Flower

Today’s  high was 84 degrees so I opened everything up and sent David and Daniel out to play a little before nine. After nearly an hour of running around, digging in the dirt, and hunting bugs (the current favorite prey is crickets) they settled down into play that was a little more sedate. David had me draw train tracks and roads all over the patio for him to play with his cars and trains on while Daniel alternated playing with toy food and meandering through the fringes of tall field grass.  With neither one showing signs of wanting to bolt out of the relative safety of the visible yard space (we seem to have, thankfully, broken Daniel of the habit of running straight for the street) I settled down to nurse Alan down for his morning nap.

After a while, my arms full of a warm, drowsy baby, I looked over to see Daniel slip through the back door. He walked up to me rather slowly, his sweet face set into a look of fierce concentration. He came to the rocking chair and stood beside me for a while. After a few minutes he raised his arm and held out his little chubby fist towards me, his fingers clenched tightly around their precious cargo.

“Flower,” he told me softly, ducking his face shyly – a gesture I have seem myself do in a mirror many, many times. Gently, he unclenched his fingers and laid the dandelion carefully on my lap. Bending his head a little he kissed my arm and then gave a “snuggle kiss” to the top of Alan’s head. Then, without another word, he turned and went back outside to join David and play cars.

I’m not huge on flowers. Well, actually I am… let me rephrase. I’m not huge on bouquets. Sure, I appreciate them every now and then but in all honesty I’d rather have a living plant that I can stick in the ground or in a pot and enjoy for a longer period of time.

But this… this is the very best ‘bouquet’ I have ever had…

My flower

…and you better believe I’m hanging on to it until it is long past its expiration date.

 

52 in 52, Book Six: A Memory of Light

The Book: A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

The Rating: 5 out of 5 stars. Simply excellent.

The Review: For those sadly unaware (where have you been hiding?!?) this is the last book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I started reading the series back in 2006, so I feel like I’ve been waiting for this book for a while. Not nearly as long as Lawrence – who has been in on the series since the very beginning. It was a bittersweet day in our household when this baby came out.

What I loved: Pretty much everything. Getting Brandon Sanderson to finish writing the WOT books after Robert Jordan died in 2007 was a stroke of pure genius because he has both the vision and the voice to match Jordan. I like how this book tied up loose ends and brought clarity to characters that previously irked me so badly I couldn’t hardly stand it. (Egwene. Can’t stand her. Loved her in this book, but oh… there are few literary characters that irk me as much as she does.) I like that Sanderson devoted a whopping 912 pages to the Last Battle.  A series of this scope deserved a truly epic ending, and it got it.

I have a love-hate relationship with the ending. When I finished the book I both a deep feeling of satisfaction (an appreciation for a job well done) and a feeling of “Oh. Freakin. Heck.”

What I didn’t love: Despite the fact that I gave this book 5 out 5 stars it did have its week moments… the Lanfear story arch comes to mind. After being such a force and powerful presence in the series what she pulled with Perrin seemed very… low blow and weak by comparison. I can buy that she got to that point it just wasn’t quite right.

That it ended. When you’ve been with a set of characters and a world for so long it is… shocking… when it ends. It feels a bit like losing a friend. You’ve been involved with these imaginary lives for so long that even though the story ends you want to know what happens after, where their lives take them. That sort of thing.

Also… the ending. OMG. The ENDING.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As mentioned before I have a huge love-hate relationship with the very end of the book. All I can say without giving anything away is… Jordan and Sanderson? You are a pair of devious bastards men. I hope you are proud of yourselves.

52 in 52, Book Five : Stardust

 

The Book: Stardust by Neil Gaiman

 

The Rating: If I’m feeling generous… 3 out of 5 stars. If I’m feeling irked and let down, 2.5 out of 5 stars

The Review: This book is alright. It isn’t bad by any means it just isn’t… great or really even all that good. The writing is good but the flesh of the story was lacking.

What I love: The storyline.  The basics of plot are excellent.  The mechanics of Gaiman’s writing are pretty decent as well.

What I don’t love: Hmm. Hold on to your seats for a moment because I’m going to say something that I never actually say. Ready for it?

The movie is better than the book.

I think I just died a little inside.

I don’t know what it is, but there is something off about this book.

I think part of it is the book’s length. For the intricacy of the plot and depth of the world Gaiman built the book needs to be at least twice the length. But outside of that there is just this nagging sense of unfulfilled potential. I don’t know if that is because I saw the movie before I read the book (and the movie was very well done in my humble opinion) or if that is something that others feel as well.

Whatever the reason my judgement is this: decent story, but not worth rereading and overall  a bit disappointing.

52 in 52 disclaimer: Obviously I am not current with my reviews, and thus technically operating out the rules of the challenge. In deference to the great and powerful rulz posted on the internet I am keeping track of my reviews by book number until I am up to date. Over and out.

 

Life with three little boys

Alternative titles:

Chaos

OR

Drowning in a sea of cute

… really depends on how the day is going :p

Our latest attempt at a family photo

Not going to lie, I’m often jealous of all the pretty, posed family pictures that people post on facebook or that show upon Christmas cards, be they professionally done or not. I would love to have a good family picture…

About a month ago we had Alan’s baby blessing. (For those of you who are not LDS or familiar with our beliefs… we don’t do infant baptism.  Instead, we do a “Name and a Blessing”. You can read a little bit about it here.) Our latest attempt at a family photo was taken then.  If we’d been smart we would have tried for pictures before we went to church… instead we tried after church when both David and Daniel were overly tired and hungry (whoever thought having church start at 1pm was a good idea obviously did not have small children that needed an afternoon nap!).  My family came down for a quick two-day visit to be here for that. I thought it was really cool to not only have Lawrence and my Dad in the circle but also one of my brothers, who just returned from serving a two year mission in Arizona this past January.

Impish grin:)

I can’t believe how big and grown up David is getting. He’ll be four in about a month and a half. Yes, I am already in denial.  I’m also so, so proud of him because he has made huge, huge strides and has gone to his primary class all. by. himself. these past two Sundays!

We’ve been (finally) doing the official “potty training” thing with him this past week. We had him almost entirely potty trained in January of 2012 but emotionally he just wasn’t ready for it. Now, though, things are going well. We haven’t had any accidents and it has been 6 days (today is the 7th).  We are still putting him in a diaper at night and it is kind of 50-50 as to whether it has been used in the morning… though that is chiefly my fault I suspect. If I don’t get to him fast enough to get him changed into day clothes then he just goes in the diaper because it is there. We have just a few of his diapers left though and when those are gone we’ll stop with the diapers at night.

I also really need to order some “preschool” stuff for him (some basic math, handwriting, phonics etc). He is definitely ready for more instruction and I know he’d love the strictly one-on-one time with me as well. In addition to being able to recognize all his upper and lower case letters, he can count to (and identify) numbers 1-20, recognizes shapes and colors, and knows what sounds letters make. Recently, he has started sitting for long periods of time and wanting to be read to (30 plus minutes) and has started figuring out how to write letters by himself.

Every time I’d ask him to smile or “say cheese!” he would lift his foot up. Yeah, makes perfect sense…

Daniel will be two in July. Yes, I am also in denial about that.

Even more so than David at this age, this kid is the perfect blend of “grown up” and “baby”.  He is talking more and more and in the last couple weeks has decided that he likes to be read to so we spend a lot of time now doing that. He got the board book of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?  for Easter and that is his current favorite. I think I read it upwards of two dozen times a day, easy.

He is following in David’s footsteps and is a big helper. He likes to help unload the dishwasher (a little too much – he tries to do it all the time…) and is quick to bring me diapers for Alan and throw the used ones away.

For all his cute and angelic moments this kid is also my trouble maker. If I’m not watching him carefully he likes to snatch a knife (butter, usually, thank god) from the dishwasher and run shrieking (gleefully) down the hallway with the knife held aloft in his best beserker impersonation. He also still likes to stick stuff in his mouth (sigh, for a while it looked like he’d put that behind him but he is back at it again) and eat it. I’m forever fishing rocks, q-tips, orange peels, crayons, sidewalk chalk etc out of this kid’s mouth.

Taken a little over a week ago… 7 weeks old!

Alan is growing so fast it isn’t even funny. He is 8 weeks old now. He’s definitely lost 99% of that newborn look and is well into the baby look. The time he has left in 0-3 month clothes is exceptionally limited. He’s not quite as stocky as Daniel, but he definitely has the brick like upper body. All of his onesies and shirts are starting to pull across his chest. Time to dig the 3-6 months stuff out of whatever closet I have it stashed in. He’s starting to stay awake for longer stretches of time and likes to play the hanging toys while sitting in his bouncy chair… he still looks at you like you’ve lost your mind if you try and give him toys outside of his bouncy chair though.  His neck control his really good… not perfect, yet, but getting there. This kid does not like tummy time… in fact, he flips himself back over to his back if he decides that he’s not up for being on his tummy (which happens a lot, lol!).

So precious!

I love these boys so much and I am so grateful that they are in my life. Some days are still rough (like yesterday) and by the end of the day I want to lock my very introverted self in a room with a mountain of chocolate, my computer, a book or five, and all the various projects I’ve been wanting to work on… and then not come out for a week or three. But who am I kidding… I could never go that long without my babies. I had issues going just 1.5 hours with just Alan during church this past Sunday (because David went to his class and Daniel went to nursery… without Lawrence or myself!). Even though they drive me crazy some times I cherish every moment, even the awful “OMG I’m going to rip out my eyeballs” moments, because they’re only going to get bigger and more independent. And those times will be fun too, but they won’t be these ones.

Apparently mom’s bed is the cool place to be…

Life with three little boys…

Alternative title:

Blessed.

Finding Our Groove

First of all does anyone else have a mind that goes straight to playing The Emperor’s New Groove whenever you hear the word “groove”? Because mine does. As soon as I hear it I also instantly hear “I’m a llama! Llama faaaaace!!’ echoing through my brain.

Really? I’m the only one? That can’t be right…

Mental movie replay peculiarities aside I thought I’d talk about going from being a stay-at-home-mom of two to being a stay-at-home-mom of three. General consesus from both my mom and the majority of my friends and acquaintances that are moms is that going from two to three is the hardest transition.

If this is the hardest transition… well, I can most definitely deal with that.

Not to say that it has been, or is, easy.  Most days I end up feeling bipolar because we go from really high to really low and all over the place multiple times a day. That is kind of part of being a mom though.

There are moments when I feel like I’m drowning in chaos. For those of you that know me… I’m not such a huge fan of chaos, at least not of uncontrolled chaos. I like a bit of order and my severely introverted nature demands at least a few moments of quiet, dedicated me time a day in order to not completely use it. I imagine anyone with kids is laughing right about now because you can just imagine how much of that is happening around here. Three boys under four? Yeah… moments of complete silence just ain’t happenin’ sweetheart. The closest I get is the half hour I steal to take a hot shower and blow dry my hair each night before bed – which is usually rushed because apparently Daddy is “unacceptable” when mommy is in the shower(who knew?). It is a freakin miracle if I can make it to the end of the day without feeling like an epic fail of a mom because I didn’t give Daniel that hug he was asking for because Alan needed to be fed, or because I didn’t have time to sit down and do some sort of activity with David, or because… [insert one of many failures that I'm sure all mom's perceive in themselves].

Yeah. That’s kind of how a lot of days end.

Or this. I feel like this a lot too…

Somedays are just rough. Usually if our day is going to fall apart it does so at about 3:30pm because that is when everyone runs out of steam. I’m sure there are have been more than a few days when Lawrence has gotten home from work and found something like this waiting for him:

It just ain’t pretty some days

However, slowly…(so slowly)… we are finding our groove.  Things are starting to settle into a predictable pattern and the things I want to get done are starting to get done. Vacuum? Check. Bake something with David? Check. Snuggle with Daniel. Check. Have dinner started and the house reasonably clean when Lawrence gets home. Well, we are getting there (lol). I’m still not getting dressed until 9am or later (which bugs me… I don’t like just being in my pjs). Most days I have to reheat my breakfast two or three times (annoying, but expected). Alan’s fussy time falls in that 6-10pm (or later) time frame. Unfortunately, that is also really the only time I get to see Lawrence. So I’m still working on being able to sit and talk with him. Right now we’re watching lots of movies and catching up on tv shows (DVR is a wonderful thing).

All that to say that things aren’t where I’d like them to be yet, but we’re getting there. Slowly but surely, we are getting there.

Alan’s Birth Story

Three days past my due date I went to bed resigned to the fact that baby was going to hold out and not arrive until after my mom arrived to help in a day and a half. Not that having her here for the birth would have been an awful thing but given that she was coming down to help while I (theoretically) recovered from having a baby so that Lawrence wouldn’t have to take a lot of time off from his brand spankin’ new job. So, with my luck, this meant that baby would likely hold off being born until after she left. Because that is how my life typically works.

In the depths of the night I was vaguely aware that I was having a contraction but as my braxton hicks contractions had been steadily increasing in intensity to the point where they were actually uncomfortable I ignored it and didn’t bother waking up enough to look at the clock. Then it happened again. And again.

After the third contraction I figured that I should probably start paying attention to these just in case they were the real deal so I timed the next couple of contractions. By “timed” I mean that after having one I’d rouse myself to enough wakefulness to peer around Lawrence to the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock (4:32 am). After half an hour (and three more contractions, all nicely spaced ten minutes apart) I got up to pee bladder the size of a pea being used as a trampoline and all of that. While I was up Lawrence’s  spidey sense went off and I came back to find him watching me intently.

“Are you in labor?”

I shrugged. “Not sure. Contractions are about 10 minutes apart. I’ll keep timing them.”

After another half hour I was reasonably satisfied that this was the real deal, though I didn’t call my midwife yet because the contractions were still 9-10 minutes apart and it was 5:30 in the morning. If she was still asleep then good for her! (She was, by the way, and later mentioned being grateful that I put off calling her and allowing her another couple hours of sleep, lol).

Lawrence moved the bed a little to make room for the birth pool in our bedroom and set it up while I forced myself to eat a small bowl of cereal. Not exactly an energy providing food but it was the only thing that sounded even remotely palatable.

Birthing space.

While the pool was being set up the boys got up and Lawrence got them dressed. David was adorable and helpful, holding the hose so that it wouldn’t “fall out” of the pool:

Daniel wanted to help too, so he found his own hose:

“Hmmm… how do I make water come out?”

By this time (around 7:30am) contractions had moved to being about 4-6 minutes apart so I called Lucy (midwife) and gave her a heads up. I still didn’t think there was any need for her to hurry, contractions were fairly intense but completely manageable and I had no problems moving around, talking, laughing, and even playing/snuggling a  bit with David and Daniel in between them. So she said she’d get ready and be on over in about an hour or so but to call her if I needed her.

When Lucy arrived I had her do a quick internal check. I really dislike internal checks but I also really like knowing kind of where I am in the progression of things. It helps me focus. She found that I was at an 8 (yay!) so she was definitely sticking around.

I had a very relaxed laboring experience for the next two hours. Contractions still came and went every five minutes or so and I found that they were easiest to bear and felt most effective if I remained standing upright and just rocked side to side. In between contractions I chatted with Lucy and Dana (her apprentice) and occasionally paused to swoop David or Daniel up into a reassuring hug.

Around 10:30 I started feeling like I wanted to get into the water, but I also didn’t want to slow labor down. Given that remaining upright was what felt the most productive I felt it was a valid concern so I had Lucy check me again. I was pretty much at a 10 so I went ahead and got into the water.

Contractions got a little more intense at that point. In fact there was an hour, before I managed to get a hold of myself (mentally), where I found myself thinking “Three kids are enough, right?” (The answer, at least for us, is “No. Three isn’t.” just in case you guys were wondering…) I had Dana break my water hoping that it would speed things up a little bit, but nada.

Thankfully after an hour or so of very unpleasant contractions I managed to get my mental state under control and slipped into a lovely hypnotic state. With transition, not-quite-pushing, contractions coming every few minutes I was falling asleep between them and serenely detached from them while they were happening.  Dana asked if I wanted her to take any pictures of me laboring. I don’t particularly want any pictures of me laboring so I said no.  Apparently she asked though because I was one of those women who was “just beautiful to watch” given my state of calm and focus inward.

After not quite another hour I had them check to see what might be holding things up. Two discoveries were made:

1) the cervical lip (scarring from David’s birth) that had shown up with Daniel’s birth was in fact present again. Sigh.  Odds are good that it will forever show up and need to be manually held back during birth. Not going to lie, that hurts worse than all of the rest of birth combined.

2) They really hadn’t broken my water.  They had just broken the outer layer. Apparently I build industrial strength amniotic sacks because it took some serious effort to break the inner layer.

After both of those things had been taken care of baby moved down rather quickly. Not as fast as Daniel, thank heavens, but quickly.  Baby crowned and I focused on breathing baby down gently.  My big goal for this birth was to not tear, or at least not tear badly… a big deal given that both of previous births had caused 3rd degree tears.

At 12:59pm baby slipped out into the pool and was immediately placed on my chest. Lawrence poked his head in and asked “Boy or girl?”  I checked really quick and announced that we had another bouncy baby boy:

Brand spankin’ new

Lawrence went and got David and Daniel.  David was thrilled to discover that mommy shutting herself away for a good portion of the day had resulted in another baby for him:

A baby? For me?

Daniel was still a little unsure about what was going on:

Uh… what is going on?

After about half an hour we cut the cord and Dana and Lucy helped me out of the pool and to the bed to wait for the placenta to be delivered. While waiting Alan was weighed and measured:

10lbs 3oz!

The placenta took its sweet time (grumble, grumble) but after it was delivered Alan and I got to climb into a nice herbal bath to soak a little while Dana and Lucy looked over the placenta next to the tub. I know it is not for everyone but I really love getting to look at the placenta.

Relaxing in the herbal bath

By 4pm Alan and I were tucked snuggling in our bed and I was pleased to learn that I had made it through delivering him with only a very minor, not worthy of stitches, tear. With everything pretty much tidied up and pizza delivered (food suddenly sounded very good!!)  Lucy and Dana took their leave.

Alan is almost three weeks old now and we are enjoying him very much. I’m particularly fond of his chubby round cheeks and cute pointy chin…

Being loved on by David and Grandma

 

Yawn!

 

“Must…fit…under…daddy’s…chin…”

 

Still Here…

I had grand intentions of keeping up my 52 in 52 blogging during the whirlwind of moving and getting settled in our new place. HAH! Have I mentioned that I am overly ambitious? Yeah, just a little.

I have, technically, read at least one book a week for the last however many weeks I’m “behind” at this point but they are all re-reads as I have yet to make pilgrimage to the local library and get a library card. (GASP!) I know, I know… so very unlike me. In my defense though we moved 900 miles right as I hit 38 weeks pregnant and then I had precious baby about three weeks later. So I’ve been kind of busy…  And as the point of this “challenge”, for me at least, was to stretch myself in my reading I don’t want to include them in my official count.  So yes… I have some catching up to do. Hopefully starting next week because visiting the library is on my to do list for Saturday.

As mentioned above we welcome baby boy #3 into our family approximately two weeks ago. I’m (slowly – more slowly than I would like) working on Alan’s birth story. It was a wonderful home water birth. Hopefully I’ll have it up in a day or two.  Until then I’ll leave you with a picture of his cuteness:

Alan, 1 day old