Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Hans and Will reading Wolverine, Will and me with our crabby faces, Will awake (!) and relaxin' in his bouncer, and Will and me with with happier faces (well, ME anyway!). Pictures of all three of our little pumpkins tomorrow. Now it's time for this tired mama to take herself to bed!

Here we are, rounding the corner on week number two. So far, so good. Today has been a sleep day for Will...he's been asleep since lunchtime (it's 5:20 p.m. now). Monday and Tuesday, he had much longer periods of wakefulness, which is good because it means that he sleeps longer stretches at night. So, we'll see what happens tonight...most likely a Mommy & Will party until the wee hours. But I've been known to be wrong before. Anyway, Will had his two week checkup today, so the real purpose of this blog entry is to let everyone (hi Jan and Donna!) know that he has put on almost one whole pound. As for length, we're not sure, because the hospital told us 21" at birth, but they told us 19" today...hmmm, I don't think he's shrunk 2". The doctor says that Will looks great, is inputting and outputting at proper levels, and was generally pleased with his progress thus far. Will had to get a vitamin K shot in his little thigh--he wasn't ...

As promised, here is the third installment in the saga of Rachel's childbearing. (I will try to keep it G-rated, my apologies to my male readers) So...travelling back in time to October 13th and my last OB visit with the good Dr. Voss. I'm sure I blogged about the fact that I was un-dilating. I had gone from 1 cm to fingertip to closed. I was sure that Will was going to be my "intervention" birth, that I would end up having to be induced. I still haven't learned that when I am "sure" of something, the exact opposite usually happens... I woke at 4:00 a.m. on October 14th with a slightly painful contraction. Not take-your-breath-away painful, but definitely much more noticeable than all of the Braxton Hicks contractions I had been having. The day passed as normal. We got Josiah off to school, Hans off to work and Annika and I settled in for another day. Throughout the day, I had sporadic contractions. Once or twice, it seemed like they were startin...

I have been interested to see all three of them side by side, so here they are: Will, Annika and Josiah, all within a week of their birthdates... Yep, they're definitely siblings!

Sleeping, Part I of MMM. Touchdown! Learned by watching the Vikings with Daddy. An action shot!! Sleeping in various spots: basket, Daddy. Josiah and Annika having a writer's workshop. What to report? This kid can sleep. And sleep and sleep and sleep. We're pretty sure that his super power is sleep-related. I caught him awake in a couple of these pictures, but I think that he's been awake a grand total of 4-1/2 hours since we brought him home on Saturday!

As I've mentioned before, Josiah has once again become obsessed with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. He even had me Google Bill Martin, Jr. the other day so that he could see a picture of him (that's the author)...unfortunately, Mr. Martin passed away in 2004, otherwise, I would send him a letter to tell him how much Josiah loves his work. And suggesting these titles that Josiah has concocted: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom At the Park Chicka Chicka 123 Spring Chicka Chicka Go To the Dinosaur Museum Chicka Chicka 123 Christmas Chicka Chicka 123 Go To Space Chicka Chicka 123 Go to the Zoo Chicka Chicka 123 Summer Chicka Chicka 123 Go to Paris This is but a small selection of the unending Chicka Chicka Boom Boom/123 saga that Josiah has going. Half of these books are fully written and illustrated...I need to pick a couple of the choicest and find a company that will take my scans and bind them into book form. I kid you not, if I bound all the work he's been doing on these lately, it wou...

Big Sister Annika Big Brother Josiah Third time's a charm... Moments old... This is a quick post. We just got out of the hospital this afternoon, so this is the first we've been home to update. William Friedrich (yes, there was a last minute name change...I've been wanting to honor my grandfather, Fred) arrived at 9:42 p.m. on Wednesday evening, weighing 6 lbs 15 oz and 21" in length. I will blog more about my absolutely wonderful (and I mean that) birth experience when we have a little more time!

...when even I am somewhat aghast at how cranky I am. I think that if "crankiness" was a symptom of early labor, I would say with certainty that I was about to have this baby. I have been holding it together pretty well, but today...wow. I am grumpy. The following things have made me extremely grumpy today: having to grocery shop, the fact that the commissary had NO eggs (how am I supposed to make brownies for God's sake?), feeling sick and dizzy at the commissary (maybe due to rage over no eggs), discovering a cocktail sauce stain on the one pair of maternity pants that still look/feel decent, the fact that the weather is gray and drizzly today--not enough for an umbrella but enough to get dampish and frizzy. The fact that my kids ask me questions like "What equals one?" The fact that Hans' orders are not in yet and the fact that badgering from me does not mean that he's going to call and raise holy hell about it like I feel he should. I'm so irrati...

Because my mind is such a pile of mush lately, I can't come up with any one coherent subject: Josiah got all "greens" at school this week, so I made sure to dance around and exhibit great signs of joy to encourage another week of greens. I suppose that the large Rice Krispie bar that he got at the shopette for having a great week probably helped reinforce the positive idea, sans the embarassment of having his enormously pregnant and silly mother warbling over him... The schools are out for teacher in-service tomorrow, so we have a four-day weekend ahead of us. I am depressed that we can't really go anywhere and have to stay close to home. I'm trying to think of some fun things to do that are close and have readily available bathrooms. Our life of jumping in the car and taking off at any time has been curtailed by the advent of our kindergartner...not so easy to travel as we had been doing. So the four-day weekend that we will spend sitting here on Will Watch ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KpW5oWxRto That'll give you an idea. Like I said, I've got a brown shirt and pants to represent the tree's trunk and I've cut out big "coconut leaves" for his head. Today I bought a bunch of colors of felt and will cut out the letters and somehow attach them to his pants and shirt, like the letters in the story--they should look like they are "climbing" up his "trunk". Make sense? It seems like a lot of work, but it actually is pretty easy. Joe is helping out and it gives me somewhere to direct my energies right now! He is actually so obsessed with this book (again) that he has been neglecting his trains. He has gone through three reams of paper, I'm not joking. He has made up so many different stories about the letters and their adventures. They have celebrated Christmas, Halloween, Easter, possibly Kwanzaa! What an imagination...!

I really don't know how to tell all of you this. All of you good people who have been following this pregnancy along, listening to my talk about precipitous birth, etc. Taking a deep breath: Dr. Voss says that I am less dilated than I was last week. Yes, that's right, LESS. Instead of opening up, I'm closing shop. This is so very, very opposite of what happened with Annika. Even what happened with Josiah. I know that every pregnancy is different. I wasn't expecting everything to be the same, but the general rule is that each delivery gets easier and quicker. I got nothin'. If there's nothing again next week (or possibly she checks and finds that he has shrunk back to the 27 week mark or something), we'll schedule an induction for right around October 24th. What I find ironic is that after all this worry about not making it to the hospital or having the delivery be sort of "out of control" like Annika's was, I very well may walk into the ...

Just a couple of things: Yes, I am still pregnant. We're under the two week mark here and to say that each day is making us a little more anxious to meet this child face-to-face is an understatement. I have an OB appointment again on Tuesday and may get more information then. Until that time, your guess is as good as mine. And really, I'm pretty much OK with that. I packed up the first box of wrapped Christmas gifts and hopefully will get them sent to you soon, Mom and Dad, to distribute to the cousins. Which leads me to: Did you know that whenever you order from Gymboree online, you can request a free gift box be sent with your order? No, neither did I...just discovered this and so on my last order, I had them send three free boxes. I'm so glad that I did because the good folks at Gymboree not only send you adorable, polka-dotted boxes, they send you grograin ribbon, stickers AND giftcards. So: Many of your Christmas gifts may look a little un-Christmasy because they'l...