Nazi Nurse

     I decided that Nazi Nurse deserved a whole post to herself. I loved almost all of our nurses! Spending that much time with them while hoovering over my child was very educational and interesting experience. But why oh why did I have to get HER on one of the most important days of  my life. It is a small world and I ended up knowing a lot of people who worked in the NICU or I knew people who knew one of the nurses and whenever I mentioned about Nazi nurse (keeping her name completely confidential) everyone still knew who I was talking about.
    Finally the day dawned when I might be able to hold Corbin for the first time. I had to go up to my room for a little while and I ended up getting trapped by the pump man. As he spent his time explaining how the electronic contraption worked the time ticked away and my favorite nurse went home and a new nurse took charge. The doctors had finally taken the line out of Corbin's belly button so I could now hold him. I told the nurse that I was ready to hold him. She wouldn't let me. It was not on one of his scheduled feeding times so I had to wait a couple of hours. Not something you tell a hormonal woman about her baby she had been dying to hold. I told her that I was told I could as soon as the line came out. And then her question that will be forever ingrained in my mind "You don't want to hold him now do you?" I can't believe that seriously came out of her mouth. Well I had to twist her arm (and was thinking of some not so kind ways of persuasion) but she finally relinquished and allowed me to hold my own child for 10 minutes. She didn't offer me a blanket to wrap him up, she didn't help move any of his cords around so I juggled it all myself and held this scrawny little baby and let him freeze to death for 10 minutes so I could cherish our first moments together.

Corbin's Debut

I have always joked that I was having my kids earlier and earlier, but really with only two kids how can you see a trend. Well Corbin confirmed my suspicions by arriving well before his due date.  Eight weeks before his due date I started having contractions. I had them for about a day and then they went away so I kind of blew it off. Well one week later I started having contractions again. I kept waiting for them to go away. My husband calls me stubborn but I did not want to rack up a hospital bill and spend the night in the hospital for false labor. I finally called the hospital after I started having them a few minutes apart and they gave me a list of things to do and if I had more that six in an hour then I needed to go in. Well after I jumped through all the hoops I was only having one every 15 minutes so I justified that they didn't want me to go in (for some reason I was still in denial that I was in labor). Well that made for a very long night! Contractions every 15 minutes doesn't allow much room for sleeping. That morning bright and early I called the hospital again and was told the exact same thing. Well I was only having 4 every hour but they were incredibly painful so I called the doctor on call to see if there was anything they could give me. They were obviously on the same page because I got the same message word for word from the doctor. After I tearfully and loudly vented to my husband I went off to start my incredibly jam packed day.
    My doctor was able to squeeze me in that afternoon just to check on me. They were going to do a test that helps predict if the baby would be coming in the next week and hook me up to monitors to see how the baby was tolerating it. They were out of tests so she decided to check me before they hooked me up to the monitor. That is as far as we got. I was told to be safe but drive as fast as I could to the hospital without stopping anywhere because I was already dilated to a six. So now I become a mad women as I jumped on the freeway desperately trying to call people to take my kids, find the number to cancel my dentist appointment (hoping I wouldn't get charged a fee for canceling a half hour before my appointment), trying to drive a stick shift and manage not to curl up in a ball on the floor during every contraction. The distance to the hospital was no longer in miles but how many contractions I would have to endure without running anyone over, all with the fear in the back of my mind that I would be stranded by the side of the rode delivering my own child. I called my husband after the doctors appointment and asked him if he could leave work. Apparently I wasn't direct enough because he was saying he was in the middle of something. I told him we may be having a baby so I needed him to leave work so now I finally became the priority.
     After I got to the hospital they wanted me to fill out paper work. The nurse who was called to get my room ready came out and said that I could fill out the papers after they had me hooked up to the medications to stop labor. I was in the middle of changing into the gown when the NICU doctor came in to tell me the procedures if the baby was born. That made for an awkward conversation: meeting someone for the first time while dressing during our conversation. They got me hooked up after poking me a few times to try and stop my labor. The needle was the least of my discomfort. They warned me that what they were pumping into me would make me hot and I wouldn't feel very good. That was an understatement. It hit me while I was trying to finish up all the papers, the ones that you sign your life a way because there is always a chance you may die. I couldn't even sign my name anymore I felt so awful. Now I was having a long lasting, extreme hot flash, feeling like I wanted to die and of course contractions were still coming more painful with no drugs to take the edge off. (Wait I thought that one of the perks after having 2 c-sections was that I could bypass the whole labor thing).
      Needless to say they couldn't stop anything. I was dilated to 9 and off we went to the OR. After more needles, more discomfort and embarrassment later, I was on an itty bitty table, without feeling my legs and hoping I wouldn't by some chance fall off. At least this story has a happy ending. A beautiful baby boy was brought into this world with a healthy set of lungs. I got to see my little angel for a few minutes from a distance before they were off and running to the NICU. Many hours later, after I was kind of able to stand and move to a wheel chair, I was finally permitted to see my little boy. This is how I found him:

      I learned a new torture while I was there. Going through labor, seeing my baby and not being able to hold him. Three LOOOOONG days I had to wait to hold him for the first time but only after I took out the Nazi nurse.
     Well he progressed quite quickly and only had to have the breathing tube shoved down his throat for a day. But it was explained to me that white boys are a lot slower at learning all the things they need to in order to get out of the NICU.

 He was scrawny but long

 Corbin had to go under the lights a couple of times for jaundice. I love the LED lights and the little hat that makes him like a chicken!

Halloween

Every year Kaitlyn wants to be a witch for Halloween. I finally convinced her to pick something out. She wanted to be Hermione from Harry Potter. I am not one who will go out and spend a ridiculous amount of money on something the children will wear one maybe two times so we had to be a little creative. We didn't have Hermione's tie so we went with a dress. I decided that maybe that could be considered her dress robes because they were the right color right?!? I figured mostly the costume was in the hair and wand so we ratted up her hair and gave her a wand. Kaitlyn's best friend kept saying she didn't look like Hermione but I guess you just need a little imagination. Madison was a ghost. I had found some old costumes my Mom made us for Halloween so that is what she wore. Corbin was a hard one to pick out. There were so many fun ideas. I wasn't even sure it would be warm enough to take him around with us so we went with something easy. I couldn't help the "I love my mummy" pun.

Kaitlyn's Birthday

Kaitlyn really wanted to do a pajama party for her birthday. We made pajama bottom birthday invites and invited a few girls from the neighborhood. After much deliberation we finally settled on an appropriate time for her party. Kaitlyn was convinced that she needed to go until one o'clock in the morning to get all the fun activities in. She slowly shaved off the hours until about 11pm but finally gave in. The girls all wore their pajamas, had pizza, played spin the nail polish and had "waffle" cake with frosting as the syrup. We started off with Kaitlyn picking the nail polish color and spun it around. Whomever it landed on got to pick which finger that everyone would paint that color. Then they would pick a new color and spin it. I am still trying to get all the nail polish off from my table! To finish the night off Kaitlyn had picked out a movie. One of the girls had seen it before but it was not one I had even heard of. It was probably in the middle of the movie when the little girl mentioned she could not watch a certain part because it was not modest. I wasn't sure what she was talking about because the character was not extremely modest but I didn't think it was too bad. Then we got to the part. A women with a double D top half came out in a bikini with only stars covering her unmentionables jumping around so everything was flopping. I was appalled and now needed to explain to all the parents about that particular part. I could only wonder what the children could say and portray about our x-rated party.

Pumpkins

The last few years my Mom has grown a pumpkin patch in her garden so all the grand kids can pick out a pumpkin to carve. Here are our masterpieces.

Mom's 60th Birthday

Happy Birthday Mom!

I wanted to do something nice for my Mom's 60th birthday. I planned a surprise birthday party for her. My parent's were going on a trip and I convinced my Dad to just happen to stop by my house on the way home. She was definitely surprised and hopefully not too mad because she wanted this birthday to go unnoticed.

The Squirrel

You are not suppose to feed the animals at Zions but that doesn't stop people. Many of the squirrels we encountered  were very friendly/aggressive when it came to scavenging for food. We were sitting on a bench and Curtis was trying to get a picture of our family. He couldn't figure out why we refused to look at the camera. A furry offender was trying to coax food from out of us. After having pictures of squirrel attacks being ingrained into my head I knew what this cute cuddly animal was capable of. Like a mother protecting her cubs I tried to shoo the rodent away. But with persistence it would not vacate our picture taking moment.