defective watched pot.

Last night I slept though. I slept GOOD. I didn't even stay awake after my trips to the bathroom... just crashed right back into a decent sleep (buried in my mounds of pillows that threaten to kick Don out of the bed entirely). Which isn't something that I have done in months. Today I woke feeling more comfortable than I have been in weeks. And a little cheeky. So I posted "Guess what???!?!??!?!?!" on Facebook this morning... and then

".

.

.

.

.

Still pregnant. "

LOL! It drove my sweet stalker friends crazy... but it made me laugh. All day today I have been smiling about my impish joke and enjoying my more comfortable self. I even got to hang out with some wonderful friends. :)

I did this with Logan's pregnancy too. For the last couple days I was pregnant, I felt great. I remember posting about how Cyan and I made snowmen out in the yard and other things that up until today there was no way I could have done for the past month. So perhaps this is it... perhaps I will not be 2 wks overdue like I was with him. Or perhaps I am just getting a break. Whatever it is... I'll take it.

Happy Due Date to me...

Nope... no little one yet. Feeling terribly overdone.

We have eaten lots of cereal and eggs. We have read lots of books and watched more movies than I can count. Homeschooling is on hold aside from curriculum's that don't require much of me (Teaching Textbooks being the main one we have kept up on). My whole day consists of making sure my kids are fed and I stay unirritated and even close to reasonably comfortable.

Naptime has been the highlight of my days lately.

I have finished two sweet little blue baby hats on my round needles, and ball #13 is now done and in the basket. The youngests room is beautiful and almost finished and the house is pretty well clean. And that is everything I can do at the moment.

My main creative endeavor lately has been to find new ways for my kids to occupy themselves so I can lay down more than stay upright.

Happy Due Date to me...

The beauty of the first sunny day of the year

Two things are perfect about today. The sun is out... and I can take a deep breath. Which means that the baby has dropped. Which means that the baby may actually be born sometime in February. lol... I was completely taken back by my ability to bend over and clip my herb bed this afternoon. But standing in the sunshine with my sweet marmalade cat mewing around my feet and rubbing up against me, I spent an hour bent over absolutely overjoyed to play in the cold dirt. Oregano is trimmed, small grass clumps are removed, mint is cut back... and I did it all by myself. Sigh... What a beautiful day!

Sleepless knitting...

In this pregnancy my biggest issue has been lack of being able to fall asleep. I am up for at least half of most nights. I would love to say that it is a prep for the sleepless nights with baby in the next few weeks, but that sounds like I am saying I want to starve myself before getting lost in the desert with no food. :P It just doesn't make any sense!

About 3 months ago my dear friend Erika sent me a box of yarn scraps. Half balls of hand dyed wool yarn, chunky yarn left over from her beautiful hand dying, cotton yarn, thick and thin yarn... tons of fun for a fiber addict like me to experiment with! So I have been using my sleepless time to learn to knit. Watching You Tube videos on ribbing, adding stripes, tighter stitches, etc... I have made each of these insomnia lessons into a 30 stitch by 30 stitch square that was then made into a ball by using the knitting tail as a thread and stitching the ends together to make a tube. Then I stuff the tube and seal up the ends. I have stuffed the balls with plastic bags (crinkle), wool (soft), and fiberfill with tiny bells in them (jingle) and I have been piling them into a basket next to my bed.

A couple of days ago I realized my basket is full. There are 13 balls in the basket, all made out of different fun yarns and many have the first of my knitting lessons on them in the form of stripes and ribs that made the sleepless nights a bit more bearable. The basket can't hold many more (and it's a big basket BTW, it is about 19 inches across)....

Time to let the little one know that it's time to stop sleepless knitting and start sleepless nursing!

Happy Birthday to me!

Today I turn another year older. I have high hopes that this year will be less stressful than the last two. And high hopes that my little on will want to share my birthday week with me. :)

Taking care of my now littlest before my future littlest gets here

That's right folks. No baby yet! I am not online very often. I am not very comfortable right now and for some reason I keep getting sick! I think the babe is waiting (kindly) for me to be well before he makes his entrance. I have been puttering about, making projects... but oh so slowly. Very slowly. I have lots of plans that I can't get done, but more and more my puttering is paying off and I can check things off my "do before baby" list.

Logan has been having some emotional issues with the pregnancy lately. Not bad, he is just very touchy with everyone but me and has a really hard time with the answer 'no'. I have been focused on highlighting the things that make him special lately and it has started to work. It took longer than I wanted, but this last week I have seen some real changes in his behavior.

Last night I was getting some foam for a moses basket I am recovering and I saw these stuffed dogs. I am not normally a buyer of stuffed animals, they tend to breed under the beds and it always seems as though they are abused or just left on the floor. But these seemed the perfect size and shape for little hands and they had some weight to them. So I picked up one in each colorway.

When I got home, I presented Logan with the dogs. I told him that one was for him and one was for the baby, but since the baby can't take care of it yet Logan got to name them and take care of them for a while all by himself because he was the big brother. He ate it up. He picked the black and tan one and named it Shadow. He gave the baby the brown and white one and named it Brownie.

For the rest of the evening, Shadow and Brownie were sick. We took turns making sure they were getting their shots and checking their heart and pulse with Logan's play med kit. At bed time they both were wrapped in blankets on in the boys new beds and Logan has "called" me from his room (with an old broken cell) for me to check on them every few minutes.

Shadow is sicker than Brownie. He's needed lots of hugs and shots.

Logan loved the game and hugged me about 20 times. The baby's dog was included a lot. And he placed the dog in the baby's bed and was protective when Cyan came to check their hearts with the toy stethoscope.

The focus for a long time was on Logan's dog and what he needed. He needed his candle (LED) to have new batteries so he could sleep well while sick. He needed a blanket wrapped up around him. He needed cuddles. An extra book at bedtime (for which I picked Bernstein Bears "New Baby").

When Logan was ready for bed and tucked in, he started to talk with me. He said he was sorry for being so grumpy. He said that Shadow was too. He said sorry for yelling. I just hugged him and told him how wonderful and big he was getting and how proud I was. I was amazed that those thoughts (even though mumbled and not really about anything in particular) could come out of my brand new 4 yr old. He knows he hasn't been in a good mood. He knows that it hurts me. And for some reason, he was able to express his feelings more because of being able to speak through those toys. I have never used puppets to talk to my kids before. It is a psychological technique that always sort of wigged me out... but now I understand it way more. That is basically what he was doing. Each time Shadow was more sick than Brownie what he meant was "don't forget about me" and each time Brownie was taken care of and protected his actions were showing me that he knows that the baby is coming and that it's ok.

It was a beautiful evening. ♥