Memories Captured: A Day at the Park
I’d like to say that I’m one of those moms who takes her kids to parks often. But I’m not. So it’s a moment worth capturing if we make the effort. Two weekends ago was one of the worst weekends of Reagan’s life (according to her) because she woke up and threw up on Saturday morning, which meant she couldn’t do anything the rest of the day on Saturday until she felt better. During that time, Jenny went to the park with a neighbor, went to a sleepover at the house of the craftiest people ever (Reagan’s words again) and went ice skating with another friend. While Reagan couldn’t do anything. So she really wanted me to take her to the park this past weekend to make up for her horrible weekend. Brinky’s really been wanting to play outside all the time recently (by play outside, I mean run away from us down the street), so I thought it could be fun for all of us. So Saturday afternoon, since it was warm and sunny, we headed to a local park.
Brinky thought it would make the most sense to crawl on all of the equipment, even though he’s perfectly capable of walking and climbing. His kind sister stayed with him a lot of the time.
They went down the slides together. I wouldn’t say he loved it, but he didn’t hate it either.
He liked the swing for about a minute, and then he wanted out. By that point, he was really tired and ready to sit and play with the mulch.
Doesn’t he look hot and tired?
Really, all he wanted to do was this:
We didn’t even need to be at a park for him to run around.
And Jenny?
What about Reagan? Where was she? She was enjoying the park. Mostly. When we were leaving, I asked her if the park was all she’d dreamed of since she’d been asking to go for a week. Her response:
Linking up with Alison and Galit for the monthly Memories Captured link-up (note: I used Picmonkey to edit all these photos, and I loved it!):
One Year Ago
One year ago today, I felt past ready to have my third baby. Even though he wasn’t due until Christmas Eve, I’d been convinced for weeks due to lots of contractions that he would arrive early, and I wouldn’t have to worry about being in the hospital on Christmas day. Weren’t third babies supposed to arrive earlier? But when he still wasn’t here by the 20th, no matter what I tried to do to make it happen, mostly walking even though it hurt and trying to dance him out by playing Just Dance on the Wii, I was getting worried that he would never come. There’s no real reason I should have expected him to be early. Both my girls were born a couple days after their due dates. But I really, really wanted him to be here, and to be home for the actual holiday.
So last year, on this day, I went for my weekly doctor visit. I was dilated about 3 centimeters. Just like I was the week before. But I finally had hope because they told me they would induce me in two days if he wasn’t here. That would put him in our arms on December 22 and most likely home on Christmas Eve. I’ve generally not been a fan of induction because I figure babies will come when they’re ready, but I have to say, I felt so much less stressed knowing that I wouldn’t have to worry about a holiday in the hospital, and knowing that I would have him in two days time if not before then.
So like any other day, I headed to work from the doctor’s office. I had a fun meeting scheduled late morning for a company twitter party. And I really wanted to make it through that even though I’d reached the point that I was ready at the end of every day to not return to work the next day. During that meeting, I noticed my contractions were coming more frequently and started timing them. And then I decided to head home and see if they went away like they had every other time they’d started up. We were all anxious for Brinkley to be born. My girls were home from school for the holiday. Lee’s brother Justin was visiting and on kid duty so I didn’t have to worry about who would watch the girls when we went to the hospital. My mom was on standby nearby, and ready to join us at the hospital the moment we called her. So basically, we were all ready except for Brinkley. After a couple hours at home, we decided to go ahead to the hospital.
Since I had had a few hours of more painful contractions, I was hoping I’d progressed, but of course, I hadn’t. We were sent for the fun walk around the halls of the hospital to see if that helped any. I was a giant uncomfortable pregnant person, and walking became too painful after awhile, so we returned to the triage room. The nurse checked me once more and said I’d made no progress, so it was time to go home. We were told to wait just a little bit longer so the baby could be monitored for a little bit before we left. I was not happy that I was going to leave the hospital without a baby again. It happened twice with Reagan, and I was bound and determined that it wouldn’t happen with this baby. I’d hoped that once I made it to the hospital so close to my due date with a third baby, they’d just go ahead and help me along. So while we were making our plans to head on home, my now favorite doctor ever popped in to tell me we had one more option. He said we could stay at the hospital and have a baby if we wanted! Apparently he was just hanging out watching ESPN and thought it would be more interesting to deliver a baby. I was so, so happy. He said that since it was our third, he thought labor would move along at a pretty quick pace if they got us settled into a labor and delivery room and broke my water. We said, “Yes, please!”
We called our girls to tell them the news and called my mom to tell her she could come on over to the hospital. Then we waited somewhat patiently to be moved over to our new room. A nurse stopped by to let me know I’d be able to get my epidural as soon as we moved to the other room. Again, I said, “Yes, please!” They talked to me about pain management and asked me what level of pain I’d like to experience. Are you kidding me? On a scale of 1-10, I said I’d prefer a pain level of zero.
You know what? Even though Brinkley’s birth occurred on December 21, it was just after 1:00 a.m., so almost the same as the 20th. So I’ll go ahead and tell the rest of the story now because I may not have another chance the rest of this busy week.
I received my epidural and the doctor broke my water around 8:30. I was starting to feel a lot more than a zero level of pain, which I believe causes me to look uncomfortable and say “Ow” over and over again. By 10:00, I still hadn’t really progressed more, which surprised me with all the pain I was experiencing. I had my epidural re-dosed, and suddenly at 11:00, I’d progressed to a 7, and after midnight, I felt like I needed to push that baby out. The doctor was with another mom who was a first-timer and seemed to need him more than I did. I had an awesome nurse who helped us get all set up, and then I tried to wait patiently for the doctor. That’s a bit difficult when you have a baby who’s finally ready to come out. The way I remember it, I was trying not to push him out, and he practically fell out right as the doctor was walking in to catch him.
The doctor and nurses immediately started talking about what a big boy he was, and when they weighed him, we discovered he was a whopping 9 lbs. 14 oz. and 23 ½ inches long. I kind of couldn’t believe I’d just delivered an almost 10 pound baby. He was just staring around wondering what happened.
We called our house at 2:00 a.m. in case anyone was waiting up for news. Jenny immediately answered the phone because she’d been too excited to sleep. We told her she had a baby brother, and I told her I thought they’d have to wait until morning to visit, but the nurse was still in there and said they could come on over if they wanted to, so wonderful Uncle Justin drove my girls over at 2:45 a.m. to meet their baby brother.
And like I’d hoped way back when we found out his due date, we went home on December 22, and were home in plenty of time to celebrate the holiday in our home instead of in the hospital.
I’m linking up with lovelinks because I know everyone likes to read a birth story, right?
Memories Captured: My Babies
I’m excited to link up with Alison and Galit for the new Memories Captured link-up this week. It’s just my kind of thing. However, I couldn’t pick just one picture because I had to do one for each of my kids. So here are my three babies, photos taken on Sunday at a local garden when we were attempting to get pictures for Christmas cards.
My oldest:
My middle girl:
And my baby:
Go link up – it’s fun!
Also linking up with lovelinks:
Follow Us!
About Us
I’m A Member Of:
