Sunday, February 20, 2011

Family Home Evening

Brian and Christine are ready to welcome a new baby boy very soon. On Monday night they held family home evening with four year old Lincoln and two year old Natalie. The subject of the evening was very important--swaddling. Lincoln really, really loved to be swaddled.
So out came the baby dolls and stuffed animals. All were swaddled and reswaddled. Then Lincoln and Natalie got swaddled. Brian and Christine reported that big kids don't really swaddle all that well. Brian would pick them up and sing to them to soothe them. It didn't work any more.
My favorite quote was from Lincoln. "Hey, I can't move my arms!"
To finish off the evening Brian got swaddled. It sounded more like a self-made burrito to me. Lincoln and Natalie tried to lift him up. It sounds like one of those nights that I would have liked to have been a bug on the wall to observe.
Of course the very best thing for this Grandma is that I know the new little brother will certainly be loved and well taken care of!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Happy Birthday Robert!

Our second son Robert is 36 today. He is married and he and his wife have five really cute kids.
Lon and I were reminiscing (and laughing way too much) about what was going on 36 years ago..
First of all Lon was working swing shift at Boise Cascade. I had pre-eclampsia and had been in the hospital for three or four days. The nurses were yelling at me to eat more. I weigh more right now than I did then. They said he would weigh three or four pounds. I was getting (and eating) double portions of everything. They treated the pre-eclampsia with phenobarbital. It turned me into a loopy cream puff.
Alan was under Grandma's care. She had broken her middle finger. I don't remember exactly how, but it involved Ripper (their Great Dane) and the back porch. True to form, she didn't go to the doctor, but went to Walgreen's and bought a splint. She was pretty mortified because she looked like she was flipping everyone off, but she wore it,
I was released from the hospital just before lunch, and being starving, we stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant. We were thoroughly enjoying our Shopper's Special, and by golly, labor began.
My Mom was younger than I am today. I know she was looking for a break, but instead she got the phone call that we were going back to the hospital. Alan was a very big and active 21 month old, and it was very difficult to change to his diapers with a splint. I was using cloth diapers, but Grandma was done with them. The disposable diapers didn't have tapes--you had to use pins, and it was so hard to stick those pins through those thick diapers! I felt so bad, but Robert was not patient at all!
We got to the hospital and we waited and waited, Just before midnight the took me to the delivery room. The big conversation was whether the tenth or eleventh would be his birthday. At five minutes to midnight we got our sweet little boy. He did turn out to be our smallest baby at seven pounds and six ounces.
We were so happy to get this sweet active little guy. He was the one who made us old and kept us young at the same time! Happy Birthday!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Lab results

I got a week off from having blood drawn. Even a week break made a difference in my poor old veins (no bruise, either). The results were stable or very slightly creeping to normal values. The next step is to start begging the doctors to go every third week! So grateful for everything.