Breakfast with Cousins

This morning my cousin, RJ invited us all over to share a breakfast together. He has a 6 -year-old daughter, who gets along smashingly with Jacks AND Trina, which considering the age difference is quite awesome!

I love that they get to play together, and RJ and I can pick up where we left off years ago.

PARENTING

It’s not easy being a parent. No matter if you work outside the home, inside the home. No matter if you have one, two, three or fifteen children. No matter if you have a small house in a big city or a big house in a small city. No matter if you have money coming out your ears or very little money.

Raising children is hard work — at least it is if you are doing it right.

And yet our children don’t care how fancy we are, or how many messages we get in an hour on our blog. The smaller they are the more they need us. The bigger they are, the more they need us. Sometimes, the more they need us, the more we want to slink away and find some blanket to crawl under. But it doesn’t have to feel that way.

Breaks for parents are absolutely essential.

Absolutely.

There is a time and place for media and screens and technology.  It’s about being conscious, as a parent and a human being, about when and how we are turning to the computer or TV for simply boredom or laziness.

To truly be awake to this life — these few fleeting impressionable years — we have but one choice to make each day: embrace our blessings and honor those around us. Practicing mindful choices each day is something that we have to model for our children.

There are many ways that you can just be with your children that are not hard work, challenging or tiresome. You may discover that your child will reach out to you simply because you are suddenly available. The magic in this list is that it’s just simply being together for a solid half hour or so but it offers up the most beneficial memories we can offer to children. Here are some of our family’s favorites:

• Turn off the TV/computer/phones for one hour. (In our house, we limit daily screen time to a total of one-two hours on our weekly movie nights).
• Have a work hour — they do homework and you work on a hobby like art or reading while sitting at the same table.
• Just listen to music. At our house, we call this a dance party.
• Surprise them with a celebration for trying hard on a test or homework and eat cookies and milk, or ice cream or hot chocolate.
• Sit on the couch while they play and read magazines. They will sit next to you eventually and ask, ”Whatcha reading?”
• Grab two balls and challenge everyone to find something fun to do with them outside.
• Snuggle under a blanket or put a puzzle together.
• Ask them open-ended questions about their day.
• Tell them something surprising about your day.
• Draw together, taking turns adding new lines on the same paper.
• Take a drive, taking turns picking the direction and sitting in silence as the unfamiliar landscape passes you by.
• Look at their baby photos.
• Tell them a funny story from their younger days, or your own childhood. In fact, tell them any story you can think of telling.
• Ask them to teach you how to do something. This is big. Very big.
• Announce that there will be no cleaning for just one day.
• Give them a coupon for a hug to use anytime they need it.

BIG surprise--- SNOW

We had so much snow fall that the kids needed to dig and tunnel to escape the house!
M

My dad

National Bubble-Wrap Day

Hug Day

National Hug Day or National Hugging Day is an annual holiday created by Rev. Kevin Zaborney. It occurs on January 21 and is officially recognized by the United States Patent and Trademark Office,but is not a public holiday. The holiday was founded on January 21, 1986 in Caro, Michigan, and has since spread to multiple different countries. The purpose for the holiday is to help everyone show more emotion in public. There is only one way you are supposed to celebrate the holiday, offer a hug to anyone and everyone you want. While National Hug Day and the Free Hugs Campaign share many similarities, there is not actual association between the two. Whether you hug a family member or a stranger, the mental and physical health benefits are the same.

Vocabulary: Children need to understand what they are feeling. There are a range of books you can use to help with a child's emotional vocabulary. My favorite is "Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day," by Jamie Lee Curtis.

In order to teach emotions, one effective tool is to help them by labeling how they feel. When a child cries, tell the child you know he or she is feeling sad; when someone takes away a toy, say you bet he or she feels angry. This way, your child will begin to associate feelings with the words that define them.

Put a Face On It
Children need to learn to relate facial expressions with emotions.
Help children with this skill by calling out emotions during morning meeting and asking children to make faces that go with those emotions. You may also ask them to draw those emotions on paper or to point to a photo of someone experiencing that emotion (from a selection you will provide). When you watch a movie together or read a story, you might pause and ask how a character is feeling and how your child knows that.

Own Your Emotions:
Help children identify how they feel by letting them express it regularly.

• When they walk into the classroom every morning, have them put their name next to their emotion on an emotions board.


• On a sheet of poster board, put names and facial expressions of several common emotions.


• Kids can have their names on cardboard with velcro or written on a clothespin. Their task is to identify how they feel and put their name next to that emotion. They can always change their name position as their emotions change.

When conflicts arise among children, ask them to explain how they feel to the other child or children. Teach children that if someone is sad we should not laugh at them; if someone is angry, we should try to understand why. Help them learn to positively express themselves without physical violence or negative reactions.

Ask “How do you feel when…” questions:

• You just found out that your grandparents are coming today and bringing you a very special surprise.


• You dropped a big object on your foot.


• Your little brother/sister broke a tower you just finished making.


• You picked up all of your toys without being asked.


• A group of friends won't let you play with them.


• A friend calls and invites you to come over and play.


• Some people you don't know are coming over today for supper.

Each question may have more than one answer. Have the child explain why they chose each emotion.

Tin Can Craft

Create tin can luminaries....

Little Brother is Born...

I had a plan.
We had a plan, a very specific plan.
Not everything works out according to the plan.
The plan was I was going to wake up in the morning with contractions five minutes apart and ninety seconds long, just as I had with my previous two births. I was to drop my oldest off at school and my youngest at my in-laws, have the in-laws pick up the eldest and keep both children overnight. My husband was to call out of work for the day, phone my doctor’s office (as well as my Doula – Coretta ----- Read her blog here.) to relay the contraction information and state we would be on our way to the hospital.
The plan was to deliver a happy healthy boy in delivery room one, while taking advantage of the Jacuzzi tub for a water-birth.
The plan was to go IV and medication free through the duration of my stay, which I planned on making as short as possible.

What follows is what actually happened, with Baby Brother’s birth story, I want to express that this is not how birth is for everyone, nor should it be expected to be. 

Every mother, every baby, every birth is different. 

None is better or worse than the other, each is merely a process, a beautiful process we as mothers endure in order grant life to our precious little ones. I had an all-natural birth and I thought it was awesome. BUT...I know that a lot of people do not choose the route that I took and I want to say that I completely respect that and I do not judge. Just because I think natural-birth is great, does not mean that it's for everyone. 

After two separate solid evenings of all-night contractions over a week apart leading to a whole lot of nothing and being weeks late, I was convinced of two things. 

1) My baby hates me. 

And 

2) He’s never coming out. 

I had a routine OB visit on my birthday, in which we had the unpleasant (for me) discussion of induction and the ‘risks’ of waiting for the little guy to appear on his own clock. I was ordered to complete another Ultra-sound, in which the little guy appeared perfectly healthy and I was able to buy some more time before a nearly mandated induction. 

I was given Friday (two days away), I refused. 

I was then scheduled for Monday morning to which I complied (having full and complete intentions on canceling when/if he did not arrive). 

I left the office in tears again, for nearly the 30th time this pregnancy. The most frustrating part being MY body was ready to deliver, HIS was not ready to enter the world, and so many of the conventional and even unconventional ways to speed up the process would not accomplish a darn thing. I woke the next day and BAM. 

NOTHING. 

AGAIN. 

Now, I assumed if contractions or water breaking did not occur during the night, the day was lost and he was not coming. I made this assumption because of two things, first, BOTH of my older children were born at the 9 o’clock hour, and second, I know that MOST births begin when the mother is able to relax…which for me only happens when I am out cold. I went about my day in my usual misery of discontent but I felt a ‘little off’. 

My husband for the umpteenth time offered to stay home from work ‘just in case’, I laughed and he drove to work. 

After having a VERY few sporadic contractions throughout the day, I mentioned to Coretta (View Her Blog here) had been occurring suddenly stopped, I continued with my assumption that today is NOT the day. I then packed up my daughter and drove to pick up my son from school. 

On the drive there I had two decent contractions (on the 35 minute drive), nothing while I waited in the parking lot for a ½ hour and when I loaded the children back into the car I felt a VERY SMALL gush run down my leg. I attempted NOT to freak out as I could have just peed myself. 

The contractions were completely stopped again, so I assumed, it was a small leak and things would be moving along at a snail’s pace. I proceeded to my normal mommy duties, homework help, art project, hot cocoa, snack, brownie baking, dinner preparation and playtime supervision. As I did these things the contractions returned, although they didn't seem ‘right’ (each was only 2 or 6 or 3 minutes apart, lasting 20 or 95 seconds, consistently - inconsistent and unpredictable). I then chalked it up to false labor and continued on. 

At roughly 4:30, I was keeled over in pain, false or not I needed to get the kids out of the house before I scared them. I then asked my oldest son to call his grandparents to pick them both up and pack a bag for the overnight visit. (If you ask me the call took entirely too long, because I needed the kids gone ten minutes ago). Once he hung up, I then had him telephone my grandparents to inform them we would not be joining them for dinner. (This call took too long too!) Why was everyone asking so many questions? CLEARLY, they should know I am in labor!

I then texted my husband to come home. (To which he replied.. "Are you sure?") 

Seriously annoyed and seriously in pain... and now my phone keeps ringing! First, work. Next my sister. Lastly my mother. Everyone wanting to chat!

When my in-laws arrived I could barely speak, I kissed the children good-bye, told my father-in-law to “Get OUT” (I apologized later) and went into the bathroom to splash water repeatedly on my face. Once they finally left, I heaved myself over the birthing ball sobbing that my husband was not home yet and I would have a baby at home, alone. 

When I heard his car pull in the driveway, I nearly died. I had already pushed twice. He entered the house thinking it was a false alarm. Changed from his work clothes and walked around the house (for what seemed to be aimlessly to me). I handed him my phone and he knew it was real. He called my midwife and my doula, Coretta, and berated me with questions I was in too much pain to answer. 

I let out an “I cannot do this” as every woman in labor MUST say at some point, and he reassured me. I think he assumed I was refereeing to the whole birthing process. I was not. I was in fear that I would have to give birth at home. 

I knew we were in serious jeopardy of running out of time.

I was starting to get a little bit frantic during my contractions and had a hard time staying calm, the only thing I could think of is how a baby born ANYWHERE other than in the hospital would have to be in the NICU for observations for hours. 

My husband helped me to the car, holding both of my arms and walking backwards in front of me (the ONLY work-able position) each step excruciating… he couldn't even carry me successfully and I couldn't walk unassisted. Three times during our walk to the car he asked if I wanted to just go back in the house, and once more as we attempted to get into the car. 

It felt like it took forever to get into the car. And once we finally did, I felt some relief being in the car… until the urge to push came again… and again. 

Every light we came to looked red. 

I sobbed in the front seat of the car, praying and begging he would run every red light. 

I felt a huge gush and the urge to push again. 

I was concentrating so hard on avoiding the unnecessary pushes and staying calm. 

It was an enormous relief to me when we pulled up at the hospital. I then could face the reality that little guy’s head was about to crown. I heard my husband yell to the valet for a wheel chair and he and another man lifted me into it. 

I continued to tell myself not to push, to no avail. 

It seemed we hit every road block on the way. The doors opened sooooo slowly, the elevator was miles away and the doors on the elevator did not want to close. When we approached the entry doors to the labor and delivery, I let out a huge sigh of relief. My husband pressed the buzzer for us to be let onto the labor and delivery floor, and we were let in almost immediately…a nurse and my midwife were there, ready and waiting. 

My husband wheeled me into delivery room one where our water-birth was supposed to take place. 

The midwife and the nurse helped me to stand and asked me to get on a gown. I laughed, well laughed as much as a woman could in full labor. 

In this standing position I then pushed again and could feel his head. I could also feel the eyes of everyone in the room, sort of scared, sort of out of place, sort of wondering how I was going to get undressed and in a bed in the matter of minutes or seconds that this little guy was going to be born.

 Birthing in a hospital bed was not part of the plan. I strongly believe that is what caused the vast amount of stitches with my other births, the plan was to avoid stitches at all costs and by the looks of things not only was nothing going according to the plan, but tearing also seemed inevitable and stitches seemed realistic. 

As I pushed that eighth or so time, I told the midwife to cut off my pants and get the baby. She just looked at me very strangely and reminded me the pants had an elastic waistline. The three of us managed to get my pants to my ankles and I was able to lean back slightly onto a bed, push one more time and he’s head was out all the way…inside the water bag. 

The midwife was shouting for help and for someone to get her a ‘hook’ to remove the bag, nurses rushed in from everywhere. She managed to pull the water bag off of his face and guide him the rest of the way out unassisted. 

For a second I felt robbed. 

Robbed of the birth I had planned. Robbed of every having the birth I had hoped for. Then, I heard my little guy cry. 

And in that moment nothing else mattered.

I did not care that my plan had fallen apart; I did not care of all the blood and water all over my house and car, or the clothing that needed to be tossed. I did not care that I had endured momentousness pain for hours. I did not care that I had to wait several extra weeks to see his beautiful face. 

When he was handed him to me and instantly 

nothing. 

else.

mattered. 

The nurses walked around preparing medicine after medicine for me, since I was not given anything prior to the birth, but on my behalf (and knowing my wishes) my midwife stated I did not need anything. 

My husband called Coretta to tell her ‘not to rush’ and ‘he was already here’ and she didn't believe him. We all smiled and laughed over the ‘I told you so’s’ I had stated weeks ago of barely making it to the hospital. 

My little guy was bathed and returned to my arms. 

My husband phoned all the family to share the news and Coretta walked into the room shocked she had actually been in the elevator during his birth. 

Much of my plan had fallen by the wayside, since although he made me wait weeks for his birth, he had me wait only hours for his delivery, I didn't need stitches or medication or an IV, but I did not get my water birth.

I did end up with a gorgeous, alert, healthy, little guy and an early release from the hospital.