Run With The Fishes

Amid flooded bathrooms, hallways, and back porches, mice trying to get warm, friends visiting, and Thanksgiving, Zoey managed to lose her first tooth! She looks pretty cute. We may take a picture of the toothless smile this afternoon.

Things started with a weekend visit from the friendly Kao and Davis families. The guys decided to have a punting contest, the girls got their hair done, and the rest of us had a great time. Allison was pretty funny because she did not want to share Greg or me with Noah, who might or might not weigh the same amount as her. We saw hardly any evidence of Brenda�s so-called “morning sickness“. Are you guys sure she was even sick at all? We didn�t take any pictures ourselves, but there were plenty of people who did.

This past weekend was Thanksgiving, we were thankful the roads weren’t icy in Oklahoma. Turkey dinner was excellent. While we were there we decided to visit the new Indian Casino right by my dad’s house. Guess what…. It is just like most of the other casinos we have been in. I bet you are surprised. We also got to see Wendy and her mom. How often is it that you can drive to Oklahoma and visit with your friends who live in Texas? Sunday was a good football day for Greg. All of the teams he cheers for won and the teams he cheers against lost. They didn’t even play each other.

Finally the sun is shining in East Texas. Sure, it’s only supposed to last until tomorrow, but that should give us enough time to take some pictures outside. I’ll be sure and post them when they are up.

Happy Birthday!!

Ok, so, this is a week late. November 13 was Allison’s 1st birthday. After a mad scramble to clean up the house for our many guests, we got the place all decorated and set. When we went to Wal-mart every time for the past month or so, we would see a Huge Care Bear that Allison thought should be hers. Since she seemed to love it so much we got it for her birthday and hid it in the closet. Everytime she saw it she would say Bear! Up! and point until we got it down for her. So, she got to have a care bear birthday party.

At about 2:30 we started Nathan and Zoey’s favorite part of anyone’s 1st birthday – The cake eating. At first Allison wasn’t sure what to make of all of that cake or the people watching her for that matter.

It didn’t take her long to decide that the cake was delicious and start smearing it into her face. She is 1 happy little baby. She sat and sang and ate her cake. When that fun was over she got to do her favorite thing and take a bath.

After that, it was onto the presents. Allison hit the jackpot. Each one of the gifts she got seems to be just what she would have picked out for herself, if she had known they existed.

Thanks for all of the fun and here is a link to the pictures. Oh… it also has our witch and the grim reaper. We hope they don’t scare you too badly.

Party Pictures

Whenever I am cooking, all of the kids like to hang out in the kitchen. Allison has a spot she has claimed as her own. Usually she dangles her feet out and sings to us.

Some Birth Statistics
Date: November 13th, 2003
Time: 11:21pm
Weight: 7 lb 4oz
Length: 20 1/2 inches

Allison’s arrival

My due date was November 12th, which had come and gone. As with Zoey, I didn’t think Allison really wanted to come out. We had been walking around the square, the school track, Wal Mart, the hallways of the school. Anywhere you could walk in this tiny town, we had been there… several times…. over a 2 week period. I had been having contractions off and on for 2-3 weeks. They never were very painful, and never stuck around. They were actually doing something though, because at each of my doctor appointments, I was a little more dilated and a little more effaced. For the last week of pregnancy, I walked (waddled) around between 4 and 5 cm dilated.

The morning of the 13th, the doctor ordered a sonogram to make sure she had enough room and I wasn’t leaking amniotic fluid. He also ordered a stress test (the 3rd one of this pregnancy). While waiting for the ultrasound, and the stress tests, the nurses were sure I would be admitted and the doctor would start inducing labor so had me walking all over the hospital in my little gown. Because you know, walking is supposed to help bring on your labor. During the sonogram, the technician asked us if we wanted to know if it would be a boy or girl. We decided we had already waited 9 months, we could put it off for a few more days. The stress test came back with good results and I wasn’t leaking any fluids. As if we didn’t already know it, the stress test showed that I was having sporadic contractions, but since they weren’t really constant, I was sent home, but not before the nurses suggested all of the wives’ tale labor inducers.

I decided to give one of them a try. What could it hurt. I was already 1 day over the due date and more than ready to welcome a new baby. I don’t know if it was the castor oil fumes, I couldn’t make myself drink any of the nasty looking stuff, or if Allison decided she was tired of all that walking. Just after we put the kids in bed and right in the middle of a challenge on Jak II, I felt something like the baby giving the hardest kick she could. This was followed by a real contraction and me saying, “Greg, I think we need to get the kids and go”.

Most of the rest is a blur, but here this is how I remember it. We got to the hospital around 9:30, about 10 minutes after the initial pain. Since we live in a small town, the maternity hall is not staffed after 6pm. My doctor and the labor and delivery nurse needed to be called. I was checked in, the ER nurse rolled us down to the maternity hall and we told the nurse she should call the doctor. These were our doctor’s orders. Since I had fairly easy and quick deliveries the first 2 times, he told us as soon as we got the the hospital to have the nurse call him and that he had warned them we might be coming in. She didn’t seem to believe us and said she had to examine me before she would call him. I was dilated to a 6.

Somewhere in between the contractions, a friend came to get Nathan and Zoey. They were outside of the room coloring. We were trying to shield them from their psycho-mom. I have always heard the stories of ladies going crazy during labor, but didn’t quite believe them.

What felt like an eternity of the worst pain ever (was really only about 15 minutes), I was dilated to an 8. I was begging the nurse to give me something for the pain. THE PAIN which kept me moaning incoherently. THE PAIN which made me forget to breath, which made contractions even worse (as if that could be possible). The ER nurse finally believed us and had called the L&D nurse who explained that she needed to get ahold of my doctor immediately. All that kept me from having the baby was the look of fright on the ER nurse’s face. I guess she didn’t realize just how fast this was going to happen.

Here is an interlude where I say how great Greg was with his inconsolable wife. He got me refocused so that I would breath through the contractions and not clench up. After that, the contractions were bearable. I wasn’t ready for them to be so intense and there was no pause between them for me to brace myself for the next one. It was like once my body finally decided it was time, there was no messing around.

After my doctor arrived, things quickly went into motion (as if they weren’t already happening super fast). I was, and had been dilated to a 10 and very firmly told them that I couldn’t keep from pushing any more. Our doctor literally had to hold the baby’s head in while he finished putting on his scrubs. After he finally was dressed, he broke my water, I pushed, and a baby was born. After all of this, while they were cleaning her up, we had to ask if it was a boy or a girl. He had forgotten that we didn’t already know.

Some Birth Statistics
Date: August 5th, 1998
Time: 10:47 am
Weight: 7 lb 4oz
Length: 20 1/2 inches

Zoey’s arrival

This was written just a few weeks after Zoey was born. I think Zoey had decided that she wasn’t going to come out and greet us until we gave her a little push. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions off and on for 2 weeks. Zoey was due on August 2nd. On Monday (July 27th), I was at 3 cm dialated and 80 % effaced, Friday I was at 4 cm and 90% effaced. I was very uncomfortable. Walking was hard! Friday night I started having contractions and they got as close as 4 minutes apart for an hour then just went away.

At my Dr. appointment on Monday I was 5 cm dialated and 90% effaced. Dr. Hardin decided that if Zoey didn’t come on her own then Wednesday morning we were going to induce. Everyone was convinced though that we wouldn’t make it until Wednesday. Zoey decided to prove us wrong

On Wednesday my brother came over to our house to watch Nathan and we checked into the hospital at 6:00am. I was still at 5 cm, very close to 6 the nurse said. We filled out all of the paper work and sat around in the hospital for about an hour. Then they came in with pitocin. My doctor told me that if I wanted an epidural I should get it then. Greg and I had been talking about it. I knew that the pitocin would make the contractions very hard so decided to go for it. I had already had my “natural/unmedicated” experience and decided to go for comfort this time. This was at 7:30am

My mom had brought us a book and the newspaper to read, but we ended up watching Talk shows. Boy, was it odd not feeling much below my waist. I knew when I was having contractions because of a slight pressure, but that was it. Ah was this the life. At about 8:30am I was already 7cm and they decided to break my water. At 9:15 my mom went to our house to check on Nathan, my sister and my brother. We wanted to make sure someone would fix breakfast for him… hehe.

At 10:20, I was 10cm and ready to go. I pushed 3 times and then we went into the delivery room. Once we got into the delivery room and everyone was ready, I pushed once and Greg said you could see all of her Black hair. Black! That was a surprise, Nathan had had just little tufts of light blonde hair. I pushed once more and at 10:47am, after only about 3 hours of labor, there was Zoey! I got to hold her immediatly while Greg cut her cord. He didn’t want to do that with Nathan. She was (still is) beautiful. Lots and lots of black hair all over her body and perfect little fingers and toes. Her head wasn’t even very cone shaped. Greg went and touched her and talked to her while she had her little bath. Then we were taken to our room where she met her big brother. Nathan loved her at first sight and wanted to give his baby kisses.

When we moved into this house we knew we would need to repaint a room or two. One of those was Zoey’s room. By itself it seemed like a really awful color of lime green. For Zoey’s birthday we decided to give her room a makeover. We bought things that would make the green seem brighter and more like a little girl room color.

Zoey and Nathan were at my dad’s house for the past week. This gave us time to redecorate the kitchen and Zoey’s room (for her birthday).

The kitchen was a dingy white and had a funky wallpaper on one wall that was starting to peel. We also needed to repair and paint the ceiling from the leaky roof that was replaced last month. We started by sanding down the walls to get the painful spikey texture smoothed out. After we washed the pounds of dust away, we patched all of the holes and primed the walls. The ceiling has a popcorn texture that had fallen off around the leaks. We thought it would be easier to patch than make a huge mess pulling down the rest of the ceiling. We bought an aerosol can that sprays the texture up to the ceiling. Greg taped of the area around the spot that needed patched and hung some papers from the ceiling around it to catch the spray. The directions say to shoot it from the inside of a box. We found out why when Greg started spraying the texture all over the kitchen. It was pretty comical and thankfully easy to clean up.

I decided that all of the walls would be painted a buttery yellow that matched both our table and cabinetry and wanted to have one wall that was different for accent. I picked out a tomato red that looked really good next to the yellow color. After 4 coats of primer and 4 more coats of red, the wall looked pretty good. The only problem was that when you looked at the whole kitchen it looked like someone had squirted mustard all over 3 walls and ketchup on the 4th.

All in all, not too shabby. The plan is, with Jennifer’s help, to paint a mural on the red wall. That should help tone it down some.

What a weekend. We drove up to visit with friends and pick up our dining room table they were kindly storing in their garage. Since it was Memorial weekend, we even had an extra day to visit. Over all the visit was pretty uneventful. The adventure started on our way home when the Jeep began to overheat. After the 3rd time it went to the ‘hot’ gauge, we stopped at a gas station and decided we wouldn’t be able to make the drive home.

If it weren’t for Craig and Wendy we may have been sleeping in the uhaul with the table and chairs at a gas station between Ft Worth and Dallas.

It turned out that the radiator was clogged with the incorrect type of coolant (and that we were about 500 miles outside of our warranty). For his birthday, Greg got new Jeep parts.

When all was said and done, we made it home safely, in a non-overheating Jeep. Our table sure is pretty.

This site is my solution for horrible short-term memory. Most of the time, it’s a place for me to put down the crazy things my kids do. Every once in a while you’ll find blabberings on stuff I just can’t get out of my head.

Originally it was called “From A to Z” because, you know, our kids names are Allison, Nathan, and Zoey. I am clever like that. Then one day, Allison was being incredibly cute and we got a new name for the blog.

I’ve decided to start keeping track of the books I’ve read and maybe give a review here and there. This goes back to that short-term memory problem. I’m hoping it will help to keep me from checking out/buying books that I’ve already read (unless of course they are worth a re-read).

The three-column layout seems pretty organized. Even though my house is a mess sometimes, I am still a bit obsessive compulsive about some things.

Some Birth Statistics
Date: April 12th, 1997
Time: 3:36pm
Weight: 7 lb 6oz
Length: 20 1/2 inches

Nathan’s arrival

I wrote this a year and a half later, so some of the details might be slightly off. It all started the night before. Fridays were our usual poker night. For some reason on this night I was more tired than I normally had been. I fell deep asleep on our friends couch! I guess my body was getting ready for the next day

We went home that night at about 2:00am. I promptly went back to sleep! At about 3:30am, I woke up for the normal potty break Try and try as I might, I just couldn’t get comfortable enough to go back to sleep. Something about my body just didn’t feel right. Then I realized that I was feeling ’something’ about 6 minutes apart. It wasn’t really any pains, but like a pressure on my lower back. I waited a little while to make sure they were not going away and that they were getting a little closer together. Then I tried to wake up Greg. I don’t think he heard me tell him the first 2 times that it was time for him to wake up. I took a shower and made sure I had my little hospital bag all packed up.

It was about 5:00, my contractions were 5 minutes apart getting just a little closer together and still not did not bother me at all. Now it was really time to wake up Greg. The silly person asked me if he could go back to sleep. I told him no that it was time to go to the hospital. He jumped out of bed like something had bitten him. Then while he got ready, I called my mom and then my dad. They both lived a about an hour and a half away and would need time to get ready and make the drive.

Once we arrived at the hospital, we found out that I was already 6 cm dilated! My contractions were about 3 minutes apart and still not bothering me. My Dad found us at about 7am. He kept us occupied by watching some wrestling and telling us jokes. Shortly afterwards my mom arrived. Then we had 2 people to entertain us. I don’t really remember too much about what we did while we were waiting except that Greg called his parents in California to let them know that they would have a grandson sometime that day. The nurses came in from time to time to check on us and make sure everything was going alright. They were amazed that I was in such little pain. At about 9 am, I was 7 centimeters dilated and my doctor decided to break my water. Yuck, that is one of the nastiest feelings I have ever had…. laying in wetness that kept gushing out when I moved!

I got to 8 centimeters dilated and then sometime around 10am my body just decided to stop. My contractions were becoming less frequent and there was pressure then there had been. I had been doing great! No pain, just letting my body do its thing. Around 11:30am my doctor decided to get things going again with a pitocin drip. These brought back my contractions but this time they were strong and painful. Since I was already so far along I was only allowed to have something to take the edge off of the pain.

At about 1:30pm the nurses had me start pushing. Wow was that hard work. Greg was wonderful. He sat right beside me the whole time holding my hand through the contractions and helping me count. After what felt like forever, even though it had only been 2 hours, it was time to move into the delivery room.

I was pushing as hard as I could. We only had a little bit to go before we would see our baby! I was exhausted. I didn’t feel like I could push anymore and on the last real push they had to use a little vacuum extractor on him. I felt really bad about this, like I couldn’t handle the task I had been set to do. But he was here and that was all that mattered! Greg said it was amazing to watch. Did I already say how wonderful he was?

And at 3:36pm, Nathan Elliot was born. He was beautiful. He had a little bit of blonde fuzz on his head, and hardly any on him. I didn’t get to hold him right away, I think Greg said the cord might have gotten caught on his neck and they wanted to make sure he would keep breathing alright, which he did . After he was all washed up I got to hold him and we were wheeled from the Delivery room into our room where Nathan stayed with us except for his checkups.