Little Nell joins the fam!

 Just under two weeks ago, I headed into the hospital.  It was around 8 am on a Wednesday morning and I was being induced with our little girl.  My due date was a week later but due to my "geriatric" maternal age, the doctors wanted to get me started well in advance.  Never mind that I had never gone early.  Never mind, in fact, that my last two had come almost two weeks late.  Let's get this party started!

Despite my tendency to balk at anyone telling me what or when or how to do anything, my "end of the pregnancy 'let's finish this!'" attitude prevailed and we said, "Let's do this!"

They got me going on a pill to help "soften things up," and I sat for a couple hours, feeling contractions fairly regularly.  They checked and things were a go so they started me on the petocin....whew!  I insisted that the epidural be sooner than later.  In fact, I casually introduced it into almost every conversation I had with a hospital staff member and I think they finally got the picture...and got me an epidural.  Thank goodness because it was another 15 hours of petocin going up one level at a time until they decided that it wasn't doing enough and it was time for another route.  The contractions were coming regularly every 3-5 minutes, but I was able to sleep better than I had for weeks, with that blessed epidural. 

8 o'clock the next morning rolled around and yet another transition of the hospital staff left me in what was becoming a regular routine: new caregivers, brief them on what I had been doing up until then, have the new caregivers decide that they needed to try something different than what the previous caregivers had suggested and take their time trying to figure out what they wanted to do. I was able to help the cause of science by letting a bunch of interns experience all kinds of cool things like checking dilation of the cervix, finding a heartbeat, etc.  I was happy to help--having relatives in the health care profession who had to do similar things to become proficient themselves--but I have to admit that letting an assistant run the show for the actual delivery without stepping in to correct or make it better may not have been the best thing. 

Fortunately, Quinn was there and knew what was going on and how to help.

They were planning on breaking my water until I was switched to the last crew to take care of me, who decided not to and instead increase my petocin.  I was feeling the contractions more at this point and was not happy about that and asked them to take me off the petocin since I was progressing.  Nope.  Of course not. 

Well, little Nell decided that it was time to take matters into her own hands.  

She had already proven that we couldn't make her come on the day they scheduled to have me induced.  Now that it was the next day, it was time and she took action.  During one contraction, Quinn saw and I felt a little jab from the womb right down by where her little head was that really could have been nothing but a little fist.  And my water broke!  The little darling had popped my water bag for me!  So fun. :D

She was born an hour later, coming into the world after five pushes. Quinn had to coach me since the assistant midwife wasn't telling me anything: if she was crowning, if it was time to breathe or push...and he did beautifully.  We got to snuggle skin to skin for an hour and just enjoyed our time together.

Other than insisting that she is not really a champion nurser and subsequently losing weight for the first week, little Nell has been absolutely perfect to snuggle, smell, watch and cuddle.  She is now doing almost exclusively the bottle, although I am pumping to give her breastmilk.  Maybe she will eventually nurse.  Parts of this new mom thing have left me weeping and upset.  Apparently thirteen pregnancies doesn't mean it's not going to be a challenge to figure out each new little one.  One thing that has not taken any time to figure out: she is a perfect, absolutely adored fit into our family and I love her so much!

Penelope Xavia

Listening...or not. (and swimming at last!)

 "I'm not listening! I'm not listening!" little Zuli shouts from the top of the stairs.  Sigh.  Zsa-man has such a knack for tormenting both his older and younger sibling.  It used to be the other way around, especially with Spooner teasing Zsa-man to tears...or rage.  Now Zsa-man has learned that his rage is a very great defense against anything Spooner might retaliate with and so Zsa-man basically teases him to his heart's content.  Double sigh.  

Fortunately most of the time they play happily, so if I can just help encourage them to not take any lasting trauma or built in mind-sets (like, "this person is always so mean!" or "this person just makes things difficult") then hopefully it will just pewter out like so many of our sibling rivalries have.  Of course, many of our rivalries have only diminished over time and space as the older ones have left the house but heaven knows it took me years to heal some of the rifts that my behavior as a child generated in my poor, tormented six younger brothers :S.  Thank goodness for time and the Atonement!

*******

The kiddos are super excited.  We have been missing swimming desperately this last year during coronovirus and tonight we are going to a hotel with a swimming pool.  It should be a fun last celebration before the baby comes next Wednesday (I'm being induced that day).  Of course, there are worse side effects from the pandemic, but swimming has been one of the ones that has hit closest to home.  So tonight will be awesome.

*******

This is going to be cut short because Chugger-dude needs the computer for an essay he needs to write, so I will have to hopefully remember to share about "Man of La Mancha," Spooner impulsively stacking my scattered granny squares, Pipalicious and Chugger-dude bringing down the mallets of destruction with glee, enjoying a chick-flick with Pipalicious after a long dearth of them, chatting with my Tova, painting with the Goob and explosive toothpaste breath experiences. (How's that for building some anticipation ;)?)

Drew's Anti-jokes and Family Homeeeeee

 Drew is a breath of fresh air when he breezes through on his way to living life elsewhere :D.  He showers affection, attention, opinions and humor wherever he goes and it is fun to have him live so near!

Here are a couple jokes he shared with us the other day (with the clarification that they are "anti-jokes," as he calls them):

-What do you call a joke that's not funny?    A sentence.

-How do you confuse someone?  Paint yourself green and throw forks at them.

He is kind of permanently on "joke" for FHE (or "Family Homee"** as Eli puts it), so we get a lot of great ones!  He isn't here often for it so it's a quick contribution he can make to our evening that everyone enjoys :D. 

**NOTE --"Family Homee" comes because we always start with Quinn saying: "Welcome to the Quinn" (double thump on his chest) "And Mary" (gallant dramatic sweep of the hand to acknowledge me)...then deep breath by everyone..."Fa---mi----ly-----Ho----Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," which drags on until each of us run out of breath or the cheaters take multiple breaths, with generally the "-vening" part of the word being left off or indistinct.

Family Homee.  Drew loves it, being a connoisseur of modern slang.

Spooner's Unsuccessful Show and Tell

 We have a blind genius in the area that updates and fixes our computers for us.   Tonight we had him over for dinner and were able to navigate without too many embarrassing questions.  However, Spooner wound up the evening memorably.

Bobby had headed home while the kids were upstairs taking some quick baths.  Spooner came rushing down and ran all over, looking for our guest.  "Where's Bobby?!" he cried out in dismay.

"He went home already," Chugger-dude informed him.

"What?? I was going to show him my jammies!!"

"He's blind.  He wouldn't be able to see them."

Pause. "Oh yah."

Musical chairs, devotionals and "earies"--a look at Pipalicious

 Pipalicious was such a blessing yesterday, watching the kids a bunch while I was doing a three hour fasting glucose screening, non-stress test and then my actual doctor's appointment.  One highlight is when she played "musical chairs"...which she admitted was short-lived since it was only Spooner and Zuli doing it while she played the piano :D.  But it was fun!

Pipalicious also organized a devotional. She started out with two contrasting pictures: one of a healthy forest teeming with life; one with a forest pretty much destroyed.  She had them talk about the differences between the two and how to preserve the forests we have.  Then she shared a video about how to grow your testimonies and how not only do they need similar care but they can also have similar positive impact on the world: if everyone plants a tree, it will bless the planet; if everyone grows their testimony, it will bless the entire human race.

A last look at Pipalicious is necessary due to the original art she has been generating lately: earies.

Like fairies, but different.

Birthdays and Football

Hava's Birthday "Weekend"

Hava is enjoying an extended birthday celebration because she is going to school on her birthday, tomorrow.  We had Orange Julius and French breakfast muffins for breakfast, which is a special treat.  I like to call them French Crumb Explosion Balls, because that's what it looks like on the floor and table after we eat them.  Not my favorite meal, but if they request it on their birthday...well, we have it :D.

We will be having pork chops (bone-in) tomorrow with crock pot mashed potatoes, toxic levels of food coloring and sugar for breakfast in the form of sugar cereals (another treat) and an insanely early staging of the "break out from bed" celebration at 6:15 am.  We wrap up their beds with crepe paper (or toilet paper, lacking the more colorful equivalent) and then sing through a range of 7-100 obscure and adapted birthday-ish songs (including one Yale drinking song I picked up in my college days).  Hava waited in bed for over an hour yesterday, thinking we were going to do the "break out" (as she called it) that morning instead of Monday.  Poor dear!  At least the toothfairy came mid-day for her which kind of made up for it ;).

She will get to pick a movie, open some presents and enjoy some homemade fudge...her birthday treat request  Rich. Literally.

"SAGCIFoG"

Yesterday we had our Semi-Annual General Conference Intercessional Football Game.  Epic as always.  We had our family, some cousins and another family that has come in the past and called up last minute to see if we were having our traditional game between the Saturday morning and afternoon session of our Church's conference.   Does the sun rise in the east?

We had a great time.  The Goob and Chugger-dude are really growing into manliness and demonstrated some sheer athleticism as they stretched, ran down tackles and evaded to score touchdowns.  So much like their Daddy, who did his share of passing and interceptions. (He was all time quarterback for his team so he only got to score with interceptions.)  Lily was a powerhouse, requiring two people to take her down most of the time.  Piper would wrap her up and slow her down with the occasional tackle.  Sometimes the Goob would come crashing into her from the other side of the field.   Piper made some great catches of her own and did a few evasive maneuvers to score touchdowns.

Hava joined us for the first half, getting some great yardage and even scoring a touchdown but she left mid-game after getting a face-on collision with someone's knee.  Youch!  She spent the rest of the time enjoying the company of her little almost two year old niece who let her hold her and even talked to her. Hava was in heaven.

During the initial divvying up of teams, the Goob called for Penelope to be on their team..."but not you, Mom!" he said, laughing.  Well, at this point, the little munchkin inside my womb affectionally dubbed "Penelope" for now is still more or less attached so if you get one, you get the other, so I was the official "bearer of Penelope" up and down the field.  

And she did pretty well!

She and I leapt up for one pass, caught most of the other ones and even ran a "fly route" and caught the pass, picking up several yards.  Like I told the sweet girl doing a token defense on me, I like exercising while playing sports because it pushes me beyond me what I would do if I actually stopped to think about it.  On defense, I did my best to try and defend my niece, who is the fastest runner on her girl's cross country team.  Laughable but fun!  Normally Piper or Drew would help me "finish" stopping her after I corralled her one direction or another with my lumbering pace. 

Then one time, everyone else lined up on the other side of the field and it was just me and my niece on our side of the field. I didn't notice anything until Quinn got a mischievous look in his eye. "I know just what play to run this time."  Yup.  With all my back-ups on the other side of the field, my niece easily caught the ball and ran it down the sideline for a touchdown after I made a gallant few initial somewhat sped up steps to get her.  My last ditch grunting effort just wasn't enough as she slipped past my fingertips.  But it sure made Quinn laugh!

Needless to say, I was pretty sore at the end of the day.

The other kiddos were playing at the nearby park and partway through our game, I looked over to see that one of my ingenious children had retrieved all our foam swords from old Knights of Freedom days (a boy's group in Utah I led) and the whole lot were chasing each other (with some cousins) across the playground in mild to aggressive sword play.   A great day for the whole family!