Greyson Michael

Missing: One shriveled, dried up, umbilical stump. Please, oh please, let me be the one who finds it first.

I told Matthew and he is completely disgusted "Really? REALLY?!" like a) I would be joking or b) it's my fault! It was even gauzed on, though obviously not tightly because it slipped right out. But but but, how am I supposed to scrap book it?? Just kidding... *shutter*

And how we got here.

In our typical style we chose to evict our dear sweet baby. It's so much more helpful to be able to plan for sitters since so few know how to care for Dylan. And even fewer can handle all four kids! I think three nearly took my mom down when Asher was born! planning allowed us to farm the big boys off to Melissa and her little mothers all day AND all night! she really took one for the team there! I should probably pay her girls! My mom stayed here at the house with Asher and Dylan and did laundry and cleaned. She didn't see the whites of Matthew's eyes until he got home at 2:30! Long day for grandma!

Knowing our penchant for planning Dr B asked me what I thought about the 11th as an induction date. Funny, I knew the conversation might be coming so I had already asked Matthew and he couldn't care less. Truthfully, with September being SUCH a big month for babies I thought it would be a good day to not get bumped! Interestingly enough, Dr B told me it was becoming a popular day for inductions because people are considering it a patriotic thing! We have come so far. He said he was sure the 11th was booked, he would look at the 12th, but then came back in and said the 12th was booked and the 11th it was! Well, there you have it!

September 11th would be the day we would bring a sweet little angel into the world. There have been a few comments of apprehension here and there, but over all, we are quite pleased with bringing a bright spot on this day! How lucky are we to have an angel on a day when so many were taken away?

And, even more, Aunt Traci's birthday is on the 11th!

So we did get bumped a bit... We finally got the okay to go in around 1:00. Maybe it would be on the 12th! These things take time. Especially because our babies tend to get the relaxed, comfortable patient gene from their dad!

It was great though, I was very comfortable and, unlike the last three labors, I was not having back labor! It was a whole new experience for me and it was GREAT! If I wasn't opposed to unnecessary pain I would have tried to last longer without and epidural... Ha! So in walked my favorite anesthesiologist. No really... When you have babies as frequently as we do you start to have favorites! When he walked in I cheered! I told him he did my last two and had I known it would have asked for him by name! Three in a row! Those are good odds when there are seven of them! He was great and fast and we were set for the long haul.

And then we waited. Beth was working at the hospital and she came to keep us company for a little while which was fun. It was good to catch up, even if I was in waves of pain while she was there, I hadn't seen her in a while! She left right after I got my epi.

Dr B. went home and came back at 10:30 at night. He came in around 11:00 again and said "oh wow, those are good strong contractions! Wow, good..." and then without missing a beat "let's up the Pit!" I think someone wanted to go home before midnight!

After one little push and a slight nudge for shoulders... It's a BOY!! Another boy! Our nameless baby boy was born at 11:27 and I kept saying how little he was! The nurse was like "no, he's a good size baby!" He officially weighed in at 7lbs 14 oz and I was just pleased as punch that he was under 8 pounds! Yes!

He has a full head of long dark hair, more hair than any of our other kids and darker for sure! His eyes even look really dark to me already. Certainly not the fair haired and blue eyed Asher.

He screamed his fool head off for the first 25 minutes of his life and then slept the next 24 hours. He did not have a very cute cry face...

Because of the sleeping he wasn't a very good nurser either. I like to send the babies to the nursery in the second night for one bottle to help with jaundice (ever since Ian was in the light box!) but with this little guy not cooperating on that front I wasn't going to send him off just yet. Well, then he got uncomfortable from a) no food b) no messy or wet diapers. And he wanted to nurse. For an hour. After that I was all to comfortable sending my fussy little munchkin off!

It was 1:00 in the morning went I sent him away and I woke up missing him at 6:00. I think that was probably the first five hour stretch of sleep that I have had in several weeks, and probably the last for a while.

The night of the 12th Shannon and Tracy came over to the hospital to visit in what has become the official naming ceremony. Otherwise known as "pinning us to the wall and forcing us to make a decision on what the name is before they let us out of the hospital with a nameless baby, at which time it will then cost us money to name the baby" ceremony. I must say, this time was one of the more easy times with naming and it went quite smoothly. (Even though Matthew wouldn't even discuss names until I was hooked to the drip and he was über proud of himself for narrowing down half by simply cutting out the girl names when he came out with boy parts.)

Greyson Michael.

Jessica said it was very distinguished! I asked her "Distinguished? Even though he was born into our family?" to which she replied "well, maybe he will be your black sheep." Ahh ha! Funny girl. (Yes, this is the same Jessica that said "FLUKE, she came with a boy" a couple of posts back.)

What do the other kids think? Duncan and Ian go from pure love and infatuation to not being able to care less depending on the minute. Ian doesn't say his name, he just points and says "New baby! New baby!" Dylan looks at him as lovingly and interested as she does everyone else (it's pretty cute) and Asher just wants to bop him on the head like he wants to do to everyone right now.

Our little Greyson fits right in with the rest of our babies, he is very calm, very chill, easy, relaxed and calm. Granted, it's only been a week (a week! Tear!) but he is such a good baby! He doesn't have his days and nights mixed up, he sleeps very well, and he loves his binki enough for it to pacify him for a good little while before he wants to wake and eat (aka, I feel bad for putting him off). He is really yellow, I make them yellow, and has been spending a lot of time in the sun to avoid any problems. We were able to scoot by without Asher having lights and we are hoping to do the same with Greyson.

He is naked while the sun is out. Leading us full circle to how... His nasty gross umbilical stump came to be MIA. *shutter*

Matthew has been off work and I have been getting a good solid "dead to the world" nap with a comfortable new squishy baby laying right square on my chest. *sigh* Happiness. Until the kids stated school again last Monday he also let me sleep in to catch up on the sleep I missed at the hospital. He is such a great husband! He tries to make this new baby thing as easy as possible on me.

We have to find a routine before he goes back to work! Yipes! Only a few more days left!

What's a little bed head amongst friends the day after you have a baby?

 



Looks like we were getting undressed... MAD at mama!

Babies are fascinating.

There's a new big baby in town!

What in the world?

LOTS of hospital visitors! Aunt Melissa had a break in Ian and Duncan duty for a fleeting moment! 

Birthday buddies!

First meeting

Aunt Ami (This picture was sent to Eden to make her jealous!)

But she got her own turn!

Grandma snuggles (I have a nearly identical picture of LouAnn and Ian from the day Ian came home...  Greyson and Ian look a LOT alike!)

Baby furniture is a good idea! A new place to chill!

Tanning

Wrote it, forgot to post it

I wrote this last week! I never did finish all my thoughts but so much has happened that I figured I would just hurry and get this posted just in the name of getting it done! Then we can move on to very exciting things and pictures!

First three days of school! Duncan is having a blast even though he can hardly tell me anything they do and can't tell me any of his friends names. I miss Shelley. :/ I can't wait for the learning how to deal with Dylan is over.
Her new Spec Ed teacher said she is really concerned that she spins in circles and makes herself dizzy. She is worried that she will fall into something. Once Dylan is aware of her surroundings she hardly ever falls into things, dizzy or not. We have a lot of sharp edges at home and unless she trips, she is good to go. She said they are trying to give her the motion stimulation in other ways to get her to stop. Yea... Good luck with that!

Over all she is more interactive than she was last year and they are really noticing. I guess the first day she was really interested in all of the other kids and she was wanting to get close and touch their faces. They had to explain to the kids that it was her way of saying hello. I am sure it acted them to death. Whereas here all the kids are totally used to it and they acknowledge her and maybe give her a kiss (Ian), gently push her out of the way (Duncan) or ruuuuunnn (Asher). Regardless, they are used to it so it's no big deal. Dylan's fascination with the other kids wont last forever, she is just far more interested in other kids when she first meets them.

Ian is disappointed every time Duncan and Dylan go to school and he can't. Poor little guy. Soon, soon.

Last night we asked Ian if he wanted to go downstairs or upstairs to bed and he says downstairs with a P somehow. "powntairs" is about right. So we were saying "duh, duh, duh DOWNstairs" then your turn. "duh, duh, duh POWNstairs!" hmmm... We did it a few times. Then we said, "duh, duh, duh, DOWN!" and he said. "Duh, duh, duh... ... UP!!" and then he goes "hahaha! I said UP!" He thought he was so funny and him cracking up made Matthew and I laugh so hard! Cute little sense of humor!

The boys have been doing as well as can be expected sleeping in their own room together. It takes a bit of time for them to settle down and get to sleep but that's fine as looking as they stay in their beds. Especially a challenge for Duncan since he has a harder time going to sleep anyway. I told Ian to be quiet last night through the intercom thing and he said "no mamma, no mama no, mama no, mamma no" over and over and was saying it when I arrived in his room and scared the crap out of him. I asked if he wanted to come upstairs for bed and he said "noooo" very sadly and I told him he needed to be quiet then. I gave him a kiss and he gave me the tightest hug ever... He kept wiggling his fingers to get tighter, which totally melted my heart.

Ian is such a stinker now as he gets closer and closer to the age of three that it's a good thing he does so many things that are so wicked cute!

Wrestling has officially reached our house. I am not sure how I feel about it even though this is SO just the beginning and it only gets bigger and worse from here! Ian and Duncan wrestle... A lot. And Duncan needs to toughen up. He will wrestle and then start yelling because he has been what sounds like mortally wounded. Then he will chill and go tackle Ian again... Rinse, repeat. I told him he cannot wrestle and then whine, if he want sot wrestle he needs to toughen up and by golly it's working. This is good for general toughen up reasons even aside from wrestling. In the meantime, I imagine increasing frequency of the words "outside or downstairs! " coming out of my mouth.

All the new sheets on! 

Asher and his Woobie

 

First day of school, there were others but this was just awesome.

My cute oral gal looking rather sly.

Labor Day... but not for me!

I know, I KNOW, slacker.

We moved the two big boys downstairs! Finally! Duncan is so easy going and so accommodating. We had a train quilt hanging on his upstairs wall and he kept saying he wanted it to be his new blanket to sleep with. We told him as soon as he moved downstairs he could have it. And well, that's about all it took. It was convenient too because he had a small tied quilt from some random stranger, his bug blanket, that has been his bed blanket since he was tiny. It was definitely time for an upgrade.

Papa Bob came over to help Matthew disassemble the bunk beds and bring them down, we brought the double bed (bottom bunk) and the little toddler bed Ian was sleeping on and left the single (top bunk) upstairs just in case things didn't work out and/or for Asher later. Ian is too little for the bunk beds right now.

The first few nights Ian would come upstairs screaming his head off at 5:30 in the morning and Matthew would get up with him. Matthew is nicer about these sorts of things because I would have stuck him in the single bed up here and let him work it out... So I was hoping that maybe getting him back to sleeping through the night by having him sleep up here, then moving him again would work nicely. So instead of moving him downstairs after he fell asleep, we just moved him to this bed. But alas, he would wake up in the middle of the night and FREAK out. Again, dad would go work with him... I would let him freak out. Well, to be fair, daddy only did this one night and realized how miserable it was.

In the meantime for the last two days we have had him nap in the single bed. He is NOT a fan. And here I thought the upgrade from a pack and play for napping would be nice. So he cries himself to sleep in his big boy bed at nap time.Which is fine...

Last night we got home from Ami's late and I am starting the prep work for Ian to go in his big boy bed and scream himself to sleep and he very clearly tells me "downstairs!". So alas, we have discovered the problem, all along he just wanted to be downstairs... So we put both the big boys to bed at the same time and they went to sleep. He will continue to do the naps and crying bit upstairs though because it's the room we have available for naps! (And, as for today, he hates napping up here... he wants to be downstairs, so he is in there complaining as I type.)

It helped them to peacefully go to sleep that we got a video monitor aiming right on Duncan's bed and he knows it. He had already gotten in trouble on night number one (back when the 5:30 screaming was happening) for going "Ian, Ian, IAN!!" while Ian was staring at the ceiling trying to go to sleep like a very big boy. We were shocked they both went to bed so well last night but it was late and they had big fun at Aunt Ami's so we will see how tonight goes!

The good news is that Ian did not make a 5:30 wake up call this morning, Duncan came up at 7:30 (which is late for him actually) and Ian followed about ten minutes later. No sadness, no crying. Woot woot. One good night down and we shall see! I do love the video monitor though!

Pictures to come as we make the room a little more fun. Right now we just have kind of a big mess down there as we combine the exercise room, office/hobby room and music room. (We combine, haha... Matthew is the one who is doing everything!)

Next step is to move Asher to his own room. Yes, he is still in our room. Once we figure out where Ian will land (peacefully) it will be easy to boot him out. I might miss him though. But, poor guy... can't room with a newborn so out he goes.

Another next step is picking up a twin size bed for Dylan. Likely the top bunk of bunk beds with the railing all the way around. We (again we, haha!) might have to modify it so it is low to the ground since she dives out. She is getting a bit long for her little bed at this point.

Matthew put so much chocolate in the kids milk this morning they didn't drink it, seriously, no one ever listens. (Mini rant.)

Duncan and Dylan start school tomorrow! We went to their orientation to meet their new teachers but Dylan's Special Ed teacher wasn't there. Duncan knew the teachers from last year on the play ground and stuff so it was really no big deal to him. He just ran around the room and played with new toys. Shelley came in to play with Dylan for a minute and talk to her new teachers even though she isn't in that room any more. I have to be honest, the new teachers seemed a bit nervous around Dylan. I guess it's to be expected because people are nervous around new people all the time and her special needs makes things all the more interesting. Shelley sent me a note saying they were excited to have The D's in their class this year because I had shared my thought on them being kind of apprehensive.

Shelley told me that at Ian's age strangers should understand about 60-70% of what he says. I am not sure we understand 60-70% of what he says! Hah! My mom keeps telling me to chill out because all kids are different and I have to be clear, I am not worried!! I just know I have a smart little dude on my hands who is behind on speech and who will LOVE starting preschool when he turns three! We will set something up to have him evaluated in November and see what the deal is.

Duncan is so grown up lately it's really fun. He is coming out of the defiant stage and getting to where you can really have some fun conversations. He told me the other day "that was AWESOME!" and a awesome was in a pitch way up high. Melissa said he will get an opinion next which isn't so fun, but she has girls. Ha! And Duncan is very obedient... It will be Ian we will need to be worried about at 5!

We went to mom's for a Labor Day barbecue on Saturday night and bragged about how we had about 25 delicious peaches on our little tree. Like, melt in your mouth ridiculously yummy peaches and while we were there there was a thundering hailstorm that was insane!!! Pea and marble size hail rained down like snow and, well... There goes our peaches! Noooo!!! Well, it turned out they were okay for the most part but a lot of them have little round bruises just under the skin. Even with the bruises they are seem of the yummiest peaches I have ever had! Matthew really fought me on the fruit tree and he came in and told me how wrong he was. He is loving them and eating them like crazy.

We cashed in on mom's Christmas present and went to Wicked and it was AWESOME! (Think awesome as said really high, winkie!). Really loved it and would so go to it again. It was so amazing you almost feel as if you missed some of it because it was all so stunning. Great girls night out for sure! I bet it was AMAZING on Broadway! (And you can bet those words have never come out of MY mouth before!)

We did labs for Dylan on the new meds and he liver labs came back within range so the new medicine she is on isn't messing with her system which is a good thing. However, she is still having spasms. So we have upped the dose for a week and we will up it again in a couple of days and see if the new higher dose will work. I hate having to give her more medicine but it is what it is. Glad her labs looked good anyway, small blessings.

Duncan and Asher had sore ears, Duncan was complaining and I asked Trina to indulge him because it was so off and on. She took a peek and sure enough she said. It was red. Not infected but probably indeed bugging him. We left and it got better apparently and he is convinced Trina fixed his ear! She is magic. This is a good think for him to believe and I look forward to using her magic powers on him in the future.

People keep asking me if I think this baby is a boy or girl and I have no idea really. No clue. And I am terrible anyway, I was calling Asher a girl name for the last two months he was in my belly. So I fail the 'mother's intuition on baby gender' test. I don't even want to try. I think maybe girl since I am measuring a little smaller, but that doesn't always mean anything. I have been good and not even getting the heart rate from the doctor (which is one thing that lead me to think Asher was a girl). We have lots of cute girl clothes in the family though!

My friend Jessica said something along the lines of "Until you have that cute little boy" and I said "you think it's a boy?" and she said "it's what you have, boys." and I said "I have one girl!" Her response was priceless, she said "Fluke! She came with a boy."

We don't have a short list of names but rather a kind of long one with several that are terrible. Matthew informed me last night that he refuses to look at our name list until I am in labor at the hospital. Since my last labors have taken 12+ hours he seems to think he will have all the time in the world to look things over then. Since this baby is posterior like all of it's siblings were, he might be right.

My very accommodating easy boy in his new bedroom with a freshly laundered new train bed quilt.

\Happiness! (Albeit blurry happiness)

I guess they learn early to eat the middle out of the cookies? I laughed when I looked over and it was Asher and a boatload of cookie carcasses. 

Early morning TV. Asher is a snuggler and, as the most affectionate of our kids, Ian is happy to oblige