Jack's first bath.

I must really want to preserve memories if I am posting photos of me looking the way I do. You would think with all of the inane details I am sharing of Jack that he was our first child. I think somehow knowing he is our last child makes us pause and savor him much more than we might otherwise. Monday his umbilical cord fell off so it was (drum roll please). . .bath time! Hooray! Chad was my assistant and part time paparazzi and we'd like to report that Jack loved his bath. That is all.

Fall break and swimming=chilly water.

This past week the children have all been on fall break. Factor in a two week old and that's good ole fashion perfect timing! Not. Actually it hasn't been bad, I'm embracing the chaos and it seems to be serving me well. I haven't turned into the mean mom yet and it's already Thursday! Yeah for me! I must say that Arizona has been wooing me with her weather. It's sixty degrees in the morning and between seventy and eighty five for the high. Arizona one point. I open all my windows and doors and am loving it. Even though Chad reports seeing a Bobcat in our backyard two nights ago so I might want to rethink the open door policy. Now, that's an Ocelot, Bobcat and a Mountain lion for our wild animal tally in our backyard.

. . .poor poor poor kitties. RIP Augustus and Captain Cal.

Owen talked Luke into going swimming on Tuesday and let me just say one word, CHILLY. I put my foot in and it felt like a mountain stream in the spring. Whoa. But Luke was never one to shrink to a challenge. So document, I must. Luke jumped and jumped and fluttered about so much that Owen even joined him. Lily was all talk as she put her flippers on and went in as deep as her ankle bones.

This may or may not even be our dog, we still don' t know.

--Before


--After



Duke's beauty has been the casualty of a too busy family. Before you get all high and mighty on us and say we don't deserve our dog. Know this. We hurt deeply from Duke's lack of fur. I mean, his fur was just so. . .BEAUTIFUL. And his beauty is mostly what we love about him.

At least for Chad and I, the kids probably genuinely do love him. In our defense, we didn't know that after Duke got wet we had to comb out all his fur. Knowing that now, Duke will never get wet again. I kid, I kid, but seriously, probably only like once a year. The groomer lectured me for five minutes about how when I pick him up it is very very very important that I do not laugh at him. That such an act would insult and further humiliate my dog. To which I thought two things; 1-your a hippie and 2-I'm totally going to laugh at him. Laugh I did, and I still can't tell if he was insulted. When I brought him to the car, Lily was adamant that this was not our dog. I must say, she might just be right.


UPDATE! The dog that may or may not be our dog that we got from the groomers Monday afternoon is looking more and more to actually be our dog. He has chewed up sixteen paper plates, run off twice when his name was called and gets on the ottoman every time we walk out of the room.

To think: we almost didn't do this.

Every time I look at Jack I think how much I love my husband.

That sentence deserves it's own paragraph. Shortly after having Lily I knew there was another baby meant for us. I talked with Chad and told him how I felt. To say he didn't feel the same would be an understatement. He thought with Lily our family was complete, finished, as in no more babies. I struggled with this knowledge. I didn't want to talk my husband into another child, I knew that would be a recipe for disaster. Time marched by. Year after year passed and my feelings only grew stronger. Every birthday wish, balloon launching wish, quiet prayer offered included my desire for this child.

From time to time Chad and I would talk about it. He knew of my wishes and hopes for our family. But he still didn't feel the same. So I continued to pray and wish for our child and for my husband's heart to be softened. Almost a year ago Chad came to me and told me that if I still felt as strongly that we should have another child. I couldn't believe it. I was elated. I asked him what had changed his mind. He told me that knowing of my desire for another child he decided to pray about it. To search out what was holding him back. He told me that after much prayer he realized that it only boiled down to selfishness. That he was comfortable and didn't want to "shake up" his life. But once he realized that was the only thing holding him back he also knew that was not a good enough reason.

So now you see why every time I look on at my beautiful son why my love for my husband increases. Tripleifys, quadtriplifys, a gaggle. I will forever be grateful for my husband who loved me so much and cared for me so well that he was willing to look at himself. To stretch his comfort level and grow. I often look at Chad in awe at the man he is. He was definitely a good man when I married him, but he is just so. much. better. now.

With my family all around me, I am a blessed woman. And the best part, I know it.

A thought on staring.

There has been a lot of staring going on at our house lately. So much that another un-newborn child is jealous. Chad came up with the idea that Lily needed some uninterrupted staring time. Time where you seriously just stare at her. It sounds like the kind of thing that would end rather quickly but the opposite is actually true.

Like a true woman she fills up those quiet moments with chatter. Lily's mouth will run away in conversation and the designated starer will sit and look intently upon her face. She doesn't even need you to participate in the conversation. In fact any participation by the starer is cue for her to speak faster and more loud. I say more in reference to the word loud just to give you a baseline of where we are starting from.

We are already at the outside of the conversation at loud. As the one sided conversation continues her tone rises and falls as she conveys her excitement over this or that. Things like;

. . . something Lukey did
. . . how her new gogos went boom
. . . how Duke jumped and she went crash!
. . . I picked the fowers and dropped it but then i pwicked em up and wow!
. . . I wanna go wimming, I wanna go wimming, I don't care it cold, I like cold.
. . . then I gonna kick kick kick and wim.
. . . poop!
. . . I coulored the pwincess book and look! Beautiful.





So stare at her we must, for she desperately needs it. Two to three times per day at least. I'm not sure what Chad is thinking during his staring sessions, I deduce from the frequency of his sessions that he must be enjoying them as well. For me, I sit and stare at our little girl and think just how much I love her. How beautiful I think she is. How much I love the type of rough and tumble girl she is.

. . .how lovely these times are that we have together are.

Lily turned four, we tried to stop her and it didn't work.

On Friday the 23rd of September we celebrated Lily turning four. I have no idea where the time went. I swear it was just yesterday that I was up at night nursing her. Lily is our only daughter and both Chad and I swear she's the toughest member of our family. She has boundless energy and is by far the loudest person I. have. ever. met.


Lily was home with me on Friday as we decorated the kitchen for her family party. Lily and I made her crown this year together, she loved choosing the glitter colors and cutting out images from magazines. She waited and waited patiently right next to her cake all afternoon. When her daddy (finally) got home we sang, ate and celebrated our Lily.


Her brothers were more than willing to help out with the lighting of the candles (Owen) and assisting blowing out the candles (Luke).








Luke even made her a gift, a piggy bank. Which was a red plastic cup with a name tag he made saying "Lily".


We of course did our traditional balloon launching, complete with wishes we all made. BTW, both of my wishes came true! And the next day even, I must say, I highly recommend the balloon wish launching.




Happy birthday baby girl, even though you're getting bigger, you'll always be my little girl. We love you Lily.

Going home.

With day five of our hospital adventure came the firedrill discharge.

. . ."Um we need your room right now! They're back up seven women in triage and another just came through the door. Your time is up, get out!!"

Usually I'm the first one trying to get out of the hospital and this is the longest I've ever stayed. But I wanted to stay and be there for every feeding with Jack, which would have been quite difficult coming from home. So stay I did. Chad held down the fort at home and I spent a lot of time alone in the hospital with Jack.

Aside from Lily wearing the same clothes for five days and that horrible hour Chad and I spent thinking Owen had been kidnapped things went fairly smooth. What's that, kidnapped? Yes. It was nothing short of terrifying but alls well that ends well. Owen called Chad to ask him to come and get him from football on Tuesday evening, saying he didn't have his ride. Chad raced down to the field to get him, mind you it's almost 9pm at this point only to find an empty football field. Panic. No trace of him, I called and called and called his ride, no answer. Curse cell phones. Called the coach, no answer. Almost an hour later he was discovered, his ride had come and he'd been with his carpool through that hour of terror. Phew. I think I aged a year in that hour though.

We had to shuffle Lily around with different people for the times when Chad was needed at the hospital. Thank goodness for the kindness of people, who are willing to pitch in and help. I think we managed to completely irritate the CPR teacher with our sarcastic jokes and dropping the baby routines. We had fun though. 25 compressions and 2 breaths people! Oh, and make sure you start by saying,

"Baby, baby are you okay?"

. . .if no answer begin CPR. If your baby isn't able to use words yet though, and can't respond go ahead with CPR just to be safe. I kid, I kid.

So, once we managed to pawn Lily off on an unsuspecting person thinking they were just answering a friendly call from the Meads and not signing up for six hours of childcare. Chad made it the hospital just as I was discharged. We got lunch, filled my prescription and waiting very un-patiently (I did, Chad was his ever patient loving self) for the doctor to give us the final go ahead to discharge Jack too. Waiting waiting for her to get there and then decide if baby boy could go home too. We got the word that he was good to go!

More waiting though, discharge orders, last minute tests they wanted to run and a car seat pulse ox test. Hours later we were set to go at almost 4pm. We drove home with Chad's knees in the dashboard as Jack was situated behind him. This has also prompted somewhat of a death for me. The impending purchase of a mini van. Chad is ecstatic, considering he's been wanting this for years and I've been the hold out. The cash has been transferred from our savings and now we're just waiting for the right car to pop up on craigslist. I can't live without my leather, man.

Anyho, we made it home, settled Jack into his crib. Lily was a moment behind us and ran into the house excitedly screaming,

"Mom! I missed you SO SO SO SO So much! Where's Jackson? I got french fries and hambuuuger. Mom! mom, mom, mom, mom, look! Why is Jack kissing your boobie? That's pwivate. Mom mom mom I wanna hold Jack, put him right here. k, mom!!!"

It's been crazy, loud, busy but also, so beautiful. I finally have all my children home together with me.