Family Pic

Isaac was blessed at church at the beginning of the month.  We had a rare opportunity to take a picture together as a family.  Here we are!!

And a parting shot from Isaac and his chubby cheeks.

Baby Isaac

 So, I had a baby.  He's pretty great and he keeps me busy and tired.  I also moved into a new home - not so fun with a new baby.  Oh well!

I like the idea of my baby having a 10/10 birthday, so I was scheduled for my c-section on that day.  It also made it so I was unavailable to do a particularly nasty project at work the following weekend.  Oh darn!  I had to miss it.

Everything went pretty normal, as far as c-sections go.  I went in early in the morning and they asked me stupid questions they should already know the answers to as part of getting me admitted.  I got my IV, Tom was presented with a ridiculously small one piece surgery watching outfit.  He ended up just wearing a couple of funny yellow gown things - one for the front and one for the back - instead.  I walked into the surgery room and sat on a fun little table.  They gave me a spinal block, which hurts like the dickens for a few seconds, then I started to go numb.  I lay back down on the table and waited for my lower body to go numb.  It's interesting listening to the doctors and nurses chat like surgery is no big deal for them.  I suppose it is fairly routine since it is their jobs.  It's just funny.

They prepped me, rubbed iodine all over me, and pulled the little sheet up so I wouldn't see what was going on and throw up.  (Probably a good idea.)  They pulled Tom into the room and started cutting away, and before you know it, they pulled Isaac out.  He was still a boy, so that was good.  I gave away all of our baby girl stuff.  He was SUPER grimy, lots of vernix on this baby.  He came in at 8 lbs 2 oz and 21 inches, our longest and heaviest baby so far.  He had a little bit of light brown hair.  I got to see him a little and touch his face a little bit before they whisked him off to the nursery for all that fun baby checking stuff.

They proceeded to stitch me up, which I couldn't feel at all this time.  SO much better to not be able to feel yourself being sewn back together.  It was pretty awful last time.  After a while, I was done and wheeled back to my room.  Numb legs are so weird.  I really felt like I should be able to move them, but no amount of concentration helped.  My legs were useless.  Even my toes were useless.  It's a good thing I didn't want to go anywhere.

They brought Isaac in and I nursed him right away.  He has powerful suction power and went at it like a pro.  Nursing is both amazing and something I have dreaded with each baby after Abby.  (I didn't know enough to dread it with her.)  This time has been my best experience so far, but it's still been very painful and unpleasant.

I had a catheter, since I couldn't do much walking to get to the bathroom.  On the first day, the nurses helped me get out of bed and walk to the bathroom where they emptied out my catheter.  Foreshadowing alert!!  Anyway, I drank lots of water and happily assumed I wouldn't need to worry about using the restroom.  That night, I kept feeling like I needed to go the bathroom - which is weird since I had a catheter in.  I assumed it was just weird pressure from the surgery and tried to ignore it.  Early in the morning, the nurse checked my catheter and said it looked like it was draining just fine.  I kept feeling more and more like I had to pee SO badly that I was going to burst.  Eventually I felt like I was going to die, so I hobbled over to the bathroom despite the catheter.  ( I brought my IV pole and catheter bag with me like we did the day before.)  The catheter bag immediately started filling up as I got out of bed and started walking.  It filled up completely as I made my way to the restroom.  The tube was tweaked weird and not draining and my poor bladder was being stretched to hold the contents of an entire cath bag.  I swear I almost died.  I emptied the bag out into the toilet and merrily made my way bag to the bed.  That was pretty traumatic.  Even if it sounds lame.

Things went well with Isaac in the hospital.  I routinely fell asleep with him laying on my chest and we both enjoyed it.  I had a few visitors and watched some football on my little tv screen across the room.  I thought the hospital bed was incredibly uncomfortable this time around - it turns out that the spinal block did mean things to my tail bone area so it's basically bruised now.  Hopefully it gets better soon, cause it still hurts to sit for very long on my bum.  I stayed in the hospital for four days and was ready to get out and sit on something better than a hospital bed.  We went home and things have been pretty good since.  Other than the tail bone.  And the painful breastfeeding.  And the lack of sleep.  And the flood of milk that sometimes comes back at me after it's been ingested.  Ack.  Babies are a lot of trouble, so it sure is good they are cute and grow up to be amazing little people!

Baby brother is almost here!

So, I'm pregnant and scheduled to have this little guy on October 10th.  It should be exciting!  I'm not sure how ready I am now to go from having three independent kids to adding on a fourth extremely dependent one.  We are super excited, it just feels like stepping out into the unknown again.  (Except it isn't really all that unknown.)  This will be a good time to teach the older girls about caring for a baby, which will be pretty helpful for them when they have their own little ones.

Kid Prayers

Sometimes the kids say funny things in their prayers.  Usually the phrasing is just a little off . . .

Sophie has been praying lately:
"Please bless Juli so she can be happy about her mom dying."

And Alice has been saying:
"Please bless Jesus can't die anymore."

I love kids!

Ice cream poop

I didn't take a picture.  Boo.  The other day we went to Jason's Deli for dinner.  (Kids eat free on Saturdays with each adult meal.)  Anyway, they have a soft serve ice cream machine where you can make your own ice cream cones.  I'm pretty sure this is the highlight of the meal for the kids.  We had the kids bring their cones in the car since they weren't done and we were ready to leave.  Two of them still had them by the time we got home.  I remember Sophie running in the door and yelling, "I have to go to the bathroom!" 

Cut to the next morning, I went in to use the bathroom and noticed brown sludge on the toilet.  I thought it was the traditional sludge that can oftentimes be found on the toilet seat whenever anyone but me uses it.  (I NEVER make a mess.  Right?)  I cleaned it up and noticed there were some other drips leading down the toilet and finally saw an ice cream code sitting on top of the toilet.  I guess Sophie put it down when she went to the bathroom the night before and forgot about it.  I'm glad she did, cause that's gross.  Toilet cone.  Ew.  I guess I need to talk to the kids about food in the bathroom.

Water polo

I'm hoping to get some good water polo pictures to post from Abby's class she's been taking.  We'll see, it's hard to capture something good in the water.  The first week of the class there was a local reporter writing up a story about it.

Here it is:

Olympics create local interest in water polo

Summer Swimmy

Abby was on the Summer swim team this year and Sophie and Alice took swimming lessons.  They are all getting pretty good.  Abby is perfecting her strokes and found a love for butterfly of all strokes.  Sophie can actually swim now and even jumps off the diving board.  Alice is still pretty timid and doesn't want to get her face wet, but she is getting more confident.

She jumps without the noodle usually, but this is the only picture I took of it.