Funny Things My Kid Says

It's been a long time since I posted a "funny things my kids says." This one, of course, is about Brenden and his pottying. (What else could it be?) :)

Brenden, after getting out of bed for his one trip to the potty that we allow after he's laid down for the night, checks out the contents of the toilet. He had told Tim that he needed to poop, but we know better than to believe him. He'll say anything to get out of bed.

Brenden: "Awww...it's only a little poop. Daddy, I wanna make a BIG poop."

Tim: Dies laughing.

Ever since then he's been all about the "big poops." He obsessed with everything being "big" or "little". He'll tell me all the time that he's a big boy and I'm a big girl.

We definitely love our big boy Brenden and appreciate the hilarious things that he says.

Congratulations Ryan and Abby!

Ryan was Tim's "girlfriend" at AOBC (Armor Officer Basic Course), which is the school he was at in Tennessee the summer after he graduated from college. They had a lot of fun together, too much fun at times. (Oh the pictures I will never show anyone of my husband and a certain military hat.) It was so crazy to learn that Ryan and his wife were due with their first baby only days after Lauren was due. I have been checking on facebook to see if they had finally welcomed their son. Yesterday he finally decided to show up!

Kade Cole Debonis was born on April 28th, 2010, at 2:14 pm. He weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 21.5 inches long. Good job, Abby!

HUGE congrats to Ryan and Abby! I'm sure he's adorable and we can't wait to see pictures! Hope you're getting some rest! :)

Memories From the Hospital

I have a few memories from the hospital that I'm not sure I could make into a coherent post so I'm going to just bullet point them instead so I can remember them. :)

• Tim finally had a chance to take a shower the morning after Lauren was born, but when he stepped out he realized he had zero towels. He stuck his head out the door and asked me to go get some from a nurse. Right as I was trying to stand up my doctor walked in and asked how I was doing. I didn't say "fine" or "okay". I said, "Towels. We have no towels." He stopped, laughed, then turned around and went and got us some towels. When he walked back in I apologized for just blurting out a random word at him. "I don't think my husband wants to be standing in there, naked, while I chat with you," I explained. He laughed again and then handed Tim the towels through a crack in the door and said, "We don't need you streaking through the halls." It was hilarious. Seriously, I have a great doctor. So funny.
• The 2nd day we were at the hospital they came to take Lauren to the nursery to check out her vitals. They usually did this 2 or 3 times a day and would bring her back in about an hour. (Once, during the middle of the night, they asked if we wanted her back. At first we were confused. Um...of course we want our kid back! What she was offering was some time to rest. They had so many babies in the nursery that they really couldn't give them any attention so we wouldn't have done that.) After about 3o minutes we heard the fire alarm go off. "This is a fire drill," the speakers kept repeating. We didn't think anything of it. Then, the announcement changed to, "This is a code ADAM drill." Again, we didn't think much of it. It was just a drill. Suddenly, a nurse ran into our room, looked at us, and ran back out without saying a word. We turned to each other and Tim said, "I think I'll go check on Lauren." About 5 minutes later he came back and informed me she was just fine but that he had suffered a small heart attack when he couldn't immediately pick her out. We had sent her down there with a big, poofy pink blanket and he didn't see any babies with pink blankets. It turns out she got sick on it so they changed her to a hospital one. After staring at all the babies he heard someone say "Wow that baby has a lot of hair!" He turned and said, "I think that one's mine." When the nurse finally brought her back we asked what was going on. It turns out it was a drill where they set off one of the Halo leg bands (ours went off several times because Lauren's legs are so skinny and it slipped) and when they went to check on the baby the mom said she had been taking a shower and the baby was gone. (She was in on it.) They had to run around like crazy trying to find the baby and unfortunately they failed. The lady with the Halo band (they had moved the baby to the nursery so they weren't running around with a real baby) made it all the way to the parking lot. SCARY.
• When Brenden was first born he made these adorable little bird noises when he was hungry. Those changed to wails not long after that, but Tim and I still remember how cute they were at the beginning. Our little girl? Not so much. From the first moment she was placed on my chest and I noticed she was hungry she did not make cute little noises. She makes these hacking sounds, like an angry cat, every time she doesn't get what she wants. And if you wait too long...look out! She can get loud already. And she can turn so very red. When she is finally offered a bottle or a pacifier she growls and shakes her head like a dog grabbing a bone. She's...um...not so dainty. :)
• The best night we had in the hospital, other than the first night when Lauren slept 5 hours straight (Thanks, kiddo!), was the last night. Tim, Lauren and I snuggled up in bed and watched Gladiator. I'm sure Tim was relieved to be off of the pull out chair that he had been stuck on since we went in on Wednesday night. We're not going to have very many of those nights with just her so it was a great time. We did miss our Brenden, though!

The Sweetest Thing

I had been dreaming of the moment that Brenden would meet Lauren for months. Part of me was just plain excited, while the rest of me was crazy nervous that he would instantly dislike her. The entire time I was pregnant we did everything we could to prepare him and he seemed to be ready to meet her. Every time we saw a baby he begged to hold him or her. He would tell random people that there was a baby in my belly and always knew to tell them her name. He started telling her to "Come out!" during the final few weeks. Of course, there is a huge difference between hearing about a baby you can't see and having it invade your personal space.

Susan brought him up to meet her when she was only a few hours old. He had to sit around in the waiting room with his grandparents while I was moved to my regular room. (A room that was ridiculously smaller than everyone else's rooms...but that's enough complaining about that from me, right?) I actually saw him laying on the ground watching tv when they wheeled me past. I was so ready to see my little boy!

When he finally walked in I got really nervous. I was so tired from being awake most of the night and going through a traumatic 20 minutes while getting Lauren here. At first he seemed very ready to walk right up and see her, but then he stopped. All I could think of was, "Oh no! he doesn't like her already and he hasn't even really met her!" He walked back to his grandma, grabbed a stuffed toy he had picked out in the gift shop, and handed it to her. He wanted to make sure she got his gift! I started crying. It was so sweet!

He wanted to crawl up into the bed with me and see her after that. He was a little hesitant with everyone watching, but he was still very sweet and very gentle. Eventually he asked to hold her so we both held her together. He had to check out her fingers and her toes, her belly and her hair. For awhile he watched everything we did with her, telling us who could hold her and hovering while Susan re-swaddled her.

Checking her out. The Lamb Chop is his gift to her. :)

Toes!

Keeping a watch over "his" baby.

Since we've been home he's still been sweet but we can tell that he's not really all that into her anymore. He had a few days where he was a completely, whiny mess but I'm not sure if that had anything to do with Lauren beshowing up or with being with his grandparents for a few days and then coming home and having to abide by our rules again. (We all know the grandparents spoil him...it's a given.) :) Thankfully that seems to be past us now, at least for awhile. Tim and I were getting really tired of it, although we were glad that if he was going to act out it was only screaming and crying and not being violent towards his sister. He's still very gentle around her, always trying to give her a pacifier or a bottle if he sees one, he just doesn't go up to her on his own to say hello. I'm curious to see how he'll be when we don't have any grandparents around to dote on him, too. (He's been staying with Karen and Rick at their hotel. Talk about spoiled!) :)

Our babies snuggling before bed. :)

Sharing his new toy. We were so proud!

I think he'll be much happier when she actually does something. The first 6 weeks or so infants are such lumps. Adorable lumps, but still, they don't do much. When she starts laughing and cooing and rolling over and crawling I think he'll be thrilled. We're going to have a hard time keeping him off of her and being gentle. Plus then she'll be into his toys and things. Not sure how that will go.

Right now I'm just enjoying my cuddly little girl and my happy big boy. If this is our honeymoon time I'm going to relish it for as long as I can. Soon enough we'll have new teeth and preschool and all sorts of things to throw us off our game.

And Now We're Four!

To say Lauren's birth was a completely different experience from Brenden's would be the biggest understatement of my life. Tim and I have laughed about just how crazy it is to look back and to know that each of our children have their own, very unique stories of how they came into this world.

Last pregnant picture!

Wednesday night I made sure the house was as clean as possible, watched Brenden and Tim eat pink banana pancakes for dinner (I had one bite...thank you, Brenden!) and left Brenden to drive Susan and Craig crazy while we went to Southcrest to have our little girl. It was so relaxed, so laid back, that Tim and I kept randomly saying, "This is so...strange. And calm." We made it to Labor and Delivery about 7:05 pm. They told us not to be early! They led me to our room and I thought for sure they were giving us a room that was already in use. Nope! They just had everything set up for me, even water. Great service!

I got dressed in one of those oh-so-attractive hospital gowns, settled into the bed, and waited for something to happen. It's very strange to just wait to be in labor, to know the pain is coming and not be able to speed anything along. I went through my history with the nurse, who was super sweet, and by 9 pm I had my i.v. going. She finally checked to see if I had progressed at all while I held my breath and waited for good news. I was still 2 cm but I was 70% effaced and -2, which means Lauren had started dropping into my pelvis. That was significant because it meant I was able to start pitocin right away to start contractions. If I hadn't progressed I would have spent the night on different medication to ripen my cervix. (No, I have no idea what medicine that is or exactly what it does. That's just what the nurse said.) I was happy that we were getting the show on the road! "Give me the epidural and I'll get her here ASAP! (Oh how that statement would come back to haunt me.)

By 1:15 am I realized that I was never going to get any sleep. I was having contractions clumped 4 together every 2 1/2 minutes that would stop for a bit. The nurse explained that the anesthesiologist was coming up to give another patient her epidural before he went home and that if I would like one, now would be the time to get one. Put to me that way I was completely in agreement! By 1:45 am I had survived the placement of the epidural. That was a scary experience. Last time I was in a ton of pain when they were placing it so I didn't have time to think about what he was doing. This time it felt like he was trying to thread a water hose down my spine. Tim got lucky...they don't let dads stay in there while they are putting it in. They've had too many people faint and found it was easier to just have them leave.

After that I had planned on sleeping. Unfortunately, getting the epidural really freaked me out so I could not calm myself enough to relax. I spent some time updating facebook and reading. I'm so glad that I put some things online so I can remember how all of this went! Plus I was bored out of my mind and couldn't feel anything. By 3 am I dozed off but not an hour later I woke up itching like crazy, which is a common side effect of that type of pain medication. Tim went out and got the nurse for me and she brought some Benedryl. Ahhh...finally some rest. (Although drug induced rest is not really my favorite type of rest.) I dozed on and off until 5:30 am which is when my doctor happened to wander in and tell me he was going to break my water. I was so happy! I wanted to get this show on the road!

I slept on and off again until 8:30 am which is when the nurse came in to check me. She announced I was "easily 4 to 5 cm" (I'm not sure why "easily" was necessary but...it was.) and 90% effaced. I think I asked her what station she was in my pelvis but she didn't really say. She did have me turn on my right side to see if we could convince Lauren to start moving down. (I'm still not sure if I should thank her for this or go back and throttle her.)

Tim wandered out to tell the parents how everything was going and I, of course, updated facebook and checked in with Susan and Brenden. At 8:41 am (yes, I double checked the time stamp on the text.) I told Susan that my contractions were starting to really hurt and that I was going to send Tim out to get the nurse to get something better going in my i.v. if I could. He walked in right after that and I told him to get the nurse RIGHT NOW. By the time he walked back in, not 30 seconds later, I was yelling "SHE'S COMING OUT!" The nurse checked me, told someone else to page my doctor, and told me that if he didn't show up she would deliver me, but that she didn't want to. I begged for more medicine and she told me there was nothing they could give me. If I could have grabbed her and shook her I would have. (Not my finest moment.) Instead I grabbed the bed rail and yelled my head off while Tim rubbed my head and kept repeating, "Breathe!" I think I only listened half the time. That hurt!

All I really remember about those next few minutes was continuing to say, "SHE'S COMING OUT. SHE'S COMING OUT RIGHT NOW." Tim still laughs about that because he had no idea why I kept repeating it. What he didn't understand was that while I was gripping the side of the bed with my eyes closed and I couldn't see that there were at least 8 people running around getting things ready. They got the room completely ready to have a baby in less than 2 minutes. I do remember hearing that my doctor was 2 miles away but I really didn't care who caught the baby. She was coming no matter what anyone did, especially me. Suddenly they pulled the stirrups out, I watched my doctor throw on some scrubs, and they were telling me to push.

I went from 4-5 cm to Lauren being born in less than 20 minutes. Two pushes was all it took. I still remember one of the nurses saying "That's the one!" and then she was here at 8:50 am. Let me tell you, I have never felt that kind of pain in my life. I have never wanted to be done with anything that badly. My doctor told me that I should have 5 more kids because I give birth so well. I'm not sure what look I gave him but he laughed and said, "I'm sure if you could lift your leg right now you would kick me right in the head." I had a great doctor. :)

The moment that I finally got to hold her was one of the best moments of my life. With Brenden I was confused. So many random thoughts popped into my head. It was memorable but clouded. With Lauren I was just so HAPPY! I think this was due, in part, to the fact that she showed up so fast and painfully. It was such a relief for her to be out!

Hi baby girl!

Proud daddy!

After about 30 minutes Tim ran out to tell the grandparents that she was here. They were shocked! Not an hour before they were talking about how she would probably get here that afternoon. Mike had actually left the hospital to go get a new pair of reading glasses. When Connie called him to tell him that she had been born his response was, "Are you sure it's the right Kelly?" :)

Amazing. Painful. Exhilarating. Exhausting. Shocking. All words that come to mind when I think about that day. Part of me wishes that I had requested some stronger pain medication. The other part of me wouldn't change a thing. It's her special story...and I'll always be able to bug her about how she was impatient from the moment she was born. :)

Happy Birthday Tom!

Happy happy birthday, Tom!!! Hope you had a fabulous 50th birthday!

Introducing...

Two little Hands, Two little Feet
Now our family is delightfully complete

Proudly announcing
Lauren Suzanna Leigh

Born Thursday, April 15th, 2010
at 8:50 A.M.

7 pounds, 1 ounce

20 inches

Proud Parents

Tim and Amanda

and

Proud Big Brother

Brenden