Picture Overload

We've mostly been staying close to home this last week, so we have a ridiculous amount of cute photos of our children. :) Here's a not very small sampling of the first week of Aaron's life.

Playing at the hospital the day we took Aaron home.

Grandma Jones meeting Aaron.

Pose for a picture! Genevieve took it to heart.

This may be the best first family photo we got. lol. Spencer isn't even facing forward.

Oh hey, there's a baby there!

Family storytime!

He seems to have gotten my mom's coloring, which is awesome! His skin is olive toned and way darker than mine for the moment. 

When all other toys are boring, just hop in the box. 

First trip around the neighborhood in the stroller.

She's fascinated by Aaron. She always comes running when he cries and gives him kisses all the time. Her version of a kiss is poking his face or whatever she can reach and making a kissing noise. Maybe it's her version of blowing a kiss? She's learning to not poke too hard and it doesn't seem to bother him, so it's all good.

Grandma's camera. She loves looking at the pictures we take.

Tummy time = sleep time. I've never had a baby so chill that they like tummy time. He is just as happy on his stomach as his back, at least for a little while

This photo was designed to drive Spencer crazy. That's his favorite pillow and blanket. He was highly bothered when he noticed. lol. Sometimes it's so fun to be a parent. haha!

See? He just chills out on his stomach. 

First bath.

He has so much hair around the base of his neck. He has a lot on top too, but so much less that it looks like he's balding. I'd say he actually has more hair on top than either of the other two did for months and months, but with so much around the back, it still looks thin.

One of the many faces of Aaron. He's super expressive. Half smile.

Thinking pose. 

This was on day one home. He already looks so much bigger than this and he's only 11 days old.

We've spent a lot of the last week in diapers only. The kids are in heaven.

This has been officially dubbed the sled bed. Genevieve and Spencer both love laying in it anytime they can, and they cart Aaron all over the place when he's in it too.

"Headstanders." Spencer figured out he could do headstands and has been perfecting his talent. Genevieve is all over trying it too. Spence can actually do a pretty decent one on the floor now, but he loves doing them on the couch the best.

No hands!

I don't know where my baby went, but she's definitely gone. Genevieve seems so huge compared to Aaron now. She'll be two next month and I can't believe how fast time is flying.

Wait, you want me to stay awake during tummy time? Not likely.

Sleepy smiles.

Another picture designed to drive my other kids crazy. This is Genevieve's precious puppy. She didn't notice we took the picture. Good thing. :)

I think they're communicating. lol 

We went to the park on Thursday. Spencer loves the baby swing still because he can get pushed super high on it. Good thing Genevieve likes the big swing.

See? Olive skin-toned like Grandma. 

Another new toy for the big kids. haha! They sit in the bouncer way more than Aaron does. In fact, if one is in the bouncer and the sled bed is available, the other will hop in there.

This is a look of pure joy on this boy's face. He loves his newfound ability.

There was plenty of movie watching this week. The current favorite is Despicable Me 2.

What? You didn't know we had a Japanese baby? This picture makes me laugh every time. 

All swaddled up ready for bed. This little mini crib is a total lifesaver for his sleeping arrangements for now. I'm borrowing it from a friend and I just love it. He'll only be able to use it for a few months until he can start sitting up, but for now it's just perfect.

And the cloth diapers are a tad big. Hahaha! I may borrow some from a friend or just use disposables until he gets a tad bigger and can actually fit into these. He needs a bit more meat on his little body first!

Birth Story

Presenting Aaron David Ashman, born July 10th at 2:28AM. He was 8 lbs 1 oz and 21 1/4" long.

We are in love. I thought it would be so awesome if he was born with dark hair so we could have a blonde, a redhead, and a dark haired baby, just to make people scratch their heads. I had no idea I'd get my wish. I just adore my not so little family. :)

We've spent the last few days just soaking him in, recuperating, and getting used to being a family of five!

So here's the story for interested parties out there. Or at least the highlights. I'll try to rein in my verbosity. :)

Aaron's arrival felt super drawn out. I started having contractions two and a half weeks prior to his due date, which was a new experience for me and threw off my ability to patiently wait for his arrival. It made me really antsy. I'd have contractions for several hours, usually in the evenings, and then they would peter out. This last Tuesday I started having contractions at 9AM and they lasted all day and into the night. I even had some after I had gone to bed that I felt when I woke up a few times, but they all were gone by the morning. It was really mentally taxing. Bill stayed home with me Wednesday because I couldn't handle the thought of another day like that with just me and the two kids.

So Wednesday we just relaxed throughout the day. Early in the afternoon I decided to make a trip to the store to pick up some fabric for a project I'm going to make for Genevieve's birthday. After I got back at about 3:30 the real contractions started, but somewhat far apart, maybe 6-7 minutes. They crept slowly closer together and I decided this was finally the real deal, as they felt as strong as the ones I'd had with Genevieve throughout her labor. I made it my goal to get the kids in bed and then we could head to the hospital. So that's what we did. A friend came over to spend the night and we headed out.

My biggest concern for this labor has been how far we are from the hospital and the logistics of making sure the kids were taken care of and I got there in time. It was 45 minutes away from our house. So this timing felt absolutely perfect. We got to the hospital and got checked in and my midwife checked my progress only to find that I was dilated to a 2. I was so disappointed! We had aired on the side of caution a bit, but holy cow, I'd had contractions for two weeks, plus 13 hours the day before, plus all afternoon and evening by this point, and that's all it had done?! Not fun. We spent the next two hours walking the hospital halls, having tons and tons of contractions, hoping they were doing something. At 11:30PM I got checked again and had maybe, maybe dilated to a 3. My water hadn't broken, nothing else had happened, so they had to send me on my way. The midwife commented she was so sorry, but she promised I wasn't going to be pregnant forever. I would definitely have the baby in the next day or two. Nice words, but not helpful at that point.

We headed out to the car and I had to stop a bunch of times while a contraction happened. These were not easy ones! I had to totally focus on them. It was so discouraging that for how intense they were they didn't seem to be creating progress. We headed back towards home and stopped by Burger King ot get a conciliatory ice cream. The entire drive home I had contractions every five minutes on the dot. They were crazy intense, particularly since I was sitting down. We got all the way home and decided to camp out on the couch and hope things intensified so we could head back. I fell asleep for maybe a few minutes and nearly leaped off the couch and out of my skin a few minutes later as a contraction on a whole new level hit me. My whole body started shaking and I had to vocalize to get through it. I had another one or two of these and Bill said he thought we really needed to head back. I was hesitant because of the lack of progress, but the next one convinced me and he called the midwife. She was totally skeptical but was kind of like, it's your gas, so off we went.

This trip was completely different. I kneeled on the floor instead of sitting and barely held it together and contractions came hard and fast, every few minutes and some even closer together. They would come really hard or one would come small and then stop for a second and then ramp up to a higher level. IT.WAS.CRAZY! I felt like I needed to push, so I did that a little, enough to relieve some pressure, and that helped. I tried not to wonder too much what that meant about my progress. It was one of those crazy, late night drives you see on TV shows. Bill drove like 85 mph the whole way with his flashers on and running the occasional red light. We made it to the hospital in record time.

Walking in was a trick. I ended up hanging onto Bill's neck, quietly vocalizing through each contraction. People kept asking if I needed a wheelchair. There was no way I was sitting down. It was such a long walk. We finally made it back to the 6th floor maternity ward and the same people greeted us. They could tell this was a whole new ballgame. I went into the triage room and the nurse wanted to monitor the baby. Heck no! That required me laying back. There was no way. As I had these contractions she totally understood and jumped to get the midwife there ASAP. She couldn't have taken very long but the contractions were coming so fast that the nurse ended up checking me in between two and found I was a 7 or 8 dilated. Yes! The midwife got there then and approved us moving to a delivery room. I remember a stray comment at this point that I could deliver in that room if need be. lol. Things were moving fast.

We made it to the delivery room and they started filling up the birthing tub. I had intended to do a water birth. There was no time though. My memory gets a little blurred here. I remember moments more than the entire thing. There were a bunch of nurses around calling encouragements, telling me I was doing great. Bill was at my shoulder telling me different parts of my body to relax. I was laying on my side with my arms wrapped around the rail. I don't remember how I got in that position, but it worked. I was having contractions nearly on top of each other and just going with the flow of it. I was listening to my body, not really getting instructions from anyone. I felt a strong need to push, which I did, but discovered it didn't feel good to push with all I could, but just some. It relieved some of the pressure. I was vocalizing like crazy, practically shouting, just in a deep tone. It was awesome. lol. It's kind of hilarious how much that helps. My water broke and I instantly felt Aaron right there and couldn't do anything but push. When they say it's an irresistible sensation, they're not joking. This time I did push with all my might. I wasn't feeling contractions anymore, just this undeniable need to push. I stopped for a second to breathe and the nurses all jumped in to help hold my legs so there would be room for him to come, as I was still on my side and definitely not going anywhere. I wound up to push again after I had breathed and started only to feel a huge whoosh a second later and suddenly there was a baby on  my stomach and I was totally disoriented. Again, kind of an amusing moment. I felt like it couldn't possibly be over. I was like, "Wait, he's here? I'm done? That can't be true!" But it was and I was done and I had only torn a small first degree tear, so I already feel so much better than the last time around.

And just like every birth story, the whole thing was amazing, intense, nearly out of control, surreal, and the ending the sweetest thing ever. Aaron is the most mellow baby. He loves to sleep, eat, and just gaze around. He hardly cries and at this point is just super easy. We'll see what time brings, but for now he's a little angel and I can't imagine not having him.

Good sleep at 9 months pregnant?

In totally random news, I got the best night's sleep of probably the last month last night. This is random because I'm three days from my due date, and I had contractions literally from 9AM yesterday until I went to sleep at 10PM or so, and then I vaguely remember a few throughout the night as I moved around a bit. It's nigh unto impossible to truly stay asleep all night long at this point because my stomach is so unwieldy that if I want to move at all it wakes me up. However, I woke up at literally 5:30 this morning awake and alert and totally refreshed. That hasn't happened in ages! It felt pretty amazing.

I really thought yesterday was the day. The contractions were not super crazy, but they had an edge to them that made me think they might start going places soon. But then they didn't. I couldn't believe they lasted for that long. This end of pregnancy is vastly different than the previous two. With them I had nothing happen until the day I went into labor and then it started and never stopped until the baby was born. This go around I've been contracting for at least two weeks enough on several occasions to make me think we'd be welcoming the wee one that day. And yet here he is, still not born. It's been weird. I even called my midwife to ask her advice because this is so different. Apparently it's not uncommon to have a third pregnancy do something like this. It's like my uterus is revving up to go time but isn't quite there yet. I dearly hope that when it does happen, it will go much, much faster than yesterday.

So here we still are, one day closer to his due date, still having contractions, wondering if this is the day. In interesting news, he's sitting so low that when I do have contractions it sends zingy pains down my legs. That's a first time experience for me. They don't really hurt per se, but it's kind of a weird sensation. 

Oh, and my mom arrives late tomorrow night. Maybe he just wants to wait for her. 

mixed bag

In a strange twist of events I'm much less anxious today to have this baby than I've been for the last couple weeks. I'm dealing with some unfortunate side effects of pregnancy left me hobbling around yesterday and barely able to sit down. It's a little better today, but I'll leave it at that for details. Suffice it to say I'd like a few more days to heal. I'm six days from my due date and for now that suddenly sounds really nice.

We decided to make a Greenville run yesterday to run a couple needed errands and take the kids to a great park up there. Who knows when we'll be able to do that next. Aside from my physical discomfort it was a good time. We cashed out our REI dividend and bought ourselves the current huge Costco tent. I'm so excited about that! Here's to a little, or a lot, more space to avoid being kicked all night when we go camping. Though it will probably be a bit before we use it. We have a Halloween camping trip planned but that's it. For now it's ours and lots of future fun is sure to happen with it.

Bill and the kids are headed to church while I hopefully do some of that aforementioned healing, so here's to a good weekend despite some rough times. I'll take it!

The waiting game

They always say each pregnancy is different and you can't really predict what will happen based on the others. True statement. This kid is throwing us for a loop. While I've had tons of Braxton-Hicks contractions towards the end with the other two kids, I never really had real ones until it was go time. Not so this time around. I'm 12 days from my due date and I've had two nights this last week where I contracted for at least three or four hours, long enough to start to get my hopes up that it was the real thing starting, and then it fizzled out. I even started making phone calls and plans with various people to watch my kids in case things really got going because what seemed like an excellent idea a couple months ago to have my mom come just two days before my due date to maximize the time she had here now might mean she will be here after he's born instead of before. Though honestly, at this point I'd just be in heaven if he came early and we'd figure out the details and make it work.

So yes, I was doing just fine on the waiting game, but It's throwing me off my mental game to get teased like this. I mean, it's 8am and I've already had a few random contractions this morning. I'm of the opinion that all contractions are good ones. They all get me that much closer to him being here, but let's just get on with this, child!

In totally unrelated news, my children are laying on the floor behind me quietly reading books to themselves. It's precious. I love them so much. They're going to get a seriously awesome present here in the next few days with their new little brother making his grand entrance. They've both really gotten into baby dolls these last few weeks and little do they know, their very own live baby doll is about to arrive. Well, they do know, but I'm not sure they completely get it. Genevieve calls my stomach by his name. I wonder if she'll keep doing that after he's born. This is Spencer's second go around, so I think he gets it much more. Either way, it's going to be very fun here in just a few days. I can't wait!

Super mom moments

Being pregnant with two small kids besides has been pretty rough going on the doing fun things front. We stay home a whole lot more than we ever did before. We watch a lot of movies. The kids know their way around our tablets and Bill's iPhone way better than I would like. They think going outside and running up and down the stairs is incredibly fun. That just makes me think we really need to get out more. But it's kind of how things are for now and a few more weeks and then the baby will come and I can't help but start feeling better and be able to actually move again, and things will get much more normal again. For now though we take one day at a time and do the best we can.

Last week I thought it would be a great idea to go to the lake, so we did that for our playgroup with some friends. It was great except for the part where both of their floaties worked against them instead of helping them and I had to run over and rescue them. I had tried out a couple new floaties I acquired over the winter and they just don't work that well when your head is heavier than your legs. That's what comes from having kids with heads in the 90+ percentile. Spencer had a blow up life vest and at one point he lost his balance and floated onto his back. He tried to roll over to stand up and ended up floating on his stomach trying to get his feet under him. He would have managed it about a second after I got there to lift him up. Genevieve did essentially the same thing with her floatie thing, only she really couldn't get up. I saw her tipping over and was up and running the few feet to reach her as she fell, but she still flailed face down for a few seconds and scared herself and me. She stuck really close to me the rest of the time we were there, poor traumatized girl. So lesson learned, the floatie things don't work so well for my kids at this point. They would have been better off without them. It did give me two opportunities to save the day, but I'd rather not have that need. The kids still just love the water, so we'll be back, but it definitely pays to be careful and keep a close eye on them. I haven't heard that many good things about swim lessons around here, so we haven't gone that route yet, but we'll figure something out so they're better off in the future.

Yesterday I had another super mom moment. Spencer was playing on our office chair while I sat on the floor nearby reading books. He managed to tip it over backwards. I saw him going down and lunged forward to help the chair land softly. I succeeded enough that he was hardly even bothered and just wanted me to pick the chair back up for him. Yeah, I was like calm down child! I'm not sure my knee and hip are working right after that lunge. They were kind of tweaked the rest of the day, but they're fine now.

So here's to my kids' needs giving me magical powers to move WAY faster than I can about 98 percent of the time these days. I've seen parents do things like that many times in the past, so I guess now I'm in the club. :) 2.5 weeks left until I join a different kind of super parent club, the one where I don't have enough hands for all my kids and we figure out all the exciting things that will bring. I'm ready for it, folks!

I haven't been able to catch any good pictures of the kids lately, so I took a million yesterday and these two came out. Yay!

I have a diffuser I got a month or so ago and Bill made a super cool cover for it to replace the little silver knob you can see in the second picture, just because he's awesome like that. 3D printers are really cool! He has one they just got at his wind tunnel and they've been testing it out on these kinds of things. It's incredible the detail you can get.

Counting down the days

I'm having a hard time focusing on anything but that I have 3.5 weeks left before I have this baby, give or take. Wooh! It's definitely that last chunk where I'm just hanging on for dear life trying not to go crazy as I wake up five or six times a night, can't get comfortable in any position in the evenings, and he is playing bumper cars with my organs, particularly my bladder and lungs. I'd love to have him right now, but at the same time I don't really want him to come early because then my mom wouldn't be here, and it will be so much simpler logistically if she's here. So I'm counting down days and trying to make the time go by a little faster than it feels like it's going. This is my most recent picture, taken yesterday at 36 weeks along and a couple days. See? Totally counting the days. :)

In other news, Genevieve has finally reliably figured out how to open her door. So now she peeks out a number of times after we put the kids to bed at night to see if anything interesting is happening. We also get exciting visits in the wee hours of the morning like the other day when she showed up at 4:30AM poking Bill's elbow requesting a diaper change as she had pooped in the middle of the night. That's better than screaming from her bed, but still a bit startling. This morning she showed up at my shoulder again at 4:30AM with her blanket and dog and hopped up to cuddle in with me. I can't say it really bothers me since I'm already up the aforementioned five or six times a night, so that was just one more wakeup. Plus, she's really cute when she's sharing my pillow. We don't typically have our kids sleep with us, so the occasional night is good for the moment. We'll see how it develops. I always like when my kids develop new skills that allow them to be more independent. Sometimes it requires then teaching them some new boundaries, but the tradeoff is worth it to me. 

Changes in responsibilities

I got my undergraduate degree in Recreation Management and Youth Leadership. It was a delightful experience that I wouldn't change, but I have not worked in that field since about eight months after I graduated. It just didn't end up being what I wanted to do professionally. I went on to get a master's degree in Public Administration, which is much more up my alley, though truth be told, I am not working in that field either at the moment and do not know if I ever will. Regardless of if I make money with those degrees though, I will always use the skills I acquired either in church responsibilities or volunteering in the community or in raising my family. I don't regret a moment of the time and energy I put into both degrees. Education is an amazing thing.

Back in the day when I was still working on my undergrad, we used a lot of the Boy Scouts of America's content for some of our classes. At that point I knew the proper workings of a Boy Scout troop of any age and type like the back of my hand. I always wondered when and how I would have that part of my personal skill set drawn upon by church responsibilities. I figured someday I would be called into Cub Scouts. At the time that didn't sound that exciting, but eight years later (omg, I can't believe that's the case, but it really has been that long since I graduated from college the first time) I have a different perspective on life and different priorities. So when I was asked to meet with a member of my ward's bishopric a few weeks ago, I was interested to see what they would ask me to do. I've been serving in the Relief Society presidency for the past year, but it was time to reorganize. I was doing activities there, which is often where I'm called as a result of being an event planner for three years after my undergrad, but I was ready for a change. I've felt like invariably I get called into that type of calling because it's something I'm good at, but I had a new thought recently. A good chunk of the responsibilities we are asked to fulfill in the church turn out to be activities callings. Working with the youth almost always involves planning events. Teaching a primary class is a weekly opportunity to rediscover your imagination and figure out ways to keep kids entertained and learning. So maybe it's more that I'm willing to serve and there are lots of opportunities for those kinds of callings than how well I plan activities.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Back to my new calling. I laughed out loud when the member of the bishopric asked me to be a Cub Scout Den Leader. I'm pretty far removed from that undergrad degree now and few people know about it. I'm surprised it took so long to be asked to do this, but I'm pretty excited about it. No Sunday responsibilities, just a one night a week evening for some of the 8-11 year olds. With two and nearly three little ones, being flexible at church on Sunday will be really nice. Heck, time flies by. It won't be that long before my own kids are in that age group. Five years isn't that much time. So here I am, coming full circle finally eight years later to my RMYL roots. It's going to be fun and I'm sure plenty crazy. I can handle that. I enjoyed Relief Society, but I'm happy to move onto a less gravity filled calling that will just be fun. Now I just need to brush up on my memories of how the heck Cub Scouts works and maybe go shopping for one of those super stylish yellow Scout uniform shirts. lol. Good times.

Finished room

I finished, minus a final couple coats of polyurethane, Genevieve's bed this week. It really finishes off their room. She loves it. With the addition of a quilt my grandma made me when I was 16, the colors look much better. We ought to have a quilt of some sort to spruce up Spencer's bed, plus some new sheets that are more fun colors, but otherwise their new beds are done. He probably wouldn't keep a quilt on now anyway, so it's not a big deal, but I like having more color in there than there currently is.

It's good timing that I finished because I just passed the honeymoon phase of my pregnancy where I felt great most of the time and now am in the six-week slog to the finish where I'm pretty uncomfortable most of the time. It's not really that exciting, but hey, it's June 1st and he's due early-ish next month, so that helps my mental game!

In other random news I'm pretty sure my tomato plants are bigger right now and have more tomatoes on them than we got the entire last summer. Save or one they are all still green, but we are going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears this summer and I'm so excited!

I like to send pictures off to the kids' grandparents a couple times a year and I had a reminder pop up to do that this week. So I started scrolling through my pictures and realized I don't have a single picture of Genevieve smiling since Easter. Crazy kid! She's hard to pin down long enough to take a clear picture and adding a smile to that makes it even tougher. But I took a couple snapshots this week and they turned out cute. The giraffe photo bombing the first picture is Spencer's current favorite stuffed animal. That's right, Spencer's. Genevieve loves it too, but that doesn't surprise me. She has always liked stuffed animals and dolls and action figures and such. Spencer not so much. But he loves this thing with all his heart and it gets integrated into his play all the time now. I like it. In fact it turns out we have a lot of giraffe figures and the kids have both latched onto them as their current favorite animal. Kind of fun.