Yesterday was my first afternoon working at the yarn store. How great is that job? It’s nice to be doing something I love.

And speaking of yarn, check out this really, really great yarn that my friend Cherokee made. I just can’t stop petting it.

You should go check out her etsy page. And if you have not yet seen Etsy, you should definitely check it out, it’s like ebay for all things handmade. Very cool.

So Saturday, Jim flew to Reno to play the guitar for a church service. Our old pastor is planting a new church there. I was scheduled to teach two knitting classes so my Aunt came to our house to watch the kids for me. I was running a little late so, instead of driving across town to the office, I headed to a nearby copy shop to print out my lesson plans. (OH, the joy of not having a printer at home. There are four or five printers at the office, but none at home. Go figure.)

So the street that the copy shop is on is a two way street for one block and then turns into a one way street heading south. So there’s this short section of street between where it’s two way and one way that you’re not supposed to turn north onto, but… yeah, I did it anyway. That exact moment is when my car decided to break. So here I am, in the middle of the street going the wrong way and my car won’t go. All I could think was, of all times for my car to break, it has to be when I’m BREAKING THE LAW.

So I hopped out and started trying to push it. Luckily two people also stopped their vehicles and helped me push it backwards. And luckily, I was only 6 blocks from my house. So I gathered up my very fab new knitting bag Joelene made me, my laptop, and my purse and started walking as fast as I could in heels. My aunt let me borrow her car and I arrived to my class on time. And because I’ve got the best computer evar (iBook G4) I was able to print to the printer at the yarn store.

Sunday, my dad came and helped me tow the car home, and determined that it was the transaxle that broke. Today, he and Jim are going to tow it to the shop to get it fixed.

On a side note, my classes went great. I just love being at the yarn store, where I have unlimited opportunity to fondle the yarn.

Friday I made banana muffins for breakfast, after we all ate, there were 5 muffins left sitting on the stove.
Later that afternoon the kids were playing outside with the dog (I think you see where this is going). Awhile later Honor came in from outside to tell me, “Dog. Ate. My. Muffin.”

Little did he tell me that the dog ate ALL of the muffins. Now I wonder how the dog could have climbed up onto the stove and ate all the muffing?

So Saturday morning when we were thinking about breakfast I said, “We could be having muffins for breakfast if Honor wouldn’t have fed them all to the dog.”

And Honor said, “Dog. Ate. My. Food.” I asked him why the dog ate his food, “Betause.”

Ok, here it is, the best I can get while taking photos of myself.

The birthday party was a success, although, I must say, I learned that it’s not the best idea to have a birthday party on the day that you work. Holey moley.

I was especially proud of the cupcakes. Not to mention that they were very tasty. I bet you can’t guess which ones Jim made?

Honor made off with a load of great goodies, his favorite being Batman. He couldn’t go to bed without being able to sleep with Batman.

Click this picture to see a slide show of the party.

On another note, after many closeups of my cleavage, Jim still didn’t get a good picture of my hair. Boys…

There’s lots going on today. Tonight is Honor’s little birthday party. So I woke up early to make chocolate cupcakes. I’m also watching my friends kids, she usually works nights, but is training for a new position this week. I’m leaving for work at 11 and my sister will take over babysitting. Oh, I just remembered that I need to get the chicken curry in the crockpot. I’ll try to write about something interesting tomorrow (oh and get some pics of my hair today…hopefully).

I had a miserable pregnancy with Honor. I wasn’t thrilled about being pregnant in the first place, Eden was only 11 months old when we found out. And I was so sick, my morning sickness lasted way past the first trimester and would pop up off and on the whole pregnancy. Not to mention that I was pregnant through the whole, entire summer, the hottest summer ever. I was so, so, so ready to have Honor.

The contractions started about a month before he was born. They were nothing painful, just enough to get my hopes up and then crush them into teeny tiny pieces. I finally got used to them. But I was SO ready to have this baby! I walked around dilated for who knows how long. The day before he was born, still two weeks before his due date, I woke up with real contractions. They weren’t anything too bad, but they actually hurt, when the others didn’t. I laid there for two hours breathing through the contractions and watching the clock. They started to subside. So I got out of bed to walk around and try to get them going again. Nothing. At all. I was so devastated. I wanted to go into labor SO BAD. Nothing could get my mind off it. Not even a movie, a game of foxy or scrabble, or a great book. I could only think about giving birth and wishing it would happen right then!

I should have taken those two hours of contractions as a warning sign, but I didn’t. Instead it made me really depressed. I spent a lot of the day doing a combination of laying in bed and doing EVERY thing that’s supposed to induce labor. I even resorted to doing jumping jacks, hoping I’d bounce him out. I finally gave in and took some castor oil. Just a little bit in orange juice. I should have started cleaning like mad, just to be sure the house would be ready in case I did finally have him. But I didn’t. We went to bed with nothing happening.

I woke up around 3:30 with a real contraction and what I can only describe as the baby slamming down. I had been worried that I wouldn’t know when I went into labor (since I was induced with Eden), and everyone kept telling me, “you’ll know.” I got up to sit on the toilet, and the contractions kept hammering down. When I could finally get up, I went back into the bedroom to tell Jim that I was pretty sure this was the real thing. He got up and gave me a hug and another contraction came along with lots and lots of water.

I went back to sit on the toilet (seems the castor oil was doing it’s job) and the contractions kept getting closer and worse. They started out about a minute apart, so they were coming down pretty fast. Jim had to pee really bad and the contractions were so bad that I couldn’t get off the toilet, he finally had to go out side to pee. We decided this was the real thing and called the midwife, she told us to come to the hospital to get checked out because my water broke. Jim decided to call my Aunt Ann, who was going to keep Eden while I was at the hospital. She had called me two times that day, checking in. It seems that she had such a strong feeling that I was going to have the baby that day or night that she even made a bed for Eden.

I filled the bath tub, and sat in there until my Aunt came. All the while, shouting instructions to Jim about what to pack for Eden and the hospital. My Aunt came and I slowly crawled out of the bath tub. The contractions were getting worse and worse – so intense. We barely made it to the car, stopping every time to breath through the contractions. I sat down in the car and remembered that we forgot the Boppy, so Jim ran in to get it. And off we were to the hospital.

Luckily it was the middle of the night, because I made Jim stop the car every time I had a contraction. The movement of the car made them So. Much. Worse. We arrived at the hospital, and Jim ran in to get me a wheel chair. By that point I was soaked with amniotic fluid, it just kept pouring out with every contraction, luckily I had brought a towel to cover me up. The wheel chair was so comfortable, I could have labored the whole time in it. When we got to Labor and Delivery, the night clerk asked us if this was our first baby. Jim later marveled at how she moved so quickly when she found out that it was our second. Like she knew we meant business. She got us a room right away and went to call the midwife.

My mom got there shortly after, and made some phone calls for us. The nurse came in to check me and I wasn’t quite dilated to a 6. At that point I was sure I had several hours to go. That’s when it started getting really bad. All I could do was grip the arm rails of the hospital bed and make it through. I decided that there was no way I could do that for several more hours, it was just SO BAD. My mom was back from making her phone calls at that point and I decided that I wanted an epidural. I hadn’t had one with Eden and had been very opposed to having one. But there was no way I could do that for several more hours. Jim tried to talk me out of it, all the while my mom was vigorously shaking her head in agreement with me. Jim knew there was no arguing with a pregnant woman, and my mom went to tell the nurse. They came back in with the paper work and told that it would be a little while because the anesthesiologist was down the hall giving someone else an epidural. They offered me an IV drug called Nubain. I had it with Eden, and I remember it knocking me out. I thank God that I didn’t get it, I know it would have slowed the labor down, and later when I was pushing, I remember thinking that I missed so much with Eden.

I could literally feel myself dilating. And then is when it hit me. I had to push. I had to push right then. My mom and Jim didn’t believe me, but I was so insistent, that my mom went to get the nurse. By the time she arrived with the nurse, it was pretty evident that I was pushing. My sister showed up about then, in shock that I was already pushing. Things started to go wild around the delivery room. The tech went to call the midwife again and they sent in a midwife who was there from another office, just in case. As the nurses got everything ready, I shouted out instructions between pushes, “Camera!” I also remember saying between pushes, “I love this kid!” I couldn’t believe that I was already having the baby! At some point, the anesthesiologist poked his head in – I’m so thankful that I didn’t need him.

The midwife rushed in, just as I was starting to crown. I was only a few pushes away from delivery. That is when my friend Brooke arrived (with only one contact, she was later thankful that she didn’t go back for it). Another two minutes, and she would have missed it. Jim went to wash his hands and I started yelling at him, “What are you doing? You’re going to miss it!” He was hoping to deliver Honor, like he did Eden, but there just wasn’t time. The next push and Honor was out.

He was born at 5:51am, just 2.5 hours after my first contraction, 45 minutes after our arrival at the hospital. In the split second between the time he was out and the time they put him on my chest, I hollered, “What is it? What is it?” It’s a boy!! We were so excited. We wanted a boy so bad (little did we know what we were getting into!) I held him while Jim cut the umbilical cord, and the nurses wiped him down. They took him to weigh him and clean him up better and the midwife started to sew me up.

My uterus wasn’t contracting fast enough, so she gave me an iv of pitocin. That’s when I started shaking really badly. My friend Brooke was so great, she stayed by me the whole time, making sure I was ok, while everyone else got to hold the baby. I finally got all stitched up and the shaking subsided and I nursed Honor for the first time. Nursing is so much easier when you know what you’re doing. When we were finished, Jim took Honor to get a bath. The nurse helped me into my clothes and I walked (walked!) over to my hospital room. I felt so great, totally energized, like I hadn’t had a baby at all.

Introducing him to Eden was great. She didn’t really know what was going on, nor did she really care, but there’s something about seeing the two people you made, together….

It was the best experience I could have had. I’d do it again in a second. Plus look what it got me?

Honor went to his two year check up yesterday. He’s getting so big. He weighed 24.5 lbs and was 35 inches long. I can’t believe that tomorrow is his second birthday. He has changed so much in the last year.

Well, maybe not that much…

We’ve been through quite a lot in the past year, trips to the hospital, countless items thrown in and recovered from the the toilet, lots and lots of cereal poured all over the floor.

I think Jim said it best, “We’ve already been through the terrible ones, what could be next?”

But whatever is next, we’ll get through it. And we’ll love it, because whatever he brings, it’s easier to deal with when we look at his crooked smile and chubby cheeks and hear him whisper back, “I. Wove. You.”

Awhile back, before Honor really talked much, Eden had taken to saying “Rocky Butt.” No one knows were she got it, but she said it about 100 times a day. The frequency of this is partly my fault, because whenever Eden would say it, Honor would repeat it and it was just so dern cute…

After hearing our little chorus of “Rocky Butt”, oh, a million times, Jim decided that it wasn’t cute anymore and told Eden that she needed some new material. “Why is it always ‘Rocky Butt?’ Why not ‘Rocky Toe?’ Or ‘Rocky Nose?'” He said. So somehow she has taken to saying “Rocky Dude.” Everyone is a “Rocky Dude.”

But now that we’ve broken her of saying “butt” every other word, she’s not saying anything that’s potentially embarrassing to us and she had to come up with a new one. So Jim informed me the other day, what Eden’s new phrase is. It’s a phrase that I’m ashamed to admit, must be straight from my mouth, “Freakin’ Dork.” So I asked her about it, “Eden do you say ‘Freakin’ Dork?'” And she tells me, “No, Honor says it to himself.” She’s smart that one.

Monday
Chicken and rice

Tuesday
Chicken Salad Taverna

Wednesday
leftovers or Subway

Thursday
Chicken Curry and then Honor’s birthday cake.

Friday
Spaghetti and meatballs

weekend
Jim’s going to be out of town, so it’s fend for yourself or like, popcorn, for dinner.