Kid Conversations

Here are some of the funny conversations/comments that I gotten from the kids lately.

The other day, Calvin and West were out back playing. We have a small playhouse in our back yard, where they spend a lot of time. They came in and said the following:
Calvin: We're decorating our house. Come outside and see our house decorations.
West (running in circles around the house): Chriss-musss! Chriss-muss! Chris-musss!
Calvin: Don't you like our decorations? We've been working hard on all of our decorations. (Picks up a rock and starts scratching it on the roof).
Apparently, we have been spending a lot of time decorating for Christmas and putting up lights outside, and they were doing the same thing on their playhouse.

One morning in the car on the way to the store:
Calvin: I'm going to get my tooty horn and play toot toot toot on it all the way to the store. Toot toot toot. (Starts humming random notes. Tune turns into Silent Night) **Humming Silent Night.
Starts Singing : All is calm, all is bright, in a stable far below is a baby....
(Calvin loves to sing, sometimes he will just randomly start singing everything that he is thinking or doing. He also has a really great memory for lyrics, and will start singing things that we didn't even know that he had heard before.)

Cause who doesn't need a little extra Jack cuteness?

I came to get Calvin from quiet time one day, which he does in our guest room. I found that he had pushed the mattress halfway off of the guest bed and had created a fort with it.
Me, rather sternly: Calvin, you are not supposed to do that with the mattress. That is not how we do quiet time. (After we had fixed the mattress) Are you ready to come play downstairs?
Calvin: No (mumbles something quietly).
Me: What?
Calvin, smiling at me: No, I'm kind of nervous.
Me: Why are you nervous?
Calvin, still grinning at me: I'm nervous cause you're a little bit mad at me. So I'm going to stay here for a while.

Calvin and West like to help me take the garbage outside. As we were leaving the house, I asked Calvin to shut the door.
Calvin: Okay, I will so no one will steal us.
(I've been trying to explain to Calvin that he can't just open the door and go out front whenever he wants, especially if I'm not there.)

Calvin playing with some colored tiles and singing to himself: You're freaking out. I'm freaking out. You're freaking out. I'm freaking out. You're freaking me out.You're freaking me out.

West's favorite phrases:
Dada WORK.
Chrisss-musss! Chriss-musss (whenever he sees anything Christmas-y, like lights, trees, etc.)
Jack WAKE. Jack WAKE!
For the longest time, West refused to say Calvin's name. Whenever I would ask, he would say, "NO!" grumpily and look away. When he did finally start saying it, he would say, "Aaull-iiinn"
We dropped Calvin off at a friend's house for a birthday party, and West was quite distressed that we had just left him there. I had to drag him kicking and screaming from the house, and then all the way home he cried, "Calvin, BACK! Calvin BACK!" When we got home, I turned on a movie to help him calm down, but every few minutes he would remember and say, "Calvin back, Calvin back."
When we were leaving for the store, West runs back into the living room, yelling, "WAAAITT! Forget some-fing! WAAIITTT! Forget some-fing!!"

The other day we were at Costco, and Calvin saw a large cat climbing structure.
Calvin: I want to go climb on that.
Me: No, that's just for cats.
Calvin: I want to buy that.
Me: We don't have a cat, so we don't need one.
Calvin (thinking for a second): We have lots of cats that come into our back yard, so we need to buy one for them to put in our back yard.

Jack's Birth, Just 3 Months Late

Our newest addition is already 3 months old and I haven't written about his birth yet. Man, failure. **Skip to the bottom for pictures** His birth was probably the most uneventful of all of our children, something for which I am grateful. It all started on Friday, August 28. I drove to the airport that day to pick up my mother, who had come into town to help when the baby came. Good thing she got there that day, or she would have been too late. Things seemed pretty normal; I had some random contractions, but that had been happening for weeks, so it was nothing to raise any alarms. That night, I got up two times with West, at about 12:00 and 1:00. For about two  weeks before the baby's birth, West had been waking up nightly, calling my name and insisting that I sit with him until he fell back to sleep. If Chase went in, he would scream "MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!" even louder than before, refusing to be comforted until I came in. I distinctly remember thinking, "Man, I hope this baby waits at least one more day to come, because I am so very tired and now that my mom is here, I can at least take a nap tomorrow." Alas, it was not to be.
I got up at 3:00 to go to the bathroom and that was when my water broke. I hadn't been having any contractions, and it was a little different than last time, not a huge gush, just intermittent leaking, so I wasn't sure at first if my water really had broken. After some walking around and getting in and out of bed a couple of times, I was pretty certain. I woke Chase up and told him we needed to go to the hospital. I was much more prepared this time than I had been with either of our others. I woke up my mom; she was quite surprised to hear that it was time.
We managed to get all of my things and get on the road in about 15 minutes. By this time I was having contractions, about every 2-5 minutes apart, but they weren't very strong. I was mostly joking with Chase and talking about what the next few hours would bring. We made it all the way onto the freeway before we realized that we had forgotten our camera. I asked Chase if he wanted to go back and get it, but he wouldn't even entertain the thought. Seeing as how West was born two and a half hours after my water broke, he was NOT going to take any chances with making it to the hospital. His greatest fear was that we were going to have the baby in the car on the side of the road.
By the time we got to the hospital, though, I was pretty certain that this labor was going more slowly that West's. The contractions were still somewhat random, ranging from 2-6 minutes apart, and still not very intense. We got checked into the ER, and Chase made certain to tell them that this was my third and that I had a very fast labor with my last, so nobody would dilly-dally with us. When they took me up to Labor and Delivery, Chase reiterated this to every nurse that we met. They checked me, and I was still only at 2-3 centimeters. That was the same as my last check up, so I was a little disappointed that nothing had progressed yet.
Everything was very calm in my room. Our nurse, an older lady who had been in Labor and Delivery for many years, kept us entertained with stories about previous patients and their families. I think that she was afraid to leave the room, in case the baby suddenly decided to pop out. They also called the on call doctor right away. I felt a little bad about that later, since I was right and my labor really was going much slower than with West. But it did turn out that my OB was the one on call, which I was very pleased about, because she is awesome. As the contractions intensified, I alternated between sitting on the ball, and kneeling and laying in bed. I really wanted to get up and walk around, but all of the nurses said that I couldn't because there was a risk of the umbilical cord slipping out since my water had already broken.
By about 6:00, the contractions were getting pretty bad (but still not to that "Oh my gosh, I think I'm going to die" stage that I remember oh so well from West's labor), so I asked my doctor to check me. I had held off until then because I was worried that I would not have progressed hardly at all and only be at a 4. I had told my doctor this, and after she checked me, she said, "Well, you're all the way to a 4! So you're making progress!" I was quite disappointed. I had told myself over and over that I could go natural again this time if my labor was fast like West's. But after three hours and only one centimeter of progress, I knew I really didn't want to do 5-6 more hours of this, especially if it was going to get much worse. I was also worried that I was too tense from the pain and the anticipation of more pain, and that this was making everything slow down. So, I decided to ask for an epidural.
It took an hour before I got that epidural. The anesthesiologist had been in surgery since 2:00 that morning and the whole me being in labor and a lot of pain and really wanting some relief now seemed very "blah" to him. He definitely took his jolly time, requesting his own computer to put the order in, and chatting disinterestedly with the nurses. I hated him. Anyways, it was finally in by 7:00 and I was starting to get some relief. This epidural was much better that my experience with Calvin. I could still feel the contractions, the pressure and the urge to push. My doctor came in at about 7:20 to check me again and this time I was at a 7. She told me that she was supposed to be off at 8:00, but that if things progressed quickly, she could stay until about 8:30 to help me deliver. She really is the best.
The contractions continued, getting closer together, and I started feeling the urge to push much more strongly.My doctor came to check me at about 8:00 and told me that I was just about ready to start pushing, and that she would stay to help me deliver. Once they got everything set up, I began to push. I only pushed for about 10 minutes before he was here. I could feel the contractions, pressure, and some of the pain, which was good because it helped with the pushing. Like last time, my doctor let me reach down and feel his head as he was coming, which is always a very surreal experience. After he was born, they placed him directly onto my stomach. They even let me cut the cord (Chase had absolutely no desire to do that).

Literally moments after he was born.Still all white and pasty.

First skin to skin.

Meeting brothers!

First picture as a family of FIVE.

He tested positive for Coombs, which greatly increased his risk for jaundice, so he spent the first two days of his life in the hospital under the blue lights.

My hospital stay this time was quite different from my last two experiences, because Jack had a high risk for jaundice. This was discovered a few hours after his birth and then for the next 36-ish hours, he spent most of his time under the blue lights. While this became increasingly miserable for both of us (Jack and myself), we were so grateful that he was healthy.

We love this little boy and are so grateful that he has joined our family!