Family Dinner

Owen has already taught me a thing or two about having more than one kid in the family. The other night Talmage was asleep in his car seat when Tom, Owen, and I sat down for dinner. Owen was such a monster during dinner. He refused to eat, and kept pushing his food away, saying, "NO, No, No!" His temperament just escalated from there, and eventually he was throwing his food on the ground and bawling. So I told him he was done, and took him back to his room to have a talk about how we Eat dinner not throw it on the ground. As we started to have this little talk, he just looked at me with wide open, tear filled eyes, and simply replied, "Mama, Baby. Baby, Baby! Baby eat."

"Oh," I say, "Did you want the baby to eat dinner with us?"

"Yes." Owen replied, rolling his eyes, as if to say, Duh Mom, I can't believe you forgot about him.

So I struck a bargain with Owen. "Ok, if I bring the baby to the table, will you be nice and eat the rest of your dinner?"

With a big nod of the head, "Yeah!"

So we went back to the table, I brought the baby over, and Owen finished his dinner while talking to the baby the entire time.

Holy cow, I did not realize until that moment that even little kids understand the importance of family time. Now I know, even when they are little, they understand understand even little concepts like Family Dinner mean the ENTIRE FAMILY.

Talmage's Birth Story

Well now that Tal is a week old, and I have finally caught up on my sleep, I think it is time tell his birth story.

Talmage's due date kept changing. It moved from December 27th, to the 29th, to January 7th and back to the 1st. Like any Mother-to-be, I was more than ready for him to come a couple of weeks before the first due date. On December 17th, my midwife told me I was already dilated to 3, so I decided that it was time for this baby to come. On the 24th I started to try every trick in the book to get labor started, by going up to Timberline Lodge for an Altitude Change (6600 ft above Sea Level). The next few days I think I tried everything, including but not limited to, eating an entire pineapple, pressing on pressure points, eating Oriental food, walking (I walked every aisle at a Super Walmart), eating eggplant, etc.

I had an appointment with my midwife in the morning on January 31st. I was rather discouraged at the appointment, because I was really hoping that I would have the baby before the end of the year, and aside from the fact that I was now dilated to a 4 and 70% effaced, I was showing NO signs that the baby was going to come. And going off of Owen's labor, which was over 24 hours, I knew that this baby was not going to make it out before the new year. My midwife suggest that I try Castor Oil. She said that it just might do the trick, and I could have a baby by 2010. I was sure it would not work, but Tom convinced me that we should try it.

When we got home, I downed 2 TBSP of Castor Oil, and went to work getting ready for the NEW YEARS EVE Party we were hosting that night. Some of our friends showed up around 5:30 for the party, which is right when I noticed that I was having some light contractions. I really did not think much of it, because for the past month I had had light contractions in the evening. I was so distracted by our guest,s that I did not realize how close these contractions were until I sat down a watched the clock, and realized that the minute hand had not moved very far between two sets of contractions. That was at 7:00. I snuck of to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and pulled out my phone to time the contractions. They were coming every 1:30, and then my water broke.

Can you imagine? There I am, in labor, hiding in the bathroom, because I have a bunch of New Years Guest over, and I don't want to spoil the party. I sent Tom a text message, asking him to come to the bathroom. He called the hospital to tell them that I am in Labor, and they tell him that they are full, and that they were going to have to hide an other hospital to send us to' which meant No Water Birth. They called back a couple of minutes later, and told us the Providence Medical had room for us.

It turned out to be a good thing so many people were at our house, because we were able to jump in the car, and not have to worry about who was going to take care of Owen. As we were leaving, one of our friends told us we had exactly 4 hours left in the year to have a baby.

We got to the hospital by 8:30. I was totally not expecting this labor to be as hard as it was. With Owen, labor was slow and steady. It was easy, it never felt much worse than menstrol cramps. In fact, it was so easy, I was able to get into that "Labor Land," where you are in a kind of foggy place, just focused on having a baby, and when you are done, you don't remember much. Well, that is what I was expecting to happen with Talmage, but NONE of that happened. His contractions were hard and fast, and it was all back labor. I could not concentrate, I could not relax, I could not remember I time I had been in so much pain. I was ready to ask for an epidural, when the midwife looked at my birth plan and said, "Oh, you wanted a waterbirth? Well we do have a Jacuzzi Tub you can labor in, but you can not deliver in it. Would you like to try that?" Holy Cow, I do not know what it is, but sitting in water makes labor SOOOO much easier for me. The contractions were still super hard, but the water works wonders, especially with the jets on my back.

I was only in the tube for maybe an hour and a half before I was ready to start to push. And then he was born just an hour after that. I still can not believe how fast everything went. I started labor at 7:30, and had a baby by 11:30. CRAZY!!! Did I mention that he was the last baby of the year?

Because of H1N1, kid under 12 were not allowed in the hospital. So Owen had to wait to meet Talmage. As soon as we brought Talmage in, Owen stuck his arms straight out and said, "Brubber!! I hold it." He is such a good big brother!