One of those "Circle of Life" Kind of Posts

Sugarpop and I met nine years ago. We have been married for over six years. We have lived in our house for those six years. Our eldest child, the Oh, is four and a half. Our middle, the Happy Elf, is two and four months, and our little girl Daisy (aka Dew Drop) is five weeks old. 

Her short time in our lives has gone by so fast and we are cognisant of how quickly the years will go by. 

Monday last I was home in the afternoon with the boys when there was a knock on the door. A woman of about 60 was at the door with a double-paper bag full of baby food in jars. She said she was a neighbor from around the corner and had heard we had a new member of our family. She handed me the bag and said there was a note inside. I thanked her and she left.

I set the bag by the door and went back to playing with the kids. It was only later that I read the note. This is what it said.

Hello. I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name. We've spoken to each other on rare occasions. I'm sure you'd recognize me if you saw me--very short white hair. I would walk my dad around the block when he was still with us. We'd bring his beagle with us. She passed before last Christmas.

Pop joined her a few weeks ago. Because of pop's difficulty swallowing, we sometimes fed him baby food.

I noticed you have a new addition to your household. Congratulations!  Maybe you could use this? 

As we were welcoming Dew Drop into our lives, she was saying goodbye to her father from her life. So I savor this day, this moment, and I am thankful.

What a Month!

Today our daughter turns one month old. It also marks a month since my last post. Yikes! But my work gave me two weeks of family leave and it's taken the month to settle into the pace of three kids.

Her name is Daisy. Sugarpop wanted a flower name and we came to the name Daisy and it just made us smile. And Sugarpop's favorite flower is the Gerber Daisy. Grace is her middle name and it's a spiritual concept very meaningful to Sugarpop.

But let me tell you, from this side of the fence, three is pretty fun. The boys, the Oh and Happy Elf, are loving there sister, smothering her with kisses and always wanting to hold her. We've become more of a family because of our little girl. And not just because as parents we are managing a trio instead of a duo. We feel fuller, knowing that the brothers have a sister, the sister has brothers, and we are blessed with sons and a daughter. It's just enough of happy controlled chaos that we can manage and continue to laugh. Even when Daisy releases her ballistic cry, the corn dogs in the oven are burning, and the Oh has just dropped a duce in his Batman skivvies, what can you do but laugh.

Sugarpop has been a champ. Radically sleep-deprived and left with the kids from 6 a.m.until I come home from work around 3:30. Her hormones pendulating on their destination to normalcy, while breastfeeding, pumping her milk for a surplus supply, and writing chapter 2 of her dissertation--she manages her upbeat disposition.

To paraphrase a song by Bowling for Soup: life with three kids "is not so bad at all!"

It's A Girl!

July 2, 2008

Posting from the hospital . . . Sugarpop's water broke at 3:15 am. Left for the hospital at 4:00. Route to hospital was blocked by train in the railroad crossing, but we rerouted and got to the hospital by 4:15 (my top speed through city streets approached 60 mph).

Name: Daisy (Meaning: Day's Eye)
Delivery . . . 5:12 am
Weight: 7 lbs 10 oz
Length: 20"
Sugarpop: Doing great "ready" to go home, but have to stay 48 hours.
Everydaydad: "Over the moon with joy!"

Pictures to follow when I can get them downloaded!

Backflip Mamma

Saturday had Sugarpop, Oh*, Happy Elf, and I traveling to visit my brother and his family in Bloomington/Normal. The occasion was June birthdays of which I am a celebratee, along with two nieces.

We arrived around one and it was decided that the kids and all available parents, aunts, and uncles would attend. Sugarpop came along with her fancy maternity swim suit even though I knew her swollen feet and aching uterus longed to stay behind. But with Happy Elf and Oh (both 2 and 4 respectively and the youngest of the swim group) we needed all the supervising we could get.

I don't know what the pool was called that we went to, but it has a submarine in the children's pool so we've always called it the Submarine Pool. There is one thing one must know about the children's pool---the water is freezing! Not just a refreshing temperature on a hot summer's day. I'm talking Looney Tunes freezing where if you just stuck a toe in your whole body would turn to ice, tip over, and shatter into thousands of tiny icicles.

The boys braved it as only kids know how . . . they're having too much fun to be bothered with the temperature of the water. Me? I was Daddy-Sissy-Swimsuit. Whenever the wind blew water from the water spouting periscope I flinched and ran away trying to find a mist free zone.

Thankfully the other pools were much warmer and we spent the better part of our time there frolicking in the 3' 6" to 5' 6" depth pool. The Oh and Happy Elf were having fun. They love to jump in off of the side and there was always a willing cousin there, with us watching over them, to catch them and turn them back to swim to the side.

A couple of the cousins, including the Oh, wanted to go off the diving board. The diving well is right next to the pool we were in so we were able to watch them go off the board from where we were at. 

Waiting in line were two sisters probably about 3 and 5 years old. They had matching suits and matching flotation vests. They'd each walk to the end of the board and then plop into the water; then kick back to the ladder to do it all over again. Watching them was their mother fitting nicely into her white bikini. Se stood and watched like a nervous mother wondering if she was letting her kids out of the safety zone that we parents construct  around our kids.

The Oh and cousins jumped off the board a few times and then rejoined us in the pool. Shortly after we noticed that bikini mom was on the board. We watched and wondered what she was going to do. She kind of cautiously approached the edge of the board and we thought, "Isn't that cute, she's going to jump in like her kids." Then she suddenly turned around and balanced on the edge of the board with her toes and proceeded to due a very decent back-flip. She rung her hair out while waiting in line and when it was her turn she did another back flip.

We were all impressed and it was fun to watch a mom who still thinks and shows to others that she is "all that". 

So here's to you "Backflip-Bikini-Mom". When others are so self conscious of their bodies that they keep their chin and below beneath the waterline of the pool you confidently "strut your stuff" and show that even after pregnancies and mini-vans you've still got it!

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* Changing the O's blog name to the Oh, because that's the expression he's been using lately. 

O: "Do I have school today?"

Parent: "No O you're on a summer break."

O:  "Oohhh."

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Four o'clock today and I drop Sugarpop off at the circle drive of the clinic of the baby doctor. We were right on time, but I had to go park the car and then trek back to the clinic. Construction around the clinic has reshaped and relocated the entrance several times in the past 9 months and we are forced to the clinic down a chain link fence corridor. I took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor. I always think I'm in better shape than I am (and I'm not). Those last few stairs always do be in!

I'm hustling because for most of the visits we've been called back right on time and I didn't want to face a Sugarpop-less waiting room and then try to find her amidst the rooms of crinkly papered exam tables and paired knees pointing to the ceiling tiles.

But I enter the waiting room to find her sitting in a chair. The room is crowded with every gal seemingly near full-term. Only two doctors are running late; but HUZZAH! ours isn't on the list. I take a seat next to Sugarpop and we start discussing middle names (I'll post on that later). Every time the door opens we expect to hear us called, but after eight callouts we are still sitting. It's nearing 5 o'clock and our name is finally called. It's a new nurse and she does the usually routine (blood pressure, urine test, baby's heartbeat--a nice calorie burning 142 bpm) and leaves. Normally we may have a 15 minute wait until the doctor comes in, but 30 minutes pass and nobody. I step out into the hall and find Sugarpop's P.A. She comes into the room to chat for a minute, but it's now after five and she's heading home. 

We hear muted "Have a good night." "See you tomorrow." "I'm so glad tomorrow's Friday!" through our door and I poke my head out again and ask a nurse if we've been forgotten. "Oh, no we won't leave you overnight, we're just really stacked up right now." 

I return to the exam room and Sugarpop has depantsed and is wrapped in a sheet on her bottom half. We are now one hour and forty-five minutes into our visit. We're not upset. The wife is a little uncomfortable on the exam table and we ponder whether it's proper etiquette for a patient naked and wrapped in a sheet to sit on the doctor's chair. W decides not to and stretches out on the exam table.

I've discovered that I can carry on a normal conversation with my togaed, pregnant wife, in a doctor's exam room surrounded by pamphlets on strep B and clamidia, for approximately one hour, seventeen minutes, and forty-nine seconds. Then I just stop. I've got nothing. Nothing to say. Nothing to add. Again not upset, just shutting down. I entertain Sugarpop for the next 30 minutes by reading to hear from an Osteoporosis pamphlet about an 81 year old widow named Anne. It starts out with her fracturing her hip and becoming afraid to go out and be active like she once was--thereby isolating herself from her friends. Don't worry. By the end of the tale Anne has made a full recovery and pamphlet closes with a picture of her playing shuffle board.

For the next 20 minutes I read to W from the June 2007 O magazine about the 4 Love Types. We can't decide if we are Builder, Navigator, Explorer, or Director. Thanks for nothing Oprah!

After bumming about not discovering our Love Type we hear a wrap on the door and it's the doctor. She apologizes and says today is just crazy. We've known the good doctor for years--the W taught her kids in school--so we chat a bit and then the doc gets down to business.

End result? Because we were in the waiting/exam rooms for 1/10 of an entire day the W has dilated to 2 cm getting close to 3. Last week she was less than one. Gotta think all that dilatin' happened while we waited.

And though we are no closer to knowing our true Oprah sanctioned Love Type, today we moved a couple of centimeters closer to meeting our baby.

Home Stretched

According to my cipherin' the W is about two weeks from birthing our bambina (due date July 11th). The end is in sight! We've taken the "Birthin' ur Baby" refresher course; filled a closet and a dresser with lots of pink girlie things (what are these hair clips and hair bows and how do you install them?); packed the bag; prepped the boys on who's going to stay with them when the baby is ready to be born; and piled infant diapers next to the Happy Elf's diapers on the changing table.

Still to do: buy new digital camera; install co-sleeper next to our bed; re-review our birth plan and practice some breathing techniques that work for the W in labor; and create a label for W during labor that says: "Hello! Give Me Nubain!"

So we are turning into the home stretch and in just a few days I'll be an everyday dad of three! And I realize that the stretch part extends to our budget, living space, shelf space, car space, and just about every facet of our life. 

And I love it.

Can't wait to meet you Lil' Dragon (name that O originally suggested for his baby sister). Mom will be doing all the hard work, but you'll come to find that I'm always standing by her.

Camp Cousin

For the past 4 years the W and I have hosted any and all cousins of our two boys at our house for an extended weekend that we have called "Camp Cousin".

The boys, the O and Happy Elf, have a total of nine cousins. Two live in New Jersey, one in Chicago, one in Texas and the rest in Bloomington/Normal.

This year our numbers are down a bit, but we are hosting four cousins from Bloomington and, for a few hours, the 5 month old cousin from Chicago. The O and Happy Elf love, love, love their cousins, or "the kids" as O calls them. O spent his first two years being cared for during the day by my sis-in-law so he was with "the kids" in the morning before school and for a few hours after they got home from school. So though at the time he was our only child, in his mind he was growing up as one of seven!

We try to make camp cousin as "campy" as possible. Good meals, arts & crafts, talent show, swimming (it's nice that the W's parents have a pool). Some years we camp in tents in the backyard. This year we are in the house as the W and lumpy ground under a tent was not going to happen. The past few years we have done tie dye shirts and this year we added the creation of a camp flag and window art with these cool "write on glass" markers.

Today was our first full day and consisted of a big camp breakfast, tie-dye, camp flag-raising ceremony, swimming, quiet time (take a nap or read a book), and pizza, park, and a movie and root beer floats to close the day.

Tomorrow are trips to the Farmer's Market with all of us wearing our tie-dye shirts, Taste of C-U, and we take over the in-laws house for the afternoon and night to have our pool-party/movie night. Movie night is extra fun because we have "concessions". Popcorn, candy, soda, nachos---all the snacks. The kids make signs and have "cousin cash" (their faces on $1 and $5 bills) that they can spend only at the concession stand. They love creating the concession part more than watching the movie!

Sunday will bring a close to camp and we'll have a camp flag-lowering ceremony, a big farmer's breakfast, and singing and dancing to the soundtrack from "Hairspray" (this year's favorite soundtrack of choice).

Camp was an extra day this year and it is never long enough. We are all already planning for next year and the addition to camp of our soon to arrive baby girl!