Musings of a Brood Mama: June 2011

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

My Amazing Daughter

Why, you might ask, is my daughter so amazing? Doesn't every 2 year old girl adore playing with a Little People house and princess castle? In short...no. At least Georgia never did. Actually, my two oldest have only fairly recently become interested in imaginative Little People/Imaginext toys at all. Ezra always preferred building things and destroyed most other toys and Georgia pretty much just danced around in a princess dress and destroyed most other toys. So, you'll have to excuse my ridiculously over-the-top amazement at my daughter and her ability to actually play with toys like they're supposed to be played with. Even more astounding is that she plays like this all the time and pretty much has since she was a baby. If it's not Little People, then it's with the play kitchen...and, guess what? She actually pretends to cook in said play kitchen. Don't even get me started on her ability to mother dolls.

Amazing, I know.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

You say Ketchup, I say Catch-Up, part II

I officially hate blogger. I've attempted three different times today to load Ezra's preschool graduation pictures and they all end up sideways. So...you get the one picture of the day that loaded correctly because it was already done landscape-style. grrrr.

As I'm sure is obvious from Gee's Easter basket, this picture is from our Easter egg hunt. I would provide you with more pictures, but all we managed to achieve was a heck of a lot of blurred pictures of the back of curly heads (and one not-so-curly head). Not to mention, with the day I'm having blog-wise, they would've posted sideways anyway :P

Oh well...maybe tomorrow.

ps-on a random note, I had someone ask me if my kids were going to Vacation Bible School this summer. After replying in the negative, that comment led me to a prolonged fantasy of how great it would be if my kids actually were going to VBS. I'd get them out of my hair for a couple of blessed hours a day and they'd get to have gobs of fun while learning primary-ish stuff. Why, oh why, doesn't the LDS church do VBS!? I'm thinkin' I might have to do some Vacation Bible School-shopping next summer. Lest you think I have a problem with other churches teaching *cough*brainwashing*cough* my children...just ask Ezra to tell you his snack-time preschool prayer ;)

Friday, June 24, 2011

a million years

Seven years ago yesterday, Spencer proposed to me. One of these days I'll give y'all the full story (it was fraught with humorous ironies)...but today is not that day. I will, however, dedicate a song to real love everywhere and my real life sweetheart...because this is a song about real, everyday love. I love it when an artist can take something simple and turn it into poetry and that's what Alexander Ebert does so well in A Million Years. Enjoy!

ps-a HUGE congrats to my fabulous sister, Liberty, for finding this song. Even bigger hurrah! to her for sharing it with her much-appreciative little sis. I love having someone to share music with :)

Thursday, June 23, 2011

You say Ketchup, I say Catch-Up, part I

So...I started this post pre-baby (literally, the evening before I went into labor) and am now just getting around to finishing it. I missed blogging about a couple of big events over the last couple of months *cough*Easter*cough* so here's my last-ditch attempt at a picture catch-up before the summer gets underway with all it's own festivities and I really fall behind. Enjoy!

Easter Egg Fun!

Obviously, dying Easter eggs was a naked event at the Lifferth household...as are most things, it seems. At least they had on aprons, right?

Easter Finery

What a handsome boy!

Georgia showing off her "blue rose" dress

Say cheese!

Scarlett pulling a Marilyn Monroe-worthy pose for the camera

The closest thing to a semi-successful group shot we got

And...I think I'm done for the day. Sorry folks, I had big plans for this post but Oak is fussing, I'm exhausted and desperately need to shower, and blogger is doing stupid things with the pictures. Maybe I'll attempt a second post later in the day. Regardless...you get what you get and you don't get upset.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Yes Sir, that's my baby...

No Sir, I don't mean maybe

Yes Sir, that's my baby now

Sorry for the long wait, faithful followers, but it's been kind of crazy around here (as expected ;). Oak Gideon joined our family Tuesday morning (June 7th) and life hasn't been the same since. The three older kids just adore him and want to hold him all the time. He's a sweet little guy, although definitely on the spitty and gassy side...which is all too much like his older brother was for my tastes. That's ok, though, he's adorable and we all fell in love with him the moment he came into this world. He has just a bit of blond hair on top and a little bit of light brown hair old-man style on the sides and back. His eyes are blue, as expected (both Spence and I have blue eyes, as do the other kids) and we'll see what shade they settle into. Oak has a bit of a stork bite on the tip of his nose and one on his forehead, back of his head, and nape of his neck. Let's just say he's well-loved by the stork. Luckily none of them are too too prominent. As for eating, he has a bit of a rough time latching on for nursing, but once he's on he's on for good and is a champion nurser from that point forward.

Oak's name comes from my maiden name, Holyoak. So, his name is to honor my family heritage, along with my own father, who instilled in me a need to live up to the honor of my name. Also, we just love the imagery of a strong and indomitable oak tree as Oak's namesake. I can tell he has a mighty oak spirit in his little acorn body.

ps-for all you veteran moms and other interested readers out there, all the gory birth details are in the post following this one.

pps-sorry for the lack of daddy-son pictures. I realized when looking over pictures for this post that Spence has usually been behind the camera not in front of it.

Now...onto the orgy of baby pictures...

Fresh baked and out of the oven

A very tired, but happy, mommy and baby

Checkin' out the competition

Georgie and Oak

You couldn't find a prouder older brother if you tried. Ezra tells me all the time how he's trying to be a good example for Oak to teach him the right.

Baby-obsessed Scarlett thinks it's the best thing ever to finally have one of her very own.

MiMi (my mom) came up from Oklahoma at the drop of a hat. Thank heavens. I think it's helped the older kids have a much easier transition to have her around.

Oak in his home-coming outfit. Ezra picked it out with Mimi the day before. He knew he had to have it when he saw the sharks, his latest obsession.

Ahhh...sweet...

...but give it some time and Scarlett's true feelings will come to light.

I couldn't resist a picture of that little wrinkly forehead. Don't you just love them!

Taken just mere minutes ago, this is the most accurate and up-to-date picture so far. Isn't he adorable?

Well, there you have it, folks. If you aren't beating your head on a desk already from the mere length of this post, feel free to carry on with the birth story below.

The rest of the story.

This is for all y'all out there that like to have all the gory labor details...

First off, long before labor started, I was walking around at 3 1/2cm dilated, so it's like I was a ticking time bomb. After some on-again, off-again false labor on Monday (the 6th), I woke up in the wee hours (about 3:00-ish) of Tuesday morning (the 7th) with contractions. They were definitely painful, but still manageable.

Spencer woke up soon after to head to his last day of his paper route and I had him set me up with a clock for contraction timing before he left. I was a little less then enthusiastic with being left alone, but I knew things would probably take a while and he'd be back in time to take me to the hospital. Lucky for me, however, there was some confusion at the paper place and they ended up not needing him after all, so he came home and ended up only being gone for about a half an hour after all (thank heavens for that!).

So, for the next few hours, I just labored, timed, and attempted to rest and relax when possible. By the time 6:00am rolled around, I knew there was no way that things would putter out (remember the previous false labor?). It was about this time that (dun, dun, dun [cue scary music]) the nausea and throwing up started. Yes, (non-medicated) contracting while vomiting really is as horrible as it sounds. I was already exhausted, sore, and dealing with intense contractions, so throwing sickness into the mix just about undid me. Let's just say it was miserable and leave it at that.

Anyway, I called my mom at about 6:30am telling her she should head up to Kansas City (from Oklahoma) as soon as possible since we were down to about 6-minute contractions at that point in time. 7:00am brought a call to the babysitter (thank you, thank you, thank you, Jennae!) who got to the house at about 7:30 and we headed to the hospital.

Don't I look just miserable?

When they checked me at around 8:00am after arriving at the hospital, I was dilated to about 6cm. They also gave me some zofran to help with the nausea then too. I'll be honest, I was pretty disappointed I was only at a 6. After nearly 5 hours of intense labor (with loads and loads of serious contractions in the days preceding) and having experienced checking into the hospital at 10cm when in labor with Scarlett, I was definitely hoping to be a little farther along. Not to mention with the vomiting and everything, I was wearing down quicker then anticipated. With going natural with Scarlett, I loved how in-control I felt the entire time. Contractions sucked but I handled them. With Oak...let's just say there was an edge of desperation during labor that wasn't there with Scarlett's.

At about 9:00am, the zofran kicked in and the throwing up abated, although I was still nauseous. It wasn't long after that that I noticed I was beginning to feel kind of pushy. At first I dismissed it since I had been checked at 6cm so recently, but it wasn't long before I insisted a nurse come check things out. Sure enough, I had dilated to 10cm in an hour. Things progressed pretty quickly after that with my midwife hurrying over from her office (it's connected to the hospital) and the nurses getting the baby supplies in the room. Once I got the green light to push, it was all over in a flash. I gave a push and a half during a single contraction and we had a baby at 9:26am with nary a tear or skid mark in sight. Oak came out all squirmy and alert with apgar scores of 9 and 9. Overall, it was a very intense, but short-lived and successful natural labor. Pushing was not my fave (it never is) but who can complain about a push and a half? Most importantly, Oak Gideon entered the world as a healthy heaven-sent little boy and we're so blessed because of it.

And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.