Rambo

So my husband and son(s) are watching the cinematic classic Rambo XXVII and I just had to record Garth Lee's comments. He's one of those really fun people to watch a movie with that asks LOTS of questions and gives his commentary throughout the movie and I am sitting here listening, laughing out loud...here are a few:

"Daddy, what's a Russian?"
"Are all Russians Bad?"
"Why is that good guy soooo wet?"--this is the one that made me laugh out loud

I know it's not the greatest movie choice for a 5 year old...but maybe it is soooo cheesy, it takes the scary out?

Weight

For posterity's sake (and mostly because I wish I had this stuff written down from Garth Lee)...Gavin weighed 9lbs 8.6oz on Monday. He started *really* smiling today too but I didn't get any really good pictures of it yet, I'll keep trying ;)

Monday Again

8lbs 12.2oz!!!! We had our first bad couple of nights. Friday night was a little bad, Gavin was really fussy until about 1, acting really hungry so I let Garth give him a bottle of breast milk and he gave up and went to sleep around 1 or 2 (can't remember). Then Saturday night was BAD! He was up from 3 to 9am just going from side to side nursing...he was sooooo hungry and I was soooo tired. He has started taking the paci, which is helping to satisfy his urge to suck when he really just wants to suck but isn't really hungry and I have started taking fenugreek again for my milk supply and we had a MUCH better night last night! When I was up with him all night Saturday I remember thinking that was what it seemed to be like every night with Garth Lee and it reminded me of how lucky I am that I have only had one of those nights so far and Gavin is already 4.5 weeks old. So here's hoping we keep the good night trend up and only have those bad ones occasionally...if at all.

Flashback

I was so worried about being able to love/care for another child like I love/care for Garth Lee and I have been surprised by the guilt that I feel that I am giving more to Gavin then to Garth Lee...I never dreamed I would be slighting Garth Lee in any way. I know it is temporary, but I still feel bad to be giving so much to Gavin and to feel like I am giving so little to Garth Lee. So, in case you (I) missed it, I actually have 2 children, even if one has been a little less mentioned lately. (Sorry Garth Lee) I know things will even out here soon once we are all a little more accustomed to having a new one at home and once he is a little less needy.

Thank you Garth Lee for being such a great big brother and for trying your best to listen and make things easier for Mommy and Daddy. Nobody is perfect, but I am so grateful for such a wonderful son for my newest son to look up to, the best big brother he could have, he has...here's proof that we were here in this same place with you a few short years ago:

Oh yeah...the belly...WOW...just wow.

I love you, bud, more than you know ;)

Mr. Chubbs and A Fond Farewell To A Dear Friend

Well, you know what today is...well probably not, but it is Monday and Monday means "weigh-in" for baby Gavin at the hospital. Today was a big one, he weighed in at a whopping 8lbs, up 10 ounces from last week!!! We have certainly had a time with this guy and his weight, but today, one day after his actual due date, he is over 8 pounds and I couldn't be happier...Garth Lee on the other hand, is having a rough one...

Nemo died. Nemo is his fish that lives at my parents' house. Nemo was bought to replace Roger and that is a whole other story, but it ends about the same. My dad made a little headstone for Nemo and placed it in the back yard. I will get a picture and post it soon, it was really sweet of him and it made Garth Lee feel better that Nemo will not be forgotten. Garth Lee was able to draw a memorial for Nemo's grave, albeit through a river of tears. He was audibly crying for at least an hour, then for a few more hours would burst into random sobs here and there and would just say he was trying to stop crying but he couldn't stop thinking about Nemo. I am so blessed to have a son with such a sensitive spirit, he is so sweet...a lot like his daddy, but I'll never tell ;)

Bringing Home Baby

Well, this last week has been a little bit of a major bummer. We went to the doctor on Monday when Gavin was 12 days old and we did his newborn screen and a bilirubin test because he was still pretty yellow. His level came back very high which gave us the opportunity to have a home health nurse come to our house and set up a bili light and come everyday and prick his heel to get a bili level until it was <10. The above picture was my attempt to get rid of the jaundice the best we could with a little sunbathing every morning...obviously that didn't work :(

Here is his little bili light. They used to be big boxes and the babies had to wear little covers over their eyes, but now it is a light that they lay on and you have to wrap them in the blanket to get full exposure. The worst part about this was that he had to be in there 24/7, the only time I could take him out was to feed him and to change his diaper...also on Monday I went to the weight clinic at Covenant for nursing moms (in conjunction with the breastfeeding support group) and he was 6lbs 13.5oz and the lactation consultant wanted me to supplement him with an ounce of pumped breastmilk after every feeding to help with the jaundice and to get his weight up. The home health nurse wanted us to supplement with formula because it is better for getting the bilirubin down...anyways, we did supplement a little, he got 3 total ounces of formula and probably 5 or 6 of breastmilk, but then we started having some nursing problems and we decided to cut out the bottles as long as he was still gaining and his numbers were getting better. He is now nursing like a champ again and luckily I was pumping a lot so my supply is fine and on Friday morning he was 7lbs, 1.5oz, just 1.5oz off his birth weight! I am keeping my fingers crossed that we get a good weight report at the weight clinic on Monday. Friday was the big day that his bili level was 9.6, so after 5 days in the light with me not being able to hold him, he was released from his light prison and we are much happier...and then we got a bath...

Gavin's umbilical stump fell off at 8 days old, which is pretty early compared to a lot of babies, but still within normal limits. We had to wait for the bath because of the lights, so his first actual in the tub bath was last night and he *loved* it...and by loved it, I mean he hated it. It was funny, I think he will like it more later, but for now...not so much.

This was his "oh gosh, I can't believe you are seriously making me do this" pose.

We are doing well, just so happy to be free of the lights and doing ok. He is still a very good baby even though everyone said he was just lethargic from the jaundice. He is alert more and more everyday and as Daddy puts it, as long as he is moving or eating he is fine. He is still quite the night owl, but I think most 2 week olds are.

Gavin's First Photo Session

Gavin Randall Thomas

Gavin Randall Thomas blessed us with his presence at 12:25 pm on February 25th. He weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 20 inches long.

I went to the doctor for a regular visit on Monday and my blood pressure was up for the first time. This pregnancy has been so great and totally opposite from Garth Lee's where I had problems with my pressures from about 28 weeks. We have both just been doing so well until this week, I also had protein in my urine and hyperreflexia (all signs of preeclampsia). I was just starting my 37th week, so I still had a week to go to be out of the woods more or less as far as maturity of the baby, so we decided to try and get a few more days of him inside and hopefully with me healthy so I started bedrest and I had an appointment set for Wednesday afternoon. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, my pressures were a little elevated and at the appointment it was also high, still had proteinuria and hyperreflexia. Dr. Lampkin went ahead and checked me and I was 4cm and 80% effaced and with all of this, he decided that we were going to have a baby on Thursday the 25th and I agreed that we want both a healthy mommy and a healthy baby and that would probably be best.

We went in Thursday morning at around 7:30 and Dr. Lampkin broke my water at 8am. We waited to start the pitocin at a good rate until AFTER the epidural, so we waited until the anesthesiologist came before we really augmented labor. I had a few contractions in the hour, but nothing really all that noticeable. I got the epidural at 9am and the nurse checked me and I was a 5 and 100% effaced. Between 10 and 11, I was starting to feel pretty intense pain in one little spot on my hip and remembering what it was like with Garth Lee, I was just worried that it was just going to get worse, so we had the anesthesiologist come and reposition my catheter and she gave me a bolus of pain meds into my epidural...that made me forget how to breathe...my BP dropped to 89/46 and the nurse came and gave me some ephedrine and in 30 seconds I was fine AND the pain in my hip was gone, so I was happy. Everyone was in and out and we were all visiting. Garth decided maybe Grandma should go ahead and pick up Garth Lee at school at noon so that he for sure wouldn't miss anything and even though I was pretty sure it would take longer, I agreed that he should probably come up since he was most likely being crazy at school anyways knowing his baby brother was coming that day. They got there and came into the room about 12:00 and we visited for a little bit as I was starting to feel that hip pain again. I told the nurse that the pain was back and pretty bad and I knew that we could increase the epidural rate, but she said for me to visit with Garth Lee a bit and she would check me first to see where we were, so while I was talking to Garth Lee and everyone else in the room, this pain was getting almost unbearable and I had to ask Garth to get everyone out. The nurse came in right behind and checked me and said, let's just have this baby...and to be honest, I was really leaning more towards the increase the epidural for a minute option, but she didn't really ask ;)...She said I had an anterior lip and with a contraction it would probably go away, so she placed my legs in the stirrups (my epidural REALLY worked...mostly) and started to raise the top of the bed and breakdown the bottom...then everything gets a little fuzzy, I was hurting BAD, she asked Garth (very calmly) to press the call button for her and when they came on she requested the immediate presence of the doctor, (who fortunately was having a sandwich at the nurses station) and nurses...oh and she told me my baby had lots of dark hair. I had 3 contractions right on top of each other...and the more I think about it, maybe it was just one, but I felt some relief with pushing and I pushed 3 times...anyways, Dr. Lampkin was half-dressed and barely got gloves on when Gavin came out. I remember one of the nurses running in saying "someone get the camera" and I looked up and said, um no one is taking "those" pictures (but I am so glad she did, I got some of the best pictures from a nurse taking pictures...and only one we had to delete). The first thing I thought when I saw him was how tiny he was, and when they put him on my belly I just remember I wanted to hold him forever.

We were worried about his lungs being ready, but they were fine. He had a little trouble keeping his temperature at first, but he caught on really fast to that also. When I was able to use one of my legs, we went to a post partum room and anxiously awaited our little man.

This was so opposite of my experience with Garth Lee, while I was being *repaired* (a common side effect of a baby shooting out at lightning fast speeds), I commented that I could totally do that again, that it was so easy. Dr. Lampkin just laughed at me and said I would have to at least wait until I was out of the stirrups. I am so grateful for this experience, but it is so surreal...that it's over, that he is here and we are all healthy and fine. I am so blessed in so many ways and I am so grateful for this birth experience.

I posted pictures in a post below...enjoy ;)

Welcome To The World, Little Man

The biggest "the belly" got...pretty amazing, and I wasn't even due ;)

Here is the last picture of us as a family of 3...interesting thing about this one is that it was taken very literally 2 minutes before Gavin was born...I'll post the "birth story" in a separate post...

Usually I HATE pictures of myself, especially ones I am not prepared for, but I feel like this one caught a very precious moment of the first time I laid eyes on Gavin, in an instant my tears of pain turned to tears of joy as they placed his gooey body on my belly...

With Gavin being a little over 3 weeks early, there were a lot of things we were worried about, his lungs being the biggest, but as you can see here, he has quite the set and never needed any assistance to breathe...

This is Garth Lee's first time to "'check out" the baby, if you look really close you can see that his eyes are open as wide as can be, he was so amazed to meet his baby brother...

And here we all are just giving him a good inspection...

Here is the proud papa taking Gavin to the nursery...

A very proud big brother holding his very tired little brother for the first time...

I haven't taken as many pictures since we have been home, but this is the one and only time Gavin has been in the swing...looks like he likes it ;)

Insurance

Garth Lee: "Can I go wake up Daddy?" (Daddy usually works nights and Garth Lee's favorite thing is to go wake him up in the afternoon...after I pick him up for school everyday he is asking about every 5 minutes if it's time yet)

Me: "He's not here honey, he is at work."

Garth Lee: "Again?"

Me: "Yep."

Garth Lee: "Why is Daddy working soooo much?"

Me: "It's so we can all have insurance."

Garth Lee: "We must have LOTS of insurance."

Me: "Yes, honey we do, but we are about to have a baby so we need it because he could come at any time."

Garth Lee: "So we need lots of coverage..."

Me: "Yes, lots of coverage is good for us right now."

Garth Lee: "You know you can have too much coverage."


Thank you Nationwide Insurance for spending all of your advertising dollars to show commercials on Nickelodeon...

Don't Be Fooled ;)

My wonderful husband is working every waking (and sleeping) hour for the next month in order to make sure we stay covered on insurance while he transitions jobs. His "transition" is actually just him working both full time jobs. I am still having to work my normal schedule (minus a day here and there) which is making us have crazy hectic schedules...anyways, long story short, one of Garth's very limited days off this month (I think one of only 2) was today and since I had to work, the "boys" had a wonderful Saturday together.

I didn't hear anything from them until 11am, since that is around when they woke up and right before they went to the golf store to get Daddy's new golf bag. Garth texts me about 1:00 from IHOP and sends me this picture:













Sooooo cute I was thinking, what a healthy late late breakfast/lunch for the little man (minus the hot chocolate...well it probably has calcium in it). I called him up and asked why they decided to go to IHOP and Garth told me in a 'duh' sort of voice that "Garth Lee wanted pancakes" (he is soooooo not spoiled). So obviously IHOP is pretty much the only place to get pancakes at 1 in the afternoon....then I asked the obvious question after receiving the above picture: "but didn't he have fruit?" Garth told me to wait, he just sent me another picture...

Oh yeah, that's more like it...well at least he didn't fill up on that calcium laced hot chocolate so he would have plenty of room for the pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream with a side of bacon ;)

For Garth Lee's Future Wife...

There are times when kids talk (most times) that no one is really listening to them...I don't think I am alone in being guilty of this. I find myself often giving in to the "uhmmm, hmmm"s and the periodic nod. I don't do it on purpose, I just find myself mindlessly doing it on an almost daily basis...but there are those times that I not only really listen, but I may just egg his elaborate stories on a bit--something I learned from my mom.

I get sad sometimes because Garth Lee talks a lot about when he grows up and moves away, just nonchalant like as if we were talking about the weather. Maybe this is normal for kids to talk about, but I really don't enjoy that my 5 year old is already looking forward to getting out of the house (remind me about this when he is 30 and he still lives in the basement). Along with talking about moving away, he often mentions things about his "wife" that I find terribly cute and I am always thinking I need to write down so I don't forget, so here are a few things that Garth Lee has told me about his future, specifically about and to his future wife:

1. He is going to let you pick the house that you live will live in (and the city)
2. He is going to be the best husband a wife could ever have
3. He will try really hard not to make you mad
4. You might yell at him when you are married, but only maybe 2 times and it will just be because he made you
5. He is going to have a little boy and he is going to name him Garth 5
6. He's not sure if he has met you yet, but he thinks he hasn't, that he will meet you later

Another thing that is interesting that we have noticed is that Garth Lee is "attracted" to dark-headed girls with glasses. He has had a couple of "girlfriends" at school and at church and they both have had dark brown hair and wear glasses. There is also a cute 'girl' who works at my Mom's salon that Garth Lee is quite smitten with and she, too, has dark hair, but no glasses. Not that I think he does or should have a "type" at this age, I just think it could be interesting to look back later.

Not that my opinion counts or will mean too much when the time comes, but I would like to state, for the record, that I hope that Garth Lee's future wife has all of the qualities that he seeks, and I hope that she is someone that he can look up to and that he will want to be like. I hope that she feels the same way about him, like I do about his daddy. I hope that she is strong but kind and that most of all she will be a wonderful mother to my grandchildren. I hope for them both to be happy and to care about what I hope for them, but to ultimately depend on each other and love each other and do what they know is right for them after counseling with the Lord.

Ok, enough of that! Hopefully we are looking at AT LEAST another 16+ years before all of this comes to fruition. In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy being the woman in my little man's life.

Family Pictures

This is sort of embarrassing, but we have not had professional family pictures taken of just the 3 of us...ever. I figured that we should probably go ahead and do that since our family of 3 is very soon to be a foursome. I had the best plans to do these pictures back in November, you know, when I had a cute little pregnant belly and you could only tell I was pregnant when I turned sideways...well fast forward some 2 more months and I am now also pregnant in my bum, thigh and face area as well as quite impressively pregnant where I should be ;) It just so happens that my sister-in-law's best friend Heather is a very talented photographer and she was so gracious to take some pictures of us and I think she did a fantastic job. Of course I am super critical of myself but overall I am very pleased with how they turned out and I don't think they could possibly be better (considering what she had to work with---I am of course referring to myself, not my handsome boys). I know that Garth Lee will be thankful to have at least one family portrait representing the first 5 and a half years of his life that he was our one and only...plus I know that I will be thankful to have them as well--I can hear us now: ahhh the good old days, remember that, Honey, when we only had one, remember how easy that was...Well, I hope y'all like them too...don't forget to go by Heather's blog to check out her other fabulous work and a few more of us: http://www.heatherwitt.blogspot.com/. Here are my favorites:

Catch Up

I downloaded our pictures from the holidays and the only thing that did for me was make me cry a little and realize that my camera was a big fat "on-sale-but-still-rather-expensive" LESSON. The pictures are all horrible. How can a 12 MP camera take pictures worse than my 5 year old can take on a 1 MP camera? Anyways, I am going to try to figure it out and use some other settings...so no pictures from Christmas, just memories ;)

We had a restful and COLD Christmas. It snowed quite a lot and we had 60+ mph southeasterly wind gusts creating some pretty impressive snow drifts especially with our northwesterly facing house. We are at the end of a block with our house exposed to the north and west giving us close to 6 foot snow drifts blocking our driveway and our front gate (we still have remnants of the drifts in the driveway and by the gate almost a month later which is unheard of somewhere snow never sticks more than a day). Thank goodness Garth had to work the night the storm came in so the car was out of the garage or there is no way we would have been able to leave the house except on foot (or sleigh)...it was pretty though, and a treat for us in this part of the world to have a white Christmas. Garth Lee's favorite gift was a SpongeBob recliner that my parents got for him, it has a cup holder in the armrest and it actually reclines with a footrest that comes out. It was one of the first presents he opened and the rest of the evening we had to bring his presents to his Highness so that he didn't abandon "the chair".

We did have a rather interesting "visitor" to my parents' house Christmas Eve after we had opened all of our presents. The weather was so bad that most of the family wasn't able to come into town, so it was a cozy 3 couples (us, my parents and my uncle and aunt) plus Garth Lee. We were sitting by the fire chatting, charging batteries, etc. when a nice-looking young man, about 21 or so walked right in the front door. We all looked at him and he was very cordial, said hello, was asking about how the night went, told us how his was going...this is when I left the room...you see I don't do embarrassment well, I can't watch people make fools of themselves, it is painful to me. Reality shows are like torture for me because they are pretty much just us watching people make fools of themselves, I can't stand it, it is physically painful for me and I have somewhat of a 6th sense about it and I could feel it rolling in. Once I saw my Dad look at me with questioning eyes and I looked back and shrugged, I knew there were 2 possibilities to this situation 1) This is some really stupid kid that is about to bust out some magazine subscription he wants us to buy to fund his "mission trip" or 2) This is a really confused kid that just walked into the wrong house. My spidey sense was telling me the former would result in my dad chasing this kid off with his pistol (if he was lucky) and the latter would be almost more paralyzing if it were me. Either way, I had no choice but to flee to the back bedroom and hope for the best for this boy. The rest of the story is pieced together from accounts of the happenings that I did not witness myself. The boy walks in and sits on the step to the kitchen and is shooting the breeze with my aunt and he casually asks where everyone else is. She looks up and tells him that this is everyone. He asks for Jamie, which happens to be the youngest daughter of my parents' next door neighbors, and the mystery is solved. From the accounts given by those that could bear to see this boy tortured, it was pretty humorous when he realized his mistake. He hadn't met Jamie's parents yet and tonight was a big night for him, and he was trying his hardest to make a good impression, he was just at the wrong house. My dad patted him on the back as the boy pleaded for him not to tell Jamie's parents what had happened and my dad walked him to the right house and I'm sure he was very nice about it when laughed the whole way across the lawn. The boy should look on the bright side, how many people get a real live practice run at meeting the folks? It was pretty funny and a Christmas memory we won't soon forget...thanks random neighbor boyfriend for that and I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that your aim was better for your New Years kiss.

I've decided I REALLY like having Garth Lee in school and I finally know why my parents weren't nearly as excited about school vacations as I was growing up. Our first week off for Christmas was great, pretty busy and we all got to sleep in...the second week I started to notice in Garth Lee how much he has benefited from the structure that Kindergarten has provided him and we (including Garth Lee) were quite happy to get back to school this year. I can't believe that Garth Lee will be in middle school when Gavin starts kindergarten...crazy how time flies.

Speaking of Gavin, we had another ultrasound this week, probably our last since everything is going well. We were supposed to get awesome pictures for this one but he wasn't having it, he was face down and was covering his face with both arms. He wouldn't show us his boy parts either, so Garth is convinced he is now a she...but we have been reassured in 2 previous ultrasounds that the "equipment" is indeed male. Good news is, he finally turned, we are head down and we have an approximately 80% chance that he will stay that way for the remainder of my pregnancy. My bladder noticed he turned the middle of last week when he stopped kicking it. The weight of a baby pressing on your bladder is bad enough, but it is quite another issue when it is compounded by random direct kicks to it...it's a relief that he is now vertex and no longer breech. The weight estimate for him was 3 lbs 9 oz, which is about the 44th percentile. I was a little disappointed that he wasn't bigger, but I'm not sure why. Hopefully I will have a better chance of this delivery going better if he is and continues to be an average sized baby. But it is also hard for me to ignore the fact that Garth Lee's size estimate was 2 pounds off, so like most things, only time will tell. We have right at 7 weeks to go before we get to meet this little guy, it has been a long road, but a pretty speedy pregnancy...I'm sure these last few weeks will drag into years, but maybe they will fly by, I feel ready to meet this little one and I know Garth Lee is excited too.

Still Here

Sorry for not blogging in a while, I actually even have pictures but I haven't figured out how to download them yet from my new camera so I will figure it out and hopefully will be posting some meaningful stuff soon for all one (or so) of you to read. Until then...Happy New Year!