Ready

Well, sort of.  Actually, not really ready at all.  But in my mind I'm ready.  Adding this baby to our home has tipped the scales and landed us in near chaos.  Diapers and clothes are everywhere, (except for when you need them.)  It's either time to move, or time to figure out how to add yet another person to this one bedroom apartment.  Thanks to Chris' new (second) job moving is now an option.  Yay!
There's a lot of excitement a-brewing up in here and tomorrow is the big day, although you can't tell by looking at the place.  Chris and I sat on the couch and laughed at how much more work there is to do, but I think he'll be surprised when he gets home tomorrow.  I can do this!!!  I have boxes.  I have tape.  I have packing paper.  I have a big fat marker.  I have rice krispie treats.  I also have no desire to pack in an organized way, so that should speed up the process.


Schedule:
Tonight:  Pack and eat treats.  (Eating entire pan acceptable)
Tomorrow:  Pack and have house ready by 2PM when some hired guys from craigslist come to move the heavy stuff.
The next day:  Get ready for chicken arrival.


Chickens!  CHICKENS!!!


We're getting four chickens for the back yard, and they lay an egg a day.  That's... let me see...  Four eggs per day!


We're so excited.


Also Excited For:
Laundry Chute
Fireplace
Four bedrooms
Two and a half baths
Fenced in back yard
Three minute drive to school
Canceling Chris' parking pass since he'll be biking to the hospital
Hardwood floors
A basement


FIREPLACE!  BATHROOMS! CHICKENS!


Will post pictures as soon as I find my camera, I guess it got packed already.

Will Dance for Smiles

Cake/Eagle

James and I made a cake...

 

And Matthew and I frosted it...

We spotted this Bald Eagle on our drive home from school...

 

Bald eagles always look irritated to me.

Cooper's Hawk

We spotted a cooper's hawk out our window and quick as a wink the boys threw on their coats and went out to get a closer look...

Sweet curious boys...

Lately Joseph says he want to be a naturalist when he grow up and I believe he'd be an excellent one.

I also went out to get a picture of the hawk, but as I got across the field, a snow mobile went by and scared it away.  (A different way of enjoying the outdoors I guess?)

James, One Month

11 pounds, 12 oz at the MD today...

 

Violin Recital

Sadly, this is the best picture I could get of all three of the boys in "their best"...

 

Joe getting ready in "the wings"...

Danny spent the recital in a constant blur...

And James gazed at my mom the whole time...

Joe was pretty happy with his performance except for one blip at the very end:

A Breif Synopsis of the Last Few Weeks

December 10th-  James born.

Dec 12-30-  Completed the following projects (forgot to take pictures of the sewing projects):  

• Christmas cookies, Peppermint bark
• Six "Everything Totes" from Weekend Sewing
• Two "Red Riding Hood Capes" from Little Things to Sew
• Three flax and lavender hot packs made from old dress shirts

Dec 31-  James develops fever, instructed to go to the ER by on-call MD.  Fever continues, James has a chest x-ray, nasal swab, spinal tap, gets catheterized, gets an IV and is admitted to the hospital for 48 hours for observation and IV antibiotics.  I stay with him the whole time.  He remained his peaceful sleepy self through the whole ordeal and I watched the first season of Downton Abbey.

Jan 2nd-  James discharged from hospital, we rush home, I have just enough time to pack a bag and we leave for the airport, just making it to the gate in time for the final boarding call.

Jan 2nd-8th-  Back to back social events.

Jan 7th (the night before we return home to MI)-  Danny flings himself across the bath tub and bangs head on faucet...  requires four stitches in head.  Return home from the ER at 10pm.

Jan 8th-  Arrive at airport with plenty of time!  Return to MI.

Jan 9th-  Chris works 19 days in a row.

Jan 14-  Sign lease for new house.  (More on this later, very exciting!) 

Jan 16-20-  Matthew, Chris and I have the stomach flu.  I discover that my milk lets down every time I throw up, making me doubly dehydrated.  All the boys also get a wicked cold, Danny has to go back on his inhaler.  Begin packing for move on Feb 1st.

Happy.

I love having babies.  I just love being around babies.  I love having them in the house.  I love walking by James in the bassinet and seeing him kick his little fat legs and waving his arms.  He's still so new that when I return to him from something else (like laundry, getting one of his brothers dressed, etc.) I still feel a little surprised when I see him there, doing his baby tai chi or maybe being perfectly still looking at the light.
I say to myself, "Oh!  It's you!"  I'm a little surprised, and at the same time it's like he's always been a part of this family.
Lately I've been marveling at him when he's up at night (although I expect those feelings could switch to feelings of dread as I accumulate more sleepless nights.)
This baby makes me happy and I could stare at him all day.  It's funny little things that I enjoy about him, like the color of his legs and the wrinkles in his fingers.

Happy.

I wasn't certain I was going to feel this way when I was pregnant.  When I think back to the feelings I had early on, when I realized I was pregnant AGAIN, and then when we found out we were pregnant with a boy, AGAIN, I can still understand those feelings, but I don't have them anymore (thankfully.)  I cried, sometimes privately, sometimes to friends, almost every day for the first two thirds of the pregnancy for the daughter that I would never have, for the irresponsible-ness of an unplanned pregnancy, and that made me feel like a jerk.  So on top of feeling sad, disappointed, heartbroken, I was also sad, disappointed and heartbroken for having those feelings.   
Then at the beginning of the third trimester I decided I should try harder to be okay with everything, so I started practicing feeling differently.  And by the end of the pregnancy, I was feeling nervous, but pretty much good and accepting about the whole thing.  Then, when I was in labor, something unexpected happened.  I'm not a crier in labor, I'm more of a disappear-er.  There's this moment for me when, in my mind, I hear myself say (to myself,) "I'm going now" and that's when labor gets really, really hard.  But with James' labor, right before that moment, I had a big cry.  It was a quiet, releasing, transforming kind of cry like I've never had before.  Right after he was born, I was kind of like, "What was THAT all about?" Now I realize I was just letting go of the last of those feelings of turmoil that I had stuffed.  I had stuffed them in my attempt to "practice" feeling better but they rose up and washed over me and then...  they just washed away.

Anyway, like I said, thankfully, I don't feel that way anymore.  I'm happy about this little guy.  And he smells good too.