Sunday, November 24, 2013

We have a GIRL!!!

Look! Look! I actually birthed a female!


Amy Rose Durso was born on Friday, November 22, 2013, at 5:45AM. I gave birth to her in a tub, underwater, at Best Start Birth Center with John, our doula, Kelsey, and the midwife and nurse present. The labor itself was... difficult and long, but I'll save that for another post. For now, here are pictures and a quick introduction.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

I am 40 weeks pregnant.

Here I am. 40 weeks. Though, by my own calculations, I'm actually 40.5 weeks pregnant, but I can't think about that too much because it pisses me off. I thought for sure I'd have a baby by now, so the fact that I haven't just makes me stabby.

I've finally made it to the point where I'm excited to go through labor so that I can be done with pregnancy. Even though I know what's waiting on the flip side (crying, no sleep, THREE children to care for), I'm just so ready to be done. I can't stand for too long because then my back hurts. I can't sit for too long because then my ribs hurt (which has been the most excruciating of all pregnancy aches for me). But I can't lie down for too long because then my back, my pubic bone and my ribs hurt. 

I can't eat much at a time since my stomach is compressed and whenever I feel like eating, nothing sounds good or I'm just too tired to get up and make something. My hormones are going crazy with the nesting instinct and all I feel like doing when I have the energy is clearing clutter, vacuuming and dusting. Which is EXHAUSTING. Kind of a cruel joke, there, Nature. Make the huge pregnant woman vacuum her heart out until she's too tired to give birth. Okay, it's not that bad. But still! Obnoxious. 

On the plus side, the boys have been pretty good to me recently. Suddenly, they're talking to each other like civilized humans ("Hank, may I use that train carriage?" "Okay, here you go.") and they play together unsupervised for over an hour so I can clean like a crazy woman in the mornings. They've been getting in and out of the car without a fuss (for the most part) and have finally been cutting me some slack because I'm pregnant. We went for a nice walk today and for the first time ever, I didn't have to chase one or both of them down the street. They kept saying, "I'm staying close to you because you're pregnant and you 
can't move fast." You speak truth, munchkin. 




My first successful silhouette! I think I did rather well.
This week, baby is the size of a/an: pumpkin

How far along: 40 weeks
Exercise: Rolling over in bed is quite the exercise. So is bending over to grab toys, going up stairs, carrying children through parks/museums, etc.
Sleep: The body aches have really ruined the small amount of quality sleep I used to get, but there's not much to do about that. Besides be so exhausted when I go to bed that I pass clean out before my head hits the pillow.
Food cravings/aversions: If I don't have to make it, I love it. :)
Movement: Less these days, but that's normal since there isn't much room to move around.
What I miss: Being able to call/text people without them thinking that I'm calling because I'm in labor. I understand it, but it just gets old calling people and having them answer all excited and hopeful and then after I say "I'm not in labor" the interest wanes.
What I'm loving: Not having to breastfeed yet.
What I'm looking forward to: Meeting the baby!! I can't wait to see that squishy little face.
Best moment this week: Going to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Perris, CA, with the boys this past weekend. It was a fun outing, possibly our last as a family of four (crosses fingers)
To accomplish before baby comes: We're actually... all prepared. Place to sleep. Clothes ready. I guess it'd be nice to finish up the Christmas shopping, but not absolutely necessary.
Thoughts and feelings from Significant Other and Siblings: Hank has decided that the baby should be named "Carl". Every time I ask him if the baby is a boy or a girl he says "Carl!" Both Johnny and Hank have taken to saying, "Baby! Come out now!" At my urging, of course.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

MOAR VIDEOS!

I found a couple more that I just had to share.

The first one... I don't know. They're just brothers and they're just kidss. Being silly.


 This next one is a little long, so it may only be interesting to grandparents, but it's of Johnny singing, and it's pretty awesome. There isn't a lot of singing and dancing that goes on in our house because Johnny loses it every time I sing or dance. Thus, neither child does much singing or dancing either.



The actual song can be found here: We Are Busy Beavers: The Calendar Song

Friday, November 15, 2013

Documentation of the video variety

I think this blog is a testament to how awful I am at keeping things up to date. I'm not the best pen pal, it takes me forever to return phone calls, and I really only download photos and/or videos off my phone when I absolutely have to (i.e. the iOS needs an update and there isn't any space because I have 1200 photos saved on my phone).

I am just now posting videos from earlier this year because I finally downloaded them from my phone and they are too cute to keep to myself. I'll post a few of my favorites this week as I uncover and edit them.

This one was taken at my mom's house, where she will take the boys on "The Crazy G-ma Ride" and they loooooooove it. Can you tell? I just adore their faces when she's about to start the "ride". They're a little bit scared and a lot a bit excited.



Just too adorable. Hank's face makes me laugh every time.

This one is old, too, but I wanted to put it up because Hank's little voice is so sweet, isn't it? (Just in case you can't tell what he's doing, he's naming all of the "sauces" that are in his little kitchen cabinet.)
"This is one's orange sauce and this one is ketchup and this one is jam and this one is yellow mustard... And that's all the food we have." <---- synopsis; he repeats some a few times.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Pumpkin Patch: 2nd edition

Our trip to the Pumpkin Station was lots of fun, so the boys were all kinds of excited to go to the Bates Nut Farm in Valley Center when my brother, Scott, and his girlfriend, Crystal, had mentioned they were thinking about going.

Now, this place is what the average American thinks of as a "pumpkin patch". There was a hay ride, a straw maze, and fields full of pumpkins. Crystal said that the weekends are crazy there, so we went on a Wednesday morning, thinking the place would be deserted... but we were dead wrong. Turns out it's a popular place for school trips, as evidenced by the scores of children exiting the large number of school buses parked in the lot.

It was still a good time, though.
They thought sitting in a wheelbarrow was HILARIOUS. But not hilarious enough to actually stay in it for any length of time.







Uncle Scott gives some sweet airplane rides.
 



What do you think? Are they related?


Tractor ride! Which we had to explain to Johnny was like a train, otherwise he wasn't interested.
We asked a farm employee to take our group picture and unfortunately all were blurry except for this one.

You can kind of tell it's us, right?



My brother and his girlfriend. Awwww.
 After the tractor ride, we did the straw maze. There were nine stamps you were supposed to find and use to stamp the card they gave us at the beginning, but neither child was particularly interested. They just wandered around while one of us adults followed them. I don't think either of them cared much for the whole thing.

 

Poor Johnny was OVER pictures by this point.



 And, of course, the obligatory petting zoo.



Another fun time was had by all. Though I think I'll skip this one next year and hope they'll be more into it the year after that. The straw maze was the coolest part and they were rather unimpressed. Hmph.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Backlog: The Pumpkin Patch

About a month ago we hit up the Del Mar Pumpkin Station, which seems to be THE place to hit up in the fall if you have small children. They have tons of pumpkins and also, lots of little-kid-friendly rides. So, one Saturday in October when we didn't have any plans, we got the boys excited about picking out pumpkins and drove up there for the morning.

Admittedly, the tickets for the rides were a little steep ($3 a ticket?? Whaaaaaaat??), but we enjoyed hanging out there for a couple of hours, so I suppose it was worth it.







Of course Johnny wanted to go on the Old El Paso train first thing. It was a little tiny train with a little tiny track and he was so cute sitting there enjoying his ride. Just happy to be hanging out on a train.


Hank, on the other hand, scoped out the bounce house first. Which was a win.



 
Then enter the large inflatable slide. After Johnny finished the train ride, he wanted to go down the slide. There were two: a normal sized one, and a super-sized one. I tried to get him to go on the normal size first, but he wasn’t having it. He wanted to do the big white one. Oooookay! We got let in with the next batch of kids waiting in line with instructions to take off shoes, go down feet first, and leave the area after five slides. So Johnny climbed up.




 
And wouldn’t come down.

I was trying to encourage him to come down the slide, but it just wasn’t happening. Any time someone yelled “You can do it, Johnny!” (other parents had caught on to which child he was and thought they would be helpful) he would move further away from the precipice. So John went to get him.



 And he STILL wouldn't go down the slide. So they came down the stairs.

But he still wanted to go down a slide, so I convinced him to go on the small one. Honestly, though, I don't think he would have gone down this one, either, if Hank hadn't been fearless about the whole thing.






Hank hasn't met a slide he can't conquer.



Johnny finally went down and was a little freaked out, as you can tell by his face.
"Hey, this is actually fun!"
 After our success with the smaller slide, the boys wanted to do the large slide. Hank had no problems going down the full five times.

Johnny, on the other hand, went down once...
 And then I had to go get him. Unlike Daddy, though, I was not willing to move my 8-months-pregnant butt backward down those "stairs" so I dragged Johnny with me down the slide.
 The rest of the rides weren't quite as crazy. Another train ride.


 A spinning swing ride for Hank.
 And a rocket ride for Johnny.
 Then, of course, picking out pumpkins.




Hank picked out this tiny pumpkin and said, "This pumpkin is for Mitch!" I nearly died.




Considering they talked about the pumpkin patch for weeks afterward, I'd say they had a good time.