Out of the mouths of babes--May

I have to apologize in advance. The kids have said some pretty cute things since Caroline has been home, but ya know, the whole giving birth thing was exhausting and I didn't have the energy to a) get up and write them in my handy dandy notebook or b) hop on the computer and save them in my monthly draft. So, in the haze of post-partum sleepiness, the cute sayings have mostly been forgotten. Boo on that!

Here are the things I caught BEFORE bringing home baby.

5/4-I have a CD of Sarah Brightman, an opera singer, that we were listening to on the way to church today. Some of her songs are in foreign languages. During one of them, Brandon said, "Hey, this is Italian. I want cheese pizza!"

5/5-While we were out in the backyard today, Andrew commented that he was getting attacked by mosquitos. (They love him!) Whitney said, "I don't want to get bit by Spaghettios!"

5/9-Completely random thought from W today: "I wish I could shoot a bow and arrow." Huh.

I wouldn't have pegged her as an archery lover.
Who knew?

5/9-We attended a BBQ with some friends from church tonight. Being the anti-meat girl that I am, we don't even own a grill, so BBQ's are kind of novel territory for my kids. Whit watched our friend, Greg, start up the charcoal briquettes and told me later, "That boy was roasting rocks!"

While sitting around the table that same evening, Whitney asked, "What's a carpool? Is it where you put a car in a pool?

5/13-Whitney and I love sitting out in the backyard and eating lunch together. The weather has been PERFECT for that lately. Sometimes at the end of our meal, we start playing "Name That Tune." She's pretty good at it. Today she was humming a tune and I just couldn't figure out what it was. I told her, "I give up. What song is it?" She said, "I don't know." Guess she's still learning the rules of that game.

5/15-W loves for us to read stories to her, but she also loves it when we just make up stories to tell her. Andrew is much better at this than me, but today she requested that I tell her one. After my lame attempt, I told her it was her turn. In her story, she used the words "suddenly" and "prime minister." Where does she get this vocabulary?

Future Scrabble champion?

5/18-Sometimes it's not what they say, but what they DO that cracks me up. I found this picture of B on my camera today:

He told me he took it himself.
What's up with the gang signs?

5/21-Brandon was digging in my friend's yard and got himself FILTHY. As we were leaving, I said, "B, I wish you wouldn't have gotten so dirty." He said, "Well, Mom. That's a man's job....working in the dirt." Where does he come up with this stuff?

And his other job--
wearing balloon hats.

5/25-Brandon was reading a book to me that had the word "perspiration" in it. I asked him if he knew what that meant. He said he didn't. I said, "It means sweat." He giggled and said, "My friends will need to call me Brandon Trey Perspiration now!"

5/25-The kids were being especially cooperative this afternoon and I said, "Thanks for being such good helpers!"
B: "We LOVE helping!"
W: "Yea. And we LOVE candy!"

Oh, and we love swimming in the hot tub!

5/29-Here's the one post-baby comment that sticks out to me. When the kids came to meet Caroline in the hospital, Brandon pushed on my belly and said, "Hey, you're skinny again! (pause) And kinda squishy." Yea, I'd forgotten exactly how squishy I'd still be.

Worth all the squishiness in the world.

And a bonus picture of Caroline:
3 days old

Jumbled thoughts on Caroline, Labor, etc.

So my blog posts for the next 2-3 months will probably ALL be assorted jumbles of thoughts because that's what happens when you're up all night with a baby girl who just wants to chill with you at 4 a.m. It's what all the cool newborns are doing.

Many thanks to Andrew for his quick post earlier this week. Here are a few of my thoughts from the past couple of days.

*Caroline has the cutest little high-pitched cry. I love it. (Ask me about that again in about a week. That opinion is subject to change.) She doesn't cry often, but when she do it is just so darn cute. It makes us go, "Awwwww."

*I realized this week that there IS such a thing as love at first sight. That's exactly what happened when they handed Caroline to me. Pure love in an instant. It's really powerful.

*She has a super strong neck and will already lift up her
head sometimes when we're holding her over our shoulders.
There are those cute eyes!

*She loves to keep her hands up by her face. She gnaws on them and scratches herself. (I filed her nails yesterday and that seemed to help.)

*She has the prettiest, long, skinny fingers. With nice oval nail beds. She could be a great pianist or guitarist if she wants.

*In the hospital she was SO alert and awake for a one day old. Hard to believe. She would have long spells of just hanging out with her eyes open and checking everything out. It was adorable.

*She has just a little bit of dark hair. It's not as dark as Whit's was and she doesn't have as much, either. I wonder if her real hair will be much lighter than Whit's. She also has dark little eyebrows, a prominent bridge of her nose, nice full lips, and a reddish skin tone which seems to have dissipated a bit since we've been home.

*I don't know how anyone could witness a birth and not believe in God. It is truly a miracle.

*SOOO thankful to have my parents here to help us.
I don't know what we'd do without them right now.

*Contractions REALLY hurt. Oh....my....gosh. When I was in the first couple hours of labor, I was having contractions every 3 minutes or so and they hurt, but I was totally able to breathe through them and be just fine. I had convinced myself that I was superwoman and that during this time I was probably getting close to being done dilating and Wow, this was a cinch the third time around. Then the midwife checked me. I had dilated ONE CENTIMETER in those first 4 hours of labor. Are you kidding me???? Then the REAL contractions started. The ones I had blocked out of my memory sometime over the last four years. They seriously took my breath away. Thank goodness those last two hours went by fast or I would've passed out from fatigue and exhaustion.

*I also forgot how good newborns smell. I wish I could just bottle up that scent and save it for later.

*One of the first things I did after she was delivered was tried to watch her eyes to see if she had Duane's syndrome. I've seen both eyes move to both corners, so I think we're safe. Yay!

*The best time to have an IV done multiple times is when you're in the middle of labor with no pain medication. Those IV pricks were like getting tickled compared to the contractions. "You need to try again on the other arm? No problem!"

Here are our last pics in the hospital as we
start the adventure in our home.
Wish us luck!

Daddy's little girl

Here we go.

(This is Andrew. I'm posting this for Andrea who is at the hospital right now. I just stopped quickly at home to grab some supplies for her and post some photos for everybody to see.)

Great news everybody! Caroline Rose Sweat was born at 1:15 a.m. on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008. She weighed 7 lb. 2 oz. and measured 21 inches in length. Both she and Andrea are recovering exceptionally well from the whole ordeal. The labor and delivery went very quickly and very smooth. I am sure Andrea will elaborate in her own words when she is able to do so.

Caroline is a sweet little girl who has spent most of her first day sleeping, feeding, and sleeping some more. She is making all of the cute little gurgles, grunts, and newborn baby sounds. While she has a good set of lungs when she needs to cry, she usually gives a helpless little whimper (almost like a kitten mewing) when she needs attention. That little sound just melts our hearts.

Enjoy the pics:

Good eye, Mate!

Well, we had our regular check up with Whitney's bo-eee-friend, Dr. Buckley, this week.

I have to tell you that girl is a model patient.

She sits calmly while being poked and prodded.
And somehow learned all her letters on her own,
which supposedly makes the testing more accurate.

It helps that this is a PEDIATRIC ophthalmologist's

office, so they have cool toys AND Cinderella on TV
to help keep her occupied.

Her favorite part?

Getting to see one of her FAVORITE
people on the planet, Dr. Buckley.
(I love that she's grabbing his tie in the pic!)

My favorite part? Finding out that we're done with dilating drops! Woo hoo! At least for the time being. I feel like W's vision is a mystery and that the doc's are playing a guessing game as far as what to do next. But, we don't have to patch or do dilating drops ALL SUMMER LONG. I am SO thrilled about that. We had to patch the last two summers and I always felt bad for W when she would get a tan line around her patches and have sweat running down them.

We go back in August and hope for the best. He mentioned that he might try glasses on her at that point if she has lost some of her vision.

The ducks, the geese, and me

DUCKS waddle....

GEESE waddle....

Whitney and I went for a walk today and when we were done,

I had to put forth a concerted effort NOT to waddle when I walked.

While on our walk we discovered
that at least around here,

DUCKS are having babies....

GEESE are having babies....

I thought I was having a baby on Friday.
I even had Andrew take what I thought
would be my last pregnancy photo.
38 weeks along

I bear a striking resemblance to Bob the Tomato.
Don'tcha think?


We packed our hospital bags,
got things arranged for our friends
to watch the kids,
went down to the hospital...
And were sent home.
"Nice try, folks.
See ya in the next week or two."
Dang.

I'm actually feeling pretty good. My stomach muscles are doing so much better than they were a couple of weeks ago. So I'm not DYING to get Caroline out of there. BUT, it was so exciting on Friday morning to think, "We're going to have a baby today!" I was SO ready to meet her. Now it feels like the time is dragging as we get closer to the due date. (Eight days from today! But, who's counting?)

We had a pre-baby Family Home Evening lesson tonight. It included activities such as:

*practicing holding one of Whit's teddy bears the way they'll hold the baby

*showing the kids the location of both diaper stashes in the house so they can help get them when I ask

*a game of charades where we acted out what we're most excited about when Caroline comes. Whitney's excited to help burp her. Brandon can't wait to help her play with toys. I am looking forward to reading while nursing. Andrew is most anticipating cuddling up with Caroline while she falls asleep on his chest. So cute!

We'll keep you posted on any good news. Hopefully soon.

Fun stuff

So from my last post, you might've gotten the impression that I'm just lying around the house, eating huge meals, getting spoiled, and waiting for this baby to be born. While some days I wish that were true, it's not. Here's some of the other fun stuff we've been up to.

Strawberry picking

I guess you could say this has become an annual tradition with my friends--to head out to the strawberry fields and do some picking while the picking is good. It's such a fun experience for the kids and we head home with some DELICIOUS berries.

I think Brandon could've grown up as a farm boy.
Or at least for a day. He went to work and just
kept on picking until his basket was full.

The boys' favorite part? The cart ride
from the stand out to the fields. Hang on!

W did pretty good at picking, too.
She only picked the ripest berries.

But her attention span is much shorter,
so I actually had to get down in the
trenches and pick a few myself.

Visit to the zoo...I mean the Natural Science Center

We'd been planning a get-together with our cousins from across the state for a few weeks now. We decided to meet up at the zoo. Just our luck, the zoo (which has a big marketing campaign about being open every day except Christmas) had a water main break and they were CLOSED. Are you kidding me? We switched to plan B and visited the Natural Science Center instead. The kids had a great time and it has its own little zoo anyway.

Mason loved the petting zoo.

Actually, all of the kids did.
(I don't think that's the part of the horse I
would choose to pet...but sometimes you
gotta take what you can reach, huh?)

One of the tigers was hanging out RIGHT by the
viewing window. The kids thought it was awesome.
Brandon especially loved being able to see his
teeth REAL close up.

Whit and Avery were so cute together.
I loved to see them walking down the
trails holding hands.

It was a pretty hot day and
these fountains were a hit, too.

I'm so glad that we have at least a few family members within a day's drive.

Baseball

Brandon has started baseball season up again. I made him skip soccer so that Whit could do her ballet and he's been itching to start a new sport.

I know I am completely biased, but
is this a handsome kid or what?

He ended up on a team with a couple of good
friends and several other kids that he knows,
so he's having a good time. They had their
first game last night.

Brandon did well batting. He got on base every time.
He could use a little more practice in the field.
That takes a lot of patience, which I think he's
still working on developing.

Here he is playing every baseball player's favorite
position--right field. Woo hoo!

Mother's Day

I wish I could tell you I've been a blog-slacker because I've been in labor and then adjusting to being a mother of three. But that hasn't happened...yet. Give me a couple more weeks.

Here's how I'm looking at 37 weeks...

and here's how I'm feeling.
Darn abdominal muscles.
They're still killing me.
Other than that, I'm doin' fine.

Anyway, I had another fun Mother's Day yesterday. I was thinking about it and decided it is quite possible that Mom's Day is funner than your birthday as you get older. Usually you get something fun in the evening on your b'day, but I get spoiled all day on Mom's Day--breakfast in bed, Andrew cancels all extra church meetings, and makes dinner. Yes! What do the rest of you moms think?

I LOVE now that the kids are in school and can make gifts "on their own" or at least without help from Andrew or me. They did a great job.

Whit made this ADORABLE stepping stone
with her handprint in the middle.
But if you ask her, she insists it is called a mud pie.

Brandon's class invited all the moms to school in the
morning for "Breakfast Bites." And he wrote a little
biography about me. He was surprisingly accurate.
Even with the illustrations--love my wild, curly hair!

"Hi, B-train. That's my mom. My moms
favorite book is Enders Game. Her favorite TV show

is LOST. She is having a baby on May 27th. The baby's
name is Caroline. She enjoys reading. She helps me
and plays with me. I like going places with her. My

favorite place to go is Chuck E Cheese.
My mom is a stay at home. I love my mom."

How cute is that? I also love the picture
of me sitting on the couch with perfect posture,
holding the remote and apparently watching LOST.

He also made this book mark.
Very appropriate since I "enjoy reading". :)
That seemed like such a mature
phrase for him to use.

I am SO blessed to be a mom to these
two munchkins and can't wait to add Caroline
to my mothering resume.

Race results

Despite my hesitations about whether or not this was a good idea, I bit the bullet and participated in the Race for the Cure yesterday. Definitely the right decision. It went really well. The race was HUGE this year. According to an article in the Winston-Salem Journal, there were 15,000 participants. If that's true, then the event nearly doubled in size from 8,000 last year. Isn't that amazing?

Here's a glimpse of some of us

making our way through downtown Winston-Salem.

I got lots of smiles, double-takes, and comments for hanging in there with the big belly and all. My friend's husband kept teasing me that the bicycle paramedic wasn't let me out of her sight. (I think he might've been right, too!) But it all worked out. Several of my friends ran the whole thing and most of the others were power walking, but thankfully my friend, Jayne's, mom was the perfect walking partner for me and we hung in there until the end. Woo hoo! (And it only took us about an hour and ten minutes to walk the three miles. Maybe that's some sort of record...but probably not.) I was a little sore yesterday, but today I feel fine. Maybe I should be walking three miles every day. I heard several predictions that I would go into labor as a result of this exertion, but no such luck. :)

Here are some of my friends
that shared the experience this year.

There were SO many survivors in attendance this year.
Do you see the sea of pink hats and shirts?
All of those women have battled breast cancer.

It was a humbling reminder to me of how prevalent this disease is. I'm so thankful I could play a small part in helping find a cure.