coco was blessed on january 7th in a spur-of-the-moment decision. my mom was here for the arrival of my new nephew, grant, so this saved them the return trip. the blessing was just as tender and meaningful to me as anna's and miller's, despite the absence of a huge family meal afterward or the obligatory picture outside the chapel.
the only disappointment i felt was that my grandma couldn't be there. we decided for sure to do it only 3 days before so they didn't have the time to make the trip. i cried a lot as i drove around on friday picking up the odds and ends for the blessing. AND I AM STILL NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT. nevertheless...
i think a baby's blessing in the lds church is one of our best things. as the mother, all of the major experiences of bringing a child into the world are yours - the baby kicking, hiccuping, labor, giving birth, nursing, etc. you know well before it's born that the baby is YOURS and all of those experiences confirm that. but dad is sort of a bystander throughout the process. he can't actually do pregnancy or childbirth. he knows the baby is his, of course, but hasn't had the physical affirmations of impending parenthood. he won't ever have the experience of feeling a baby kick for the first time or be handed the baby to lay it on his chest right after it's born, or the intense satisfaction of a baby successfully latching on and nursing for the first time. the blessing is dad's first thing that he gets to do exclusively as the father. here he's watched the baby only really need you to survive, knowing that there's nothing he can do for the baby that the mother can't. but, then, a few months into it, he gets to have his own special moment, one that's exclusively his, that will bond him to the baby forever. he gets to hold the baby in his arms and give the baby a name and a blessing in front of friends and family. he gets to tell heavenly father how grateful he feels, and thank him for sending him a child. i've heard of women in the church having issues over this practice because they feel they should be able to participate, but i'm so okay with dad having his own moment. his thing. his unique bond. i pretty much have gotten all the rest.
and so here is coco, in her blessing dress, and as her dad asked in the blessing, hopefully our family's peacemaker. because let me tell you, her brother and sister could really use one.
with honey and papa... with gammi and papa... with her new cousin, grant...
i think i've mentioned before that when i have a baby the computer gets shut down and stays down. this time it stayed down a lot longer than i expected, but i wasn't going to sit down in front of a computer screen until i was good and ready to. plus knowing that you have 487 unread items in your blog feed is too much to digest.
caroline was born on october 14th weighing 6 lbs 11 ozs and measuring 18 inches long. i'm in baby heaven. she's been my hardest baby by far, but she's worth every bit of it.
i've complained before about the rigmarole they put you through once you reach "advanced maternal age." i had to have multiple ultrasounds with a perinatologist at the hospital and an ultrasound and non-stress test each week during the last month. at every ultrasound and every test they'd tell me, "everything looks great! baby looks great!" and i'd wonder why i had to keep coming back. my last test was scheduled on october 14th and i almost didn't go in. i hadn't showered yet that day, i had a ton of things around the house to get done, i had a lot of work to complete before the baby was born, we were going out to dinner a few hours later with friends, my to-do list was just incredibly long and the results were always the same and anyway, the perinatologist had already told my ob to induce me the week after so what was the point?
i remembered a conversation i had with someone a few weeks before when they asked me why i even bothered to go in for the tests. i said, "because what if something happened to the baby? i would never forgive myself if i would have been able to prevent it if i had just gone in for the tests." so i went.
i laid on the table listening to the "whomp whomp whomp" of coco's heartbeat and thinking about all the stuff i needed to get done. and then all the sudden the ultrsound tech stood up and said, "i'll be right back." she brought someone back with her who took over the ultrasound and said, "yeah, you're right." then they asked me to confirm what my amniotic fluid level was at my non-stress test the week before. i said, "it was 15," and then joked, "why is it lower now? are you going to call my doctor and tell her to come induce me?" and she said, "uh, yeah, that's exactly what we're going to do." my fluid had dropped to 1.5 in on week's time, which is basically nothing. they started asking me all kinds questions trying to ascertain if my water had broken.
i kind of freaked out a little as i heard them talking to my doctor on the phone telling her they were taking me into labor and delivery. i knew the baby was okay because i had just been watching her on the monitor, but the urgency of it all seemed so scary. PLUS I HADN'T SHOWERED. I HADN'T PACKED A BAG. MY KIDS WERE SPLIT BETWEEN TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. MY HAIR HADN'T BEEN WASHED IN THREE DAYS. I STILL NEEDED TO GET TONS OF WORK WRAPPED UP. I HADN'T KISSED MY KIDS GOODBYE. I HADN'T SHOWERED.
i told them i needed to go home and get my kids situated and pack a bag and take a shower and i'd be right back. they laughed at me and escorted me over to labor and delivery. i sent steve a frantic text.
as they were checking me in i begged the charge nurse to let me take a shower while they were setting up my iv. and that merciful angel winked at me, got me a towel, a bar of soap, a small bottle of baby shampoo, and told me to hurry up.
a few hours later and a failed epidural on my left side, caroline came into the world bright pink and wailing, with a tight knot in her cord. my water hadn't broken - the placenta had failed sometime within the week, and if i hadn't gone in for that test and waited for the induction date instead, it would have been "not good" (failed placenta + knot in the cord = "not good"). i was already pretty sure the situation was "not good" because while i was in labor i sat up at one point to adjust my gown and the nurse came running in. "lay back down!!!" she yelled. because there was no amniotic fluid, when i sat up i was basically smashing the baby, and her heart rate went from 140 to 90. i barely moved after that. i thought about how often i had been sitting in that position and uttered a number of silent prayers of thanks that she was okay.
i think it was my aunt ann who had a cross-stitch on her wall that said:
quiet down cobwebs dust go to sleep i'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep
that pretty much sums things up around here - it's crazy, there are a lot of dirty diapers, someone is always crying (sometimes including me or steve) - but this baby is getting a lot of attention because i know she won't keep! (that and the fact that if she's not eating or sleeping she's crying to be picked up).
we are all excited to have her...
and now for some of the top 10 funny and/or scary things that have happened since she was born:
1) miller went into the terrible two's the minute coco came home. my mom can attest to this because the day after i got home from the hospital and i sat on the couch to feed her, miller threw my shoes at my head. he still does this about once a day. 2) miller learned to climb the cabinets. 3) miller pulled a knife out of the knife block after climbing up the cabinets. 4) after i wrestled the knife out of his hand he went over to the top of the stairs and stood there "yelling" at me for taking away the knife. he then lost his footing and toppled down the stairs. 5) anna decided was big enough to pick up the baby despite the repeated reminders from me that she is not. coco didn't like it. 6) at 9:30 one night steve came out of the bedroom with bleary-eyes and bedhead while i was tending to the baby in the kitchen and said, "we are good parents for being up in the middle of the night taking care of our kids," and then looked up at the clock and exclaimed, "IT'S ONLY 9:30?!!!" 7) i agreed to help a friend with an mba class he was teaching one night after he assured me it was fine to bring the baby. i just had to listen to some presentations and score them. i thought it would be like 15 students. it was actually like 200, and coco had terrible gas the entire time and then a blowout on my chest in front of all of them. 8) on the way home from preschool one day, anna was telling me about how much she liked this girl in her class and then added matter-of-factly that this girl is "ugly." i told her that we don't say that about people and if we didn't have anything nice to say about how someone looked we should keep it to ourselves. she thought for a second and said just as matter-of-factly, "okay, well i like her. i just don't appreciate how her face was made." 9) i had christmas at my house for the first time ever. 10) we are a family of five.
just a random bunch of pictures from the last three months...
i have contemplated blogging about this or not, because i wasn't sure if it would embarrass my husband, but i need to have a record of it + it's pretty funny + it's pretty sweet too.
anna was getting recurring UTIs this spring, and one morning she came upstairs complaining about all the symptoms of yet another one. twice before she'd had to go get a big, goopy shots for this so she (and we) knew what was coming if she had to go to the doctor. steve had to take her in instead of me for a reason i can't remember (he would say by choice, but i actually believe i had an appointment or something) and he was NOT happy about it. he HATES seeing our kids in pain. HATES it.
i was expecting a red-faced, teary little girl clutching a new toy when they came home, but instead i got the happiest version of anna you can imagine. she bounded into the house and exclaimed, "MOM! IT'S JUST STREP THROAT!!!!" she was overjoyed. steve was beyond relieved. it was the happiest i'd seen those two in a long time. "let's go fill your prescription!!!!" he exclaimed.
a few weeks later i had a check-up and as i was waiting for the doctor one of the nurses walked in. we've been in there so much this year that we know all of them pretty well. they always ask how anna is because of the UTIs but this time she lead with a gravely concerned, "how's steve?"
"steve's fine..." i replied, confused. "why? did he come in for something?"
"no," she said, "it's just that when he was in here with anna he was really traumatized."
"HE was traumatized?" i asked.
"oh yeah. when i came into their room before we knew she didn't have a UTI he was holding her on his lap. she was crying and begging him to take her home and he had big crocodile tears running down his cheeks. he said to her, 'i'll be brave if you be brave. on the count of three, let's both stop crying! one-two-three!!!'"
"are you serious?" i asked.
"oh yeah," she said. "i got all teary myself just watching it."
when i got home i told steve, "honey. when you take your kids to get a shot you CANNOT CRY. they're already thinking this is the WORST thing in the world that has ever happened to them and then they see YOU crying and that pretty much confirms it."
he got teary reminiscing on the visit. "she was so hysterical, noelle. i couldn't help myself."
i think he has earned himself a pass from doctor's office visits for quite some time.
anna got to go to see mary poppins with her gammi and papa bates on opening day here in salt lake. she was so excited and loved getting dressed up. here they are on the way out the door.
miller got to ride the 4-wheeler with his daddy at the heber house a few days later and immediately became obsessed. we had to pull him off kicking and screaming.
a few weeks ago i was taking miller down for his nap and tripped on the last two stairs (i was wearing flip flops). i either broke a bone(s) on the top of my foot or tore ligaments. when i went in for my OB appt the next day the fact that i could barely walk was obvious so they checked my foot and put me in a walking boot (another benefit of seeing a doctor who does it all). they said that i needed to come back 5 or 6 days later if i still couldn't put my weight on it to have it x-rayed and casted. i pretended like i didn't hear them. there was no way i was putting a cast on my foot. now, about three weeks later, i can actually walk on the whole foot. it's still swollen and sore, but i don't have a cast, so...i win?
last weekend while icing and elevating my foot, steve was handing miller over to me over the back of the couch. he had just made miller a bottle and i was going to feed it to him, but during the pass off his phone rang and as he fumbled to grab he dropped the bottle straight down onto my eye socket, leaving me with a black eye.
then, on tuesday night while sitting on the front porch with our neighbors watching anna learn to ride a bike, my neighbor brittney started shaking her hair furiously. a wasp flew out and landed on my ring finger and immediately stung me above my knuckle. it killed so i put a little ointment on it and didn't worry too much about it until the next morning when it was so swollen i couldn't get my rings off. i could still slide them a little, but as the day progressed, my finger swelled so badly that all i could do was twist them. by last night, i was ready to go to the ER to have them cut off, but stopped by my neighbor's who is a physician to see what he'd say. he gave me a remedy consisting of a homemade finger cast of gauze and meat tenderizer, a specific taping/wrapping methodology at bedtime, and benadryl, but i woke up (well, i didn't really sleep so i'm not sure that's accurate), to a finger more swollen than before. i'm 7 months pregnant, limping, with a black eye (more yellowish now), and a ring finger that looks like it might need to be amputated. and today i am simultaneously sleep-deprived and have a benadryl hangover. i have never felt more attractive. i have also never been a better mother. i took the kids through the krispy kreme drive-thru at 7:00am this morning and let them eat donut holes in their car seats.
in other news, anna learned to ride a bike in a few tries and without any prodding from us, which surprised us all. best part was watching steve dancing around behind her those first few tries, making sure she didn't fall.
i dropped off my sister's brother-in-law, angus, at the mtc today. he is british and is going to portugal on his mission, but he had to come here for his training. he was TIRED when he arrived late last night, and he only had less than two weeks to prepare to leave, but he almost always had a smile on his face during the time he was with us. i got teary dropping him off. i thought of his mom, and all the moms who send their sons off for two years to serve missions, and then i thought of miller and my heart broke right in two. i imagined him walking away from me into the vastness of the MTC and not being able to see him for two years and thought about how even though you know they're in good hands, how does it not kill you right on the spot?
and then i thought about women who sent their sons off to fight in WWII and vietnam and there was mascara all over my face before i even got out of the parking lot. that's just not even possible to comprehend. luckily anna was in the backseat and said to me, "if you make me eat spicy ham for lunch i will throw a fit right on the spot," so i snapped back to reality very quickly.
today on the way home from the heber house, anna asked me if i had ever seen a dead animal. "yes," i replied, and she wanted to know what kind. i hesitated for a second - do you talk to 4-year-olds about dead animals or not? - before i told her i'd seen a cat, a dog, and a horse. she was really interested in the horse and wanted to know the story (ironically stumbled upon in the field behind the heber house when i was about 12 or 13). she then said, "tell me that story again," to which i replied, "how about we talk about something happier?" she thought about it for a minute and said, "well i'm fascinated by the horse, but tell me a story about you, aunt jen, and aunt amber when you were all little." thus began the happy stories.
i first told her how when we were small, about her age, our parents would take us to the beach in san clemente for vacation (even though san clemente was only an hour away and we only lived 5 minutes from the beach), and how we'd play all day in the sand and the waves, how our dad would give us a couple of dollars each day and we'd spend it all on candy, and how we'd all get into the shower together at night to wash the sand off and help slough peeling skin off of each other.
she asked for another one. "that story made me so happy," she said, and i caught a glimpse of her beaming in the backseat.
so i told her about how we'd go to grandpa miller's house at the river, and our mom would put coppertone sunscreen on us each morning, and we'd spend all day running off the dock and jumping into the water. sometimes we'd jump off holding hands. we'd take boat rides every night at dusk, and we got to sleep in sleeping bags.
"that's a pretty good one. and i have a grandpa who takes me to his river too!!!" she exclaimed. she asked for another one.
i told her how every winter we'd go to aspen with the whole family to go skiing, and how me and jen and amber would go to ski school all day and how much we loved our teachers, and then when we got back to the condo we'd run and put our bathing suits on to go swimming, and how we'd jump in the snow and then jump into the jacuzzi and how warm it felt. we'd watch fraggle rock with grandma miller, and she would make us breakfast every morning before ski school and we always had grapefruits with sugar on them.
"these are such happy stories, mommy. i love them," she said. i asked her to tell me a happy story from when she was little, and this is what she told me:
"well one time, i was at the heber house and i had to wait in line and then papa ruben put me on the tractor and i drove it all over! can you believe it!?" she exclaimed.
i laughed because this just happened a few days ago, but it really got me thinking about all the things my mom and grandparents did for us when we were little to give us happy memories. i was reminded that although my job as a parent is to teach her right from wrong and how to be responsible and considerate of others, i want to create those kinds of memories for her and her siblings. i always want her to know how much she was loved, and for her to be able to look back on her childhood and say, "these are such happy stories."
on another note, i know i'm his mom and everything, but dang it if this kid isn't the cutest thing on the planet.
this little guy melts my heart Every Single Day. i love how happy he is, how he has a smile for everyone, how obsessed he is with every ball he sees and with anything that looks remotely like a ball (the produce aisle turns him into a maniac), how his little body looks like a miniature silver back gorilla's, how he walks with his barrel chest out, his power booty back, with his arms straight down pointing behind him all the while with a grin on his face, how his coppery blond hair curls in the back, how he thinks his sister is the bees knees, how he flashes you his most charming and coy smile when he knows he's being naughty, and how he spontaneously runs over to me to give me a hug and a snuggle, turning me to mush every time.
he's so much fun. he's such a light and a blessing (someone in my ward was holding him one time during sunday school and said, "he has a calming soul," and i've always thought that was the perfect description of what kind of baby he has been). we are so lucky to have this little boy in our family.
today anna had a dilemma. go to the neighbor's birthday party or go see winnie the pooh with her cousins? i asked her which she'd rather do and she started to cry. i told her to calm down, think about it - she didn't have to make a decision right then (and then i promptly turned around and rolled my eyes).
a few minutes ago she came up to me, lip quivering, eyes welling with tears and said, "i really want to go to the movies, but could we compromise? can we take a gift to aidan on the way? because he won't know i know it is his birthday, and i would feel so sorry about that."
then my lip quivered a little. i love the little lessons my kids teach me every single day, and while she may be sensitive, it's so comforting to know that with all that sensitivity comes a sensitivity to others.
