All Baby, Baby!

Rylee is a sweet baby.  She's starting to get a cute little face, although it is still the round, featureless newborn face .  She is still sleeeping all day and not as much at night (although it is getting better).  They mystery for the ages is this:  How is it that she can sleep 3-4 hour stretches during the day, but is incapable of going more than 2 hours at night?!  And what's up with the 4 hour awake periods in the middle of the night?  I know, it takes about 2 weeks to re-regulate them to sleeping more at night and being awake during the day.  So far this is what I only get to see at night:

Yep, open peepers.  That's about the only time she is wide awake and happy to look around.

Aack!  Stop with the flash, Mom!

What's that?  No, I don't want to sleep!  I'm checking out the world!

Well, maybe I am a little sleepy.

And now, a big thank you to my friend Lanie.  Had she talked to me, I'd have said, no, I do not need a swing.  However, she just dropped it by and I LOVE her for it!  Its the fantastic cradle swing and Rylee has happily spent the last 2 days lazing away in it, and I have been hands-free!  Check out my cutie pie and lets see what she does all day...

Sleeping baby is emerging into hungry baby.  See, the fist comes up and gnawing begins.  Eyes not quit open yet, but the hunger is coming!

Open eyes, looking for food.  Mouth is working.  Perhaps a yawn occurs.

Then it is angry time.  Where is the food?!

Hungry and unhappy, there's the pause to see if the demand is being met.

It has not! Crying begins in ernest and Mommy better put the camera down and take care of business!

Fun Photos

Someone had a birthday!

Someone had a baptism!

Someone is silly!

Someone had a good time with his newest granddaughter!

Someone is truly adorable!

Someone thought Baby needed a baby to keep her company.

Someone got a super-cool tree fort, courtesy of his 2 grandpas.  Thank you  Grandpas!!

Counting with Rebecca

1- The number of tired, crabby new moms in my house.

2- The number of surprise guests yesterday.  (Dan's brother and his wife came up for Dan's birthday and to meet Rylee, and left today.)

3- The number of hours I spent in my bed last night.

4- The number of grandparents present at Rylee's Blessing this morning at church.

5- The number of children we took to church this morning.  The same number went back to church this evening for Joshua's baptism.

6-  The number of diapers I changed today.

7- The number of people now travelling places in our van.

8-  The number of times I thought maybe this was too much to do in one day with a 4 day old baby.

9- The number of days old I had hoped Rylee would be today!

10- The number that my family and friends score out of 10.  I have a great family and great friends!

Something other than Baby

Okay, I lied.  Here is Marian with Rylee.  All the kids love her and want to hold her; want to touch her; want to hug her...... I am glad they are happy she is here.

My dad doesn't rest well.  He is a doer and isn't happy unless he is doing something.  So I had to come up with a project for him while he was here.  I had been thinking that a fort in the back yard would be just the thing, so we sat down and planned out a great tree fort.  Here is Delaney, watching from the house as we got things started!

Did I mention that both sets of grandparents are here?  Here is Callie with her 2 grandpas!

Joshua was thrilled to have "his" project in the works.  He went to all his friends' houses and he had a whole troop of kids in the back yard to "assist".   Joshua is helping tighten the nuts to the platform.

Marian is being a kitty cat and is climbing on the frame.  We went with a nice, simple structure for this tree fort.   I'll have to post the finished product later.

Today  Dan and his parents and my mom and Callie  all went out to DC to see some sights.  They were gone most of the day and had a good time.

Callie at the Iwo Jima Memorial.  She doesn't seem to know how she feels about it.

Dan and Callie at the Korean War Memorial.  I think this is a pretty cool memorial.

She has Arrived!

Just to mention it first, Marian lost her first top tooth!  It was very exciting and she is so cute.  I think its a pretty huge gap though, and wonder how big her permanent teeth will be!

Here is my cutie girl!

And on to what you really wanted to see!  Baby Rylee was born yesterday!  8lbs 2oz and 20 inches long.  Born at 5:39pm, beautiful and pink.

We went to the hospital at 3am because I was leaking fluid.  I totally thought I'd start labor and go quickly, but that didn't happen at all! Here I am, before they fully broke my water at 10am- no progressing, no labor, nothing! 

I will tell you that for this birth, I went with the epidural.  It was the longest out of all 5, and I am so glad I didn't try for Natural.  Okay, I never really tried for natural births with the others, it just happened.  They were mostly fast. There was nothing fast about this one, except the end.  I got the Epidural around 2pm and ahhhhhh.... it relaxed me enough that labor really got started, and even then, the baby didn't come out till after 5:30!  

And I will give you the benefit of my experience now...  If you think you want to try to go drug free- do it on the first, because after getting the epidural, I would NEVER willingly choose to hurt as much as a natural birth does!  

Here I am, right after she was born.  I think her umbilical cord is still attached.  She popped out in like 2 contractions  (I'm not positive; I wasn't feeling a thing, the epidural was that good!) and they gave her right to me.  I'm still crying here, but I don't think you can tell. I couldn't believe Dan wanted a picture right then!

Look at her pouty face!  They wrapped her up and gave her to Dan while they waited for me to deliver the placenta and all that.  We had fabulous nurses, and one of them took this shot.

Look at those open eyes!  I think that's the most open they have been since she arrived!  And you can see her weight there.  I was just pleased that her head, while lovely and round, was not enormous!

There's my precious!

Dan and Callie came to see us today at lunchtime.  Callie was SO excited!  Rylee's face looks weird here, but she really just has her hand crammed in front of her mouth.

Dan brought the other kids with him when he came to bring me home.  They are all enamored with their new sister.  They did also enjoy eating the snacks around the room- hence Marian and her silly face, holding her graham crackers.

So, I am home now and happy to be here.  While the delivery was wonderful, the Mom and Baby area of the hospital left much to be desired, and I'm much happier to be home. We'll see how tonight goes!

Life

I didn't want to leave too long a time between postings.  You might get excited.  The answer is no.  I have not delivered this child.  She doesn't seem to want to come out.    I'm at the ambivalent period where I'm suddenly not sure I want her out!  I'm feeling like I'm going to be pregnant forever, and the idea of going through labor and delivery is enough to make me cry right now.  I am not ready for that, and I haven't quite gotten past the thought of simply no longer being pregnant.  That has been my end-goal for 8+ months now, and I haven't thought much past that.  I have ignored the whole delivery part, and ignored the whole bringing-home-a-baby part.  These are suddenly looming realities and I am scared spitless!

On the plus side, I no longer have to worry about what to do with the kids when I finally do go into labor.  Every day I had to mentally review who was on my on-call list.  Who was available in the morning?  Who could be here in the afternoon?  Who was able to drop everything and rush over at 2am?  Now, its not a problem.  My parents arrived this afternoon, and that's one huge stress off my shoulders.  Now, its all good.    Well, except for that whole delivery issue....

My big Kids

Joshua and Marian go to school all day.  I rarely see them.  Then when they get home, Marian races outside to ride her bike and practice new tricks.  Joshua disappears into the basement to play with Legos, or he's out the door with friends.  So I see a lot less of them then I do of Callie and Delaney.  That means I have to make a conscientious effort to take their pictures.  So I worked on it the last few days and discovered that they also don't LIKE having photo-ops as much as their 2 younger sisters!

Yes, the second week of school, and Joshua is already doing homework.  Its harder than either of us expected, and not a lot of fun. Note the mouth, pursed in concentration.

Now he's just being silly!  I love his funny faces. I prefer his cute happy face, but its so rare for him to cooperate while I have the camera in hand.  So I'll settle for his silly face.

This is Joshua on Wednesday, shortly before a meltdown.  His Spanish is not coming back as quickly as I'd like and his homework seems to be all word problems.  There was tears and drama before I thought to call Favorite Aunt Miranda, who can actually speak some Spanish.  The combination of getting to spend an hour on the phone with her and getting help with his homework really made his day.  Unfortunately, it put his bedtime back an hour.  Ug.

Joshua pooled his birthday money and got his latest Lego Obsession- the Lego Power Miners Crystal Sweeper.  He is currently working on it at the table and thanking me every 5 minutes for letting him get it.  

This one has a new loose tooth.

She can't leave it alone.  She wiggles it all the time, even though it occasionally weirds her out. 

Here she is, watching Animal Planet.  She loves animals and is absolutely fascinated by pretty much any program involving animals.  She remembers the oddest details as well.   She sure is a cutie pie!  She also decided she likes skirts.  I only get the ones with shorts underneath, but she likes the soft fabric and looseness of the skirts, so we're both quite happy right now.

And back to the tooth wiggling.  I can't watch! 

My Days with Callie and Delaney

Now that school has started, I'm getting back to the routine of only having 2 at home.  That of course, is going to change here shortly, so I thought I might document what I get to see all day with my 2 sweetie pies. 

Here is Delaney, in total denial about who the baby is!  No, really, she is convinced that the baby clothes are still for her.  This is the only thing she has been able to squeeze into so far, thus reinforcing her conviction that these are her clothes.  Sigh.  (She is wearing an infant nightie, what Dan calls a "sleep-sack".)

Yes, Delaney has been having a really hard time lately.  She has progressed to the point where cute just doesn't cut it any more and her siblings (and parents) are not just giving her what she wants.  This results in much drama and tears.  We have had several colossal tantrums lately.  Yesterday Delaney wanted to put on a swim diaper and swim suit.  I said no.  I had to remove these items from her clutches and put them out of reach.  For the next 15 minutes a very angry, very naked Delaney followed me around, screaming at the top of her lungs.  It was a lot of fun, I tell ya!  The interesting thing is that once its over, it is over.  And she moves on like she never had a meltdown.

This is the sad, I'm still recovering face.  I love that she can self soothe.  I'm not so glad that I'm already dealing with the thumb-sucker's teeth, but hey, there is still time to fix that.

Delaney loves her babies.   She switches them daily, and today it looks like the puppies are back in.  The last few days it has been her cabbage patch dolls.  I don't like those.  She thinks that "the baby's" clothes refers to HER babies, not to the upcoming real one.  So she goes into the drawers, pulls out all my neatly folded infant clothing and demands her doll be dressed in clothes that are much too big for her.

She is quite the ham.  She is becoming one of those people who don't quite see the line and must push it because they think it is funny, even beyond what most people find amusing.  She is pretty mischievous as well, mostly in a good way!

And Callie..... ah, Callie.......

An interesting story here.  I had trimmed Callie's bangs.  A few days later I thought they looked a bit uneven.  And I thought, hmmm..... I don't recall making a "V" shape with them.  Then I forgot about it.

Yesterday, I was looking at her hair a little closer.  It suddenly occurred to me that while I may possible not recall making a "V" with her bangs, there was no way I'd forget cutting them so darn short in the middle!  Closer inspection revealed that her bangs were not the only spot that was extra short! Darn kid was cutting her own hair again!  I'm just glad it wasn't too horrible!

My cute, innocent girl with her newly trimmed hair.  Its shoulder length again.  I think its cuter shorter on her.  I love the big eyes and dimples!

Callie loves her stuffed animals.  She is such a hoot.  She gets up first in the mornings and I can hear her, playing in the living room- making up stories and animal sounds.  She has such a great imagination!

Did I mention what a character she is?  I have the funnest little girls!

And as I write this, Delaney is upstairs, making pee pee in the potty.  She is trying to potty train!  I finally gave in and got her some pull ups.  She is very good about using the potty if prompted, but I am not very good at remembering, so she wets the pull up pretty regularly.