Merry Christmas

And how many of you other parents threatened multiple times to throw all the Christmas presents away in the past 24 hours? None? Just me and my children then. Great. 

Merry Christmas from two exhausted parents, two terrible toddlers, and one adorable baby.

Toddler Talk #10

While looking at pictures:
Grandpa Jim: What's that behind him?
T: A mountain.
GJ: What's that white stuff on the mountain?
T: Sugar.

While reading a book:
S: Why do you think she liked that one the most?
T: Probably because it's really nice and really neat and didn't have any crumbs on it.

When I realized we had a bit more explaining to do:
T: When you eat a lot of food again, we'll get another baby!

Randomly during bathtime:
T: When Jesus makes our eyes, he takes some water out of the bath and puts it on the desk and adds a color and then he makes our eyes.

While brushing her teeth:
J: Keep going. You only brushed for like 15 seconds.
T: Ugh! I have to brush for 18 seconds?

One day after school:
J: You have a sticker on your nose. 

T: Uh huh because I'm a winner.

After Hailey ate a button:
H: I ate a toy!
S: You're just going to have to wait until it comes out the other end...
H: Get your tools and take me apart so you can get it out.
S: Where are your screws? Are you a robot?
H: I'll go get the screwdrivers.

While playing with Grandma's iPad:
T: This is even better than reading books or playing!

Four on Friday

1. Check off a box for me on Mom Bingo, because I took a child to the Emergency Room this week for the first time. It sucked.

Claire took a nosedive out of my arms and hit her head and vomited a few times so off we went to get a CT Scan. She's fine except for the swollen eye.

2. The latest in Tessa's organizing adventures.


3. Tessa can read and besides taking a few breaks to color and bug her sisters, it's what she does all day every day.

4. Hailey ran into my room, jumped up on the bed, put her hands on her hips and said
"I'm Captain Hailey! Don't I look great?"

You do, Hailey. You really do.

Birth Story

Here is a nice long story about the time I gave birth to my third child.
And if you're curious: First child's story. Second child's story.

The more time that goes by, the more Claire's birth seems like a good story instead of a scary, panic-crazed event.
Not that anything totally traumatizing happened. We are both healthy and happy. But still.

The thing to keep in mind is how absolutely convinced I was that she was NOT going to come early. So when my contractions started up every half hour approximately six days prior to my due date, I shrugged it off as false labor. I then spent the next sixteen hours shrugging them off. The internet told me if my contractions weren't getting more intense or closer together (and they weren't), it wasn't real. And I trusted the Internet, like the intelligent person I am.

Except of course that I still didn't think it was the real deal when my contractions sped up to every 10 minutes. I begrudgingly let Seth, who had worked from home during the afternoon, call his mother to come pick up the girls (She lives an hour and a half away.) Thankfully, he was taking this much more seriously than I was.

I did make him keep our appointment to get the tires changed on our van. (There was a screw in one! We had to pump it up any time we needed to go anywhere! I wanted it done before the baby came! I was in complete labor denial!) So Seth took the girls and was gone for an hour. This is the part of the story that scares Seth the most, because he spent the whole appointment imagining me calling to tell him I needed to get to the hospital immediately while the van was still up on the lift.

By the time his mom came to pick up the girls, my contractions were every five minutes and I finally started to concede that this might possibly be actual labor. Maybe. I decided I would take a shower and then we could go to the hospital, and hopefully they wouldn't make me come home because it was just Braxton Hicks.

I still can't believe how in denial I was. Are you screaming at me right now? Because I am.

So, I took a shower and when I got out they were coming every minute or two and I told Seth, "We need to go NOW." And this is the part of the story where Seth and I descend into panic, because I've realized (finally!) that this is the real thing and we may have waited just a bit too long to get to the hospital.

It was like a movie scene. Seth is running around throwing last minute stuff into our bag. He speeds to the hospital. We get to the Emergency Room parking lot and there is nowhere to park because half the lot is blocked off! I REFUSE to let him drop me off at the door because I don't want to go in by myself. (In case the trusting the internet thing didn't convince you that I am stupid, this should.) We have to go find parking in the parking garage. It's very full. We finally find a spot by the elevator. We huff and puff over to the side entrance, only to read that those doors are locked at 8:30. It's 9:10.

We start making our way over to the main entrance, but I can barely move because of the contractions. Seth takes off running to get me a wheelchair from the lobby, then runs back and deposits me in it, then runs me back to the entrance.

We get to the Labor and Delivery floor. It is completely full. They don't even have a triage room available. So I sit in my wheelchair and we wait. And wait. And wait. For 30 minutes. I am still having contractions every minute. The staff are completely unruffled by our panic. I tell Seth I am probably in transition and going to start pushing soon. He tries to get the staff to hurry along.

They finally make a space for me, in a curtained off back corner of a room with four or five other people. They make me change into a hospital gown and get me on the bed. I am dilated to a nine, so I get to stay. Can you believe it, I actually remember feeling relieved that our panic was justified! (The denial! The stupidity!) They are busy and they messed up our paperwork so every single nurse leaves to go do something else.

And then suddenly, I am screaming at the top of my lungs because I am pushing. I yell at Seth that I am pushing the baby out! He says "Don't push!" I say "I can't help it!" We are both terrified. No nurses have come even though I am screaming bloody murder (and it's only later that I find the sympathy for the four or five other women in the room who are listening to me.) He runs out into the hall to get a nurse. She is nonchalantly putting some gloves on. She makes her way back to my little corner. She only starts to really move when she realizes I have already birthed half the baby on my own.

Claire was born at 10:00 pm on the dot. The nurses got her feet out. The doctor didn't get there until everything was over. I go into shock and start hyperventilating and shaking all over. I cannot even hold the baby. I keep asking Seth, "What just happened?" They finally get me into an empty Labor and Delivery room, even though I have already accomplished both of those things.

It takes me a long time to calm down and process the fact that I just had a freaking baby. I don't recommend having a birth like that, but I did appreciate the fact that I could get up and move around easily, as they didn't even have time to put an IV in, let alone an epidural. The rest of the hospital stay was uneventful.

So even though it's kind of my fault for not getting to the hospital sooner, I am totally going to hold this over Claire's head for the rest of her life. Five days early! What were you thinking!

But we love her anyway.

A Late Halloween Post

Yes, I know Halloween was over two weeks ago. I just had a baby, and I can't be bothered to write blog posts in a timely manner.
Here are my cute bunnies!

Also, to my great amusement, Seth developed something of an obsession of putting our newborn baby in a pumpkin for picture-taking opportunities. Apparently this is a requirement of having an October baby.

He tried, bless him.

For some reason though, Claire did NOT appreciate our attempts to shove her into a cold, cramped pumpkin.

As Seth had spent nine months looking forward to this opportunity, he insisted we try again a different night. We got a mostly decent picture, but I don't think we'll be writing Pinterest tutorials any time soon.

We spent about a week listening to demands for candy 24/7 before it was mostly eaten. There is still a bag full of tootsie rolls which no one wants to eat though, not even my toddlers. Tootsie rolls are the worst.
Happy (Late) Halloween!

Tessa's Pictures

Tessa's absolute favorite thing to do is color. She colors several pictures every day, and while most of them end up in the trash, (hi, unsentimental mother here) some of them are pretty cool.

At least they are cool to me, the fact that my four year old drew these. And I wanted to show them off.

Maybe I'm not as unsentimental as I pretend...

Like this drawing of an octopus cracks me up.

As does this guy.

She's also very into rainbow things. Everything has to be rainbow colored.

Or she'll write out lists of words or numbers.

She told me this was a dragon with blood coming from its eyes. I don't know how she can go from rainbows to blood, but she can. Plus some math about how daddy is in our family.

She's very talented.

Let's just not talk about how many boxes of crayons she's gone through.

Pregnancy Details

The original intro to this blog post was a big fat "I told you so" to Seth that it was past my due date (it was yesterday) and I was still pregnant in spite of all his warnings to the contrary.
Yes. I was so sure that the baby wasn't coming early I had already typed it up, ready to post today.
So a big, fat "I told you so" from Seth to me, as all his warnings came true and my six day old baby is asleep in her chair beside me.

Anyway, as I'm pretty sure this is my last baby, I wanted to document some of the things I experience while pregnant because I know I will absolutely not remember any of this in the coming years. I have slowly been adding to this for the past nine months so if the grammar seems weird in parts, that's why.

Food Cravings: Same as the previous two. POTATOES. Any kind. Mashed, baked, fried. Especially french fries. My lust for McDonald's french fries was particularly bad this time around. I don't think I ever buy McDonald's except for when I'm pregnant, and then I go crazy.
Second place was tortilla chips with melted cheese on top. Third place was pasta.
I also spent the first trimester being extremely picky. Dinner could only be ONE THING each night and it sometimes took me a long time to figure out what exactly to make that wouldn't make me feel like barfing, which sucked because I was always STARVING. Seth got quite a few panicked texts from me - "What should I make for dinner? Decide for me!" I usually hated all his suggestions.

Luckily I never actually got sick or threw up. Just nausea. Yay.

Tired: SO tired. I used to actually do things during the girls quiet times. Now I just hurry and eat my second lunch so I can go take a nap. The TV watching has increased at our house because I have no energy for anything else. I consider laying down a "to-do."

Maternity Clothes: I "popped" waaaaay earlier. Like after 2 months, instead of the usual 4-5. Also I'm pretty sure I'm larger with this one than with the other two because shirts that lasted me all the way through the last couple of times suddenly no longer cover my belly. Yikes.

Baby Tessa

I forgot: How skilled I get at using my toes to pick things up off the floor, so I can minimize how often I have to bend over.

How my hatred of scrubbing tubs and putting the sheets on the bed increases exponentially while pregnant.
How much my hips hate me.
How annoying it is to get clothes out of the top-loading washer with a baby bump in the way.

How crazy I get when the nesting phase starts, as documented here.

I didn't forget: How much fun it is to feel the baby move and kick.

The constant sinus issues. Yes, I AM using the humidifier in the middle of a southern summer when the humidity outside is already 75%.
How nice it is to have a built-in excuse for my laziness.
How annoying it is to come up with suitable baby names with Seth, the King of Ridiculous Baby Name Suggestions.

Baby Hailey

Unique this time: I have low iron with this one, which means I have suddenly become obsessed with chewing ice. I pour myself a big cup every day and if I'm ever out and about, you know I'll be stopping at Sonic for a cup of their pebble ice. Mmmmm. So good.
Cankles.
Round ligament pain, how I loathe thee. As if getting around when you're large and in charge wasn't bad enough, now I get stabbing pains in my hip/leg with every movement as well! It's been a constant source of frustration for the past two months. Boo.

How strong of a kicker this baby is. I never understood how women could say "Oh there's the foot. There's the elbow." when feeling the baby because it all seemed like indistinguishable lumps to me. But now I know. I know it painfully well. 

The girls reactions: They go through phases of not caring one bit or being completely obsessed. I like the not caring a little better actually. Then I don't have to answer "the end of October" to the million-times asked question of when the baby will be here.
Hailey does NOT appreciate the fact that I can't pick her up and carry her around as much as usual. They both miss sitting in my lap.
Sometimes they rub my belly. They've both technically felt the baby kick, but I don't think they quite understood what was happening.
They now think baby and belly are interchangeable words for everyone. We'll have to clarify this eventually.

They like to stick dolls up their shirt and talk about their own babies. Usually they are having a girl like me, but sometimes they decide they want a brother and it's a boy.

Baby Claire

So very happy I am not pregnant anymore.

Seth's Keepsakes

In my effort to clean and organize the entire house, I have been sorting through a bunch of Seth's old things, trying to consolidate them in one space. I had to rearrange his keepsake box in order to add a few things, so we went through all the stuff in it.
Would you like to know the important and meaningful and memorable things in his keepsake box? Besides the usual trophies and medals and journals, I mean. Here is a small sampling:

Old floppy disks. There is nothing worth saving on these (mostly old games or pictures he already has on the computer) but he insists on keeping them. I don't know why.

A copper pipe. When I asked him why this belonged in his keepsake box, he said "because it's cool." No other reason.

An old See-N-Say music motor . Again, "because it's cool." No plans to use the mechanism for any project (which is where most of his collecting habits stem from.) Just "because it's cool."

Leather strips he took off an old belt. And here is the story he told me as to why it's a keepsake: Just in case he's out exploring and he comes upon a sword (yes, a sword) or a knife that is missing it's handle. Then he'd be able to wrap the leather around it and wield it without hurting himself. 

Seriously. 

My response (besides incredulous laughter) was that while I was glad the realm of possible adventures to befall him was so wide, at the moment I didn't think old leather strips belonged with his keepsakes. 

He still wouldn't let me get rid of them, but at least they're with his other tinkering things now instead of taking up space in the box.

My personal favorite: the shriveled up chip bags. Seth and his friends microwaved these, causing them to shrivel up into miniature chip bags. He has had them since high school. He refuses to get rid of them.

Me: "Oh, someone's old pocket watch! That is a keepsake. Where'd you get it?"
Seth: "Walmart."

Not pictured: the can of soda he saved from a field trip because it was supposedly the most disgusting drink he'd ever had, an old-fashioned square nail, and a plastic cup filled with hardened epoxy. Among other things I managed to get him to throw away or donate.

I just have to remind myself that Seth's fascination with details is one of the reasons I love him.

And one of the reasons he loves me is that I will keep him from one day appearing on an episode of Hoarders.

Baby Names

Many of you know that Seth is very fond of coming up with ridiculous baby name suggestions. This time around he hasn't come up with nearly as many, and that's because the girls are doing all the work for him. Here are the ones they've suggested throughout the course of my pregnancy:

Pumpkin Head
Boxnapkin
Animal Guy
Gunther
Gumball
Binky
Punkus
Micole

Bunder
Bundernickel

Light Princess

We will be using none of these.
Actually, we still have yet to decide on a name and my due date is 10 days away. Hopefully we leave the hospital with a named child and not "Baby Girl Winsor" but we'll see....

Nesting

I'm assuming everyone has heard of the nesting phase in pregnancy. It's supposedly when a woman tries to get her home ready for the baby.
I kind of scoff at this idea, except I am totally guilty of it, especially this time around. My normal organizational and cleanliness traits kick into overdrive and I find myself making lists that look like this:
1. Vacuum my headboard
2. Clean out the washing machine
3. Organize and label all files in the house
4. Wipe down all the doors

And other crazy stuff that I normally wouldn't care about. Now it NEEDS TO GET DONE IMMEDIATELY. It's driving me nuts. I want to clean out all of our closets too but I'm afraid I might not get to it before the baby comes. (I added it to my list anyway.)

The problem is that this phase kicks in right when I am at my most unwieldy and tired stage of pregnancy. The other impediment is that I have round ligament pain pretty bad this time around, which is sharp, stabbing pains where my leg connects to my torso. This means it hurts to sit, stand, walk, and roll over in bed. Basically anytime I move. This has made it doubly difficult to check things off on my nesting to-do list.
But it has to be done, or I will go crazy.
Well, crazier than I already am.

Here is Seth checking off yet another thing on my list, cleaning and fixing the vacuum. The retractable cord kept retracting while vacuuming. I was quite pleased he had to take it almost all apart to do so because that meant I could clean every nook and cranny! It was really an inappropriate amount of excitement. For cleaning a vacuum.

Only four more weeks of this madness. Please tell me to stop adding things to my list.

Five on ...Saturday

1. We finally bought a minivan. Cue the huge sigh of relief, as we've been looking for a reasonably priced one all summer long and there are only two months left until baby #3 comes along. The girls think the automatic open doors are the most amazing feature ever, and I have to say I agree.

2. Seth didn't get home until eight o'clock last night because some crazy man called the office and threatened to come and shoot his girlfriend (an employee there) and everyone else she works with. They put everyone in lockdown until his whereabouts could be confirmed. It was a long night for both of us.

3. Tessa started preschool! It is three days a week for just a few hours in the afternoon. The only person sad about this is Hailey, who has burst into tears the two times we've dropped her off. I'm hoping this wears off soon.

4. Hailey's new favorite joke is to say "I'm walking like mommy!" and then waddle in exaggerated fashion across the floor. Seth thinks it's real hilarious. I do not.

5. Our grocery store just added these little mini shopping carts for kids. The girls love it and I hate it. If I don't let them use it, I get to deal with the tears and the whining. If I do, I get to deal with being smacked in the face with the little flag (happened yesterday), getting my ankles run into, and yelling at them the entire time "Look out! Watch where you're going! Don't run with that!"

Seriously, grocery stores. This idea is THE WORST.

Arizona Vacation

Here is a mundane hodgepodge of photos and stories from our vacation to Arizona last month.

I flew out by myself with the girls a week early. They were surprisingly very good. Much better behaved than they were for Seth AND I on the way home. Figures.

Finally got to meet baby Jack! The only boy cousin on my side of the family so far. We've only got two on the Winsor side as well, so I think it's safe to say that for this generation, girls rule and boys drool.

If my girls are as loving and attentive to the new baby as they were to baby Jack, I should have no problem come October. Hailey, for some unknown reason, referred to him as "big guy" all week. 

Ah, TV time. The great babysitter.

Tessa and Brooklyn out on a walk. They got along splendidly.

Hailey and Eleanor got along, but not as splendidly. They strictly follow the toddler rules of life: what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine.

In true family tradition, Hailey and I got sick upon first arriving in Arizona. Here we are skipping out after Sacrament so we can go home and go to bed. My mom wanted pictures of the girls in their cute dresses before we left.

Sleepover! Amanda had to drive out to pick up Stuart from the airport during bedtime so Brooklyn and Eleanor came and had a sleepover with us. They stayed up late talking and giggling until Brooklyn decided she'd had enough and wanted to go sleep in her own bed, so I don't think the concept of a sleepover quite sunk in.

Accidental matching. I thought this was hilarious, but I was also sick and tired, so everything was funny.

I can't remember half the stuff we did. It was mostly just hanging out watching the kids play and fight. So exciting! But also kind of what family vacations are for.

This is how most of our attempts to get pictures of all four girls went. Not very well.

On the way home.
(Actually not, since we flew straight to the Winsor Family Reunion at Myrtle Beach. I'll be putting up another photo dump of that vacation too. It should be as exciting as this one.)