Little Gym clips and Grandma's visit

My mom was able to come visit us for about a week and a half. She and Chloe are great buds. Here they are in the kitchen. My mom was making breakfast and Chloe was hoarding the cheese. We all really enjoyed my mom's visit. Thanks mom!! We love you:) Chloe looks at the chair where you sat during dinner and says "poppa, poppa". (That means grandma and grandpa.)

Daddy with his girls.

Cute big sissy pic. We have about 20 seconds or so when Chloe holds Deuce until she loses interest and tries to throw her off...

Grandma Carla and her girls! Chloe was being squirmy.

Here we all are at The Little Gym right before my mom had to leave.


Here are a couple of quick clips. In the first one, Chloe's being chased around the gym by daddy. The second Chloe's showing off her skills on the balance beam.

Details

Chloe, daddy and little Deuce. Chloe kept trying to give Scarlett the balloon...by give I mean hit on the head.

Chloe looks like such a young lady in this picture. I know I'm her mommy but she is really a beautiful little girl. Daddy's not too bad looking either...

Little Scar about an hour or 2 after she was born.

I look like I've been put through the ringer. Oh wait, I had just finished 17 hours of back labor. I debated putting a pic of myself on this blog, but we're all friends, right?!

Just a cute pic of Scarlett after her bath under the warmer.

Thanks for all your comments! I got to pick the name. Trevor was gone at work and I had the papers in front of me. It was the name I liked the best, though I don't know if she quite looks like a Scarlett. She can grow into I guess.

So for all of you who are interested, here are the details. Trevor and I went out to eat at Yamato Japanese Steakhouse on Saturday night. We both joked that I'd probably go into labor since I had such a full stomach. Well about 11:30 that night I did. I'd been asleep for about an hour and woke up with a start. Thought it might be gas, but it was more, much more. After monitoring them for a couple of hours I called the doctor's office. The doctor on call told me to come in b/c the contractions were 2-4 min apart and lasting about a minute each. We got to the hospital around 2:30am and they hooked me up to monitors and stuff. My whole labor was back labor so when we got to the hospital I was asking for medicine. They gave me a shot of something which slowed my labor so the contractions were 6-7 min apart. Since the labor slowed and I hadn't dilated anymore they SENT ME HOME!! I was so angry. I was in a lot of pain and I knew I was in labor. I was afraid I wouldn't make it back in time once I got home. We got home around 6am and I continued to labor. I was in so much pain. Back labor is rough. Finally, I called again and said I had to come back and "I couldn't do it anymore". (Those were my exact words.) I went back and was 7cm dilated in full blown labor. I was like "yeah, duh"!! They had to admit me and give me so many fluids before the epidural. Trevor thinks I broke his hand during my contractions. Oops! When my water broke there was some meconium staining which scared me. It didn't cost any problems so we were grateful for that. I got the epidural around 2:30- it worked wonders. About an hour after that I was 10cm. They turned me on my side so that she could drop down. I pushed for about 15 minutes and Scarlett was born! I was so thankful for the epidural. My total labor was about 17 hours- all of it was back labor. After that experience I don't know if there will be a child #3. The most painful experience of my life to date.

So there it is. I have to thank Jade for her post about me being past my due date! That in combination with the Japanese steakhouse must have been what did it!!

Scarlett Rose is Here

Scarlett was born on Sunday, August 23, at 4:46 pm. She weighed 7lb 7oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. We're both doing well and I'll write more later. Just wanted to let you know.

Pool

Here's a cute pic of the little girl and her daddy. We went to the pool today with daddy and grandma. What fun! Chloe loves the water. The aquatic center on base has this portable slide thing that Chloe loves. My mom and I went Tuesday and they pulled it out. Here's a video clip of Chloe using the slide. I have to say that she was more daring on Tuesday and didn't need as much help. But atleast you get an idea of what she was doing.

Silly buddha

Just when you think they can't pull the wool over your eyes anymore they get smarter. It was awfully quiet in the kitchen earlier today and I just figured she was wandering around under the table like usual. Nope, she had crawled up on the chair and then onto the table. Lovely. We bought a new table recently and it's a high table. One advantage of such a high table was that she wouldn't be able to climb up on it like our old one. Yeah, right! She's been climbing up on to the chairs recently but today was the first day she actually climbed up on to the table. Scary. She doesn't know how to get down off either the table or the chair. Crazy little girl!

Here she is lounging in Deuce's swing. In all fairness I guess it was Chloe's swing first. I looked over one minute and she was pushing her baby dolls in it. The next minute she had climbed into the swing and was playing with the fish mobile. She was actually able to get out of the swing on her own. I was impressed, I thought she might tip it over. Please take notice of her new sandals. Those are one of the pair we got at Sears yesterday. She thinks she's so big wearing them. Trevor says she's too young for platform sandals. I say you're never too young for heels!!

Criminal in our midst

Yes, sadly it's true. We have a criminal in our midst. She's really cute though, about 2.5 feet tall, 28 pounds, blonde hair, and brown eyes. That's right, little Chloe committed her first misdemeanor today. We went to the mall to look for shoes for her (she's recently had a growth spurt and none of her sandals fit- plus any excuse to buy her clothes/shoes and I'm all for it). We were at Sears just looking around and they had some good prices, but I had a Payless coupon so we continued on to that store. While we were at Sears Chloe helped herself to the shoes trying them on while I looked around. Trevor and I both thought all the shoes had been put back in their places. It wasn't until we were across the mall leaving Payless (not a good selection) that I saw a fancy, black dress shoe tucked in under Chloe's leg! I was so embarrassed. I was actually looking behind us thinking a guard would come running and arrest us. She must've liked that particular model and not wanted to put it back. We were going back to Sears anyway and we surreptiously placed it back on the display rack with none the wiser. I guess until now with this post...

Chopsticks??

We went to the China Palace for dinner tonight. Apparently my darling husband never learned how to hold a pencil correctly. This little informational nugget will be important later. He had just finished bragging to me about how he can eat so well with chopsticks, when one of the waitresses came over and gave him a lesson. He wasn't using them right! She wouldn't let it go either. She must have stood over our table for a good 5 minutes trying to show/tell him how to use the dang things. Since he can't hold a pen/pencil I guess he can't hold chopsticks. Chloe was so freaked out that this lady was standing over her and using her food as a demonstration. She wouldn't move a muscle. Literally, she was holding her watermelon in her hand and just staring at me, as if to say "mommy, make this lady go away". What made it even funnier was that the lady spoke NO English. Trevor was good about it though. He tried doing what she said. Finally she left us alone to eat in peace. I don't get what the big deal was in the first place because he was succeeding at getting the food to his mouth. And I didn't see what the difference was in what she showed him to what he was already doing. It was pretty funny.

As for how to hold a pen or pencil. What difference does that make? They try to teach us the correct way in grade school, but if you can write- who cares how the letters get on the page? Remember those gummy things they used to have us put on pencils so we'd hold them correctly? Apparently they never worked for Trevor and his teachers got really upset about it. I'm sorry- holding a pencil incorrectly doesn't look like it's harmed him academically. I'd say a 3.6 in Mechanical Engineering from a top engineering school isn't too shabby. Nor is currently being enrolled at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Center where he's learning to control billion-dollar equipment!! I think his teachers would eat their words, or pencils for that matter, if they could see him now!

The Little Gym

Okay, so fair warning that there are lots and lots of pics to follow! We enrolled Chloe in a summer session at The Little Gym in Summerville. It's like Gymboree if you're familiar with that program. She absolutely loved it! We went on Wednesday mornings and then went to lunch with Chloe's friend Grace and her mom Tara. I've loved Wednesdays this summer! I brought my camera today since it was the last day of summer session. She's going to go on Thursdays this fall. (I'll either leave Deuce in the car seat in the corner or carry her around in a sling. Hopefully it works out so Chloe and I can play a little!)

Chloe tracking a bubble with her finger. All the kids love the bubbles. Notice AJ standing on his mom in the background...funny.

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere!!!

I'm thinking mom, can I have a minute?

They got to play with sticks and balls today. Usually it's just balls, but today they got the sticks too. A little dangerous in my opinion, but the kids love them! Chloe was more interested in hoarding the sticks!

Here she is swinging, her favorite thing! To the left is her friend Grace.

Chloe loves jumping. Here is a great action shot of her jumping onto the mat.

More swinging.

She loves the rings too.

Attempting a somersault. She's really good at them, I need to get a video clip of her doing one.

Being silly with the scarf.

Below is a short video clip of the bye-bye song. Tuesdays when I ask Chloe what we're doing tomorrow, she'll start banging on the floor singing "bye-bye". I missed out on the first part of the song, so this is just the last little bit. Notice after we're finished singing Chloe is frantically signing "again". And saying it too "nee, nee". That's her "again".

Random pics

This didn't turn out to be the best pic of our new stroller. I'm sure I'll post other pics of it. I'm really excited about using it. It's a double jogger. The thing's a monster! It was one thing to run 3-4 miles while pushing a single jogger, but a double??? Yikes.

Little girl just loves daddy's glasses.

The Monster

Okay, she's not the monster, well sometimes... But this one's just a cute pic of the little girl.

These jammies are a riot! They came with a tutu which Chloe loves. She's such a shoe girl! She really enjoys putting my flip flops on and walking around.

To the untrained eye this looks like a normal corner. To an almost 2 year old this is the perfect hiding place from The Monster, aka the vaccuum. Poor thing, she is terrified of the vaccuum. I so much as pull it out of the closet and she runs. I hurried to vaccuum our family and living areas and she was nowhere to be seen. I saw a little pink satin from her nightgown sticking out and she had crunched herself into this corner. She was squatting in here with her hands over her face. Poor thing! I would have snapped a picture but I felt so bad for her I picked her up instead. She was absolutely terrified :(

For those who are interested...

I had my weekly appointment today. Things look pretty much like last week. My blood pressure's still really good. Still 1 cm dilated. Getting checked was quite uncomfortable. I could have sworn the midwife was trying to tickle my ribcage! Ouch. I know that's TMI, but it's my blog :) Further along the line of TMI let me just tell you what the midwife told me. I'm pretty uncomfortable as can be understood seeing as how I'm 38 weeks pregnant. She told me what to do to bring on labor. Here's the list:
1) Sex
2) Walk around on all-fours...like a dog
3) Drink red raspberry tea
4) Evening (I think that's what the word is, I can't read her writing) primrose oil- I'm supposed to pop the capsule with a safety pin and rub the oil in my vaj.

She writes this down and hands it to me. I thought it was funny. Items 2-4 seem quite ridiculous to me so I thought I'd share. Maybe they've worked for some of you... C'mon- rub oil in my vaj???

Let me say that she is not the midwife I prefer to see. The one I really liked moved to Costa Rica. Hopefully this one I saw yesterday isn't on duty when I go into labor!!