SEVENTEEN!

I'm late on this one, but...

Monday we celebrated the birth of our oldest son, B.

I had sailed through my first pregnancy with no complications. I even went a week over my due date.

His birth, that is a different story.

We arrived at the hospital early in the morning for induction. They started the Pitocin shortly after we arrived and we were on our way. My water broke around 9:00am, which meant we would definitely have a baby that day!

Because I was too scared to have an epidural, I opted for some pain meds; NOT a big help! (For the next two though, I did go for the epidural!) After laboring for thirteen hours and still not completely dilated, the baby's heart rate began to drop to alarmingly low numbers. It was decided that I would need an emergency C-section. That was fine with me. Just put me to sleep as fast as you can!

Finally, we had our baby boy! But, his blood sugar was low and he needed an IV to bring it up. We were still able to have him in the room with us, it was just difficult to manuever him the way you would want.

After three days, I was released from the hospital. But because his blood sugar was still not up where it should have been, B had to stay. We had the room until midnight, and stayed the whole time. One of the worst things I've ever done, is leave my newborn baby at the hospital. When they came to get him I couldn't stop crying. The nurse asked if I was going to be OK. I sure it was hard for her to be the one to take my baby away.

The next day, we got to the hospital early and were told that he could come home! Talk about two excited parents! Taking our first baby home was all we could think about for the last nine months, and now we finally were!


Now, this baby is almost a man. I don't know how we got here so fast. I love this boy with all my heart, and hope I have done him well...

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

Camera Theif

Going through pictures on my camera, I once again found these:















She sure does like to photograph herself!

Sometimes...

this is the view from my kitchen window...

and it makes me happy.

Really?

The end of the track season is near. Very near; like Monday near.

Friday, practice was cancelled but C1 and her friends decided to stay and get some extra practice in.

C1 has gone the whole season without falling over any hurdles. This was her biggest fear in the beginning, but she has managed to avoid it.

Until Friday.

Five minutes before I picked her up, she fell.

And fell good.

She scraped up the left side of her face and her left leg pretty good.


Here's a close up.


As scrapes tend to do, Saturday morning it looked worse.

I told her she might as well wear a sign to school on Monday that reads,

Yes, I tripped over a hurdle!

Did They Sleep?

Usually, we only do slumber parties every other year.

But since this year was the BIG 13, we allowed C1 to have a slumber party.

I will admit, the older these girls get, the easier it is to have these. At this age, they pretty much entertain themselves. If there are plenty of snacks and drinks on hand, they are good to go.

For this party, C1 had the idea of going to the mall.

Why?

I.have.no.idea.

But, being the best parents in the world, we took seven girls to the mall.

They did their thing. We did ours.

After the mall we fed them pizza and cake.



Being the MOST creative grandma in the world, my mom designed posters with each girl's name on it. They colored those and then the real party began after M and I went to bed I suppose.

Overall, they were relatively quiet. They stayed up until 6am and were back up by 8am.

This is what memories are made of!!!