Naomi Meets Josiah!

Today, my mom picked Josiah up as per their usual Friday dinner date, but first brought him here to the hospital to see baby Naomi. Last night, David came home and told Josiah about his new baby sister and when he told her the name he said, "I don't like that name....I wanted to call her Hannah." So when he came to the hospital we told him to go look at Naomi and he said, "Ok, but I call her Hannah." It was really cute! I think he will get used to the name we chose in time!

Here is the very proud big brother getting to hold Naomi with a supportive hand under the head from Grandma "just in case." He was very sweet and gentle with her and had fun counting her toes and patting her head. She didn't cry when he was holding her at all, so it appeared she approved of her big brother! We made a big deal about how Josiah was the first brother to see her and how tomorrow he will get to introduce her to Caleb and Daniel. We reminded him about how when he was born we called him our little "pumpkinhead" and how we call Naomi our little "tomato" because she turns so red when she cries. Josiah's response to that was, "And I turned orange when I cried." We laughed pretty hard at that one!

Daddy has discovered that Naomi will calm down when held this way. He sings to her and bounces her around a bit and she makes all sorts of funny faces for him. Here it looks like she is winking at her Daddy and smiling! Learning to flirt already I guess? So sweet!

She likes to nurse in this football hold and many times just falls asleep in this position. Thankfully, she is taking to nursing well and today seems to be sleeping a little better too. We think she has a lot of gas bubbles in her stomach though as she will wake up out of a deep sleep to cry and then will fall back asleep soon afterward. She also will take a pacifier some of the time, so when she gets super fussy, we have an option! Yeah! My Dad also came by to visit today too, but I didn't have the camera with me, so we will have to get some pictures with Grandpa another time. He went to visit his parents this weekend, so in the near future we will have him over again and get some Grandpa and Naomi shots. Grandma (my mom) visited yesterday and again I only had the video camera, so I got some live footage, but no still shots. We should have taken a few today when she was here again, oh well!

Our BABY GIRL has arrived!!!

On February 25th, 2010 at 4:33am, Naomi Joy Carpenter graced our presence! And though the events leading up to the birth (ie: labor and all the false labor) were somewhat difficult and frustrating at times, the actual birthing was very easy for Mommy! Thanks to an epidural, the contractions did all the work and with only one coached push, sweet baby girl came out! My comment was, "That's it?!" The doctor was called in at 4:22am, but by the time he arrived at 5am, she was out for some time. He said, "What happened here?!" They told him that they tried to wait for him, but she just came out on her own too fast. Sweet little Naomi had things to do don't you know!!

She weighed only 7 pounds 6 ounces, much to the relief of Mommy who thought she might have to push an almost 10-pounder out again (like Josiah). I am thinking though that thanks to the gestational diabetes diet that I followed, that this baby didn't chunk on the pounds as easily as Josiah did! She measured at 19 1/2 inches long and has long, skinny fingers and toes like me. She started nursing right away and it seems she will be a good nurser like her brothers Josiah and Daniel were, so I am glad for that. (As a side note, Caleb just never got the hang of it, but I did try!)

We think she has strawberry blonde hair as it isn't super blonde like our other babies. It has a nice little redish tint to it! We think she will have blue eyes also, but it is hard to tell right now. The nurses said she looks like a C-section baby in that her head is round instead of cone shaped, and many have also commented on her nice skin. Her name means "beautiful" or "pleasant" and we think she is very beautiful! Because she wasn't in the birth canal very long, she didn't have much of the amniotic fluid squeezed out of her body and so as the nurses put it, she was very "spitty" at first. At one point, she stopped nursing very well (as if not hungry) and kept gagging and spitting up, and so they decided to pump her stomach. Afterwards, she was a very hungry little girl and didn't spit up at all, so I was glad they could help her in that way!

Here is Daddy holding Naomi shortly after she was born. He is a proud Poppa who I hope got some good sleep last night. He went home around 6pm to be with our boys and got them down for the night. He will come back this morning around 8:30am to be with Naomi and I in the hospital. Daddy discovered that holding her up by her armpits and playing with her feet are two things that make Naomi get a little irritated. She gets a nice square lip like Caleb does when he cries and lets us know that she DOES NOT like her feet played with or to be carried in "such a way!"

She is currently in the stage the nurses call the "feeding frenzy" and last night around 11:00pm she fed for over an hour! I was getting pretty tired and she was NOT settling down very well. I think she had a burp that I couldnt't get out or something. The nurses were able to take her after that long feed though to the nursery and calmed her down, and I did sleep from about midnight to 3:30 or so. Right now, she is getting some of her 24-hour baby tests done and will be back in the room with me shortly.

We are VERY glad that she is with us out in the big world now and are very thankful that she is healthy and doing well! I plan to stay in the hospital another night and then will come home on Saturday morning. David suggested I do this because once I get home, I will have lots of other little people who will want some Mommy time as well! I am taking advantage of the help that the nurses can give me while I am here! Thanks to all who prayed for us during this time and for all your well wishes also. I am sure I will have further updates and pictures of her progress in the weeks to come. For those on facebook, we have a short video posted there of the first few moments after they wrapped her up and brought her over to us after birth.

Caleb Falling Asleep in his High Chair

Today, Caleb was SO tired that he was falling asleep leaning over his high chair today after lunch. Here is the dialogue we had with him on the video. I was laughing so hard in the background and at one point in the video he is laughing and smiling with me as you will see. Enjoy!

Three Little Boys Update

Knowing that the newest addition to the Carpenter family is coming soon, we have been sensitive to preparing our oldest as he was hit pretty hard with the birth of the twins last time. The twins really don't GET what is coming I am sure, though they do kiss my tummy and say, "Hello baby" once in a while when prompted. I have been working to spend some quality time with Josiah each day when the twins are sleeping doing activities together, and for each page he completes in his book, he gets a sticker on a chart. When he reaches the end of the line, he gets to go get a Slurpee with Daddy. When his WHOLE activity book is completed, we are taking him to the Rainforest Cafe for a reward. It has been a challenge to get him to want to write letters, but it has paid off because NOW I find he has been writing his name at various places we go such as church, MOPS, and Awana on his craft projects! Yeah!! He has also been pointing out letters and naming them as upper or lowercase as well when we read! This is a start! I hope to really get him in a groove for learning with me at home, so that in September it won't be such a shock to start schooling together. Josiah is posing here in this picture with Mater (the teddy bear) and Rhino.

The twins are doing well and growing more each day. Daniel is our wordsmith and just tries so hard to say most every word he can. He also listens to songs and picks out the rhyming words at the end of each phrase to sing along with the songs he knows. He say a yarn ball on TV one time and pointed at it and very emphatically said, "Mommy's ball!" That made me laugh...hard!! He is also very sensitive and compassionate, and when Caleb is throwing his fits he wants to "help" by letting Caleb out of his room (which of course I don't want because Caleb is in the room until he can calm down). He also want me to kiss his owies and sometimes he kisses his own owies if they are reachable! He has to have one comforting hug after a bonk usually and is unconsolable until he gets that "ug" as he calls it.

Caleb is so funny! He throws himself headlong into things, very literally! He runs into walls 'cause he doesn't really watch where he is going and throws himself down for tantrums regardless of what might be in the way. He gets many boy war wounds this way of course! We are praying to help direct his strong will into something that will lead him towards the Lord, and know that if he does go that way that he will be a mighty soldier for God indeed just like his namesake! Below is a picture of Caleb from the other day when he just threw SUCH A FIT about taking his nap. It took me an hour and half to get him to calm down and sleep. Not sure what put him into SUCH a frenzy, but man was he a bugger to get to sleep. Same problem happened today too! Notice in the picture that he is sleeping sitting up. He insisted to NOT be laying down and was so tired that he fell asleep that way instead, but after this picture I laid him down and he didn't wake up.

Sweet little Caleb-ee!! I took him to the speech/hearing clinic on Feb. 1st and by one point he qualified to get some extra speech help from a therapist (free service) who will come to our home and work with him for some early intervention. Of the two, he seems to be more interseted in developing his motor skills than his verbal skills, so this will be good for him I am sure. I was told to work with him on putting two words together (for now he just says one word at a time) and also to get him to answer the "what's this?" kind of questions when looking at books and the world around us. Currently, when I ask that he just stares blankly at the page or just points at the thing I am pointing at (copying my motor skill). When I point at the page and say, "Where's the baby?" he can easily point out the baby, so that is a good start. The overall analysis of the speech therapist was that he was mild to moderately delayed in his speech and as I said, he barely qualified for the intervention, so thankfully the delay isn't super severe. When I took him for the hearing exam (that was required when getting the speech test), they said his hearing was perfectly fine, so that was good to know also!

Call me the Crocheting Queen...

So for whatever reason, I have been crocheting like a madwoman these days! Perhaps many would call this "nesting," but I just call it keeping myself busy while I try to rest and not "do too much" as I have been told to do. My newest project has been to make potholders with some of my extra yarn and I found a really easy, fun pattern I can do and discovered I can whip one of these babies out in less than 2 hours. I like this one because it is thick (2 layers) and I can attach the layers together with an accent color AND it has a little loop as well. This particular yarn was larger, and so I didn't go around for the 7th time (as the pattern indicated), so that it wouldn't be this gigantic potholder. If any of you would like one, let me know as I am ready to give them to whoever wants one! I MAY even be able to take requests on colors provided I have some extra yarn in the color you want. Just let me know! I also have a pattern for these very large hot pads (round) that are really nice too if you would like something like that. I am sure once baby comes my potholder frenzy will cease for a while, but for now I am on a roll!

Baby Girl's Shower

Today, I had a great time with friends and my mom (the only family) at a baby shower for our sweet Baby Girl. Around 20 people came, and it was a lot of fun! Thankfully, the majority of the gifts were clothes, which is really what I needed the most considering we have three boys and absolutely NO girlie clothes whatsoever! Now though...we have quite a plethora of girl clothes and our little girlie will be VERY well dressed! I have more pictures of the guests and other things on Facebook if you are interested in seeing those. The tables were decorated with baby blankets (some of which I made), stuffed animals and the like and there were of course other decorations on the walls and on the big tree in the room as well. The gals managed to get a nice comfy seat for me as well and positioned a lovely balloon bouquet behind me.

Here is a picture of Melissa and Laurie, my gracious hostesses for the party. This board you see here is for one of the games we played. Each person would try to get a match on the board and then if you got a match, there was a funny saying related to the type of candy bar you would receive. Some examples from the game were as follows (the candy bar name is in caps): for "Father" the saying was "The baby's father is a BIG HUNK," for "Doctor's Bill" the saying was, "Hope your doctor's bill isn't 100 GRAND," for "Heather's baby" the saying was "Heather's baby is named? WHAT CHA MA CALL IT?" (We are keeping the name a secret until the bitter end, much to everyone's dismay), and my personal favorite was for "David wishes" the saying was "David wishes for more U-NO (pronounced you know).....after the baby is born." There were other cute ones too of course, but I won't list them all here.

One other game we played was to have a pink clothespin attached to our clothes and when someone crossed their legs you could steal their clothespin from them. Mine was stolen VERY early on as I crossed my ankles at one point. At the end of the shower, the lady with the most clothspins got a prize. Katrina won and it was so funny 'cause as the party was nearing the close she said, "Are we done with this game now, so these girls (meaning the younger girls that came) will stop staring at me the whole time." It was rather funny. The last game we played was where we sat in a circle and a Starbucks Gift card was passed from person to person based on a poem that Laurie read aloud to us.

The girl's made sure that the snack table had mostly protein or heatlhy type snacks, so that my blood sugar wouldn't totally hit the roof after the shower. There was a nice spread of a variety of food and it was all very yummy! Of course, the cake was very sugary, but one HAS to have one slice of cake despite gestational diabetes, right? Well, if the answer is "no" that is too bad, 'cause it is too late for that! The cake was designed by this gal named Michelle Barker who runs "Barker Bakery" out of her home and does a fabulous job with her cakes. She made Josiah's b-day cake last June for us and we (David and I) recommended to the gals that they ask her again for the shower. Because we were a repeat customer, she offered to deliver the cake to the site, which was a plus also! She is local in Edgewood and has a site if you want to try her cakes. They are affordable, made fresh the same day and she works with you to get a cake you will like. I highly recommend her work.

Thanks SO much Melissa and Laurie for all the hard work and planning you put into this. I got a lot of comments from the ladies that came that they really enjoyed the time spent there and I had a great time also!

So now that we have had the shower for Baby Girl, she can come anytime, right? Of course, now that I have had false labor and other things I am sure I will carry to term, that is just the way of things. We will see though. David seems to recall that about a week out from Josiah's birth that I had a lot of false alarms and contractions, so who knows. He predicts mid-February, but I am mentally prepared for the long haul until March 4th. MANY and I say MANY people have asked me, "Have you dropped?" and are convinced that I have, but the doctor said her head was high when he checked me last Wednesday. So...."no" I haven't dropped that I know of, but rather I just carry very low and OUT! A reminder...the ultrasound tech said she likely weighs 7 pounds 6 ounces NOW, so it is no wonder I look rather large!

Anyway, I digress! Please just pray for the right timing of the blessed event! We will post here and on Facebook when she is born! Thanks all for your prayers and support!

Baby Girl Update

It is truly amazing what they can do now with 3D imaging for ultrasounds now. As you can see the facial features are pretty clear! There is some distortion around the face and the ultrasound tech told me that this was due to all the other things near her face like the uterine wall, placenta, cord, etc. So rest assured she does not look like the "monster baby" that she appears to be with these slightly distorted photos.

The good news is I found out that I am NOT dilating despite all the random contraction episodes I have had in the past few weeks. And she is head down at the moment, which is also good news. I have been very diligent with my gestational diabetes diet and literally have not gained a pound in over a month (though I have gained baby girth), yet the estimated size of baby girl at 36 weeks is 7 pounds 6 ounces. We were told she could gain up to an ounce a day, which would put her at 9 pounds by full term. ACK!! Josiah was 9 pounds 15 ounces, so she wouldn't beat him, but still....9 pounds is big! I am hoping that perhaps she will want to come out maybe a 38 weeks rather than 40? A girl can dream, right? The doctor said that I have NOT dropped, though everyone that sees me thinks that I have (I carry very low).

The doctor told me at this point that if I get contractions 3-5 minutes apart and/or my water breaks that I should come in to the hospital and they would deliver her anytime she is ready. This is good to know because the contractions that I have had thus far have been around 10 minutes apart when they were regular, so it gives me something that would be different than my current state of things. Please pray for me for endurance until "THE" day and that there will be a clear sign when "THE" day is upon us!