Holding baby

Happy baby

The kids' Alabama grandma came to visit for a week, making everyone happy -- including baby M!

Baby's first bath

Baby's first bath at home (Oct 19). No, he didn't likt it, not one bit!

Pumpkin Patch

J jumping in the leaves that are finally beginning to fall:

And some pictures from our annual visit to the pumpkin patch to pick out Halloween pumpkins. This year we went earlier than usual, to get a better selection, and Susan's mom was along for the trip:

More baby pictures (Oct 11 - 16)

Here are more pictures of Baby M from last week:

Ah yes -- this last one -- no worries about the baby's safety here, as that's just J's doll, which she's holding in the sling in imitation of Dad. Well, kind of. I don't quite let the baby hang over the side!

Pictures of the New Baby!

"M" was born at 11:13 on Wednesday, October 7, after nine hours of labor (a record time around here). The pictures that follow need no introduction....

And finally, this short video from about 15 minutes after the birth. He cried just this hard for about twenty-five minutes after he was born -- after coming out "blue" and not breathing for a few seconds. Guess he was working hard to pink up!

Nope, no baby yet

Everyone is VERY anxious for the baby to come. Julia has been talking to Matthew (she's finally broken down and stopped addressing him with girls' names), wondering when he's going to come out. Everywhere I go -- the library, church, the grocery store, ECFE, Parenting with the Spirit, everywhere -- people ask about whether the baby has arrived. Nope.

We saw the midwife yesterday, though, and she says everything is lined up: the baby is at minus one station, and other signs all point to things being ready to go. We have our bags packed. Every night we hope for a full nights' sleep -- but we go to bed knowing we can't count on it.

In the midst of all this, we had fun tonight listening to the Twins game with our oldest son, who can't really follow the game too well over the radio (nope, we don't have cable), but who gets all excited anyway. It was a nail-biter -- twelve innings for the ALC championship, and the chance to be steamrolled by the New York Yankees. Woo-hoo!

So, we are excited anticipating the baby, but it was nice to do something completely non-baby related for a while.

I need to add something here--we were talking about the game (Twins vs. Tigers for the ALC) at dinner, and J's serious contribution was "Well, but I have good news. You know, they aren't REALLY Tigers."

--S

Baby's a comin'

So, S has been having mild contractions since mid-afternoon. They've tapered off a bit, which could be good . . . if this is "it," then it would help to get a full night's sleep.

I have continued to work on moving furniture around, cleaning the house, and pulling together baby stuff. It's been an insane amount of work that probably should have started three months ago, not three weeks ago -- but I probably kept putting it off because it's an insane amount of work!

More updates here as events warrant!

The Four Things Boys Like

B made the following announcement to me the other night:

"Boys like four things. Number one, food. Number two, video games. Number three, sports. Number four, more food."

I had recently read an article which quoted an old priest as saying that the three things dearest to any high school boy's heart were the Eucharist, baseball, and ice cream. I mentioned this to B. He was nonplussed for a moment, before saying -- "Well, besides those, I mean."