Backing up to Father's Day for a second...

For Father's Day, we went halfway home-made gifts and halfway store bought gifts.  For my father, Papa Boat as he is known by around this house, we sent him a Harry & David's gift set and made him this pillowcase.  The big three did their own drawing of themselves and signed their names.  I drew the little guys and did the family tree on the back.

We made these XL cards for each of the three dads.  Here is Papa Boat's card before we mailed it off.

These are made with the kids' handprints.  I had each child sign (or I signed for them) by his/her handprint.  It was in pencil, so I'll tell you whose is whose:  Hannah is the Hulk.  Genna is Captain America.  Isaac is Spiderman.  Drew is Wolverine.  Judah is the Flash.

For Brian's dad, Poppy, we sent him a Harry & David's gift set and the home-made giant card.  For Brian, big daddy of this house, we made him an XL card and bought him a t-shirt that says, "DAD^6"  He wears his shirt with his DAD to the 6th degree proudly.  I just keep neglecting to get a picture of him in it.  :(

Painting wooden peg dolls is addicting.

Drew kept asking me as I was painting the wooden dolls to make him more clothespin superheroes for his collection.  His sisters had made him a bunch using Sharpies.  I started just adding one feature to a couple of clothespins whenever I was painting my other pegs.  I ended up giving him Robin, Batman, and the Joker.

I made the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary for my godson's birthday.  I did it early because we'll be moving when he actually has his birthday.  He got an early birthday present.

I now have even started some superheroes in the actual 3 inch wooden peg for my boys' birthdays.  Hulk and Superman are finished.  Green Lantern, Wolverine, and Captain America are almost complete.

39 weeks and 2 days

I had a doctor's appointment today to find out that I am 3cms, like I have been at this point in the last four pregnancies as well.   This always sounds "promising" to the doctors, but no baby boy Smith has ever come willingly into this world and so my water usually still has to be broken to start actual full blown labor.  They stripped my membranes to help get contractions started, but I've been there before too.  I am fully expecting to have this baby a week late when I go in for a non-stress test and find out I am 5 cms and (they won't let me leave the hospital at this point) they break my water.

I seem to be in early labor for about three weeks or more for the last three pregancies.  On Saturday night I started having some really painful contractions every 3-7 minutes, with an occasional 10 minute break.  This lasted from about 9:30pm until 2am, and then they were spreading way out.  I figured they would die out, because the times that I have been in actual labor they do not jump around in the length between them.  They get gradually closer.  This will continue to happen some nights for the next week or two I would imagine.

While I am making predictions, I would like to predict what this baby will look like just for fun.  I think Bobby is going to have a full head of dark hair and have a dimple on his cheek or his chin.  I suspect he might have the darker complexion that Hannah had as a baby too.  It'll be fun to see if I am right.

This is Hannah at just a week old.  She was my tiniest!

 On Sunday, I decided I better get a picture of myself pregnant with this guy since I don't have too many pictures from this pregnancy.  The kids were dressed so cute for Mass that I decided to bite the bullet.

I know I'm big because the phrase "ready to pop" keeps flying out of everyone's mouths and because, well... I am big.

Genevieve has always had this secret way to talk to the babies in my tummies.  She's doing her Morse code on my belly in this picture.

 We got great pictures of just the kids too, but I'll save those for another post.  I love the girls new dresses.  They are from Land's End and supposed to be for our family beach pictures in August.  Hannah hates her dress, but she didn't complain the whole time she wore in on Sunday morning.  What a wonderful and difficult sacrifice for her!

To show just how unconvinced I am that this baby will come soon and without severe coercion, I have not even packed for the hospital or finished setting up my room for his arrival at home.  I just haven't been in the mood and we all know that nesting urge has to come before the baby does.

Getting ready for our Bobby

In preparing for Bobby, I also am trying to complete some projects that do not relate to him, but are on my to do list.  For example, I'd like to sew on the badges for the big kids' uniforms (AHG and Cub Scouts.)  And here is something that I did while working on Bobby's towel.  I redid Drew's towel so it would fit him.  I love the improvements with the wing tips and "A" on the hood.

 I completed Bobby's stocking and even put his name on it.  I'm happy to have that done so he can have his stocking up during Advent this year, assuming with have our shipment of goods by then in Germany.

 I am making him a scrap crazy quilt.  So far, since I am using up scraps,  I only had to buy the block (plain) fabric and that was only three dollars.  It's coming along well, but this is one thing I really want to have finished by the time that he is born.

This is the top of the quilt for him that is not quite finished.  I am adding a part of a poem from Robert Louis Stevenson and a quote from St. Robert Bellarmine to the big blank blocks and I am going to applique his name on the nay stripe at the bottom of this photo.  Then I have to go to Joanne's and find a backing fabric that I like and finish it up.

I'm over 37 weeks now!  Baby's head is down, and he seems to have dropped.  I guess I really need to get cracking on my to do list.  Judah really put a kink in my production the last two weeks with sucking all my time, sleep, and energy.

Sleep Regression of the Worst Kind

So starting on our vacation, Judah started sleeping less and less, but he was still going to sleep okay on his own like always.  The night before we left something happened that I still can not define with certainty and Judah started hysterically screaming about five minutes after I put him in his bed to sleep for the night.  I went in immediately because he NEVER does that...EVER!  The cat ran out from under his bed, but I figured that probably wasn't the cause because she stows away in there quite often and I go let her out before I go to bed when I notice her absence in our room.  A few times though she's stayed in there all night when I didn't notice.

Anyway, I could not figure out what was wrong and tried to calm him without picking him up as is my usual policy with babies who are not sick or hurt, etc.  I left the room and he became hysterical again so I decided I'd give him a few minutes while finishing getting Drew in bed.  He was still really crying when I finished with Drew so I went back in and tried rocking him and doing the last part of our bedtime routine with him again.  This worked and he went to sleep with just a little protest crying as I left the room.  As I said, we left for vacation the next day and he didn't have trouble getting to sleep at our friends' house.

We returned and the first night he went right to sleep in his own bed.  The next morning I had a doctor's appointment and he fell asleep on the way home.  When I tried to give him his regular nap later that afternoon, he protested the entire time.  I gave up thinking it had to do with him falling asleep on the drive.  The week went downhill from there each nap or bedtime getting worse and worse until I would go in and sit with him while he fell asleep (which wasn't long, but that's because he was completely exhausted.)  Then things got even worse and he started waking up in the morning earlier and earlier until it became not even morning when he was waking and ready for me to get him out of the crib.  When that time hit 3:30am, I decided that something had to be done to get him back to sleeping like my sweet boy always had.

I had tried a myriad of things, like talking him into it.  He's very verbal and understands a lot, but he was being very irrational (I know!  An irrational toddler is just unheard of!) and would not even listen to my rationalizing.  I tried giving him books in his crib or toys even.  We tried praying about it, for peace for him, during our regular routine prayers before bedtime and talking about being peaceful in his crib.  I even took him to the doctor to make sure there were no ear infections or hidden causes of this crisis in sleeping, which there were not.

Since all those things weren't working and sitting in there with him was making it worse and not better, I went with letting him cry it out.  Let's just say that he is a stubborn little guy.  Who knew he could fall asleep standing up over and over again for five hours, waking himself as his legs buckled.  He actually refused to lay down longer than I could have ever imagined.  He did begin to go to bed at night better after a few rough days with less than an hour of standing all the way down to returning to not crying and just going right to sleep when I laud him in his crib.  The whole next week he refused to nap though and stood during the whole nap each day.  Over the weekend I decided to try not offering a nap for two days and see if it would just break the cycle and it did.  On Monday afternoon, he finally took and afternoon nap.  I am hopeful it will continue.  He seems to be back to his normal, happy self again.

I was a complete mess with literally less sleep than when he was a newborn, so I am thrilled to be able to get some peaceful sleep again.  In the end, I've come to the conclusion that this is a combination of things that caused this problem.  Brian has been gone during the week days due to an out of town work obligation, and I have had a sitter come and help me out two evenings a week.  He seemed insanely clingy to me during this whole sleepless event and I think that was the main cause.  However, I think me continually going in to his room thinking I could handle this at his age (22 months) without doing a cry it out just made it worse.  I have never had to do cry it out at such an old age.  There have been sleep problems that have arisen with the other children after 18 months, but I have always been able to deal with them in other ways.  Who knew?  They are all so different!

We started "blanket time" finally.  I usually wait until they give up the morning nap and I realized that it's been a month since he gave that up and I hadn't started it yet.  I just feel like it helps move them towards being able to do quiet, alone "room time" which is something we really need with homeschooling, not to mention helping with obedience.

This was after Mass over a week ago when we were in the midst of the worst of the cry it out and/or sleep standing up.  He had been playing in a mud puddle and Brian thought his messy face was cute...even though it was a crying face.

The Last Vacation Before Bobby Arrives

Two weeks ago, we went to stay with some friends again.  This time it was for almost a whole week.  What crazy friends we have that would invite us for a whole week! I was blessed enough to spend most of the time with my feet up and in the ever so pregnant woman-friendly, gravity-defying place called the pool.  The only thing we did that was not restful was go to the zoo.  It was a hot, hot day and I got a lot of sympathetic comments from other women and some outright shock that I would even be there at all.  Believe it or not, it was my idea to go.  I have a history of going to the zoo when I am very pregnant for some reason.  I think it is because I'd rather tough out the heat and discomfort of a pregnant belly at the zoo than disrupt naps of an infant.  Priorities!  And I have really only had one of those two options for most of the last ten years.

All the kids, but the toddlers in strollers

Judah loves animals so much and I thought he needed a zoo trip before leaving the country.  He had some sleep troubles start on this trip, but they started small enough, mainly shorter afternoon naps, despite how much we tried to wear him out at the pool and zoo, and waking up crazy early in the morning.  More on that later.

My handsome godson and Judah's stroller buddy!

Our drive home was insane!  A 3.5 hour drive turned into a 5 hour drive where I miss my exit and end up in DC in a flash flood after sitting in traffic forever on 95.  I kept apologizing to the kids for missing the exit because they were hungry and I had just told them we were almost home.  They kept telling me it was okay and were super sweet about the whole thing.  Even Judah handled the longer drive well and he's not our best traveler ever.

Piano Recital: Part 2

A few pre-recital photos and the YouTube videos of their actual playing at the bottom.  

They got complimented on their hair by the teacher in front of the whole audience.  Hannah cried about it before we left the house.  She hates when I do her hair now.

Isaac's Recital Video

Genevieve's Recital Video


Hannah's Recital Video