Wednesday, October 31, 2012

1 year ago today..

One year ago today, my normal, everyday-since-29-weeks-contractions started coming closer together. They went from 6 minutes apart to 4 minutes apart between 6am and 8am. Kenneth called his boss and took the day off work (even though I said I was probably just having my normal contractions and that he should go to work still). And then an hour later, when the contractions were still coming at 4 or even 3 minutes apart, Kenneth convinced me that maybe I should call the doctor after all, that maybe I actually was in labor. They hurt, but not that bad. I was feeling good about this labor thing-- oh yeah, I can handle this.

And 21 hours later, I was finally admitted to the hospital-- which at the time, seemed like the biggest barrier between us and our baby. Being admitted meant I'd finally made some progress, and my body was finally starting to do its thing. Whoo hoo! 

And, it meant an epidural. God bless epidurals and all the fine anesthesiologists of our great land who give them to laboring women. 




It was still 12 hours after that before we saw these little toes...


and this little face...


... and became a family of 3 (4 if you count Juniper). 




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Since having Xavier, I've decided birthdays aren't just about celebrating the person in question-- but also about the mom who did all the work to get that person here. 

So, 

GO ME! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY OF LABOR AND ATTEMPTING TO PUSH A BABY OUT FOR 3 HOURS BEFORE HAVING MAJOR SURGERY DAY TO ME!

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And yes, happy day-labor-started-with-you day to my boy. You did your part in that birthing-thing too. It must have been tough getting squeezed every 4 minutes for 37 hours, getting your head rammed against my pelvis bones for 3 hours, and then having to be pulled out of your happy little home inside me. Sorry about that, but you can't remember it anyway, so really, I don't feel too bad. :) 

 Can't wait to celebrate and call you a 1 year old big boy tomorrow. Dad and Mama love you to pieces.





Friday, October 12, 2012

Love these

When X was maybe 3 or 4 months old, we started calling him our little dinosaur from time to time because he made dinosaur type noises. Now his room is dinosaur themed (as in, we've painted it bright green and put up a few dinosaur prints-- real over the top, you know). Anyhow, he sort of says "dog" or "dad"-- sometimes. And it's not totally clear that he's saying it intentionally. But, he does say "RAWR!" when he points at the dinosaur prints in his room. And sometimes he'll say it when I ask him "What do dinosaurs say?" or "Are you a dinosaur?" So, "RAWR!"-- I can say is among his first words with absolute certainty. So stinkin' cute. (And very useful right? Because telling the grown ups what dinosaurs say is a really useful thing to communicate...? Guess we should have been working  harder on "eat" or  "mama" or something. Oh well.)

So, that's the story behind why I think these are so great. We might have to put up one or several in X's room. So cute that I thought I'd share.








Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The Real Story on that McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit...

I thought this was interesting. At least, it made me think a bit differently of the supposed frivolous lawsuit. I mean, yeah, coffee is hot-- but so hot-- 180 degrees!?-- that your burns require skin grafts, and McDonalds hadn't done anything after 700 similar cases? I dunno McDonalds... I think now I'd say you had it coming and the plaintiff only actually got less than $650,000. Which I imagine may have covered her medical bills and not much else-- I'm guessing skin grafts and 2 hospitalizations are not cheap.