Living in the moment

Tonight I jumped in puddles and ran barefoot outside in the rain with Andrew and Evie. I could have done that forever, if only I could have gotten past the fact that it was almost bedtime and I have a million things to do each night between their bedtime and mine. I think I'm getting a little better at enjoying the small things and living in the moment, though.

The third child will have no baby book

Both these pictures were taken in the first week Truman was home. I am not entirely sure we've taken pictures since. I now know why the third child doesn't have a baby book, or very many pictures. Andrew averaged like ten pictures a day for the first month or so of his life. Truman's under one, I think.
Isn't he handsome, though?

I can't believe how busy I am! I feel like I have no time to breath, or that all the time I take to do anything is stolen from somewhere else. I just hope I can enjoy this incredibly busy time and make the most of it. So this morning I resolved to spend an hour with my two oldest first thing after breakfast every day playing the way they want. We built a spaceship out of our trampoline. It was really fun. Then we jumped. I plan to spend at least another hour of dedicated time with them today just being with them and not getting distracted. I also plan to find at least two good times during the day when I can take my time feeding and holding and talking with Truman. It makes me feel full instead of like I'm running on empty when I really dedicate myself to my time with my kids instead of just rushing from task to task.

One more picture for now.

This is a picture I just discovered that Mikey took and had already on the computer. Now you can see his hair.

Truman Daniel Borup

Truman was born at 12:18 pm yesterday (July 8th). He weighed 7 lbs. 8.9 oz and was 20.5 inches long. Everything went really well, and we just came out of it more exhausted than usual. I slept like constantly for about 36 hours. Truman is still sleeping. Here's a picture of Truman with his daddy, who he looks a lot like. And just to be fair... here's me. We have better pictures of him, showing the usual lots of curly hair and stuff, but our camera died before I could get them all imported, so I'll post more later.

I get a little crazy...

This is me one week overdue.
So, I am really good at being pregnant, I discovered. I don't have much (if any) morning sickness. I also look pretty freaking hot, I think--I don't get stretch marks or varicose veins. I do, however, get impatient. At the end of my pregnancies, I always do a lot of stupid, crazy things to try to induce labor. And, truth be told, just to see if I can. Let me, for example, tell you about my day today. I spent my last saturday as a mother of two doing things most mothers of two stopped doing long ago because it's childish and crazy, and, after having two kids, there's a high risk of peeing your pants. I got up this morning and tried to start the day normally, but after a couple of hours of moving and unpacking boxes, I got bored and decided ten days overdue is too long. So I went out and jumped on the trampoline. I did a lot of "bumsies" but was too afraid to do any flips. I did like the way my hair looked so wild-- I felt like an eight-year-old.

When jumping for a long time didn't give me any contractions to speak of, I decided to go for a jog. That's right, I went for a jog. I put on my sports bra and tank top, which is unable to cover my belly at this point, along with something called a "belly band" for a little extra support as I was jarring myself, and started running laps around the house. My husband encouraged this and came out to watch, sitting in our kiddie pool, shouting, "Go, Jamie, go!" every time I passed. This didn't give me any contractions either.

So we went for a ride in his pickup. We took the bumpiest roads we could find and went off a lot of curbs, then we did some figure-eights in a church parking lot. That gave me a few small contractions occasionally, but apparently I'm not only good at being pregnant, I'm good at staying that way.

Then I came home and, after taking a bath in our new jetted tub, I was starting to have regular contractions. They weren't hard ones, but we were feeling like all the random contractions during the day must have at least helped me progress to being dilated to four, which is when a friend told me they no longer send you home. So we decided to confidently go to the hospital, despite my underlying feeling that being in labor should hurt more than this. They, of course, sent us home. I did start having hard contractions by the time we left, though. They just weren't regular or close together.

Now it's 5am and I'm up counting contractions (the hard ones are still like half an hour apart) because I'm too excited to sleep and pretty sure I should be having the baby in the next 24 hours at least.

I'm glad, too, because I was beginning to lose faith in all the self-induced labor advice I've come across on the internet. I'd hate to think I have no control over when the baby comes...

Hooray for a home!

So, most of you have heard about our home-buying ordeal-- the motels, the repeated disappointments, the waiting one week at a time. Well, it is not all for nothing. In fact, it turned out very well. Not only have we learned to appreciate the very simple and basic, but after experiencing nearly every setback possible we have finally come to a good spot. We will be closing on our house, for reals this time, I'm pretty sure, on Wednesday. We were also able to get the price lowered significantly (because apparently that was a big part of the problem getting lending the whole time).

More about how that went later. Here's the great news for now: we have moved in! We are officially living in a home! Not a temporary, fit here till we work things out home, but the home we could stay in for a long time! It's great! After a LOT of cleaning up, it's becoming really livable, and we have so much room. And I'm SO excited to start actually decorating this place!