Beautiful Boy

So - I have two blog drafts sitting in my dashboard, but they require uploading so many pictures. And it all seems so long ago now. It's just boring stuff like birthdays and birth. Maybe I can just touch on some highlights and then move on to present time? Great. Thanks for being understanding.

The highlights of the end of my pregnancy were The Jones Family and July 2nd.
Cristie, Marcus and baby Addie came in town to take care of me. They brought food, they brought presents for my kids, they cooked, they cleaned....they just made everything better.




July 2nd is just a great day. Always, even as I'm getting older, I childishly love my birthday. It's not about presents or anything like that...I just love the feeling of a day where everyone is nice to you. It's just all about me.
Narcissistic? Yes. But it's not like you didn't know I've got a teeny bit of that in me.

It's not about presents...but speaking of presents....





Then there was the 4th. This year, Landon decided to ride his scooter in the parade.

We told Kate she was in the parade, too. She wasn't. But look how cool she thought she was...

So then I had Jacob Kyle on July 13th. Thirteen has always been a neutral number for me; I wasn't afraid. After all was said and done, I got to carry him a lot longer than I expected--38 weeks. Which I'm so thankful for...although I ended up being ginormous!

The morning I left to have the beautiful boy:

From this angle - you're thinking things aren't so bad...

Then...BAM! Nothing more I can do to prepare you for this one.....

Jake was big - 8 lbs, 9 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. He looked like Kevin from the get-go. I'm okay with it - I have a redhead who looks pretty identical to what I looked like as a child (minus the red) and I personally think Kevin is really cute.

A week later, we celebrated Kevin's birthday and I finally got up the courage to have some wine. Haven't looked back since.
9 days after Jacob's debut- my other baby turned TWO. No party (still to date) secondary to baby-chaos, but I have a huge box of the makings of an absolutely fabulous Ladybug Picnic. It'll happen...swear.


Then, on July 28th, my twin nephews were born. I don't even know how to describe the feelings of that day. When my baby sister, my best friend in the world, my "soul mate" .... gave me 13 pounds of nephew. They were healthy, happy babies - - and Jodi and Anthony are perfectly parenting! Go to Jodi's blog to watch them grow.....

http://jodiandanthony.blogspot.com/

So then, just like that, July was over. My family expanded by three baby boys, a lot of us turned another year older, and I reignited my affair with wine. It was such a good month!

Nothing's sweeter than summertime....

When I realized how many pictures I needed to add to this blog, I decided to break this up into 2 parts. Part I......

Summer - - My absolute favorite time of year.

This has been a great June! I don't recommend being 8 months pregnant in June when you live in Texas but, alas, I have somehow managed to do that for a second time. ?
The pregnancy (and bedrest) has hindered what all I can do with Landon Gage this summer, but he has been an awesome kid and appreciated his annual camps even more this year.
He started the summer with a Fishing Camp. It sounded random and just something to fill his days when we signed up, but it ended up being great and we'll definitely do it again! He learned to bait his own hook, get a fish off the hook....and just sparked a love for fishing that we are so happy for him to have! Then it was a week of VBS at Fellowship. I can't say enough about this awesome church. It is WAY too big and "new" and totally not my style. But it has grown on me and, most importantly, Landon would rather go to that church than just about anywhere else!

And finally, the "Water Kamp". Bentwater hosts him for one week of absolute FUN and I get to pick up a completely WORN OUT kid at 4:00 everyday! I love water kamp.

The next bunch of pictures is really just for me to remember a really fun night. I've been pretty good about bedrest but I'm not really a big rule-follower. So the other night, when Kevin suggested we take the kids out for a "last outing before baby", I jumped on it. We didn't want to go all the way to The Woodlands, and so opted for Conroe's version of Chuck E Cheese --- Incredible Pizza. It ended up being just as costly of an outing - with Conroe's finest as it's employees and patrons - but it was a great night.

These pictures all turned out too dark - but they made a "special exception" and let Jenna ride with Kevin in a go-kart race. She LOVED it.

There are very few pictures of Landon - as ALL he wanted to do was race. We just let him do it all night - while we were in toddler-land -- and he finally won FIRST PLACE. He was so thrilled!

Jenna Kate was very typical. She acted bored and was just really unimpressed with the rides that other 23 month olds would surely love.

I mean look at this enthusiasm......

We finally left the little-people area and she found this dance game...Loved It.

And the whack game ....which she thought was hilarious...

L took a quick break from the karts to ride bumper cars....

And the last batch of visual memories....ISR classes. I mentioned last post that we have Jenna Kate in Infant Swim and Rescue classes. They aren't traditional swim lessons, they are water survival lessons. Does she like it? No.

The only happy time - taking out her earplugs when it's OVER...

Summer is my season...granted, I do it better when I'm not pregnant... this has been a great one so far!

Resting. In a Bed.

Monday morning was a typical Monday morning. In the shower by 4:45, out the door by 6, at my desk by 7. It wasn’t until about 8 that I noticed felt a little “off”. Dizzy with a strong sense of déjà vu, I walked over to my nurses’ station and asked someone to take my blood pressure. Sure enough, it was 138/93. Unfortunately, I had been calm all morning, no sense of stress or fear…this was simply my body reacting the way it does at the end of my pregnancies. I called my doctor’s office, ready to be told to come on in, and they surprised me with those words you dread at 35 weeks gestation, “head straight over to labor and delivery!” Damn.

I spent about 2-3 hours hooked up to monitors and all looked well. My blood pressure stabilized, Jake kept active, and I only had a few contractions. I was sent home on modified bedrest and though my doc did NOT recommend being on my feet all day seeing patients, she said I could give desk work a try. Desperate to save all of my PTO for my maternity leave, I gave it a whirl on Tuesday. I got to just sit at my desk, finishing charts, with my nurse coming in every hour to monitor my BP. It was actually so nice and so much easier than being at home…I was daydreaming of pulling this off another 3 weeks!

About 2 hours into relaxing desk time, my blood pressure shimmied on up to 134/93. Damn. This time I was sent to real bed rest. In a bed. My mom, of course, stepped right in to bring over dinner, cupcakes and a new coloring book for Jenna. Kevin was home with the kids anyways so they evacuated to the neighborhood pool and I went to sleep. I slept for 2 sound hours (you know how awesome that is at the end of pregnancy) and woke up to a beautiful BP of 120/76.

But then I got bored. And then anxious. There is a LOT to be done around here and I can’t exactly do it. Kevin is watching the kids one more day, but more than anything I need him back at work. $$$. Ahhhhh – it’ll all be okay, right? I just have to keep myself in bed so they don’t take this baby boy too soon. I had a healthy 36 week old baby girl 2 years ago, but I certainly knew that we were lucky. And leaving the hospital with a 5 lb 15 oz baby wasn’t something I planned to do again.

So today I thought I’d take the time to update this thing. We are off to a very busy and very fun summer. Here are some highlights of the first 2 weeks…
Jenna and I went to Safety Day – where she was fit with her big-girl bike helmet! She adores it. She also discovered rub-on tattoos and thinks they are better than TWENTY bike helmets!

Landon went to Fishing Camp – where he learned that he loves to fish. With his new rod and reel, courtesy of Grandpa, he caught FIVE sunfish the last day!
He has been fishing off our dock every night since.

Jenna started ISR swim lessons. These are the scary swim lessons – you know the ones where they drown your child everyday so your child won’t ever drown? They are “water survival lessons” and are seriously intense! She goes every single day for 4-6 weeks. She spends 10 minutes in the water and then 10 minutes ‘recovering’ on her left side. Kevin says the recovery is the hardest part – she just stares up at the sky in a daze the entire time! But he says it’s incredible. She is truly learning how to swim already – after 3 lessons! And she admittedly spends the entire 10 minutes in the water choking and sobbing, crying…but we think of it like getting shots. It’s all to protect her in the end. And when your backyard is a lake, the best way we can protect Jenna at home is to be sure she can survive in the water.

I don’t have any ISR pics – but here are a few of Kate after she was attacked by bees, being a comedian, and being an awesome harmonica player.

Jenna will be in lessons the next few weeks, Landon has VBS next week and then “water kamp” at Bentwater, I turn another year younger in a couple of weeks, Jake is due, my TWIN NEPHEWS will make their appearance, Kevin will turn Really Old, and my baby girl will be TWO! I absolutely LOVE summertime. I pray I get to enjoy the chaos of three healthy kids this summer.

Sunny Days - Chasin the Clouds Away

Things have been cloudy the last 3 months. Can't get the baby well. Her ear is still very sick and the infection is resistant to everything we feed it.

Infectious Disease is involved now and we are starting a new "big-gun" oral antibiotic today. Prayers this works....if it doesn't, she will be headed downtown for ID to take over completely. Which likely means inpatient days at the hospital. :(

But the lovely news is, Jenna is a happy baby! She continues to crack us up every single day and she is ALWAYS singing. (the Sesame Street theme song is one of her greatest hits and I imagine she is singing it in this picture!)

Even Kevin was impressed with the treatment we got yesterday. There is nothing like the audiologist’s kid going in for an ENT surgery! She was such a VIP and laughed and flirted with everyone in sight. It was a day of a lot of emotions packed into a very short hospital trip.

I can tell you that it always feels good to be a patient at the hospital you work at. You feel very safe (and when even the check-in receptionist calls you Dr. Rowland, you feel important) and I know that Jenna is getting the best care there is.

But the feeling that will stay with me forever is the feeling I got when Jenna was under anesthesia. I had a quick, “prayers please” text ready on my phone and sent it right when they took the baby away from me. For the next 15 minutes, the entire time she was under, my phone never stopped beeping. Text after text saying “Done.” “Got it.” “Praying Now”.
The peace that was with me knowing that all of my incredible friends were praying for my baby, right at that moment, literally took my breath away. I am always just so THANKFUL. What did I do to deserve so many wonderful people in my life?

Here is our morning in pictures….

Early Monday morning, Jenna, Daddy and Woody are waiting to see if she is well enough to have the surgery.

Once we got the go-ahead, she got to put on her cool scrubs. I had the inside scoop on her size scrubs and so the binkie matching is not a coincidence, my friends. I'm good.


And before Kevin could even find coffee, she was finished. The VIP treatment was intensified in recovery and I swear it made Jenna recover better! She was made for that kind of attention. There was confusion at first and definitely some tears and a "MAMA". But then, instantly, she was smiling at everyone. Talking about her "appa ju" and giggling deliriously at the fact that her bink was in a specimen jar.




She was "recovered" and the car was pulled up from valet within 35 minutes of her coming out of the OR. Gaga and Papa came over to see the patient. She got a cookie with tons of icing, a balloon and a new baby monkey. She loved it all and was modeling her scrubs and sticking EKG electrode pads all over her head and laughing all afternoon.

Kevin took spoiling to a whole new level when he insisted on going to Target the second we got home and inexplicably coming back with this.

I had gotten the child really cool Popsicles as her recovery gift. Which you can see she's enjoying as she's waiting for Dad to put together her 4_WHEELER.

I'm sure you're noticing in all these pictures that the baby really doesn't have enough stuff to play with. So an ATV really shouldn't have confused me so much.

But when she figured out how to make that thing go - - I cannot even tell you how excited she was. This picture doesn't even do justice to the joy! I now love the thing and think it's a perfectly acceptable gift for getting tubes!

She even got to go outside to ride. In her scrubs - because she had JUST HAD SURGERY! We had to remind her several times that she was sleepy and she finally fell out for a nice, 4-hour anesthesia-induced nap.