About Andrew

~Andrew said goodbye to his Grandma early this morning.  We're all sad to see her go, and we'll miss her a lot.  It hurts to live so far away.  But we know we were very blessed and spoiled to have her with us for so long!  It was pretty great!

~Andrew has a very jealous older brother today.  This particular brother has had one tantrum and crying fit after another today.  Momma's feeling spread a little thin already...  There are delightful bright spots, of course, but we have a lot of adjustment ahead of us.

~Andrew, however, has spent most of the day in a drunken stupor.  Momma's got lots of milk, and he's enjoying it.  He wakes ravenous, fills his tummy like there is nothing in the world more important than this task (and to him, of course, there isn't), and then immediately conks out again like a tiny narcoleptic.  I'm hoping this doesn't mean he'll be up all night, but there was just no keeping him awake very much today (and we tried!).

~Andrew is one chill little dude.  Well, it's only his third day of life On The Outside, so I can't say for sure, but it seems that way so far.  He doesn't cry much-- not a peep for diaper changes or even during the heal-prick for his newborn screening test.  When he's awake, he's pretty much happy to look around and listen to the commotion of his older brothers.  After two very fussy-needy-intense babies, I am more than ready for a calm and mellow one!

~Andrew will be baptized on Sunday, and his Auntie Lyssa is right now in the kitchen baking his baptism cake.  Which his Mommy will eat for him.

~Andrew has another brother who is greatly enjoying his big-brother-role this time around.  He's become quite a competent helper and loves to hold and kiss on his baby.  His Mommy tries not to have heart-attacks when he carries Andrew around.

~Andrew is a binky-baby.  I have never seen a newborn take to a pacifier that quickly or easily.  He's hooked.  It scares me just a little, the addiction factor, but we'll get past it eventually, I'm sure. 

~Andrew is quite sweet.  Sweetness all around.

Finally Here!

Andrew Paul

8 lbs, 7oz; 19inches long

Born at home, 1:08am, October 26

He's long-awaited, and finally here!  The midwife says he looks maybe one week late, if that.  All this agonizing waiting was really just a classic case of miscalculations.    He's healthy, beautiful, and much-loved!

His big brothers are both very excited and pleased.

I'll write more --and post better photos!-- soon.  For today, I have no plans to do anything other than lie on the couch and baby-gaze.  Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!

I Am Fruitcake

Here I am, eating yogurt and browsing the web at 7:00 in the morning when I should by rights be still asleep.  (I know, 7 is a perfectly reasonable time to be UP, and I would love to be, except that I wake up at 4, and I can't be up by 7 if I can't sleep until then!  7 has been when I've been going BACK TO SLEEP in order to get enough to [sort of] get through the day.  GRRR!) 

("Sleep now!" people glibbly tell me, "Because you won't be getting any sleep after the baby's born!  Hee, hee!"  Rubbish.  I'll probably sleep better after this kid is not inhabiting my body any more.  Of course, I said that with Evan, and then entered a year of Baby Sleep Hell like nothing I've ever known.  Whatever.  Sleep is just not my thing.)

My brain just won't shut up early in the morning lately.  And it's been going on and on and on, every day the same.  I wake up, aching and sore, after sleeping half-hour increments all night, and I still have not had a baby, and my brain clicks on and won't listen to my body, whining about how tired it is.  It's like Groundhog Day, every day, world without end.

Any woman in my situation would have calculated her due date to be September 29. And any woman would be a BASKETCASE by the time she was 20 DAYS PAST THAT DATE.  Just because I was paying attention (a little, not enough apparently) to know and expect that my real due date is a LITTLE LATER (though how much is anyone's guess) DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE A BASKETCASE. 

And let me tell you, I AM DOWNRIGHT CERTIFIABLE.

And lest you get worried about the possible dangers of going so far overdue, I'm not really that far overdue (it just feels like it!).  Like I said, I expected some "lateness". I was not planning on the 29th being my actual due date.  I might only be 10 days over.  Or a week, or two weeks, or who knows, really.  But everything is fine, I'm fine (HA!), baby seems to be doing great.  So great, in fact, that he/she is just too stinkin' comfortable in there, and prefers it, apparently, to coming out to meet the rest of the world.

"No, no, it's okay, we're fine, we're all fine here... uh... how are you?"  [Laser blaster to communicator]  "Stupid conversation anyway."

Star Wars.  Star Wars is ALWAYS appropriate.

So is the Princess Bride, which we watched last night with pizza and beer in attempt to distract ourselves.  And all I can say is-- this overdue-business is INCONCEIVABLE.

My Mom has been here for almost 3 weeks.  3 WEEKS.  She's changing her plane ticket date for the second time, and is now at the outer limit of the time she can spend here, because, um, she has a life, too.  And my Dad has been surviving without her at home all this time-- holding down the fort, as we say, and I have no doubt it's wearing on him by now.

My sister is here, now, too.  She was supposed to be The Reinforcements, arriving to help out around here when it was time for Mom to go home.

Can you see that THINGS ARE NOT WORKING OUT LIKE WE PLANNED?

Today is my Mom's 50th birthday.  Yes, that's right.  It's really special!  And she's spending it here, in rainy podunk Michigan, STILL WAITING FOR A BABY.  Do you know, she could have gone to Italy to celebrate her 50th birthday?  But she chose to be here, with me.

I am determined that we will not sit around and mope today like we did yesterday.  We have to do something special, because it's a special day.  The only thing Mom actually wants for her birthday (can you guess what that might be?) is, um, not working out so far.

So.  I've already had my good cry of the day, now it's time to find something fun to occupy the rest of it.  What can we do, my enormous self and two of my favorite women in the whole world?  (Aside from producing a grandbaby birthday present...)

Wait! Don't say it!

If I hear anyone suggest a ride down a bumpy road one more time, I'm just gonna start screaming.  C'mon, people.  I've heard it.  More than once.

It might have been a little bit funny the first time.

It doesn't even make sense!  Jostle the baby around and it'll come out?  Whatever.  Not that easy. 

I know, I know, it's a joke.  But an old one.

I'm much more likely to have success starting labor by nursing my toddler, which is what I've been doing as often as possible, because it actually gets some hormone action going.  Hormones are what we need here, not the bouncing of a car/haywagon/donkey/rickshaw/go-cart/moon rover/elephant.

Stop.  Just don't say it.  Eh!  I know you want to.  Just stop yourself.

Also, there are quite a few men out there who just can't help themselves from daily asking:  "You had that baby yet?  HARharhar..."  Aieee.

But I'm not bitter.

Anyway.

So yeah.  We're starting to joke around that there is not baby coming, made it up, haha, fooled you.

Psyche!  Made you look.

Every day we get up and start another day, just like the one before.  Mom comes downstairs and looks and me and just shakes her head.  No baby yet.

I woke up pretty depressed about it all this morning.  (And the sun was not shining, so that didn't help.  Whine, whine, whine.  I know.) And then I read this quote from Luther:

We are such softies, such sapless sufferers.   A pain in the leg can cause us to fill heaven with our howls and wails, our grumbling and cursing.  But the good God permits such small evils to befall us merely to arouse us snorers from our deep sleep and to make us recognize, on the other hand, the incomparable and innumerable benefits we still have.

We are also to look at our misfortunes in no other way than that with them God gives us a light by which we may see and understand His goodness and kindness in countless other ways.  Then we conclude that such small misfortunes are barely a drop of water on a big fire or a little spark in the ocean.

So there's that.

And seriously?  To equate this little "delay" in my mind with a "misfortune" is actually silly.  Hello??!?!  I'm having a baby!  A real baby!  Who is, right now, alive, and apparently healthy, and already a tremendous blessing.  I wouldn't blame God for actually rolling his eyes at me and all my grousing, or laughing a little, like I do to my kids when they are having such minor little troubles.

And I know that.  Right?  But I'm kind of a wimp.

I certainly need the reminder, even if I whine about it.

No New is No News

That's right, still no baby.

And it's not for lack of hoping, anticipating, begging, praying, and trying every folk remedy in the book.  (I read that eating lots of pineapple will start labor... maybe I should go buy a pineapple...).

Jonah came up with one, too.  Last night after he was in bed, he came down with something to say.  Very Earnestly: "Mom.  To help you have the baby, I'm going to make you the best medicines I know.  I'm going to make you, um... some hot water, and some cold water and some vinegar water, and those will help!  You drink them, and they help to puuuuush the baby out!"

He elaborated a little more, still Extremely Serious, and I thanked him and valiantly held in my giggles until he was heading back upstairs.

I had all but forgotten about it this morning when I stumbled down the stairs, achy and lacking in sufficient sleep, but the first thing Jonah said to me was, "Mom, I got your medicine ready."

Oh dear.

Sure enough, on the counter where I make breakfast were three tall glasses of water.  One warmish (I saw the pan on the stove he had used to heat it!), one cold (the ice cubes had long since melted) and one with vinegar in it (that's our go-to remedy for everything around here-- raw cider vinegar for tummy-aches, indigestion, hiccups...).

What could I do but drink them? (not all at once-- oof)  I thanked him for his help, and he gravely told me that we would do it every day and it would make the baby come soon.

At those odds, he can't loose.

Aaaand still waiting...

Projects accomplished (so far!) while waiting (aaaand waiting) for a baby to arrive on the scene:

~Trim painted and installed in living room.

~A very ugly (picture bare studs, miscellaneous wood, and insulation hanging out all over) and difficult window framed, trimmed and painted;  now very beautiful!

~Two rough, old chairs painted great colors and waiting for a little "distress treatment".

~Upstairs guest bedroom wired for electricity, drywall repaired, trimmed, and painted.

~Basement door framed and installed.

~Trim painted for bathroom, ready to be installed.

~Raw edge of kitchen floor finished.

~Kitchen cabinet knobs installed.

~Kitchen floor mopped (even under the fridge!), cabinets wiped down.

~Kitchen and living room windows washed.

~Herb bed weeded and beautified.

~Lovely piece of garden art installed in herb bed (ooh!  I should take a picture of that!).

~Van brakes repaired.

~Um, there are probably more things that I am forgetting because seriously-- lots of stuff getting done!


And that's just my husband and mother.

I think they're nesting.

Or bored.


I, on the other hand, mostly lay on the couch, attempt to keep on top of laundry, try to pacify my crabby toddler, lay on the couch, get up to pee over and over and over, drop and break things, ruin batches of cheese and yogurt, sometimes cook things, and, um, lay on the couch.

I guess I've had a few constructive projects, like canning 18 pints of pickled jalapenos, weeding three raised beds in the garden, and starting some hard cider brewing, but otherwise... I pretty much lay on the couch.  Fatigue.  I think it's the gravity getting me down.

I really wouldn't mind lightening my load, any minute here.

I mean, I probably will mind.  I will probably (most certainly, actually) complain and whine and cry.  But when it's done, I'll be glad.  Very glad.

But!  Thanks to the wonderful people in my house, things are still being accomplished around here, and quickly, no less!  But I was recently very pointedly informed that The Projects are mostly completed, so, um, we're ready.  Annnnny time now.

The Waiting

The waiting is hard. Tedious. And I'm tired.

But I'm just trying to keep busy and on with normal life while we wait.  It can't go on forever, and suddenly life will change drastically and it will take a while to find a new normal.

My Momma is here!  While I feel a little sorry that she's just waiting around with us, I'm also glad she's here to wait with us!  The boys are having fun with her, and we're doing lots of visiting...

...and there's lots getting done around here, too!

There are so many projects and chores that I've been letting go, out of necessity and fatigue.

But Mom has energy and time and she's getting to many of my neglected things.

Although, perhaps these projects are occasionally prompted by my own stupidity-- like breaking a gallon jar of apple cider all over the kitchen floor first thing in the morning.  Can you imagine that mess?  My kitchen was flooded with sticky cider and shards of glass.  Mom spent half the morning mopping and wiping and moving the fridge, and then she just kept going and wiped down the cabinets and appliances and washed windows... and now my kitchen is sparkly!  Just in time for me to drop and break a jar of maple syrup the next morning!

Yes, it's true.  You just can't make this stuff up.

Help.  I'm a first-class klutz.

So anyway.  We're waiting.

Waiting for a baby, who's evidently very comfortable right where he/she is, thankyouverymuch, to make an appearance.  I got a chiropractic adjustment and had some acupuncture in effort to prepare my body and try to dislodge this little person, but so far, we're still waiting.

Evan seems to know something's up.  He's very clingy and constantly wants me to hold him while he sucks his thumb and wraps his hands in my hair.  He's not ready to stop being Mommy's baby just yet.  So this Mommy will have two babies for a while, and that's just fine...

...so let's hurry up and get that other baby here!