Courtland Has Arrived!

Well, he’s here. Our sweet little Courtland is here. Last night around 11:30 I sent Michael the following e-mail: (he was on call on a 30-hour overnight surgery shift at the hospital).

Subject: Contractions
“So, 11:30, 11:39, 11:47, (a little one at 11:49), 11:54 . . .
I guess I'll go to bed. I suppose if I really were to go into labor I'd wake up, and if not I'll get some sleep. Love ya!”

Of course, Michael didn’t even have a chance to read that e-mail last night since he had to consult on 10 different patients and only got 2 hours of sleep. I stayed up late reading (I never can seem to make myself go to sleep early when Michael’s on call) and got to bed at 12:30. Then I woke up around 2:45 to some contractions that were obviously stronger than the ones I had had before I went to bed, since I couldn’t sleep through them any longer. At around 3:15 I called Michael. (Actually, first I paged him with the number 911911911 – that was our planned code for “I am in labor” ever since my first pregnancy, and he had always been with me when I went into labor all the other times, so I finally got to use it – but then I called him on his cell phone a minute later and told him I thought it was time). I gathered together all of the things on my little “take to the hospital” list, all the time writing down when each contraction started. They got to be about 3 minutes apart, and we were trying to follow the midwife’s advice to come in a little “early” this time, rather than laboring at home for a while before coming in, because I was group B strep positive. When you have that, they want to give the mom a dose of antibiotics when you first arrive at the hospital, and then wait 4 hours before giving you a second dose – I have had them attempt this on 2 or 3 of my previous pregnancies and have always had the baby come before I got the second dose (and none of my babies have ever gotten any infection from it or anything).

When we arrived at labor and delivery the receptionist at the front desk was having us sign a lot of paperwork and each time she handed me a paper she would say something like, “This one is for you to sign for . . . if you stay,” and “If we don’t send you home, this paper is for . . .” Needless to say I wasn’t especially fond of that receptionist, but I knew that I was in labor, so it didn’t really matter too much to me if she believed that I was or not. The nurse told me that when I walked in the doors one of the other nurses at the front desk said that I probably wouldn’t stay because I looked too happy, but then when she heard that it was my 5th baby, she took it back. I guess I probably just had a smile on my face because I knew he was coming today, and I’ve felt pretty ready for him to arrive, especially the last few days.

So, I was dilated to a 5 when we arrived at the hospital around 4:30am (I have been dilated to an 8 at my arrivals at the hospital with the last few pregnancies). They gave me the first dose of the antibiotics and then called the anesthesiologist in for my epidural, which I appreciated. The epidural did relieve my pain, but after a few more contractions I told them that it was still painful on my left side. (I’ve never had an epidural do that before). So the kind anesthesiologist came back and gave me another dose, and I appreciated that he didn’t make me feel bad and that he said he’d come back right away if I needed him again. That second dose didn’t do too much to relieve the pain on my left side when I had a contraction, so he adjusted the epidural and came back with a much stronger dose that he said should really make it so I didn’t feel any pain at all. He said that if that didn’t work he’d remove the epidural and put in a new one. I thought that it was starting to help a little, but when the anesthesiologist saw that I could still easily move my legs up and down with that stronger dose, he got ready to replace the epidural because he said I shouldn’t have been able to do that by then. He said that sometimes the epidural only gets one side of the nerve, or something, and replacing it should help. Then I had a really killer contraction that made me cry it was so bad, so he quickly put in a new epidural, and it worked immediately. I have always been able to move my legs during my labors, even with my epidurals, and have often surprised the nurses at my ability to get up and walk on my own right after having a baby. But once all those doses of the epidural kicked in, I was worthless – I couldn’t move my body at all, let alone feel my legs. From the stomach down I could feel nothing, but I surely wasn’t complaining, since I couldn’t feel the pain either. (I was so glad that this anesthesiologist seemed to care, and didn’t just tell me that “epidurals aren’t perfect” and walk away, like the resident did when my epidural wore off during Camden’s delivery).

Right after that my water broke around 7am (nope, didn’t get that second dose of antibiotics in again – they were trying to wait until 8:30 for the second dose, oh well). The midwife and nurses had a shift change at 7, and the new ones came in and started setting up the carts, then they lifted up my legs (since I still couldn’t move them at all), and I didn’t even push, the baby came right out (which is kind of good, since I don’t know if I could have done much pushing with how numb I was anyways).

I guess when the baby came out he had some of the sack on his face, and he was holding part of it in his hand. The midwife said that when a baby comes out with it on his face like that it is called “on the caul,” and that is a very rare thing to happen now because so many people get their water broken by the doctors instead of it breaking on their own nowadays. It was interesting because she said that there was a tradition that babies born “on the caul” were going to be very spiritual people. I guess that this midwife has traveled to other countries giving medical care, and she said that this is a tradition in many different cultures. I had never heard of that before, but it was kind of a nice idea. The really interesting thing about it, though, was that Michael and I both thought right away of when Stephanie Wiesenfarth, my old girl scout leader, had called out of the blue one day when I was visiting San Diego in the fall. Neither my mom or I had spoken to Stephanie in a few years, and she is not a member of our church (nor is she prone to having mystical experiences all the time either), but she called to tell us that she had two dreams that I needed to be careful during this pregnancy and that in her dream she was told that my baby would grow up to be an important figure in my church. So, just an interesting little thing that reminded us of that conversation.

Anyways, Courtland Matthew Aaron Bradshaw was born at 7:18 am on Thursday, 5 February 2009 in Murray, Utah. He was our smallest baby, weighing in at 8 pounds 6 ounces (just two ounces less than his brother, Eli, who was our smallest up until now). He is a tall little boy: 22 inches long (almost as long as his brother, Camden, who was 22 ½ inches long, but who outweighed him by quite a bit as our biggest at 9 pounds 8 ounces). He is healthy, and he latched on without a problem and nursed for at least 20 minutes on each side right after he was born – that is definitely the best that any of my boys have done on their very first try, so hopefully that is a sign that he will continue to do well with the nursing and we won’t have to go through all the stress of lactation specialists that we had to get help from with Camden and Isaac. Courtland seems to be a very good sleeper – resting most of the day so far. Michael gave him a sponge bath this morning, which he enjoyed. Michael said that we should relish his cute little newborn cry, since we won’t have that around for a while again after Courtland gets older (actually, I think Michael’s exact words were that we wouldn’t hear that again until we have grandkids). And Courtland keeps making these sweet little baby noises in his sleep. We were relieved that he hasn’t shown any signs of difficulty breathing (although they insured us that Isaac’s problem when he was born didn’t seem to be genetic from any of the histories or exams that they did, we still wondered about the possibility of Courtland having a problem too). Oh, and he opens his big eyes so wide when he is awake – blinking and looking all around. And he has hair, too – about the same amount as his brothers (except Eli who didn’t have much at all when he was born), and I think it is going to be light-colored. I think that he may look like Kolby – his face is a little rounder, and I always thought that Kolby’s and Camden’s faces were a little more round and Eli’s and Isaac’s faces were a little longer when they were each newborns. Michael said that he wants to look at some newborn pictures of each boy and see who he thinks Courtland looks like the most. We haven’t seen any dimples yet, like Camden and Isaac, but those sometimes don’t make an appearance until later when they really start to give you big smiles. Oh, and he definitely has a cute Bradshaw nose – I think kind of like Isaac’s.

Michael called home this morning to tell the boys that Courtland was here. When he told Eli that Courtland was out of Mommy’s tummy, he said there was a long pause before Eli said in a rather exaggerated tone, “Oh my!” I think Michael is going to try to pick up the boys later on this afternoon and bring them over to see the baby, since (miracle of miracles) none of our boys are contagious with anything! (Whenever I’ve had a baby in the past, our older kids have always had something, like rosiolla or strep throat, which made things a little more difficult). And then this evening Michael is picking my mom up at the airport. The plan is for her to come for a few days to see the baby, but with her broken arm after that snowboarder hit her a couple weeks ago she was concerned about us having to help her do things like get dressed, so they made plans that she will stay for a few days, and then in a week (after Michael has to go back to work), both of my parents and my brothers all get to come for a week (I am thinking that the idea is that way they can help me with the baby and the boys and they can also help mom get around while she’s here too). I’m sorry that mom has to deal with this broken arm, but I have to admit that I am quite excited that it works out to have everyone come!

Well, I took a good nap after we got moved to our room, which I needed – I was exhausted! And now Michael and Courtland are both taking naps too, which is probably good for both of them. Since I only recently gained the ability to move my legs once I woke up from my nap, I haven’t been up and about. Courtland is laying in his little basinet right next to my bed sleeping, and he is adorable, but I am hesitant to get up and try to find the camera to take pictures of him, since I don’t know for sure if I have all the feeling back in my legs yet or not. So, I don’t have a good close-up picture of Courtland to post yet, but I’ll get one soon. For now, these couple that we took with him right after he was born will have to do.

Still Waiting . . .

Well, no baby yet. I do feel like I’ve got everything ready now, just about. I got all of the baby clothes out and put onto the shelves, and I set out the coming-home-from-the-hospital clothes, Courtland’s new red fleece manta (blanket) that I made him, the infant carseat, and the winter carseat cover, so those are all ready to go to the hospital. I scheduled a photo of all 5 boys for the end of February. And I got down the basinet and put it out in our bedroom. And I went on eBay to find a baby book for Courtland (since the baby books that I’ve used for the other boys have been discontinued at the Hallmark stores, so I have to find one online if I want it to be the same size and style as the others). I found one that would work and I bid on it, but I just found out that I didn’t win it on eBay. So, that’s the only thing I don’t have ready yet, I’ll have to find another baby book. Maybe that’s what Courtland’s waiting for – he doesn’t want to come until we have everything totally prepared for him. :)

I have been feeling like I’ve been pretty good about being patient for the end of this pregnancy (probably since I know from experience by now that it is more work and you get less sleep after the baby comes, no matter how uncomfortable you get at the end of the pregnancy). But I have to admit that when I had those contractions for two hours a week ago and I thought we would be heading to the hospital that night to have the baby (since none of my previous pregnancies have ever had contractions for that long that have just stopped like that before) that I have been a little less patient since then. Not that I’ve been really impatient, but I keep thinking that any little thing could be the beginning of labor. After a week of that (and not really having any more contractions to speak of) I have decided that it’s not going to happen. This pregnancy has been different than my last couple – I haven’t had Braxton Hicks contractions since nearly as early on as I did with Camden and Isaac, and now it’s almost the end and I still am not having them regularly at all (not even having them every day). So, now that we are nearly a week from the due date, I have decided that this baby may wait for his induction date to come (at least we have an induction tentatively scheduled for February 10th, the day after the due date, so that it’s not just a wait for who knows how long until the baby finally decides to come). We’ll just have to wait and see (but at least thinking that way is better than thinking that it is going to happen every day between now and then and being disappointed when it doesn’t happen yet). [Although I am glad that it looks like he won’t come today, since it is Eli’s birthday and I didn’t want two of our kids to have to share a birthday – even having birthdays a day apart would still be better than having to share your special day, I figure]. Anyways, I think that no matter how hard you try to be patient, that once you get down to the last week or so it gets hard not to have it on your mind all the time, especially when you know what a big change it will be for you and your family. So, I guess I’ll just keep waiting . . .

False Labor

So, last night Michael and I went to the temple and when we got there I started having contractions. (When the contractions started, it made me think of a conversation we had the other night with some friends, that we thought it would be a cool story for the baby when they got older to tell if they were born in the temple, but not so cool for the mom if she happened to be at the temple when she gave birth). Anyways, the contractions weren’t lasting too long – most about 30 to 40 seconds long, but they weren’t all that far apart for the most part either. For a while I was thinking that it might turn into something real, and after 2 hours of some contractions that got pretty strong I thought I was in labor for sure. We headed home, with a few people making comments that I looked like I needed to leave. I told Michael that it would be kind of a cool date for Courtland’s birthday – just because Kolby was born on Oct 31st and Eli on January 31st, so it would be kind of fun if Isaac was born on Oct 23rd and then Courtland on Jan 23rd. But when we got in the car to head home, the contractions slowed down a lot, and then stopped all except 2 or 3 more after we got home. You hear a lot about women having “false labor” and starting to have contractions but then stopping, but that has never happened to me before. With all of my previous pregnancies (except Kolby’s, because I was induced with him) once the contractions have started to be somewhat regular for over half an hour, they continued to get stronger until we went to the hospital and had the baby. Can you say, “Disappointing?” And not only had I gotten my hopes up after 2 hours of contractions that I would be having the baby, but I was tired and worn out, and then didn’t get to go to the hospital after that. My mom said that with my little sister she had that happen several times before she had her, and that by the time she went in to the hospital to be induced (and she wasn’t even in labor at that point) she was already dilated to a 4. So maybe it just means that my body is getting ready. But I felt pretty ready to have this baby last night. Oh well. At least it can’t be too long of a wait, no matter what, since we have an induction date set for February 10th, so I know I’ll have this baby sometime in the next 17 days (no, I’m not really counting down the days yet, but I tried to explain to Kolby this morning when he asked when Courtland would “come out” that it would be sometime within the next 2 ½ weeks, and he still hasn’t fully grasped the concept of exactly how long a week is yet, so I counted out the days to explain that to him). Anyways, after last night I am feeling ready for this little guy to come. We’ll see what his plans are . . .

28 December 2008

We’ve had a busy week this week, as I’m sure many of you have. Kolby and Eli had last week and this upcoming week off of preschool for the holidays. And Michael got one day off of work this week, December 26th, so we decided to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas day each a day late (which worked out fine since the kids are too young to realize that we didn’t do our Christmas on the actual Christmas day anyways). So, the days before Christmas were filled with last-minute gift wrapping (I had most of my gifts done early, but we ended up getting a few more things last-minute), running some errands – I got a nice piece of red fleece on sale and cut and tied a baby blanket for Courtland to match his brothers’, I helped Grandma get all of her programs set up on her new computer that arrived in the mail (her old one crashed just after Thanksgiving) and I uploaded all of the music from her CDS so it could be added to her Ipod, and of course the boys also enjoyed taking one link off of their chains each night to count down the days until Christmas.

On December 25th (our Christmas Eve), I got some laundry done so the boys would have clean pajamas to wear on Christmas morning and I gave them all a bath at the same time by myself (an event that takes a lot of preparation and time, and therefore doesn’t happen all that often). While I was getting them all cleaned and dressed, I pulled Eli out of the tub and cut his hair, vacuumed up the floor, washed him off again, and got him back out of the tub to get him dressed. We noticed last time that I cut Michael’s hair that the little plastic ¾-inch guard for our hair clippers had gotten broken somehow, and that, of course, is the one I use for Kolby’s and Eli’s hair when I cut it short. So, I decided to use the next smaller sized guard (which would mean it would be longer before I’d have to cut Eli’s hair again the next time). Well, the end result was definitely shorter than I had intended – I never really wanted my boys to have a buzz cut, and that’s basically how it ended up – but of course Eli is as cute as ever, and it will grow back before too long. I also have Isaac his first haircut that morning while he was in the bath (I learned that giving haircuts in the tub can be helpful, because the kid has water to splash and play in to keep him entertained and then it is easier to just rinse down the child and the tub afterwards). Anyways, I just trimmed Isaac’s hair around the edges – I didn’t want it short (and didn’t want to lose the few cute little curls around his ears), but it had started to get kind of fuzzy looking lately, so it definitely needed a trim. I think it turned out nice – it still looks really cute combed to the side.

After Michael got home from work and the boys woke up from their naps, we started some of our Christmas Eve traditions while we were waiting for dinner to cook. Michael’s family has a tradition of reading the story of Jesus’ birth while acting out the nativity, complete with bath-robe costumes. We don’t have any robes, so we wrapped towels around the boys’ heads and shoulders and had them act it out (luckily Camden is still young enough that he didn’t mind being Mary, since I was video-taping, so we didn’t have any female actresses). Afterwards we got out the two special Christmas Eve pop-up books that are a tradition in my family: The Night Before Christmas and The First Christmas. Isaac wandered around the room while the other three boys sat and listened and moved all the little pieces of the pop-up books while Michael read. After dinner we piled into the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We had heard of a place in Sugar House called “Christmas Street” because of it’s impressive lights display. We drove and got near the street before both the older boys announced that they needed to use the bathroom. It’s rather difficult to find any kind of store or gas station that’s open on Christmas night (we found one restaurant that was closing, and the employees inside wouldn’t even open the door for me to ask them if our children could use their restroom). Fortunately we eventually found a Walgreens that was open. When I took the boys inside it was raining out, and when we came back out to the car it had started to snow. We drove back to the street with the lights, and there was one street that had a different verse of scripture on a poster displayed in each yard, telling the story of Christ’s birth. Then the next street up had the lights display (which didn’t seem much more impressive than other houses decorated for Christmas, except it was nice that every house on that street was lit up). But by that time the snow was coming down hard, and it was hard to see the lights very well, and Camden had fallen asleep in the car. We headed home, and we saw a man walking in the snow and offered him a ride. I’m glad we did, because we drove for what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes in what was by then quite a blizzard (that would have taken him forever to walk) – he was going to meet some family who’s car had broken down, and it wasn’t snowing when he started walking. So, I felt glad that we were in the right place at the right time to offer him some service as part of our Christmas.

When we got home we put Isaac down to bed and we tried to wake Eli up, but he asked if he could go to bed too. So Kolby and Camden stayed up and found the one gift under the tree that Santa had left before we interrupted him by coming home from looking at Christmas lights, so he would have to return later than night for the rest of the gifts (this is another tradition from Michael’s family – and this gift is always a game that the family can play together that night). So, the boys opened the gift, and it was a 300-piece puzzle that we had fun putting together. We were surprised that Camden enjoyed staying up the entire time and handing us pieces to put together. And then we let the boys put their gifts for family members under the tree, which Kolby was especially excited about. And Kolby left out cookies, carrots, and egg nog for Santa and the reindeer, of course. After we put the boys in bed, we got the gifts out and put them under the tree and filled the stockings, which we set out on the couch next to the tree (Grandma’s fireplace doesn’t have a mantle that we could hang stockings from). Then we went to bed after a while.

In the morning the boys actually slept a little – they were up pretty late the night before – and Kolby came into our room around 7:30 or 8:00am and we were still able to get a little more sleep after that. Michael and I each took a shower and got dressed before getting up the other boys and Grandma and heading upstairs around 9:30am. The snow outside was pretty, and we enjoyed a white Christmas. The boys liked opening their gifts. One gift we got for them was two sets of wooden train tracks that go with the ones they have so they would have enough to build complete tracks they could all play with at the same time, and I had the idea to wrap lots of the pieces separately, so the boys would have more little gifts to unwrap. Then, last week a friend from church offered me another set of these wooden train tracks because she said she got them for her grandkids and ended up with a duplicate set, so I wrapped lots of those separately too. I guess that was a little much, because the boys were still working on unwrapping gifts an hour after we started, which was definitely too long for Isaac and Eli was getting really hungry for brunch by then and saying he didn’t feel well. But other than that it was a really enjoyable morning. The other big gift for all of the boys was a Fisher Price nativity set, complete with stable, tents for the wise men, the inn, all the people, and the animals. And they each got a church movie in their stockings to watch on Sundays. They were also pretty excited that they each got a new “brushtooth” (toothbrush) in their stockings too. They got some adorable outfits from my parents and from Grandma Faun. And there were lots of fun coloring books and sticker books, which they love. They enjoyed picking out gifts from under the tree and handing them to each person (although they weren’t always patient with the idea of waiting while each person opened their gifts), but it was fun to see them give their gifts to each other and give hugs after opening them. Michael and I had quite a laugh after I opened one of my gifts from him: a favorite board game, Thurn & Taxis, and then he later opening the exact same game from me. This is a game that can’t be found in most normal stores, and it ends up that we both got it from the same specialty game shop. So, that was pretty funny – especially since both of us were so sure that the other would be really surprised and have no idea what their gift would be. I also gave Michael another board game, Ticket to Ride Europe, some new white temple pants (since he’s recently grown out of his from before his mission), and a tile sign that I made with his favorite quote on it that he can put in his office someday. And he gave me this beautiful set of Willow Tree figurines of a father, mother, and four boys for our family – now we just need to find one more little boy and it will be complete. The boys had fun giving each other the wooden puzzles they had picked out, and giving Michael his church socks he had asked for. And I really liked the pretty place mats the boys got me for the new table we are planning on getting when we move to New York. Oh, and thank you to both of our parents – Mom and Dad gave us a Clearplay DVD player which edits movies that you buy or rent, so you can watch movies at an appropriate rating (no mater what they are originally rated) and you can filter out things like violence, inappropriate language, etc. for yourselves and your children (we are looking forward to Michael having a better work schedule when he finally finishes this rotation next week so we can rent some new movies and try it out) – and Dick and Debbie gave us money that we decided to put towards our table when we move to New York (I am very excited to have a nice table that isn’t a hand-me-down with matching benches and chairs that will seat our entire family plus guests, it will be so nice). Thank you to all of our family members and friends for the thoughtful gifts, treats that have been brought, and nice Christmas letters and cards that have been sent!

So, we had a nice Christmas. Since Christmas I’ve started to have Braxton Hicks contractions (which is happening a lot later on in this pregnancy than in some of my earlier pregnancies, so at least we know this baby is going to get here before too long). It’s kind of funny too – I only have the contractions in the evening and at night before I go to bed – not during the morning or daytime at all – I’ve never only had them at a certain time of the day with any of my other pregnancies. Although I feel pretty ready for this baby to come, I haven’t hit the really impatient part of this pregnancy yet (probably since we’ve done this a few times before, and we remember that it’s harder after the baby is born, with the lack of sleep and the fun of breast feeding and everything. I’m ok with whenever he comes, as long as it’s after New Year’s day (actually, after January 10th – my birthday – would be preferable) and before February 10th (since he’s due February 9th, and Camden was 5 days early and Isaac was 7 days early, I think I’m being pretty reasonable to say that I would wait until the due date – but for some reason strangers in the grocery stores lately think that it’s a really good idea to say that maybe I’ll have a Valentine’s Day baby when they hear that the due date is February 9th. I don’t think that’s very nice – to say anything about a baby coming more than a couple days late, plus I don’t think Valentine’s Day would be the ideal birthday – I’ll have to talk to the midwife and see how she feels about inducing before Valentine’s Day). Oh, and I don’t want him to come on January 31st, since that is Eli’s birthday, and I’d prefer that each of the boys have their own special day – two birthdays back to back would be better than them having to share the same day, I think. So, I’ve got lots of good ideas – we’ll see what happens. I know that I always said when I was pregnant with Kolby that I’d never have a Halloween baby . . .

So, yesterday was Michael’s and my 6-year anniversary. We are planning on celebrating sometime this upcoming week (waiting until tomorrow to find out which day Michael will get off of work this week). We have always splurged and done something really fun (something that we wouldn’t normally do) for our anniversary – like one time we went and spent the night at a beautiful room in an Anniversary Inn and last year we splurged and had a really nice dinner at a fancy fondue restaurant. This year we have some fun ideas, but we’ll have to see if they all work out, since we don’t know the work schedule yet. But yesterday Michael had one of his late nights at work and so I did a quick dinner of leftovers with the boys, finished up their bedtime routine early, and then I let them stay up late and we watched one of our new movies, Enchanted, together with Grandma Faun. Michael got home during the movie and surprised me with a pretty little bouquet of beautiful gerber daisies for our anniversary. They smell and look beautiful! How sweet!

So, today was church. I am SO looking forward to the new church schedule starting in January – 11am church will be so much easier with the kids, not to mention the fact that Michael will be on an outpatient medicine rotation in January so he will actually be able to go to church with us every Sunday (he hasn’t been able to get a Sunday off from the hospital for at least the last 8 weeks during this rotation, if not longer during his last rotation, I think). Eli is starting next week in a primary class – he is done with nursery and is excited to go to primary like Kolby. Camden still enjoys his nursery class, and I can’t wait until Isaac hits his 18-month birthday and is old enough to join Camden in class, since he hit the point a couple months ago where it is impossible to get him to sit through the adult classes with us, so the majority of church is spent out in the hallway with him. But I had a sigh of relief today when Michael walked into church at the beginning of the third hour – he never gets off work that early! – and we got to sit together as a family. We got through most of Sacrament meeting before he finally had to take Isaac out in the hall, where Isaac fell asleep in his arms for the last few minutes of church. But none of the other boys had to be taken out (I think they knew it was different because Daddy was there too). After church and lunch we put the boys down for naps and we each tried to read a little bit before we both ended up falling asleep on the couch. The younger two didn’t nap well (Isaac never did end up falling asleep), and when the boys got up we watched one of their new church movies – Kolby chose the one about the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. Then we had dinner and Kolby practiced his piano songs before bedtime. Michael is now sleeping on the couch and I have stayed up later than I should have working on the computer (since I haven’t gotten on the computer in several days, and I’ve been trying to catch up with photos and the blog, except the internet won’t connect and let me post anything on the blog tonight for some reason – I’ll just have to post what I’ve typed tonight another day). Well, I’d better get to bed.

Oh, I had to write something cute that Eli said a couple days ago:

The other day Eli was working on his Disney sticker book with Grandma Faun, and they were doing a page with Peter Pan stickers. Grandma had told Eli the names of all the characters, and she asked him who the pirate was:
Grandma: “Who is this?”
Eli: “Captain.”
Grandma: “Captain who?”
Eli: “Hanger.”
Grandma: “Captain Hook.”
I thought it was pretty cute that he made that association between Captain Hook’s hook and a familiar object that was also hook-shaped.

Random Unrelated Topics

So, I’m wondering if I started to feel Braxton Hicks contractions yesterday. You would think that by the fourth kid I would know for sure, but each one is different. It felt like the pain of contractions, and they were spaced out like Braxton Hicks, but instead of being a pain down low like with cramps, it was painful all over my belly. And they happened every once in a while all day yesterday. So, we’ll see. It’s interesting that I haven’t felt anything up until now – except with my first pregnancy, I felt the Braxton Hicks contractions much earlier on in the other pregnancies.

On a different subject, I think there is something seriously wrong with our VCR. We have a nice VCR-DVD player combination machine that we got when we were married, and we have really liked having the ability to play both types of movies. The DVD part of the machine is working fine, but the VCR has started having problems the last couple of days. A couple days ago I taped a show from tv and when I went back to watch it, every time I tried to fast forward through a commercial, the tape paused and wouldn’t let me hit play. If I stopped the tape it would let me rewind or fast forward, but even if I only hit the button for a couple of seconds it would quickly jump through most of the tape all at once. I figured that the tape was done for – we must have just taped shows on it over and over so many times that we needed to use a fresh tape. We tried that last night, but found that the machine had the same problem with a different tape. After messing around with it for a while, we finally found that the tape would only play correctly if Michael sat on the floor a foot in front of the VCR – if he would get up or even shift his weight a little, the tape paused. So, he sat on the hard wood floor last night for an hour while we watched our show that we had taped. It was actually rather comical to watch, although I’m sure it was less than comfortable for him. We have never heard of a problem like this before – any suggestions?

And on an entirely different topic, I had to mention something that happened to me yesterday. The other day I wrote a lengthy post about always getting negative comments from strangers about having all boys. So, I was getting all the boys out of the van yesterday morning to take Kolby into his preschool class at the YMCA, and a middle-aged man walked by and very jovially announced, “Three boys – you are so lucky! And probably another boy on the way. That is great!” I smiled and he just kept on walking by, and I felt like that nice comment from a stranger maybe (in some small way) redeemed all the other strangers who have said such thoughtless things when they saw how many boys we have.

Oh, and I just wanted to mention a cute thing Eli said last night. We went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant last night to celebrate Michael finishing one of his Step 2 Board exams, (Pedros is quickly becoming one of our ‘favorite’ restaurants. Not so much because of the amazing cuisine – we like the food fine – but more because they keep sending us buy-one-get-one-free dinner coupons. They serve tortillas and chips and salsa and we usually take sandwiches and some snacks for the boys, and then Michael and I each order a meal and one of them is free with the coupon, so it ends up being a pretty cheep dinner for our family. No, we have no shame, we are not to proud to take sandwiches to a restaurant for our kids – but kids can be picky sometimes and not eat the restaurant food anyway, so why waste the money? We are just wondering how old our kids will get before they start demanding ‘real food,’ I guess when it gets to that point, we will just have to stop eating out altogether). :)

Well, I was going to tell about the funny thing that Eli said. We were at the restaurant and at one point in the meal the boys noticed a painting of a rooster hanging on the wall behind them. I said something about the rooster, and Eli said, “No, it’s not a rooster.” (I just assumed that he thought it was a chicken, and that maybe he wasn’t familiar with the word ‘rooster.’) Kolby told him that it was a rooster, and he said, “No, a moose.” I smiled and Kolby corrected him and told him it was a rooster again, and Eli said, “No, a mooster.” I thought that was pretty cute.

Ok, last thing. While I was writing this, Michael just called and said that he got another interview for a transition year program here in Milwaukee. It is at St. Luke’s Hospital, which is supposed to have a nice transition year. He set it up for November 16th. It has been nice to get a few invitations already. We’re just waiting until next month to start hearing back about dermatology residency interviews. Hey, here’s a question for any of our fellow medical students, residents, or fellows that may happen to be reading this: As you may know, most of the interview invitations are done by e-mail, and with many of the programs it seems that if you don’t respond to the e-mail invitation immediately, all the interview dates may already be full by the time you call. We heard of another student setting it up so that she receives a message on her pager when she gets a new e-mail (so she doesn’t have to worry about checking her e-mail every 20 minutes each day). Does anyone know how to do this? Is this something you do through your e-mail settings, or something extra that you have to pay for through your pager service (or both?) If anyone knows about how to set that up, that would be great, thanks!