Grandma Peggy and Papa Paul joined us last weekend! Then, my brother and his family and my mother and father came up on Sunday for Caroline’s blessing in church. None of these picture are very great (and I’m sad I didn’t get any pictures of my brother or his wife or Grandpa S with Caroline either!) but we were too busy enjoying each others’ company and holding that cute baby to take pictures, I suppose.
Paul was very excited to host a “party” for our Friday Fun Night with Grandma and Papa. It was full of made-up games that he enjoyed inventing for us. Here is one of them.
Blessing Day Pictures
This picture is very out of focus but I love Paul’s ear to ear smile, so I had to include it!
(I promise, we will get real family pictures in the next few months.)
Paul saw me warming the bottle and asked, “But how are you going to get that back in to you to feed her?” So I had to let him give her her first bottle.
Reading bedtime stories with Grandma Peggy and Papa Paul.
Caroline didn’t cry when she was born. She went from swimming in amniotic fluid to completely born in twenty minutes, apparently gulping lots of fluid in the process.
They gave her to me immediately. My only thought was that she was pink and looked well. But she didn’t cry. Paul didn’t cry either, but this was a bit different. Something seemed odd.
After just a few moments, the nurses took her back from me. They wanted her to cry, so they gave her a shot she needed, gave her a bath, and proceeded to give her a vigorous rubdown. She had her eyes wide open, but she did not make a sound. I was stuck on the delivery table getting stitched up and I couldn’t see her, but Ryan stood by her. I remember starting to get a bit concerned after about ten minutes or so of this.
Shortly, Ryan and the nurses left with her “for a little while” to take her to the special care nursery where she could get further attention.
I can’t recall thinking much other than “a little while” isn’t very long.
I was still running on adrenaline. When I was discharged from Labor and Delivery we went straight to the special care nursery. Because she was born so quickly, Caroline had developed TTN (Transient Tachynea of the Newborn) which meant that she had liquid in her lungs and as a result was breathing quick shallow breaths.
Because I’d been up more than 24 hours at this point (well, except for the brief, contraction-filled two hours I’d had at home), I was incredibly the first day. The three days Caroline spent in the Special Care Nursery were rather draining on me; I like to know what is happening and I felt pretty out of control for my little girl’s sake. Anyway, let’s not dwell on those days. You’ll notice I didn’t take many pictures. The nurses were great and Caroline is fine: there are no long-term issues from TTN.
Caroline came home on her third morning.
Paul came with Grandma and Grandpa (where he stayed Friday night to Saturday) and he was so excited to finally meet her. He’d seen her through the nursery window. “That’s my sister!” he said with pride. When she and he were finally together, he was so excited to read her a story.
Paul is a great big brother. He’s feeling the stress of new rules and less attention, but overall, he seems quite pleased to be a big brother now!
This post is evidence that I must update my blog more often! But since I’m now 2.5 weeks away from my due date (!!) I really just feel this urge to get up to date…so I can hopefully soon move on to newborn pictures.
Our family Christmas present this year was a new patio door for our kitchen. We ordered it the first week of November. After more than a few hiccups, it was finally installed the last week or so of January! Here it is!
It does not stick when we try to open it! It’s not rotten on the outside! It doesn’t leak when it rains! It’s a sliding door instead of a swing open door, so there is more room in the kitchen! In general, I think we’ll like it very much. Ryan applied primer to the trim: we still need to paint the trim and figure out curtains at some point before the Western setting sun gets too irritating come this summer.
And then it was my birthday. Birthdays are very much NOT a big deal for me. My friends treated me to a baby shower a few days before, and it was so fun to get excited for a newborn baby GIRL!
Here are some pictures of Paul making a birthday cake for me with his grandma!
And then we ordered a rocking/recliner chair for the baby’s room. We got it the week after my birthday (after a bit of an issue: why did we have so many issues with delivery people in January?!).
And then we come to the fact that I’m now 37.5 weeks pregnant. The count down is on! As of two weekends ago, we had a disaster area in the room formerly known as my “office.” I was in tears bawling because I was less than a month from having a baby but WE DIDN’T HAVE A NURSERY READY! Ryan talked me down off the edge of break down and we got busy painting. I did the walls; Ryan did the trim. I think it turned out very nice! We intended to have a grayish blue, but it turned out far more blue than we anticipated. With the dark brown and light pink accents we’re anticipating for the curtains (Ryan says he has an idea what we should do; good, because I am not a curtain person), it should look just right for our baby girl.
Now that the nursery is set up and I’ve officially reached “full term,” I personally am feeling rather emotional. I am incredibly excited to meet my girl. And I am so bored with being pregnant: feeling miserable, feeling exhausted and in pain, waddling when I try to walk, grimacing when I stand up, having to pee every 60 minutes, and waking up to pain as I try to move in the bed at night. Not to mention not sleeping well at night overall.
That said, I feel panic whenever I realize that I could give birth tonight or tomorrow. I dread spending time in the hospital. I dread the pain of childbirth, while at the same time I dread the fact that I may end up with medication like an epidural or a Cesarean against my wishes. I panic at the thought of having a newborn to bring home this weekend. I dread the lack of privacy in my own home. (Don’t get me wrong: while I”m glad to be near close friends and family and I’m excited to share my baby, I’m still a bit in a panic about how life will go on with visitors. I am a private person!). Paul will lose the one-on-one time we’ve been enjoying so much lately. I’ll be so exhausted from never sleeping. I’ll have 10 or more diapers to change a day. I’ll have a human being depending on my body to provide nourishment every hour or two (for an hour!). I’ll have two children to get ready to go out to whatever we have to go to — even the drop off for preschool is going to be quite the bother, since I’ll have to take Caroline in with me each time! I can’t handle another child yet! I should be so happy to have the time to clean my house right now.
Except I can’t bring myself to do the basics: clean my house (it needs it!), go to the gym to exercise (my last chance!), cook a fantastic creative dinner (I have time!).
So I’m torn between feeling exhausted and bored and overwhelmed and guilty and excited and delighted and just plain tired.
Photo at 37.5 weeks.
Incidentally, I’ve been collecting a few things others should NOT say to a nine-months pregnant woman. Any others you can think of that really got on your nerves?
“I see your third nipple!” (This from the nurse, referring to my belly button poking through my shirt. Great. Thanks. Can I kill you now?)
“You look far too happy to be about to have a baby!” (Oh, how I hate you for saying that! I feel so miserable I can’t even begin to express it. Maybe in public I really try to not be a whiner? Ever thought of that?)
“My, that went fast!” (I’m quite tired of hearing this too. No, it didn’t. It’s been 37 weeks. And I’m tired of it.)
“Oh, I didn’t know you were pregnant!” (I can’t blame people on this one if they haven’t seen me in a while. But REALLY? A bit annoying to hear since I obviously have a baby in my stomach at this point.)
“You’re about to pop!” (I’m not a balloon. And while I wish it were true that the end was near, it really could be 2.5 more weeks! Which seems like an eternity at this point.)
“I was 10 days overdue with my third…” (Not what I want to think about.)
Something I love to hear:
“You look fantastic!” (No other comment necessary from giver of this comment. I don’t feel fantastic, but I’d love to pretend I look it!)
One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to update this page with family pictures in the same month in which the activities took place, starting with Christmas 2011. I especially want to be better since I posted 50+ pictures a month of newborn Paul and I want Caroline to feel she’s just as special a newborn.
I intended to post these pictures the last week of December. And yet, here I am well in to the new year, waiting for Paul to go to preschool to do so.
At any rate, Christmas was wonderful this year. I baked cookies and fudge to enjoy for a month and to give away to neighbors. Paul was incredibly excited to countdown until Christmas and he enjoyed the activities we did.
Before Christmas, I was able to attend Paul’s preschool holiday party. I haven’t attended any of his parties before so it was fun to be there to help and take pictures, etc. This was a rather chaotic party; I wonder if preschool is always like this? At any rate, they had some carnival games, a few craft projects, and then a gym floor covered in bath sponges that were called “snowballs.” They were encouraged to have a snowball fight. Put 20 kids aged 3 and 4 in a room and tell them to have a snowball fight? Um… Paul reacted much as I would have. He threw a “snowball,” then watched people for a while. Then threw another. It was a bit intense.
Here are some of the best pictures of my little guy. The full album of the preschool is on flickr with a guest pass.
Reindeer bowling
He's proud he knocked some bowling pins down.
We are low-key about presents (I do not want to raise a spoiled or greedy child who says “I want that!” for every toy he sees). I gave him a (plastic) kids microscope, books (which is what he asked for), and an inflatable globe, among some other smaller things. Grandpa Sorenson gave us a book of silly stories that he wrote and Grandma gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine puzzle. Grandma Peggy sent Trio blocks, which along with our Legos, have given me lots of time as Paul slips downstairs to create yet something else. (YES!)
We enjoyed the true spirit of Christmas. At the beginning of the month, he loved selecting some clothes for a “poor boy” from the library’s giving tree and talked for days about the boy who was too poor to get his own clothes. (He was particularly excited because the boy was FOUR just like he is so he knew just what the boy would like.) He loved selecting gifts for his cousins (we do a family gift rotation among my siblings). He loved the excitement of wrapped presents and waiting for them. I don’t think he was tempted to open them, he just loved shaking them and counting them and wondering. He was fascinated by the mystery of magical Santa (although *cough* the reindeer forgot to eat the reindeer food that Paul left on the front step. How’d I know he’d check that FIRST?! even before looking under the tree?).
And most importantly, Christmas was, for our family, about the true meaning of the season, the birth of our Savior. I love having Christmas on Sunday, because then church reinforced the real meaning of the season. I wish we had services every Christmas morning, but of course, that’s not how it works.
The not-so-materialistic goals we have worked well this year: we got to church at 10:30 and someone asked him what he got for Christmas.
“Ugh….I forgot.” he responded. (But he did remember to say that the reindeer forgot to eat the reindeer food he left for them…). So, at any rate, I know Christmas for Paul was not about the presents. Mission accomplished!
We also got to spend the afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa and Paul’s Sorenson cousins. It was lots of fun to watch the kids playing, and it was great to gather with family on a special day.
When Grandma passed away, my mom gave each of her children a special something from Grandma. My item was a book published in 1852, the fourth edition of Young Ladies’ Oasis. This book is a collection of poetry, essays, and stories “appropriate” for young ladies.
Today, I wanted to browse through it, and what did I find but what I’ve been looking for all my life: A lucky 4-leaf clover.
Years ago, Mom told me a story. When she was a young girl, her Aunt Florence was sitting in their backyard when she said, “oh, I’ve found a four-leaf clover!” She was sitting in a patch of them. I have been looking for my own four-leaf clover since I first heard that story.
Apparently, Gram (Josie Lecta Dedman Wilson) took one of the clovers home and pressed it in this book of hers, which we assume she received from her mother (Dora May Allison Dedman).
I love how the clover has left a mark on the page. A shadow of that lucky day.
The clover is pressed between pages 192 and 193, in the midst of an essay called “Pretty Women.” It ponders pretty women throughout “history” (Rachel in the Bible, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra) and wonders why women today (1850s) aren’t using their good looks to their best advantage.
Every lady is at liberty to bring out her own ” good points” as she thinks best, and it is easy to do so, as well as to conceal her weak ones, without departing from the fashions that prevail.
One of the two of these ancestors of mine (probably not my grandma, Helen Wilson Benac, given the ageing), also left a few other treasures.
This looks to me to have been embroidered with hair. But maybe I’m just wishing. It’s probably thread. I’ve always thought the embroidered-with-hair thing to be very cool, but my husband says that it is disgusting. Are you in the disgusting camp or the cool camp?
And then, someone enjoyed an autumn afternoon while reading Young Ladies’ Oasis. I love the dark spots on this leaf. I haven’t read this essay yet.
Young Ladies’ Oasis is, of course, available online by now. Are you going to read it? I am. Not in the fourth edition, though. I’m going to read the ebook. The ten minutes I spent with it today have done far more damage to this family heirloom than I’d like to admit.
On the Monday morning when Grandma Peggy and Papa Paul were here (Memorial Day), we went to Wisconsin! We were going to go somewhere closer to home, but it was pouring rain so we drove an hour and spent some time at Lake Geneva. It was not raining in Wisconsin. I liked the playground we played at!
I also had fun walking down the board walk with Grandma, Papa, Mommy, and Daddy.
It was really sunny, so I didn't want to open my eyes!
We are a happy family!
I love Daddy!
I'm glad Grandma can keep track of Billy by holding on to his leash!
On our way home from Lake Geneva, we went to the Train Museum! I had asked about it all day. “Train Museum now?” I kept saying. I was glad when we finally went there.
I got to ride on a train!
Even better, I got to ride on Grandma Peggy's lap while we rode on the train!
I had so much fun with Grandma Peggy and Papa Paul!
ETA Dec 2011: Post has been post-dated to reflect date pictures were taken. Originally posted July 2010.
Grandma Peggy and Papa Paul came to stay with me! I had so much fun with them that I still keep talking about them!
We spent a lot time in the car the first night. But that’s because we went to Chicago. We walked down the street to go to dinner together. Grandma Peggy gave me a puppy that we called Billy. I wore Billy on my back and Grandma held on to his leash so Billy wouldn’t get lost while we walked around. there were so many things to look at, I forgot to look at where I was going! But I knew Grandma was right there with me.
I was pretty tired after dinner. I got to sleep in a big soft cozy bed all by myself!
Mommy says she wants me to put in this picture of Navy Pier. She says she took it when she and Grandma and Daddy went for a walk. I didn't see it because I stayed at the hotel and slept in that nice big bed! (Grandpa stayed with me.)
The next morning, I woke up and I was still in the nice big cozy bed! I hadn’t fallen out!
It was a special day because then we went to ride on a boat! I was very excited to see the boat. The walk to get to the boat seemed to take forever and I wanted to be carried. Mommy says it was four blocks. Is that a lot?
We got on the boat and it was exciting!
Then I was ready to get off. Mommy laughed and said that it had only been five minutes and it was a 90 minute tour. That sounded like a very long time!
I played with my sunglasses.
I looked at the water.
I sat on Mommy's and Daddy's and Grandma Peggy's and Papa Paul's laps.
Mommy and Daddy and Grandma Peggy took pictures of buildings. Some person was talking about the buildings. I was bored, for the most part. But then we got off the boat and went and ate food! And then we went in a car again. We drove to a Museum called the Museum of Science and Industry.
I had fun seeing a big tractor
and I loved the cow. Cows say "Moo!"
I also saw a huge train and a huge airplane. I got to go in both of them. Mommy didn’t take pictures, though. Silly Mommy!
I also saw a fun toy train set. I watched it for a long time.
Then we went home. That was the end of our day in Chicago. I slept well that night, even if I wasn’t in that huge bed anymore.
ETA (Dec 2011): Post has been post-dated to reflect date pictures were taken. Originally posted July 2010.
With the approach of Memorial Day this spring, my daughter told her young children about the parade that always marks the beginning of summer. She bought some small American flags for them to wave and a bottle of bubbles to blow as bands marched by. And then she got online to find the parade route in the town where her family had recently bought their first home. After a fruitless search and then a phone call, the truth was undeniable.
There was no Memorial Day Parade–not in that town or in any town for miles around.
And then she understood the strange silence emanating from the elementary school nearby. There were no school children marching down the street blowing their horns, because there was no parade to practice for. How would her children ever decide what instruments to play if they could not sit on the front lawn and watch the mini-parade that was always a part of May afternoons in our Naperville neighborhood?
That was when we realized that the Naperville Municipal Band is not just about band concerts. Our band is the catalyst for much of what we love best about Naperville. It creates parades and parks; picnics and practices; competitions and community. If we were forced to re-live our lives in Naperville without its band, what horrors might we encounter? No Memorial Day Parade, no weekly concert, no band shell, no Central Park. Perhaps a tall condo where we now sit in the grass? Maybe schools without their prize-winning music programs? Sidewalks without people converging towards the center of town? And how many homes without their private ensembles?
The Naperville Municipal Band means that we don’t have to leave Naperville to show the best that the Midwest has to offer to guests from out of the area. The spirit of Central Park, where we nod and greet friends and strangers alike, spreads throughout our city. We have the finest of friendship, festivities, and culture right here.
For my family, the band continues to bless four generations. My mother comes to visit us in the middle of each summer so that she can attend the Fourth of July concert and see the veterans standing and remember when my father was among them. The band inspires family members to dust off their neglected instruments in case maybe –just maybe — the band needs them someday. It means that my son’s family has returned to live in the neighborhood where he grew up, and my grandchildren now walk to concerts with me and talk about what instruments they will play. And it means that next year, I think my daughter will bring her family to visit — probably Memorial Day weekend.
This picture is very out of focus but I love Paul’s ear to ear smile, so I had to include it!
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