Little things

A friend said the other day that they had been looking for more updates from our family.  It made me realize that . . . there isn't much to say, in general.  With Jasmine still so little, we are mostly staying indoors when we can.  Which means life is mostly boring.  But I found a few stories to share.

*This is old news, but Tyler got to be the Student of the Month for his class!  Okay, so there are only 10 kids in his class, which means everyone probably gets a turn at some point.  It was still worth it to go to the assembly and watch him get up in front of the school.

When the school aide tried to take his picture, he proudly held up the certificate . . . in front of his face.  I managed to talk him into holding it lower though.

* Jasmine is still doing really well.  She is gaining weight like a champ, and is still fairly easy-going for a newborn. 

She does make sure that she lets us know loud and clear when she has a gassy bubble in her tummy though, and life is rough when she gets off her schedule and too tired to get back on track.  In fact, writing this paragraph has been interrupted a couple of times as I go back and settle her for the night.  But overall she has been a good little girl.

I have to insert a funny story here.  The other day we were in the drive-through when a tummy bubble hit.  I knew that cry all too well - and I also knew that she would settle right down as soon as the burp came out.  So I figured since we were stopped in line already, I would just climb back there and pull her out.  As I lifted her up though, Tyler was still very concerned about the wailing.  "Oh no!  Did you kick baby Jasmine?"  Um, no, I don't generally kick adorable newborn babies Tyler - but thanks for being a sweet protective big brother, I guess!

*I got the birth announcements printed and mailed! 

*Kaitlyn has been a true angel lately, I have to say.  She has taken the role of big sister very seriously, and if Jasmine starts to wimper she hops right over to tell her high pitched little things and try and calm her down, or runs to find a binky to give her.  She loves all the new tasks I give her to help out.  In fact, today she changed loads in the laundry while I was nursing Jasmine.  The washer finished, so she took all the clothes and put them in the dryer, turned on the dryer, and started them running.  Sure, there was no dryer sheet, and one of her jammie bottoms had a leg sticking out the door, but  . . . she's four, and she did the laundry without being asked!  She even took them out when they were done and put them in the laundry basket.  Now if I can just get her past the bossiness and occasional potty accident, we will have it made.

And today, she decided to make Jasmine a princess by putting a silly bandz crown behind her head.  Nice!

*Tyler has been a bit rougher.  When I spend a couple of hours upstairs trying to calm Jasmine down, I have sometimes come down to a mess.  Last week he had a messy accident leak onto the carpet.  And a couple of days ago I came down to find marker all over every surface in our front area - walls, carpet, coffee table, cabinets.  Thank heavens it was washable marker, but the carpet still isn't quite right yet.  

He has sure been sweet with baby Jasmine - he loves to come over and talk to her.  And when we rode bikes around a park on Saturday, he did so great!  He gets pretty nervous on the big bike, and if we are home he will go grab his big wheel.  But he got faster with every lap of the park.  Daddy was really patient with him, and it was paying off.

He does love his Daddy a lot.  And helping him play games on the iPad.

*Can it really be Easter season already?  I guess I feel like I have been in a time warp.  The neighborhood hunt was this last weekend.  I couldn't really get any good pictures, since I had a baby in a sling and Christopher wasn't there, but thank heavens McKenna was there to help out again.

Kaitlyn was obviously quite excited about this.  And I think my kids tried to eat all of their candy - along with the donut and chocolate milk - before we even got in the car to go home.

*On the horizon, it looks like we are going to have Jasmine's baby blessing on Mother's Day.  (In our church, babies are traditionally given a blessing by a priesthood holder - usually daddy - when they are a couple of months old.)  I think that is a great way to celebrate the day!  And I think I might make Jasmine her own little white dress.  Kaitlyn wore the same little dress that I wore when I was a baby, but I have this beautiful white linen skirt with a stain on the front that I am just iching to repurpose.  We'll see how it goes!

Forgotten pictures

I was looking through my pictures the other day, and found a few that never made it to the blog.  Some of them are a bit old, but . . . I still wanted to post them!

This is how Kaitlyn looked when I picked her up from the gym playroom one day.  She told me she was a "cat dog".  Which makes total sense.

And then we have a few pictures of the week before the baby was born.  The kids decided to play Bingo one day - but my favorite part was that Mickey Mouse was playing too.  With his own board.

We tried to do a couple of fun things that last weekend, since we knew some things would just not be possible again for a while.  We saw Muppets in the cheap theater (which the kids liked almost as much as the popcorn).

And we also went to a BYU Gymnastics meet.  Kaitlyn says she wants to "learn to do flips like those girls", so we'll probably try out gymnastics next year instead of ballet.

And lastly, I had to throw in this picture.  Tyler is currently in love with his "Ruffy Dog".  He got Ruffy at the end of last school year - his classroom ended up with a lot of stuffed friends, and this was the one he picked out.  Somehow he didn't pay too much attention to him until recently, but he basically carries him wherever he goes for the last few weeks.  We have also noticed that while Tyler is very well behaved, Ruffy dog is always getting into trouble.  Tyler wanders around saying "No no Ruffy dog!  You get down from there!"

And the other day, he put Ruffy dog in his own clothing, complete with underwear.  When I told him to look at the camera for a picture, he turned Ruffy's head towards me and said "Hi!" in the Ruffy voice.  I love the imagination!



Happy Pi Day!

You know, the ironic thing about being a math nerd that likes Pi Day is that I don't really like pie.  Sure, I'll eat a slice for Thanksgiving, but there are more fun calories out there in my opinion.  I guess I just love the randomness about a holiday celebrating a number.  Sorta like "talk like a pirate day."  Who thinks these up?

In theory, this should have been the day that we went in to the hospital to have Jasmine.  I guess I was alone in that theory, because instead this is the day that my mom flew back home, and Jasmine will be two weeks old tomorrow.  I'm really going to miss my mom!  Not only does having her here for advice save me a lot of phone calls, but it has been really nice to have her run and pick up Kaitlyn from Miss Melva's while I stay home with the sleeping newborn, or have the dishes magically get done while I feed the baby.  No more magic now - I'm on my own!  (We'll see how this goes.)  So far, Jasmine seems like a pretty easy going girl, thank goodness. 

In fact, yesterday I took some newborn pictures, and I was amazed at how well she stayed asleep for me!  This was obviously my first attempt at a baby photo shoot, but thankfully I learned a lot of tricks from the internet.  I'm no pro, but I think I got a couple of good shots.  And had a lot of fun!

The only dissapointing thing is that I really wanted some pictures of the big siblings with her, and maybe some Mommy/baby shots or Daddy/daughter shots.  But Kaitlyn refused to cooperate, I was doing this while the boys were at school and work, and once again if I am in the shot no one is there to take the picture.  Oh well.  I'm just glad that I have learned enough about photography to take these pictures!  And I even got to use the quilt I made for her.  What a little angel.

By the way, we have gotten a few comments about her name.  It is one that people either love or hate - just like the idea of having her on Leap Day.  I just want to go on record that, contrary to what some people have joked about, we did not let Kaitlyn name her after a Disney Princess.  This was Daddy's top pick, which I liked despite being a Disney Princess.  We went to the hospital armed with a list because I was nervous (and just in case she came out with Grandpa Jones' black hair.  I draw the line at naming her the same as a Princess she resembles.)  But I think I have known for a while that her name is meant to be Jasmine.  Hopefully she likes it too as she grows up. 

Siblings

Ok, so this post is mostly another excuse to post more pictures.

I do like taking pictures of this little girl.

Daddy and I were talking about how much easier it was to fall in love with her.  When Tyler was born, we were overwhelmed by the adjustment of it all.  We stressed over every little thing we were doing wrong (well, mostly that was me).  We didn't know how long the sleepless nights and busy feeding schedule were going to last.  But now we can just relax and enjoy her, knowing it will pass by quickly. 

There are a thousand stages and things to learn along the way, but before I know it Jasmine will be the one bounding around and telling us all about what she learned at preschool.  In the meantime, she can listen to Kaitlyn's stories.  The kids love coming over to investigate what Jasmine is up to! 

Of course, I moved to get a different angle of the sisters talking, and instead I got this.

He was so proud of himself for jumping in my picture.  And if I tried again, he would wait until the last second and jump in again.

But eventually, Jasmine captured his attention again.

I can't blame him.  I get distracted looking at her a lot too!

More pictures

I don't know why, but our little netbook did not want to load pictures in the hospital. And the lack of pictures in the last post made me sad. So now that we are home and I go to post-process them, here are some more pictures for ya.

Can't have a birth story without a picture of a really tired momma in an ugly hospital gown, right?

Ahh, that's a better picture.

The kids were so cute when they came to meet their new sister.  Kaitlyn has been VERY excited about this for a long time.  She was a little unsure at first - silently walking in and staring at this little baby - but very quickly grew into wanting to hold her all by herself and pat her on her back " 'cause you member, this helps the baby go night night".

We weren't sure what Tyler would think of all of this, since he really had no idea what was coming.  But watching him hold her so reverently was one of the cutest things ever.  He kept telling us "the baby is sleeping!" and one of his favorite phrases when he hears or sees something interesting, "did you hear that!"

We had some family come to visit.  Jasmine is the fourth Skarda cousin born since last September!  Here she is with the next oldest, seven week old Samuel.

Jasmine has just one Great-Grandparent left, and she was excited to come see our little one.

And now, we are all home and adjusting to a new life.  There are always things to learn about each little one.  So far, Jasmine is very big on pacifiers, and is not very fond of being moved around while she is alseep.  And of course I have to remember the routine of newborn land, figuring out feedings and diapers and such.  Most of the time, I look at her and just can't believe that she is here . . . and ours!

Jasmine doesn't care for Leap Day

I apologize in advance - since this is a birth story, it isn't going to be short.  I wanted to record it all though - and I always enjoy hearing birth stories, so maybe some of you will too.

I had my misgivings about inducing on Leap Day - mainly because I was only 39 weeks.  I had a feeling she would go late, just like my mom did with all of hers and just like Kaitlyn was.  Last time, my mom flew out and waited for a couple of weeks for a baby, and we ended up inducing at 41 weeks so I could take advantage of her being here.  So one of my concerns was that we would end up inducing eventually anyway, after wasting a lot of my mom's visit (again).  Inducing right when she got here solved that.  And if you are going to induce, you might as well induce on a fun birthday, right?

After some reassurance from the midwife, I decided my plan was to go ahead with the induction but not have them break my water until we were sure it was really ticking.  By not crossing the point of no return, we could shut things off and go home if it was clear that Jasmine wasn't ready to come out yet.  Not ideal, but the plan did make me feel better.  I was still going to listen to what my body and my baby wanted.

So the next morning we headed in bright and early.  On my birth plan, we specified that since I have a hard time with needles, we would love to have their best expert do my heplock.  The wonderful nurses were happy to bring her in.  But my veins decided they would not cooperate under any circumstances.  I have to pat myself on the back - I was calm and focused through the whole thing.  But it was horrendously painful to have her digging around for veins!  After three tries, she gave up and they brought in the anithesiologist.  That should have solved it, but even HE had to try twice.  I ended up getting it in my elbow, which the midwife said she had only seen on people coming in by ambulance because, while easier to find a vein, it is rather uncomfortable. UGH.

Meanwhile, it turns out that I actually had been having very mild contractions every 5 minutes or so before even coming in.  So we figured that once we turned the Pitocin on, things would just groove into place.  And they did - for a few hours.  Since my last births were 6 hours and then 5 hours, I assumed that we would have a baby by 3pm.  But at 3pm, labor had clearly stalled.  So it was decision time: break the water, or go home?

The deciding factor at that point was the awful heplock.  I was NOT going to go through that all over again another day.  Sorry, baby girl.  We broke the water before 4pm, and from 4-5 things were very, very strong.  So, just like my other births, we figured that since things were so strong, we could turn the Pitocin off. 

And then labor stalled again.  We tried some other things for an hour or two, and I was still having some occasional contractions, but at that rate we would have been there for days.  I asked them to turn the Pit back on so we could have a baby before I ran out of energy.

And that was a rather frustrating part for me.  Especially because they had to gradually increase the Pit slowly, so it was like starting over.  And to have no end in sight at 9pm when I expected to have a baby at 3pm was frustrating.  I told the midwife I either needed a pep talk or a C-section just because I was so angry at the whole situation.  Usually I have a breakdown because I am tired, or because the labor is wearing me down, but this time I was calm and focused through every single contraction.  I just didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel, and that made me want to chuck it all.

Luckily my midwife is great at pep talks.  And by 10pm, the contractions were as strong as ever and we were headed into transition.  The one bonus to all the stalling was that I had fit in a couple of light naps, so I had more energy than I gave myself credit for. 

But we were still on Jasmines's schedule, not ours.  Pushing took 30-45 minutes with my other kids - and once they crowned, they came out in 2 minutes flat. I learned not to actively push for the first 30 minutes because the urge to push came long before the baby was in the correct position to come out.  I ended up waiting an hour this time . . . and then gently easing her down for another half an hour . . . and then crowning for about 20 minutes.  My pushing contractions were still 5-10 minutes apart.

All of that added up to a baby born at 12:40 am, March 1st. 

In the end, I have mixed feelings about the whole experience. In retrostpect, I should have stuck to my guns and waited another week or two. Since I was already starting very mild contractions and at a 4, I think labor might have started on its own with some more time. Or at least my body wouldn't have been rejecting the induction quite so much. In many ways, I compromised and ended up not having the natural birth dictated by my body that I was aiming for.

But I am really happy with how I handled it, in general. I was calm and breathing properly through almost every single contraction yesterday. That was one of my main goals - with Tyler, I was calm and focused until transition, at which point I panicked and had a very painful and awful end to his birth. With Kaitlyn I made it up to pushing and then panicked. This time around, I got really frustrated at 9pm, and when it came time to push I got a bit nervous about stepping into that phase, but I never actually lost it and went crazy like I did in my other births. And by listening to the baby's schedule (no matter how much I didn't like it), she was born smoothly with no tearing.

But hey, in the end, this is all that matters.

Jasmine Marie Skarda

8 lbs 1 oz, 20 inches long

12:40 am March 1st, 2012