7 QT - New Baby!

Joining Jen at Conversion Diary for a day late 7QT.  And no pictures today because the computer I'm using doesn't want pictures, which is too bad, because I have lovely new baby photos, but... technology. ***Update:  Well, at least I could change the header!

1.

Felix Anthony was born Saturday, June 21, at 5:01 p.m.  During daylight hours!  He's our only baby to not be born when it was dark out.  He's just gorgeous, sweet, snuggly, happy, and wonderful.  We all agree on this.   

 

2. 

His head was transverse, so he took some sweet time coming out.  I went in at 5 a.m. at 6 cm and by 4 p.m. was...7.5 cm.  But my midwife was spectacular, Michael was a hero, and my support team was so helpful, so it wasn't as bad as all that.  And the tub!  I got to labor in the tub for some of it, which is just about the only place I want to be in labor.

 

3.

We didn't find out boy or girl before the birth, so the midwife said to Michael,  "Dad, do you want to call it?" The look on Michael's face when he said, "It's a boy!" with such surprise and delight is something I hope I never forget.  I guess we were both expecting this baby to be a girl, but he is most definitely a boy.

 

4.

Picture a sweet newborn baby boy... on a scale that reads 10 lb., 1 oz,  He's 21 inches long.  He is a big ol' boy!  And a big head, too:  14.5 inches in circumference.  Nobody was expecting him to be quite that large, least of all me.  Of course, as the people in the room were taking bets before he was weighed, my guess was 30 lb. (he was tough to get out), but I wasn't really expecting 10 lb.

 

5.

The next morning (Sunday) I went into septic shock, complete with high fever, crashing blood pressure, and all manner of medical procedures.  I was rushed to the ICU for care.  I got out of the ICU Thursday night and am on a medical floor of the hospital, still working on recovery and control of the infection that hit me.  Nobody is quite sure why this happened, because I had NO risk factors for this condition.  Felix went home with Michael on Tuesday, having been monitored for sepsis and found to be healthy, and having gotten his weight back up to 10 lb again (he has his priorities straight).  This is all about as fun as it sounds, and I certainly didn't expect to be spending his 1 week day at the hospital without him.

 

This is also why there aren't pictures -- I'm not on my usual machine and I can't make this one bend to my will. 

 

6.

Thank God for modern medicine and excellent health care workers.  And our parish priest who came to anoint me and brought the Eucharist.  And blanket warmers -- I think I might be addicted to warm blankets now. 

 

7.

We named him Felix because we really like the name, it means "happy" or "happiness," and there are  some really cool Sts. Felix in Church history.  We named him Anthony after St. Anthony of Padua, to whom we have a devotion.  When the kids came to see him right after the birth, Hannah asked me what his name meant.  "Happy," I said.  But she wanted to know what Anthony meant, too.  I didn't know, because we were thinking of the saint when we chose that name.  She went home and looked it up and told me yesterday when they visited.  Anthony means "beyond measure."

 

We named our baby Happiness Beyond Measure. 

 

I try to remember that as I work on my recovery. 

 

And I would like to ask for your prayers for my full and swift recovery.  I can't wait to get back to my family.



7 Quick Takes on cooking, Michael the duck whisperer, and old photos

And for more quick takes, visit Kathryn at Team Whitaker.

1.

I recently realized that this equation:  Hannah’s proficiency in the kitchen + newborn coming = excellent opportunity to have Hannah make some meals.  This post by another mom with older kids and a young baby inspired me, and I suggested to Hannah that she might enjoy planning and making a dinner.  She was enthusiastic, so Hannah made dinner for us Thursday night.  Seared cod with gazpacho salsa and tomato vinaigrette.  It was delicious!  And she also made dessert, because why would one have an opportunity to make dessert and not do it?  She made white chocolate pudding with blackberry curd.  The pudding didn’t gel as she expected, so she ended up freezing it.  It was also tasty.

2.

#1 gave us learning opportunities.  Hannah was really disappointed when she discovered the pudding hadn’t gelled.  Really disappointed.  Then she was irritated with me because I didn’t know of any helps for non-gelled pudding.  (I don’t think I’ve made pudding from scratch, ever.)  It took a little while for her to realize that her irritation with me was actually disappointment about the pudding, and being disappointed about the pudding was something I was glad to work with, whereas having her irritatedly yell at me was not.  But we got there, even fairly calmly, and she’s now vowed to MAKE PUDDING UNTIL SHE CAN DO IT WELL.  But next time it’s going to be regular chocolate, because white chocolate isn’t as good as she’d expected.  I have no objections.

3.

 We like your husband.  Not you.

Michael, because he is a generous and loving soul, offered to close up the duck house Thursday night when the time came.  Did I mention he’s generous and loving?  I told him I’d help if they weren’t in yet, but they’ve been very good about going in at dusk.  He went out and came back in a few minutes later.  “They weren’t in their house.”  Oh.  So then I started to get up to help him herd them in.  “But I just herded them in.”  Um, what?  Whenever I go out there and try to herd them into their house, they act like I’m trying to herd them into the lion’s jaws.  Yep.  The ducks love Michael and don’t like me. 

4.

I’ve been working on some old photo projects, because it’s obvious that these projects are what are keeping the baby from being born.  What baby can be born into a house in which there are outstanding photo projects?!  Seriously.  So…I’ve been looking at lots of old photos.  Like this one:

Hannah’s First Communion, while I was pregnant with Tess. 

5.

One of the outstanding projects is photo compilations from Tess’s first three years.  So I’ve been seeing lots of baby Tess:

Totally cute.  And she had no hair. 

Which makes her hair situation now look like she’s got a ton. 

6.

We have a rule at the table:  no shooting people.  The shooting is, of course, pretend, but I don’t want to say, “No pretend shooting people,” because I don’t want anyone really shooting people at the table, either.  I’ll give you one guess which child was the one who made us come up with this rule.  It’s one I have to repeat a surprising number of times.

7.

One benefit of being past the due date with this baby is that we don’t actually have anything planned.  So when friends called Friday morning and asked if we wanted to have dinner with them that evening, we could say yes.  That turned out to be a lot of fun.  We hadn’t seen them in a while, and it was great to catch up.  Our kids all had fun playing together and we were tricked into staying fairly late by the long hours of daylight.  A good way to start the summer.

…But I’m still ready to have the baby.  :)

{p,h,f,r} Flowers, play, ducks, naps

I’d been hoping that this could be a newborn edition of {pretty, happy, funny, real}, but it is not to be…this week.  Maybe next?  At any rate, I’m linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter, and they’re also on baby watch. 

{pretty}

The garden is starting to go a bit crazy!  Yay!  Calendula flowers are blooming.  The snap peas (on the left in this photo) are producing lots of peas these days.

Borage is also blooming.  The bees love the borage flowers.  The ducks love the leaves.  

Future tomatoes.

Future squash.

{happy}

I love it when my kids play happily together.  The best way for this to happen is for them to come up with the game, of course, because then it can go on and on without interference or input from me.

Yesterday, Naomi played chef to Sim and Tess, who sat at their tables and put in their orders for various meals.  Tess’s order pretty much consisted of ice cream for whatever meal Naomi served.

It was too bad that I did have to eventually put an end to the game so I could serve actual lunch.  Which wasn’t ice cream. 

Tess likes playing with the Bananagrams letters, and she even recognizes certain letters already.  When Hannah told me that Sim had spelled out “Tess” with the Bananagrams, I thought she meant the actual letters.  He got creative, though, and made a lovely mosaic “Tess.”  Tess herself loved it.

{funny}

Really, the ducks are too funny.  They like to all lie down together when they rest.  Here two are lying down in the water bin, two outside the water bin.  How do they decide who gets the privileged water spots?

I mean, really, look how funny.  Can you stand the tilted head look?  Yesterday I saw them chasing flies, which entertained quite a bit, because from the house one couldn’t actually see the flies, just the crazy ducks making short dashes here and there.  Hopefully they got some of them.

When I got up from my nap at Quiet Time yesterday, Hannah said, “Tess is asleep on the couch next to Sim.”  I was surprised, since she gave up her naps nearly a year ago, and only occasionally falls asleep in the car.

But sure enough, there she was.  Sim didn’t mind hanging out and reading Garfield while she finished up her nap.

{real}

But, of course, I found myself worrying about whether she’s getting sick, because…tiny girl doesn’t nap.  So we’ll see.  Maybe she just needed to catch up.  I hope so.

5 Favorites – unrelated to pregnancy or labor

Joining Heather this week for 5 Favorites!  Some of these are merely odes to things that everyone already knows about, but I’m recognizing because of their helpfulness to me right now. 

1.  Water shoes for summer shoes for kids

My kids do a ton of outdoor stuff in the summer, which is great.  For the past few years, I’ve been getting them Keen sandals, justifying the expense because they wear them every single day and they’re good for water adventures, hiking, etc.  This year, I took some advice from Katy and decided to try out water shoes.  The ones I got (Speedo brand) are really flexible, fit well, stay on, and have great treads for things like hiking and climbing playground equipment.  More importantly, all the kids really like them.  And they’re water shoes, of course, so they’re…good in water.  They dry very quickly.  PLUS!  They’re about half the cost of Keens, which makes a difference when you’re buying quite a few pairs.

2.  Sanuk Yoga Sling sandals for me

I like my shoes to have flexible soles.  But I also walk a lot on pavement, so I need something cushy or my feet start to hurt.  There are barefoot shoes that have a ton of flexibility, but if I wear them on a walk I can’t go far because of their lack of cushioning.  These sandals, however, are awesome.  It took a little getting used to the fabric between my first and second toe, because I’m not a flip-flop wearer usually, but once I got used to that, these have been my FAVORITES!  The bottoms are made of yoga mats, so they’re very flexible and very cushy and I can walk for a long time without wearing out my feet, even on pavement.  Also, they’re not ridiculously expensive.

3.  Caller ID

Can I get an AMEN?  I’m not sure why Natl Gun Rights feels the need to call me three or four times per day right now, but the ability to just ignore their phone calls – or press talk and then press off right away – is an absolute dream. 

4.  Play Dough

This stuff is saving my bacon right now, because any time Tess is bored, I can suggest she play with play dough, and she goes to town.  This works really well, since there are some things that happen in our day that don’t need to have a two-year-old “helping.”  ALSO, when I’m reading History to the kids (did I mention that I’m a mean mom whose kids are STILL doing school?), they all like to have play dough to play with while I read, and having their hands occupied helps them to pay attention to what I’m reading.

5.  Crock Pot

I’m sure I’m not introducing anyone to anything new with this one, but it is one of my favorite things.  This isn’t my exact model, but it’s similar.  And I love this thing.  I don’t make as many meals with it in the summer as I do in the winter, but right now it is making beef stock.  Well, actually, I have two crock pots, one that’s a smaller model.  And right now they’re both making beef stock.  This is fantastic, because the stock is supposed to cook for something like 2 days, and I don’t really relish the idea of having my stovetop on over night…for some reason.  Oh!  and we made the black beans from Smitten Kitchen’s cookbook as a side dish for the smoked ribs Michael made the other day.

Things to do on one’s due date instead of being in labor

Yesterday was it for me.  And let me just be clear:  these activities are not guaranteed to make you go into labor.  They didn’t put me into labor.  In no particular order:

*Take a shower

*Take care of your ducks

*Admire your ducks

*Homeschool (meanest mom! mid-June and we’re still doing school!)

*Take kids to PE class

*Pick kids up from PE class, including getting them through the shower

*Mow lawn

*No, really.

*Make meals for your family

*Field phone calls.  Nope, not in labor.  Even the solicitors call more.

*Work on more stuff for next year’s history course

*Think about how to revamp organization for next year’s school

*Take a nap

*Read

*Check email

*Laundry.  And, yes, more laundry.

*Wonder if the bunnies got fed today.  Give them a little extra food and get attacked by one of them as a thank-you.

*Read to kids.  Put them to bed.

Things that one’s husband may not want one to do on one’s due date:  go picking strawberries.  I suppose I see his point:  it’s an hour away and squatting to pick strawberries would be a GREAT way to encourage the start of labor.  Which is one reason I thought I’d like to go, of course.  Driving for an hour in labor, though, is pretty much a terrible idea, and Michael didn’t want to take the day off work to go strawberry picking.  Hm.

Ducks in the beds

Not indoors – the garden beds.  It’s really only the bed where I planted the English peas.  The ducks LOVE eating the pea plants, so they’re big fans of this bed in particular.  They’re big enough now that they can get into the bed and eat from there. 

They’re not partial to many of the other plants, though, so I’m not too worried.  And they look hilarious in the bed. 

They also love to eat the slugs I find (they will actually approach if I crouch down and hold out a lettuce leaf holding the slugs – they’re so good the ducks are willing to brave the scariest woman on the planet to get them), and I’m sure they search out and find them on their own, so they’re doing that job.  And their entertainment value is extremely high, too.  Can’t argue with that. 

My tomato connestoga still looks…lovely…there in the background. 

After a trip to the library

Answer me this

Linking up with Kendra for questions today!

1. What’s something you intended to do today, but didn't?

 Michael did finish trimming the hedge last night!

Well, the day’s not over, but I would like to have a baby today.  It’s not looking too likely.  It would be so appropriate for Father’s Day, though, don’t you think?  I guess that’s not really something I intended to do, because I’ve learned (by #5! quick learner!) that I don’t really get to choose.  But since the due date is tomorrow, I’ve been keeping my lists of intended things to a bare minimum.  I have a list of things to do, but today is Sunday, so that list will wait until tomorrow.   

2. What's your favorite grilling recipe?

This is ridiculously hard to answer, because I really like grilled things.  Maybe salmon on a wood plank with maple syrup drizzled on top.  MMM.

 
3. What movie did you see most recently?

In the theaters?  We haven’t been recently.  At home?  Boy, I can’t remember.  Michael and I mostly watch TV series off Netflix these days.  I listened to The King and I as the kids watched it the other day, but I didn’t stop and watch because I had a list of things to do.

4. Would you say your tendency is to over or under react to medical situations?

Internally I tend to first assume the worst, then try to talk myself down.  Externally I try to stay calm, because if I’m freaking out, so is everyone else.  Except Michael, whose reaction to medical issues is:  Walk it off!  Too much soccer as a kid, I think. 

 Michael and Sim making pork tenderloin medallions together.

5. Do you squeeze the toothpaste tube or roll it?

Squeeze.  Except that one dentist gave us a device that actually rolls the tube for you, so when Michael puts that on the tube we’re using, I roll.

6. What are you doing for Father's Day?

Michael is going to make dinner because he wants to use the smoker again…I’m fine with that.  :)  We went to a later Mass so we had a leisurely morning, got doughnuts, and after lunch will have a nap.  In the pictures in the garden, Michael is picking strawberries in the rain – well, drizzle – in his church clothes.  If it stops raining, we’ll take a walk or hike.  Maybe labor?  Maybe?  Michael would love not to go to work tomorrow.  :)

 

Happy Father’s Day to My Love!  You’re the best!

7 Quick Takes: Ducks, illness, jam, baby prep

Linking up at Kathryn’s today because Jen is taking a break. 

1.  Today is the ducks’ first day of rain since they’ve moved outside.  They seem to be enjoying it.

I’m glad I don’t have to worry about them overheating today; I’m hoping their skills improve, but for now they don’t always have the sense to find the shade when it’s hot out, and we have to herd them to a cooler spot.  You’d think they’d realize that sitting in the sun panting isn’t the best idea, but they’re not terribly smart.  The kids take offense when I say that about the ducks.  It’s not that I don’t like the ducks – I love having them! – but it is true that they aren’t so bright.

Photo of ducks running in fear because I’m taking photos of them from the front porch…Yeah.

2.  Kids down for the count:  2.  Naomi is running a fever this morning, Simeon has curled up on the couch with a blanket – so far no fever for him. 

Neither has a sore throat. Hannah is feeling much better.  Maybe having the baby on or after the due date (Monday) would be a good plan, giving everyone a chance to get better.  Ha!  Like I can choose!

3.  Hannah’s feeling SO MUCH better that she made biscuits for breakfast and then brought breakfast in bed (or on the couch) to both Naomi and Simeon. 

4.  Breakfast came with blueberry jam for the biscuits. 

Tess is modeling it in the picture above.  Blueberry jam, made by me, because that is something that made it to my list of Necessary Things To Do Before Baby Is Born.  Yes.  Important to have homemade jam with a newborn.

5.  More practical things also made that list, too.  Because even though it is vitally important that the ducks have a bigger feed dish before the baby is born (check), clean baby clothes and diapers are also vitally important (check).  On the list, too, is a daily nap.  Yesterday I really outdid myself on that one – 90 minutes.  Quiet time for the kids is one of the greatest inventions in the WORLD.

6.  I’ve been assembling a read-aloud basket – well, a stack, really – for times when I’m nursing the baby and the kids are at loose ends.  This will be summer, of course, so I have the idea that they’ll probably all want to spend lots of time playing outside and doing other things.  BUT, there will also be times when I’ll spend most of the day sitting and nursing the baby and they’ll spend most of the day being bored of Mom sitting all day and nursing the baby, and diversion will be a good thing.  Here’s my stack:

Missing from this stack is The Way Things Work – I think Sim ran off with it yesterday.  I’ll see if I can get it back.  Any good suggestions for others that have a wide age appeal?  Or that don’t, actually, because they might not all be looking for read-alouds at the same time. 

7.  On Michael’s list of Necessary Things To Do Before Baby Is Born is “Trim front hedge.”  It does need to be trimmed.  He’s finished about 2/3, because we need a longer extension cord for him to finish the last.  Here’s the not-quite-finished product:

Hard to tell this side is trimmed because the neighbor’s hedge across the street is showing above it.

Can you tell where the extension cord couldn’t reach?  Michael actually doesn’t care if this gets done before the baby, because he’s getting a pretty good case of senioritis at work and hoping that labor starts soon. :)

{p,h,f,r}

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter again today.

{pretty}

The kids have been comparing muscles at dinner lately.

 

{happy}

Summer clothes switched with winter clothes:  CHECK!

Children now must work VERY HARD to find an outfit of seasonally inappropriate clothing:  CHECK!

Of course, Simeon was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and socks yesterday.  And Tess had picked out a long-sleeved dress with long pants and socks.  But not today!  Of course, yesterday when Tess discovered this leotard (I wish you could hear her say “leotard!”), the dress came off and the leotard went on.

{funny}

All right, I’m choosing to put this story in {funny}, since I think putting it in {real} would be taking myself too seriously.  The checker at the grocery store yesterday said to me that I must be near my due date.  (Luckily I am, but this is not a good phrasing for to use when wishing to assuage curiosity about pregnancy, if anyone is wondering.  Even if you know for sure that she is pregnant, NEVER assume a woman is near her due date.  Please.  Even if she’s in active labor, do not make this assumption.  You might be able to get away with something like, “How far along are you?” or potentially, “So when are you due?”  Okay, public service announcement is over.) 

Picture unrelated, but still funny.

After some amusing (to me) discussion about how WOW!  Monday is so close!  And you’re still out and about! (I was under the impression that the convention of confinement before birth had gone out of vogue a while ago, but apparently lots of women in late pregnancy are lauded for their bravery in leaving their homes.  I’ll be far less likely to leave after the baby is born that before!), she then asked me if this is my first baby.  Ha!  I love the reactions to the answer to this question:  “This is my fifth.”  Exclamations!  Then this gem:  “So your oldest must be in college?”  Well, no.  My oldest isn’t quite eleven.  Yeah.  Okay.  Buh-bye.  Thanks for the groceries. 

{real}

Hannah is not featured showing her muscles at the dinner table, because she is sick, probably with strep.  Again.  Third time in three months.  Not good.  She’s feeling better this morning than yesterday, but please say a prayer.  I’m hoping that now that we’re done with choir for three months she’ll stay well – my theory is she’s picking it up there, and since her end-of-year tech rehearsal and concert meant that she spent time with her choir mates Thursday, Friday, and Sunday of last week, my theory has some backing again this time.  But poor kid.  Happily she’s only really missing piano lessons this time around, not a choir overnight road trip that she’d been looking forward to for months. 

New dress!

Smoker

We got Michael a combination birthday/Father’s Day gift this year:  an electric smoker.  He tried it out on Sunday, and this is a gift that will keep on giving, if the ribs that came out of that thing are any indication.  Delicious! 

Hannah, on hearing that the ribs would need to be in the smoker for 5 hours, decided this:  “A smoker is like a crock pot for men.” 

It’s going to be a fun thing for Michael to play with while he’s home for infant care leave!

It’s the little amusements

We have a weather station that tells us things like temperature inside and outside, whether the barometric pressure is rising or falling, and probably some other things that I don’t remember.  It’s interesting and can be quite helpful with wardrobe choices, especially on sunny days in winter when my children reason that it’s sunny so they should wear shorts and I can point out to them that it’s 38 degrees and they’d better bundle up. 

Lately, however, it’s been recording some really crazy temperature fluctuations outside.  During the past week, the weather has apparently gone from a low of –15 F to a high of 108 F.  Rather surprising for Seattle.  It also seems that we’re pretty well acclimated to both very low and very high temps here, because we’ve pretty much been wearing summer clothes for both the highs and the lows and haven’t had any problems. 

(Michael says he’d try to figure out what’s wrong with the temperature sensor except that it seems to afford me so much amusement that he’s reluctant to take it away from me. I’m not sure if that makes my life sound sad and pathetic or just confirms that I’m easily amused.)

7 Quick Takes

Linking up with Jen a day late, but we’re going to roll with it.

1.  So…after 3 whole days of the ducks putting themselves to bed, they didn’t go in by themselves last night.  Luckily, though, Michael was home, so we didn’t have a repeat performance of very pregnant woman trying to herd ducks -- convinced they’re about to be slaughtered -- into the duck house that will protect them from the raccoons who will actually slaughter them if they don’t go into the house.  I’m just hoping it was a fluke last night and they’ll be back to their usual bedtime tonight.  Or maybe they were hoping they could stay up late on Friday nights? 

2. 

Yesterday I painted my toenails.  Then I painted Tess’s.  Later I painted Naomi’s, but I didn’t have the camera out at that point, so I only got my toes and Tess’s on camera.  One reason, I have to admit, is that Tess is somewhat reluctant to do without socks, even on very warm days.  Of course, during the winter, she’d take them off and put them down the laundry regularly.  But now that it’s sandals weather, she wants socks all the time.  Since one of the benefits of warm weather is NOT to have to wash socks, I set up Tess’s toes so that she’d want to look at them, meaning she’d leave her socks off.  We’ll see if my stratagem works. 

Another reason I painted them was to prove I could reach my toes still.  Yep.  Can still reach them.

3. 

Tess was ridiculously excited to get her toenails painted.  When she saw me painting mine, she immediately asked to have hers done.  And when I said I would paint hers, she laughed her sweet little Tessie laugh.  And now that they’re done, she loves to admire them. 

3.  The baby has dropped.  This doesn’t mean much (in other words, I’m not expecting to have the baby NOW) except that I can breathe a bit more easily and I’m having some fun with the pregnancy gait. 

4. 

Sim’s reading is advanced enough that we now have 3 kids who disappear into Bookshire and then complain when we ask for their attention elsewhere.  As my dad would say, “It’s payback time!”  Both Michael and I spent much of our youth trying to read when we should have been doing other things, and now we’re paying the price.

Also, Sim needs to get the memo about warmer weather.  Several mornings a week I send him back upstairs to change out of his turtle necks.  Or maybe I should just move his warm clothes to the basement.  I feel some more nesting coming on…

5. 

Naomi mostly has down the idea of dressing for summer, but she’ll still come down in long sleeves and long pants some mornings.  The thing is, since the weather cools off a lot at night, it’s not crazy to have long sleeves in the morning.  But it is crazy in the afternoon, when it’s sunny and 75 degrees and we’re all going to the park or on a hike or something.  I’m trying to help them figure out the concept of layers. 

6.  The checker at the store today told me to take care of myself and not work too hard.  I was buying an alarm clock.  I’m not sure if it was just the VERY pregnant thing that she was commenting on, or if the combination of alarm clock and VERY pregnant caused her to think I’m working myself too hard.  When I really need people’s concern about taking it easy and not working too hard is after the baby comes, but once the pregnant belly is gone, nobody seems to worry too much about the mom working too hard. 

7. 

It’s a bit blurry because evening is setting in and I didn’t want to use the flash on my sleeping child, but they’re pretty sweet in their sleep, you know?