Just two weeks after Ewan was born, Josie turned 5 and 1/4 yrs old. She really likes to count those quarter years and is always very specific for anyone who asks. I wonder if she’ll start asking how many months she is once I start answering how old Ewan is in months? Josie is a vivacious 5 year old with lots of energy and curiosity. She’s a big user of the word ‘why’ right now, at times even when it doesn’t make sense. It’s more of a generic reply at this point.

We’ve had the joy of having our eldest home with us now for the past two months since preschool ended and while it was a rough transition at the beginning she’s really settled into a home-based routine again. Her favorite toys these days are the magnatiles, her books, and her dolls with their dress up clothes. She is reading independently simply books now and it is such a joy to listen to her read and watch her read to her siblings. She’s not so fond of doing official reading lessons most days, but she just picks up so many books on her own to work on it and I’m sure that’s improving her skills. She also enjoys lots of pretend play both with Celia and with the toys independently. Sometimes it’s a challenge as Celia has her own ideas as to how the game should go and they have to work it out. Josie also dives into art projects when I can manage to get them out.

Physically Josie has become quite the speed demon on her bike and wants to ride it most every day. I will often take both of them out for a ride at the cemetery at the end of our street with nice wide, clear paths and no cars. She’s fairly confident and careful but we haven’t tried real roads or even the busy bike path yet. So far it’s been good and so we’ve stuck with it. She’s also continued with gymnastics this summer although we’ve missed a number of weeks with the baby and vacations. We haven’t signed her up for fall yet, but once we’ve settled into a Kindergarten routine we’ll see what she wants to do.

With her new baby brother in the picture, emotions can run high and low. She’s very sweet to him and as I mentioned will often read him stories which he really enjoys. He watches her and the book and wiggles and makes noises right along side her. At other times she’s frustrated by having to wait for his needs to be met, or me asking her to not be quite so loud right next to the sleeping baby. Overall I think she’s grown to like him more lately as he gets more interactive and I regain my energy to do fun things with her.

Josie still loves to spend time with her friends, with school being over that requires some more effort on my part to try to set up some playdates. She’s let her school friends mostly fall away pretty easily. We still spend regular time with Bronwyn and Sophie and up until August lots of time with Adelaide too. We actually had swimming lessons for two weeks with Sophie and Adelaide. Adelaide’s family moved back to their home now that their year long positions were over. She’s been meeting a few new kids that will be in her Kindergarten class this fall at playdates and I’m sure she’ll make lots of new friends quickly. She will be in class with Bronwyn, but no one else she has played with regularly before. She’s a bit concerned that school won’t be much fun without any friends in her class. Otherwise she’s pretty quiet about the topic of school coming up in a few weeks.

Mostly people ask her the question of ‘so are you excited for school!’ or ‘don’t you just love your new baby brother?’ I can see how that might be tiring for her, especially with such loaded questions. It has definitely been a summer of change for her and she’s handled it pretty well. We’re trying to keep things flexible where we can to let her adjust at her own speed. We’re really going to miss her with her being in school so much of the day this fall, but I think the regular schedule will be a good thing for us all again.

She put on some jeans to wear the other day and I’m so amazed at how she’s such a kid now, not a baby or toddler. She sometimes looks and acts so much older, it’s so interesting to get a glimpse into her future. And then she’s back at being 5 again when some unfortunate disappointment comes her way.

• Size/weight: 6 and 7’s
• Favorite foods: cheese, pasta, dessert
• Favorite toy: dolls
• Favorite book: all of them!
• Favorite activity: playing with her friends, biking
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8; gets up about 6:30
• New skill: solid bike riding
• Teeth: holding steady with all 20
• Literacy: reading the “I can read” books and trying to read anything she can get her hands on, plus street signs

Today we took Ewan in for his 1 month appointment, which happened to be exactly on his 4 week birthday. He has grown another 12 ounces in 14 days making him now 9 lbs 6 oz and grew another inch. The doctor is very pleased especially considering he’s had a cold for the last week, he’s definitely still getting his fill. Here’s some pictures from earlier this week of him.

 

good news: today I took the kids to the zoo. We were a tad late as our new cleaning person didn’t show up when she said she would and we had to wait. But not too bad, we got there and walked the path over to the picnic tables to have lunch first. We were meeting up with my friend and her kids too. She had an extra kid with her to help out another friend, lets call him M.

bad news: that then meant we had 7 kids on two adults, as we each have three of our own. 5 years and under.

good news: two of those children are babies and can’t walk. We had a nice lunch and then attempted the cleanup.

bad news: children have to use the restroom after eating.

good news: two adults! we decide to divide and conquer. Boys go first, two of them.

bad news: girls need to pee too, and the zoo is crowded so this is taking a long time.

good news: of the four children i am watching only two can walk.

bad news: one of those children is M, an only child not used to child-herd rules and requirements — despite him being briefed on those before arriving at the zoo.

good news: the zoo only has one entrance and exit.

bad news: zoo has lots of dangerous animals and exhibits.

good news: i did not loose one of my own children.

bad news: M walked away somehow without me seeing.

good news: woman with three larger children of her own sees me freak out and offers to stay with remaining three children.

bad news: i have to tell my friend i lost her friends kid, and look for him. Running through the zoo feeling like such an idiot.

good news: I think to go tell the people at the entrance.

bad news: they ask me what he’s wearing, his name and age. All I can say is blond boy age two or three.

good news: I get back to the other kids and my friend has found M. Yay happy ending!

Find out later he walked up to another random mom and asked for snacks, she asked where his mommy was and he couldn’t answer so she just kept still with him till my friend got there. Going through the rest of the zoo we saw how he got away from me, he just kept running away from us with no regard for where we might be or be headed. We put the 5 year olds on a ‘secret mission’ to keep him with us an that helped a bit. That was not so fun. At least our own kids have learned the kid-herd requirements of mostly staying together!

Oh my I’m a little behind, but hey I had a baby only two days after Celia’s 2 and 3/4 years of life after having lots of pre-labor labor, and now said baby usually keeps me on the couch every evening feeding him until we both go to bed. As for Celia she keeps us hopping all day long from when she wakes us up in the morning till she drops at night.

Celia has now taken the crown as person who talks the most in our family, and that’s no easy feat considering Josie talks almost constantly as well. It is very loud at our house and can be hard to get a word in or get someone to listen to you. We’re still working on teaching her the skill of not interrupting.

Celia is loving our new addition to the family. She’s not too frustrated with him yet and asks to hold him at least 5 times a day. She gives him lots of kisses and hugs and is always asking ‘where is the baby?’ Ewan in return gives her open mouth kisses trying to see if she will nurse him. She’s excited to be big, but also likes to pretend to be the baby too in her pretend play a lot. Josie often plays the part of the mother in this game.

Fruits and vegetables are Celia’s favorite foods, to the detriment of trying to get her to eat anything else. It provides good nutrition so long as I can get some protein in there too with cheese, beans or eggs, but often hard to get her to eat enough calories to keep her from getting hungry before the next meal or snack. She loves tomatoes and I serve a side of those with most every lunch and dinner.

Celia is not very interested by art these days, finishing up her projects quickly, she’s much more interested in big active movements. She’s very much looking forward to starting gymnastics again this fall. She loves to dance to the ‘movement songs’ we got from Josie’s preschools, hopping around on the inflatable horse we have, and riding her bike all over the place. She rides the little red balance bike we’ve got all over the place, to Waldo, around the cemetery and to Quebrada. She rides up and down the hills and glides her way all over town keeping up with Josie on her pedal bike. She could possibly even use a real bike at this point if we tried, but I don’t think I’d quite trust her common sense and judgement yet.

At home, Celia loves to read and to play dress up and pretend. She pretends almost every day to be going to gymnastics, including the outfit changes and the car rides. She also plays doctor frequently or ballerina. As always, very active and always moving. She has a hard time sitting still, normal for a two year old, even when eating.  She will sit still to read which we do frequently while the baby is nursing. She’s also taken a big interest in having her own ‘reading lessons’ like Josie and so I’ve started her on the book of learning to read, it just starts with memorizing poems about letter sounds. She has also completed a few cutting books and is an excellent scissor user, following directions and cutting complicated patterns. We’ve also started a book on tracing, which is beginning lettering as her hand control is improving. I can also make her letter tracing patterns on the computer as she wants to be just like big sister and write. She recognizes a few letters and very much knows the number 7, as that’s when she’s allowed to wake us up in the morning in addition to being the number on the bus (77) that most frequently is by our house.

She has thankfully gotten past the toughest part of the 2.5 stage, just shy of 2.75 years old. She’s often frustrated and disappointed still that the world isn’t going her way, and I have to physically reinforce the rules a lot which now that I’m not pregnant is thankfully not so bad. But she recovers from her disappointments a bit quicker and can regain her composure to have a discussion at times. All in all she’s still an enthusiastic kid, loves to play with the big kids at the park and gives lots of love and cuddles. I’m so very happy she fits back into my lap again. We will be starting homeschool preschool with our same family friends that I did it with Josie two years ago with our second set of kids while the first-borns are in school and I think she’s going to do great.

• Size/weight: 3T and 4T, ~31 lbs
• Favorite foods: tomatoes, cheese, most fruit in general
• Favorite toy: leotards
• Favorite book: the little engine that could
• Favorite activity: riding her bike, playing with Josie
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8; nap is gone except for occasional car naps, gets up between 6:30 and 7
• New skill: using the toilet, recognizing numbers, excellent scissors and beginning writing
• Teeth: all 20
• Vocalizations: most vocal person in the family certainly, says ‘him/her’ instead of ‘he/she’

All three kids together down at Magnolia park last night!

Ewan has been doing very well these first two weeks and the doc said he’s in fantastic shape physically at his last exam. He was born at 8 lbs 10 oz, by day 3 was down to 8 lbs even and by yesterday was back up at 8 lbs 13 oz, which was over an ounce a day weight gain from the previous check! He’s also grown from 21 inches to 21.5 inches long, and his head has grown a quarter inch as well.

Still a bit disheveled and trying to figure it all out, but now we are five!

[Credit to my dad for snapping the photo once I set it up, tripod is too much of a hassle right now]

This is the story of Ewan’s birth, not super graphic, but it’s got the basic details of timing and parts of labor. Read at your own discretion.

Last Friday the 19th I had another biophysical profile exam, which did not go as well as they had hoped. We had a less than friendly ultrasound technician. [Note to other future parents, for a valid exam the tech must watch your baby for 30 solid minutes looking for movement, this one tried to quit and fail us after 12 because I guess she had better things to do. Then she tried to insist it had been 30 minutes.] Never the less things looked less great than they did on Wednesday, namely, like my last two births the amniotic fluid was low.

I had been having contractions every night, for hours, as close as 6 or 7 minutes apart but they’d generally fizzle by morning. Very frustrating and tiring. Seemed like my body just couldn’t quite get pushed over the edge into labor. They had wanted to induce on Wednesday and so by Friday we were willing to consider induction if the test results looked worse after those two days. After a non-stress test that also looked slightly less reassuring than Wednesday’s we decided that today would be the day and we’d start the induction as soon as possible.

We sent the girls off with my mom to go to swimming lessons for the morning. I had made it through every lesson but the last one.

We had some lunch, and they tried to start an IV. It took three people and six attempts to get a working IV. I have a big bruise on my left arm from them unsuccessfully digging around for a working vein. I’ve never had this kind of problem before, eventually they got one settled in my right elbow.

The labor and delivery room with a better tub wasn’t quite clean yet so we walked around the hospital and I did the four flights of stairs to try to help the baby move down and hasten labor.

At 1:40 they hooked up the pitocin and my labor kicked off immediately. I had to wait hours for it to take effect with Josie and Celia, not in this case. I was right back into my normal nighttime pattern of labor I’d been having for the last week. I hung out on the ball, tried to do my squats, anything to get this baby moving on out. My doula was on her way and showed up a bit before 4. By that point my contractions were very much 2 to 4 minutes apart and required full concentration. Mostly I just want to be left alone during labor and not spoken to or touched much. I was trying to wait it out a bit before getting into the tub for the relief I had well anticipated.

By 4:20 I called uncle and decided to get into the tub as the only method of pain relief I had planned. The relief was instant and wonderful. The weight was off my back and the nurses were happy too because the monitors were doing a better job of watching the baby who was still doing well. After a while I even got enough of a break between contractions to fall asleep between a few of them.

Somewhere past 5, the nurse came in concerned that the contractions had slowed down some, but after she arrived the contractions picked right back up again and didn’t stop. Can we all say transition? I complained that they had turned up the pitocin, but they hadn’t, so I was hopeful I was indeed in transition. They actually turned the pitocin down because the contractions were just one on top of the other. I tried to move around in the tub to get things to progress again and by 6:18 I was starting to feel the urge to push during contractions a bit. My doula noticed, the nurse offered to find the midwife to check me and went out. I agreed to be checked. Next contraction or so, that’s it, I’m pushing, my doula goes running out of the room. She’s telling the nurse who is trying to page the midwife that I’m crowning, i.e. baby is coming NOW. Lots of people come running back in, trying to drain the tub and get me out. Because of the pitocin I’m not allowed a water birth. I stand myself up and enjoying the nice steadiness of the tub bars try to convince them that birthing standing right there is a good idea.

The midwife arrives thankfully and says that yes I can just have the baby right then and there, they just had to keep the baby from touching the water and everything is ‘ok’ on their end. The head is out, without any ring of fire pain. The midwife is nice and calm, tells me to give a little push to turn the body. I try to give a little push and ok the baby is born! 6:23. 5 minutes from when I started to feel like pushing. I turn to look and tell everyone ‘It’s a boy!?!?’ I was surprised. The midwife literally got to catch the baby in my case this time.

The cord was really short and so the midwife felt she needed to cut it so I could move out of the tub. Jordi cut the cord and they brought Ewan to the warming table to rub him and he was crying very quickly and loudly before even leaving the bathroom.

I got over to the bed and we all got in some good snuggle time. He wasn’t particularly interested in nursing but we spent some good time keeping warm and cuddling. Our doula Maria went home and we started settling in for transfer over to recovery. My parents arrived with the girls and Josie got to come in and meet Ewan. Celia was asleep in my dad’s arms even though it was only a bit past 7, it had been a big exhausting day. Jordi brought Ewan (yet un-named) over to the recovery side and gave him a bath and they did his initial examination.

I got moved over to recovery and waited for Jordi to get back with Ewan and my parents and the girls waited with me too. Once we were all together again we settled in to start to get to know one another. Josie held Ewan while Celia declined to leave my dad’s lap, she was still exhausted though awake.

We sent them all home to rest, the girls were out in the car ride home. Jordi and I tried to settle in for the night, even with the constant temperature, blood pressure and other hospital requirements. We woke up in the morning and started in on trying to get out of there! Plus we decided on a name. Took us until 7pm though to get home, lots of other people checking out the same day. He passed his hearing test too.