Yep still more posts about Cape Cod and it’s past the end of September. I’ll make it the last.

We keep it low key on vacation. We generally spent the afternoon at the pool and most days just around the house, playing at the local school playground, swimming, reading and several days we went to the beach.

At the beach Celia had no question of what to do. The biggest problem was the sunblock which she does not like. We learned to put it on at the car so once she hit the sand she could just dig dig dig, scoop scoop scoop and pour pour pour. She kept herself busy for hours on end with no apparent goal, except the one she couldn’t clearly express from her own mind.

Josie on the other hand preferred to be in the water mostly. She really got into her boogie board this year (or more accurately enjoyed using Celia’s because she thought it was prettier). She did some digging, but had the most fun when she managed to connect with other kids. One day it was two brothers that she played school with (she was the teacher), another day two sisters from the UK.

We also did some art outside, painting, drawing, cutting, and even attempted some building with marshmallows and toothpicks. Josie was intrigued, Celia was not interested for more than a couple of seconds. It was tricky to get them to stick!

Other than some more random photoshoots in the green room to appease me…

We spent our time in the pool! Josie learned to jump in both the shallow and deep end of the pool (with the puddlejumpers in the deep end) even going under water before popping back up!

And where was Ewan? Mostly he could sense the second I went into the water and cried for me, but sometimes we made this work. Outdoor swing!

It was a great trip!

One of our nights on the cape I try to do a photoshoot with us on the beach in fairly coordinating outfits in yummy sunset light. This year was not our year. Many nights it was obviously foggy, other nights we were too tired to get dinner done early enough and get out there all dressed. But it came together one night in the second week and we ate, the sun was up and we headed to the west-facing beach, a rarity around here being the east coast and all.

We drove over and on the way the clouds came rolling in. So heavy that the sun was so hazy that it looked like the moon. We arrived and there was almost no sun, just a thick layer of gray. Oh well, I start to set up and hope it will clear a little. Celia has fallen asleep, yikes it’s only 6:30. I let her sleep more while I set up, maybe with a little sleep she’ll wake up happy. Ewan eventually is taken out of his car seat after waking up too and he’s had a major poopsplosion. Up the shirt, in the car seat, and of course all over the matching outfit he is supposed to wear. The only other outfit we have is bright green and white stripes, not exactly the colors I was looking for. But it’s windy and not warm, so a mostly naked baby would be a crying screaming baby. We wake up Celia and the hazy sun has now completely disappeared and there is no light at all, just a huge sky of gray. We try to take a few photos but Celia is non-cooperative to say the least having been woken up and the light stinks anyway.

Never did manage to get one of just the five of us that night. I just gave up. Celia got away with not wearing shoes a lot of this trip too. Then we went down onto the beach and played with kites and dug in the sand. And the sun didn’t really ever come out from the clouds again in the evening for us, but I got a few pictures locally another night, just not on the beach I’ll put up later.

when will we go back to vacation? She really liked it apparently. Not hard to imagine why! One of our favorite things to do is have a picnic on the beach for dinner or just have an early dinner and play on the beach after dinner. Most nights there was wind, although not for a few of them oddly enough. Unfortunately on our last night Celia was flying my dad’s kite and let it go and it went into the power lines. This time we got a backup system so that won’t happen again!

A few weeks ago, before our vacation we went to visit my grandmother (my mom’s mom) and today we went again to celebrate her birthday, she’ll be 95 years old in a few more days! She got to meet Ewan and hold him and she enjoyed him very much.

But she thinks we should have spelled his name with a U, since it is pronounced with a U. And clearly I should have put socks on him today when it was in the 70’s and he was wearing an ankle to wrist covering outfit. And his ears are too big (“like not normal big” she says in a whisper). And I shouldn’t be letting the girls touch him. And I wipe him wrong. But yep that’s my Bubie! 🙂 She can’t believe I have three kids, but she heartily enjoyed the cupcakes and lipstick we brought her.

We’ve been gone for two weeks to cape cod. Over 1000 pictures I’m trying to work through but we had some nice lazy days enjoying the pool, the sun, the beach and each other. We ate a lot of ice cream cones.

This week we’ve been busy. My second week of just me and the kids, including a three week old baby. I know I’ll never remember this beyond a few days and I can barely even recall the entire week right now, so here it is for my own recall 🙂 Somehow nursing a baby and changing his diaper eats up a lot of time.

Monday: Waited for the cleaning woman to show up in the morning and then hit up the zoo for lunch and most of the afternoon. We got ice cream on the way home. Josie whacked Celia in the face with the dog ball throwing stick from our neighbors.

Tuesday: Sing-a-long in the morning at the library, read books, and grocery store in the afternoon.

Wednesday: Morning we hosted the upcoming Kindergarteners playdate. Can’t remember what we did in the afternoon, clear sign of me losing sleep. I got Celia to take a nap and got to spend a little one on one time with Josie.

Thursday: Took the girls into the city to wade in frog pond, had a picnic lunch with Jordi, and visited the globes including hearing the mayor speak about them. Played with friends for a short while when we got home and then went to an outdoor concert at the main library with a picnic dinner.

Friday: Storytime at the library in the morning (we spend a lot of time at the local library), took Ewan to the doctor before having lunch with Jordi at home. Then we did art, reading/writing work and general free play until snack time, then joined the next door neighbors for a bike ride and dinner al fresco.

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.

After having to be postponed twice, once for a rescheduled trip to Miami and again for rain, we finally got to execute Josie’s 5th birthday party! She picked rainbows as the theme for this year. We painted rainbows on paper and made a rainbow of cupcakes! To keep the party numbers reasonable we kept to school friends and neighborhood friends and Josie had a blast. She was so very pleased that almost all of her school friends could make the date.

For fun we had the regular bounce house, an art project and a quick game. Our art was decorating pillow cases which also became the goody bag to take home. I bought fabric crayons which the kids drew on regular paper with and then my dad helped by spending half the party ironing them onto the pillow cases. The kids thought they were great and Josie enjoyed making two of them.

Josie chose the menu of some basic snacks, hummus, strawberries, carrots, chips and guacamole. Her one fancy request were some chocolate dipped strawberries which I made. Nothing nearly as fancy as last year but I was exhausted none the less. (note one rainbow on the basketball hoop above). After snacking and bouncing the kids were definitely looking for something else to do so thankfully I had one game planned. They played ‘musical towels’ which would be very similar to musical chairs except that no one actually get’s kicked out of the game. We just watch the kids struggle to get themselves onto progressively fewer and fewer towels with less space. They enjoyed the running around in circles to Glee’s take on the Hairspray song “You Can’t Stop The Beat.” They got the hang of it by the end, they had trouble fitting onto all of the towels to start with, but by the end they were all on one all snuggled in together.

Right from there I directed everyone to enjoy some singing and cake. We had way too many cupcakes. A number of people couldn’t come at the last minute unfortunately and I had the choice of making it ‘really close’ to enough cupcakes or just make another batch. So you know I made another batch. They were chocolate, strawberry and vanilla frosted with a rainbow of colors.

After cupcakes, a couple per kid generally, which also had an extra toppings bar for more frosting plus sprinkles, jimmies and other goodies, they played some more and it was quickly time to head on home. We did a little clean up and Josie actually suggested a family picture at the end for all of us who worked hard on her party.

Once we cleaned up we cooked an easy dinner and Josie enjoyed opening her presents from friends. She got a lot of art supplies which is great as they’ve kept us busy with all the rain this month.

Photo credits go to my dad except for the last one.