Bringing Home Baby

I have a bad habit. Ok, maybe I have a few. But one of those bad habits is wishing away experiences in my life instead of savoring the sweet moments and embracing all aspects presented through those experiences. When I learned that I was pregnant in March, I vowed to myself that I would treasure up all the sweetness and magic that is pregnancy, in anticipation that there shall be no more for me. But I'll be darned if the moment I started noticing changes to my body that I found to be unpleasant, I didn't start wishing the months away.

I don't know where they went, the past nine months. Time goes so quickly, and before I knew it, I was within weeks of my due date. Somehow, I just expected our little lady to join the family early, as in when I was around 37 weeks. Ha! She must have known what she was getting herself into and tried to hide out as long as possible. As the weeks ticked by and my obstetrician suggested setting a date for induction, I held out hope that I would spontaneously go into labor before my due date. I really hate choosing my babies' birthdays by planning an induction. It just seems so....unnatural. But then, a week away from that all-important due date, I caved. We set my induction date for November 14. I still had time to go into labor on my own, but it wasn't to be. So early in the morning, Wednesday November 14, Paul and I headed to the hospital and left the boys to be sent off to school with Mimi. The labor was nearly perfect, really. It was the most relaxed experience of the three. I officially got started on the Pitocin around 7:00, was able to manage the pain quite nicely through breathing and mentally convincing myself that the pain wasn't that severe, and finally decided to accept the epidural before I was out of my mind in pain. Epidurals and I, we aren't the best of friends. Epidural #1 (Sam)- got it too late, didn't get to even use it, ended up with a spinal headache. Epidural #2 (Nathanael)- it only took on one side of my body. Epidural #3 (baby girl)- also only took on the right side of my body. So, the anesthesiologist hand-injected a much larger dose of medicine to try to force it to spread out to the left side (which it never did even out, though I was able to become comfortable), thus resulting in a numb arm, chest, and a Frankenstein eye which did not look nice in those first pictures of baby and me. After the epidural, I was able to rest for a very brief time before the baby was ready to be born. My nurse, becoming aware that I was about to give birth, left my room to go look for my doctor, who had been in surgery delivering another baby. Nurse told me to press my call button if anything happened while she was out. No sooner had she left my room then I had my next contraction and pressed my call button. She and my doctor came rushing in and three contractions later, at 12:42 pm (right in time for lunch, hallelujah!), weighing in at 8 pounds 9 ounces (that was a surprise) and 21 1/4 inches long, my beautiful baby girl was born.

And we shall call her Claire Julia. Lest there be any confusion, that's Ju-lee-a as opposed to Jewl-ya. Yes, there's a difference, yes it matters to me, yes I have strong opinions about it. It's my legal name, I'm entitled to strong opinions. Ju-lee-a, pretty. Jewl-ya, gross. Nonetheless, how often will anyone say her middle name anyway?
I love giving birth. I truly do. The whole process is so surreal, but particularly that moment when their little body slips into this world. It's such an awesome experience. Part of me feels like I just can't have experienced that for the last time. But then, you've got to stop somewhere and three seems like the right place for us. I got my daughter. The daughter I always longed for. She is beautiful. She is sweet. We are so in love- her mommy, her daddy, and her big brothers.

Halloween

This year on Halloween, the first grade was asked to dress up as a character from one of several children's books. Sam wanted to be Thing 2 and luckily we were able to borrow some items from a friend to make putting together his costume completely effortless. Nathanael started the morning in a Tiger costume, but had already made his first wardrobe change before I even took him to school.

I had a doctor appointment on Halloween, so I wasn't able to attend either of the boys' class parties which was a major disappointment to me, but I was able to stop by Nathanael's class as they went trick-or-treating in the church.

Having been a little unsure about whether we would actually do much, if any, neighborhood trick-or-treating, in the early afternoon we gathered up Max and Yaya for some grocery store trick-or-treating. We hit Publix and Food Lion, and the boys came home with a pretty decent selection of loot.

Later in the early evening, Yaya called us and asked that we once again join up with Max to test out the neighborhood. Well, thank heavens we had done the grocery stores because, although Max and Nathanael turned into trick-or-treating professionals, my tender-hearted little Sammy was too terrified to even approach the first door. The poor child is afraid of his own shadow, so Halloween decor will just about put him over the edge. He and Paul stayed back while Nathanael and Max learned the fine art of proper trick-or-treating: approach doors only when the porch light is on, ring the doorbell, say "trick-or-treat", receive candy, politely thank the homeowners. The Tiger and Chicken made quite the Halloween pair.

Fall Carnival

It seems that this is the time of year for all of the schools to hold their annual carnival. It also seems that since the first day of school (for both boys at both schools), the school has been hitting us up for money and item donations. Though we did not participate in any of the door-to-door fundraisers, we've contributed pet items for Sam's class basket for the carnival, toys for Nathanael's class basket, and baked goods also to Sam's carnival. Finally, I think we have seen the last of the donations....atleast until they start asking for gifts for poor children at Christmas time.
All along I had intended to take Sam to his school's carnival. I have heard from multiple sources that it is actually a lot of fun and, despite my own tendencies toward stinginess and stick-in-the-mud-ness, I don't want to deny Sam experiences that he wants to have. Besides, I remember my dutiful mother taking me to the carnival at Plain when I was a kid. Well, it just so happened that Sam's and Nathanael's carnivals were on the same night. Sam did say he wanted to go and Nathanael was looking forward to it too. But when Paul got home from work, he immediately set out to persuade Sam against going. That child is so much like his parents it's ridiculous. He is not generally affected by the crowd and prefers a quiet night at home. He was easily bought out of the carnival when I offered him Chick-Fil-A and a Redbox movie. Nathanael, on the other hand, had been sold on the carnival in class earlier during the day when the teachers told them all about the games that would be available. All he could talk about was the fishing game and the duck pond, and he would NOT be dissuaded. So, while Paul and Sam enjoyed their quiet evening, I took my little blondie on a date to his school for carnival games and a hot dog.
I love that Nathanael has several of his church friends who go to preschool with him. We were able to see a few of them at the carnival and he palled around with his friend Myah as they enjoyed most of the games. Of course we went straight for the fishing pond, followed by the duck pond, bean bag toss, cup cake walk, face painting, and there were even inflatable bouncy things.

Then Nathanael was able to have dinner with his friend, Aidan. And, though it was never in question that Nathanael is a lady's man, I met one of his little girlfriends, Charlotte, as she came waltzing out of the face painting room to greet him with a very drawn out "hiiiiii, Nathanael". Nathanael talks about chasing Charlotte and Gabby on the playground every day when I pick him up from school. So, I had to get a picture of those two. So cute!

I'm glad Nathanael and I were able to have a night out together. Better yet, I'm glad we were able to do it without battling the crowds at the elementary school!