Too funny...

We went to lunch with Daddy at his work today and got home a bit late... so Caroline had "rest time" with books instead of a nap. Apparently she had other plans... fast asleep in a pile of books! When I think back to the days of nursing her to sleep, wondering if she'd ever be able to fall asleep by herself, and then I see this, it makes me smile in a bittersweet way.

La Leche League Area Conference 2008

We attended this year's LLL conference in Helen, Georgia, at Unicoi State Park. This was the second year the conference was held in this beautiful setting. I went to many sessions ang gained lots of helful information. Chris entertained Caroline and took her to a few sessions led by park rangers as well as some of the adult sessions, too. Cecilia hung out with me, of course. We had a picnic dinner one evening, with yummy sandwiches - homemade bread, even! The kids enjoyed looking at the river and playing on the playground. Cecilia enjoyed the picnic in her own way:

After the picnic, we headed back to the lodge for the Bluegrass Jamboree (or Jambaroo, as Caroline called it). Adults enjoyed the music while the kids enjoyed dancing together.

Cecilia just rode around with me to all the sessions, napping when she felt like it. Here she is after one of my Saturday sessions:

Saturday evening, we had a new leader induction ceremony at the lake. I officially became a leader right after Christmas, so I was included in the ceremony. There were several new leaders this year! We all gathered on the shore of the lake. Seven candles on a wreath were lit to represent the seven founders of La Leche League. The wreath was placed on the lake, where it floated out a little ways (some of the older kids had fun retrieving it later!). Then each new leader received her pin and placed a candle in the water at the shore as her sponsoring leader threw a pebble into the lake to illustrate the "ripple effect" of how new leaders are trained by other leaders, and La Leche League has spread across th world in the last 50 years. Marian Tompson, one of the original seven leaders, was there. She handed me my pin, so that was really special... one of the founders who'd begun this organization 50 years previous was now giving me my pin as a new leader!

Afte the ceremony, we gathered in a picnic shelter near the lake and had Girl Scout cookies. Caroline made a friend and had a lot of fun playing with her.


On Sunday, we enjoyed walking around Helen for a bit before heading home. We went to the bakery and bought some pastries as a treat, and we went into several interesting shops, including the toy store. which has unique toys, several wooden ones that are handmade on site. Helen is such a fun little town, and it will be a great place to come when the girls are older and we can take them tubing in the river here!

What a fun and educational weekend!!

Why my babies sleep with me

1. It makes nighttime nursings so much easier. Just laying there, neither of us has to change position... no getting up and sitting in a rocking chair, trying to keep myself from falling asleep while sitting up. This way, we can both sleep while she eats!
2. Baby doesn't wake all the way up, and therefore I can settle her back to sleep quicker. No waiting until she's all the way awake, then going across the hallway into her room. She doesn't have a chance to get fully awakened and upset this way.
3. I'm lazy. I don't like to get up at night. I already have to do that once or twice to go to the bathroom, so I like limiting my up-and-down to that.
4. I believe, from all I have read about it, that babies were biologically designed to sleep next to their mothers. Infants have irregular breathing paterns, and the mature breahing pattern of the mother in close proximity helps to keep the baby breathing normally, thus reducing the risk of SIDS. Mothers have been shown to be so in tune with their babies when sleeping together that they will awaken just before their babies do, and this in-tuneness also ensures that a mother will typically wake if her baby experiences a stop-breathing episode. See more about this from James McKenna.
5. It helps with bonding. I can stay close to my baby all night, giving her warmth and skin-to-skin contact. A newborn doesn't really get it that she is not part of her mother - they have been inseperable for nine months, and it's going to take a while for baby to figure out that they are actually two separate people! Babies have no object permanence in the early months... no understanding of the fact that just because mom isn't visible, she still exists somewhere.
6. We don't have to deal with this mixing up of days andnights business. Baby learns pretty quickly that it's nighttime because mom and dad are laying in bed sleeping.
7. They won't want to sleep with me when they're 14. My three year old asked to sleep in her own room shortly after she turned two. And who wouldn't melt waking up next to this every day?

Cecilia's Baptism

Cecilia was baptized today! We had to wait until Lent was over since our parish does not perform baptisms during that time, and Cecilia was only about a week old when Lent began... not really enough time to get her baptized then. So, we had her baptized at the first opportunity after Lent, which was March 30. Deacon Stu performed the baptism on sleeping Cecilia, while both sets of grandparents and all the uncles and aunt watched. Uncle Tim is the godfather - you can see him standing with us in this photo.

Cecilia didn't mind the water at all!

Here is our whole family after Mass with the newest member of the family of Christ!

Cecilia poses (as much as a two month old can pose) with Uncle Tim.

After the Mass, we headed back to our house for the baptism party! We had help from the grandparents in getting the food together. We had fruit salad, a raw veggie platter with dip, Chick-fil-A chicken salad on croissants, shrimp and grits, and a cake, of course! My mother in law made the veggie and fruit dishes, and my mom made the shrimp and grits (her idea!) and got the cake from Costco. Costco has *amazing* cakes!!

Caroline and I set up the table for the party the day before. We put out the white tablecloth on the table where we'd serve the food buffet-style. Then we made some tissue paper flowers together, also white. The use of white symbolizes purity - thus, white table, flowers, cake, gown... I thought it would be nice to put out both girls' baptismal candles... Caroline's is the one on the right, and we brought Cecilia's home from church and put it in the candle holder on the left. I also hung Cecilia's little cross (which isn't on a bedroom wall since she doesn't have a bedroom yet) on the vase - if you look closely in this photo you can see it. Uncle Tim got it for Cecilia from Mount Saint Mary's in Baltimore and had it blessed by a priest.


Caroline also colored this picture of a baptism and loaned us her pink cross from her bedroom. It added nicely to the decor for the occasion.


We had a wonderful Sunday welcoming Cecilia into the Catholic faith. It was wonderful to be able to celebrate with all our family. Welcome to the Church, Cecilia Clare! I pray that I will have the wisdom to share our beautiful faith with you as you grow.

Arts and Crafts with Caroline

This was my mom's idea, from her many years of working in preschools. She had Caroline help her dye eggs for Easter, and then she gave us the shells in a baggie to bring home. We crushed them up and then used a paintbrush to spread glue on a piece of paper. Then Caroline pressed the eggshells down onto the glue. A little messy, but the end product was very pretty.

Three year old drawings

Caroline drew these yesterday, just a few days after turning three. It is interesting how she's begun to draw things that actually look like something! The two of these look very similar, but as you can see, I labeled them so you can tell the difference. Cats are her favorite thing to draw. She does the face first, then eyes, nose, mouth, and whiskers. Sometimes there are extra lines for ears and sometimes not.

Dutch is my brother Stephen's dog. Apparently, he has whiskers too.

Easter 2008

We went to my parents' house for Easter. We attended Mass with them and then Caroline looked for Easter eggs hidden by Grampa and Daddy. Gramma bought Caroline's dress for her earlier this year. Easter was early again this year, just as it was the year Caroline was born. Supposedly, it will not be this early again for some number of decades!

Aside from hunting for eggs, Caroline's other favorite activity this year was making Resurrection Rolls. We made a basic bread dough recipe to start (I made a whole wheat dough although the recipe says use white - they turned out fine). We then took large marshmallows and dipped them in melted butter, then rolled them in a little cinnamon-sugar mixture. I explained to Caroline that the marshmallow is like Jesus, and the butter and cinnamon-sugar represent the oils and spices they used to anoint his body before they laid him in the tomb. Then we wrapped a piece of dough around each marshmallow, which represents the tomb. We baked them in the oven - we did this on Good Friday, the day before we went to my parents' house - and then we ate them on Easter morning with our breakfast. When we bit into the rolls, they were hollow - the tomb was empty! I thought it was a neat idea, and Caroline really seemed to "get" it.

Grampa hid the eggs in some of his old clever hiding places where he used to hide them for my brothers and me. They did several hunts, one where he hid all the eggs along the bushes in front of the house - all in plain view, one after another. The basket was not only my Easter basket when I was little, but it was also my mom's! I don't know what we'll use for Cecilia's basket...

Happy Easter!!

Caroline's 3rd Birthday

Wow - I can't believe she's already three years old! Caroline is growing up quickly. For her birthday this year, we had a modest family celebration at home with just Mommy, Daddy, and Cecilia. She will get to celebrate a little more next week when all the relatives come for Cecilia's baptism.

First, Caroline opened presents. She got a puzzle and a playsilk (pictured below), which she can use for anything from a baby blanket to a skirt to a cape.

The big gift from us was her new comforter for her bed. Her bedroom walls are blue, and we found this pretty comforter at Target... it is mostly purple with some blue in it. Here she is after going into her room to discover her new gift! Her Gran has made a matching valance and throw pillow for her, which she'll bring next week.

Caroline had been telling me that she wanted a cake with "pink sugar icing." She got this phrase from the Winnie-the-Pooh book. So I made strawberry frosting, using some frozen strawberries to get the pink color. Caroline had asked for a chocolate cake. The frosting ended up tasting really good on chocolate cake!

Wearing the birthday hat and getting ready to blow out her three candles... she was very excited! We all enjoyed eating the birthday cake (well, except for Cecilia).

Happy birthday, Caroline!

Welcome, Cecilia Clare!

I am finally getting around to writing Cecilia's birth story, so I will back date this post to reflect the actual date she was born...

I was having contractions off and on for a few days... Thursday, and then all day Friday (my due date). They were easy for me to work through and would be consistent for a bit and then fade away for many hours. Friday afternoon, my brother Tim came over from Berry, where he is a student. He was "on call" to come stay with Caroline when we were ready to go to the hospital. He came by to visit and could see that my labor wasn't really going anywhere... if I was even in labor at all at that point. We talked, relaxed, and I made myself some hot chocolate, which I craved (and indulged in!) throughout the end of my pregnancy.

That evening, contractions picked up again and stayed consistent at 10 to 15 minutes apart, but they were still really easy to breathe through. I got into the bathtub around 10:00 to see if that would slow them down. It didn't, so we thought maybe this was starting to be the real thing. They didn't get any worse, so we called Annette, our doula, to put her on standby. Then we went to bed to try to get some rest. We dozed between the contractions quite comfortably, waking every 15 minutes with a contraction for awhile. They slowed down a bit, and then I woke suddenly at 1:15, 30 minutes after the last contraction. The change was huge - I was suddenly having a very difficult time getting through these hard contractions!

I got up and onto the toilet, where I continued to have extremely difficult contractions every 2-3 minutes! Chris called our doula, and she said she was on the way. Then he called Tim. Chris helped me to the den, where I sat on the couch and tried to get through the contractions alone as Chris put our bag in the car. They were coming so fast - I really felt out of control, having gone from such easy contractions that were widely spaced to these intense ones that were right on top of each other!

I told Chris he better call Annette and ask her to meet us at the hospital instead of coming to the house. Tim arrived quickly, and he seemed to be able to tell immediately that I was in a much more serious state of labor than I'd been when he saw me earlier. Chris helped me to the car and we were off.

After an uneventful ten minute drive, we pulled up under the covered entryway. Chris parked at the curb, and he went in to get a wheelchair for me. Apparently I am unable to make it to the hospital in time to walk in on my own - it is always far too intense once I get there. This time I had really wanted to not be pushing it so close to the wire, but it was really out of my hands! A security guard escorted us to the elevators and up to the maternity floor, where Annette had just arrived.

We went into the triage room despite my protests of, "I'm ready to push!" [I had skipped triage last time around because they just wanted to get me into a room pronto!] But this time they checked me in triage and said I was at 9. Okay, I thought, almost there - pretty good! It was really uncomfortable having to move onto the bed and then off again, then back onto another bed when they took me to the delivery room.

We happened to get the "new" delivery room... they'd only had ten rooms and then recently added this one to give them eleven in all. It also had a new bed, which was of a different design than the other delivery beds. The nurses attempted to break the bed down, and it basically fell apart on them. They were joking about how they could never figure this bed out. I remember vaguely that I thought it was funny... unfortunately, not much else they did was funny.

I kept telling them I really thought I needed to push, and they were trying to get me to sign paperwork. They even had me sign a waiver declining the baby's Hep B shot, which I thought was a little annoying since the baby wasn't even out yet - although she sure wanted to be! When Caroline was born, I skipped all the paperwork, so this was irritating that they couldn't wait this time. Then they hit me with a huge surprise: "We need to start your IV since you tested positive for group b strep." They had not told me this after my test at the OB's office three weeks prior, so I assumed I had tested negative. I was concerned because I hadn't had time to research group b strep at all, so all I could do was consent to the IV.

When I insisted again that I wanted to push, a nurse checked me and said, "Oh no, honey, you're only at 8." Annette suggested that I lay on my side and try a very little push, which is the position in which I wanted to try pushing, and get checked again that way. The OB who was on call, Dr. Jarvis, checked me this time and said I could push. Apparently my change in position made it easier to feel that I was in fact fully dilated.

I began pushing, which came easier than it had the first time... I remembered what to do the second time around! Chris stood next to me, and I used him to support myself by wrapping an arm around his shoulder. I felt like I really needed that support and wouldn't let him move to catch the baby. A nurse was supporting my upper leg, and I remember yelling at her a few times to hold my leg better, ha ha... she wasn't giving it adequate support.

With one push, Dr. Jarvis told me, "Now, you look like you're going to tear here, so I ca cut it to control the tear bettter... nevermind," as I pushed and tore. It was just the little spot that had healed badly from my first birth, not a big tear at all.

Twenty minutes of pushing and out came Cecilia... with one push she was crowning, and with the next push she was born up to her ribcage. It was 3:25 am. She came out screaming and was placed on my chest, still screaming. Chris cut the cord. She screamed for a long while before she settled in to nurse and cuddle. So pink, so round and pudgy! A beautiful little bundle of perfection!

A couple things to remember but that I don't want to dwell on... all the postpartum rooms were full, so we had to spend about six hours in the delivery room (and that delivery bed was NOT intended to be slept on!). None of the nurses remembered to dry Cecilia off after the birth, so her body temp dropped and they insisted she go under the heat lamps for a couple hours rather than just staying skin-to-skin with me. Overall, I was not happy with a lot of the hospital staff. They were much more friendly and accommodating when Caroline was born there three years prior. If blessed with a third baby, I'm wanting a homebirth!

Welcome to the world, Cecilia Clare Lewis!

St. Nicholas Day

Caroline and I celebrated St. Nicholas Day by making some traditional cookies. I found this cookie cutter online but didn't have time to order it, so I just cut a shape out of cardboard, which we traced onto the dough with a knife. Caroline really enjoyed rolling out the dough and making her own little cookies. This is the recipe we used for St. Nikolaus Speculatius (Kris Kringel) Cookies, except I subbed more butter for the shortening. We made a lot of St. Nicholases... we gave them to Uncle Tim and to Daddy to take to work. We made them the day before so they'd be ready to give out on the 6th. This is something I'd like to do each year as a family tradition. I'm interested in trying to incorporate traditions throughout the liturgical year. I am starting small, since I have young children. I figure we can always add other things as the years go on and the children get older and more capable of things.

We also had a special feast for dinner and added a St. Nicholas blessing to our mealtime prayer. We got out the red Christmas-y placemats to use during this otherwise somber season of Advent. Caroline awoke to find chocolate coins in her shoe, too!