It's a Girl!

Finally! You know how at the library if you don't give them what they want by the prearranged due date then they start requiring you make it up to them in money. While some of these fees are quite tame the charges for certain items (DVDs etc., things that are more precious) can quickly cost more than their worth. Hold on to that thought.

What I'd like to see is some way to apply this type of system to baby due dates: "Baby, you were supposed to be here on Monday. I'm sorry but that's going to cost you a few thousand dollars." I can't think of any other way to encourage these kids to be born on time. In fact, even this method probably won't work either seeing as, based on my experience, newborns really struggle to come up any kind of money.

So, I guess we'll just go with the tried and true track of parents everywhere: covering the enormous costs our children incur while understanding that said children will never even notice this charity much less thank us for it. (On a completely unrelated note, a big "Thank You." to Mom and Dad for just about everything.)

Actually, we are thankful Juliet Sophie Verhaaren (that's her name so I hope you love it) decided to come when she did. Two Mondays ago Hilary went to the doctor and she was a 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. "Great" we thought, "she'll go into labor any time." You may remember that Jack was 10 days early and required a only  a very short labor and we thought child number two might follow suit.

The week  passed uneventfully. Which is to say it passed with many, many contractions but none that actually felt like labor.

When Monday (the due date) came around again we found that not much had changed in regard to dilation and effacement. Even so the doctor agreed that we could schedule an induction for early Thursday morning. Quite early in fact. The appointment was for 5:30am and we had to call a hour early to make sure there was room for us.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday pass with, if anything, fewer noticeable contractions than before. But at least we know that Thursday is the day. We set our alarms for 4:30am and try to get some sleep (this is not actually possible).

Ah but well did Robert Burns point out that, "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley," for at the jolly old hour of 2:15am Hilary went into labor. Therefor, early we went to the hospital and at about 3:00am Hilary checked in with 5cm dilation.

After jumping through the hoops at triage and hurting enough to request an epidural (which was put in exactly when my phone reminded me it was 4:30 so I needed to get up and call the hospital) Hilary was again checked at 5:20 at which point the nurse discovered she was 10 cm and could have a baby at anytime (and excused herself to call the doctor).

The doctor was quite punctual, but was then called away to preform an emergency C-section. Meanwhile, we sat waiting for 2.5 hrs (fully complete) for doctor to come back. When she, at last, got back Hilary pushed for a whole 5 minutes and then we had a new baby girl at 7:53am.

Juliet Sophie Verhaaren

11/29/2012

7lbs 15oz, 20.75in

We're all ok...really

After some concern from some family members, we thought we better update sooner rather than later to clarify a few things. We are doing ok! I’m trying to do these posts chronologically so the last post was about the state of things for the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy. It was a really rough and depressing time for everyone. Now things still aren't easy, but it is definitely a lot more manageable and so things are less sad for Jack. 

Now some up-to-date things about Jack:

He climbed out of his crib about a week ago! It was the strangest thing. It was the first night he went to bed without asking for his pacifier. We just put it in his crib because we knew he would want it and hoped he'd be able to find it. About an hour after putting him down, Chris and I are watching tv and I keep thinking I'm hearing some extra breathing, so I get up and find Jack standing in the middle of the stairs watching tv. Freaked us out! There was no thud or crash or anything (we would hear it if it happened) so we have no idea how he got out. It is a pretty high crib too, not one that is low to the floor. He still talks about getting out  and watching mommy and daddy's show, but luckily hasn't ever escaped again. 

Speaking of pacifiers, Jack is finally done with them. He likes to chew on them so they get holes in them but he will still use them. I've been able to get him to throw away the bad ones and we made it down to one remaining pacifier. It finally died the other night as he was bitting and pulling on it and broke it into to. It was really sad for me because he didn't seem to quite register what had happened, but tried to suck on the two pieces without any luck and kept trying to put them back together. He never cried about it but kept trying to make something work. So now he goes without, but still asks for it at bedtime and naptime and we just have to remind him that it is broken. 

Everyday (when I remember) I give him a gummy vitamin bear. Everytime he gets it he does the same thing and says "Oh hi bear! It's ok bear. Lets go play!" 

He has this calculator that he uses as a cell phone. He'll pick it up and say "Oh hi Marel!" (his aunt). He will also call his cousins and one time he called our bishop. 

I gave him his juice this morning and he was drinking it and stopped and said to himself "I love juice."

While I was cooking dinner tonight Jack was in the kitchen playing with two mismatched shoes that he named bob and larry, a tupperware lid named lid and a spoon named spoon. He had the spoon and lid in his hand and they were having this conversation:

Spoon: "Hi lid, this is my friend bob." 

Lid: "bob?" 

Spoon: "yes. this is my friend larry." 

Lid: "larry?" 

Spoon: "yes, this is my friend Jack" 

Lid: "Jack?" 

Spoon: "yes."

Later he moved onto the other things in the kitchen, my favorite was "this is my sister rice."

If I ask him to do something and he doesn't want to he will say he is busy. 

If we catch him doing something he isn't supposed to be doing he will tell us to go away. Not in a mean way, but he wants us to go back to not paying him any attention. "Go away mommy" or "Go to the kitchen mommy"

When I ask him if he has a poopy diaper he used to say "no it's clean" but now he says "no just farting"

One day we were laying on the couch and his head was on my stomach. The baby was moving and I told Jack "oh the baby's kicking you!" Jack got all serious and said "say no. feet are not for kicking" (he really took that library book to heart)

  

Since I've been sick...

Jack has had fewer enforced boundaries. There is a significant decrease in the number of pictures that I have taken in the months that have been the worst so here are some of the few, all of Jack of course.

Anytime it would rain, Jack would go outside with his umbrella and boots and enjoy himself, sometimes sitting down in the puddle of the down spout of the gutter. 

He was mostly always supervised, but sometimes tried to run away from our house (I since have had to tie the fence shut so he wouldn't get out.) Sometimes he sneaks into the azaleas with his milk.

Another favorite place Jack liked to go while I was laying on the couch is upstairs. Kleenex boxes are so much better than blocks. (Also notice how often his is in pajamas- I didn't always get around to changing his clothes.)

I do feel bad for this poor kid though, since he was getting less attention/love/interaction/comfort from me, he turned to his blankie and pacifier so much more for comfort. Often he would go upstairs and I wouldn't hear from him for a long time. I would go and check on him and he would be just sitting in his closet not doing anything. I hope he isn't too messed up...

He also now has this strange compulsion to hide/stash all his toys instead of playing with them. Below is him putting every loose object in his room into the pack-n-play. Shortly after Levi left He started doing this shortly after Levi left, so the pack-n-play was still up. Taking it down didn't solve the problem, he now piles up his toys in any confined space. Mainly behind things like his crib, piano, couch, and food storage. I've stopped cleaning it up because it is a pain and now he pretty much doesn't have any toys in sight.  

And of course, no childhood is complete without writing on the walls. The worst time was when I was upstairs having one of my frequent dates with the toilet. After composing myself enough I come downstairs and look for Jack. In the kitchen I see white board marker all over the fridge and cabinets, then I see some on the carpet and on the wall by the door. Then I find him outside drawing on the porch (he can open the door), after scribbling on the outside doors. I was able to clean most of it off, except for the marker on our little trash closet door. If you come and visit you can still see it.

Another time when I came back downstairs I found Jack smelling the flowers. That was more pleasant.

Jack did seem to enjoy eating the foods that I was eating. His favorite was popsicles. 

Another bonus for Jack was the increase of daddy bonding time. Chris was so awesome at watching Jack when he came home from school and on the weekends. You can't tell from the picture but one of the favorite activities was bike rides. Then in a tragic turn of events, the bike was stolen one day when Chris took it to campus. It was locked up and everything too. Luckily campus security caught the event on video so they know who did it and the guy is now in prison for a different offense, but it seems like he sold the bike before getting caught so we are probably not going to get the bike back. Sad sad day.

Fired

For the first time in my life I’ve been “let go”. Levi got hurt while I was throwing up in the bathroom and not paying attention to him. With Jack biting phase and the other little bumps and bruises Levi got in my care they decided they had enough. And now I’m jobless for the longest space of time in 10 years. I’ve always worked; I enjoy working, and I mostly enjoy a paycheck. I know that raising our children is my “job” right now, but it’s hard because it doesn’t feel the same. Things are a lot tighter now too with the loss of income but through the amazing miracle of tithing we somehow are able to make it even though it doesn’t seem possible.

Back to me throwing up, this is old news to a lot of you and I didn’t intend it to take this long to make a public announcement but that’s how my pregnancies go. I’m due November 26^th with a little girl. We are very blessed to be able to have children when we want them and have them be healthy-so far! I am so excited for her to finally come so I can get back to my normal self. Just like with Jack, pregnancy does not do well with me. I’m sick and tired all the time and am ready for some relief. At about 32 weeks I still throw up occasionally, am still taking my zofran, and “sleep” 10 hours a night. The first 20 weeks were death. I couldn’t cook or clean or play with Jack. I felt like I had put myself on bed rest because all I could do was lie on the couch trying not to die. I would go to bed at night so excited to sleep but also so depressed because soon it would be morning and I’d have to go through another day. It was a hard time for everyone. (Thanks so much to the several people in my ward who watched Jack and brought over multiple meals, and to Catherine for her generous, fun, and so helpful care packages!) It was a huge accomplishment when at 20 weeks I was able to go grocery shopping again and make dinner for my family. We will not be having a lot of kids because I (and our family) just cannot handle the pregnancy.

I think I am even more excited for this baby to be born than I was with Jack because I know how great it is to have a little baby and I know that there will be instant relief from all the pregnancy symptoms after she’s born.

Who knows if Jack really understands what is going to happen. He will talk about his little sister and talks to my belly and knows that after the baby comes he can go see the lights at the temple with Grandma and Grandpa. So we’ll take that for now.

My first belly shot this pregnancy. I don’t know why, I just have a hard time taking them. I’m big and I’m afraid of how much bigger I’ll get.

Otherwise, we have decided we really like September in Maryland. The weather is nice with cooler, less humid air, and the bugs are a tiny bit more subdued. The leaves are just barely starting to turn. I’ve never been more excited for winter to come in my whole life. Chris turned 28 on Friday and we had a fun little party for him. We have a big hole in our wall that we need to fix. Jack has finally learned to eat with utensils. Really, life is good and we don’t need to complain.  

Sometimes we do things

One thing I forgot to mention in the last post is that this is the first time in our married life that we have had a dishwasher. And it is glorious.

Here are some things that we did/happened during the months of January through April. First just some pictures of Jack having fun with the doors at church. 

It snowed once this winter, but having a mild winter did wonders for our electric bill so we are not complaining.

One night while making dinner I had my back to what Jack was doing and was only partly paying attention to him as he is constantly talking about whatever. Eventually heard him keep saying "you! you! you!" I turn around and see that he had written on the wall with a whiteboard marker a scribble that looked like a "U" and Jack was so proud.

Since we're living in DC for now we are trying to take advantage of all that it has to offer while we are here.

When the cherry blossoms came out I wanted to see them. The only option that would work was to drive down some evening after Levi left. We went on a Tuesday night and I had no idea how it would be and naively thought we could find some place to park. But it turns out the cherry blossom festival is a big deal so Chris just had to drop me off while I ran around getting pictures. So no family shots. Then Chris got lost and I didn't have my cell phone so we had a real fun time connecting again. 

For Easter Chris got to set up Jack's first Easter egg hunt. Jack did pretty good collecting the eggs in his bag, but once he figured out there was marshmallows inside he was done collecting eggs. Instead he would get an egg, eat the mashmallow, drop the egg back on the ground and move onto the next one. Whenever Jack sees the Easter pictures he wants to go back outside and get more marshmallows.

And finally, Jack turned 2 in April. Boy do we know it too; the terrible two's are alive and well in this house. We still adore him but wish the screaming would subside just a bit. He loved his veggie tales cake, singing the birthday song, looking at candles, reading his birthday cards, and opening some gifts (thank you everyone who sent stuff!)

Kitchen Remodel

We have finished all our home projects for now. Just in time too because we've run out of money. I have to brag a little bit because I did pretty much all of it myself, but I'll give Chris his credit where it is due. We didn't really like having a washing machine in the kitchen so that started the entire process. Since we got our new stacked washer and dryer, we had an empty space in our kitchen for quite some time and finally decided to do something about it.
Here are the before pictures.

I shopped around all the black Friday sales after Thanksgiving and found a good price on the dishwasher we have been wanting and also bought an oven on a impulse. (I am not an impulsive buyer and am very careful with what I spend so when I splurge I buy ovens.) We got both appliances for under $650 total so I feel good about that. We knew we wanted to replace the oven sometime before we sold the place so we figured now was as good as any. The oven gets delivered and installed, and the dishwasher gets delivered and sits in a box in our living room.
In order to change things structurally with our place we have to get approval from our housing board and it's a really annoying process. I was so frustrated getting the approval for the W/D I made Chris get approval for the dishwasher. We ended up needing to do some more electrical work to make our kitchen up to code. Apparently we moved in with it not up to code and would have had to change it anyway when we want to sell.  Annoying. We got the work done. I figured out how to move part of the cabinet without destroying the countertop and was pleased. We then had our friend Steve help us out with the installation of the dishwasher.   He and Chris spent quite a long time getting it to work because we had to use copper tubing instead of a braided hose so it was a big ordeal that I didn't do anything for. We are extremely grateful for the help. We then had to get a new countertop to fill in the gap. After way to much research we decided to tile. I got some plywood to build up the gap.

Then began tiling away. We got granite tiles and had to make so many trips to home depot to find all the little things that I needed. I ended up using both granite and ceramic tiles to avoid cutting the granite too much because it ended up that our little cutter didn't work. We had to get pretty creative with the tile we did have to cut. Chris helped some in this effort. I figured out how to lift up the sink and fit the tiles under there and kept tiling away. In the end it got done and I'm not sure if all the trouble was work the amount we saved, but it is nice.

And just because I was in a tiling mood I re-tiled and painted our table. The grout in the table was all broken so I've been wanting to re-tile it ever since we were in Utah. I still think this before picture is great. 

A little more catch up...

Jumping back in, still in December, I got my haircut.

 I got 24 inches cut, an entire 2 feet! It was entirely too long. It got to the point where I never wore it down or even a ponytail because it would tangle so much. It was either a braid or ballet bun. (it was even too long for a messy bun!) I didn't get a picture of the back, but it's short an "A line" I guess. And great because I don't have to do anything to it. But I like long hair to so I am looking forward to being able to have a ponytail again.
Then we had Christmas. We flew out to Seattle on Christmas eve, so before we left we had a little Christmas at home. We actually got a real tree this year (well a fake tree but at least its a tree and not a stick.) It was fun to have presents underneath and be with our little family.

 Thank you so much for the gifts! Chris's family was way to generous to us.

 We then went to my parents house to get a break from the east coast. Some highlights:

 We went to a bakery in the Norwegian town of Poulsbo and Jack knew exactly what to do and say. He's never been in a bakery before but as soon as he stepped inside he ran over to the first display case going "Oooo!" and continued letting out more ooo's and ahh's at each case. He is my child after all.

 I love his face here.

We had a nice windy ferry ride into Seattle.

Jack made friends with his uncle. He still asks for him. 

I haven't uploaded any pictures since Christmas and I'm babysitting so I can't do it now so this is all you get. 

Other Christmas highlights were baking in a big kitchen with a view of the puget sound and the tv, watching Top Gear top 40 challenges, and tim tam slams. 

Since Christmas:

Chris is quite busy doing research working on getting a paper published so he can reach candidacy, he's taking a class and TA'ing a class, and he was called into the bishopric of our ward so he spends a lot of Sunday gone. 

Hilary is still home with two little boys during the day. (Reminder- Jack is mine, Levi is not). I started some seeds! I have been so excited to start gardening again and marked on my calendar when to start seedlings to transplant. We are still working on our little kitchen remodel and will be happy when that is all done.

Jack of course is so much fun. He talks all the time. Until just recently this is how he would count: 2,3,4,5,6,9,10,12,18. Now he has added 7 and 8, but will never say one while counting. He is very demanding, telling us where to sit or to crawl or to jump or to clap ('mommy clap toooo?') and gets very angry until we do it. He loves jumping. He still likes his blankie and drags it behind him saying "come on blankie." He still sleeps with his pacifier but we make him take out before going downstairs. He is still the champ at sleeping, he practically asks to go to bed. He thinks 'ok' means no, so when we ask him something he doesn't want to do he say's ok,ok,ok. He doesn't watch a ton of TV but his favorite seems to be veggie tales and watching Pocoyo in spanish on Saturday morning (that's the best show on at 8am on out antenna tv).

Well that's all for now.

A little bit of catch up

So, my phone completely lost the ability to allow our computer to access the internet, so we are pretty much internet-less and without any plans of that changing anytime soon. We are making due, but it has been really hard. I have to make more trips to the library to use it or take advantage of internet while babysitting-like now. Anyway, blogging is not something that will be happening too much, but hopefully once a month.
Here are some things we always meant to put on but never did.
September
We went to the museum of Crime and Punishment on museum day so it was free. It was a pretty good time.

 Chris also had a birthday. He is now 27 and is officially old. We had perfectly cooked steaks and lots of caramel and chocolate cake and ice cream. (Not pictured)

November
I made a rice crispy treat cake for my birthday. I at least have one more year of being young.

For Thanksgiving, we were able to go to Chris's parents house near Chicago. We had wonderful turkey and meal. I want to eat the turkey legs every thanksgiving from now on-they were delicious. We also had the fun opportunity to go cut down a Christmas tree, which was a new experience for me. We found one for Jack. He had a blast running around. 

December
 We went to the zoo again. Jack's favorite were the flamingos. There were also zoo lights.

We saw more lights at the DC temple and visitors center. This was heaven for Jack. He loves all things temple and will point out every steeple he sees. Every night after we went he would ask to go back to the temple and would be sad that we we not going.

Looks like it's time to go home, but there is still so much more. We will resume later, I promise.