Recovery

This is what Abe does most of the time, and I do too. David has been taking care of the house and driving the kids around. It's easy to rest when the kids are at school. I'm glad I do not have a preschooler here to take care of too. I'm not quite sure how I did it before.

Abe is here!

On Wednesday I was still feeling quite a bit of contractions after my appointment, but since the ones the day before were false, I just told myself that these were too. At around 11pm they were getting very strong. David and I watched "Capote" until I couldn't stand it any longer (the contractions, not the movie). I called my friend at 1:40 am to come stay with the kids. We got to the hospital around 2:15 am. It took about 40 minutes for the nurse to hook up the IV and monitor. By the time she was done and ready to give me pain medication, I was pushing! My doctor was not there yet so the nurses asked me if I could hold off on pushing. I screamed "No!" at them. (I fell for that one when Tommy was born...terrible). So the nurses delivered the baby. He was born on Thursday March 23 at 3:05am, and was 8lbs 3oz. A good size, good thing he wasn't born any later. This was my first delivery without any medication. I actually felt nice and alert afterward which was different. Here I am a few minutes after the birth.


Abe is so cute and sweet. He stayed in my room most of the time. The next night he started snorting quite a bit because of some fluid in his sinuses or something. The Dr. said not to worry, since it is not in his lungs. He is still doing it occasionally, but it is much better today. Here is what it was like:

Baby, I've been waiting, I've been waiting night and day...

Despite me being SURE that I was going to have the baby yesterday, I am still pregnant today. I had light contractions all day yesterday, which apparently did NOTHING on the inside. I had a Dr. appointment today which confirmed that news.
The Dr. is letting me go until April 3, and I will be induced then if needed. Until then, I have to have another ultrasound on Tuesday next week and be put on the monitor on Wednesday, also I have to count how many times the baby kicks each day. All this work and extra tests just because I requested to "let nature take it's course".

Scary Bed - part 1

Night time was a very scary time when I was little. I remember many bad dreams and restless nights. It did not help either that the monsters under my bed were REAL! Here are two examples of that...

Growing up, there was a house around the corner from my family that had a lawn of clovers instead of grass. I used to enjoy walking around the corner and sitting on it. I wish I had one of these lawns now. It was so soft, no prickles or dead spots. One night I was dreaming of myself on this lawn, when I fell out of bed. I sat up on the floor and started to get up when I noticed the carpet I was stepping on was actually the clover lawn, and from under my bed I could distictly hear the sound of snakes. I scrambled back into bed, petrified.

When I was little my family often would go to the park to feed ducks. Mostly we just threw little pieces of bread in the water and watched them eat it. But sometimes there would be larger goose-like birds there that would just run up to us, excited to get the bread. I was always afraid that one of these birds would bite me in their haste to get the bread, although none actually did. One night I woke up and I could hear the sound of ducks quacking under my bed. I started to get out of bed, to tell someone. I sat up, and my legs dangled down the side of the bed, not touching the floor. All of a sudden I felt one of these "ducks" bite my foot! Not hard, just enough to scare me into not letting my legs dangle off the side of the bed for the next decade or so! True story!!

Interurban Railway Museum

Today we went to a park in Plano that had this railway museum on the property. It is a small museum but had a lot of information about the history of the railway in this area of Texas. Admission was free and we got a personal tour. Our tour guide kept the kids interest, engaging them in questions. We ended with a tour of an old train car that is kept outside the museum. This car had a post office inside as well as a passenger area. There were old advertisements inside the passenger area. I noticed that among the few food ads were ones for Campbells and Heinz. These were among the first commercialized foods in America. I had learned that while doing research for a speech I gave on the history of American food. http://www.croftpress.com/shannon/research/history/food/

Will it be 8 days or 18??

According to my ticker, I have only 8 days left until my due date. Too bad I can't just go with that. None of my babies have been "on time". Each one has been progressively later with my last one being born 10 days late. My current Dr. said that 10 days is her limit. Fine with me! It's also ok with me if Abe wants to be different and come early too.

Movies to sleep by.

About once a month I try to take the kids to see a movie at the dollar theater. About half the time I fall asleep during the movie. Today we saw "Chicken Little", and as hard as I tried, I could not keep my eyes open or my attention on the story. The same thing happened in "Home on the Range", "Madagascar", "The Spongebob Squarepants Movie" and a few others. They're just so boring!

Last month we saw "Zathura" which I stayed awake for and I would recommend. I also enjoyed "Series of Unfortunate Events" and "The Road to El Dorado".

I think it's funny that before I had kids, I would go out with friends to see "Beauty and the Beast" or "Aladdin". Now if I have a chance to watch a movie on my own, I would never waste it on a kids film.

We are past the TAKS test, and the kids passed.

Both Ada and Ben had to take the reading TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test this year. Children in certain grades have to take the test of a certain subject and pass it in order to pass onto the next grade level. However, it's not a normal test. There are all kinds of "tricks" built in to test thinking skills as well. Ben got stuck on one of these trick questions during his practice test and did not finish, and therefore did not pass. They took the real test a few weeks ago and we got the results today and both the kids did GREAT! I'm so proud of them.

The little red purse

This is a picture of my brother about 20 years ago, but it was the best photo I had that showed my little red purse (hanging on the closet door). This is a story about that purse that happened when I was about 7 or 8 years old and my sister was 9 or 10...

I had that little red purse but rarely used it, it just hung on the closet door. My sister and I each had our own marble collections. My sister had a few marbles that I liked and wanted for myself. I took them out of her bag, wrapped them in a tissue and stuck them in my purse. My plan was to leave them there for a while (I thought that maybe she would forget about them) and then I could "find" them later and they would be mine. Genius, I know!

Well imagine my shock and surprise a few days later when she picked up the red purse and brought it to me.

"Shannon, what's in this purse?" she asked me.
"I don't know, how should I know?" I answered defensively, not looking at her.
"Well open it."

I opened it slowly and still saw the wadded up tissue containing the marbles, but also a note. I pulled out the note, and read it. I don't remember anything of what it said, but it was a friendly note from my sister, signed and dated the previous year. She knew nothing of the marbles. For fun she was trying to make it seem like she had put a note in there a year ago and I had never received it until now.

Of course I knew she must have put that in there that day, since I had just been in the purse to hide her stolen property. I played along with her though so I would not have to confess. I don't really remember what happened next. I may have told her what I did or more likely, just snuck the marbles back in her bag. Either way, I knew I couldn't keep them. My sister taught me a lesson with her note without even meaning to.

What's wrong with this picture?

While flipping through a magazine last night I came across this ad for some sort of family vacation package. As you can see the catch phrase at the top is "Family Values" and there is a part near the bottom showing "Elmo & Friends". Ok, nothing wrong so far... Then at the VERY bottom there is a line of photos. Here is a close-up of one that disturbed me...

What does this have to do with a "family" vacation? I'm guessing that guy is not her husband. He appears to work at the resort. Now, I've never been to a spa, but are are you really supposed to take a bath in front of men you've never met? How is that relaxing?? When it comes to this vacation, count me O-U-T!