Photos Galore

I forgot to tell this story in the last blog post.  A few weeks ago, Anne and I were outside on the back deck.  Anne was picking berries off of a bush and throwing them on the ground.  I warned her not to eat them, that these were not eating berries and they could make you sick.  About five minutes later Anne says, "I ate one."  Sigh.  Just in case, we did some research online and learned that these were yew berries - extremely poisonous if you chew the seed at the centre, or if you eat the foliage.  Symptoms include accelerated heart rate, muscle tremors, convulsions, collapse, difficulty breathing, circulation impairment, and eventually heart failure.  Ugh.  We called poison control and they said not to worry unless she vomits more than twice.  Thankfully, Anne had no symptoms whatsoever, but it certainly gave us a little bit of a scare!

The very poisonous yew berries

Funny things Anne says:

• "This baby is you.  Do you want to hold you?"
• While touching the horns on a muskox statue, "I'm honking the horn!"
• Anne, waking up from a dream: "Where's my sandwich?"
  Dad: "Did you have a dream about a sandwich?"
  Anne: "Yeah, let's go have one."
• While putting her kitty in the dryer, "This is a bouncy castle for kitties!"

Charlie is now nearly two months old.  He is growing like a weed and getting quite chubby.  He now definitely smiles intentionally.  He has a huge, toothless grin that is very adorable.  He is waking up for longer and longer periods during the day, yet he still seems to sleep an awful lot.  At night, he wakes up once or twice (usually twice).  That's not so bad I guess, but somehow we still never feel like we've had enough sleep.

Anne is a fabulous big sister.  She often tells us to go pick up Charlie when he is fussing.  She likes to introduce Charlie to everyone she meets.  She gives Charlie lots of hugs and kisses all day long.

Back in September we did a little photo shoot with all of the grandkids to get a photo for a custom puzzle for Gramma G's birthday present.  We gave the 1000-piece puzzle to Gramma with the photo on the box covered up for extra fun, so we couldn't post these photos until the puzzle was completed or else Gramma would know what it looked like.  Here are some of the best photos of the kids.

This is the photo we chose for the puzzle

The puzzle.  We ordered it from puzzlesprint.ca but it came from Latvia

The completed puzzle

Photos from a visit to the pumpkin farm with Gramma and Grampa B:

Anne walking on the huge hay bales they had laid out for the kids.

Anne and Daddy going into the corn maze

Big tractor for the hay ride

Gramma, Annie, and Mommy on the hay ride

Pumpkins from the pumpkin farm

Visiting Gramma and Grampa B:

Anne is addicted to Gramma's iPad

Family photo

Daddy and Charlie

Anne covered in clothes pins

More photos:

Anne's pants are covered in Halloween stickers.

Anne and Charlie went out trick-or-treating for Halloween, both at Jeff's work and at our neighbours' houses.  Anne dressed up as a dragon, and Charlie dressed up as a pumpkin.  They were pretty darned cute.  Anne did a great job of saying trick-or-treat, and of thanking the people afterward.  (See photos below.)

Trick-or-treating at Daddy's work:

 

Trick-or-treating at home:

Daddy's secret photo stash from his camera:

Anne and Charlie when Charlie was just 9 days old

Story time

A funny looking photo of Charlie when he was 12 days old

Mom and Anne have side-ponytails just like in Stephanie's Ponytail

Charlie cross-dresses at night sometimes when we run out of blue sleepers.  He is 13 days old in this photo

Mom and Anne play with the water table at the children's museum

Anne makes a crown at the children's museum

Costco had a sale on diapers

Charlie Monkey

Anne and Charlie.  Anne often sets herself beside Charlie and then requests a photograph.

More Anne and Charlie

Mom and Charlie

Mom and Anne on the hay bales at the pumpkin farm

Uncle Conor and Charlie

Anne and her kitty ride the plastic dog at Walmart

Daddy calls this Charlie's Han Solo pose

Labour and Delivery

For those of you who care to know, here is the whole labour and delivery story for Charlie.

Sun Sept 1 - At the land, very regular Braxton-Hicks contractions from 8 pm to 5:30 am, gradually getting closer from 10 min apart to 4.5 min apart.  At 4 am we leave the land and drive home just in case.  At home, after a shower and back to bed, the Braxton-Hicks stop.

Mon Sept 2 & Tues Sept 3 - Very few Braxton-Hicks contractions.

Wed Sept 4 - Doctor's appointment in the morning, the obstetrician says I am 4 cm dilated and tells me the next time the contractions come back regularly, I should go to the hospital and have a baby.  The Braxton-Hicks start up again in the evening, but timing is all over the place

Thurs Sept 5 (the big day) - At 2 am the real contractions start (they are more uncomfortable than Braxton-Hicks contractions) and are 9 minutes apart.  Contractions continue through the night and morning, but stay between 7 and 9 min apart.  When sitting or lying down, contractions slow or even stop for as much as 45 min at a time.

Gramma comes over to watch Anne and help out.  Jeff stays home from work.  I take a nap.  After the nap, we go on a walk around the block, which gets the contractions started up again, varying in frequency between 3 and 13 minutes.  At about 2 pm we finally decide to head to the hospital.  At the hospital the nurse checks and says I am 6 cm dilated and fully effaced.  We are admitted and moved into a delivery room.

In the delivery room I walk around a lot trying to get the contractions coming stronger.  They are much stronger and more uncomfortable while standing and moving.  Jeff is a wonderful support hubby and totally exhausts his arms putting pressure on my lower back during every contraction.

At 5:12 pm they check me and I am 7 cm dilated.  They break my water to get things moving and the contractions gradually get stronger and closer together.  They tell me the baby is “transverse” which apparently means he is facing to the side, rather than to the back.  They explain that this is probably why I am having such terrible back pain/aching both during and in between contractions.  As the contractions get more intense and closer together, I get more and more exhausted and shaky.  The contractions are really painful and I am unable to relax my muscles between or during contractions (which are only a minute or two apart).  Lying down is the most comfortable position.

After a while they tell me I am 9 cm dilated, but I am so exhausted and in such pain that I ask for an epidural anyway.  Unfortunately both anesthesiologists for the hospital are busy in surgeries and won’t be available for another hour.  I guess we'll have to deliver this baby the old fashioned way.

While moving around to try new positions, the baby moves into place somehow and all of a sudden I have to push.  There is a lot of yelling.  This is not what I signed up for - Anne was a lot less painful!  Anyway, they check me and I am finally fully dilated.  It must have set off an alarm, because all of a sudden there are a million people in the room and the spotlights are shining down.  The pushing doesn't last that long, maybe 15 minutes.  However, it is excruciating.  Charlie finally makes his entrance into the world and I think, "Thank God."  I guess my relief was a little premature however since the next half hour of stitches are extremely uncomfortable, especially when they find a spot where the freezing didn't take (which happens several times).

Charles Leo Begley was born at 7:54 pm on Thursday September 5, 2013.  He weighs 3620 g (17 lbs 15.5 oz) and is 21.5” long.  He has a full head of hair.  His eyes look like Anne’s, but his nose, mouth, and ears are different.  His fourth toe on each foot is set a little lower than all of the other toes and kind of curls under a bit.  He has really long fingernails, which he uses to scrape up his face in the first night before we manage to cut his nails.

After all of the stitching is done, the grandparents file in with Anne in tow.  Anne is very excited to meet the baby that came out of Mommy's tummy.  She touches and points to all of his little body parts.  I don't remember much of what happens after that, but it involves eating something and then going to sleep.

At midnight they give Charlie his first bath.  He doesn’t like it much.  His hair is very soft afterward and the nurse combs it into a little mohawk.

We are released from the hospital at about 2 pm and finally go home.