I think at the point that sister said “Wow, you did a really wonderful job!”, today’s effort on the new closet shelves really felt worthwhile. The past few weekends have been pretty project laden as we slowly convert the house we just bought into a place to call home. We have a deep red wall in the once all white living room. The white kitchen is now a cheerful yellow kitchen. The kids have new mattresses, and more recently, new low-loft beds (like this one - building those were really exciting).

We did good today, on our closet project. We stayed within budget (yeah!), and tackled the right amount of work. It’s often hard to control scope creep on these things, but today we managed. We learned a few years ago that real life happens in baby steps, and that if a project is feeling stressful, it’s probably trying to tackle too much at once. Toni remembered this just in time, as in right before I went postal, and the day went well from there.

Of course by “went well”, you know I mean as in all’s well that ends well; the actual day had a few broken screws (twisted ‘em right in two) and several misplaced studs that were asymmetrically placed, lagging batteries in the cordless drill, etc, but I digress; that’s just part of the fun in owning an older home. And in the end, the wife smiled a lot, the daughter cheered, and the son got to play a game that had previously been hiding in a box because there was no shelf to display it on. He even roped sister and I into playing too.

I don’t know if this current phase of our life called “fix it up” is really “simple”, but it is very satisfying in its own way. It makes the weekends more interesting. I like roaming through the house now, visiting each colorful room. I can see that our little home is going to be very comfy by the time Fall really settles in. Fall is my favorite time of year, and this year, this will be a nice place to spend it. I pray that yours is as nice.

As we drove along in the car today; Will & I chatting in the front and Sister playing with her horses in the back, Brother sat in his car seat deep in thought. Then, at a pause in the conversation, Brother broke from his reverie to issue an indignant exclamation.

“HEY! Wait a minute!  Pickles don’t talk!”

        -No, pickles don’t talk.

“And… and… tomatoes don’t talk either!”

Oh, the disappointments of childhood, they are great.

Between the activity of moving and the everyday-ness of life we missed Aunt K’s birthday.  Will realized this a couple of days ago and asked if I would make a card for her.  He even had an idea for the project.

I don’t draw worth a flip so I scoured the interet for images and finally ended up in MS Word’s clip art section creating my own.  This, the final product, is the complilation of multiple images printed out then cut then glued in place.

The interior says:  ”Holy cow, this card is late!”  Here’s some ”moo”-lah to make up for it.”

Did You Play?

While I was out moving Julie over at Learning & Laughter gave me the sweetest compliment.  See?

The Nice Matters award was introduced to blogland by Bella-Enchanted and is meant to honor “those that are just nice people , good blog friends and those that inspire good feelings and inspiration.”  I’d like to pass this award to Mary at Owlhaven for the way her open heart inspires me.  I’m also passing it on to Leslie at My Mommy’s Place because she was my first bloggy friend and I appreciate her encouraging comments. 

Speaking of Leslie - many, many, many moons ago she gave me this.

 (explained here)

I’m tagging Julie with this one because she’s been tackling some hard “new mommy” issues, among other things, and reaching insightful conclusions that well … make me think.

These two awards really make me smile.  Thanks, ladies!

*****************

On a different note, Mo’Coffee wants to know a couple of things.  1) If I were batting at a baseball game what would be my intro theme music?  And 2) If I played baseball, what position would I play?

Hmm, theme music?  Maybe, Louie’s “What a Wonderful World” and it would have to be Louie.

Knowing nothing about baseball, I had to refer to Mo’Coffee’s explanations of the various position.  This one seems to fit best.

Catcher: The field general. This person seems quiet and behind the scene, but in reality is controlling everything, including what pitches are thrown when and to whom (fastball, curve, slider…etc.), and positioning of the defense. Also has the responsibility of throwing out runners trying to steal, as well as being the last line of defense against would-be scorers.

Doesn’t every mom feel this way? :)  Thanks to Mo’Coffee for the fun questions!  How would you answer his query?

It occurred to me that reading such a long birth story might not be as encouraging as reading about a short one.  For this week, I’d like to share a birth from my friend Melissa Morrill.  Melissa owns a faboulous store in Tulsa that caters to pregnant mamas, new mamas and their families.  I had the great privilege of attending as a doula the arrival of her son, Foster.  Amazing! 

Though she doesn’t state it in the story, Melissa’s other son, Cameron was present during her entire labor.  He wandered into the living room (where Melissa did most of her laboring) to check on his mom and see what was going on. Then he would lose interest and return to his room to play with his cars for a while.  At no point was he disturbed by the birthing process, just curious.  And during one particularly heavy contraction he even reached out to hold his mama’s hand.  It seems a pity to me that children are often barred from entering hospital L&D units - but that is another post altogether.  For now, please enjoy….

Foster’s Story   (Be sure to click through to the pictures!)

Click here for more Birth-Day goodness.

  Long ago in a life far away, I needed some contact cards for my doula business.  Now anyone who’s ever been a doula knows it’s not a particularly lucrative field (though the intrinsic rewards are outstanding).  Anyway, I was looking for inexpensive business cards that I didn’t have to buy by the thousands.  A little bit of searching led me to VistaPrint.  Since that time I’ve used their service for address stamps, more business cards, notepads and most recently postcards (of the “We have moved” variety)    The quality is great.  The service is outstanding.  Any product can be personalized with ease and best of all, I got everything for the price of shipping.  Cool, huh?

In case you were wondering, this is not a sponsered post.  I just found a print company that works for me.

Click on over here to find out what’s working for other bloggers this week.

Jennifer at Gathering Grace asked the question, “What’s in your cabinets?” several days ago and many fine ladies opened their doors to share.  It saddened me to no end that my cabinets were empty at the time; all of their possible contents stuffed in ugly brown boxes.  But now… now … joy of joys … my contribution at last.

Starting along the top, I keep my sweet baking goods (caramels, chocolate chips, etc.) stored in baskets above the microwave.  The baskets make it easy to get everything down to see while the height keeps them away from grabby little hands. (mine as well as those of my children.)

The next cabinet over houses other baking goods on the first level, my out of control tea collection on the second and small appliances on top.  The teas are in a hanging basket that just slides onto the cabinet above.  These won’t work for everyone because of their large size but fit just fine in my cabinets and help me take advantage of otherwise wasted space.

Small Appliance row continues on the next shelf with sections below for boxed items, canned goods, rices ’n pastas and miscellany like PB, nuts, popcorn and such. (That blank spot in the first basket is where our mac & cheese usually lives.  Did you know Kraft makes an organic version now?  My kids actually prefer it to the radioactive-orange kind.)

Next comes the breakfast shelf with chips above.  Will loves! tortilla chips while I’m more of a Frito girl.  Both of these I store in a large sealed containers.  I find we end up with fewer broken pieces and the chips stay fresher longer.

Dinnerware, my storage bowls and other glass stuff are all together just past the sink and over the dishwasher.  I have fallen in love with these glass storage containers from Pyrex.  Sure the top is plastic but the glass bottom means I can put leftovers directly in the microwave (or oven) without dirty-ing another dish first.

This skinny cabinet I love, love, love.  I have never had one of these before but it is so handy for storing trays, cookie sheets and muffin tins.

Zippy bags, foil and saran wrap find themselves next to the stove just above baskets of onions and potatoes with potholders in between.

And lest you think I don’t have any plasticware, here’s our kid cabinet.  Plastic plates, bowls and cups galore.  All lids and stoppers go in the bottom basket with their matches stored just above.  The cups at the back don’t have lids.  Our previous kitchen didn’t allow space for a kid cabinet which meant I was constantly hearing, ”Mama, would you get this?”  “Mama, would you get that?”  Now the children (well, Sister at least) can get many things on her own.

That’s it, almost.  (I skipped a couple of cabinets but you know, who’s counting?).  The Tour de Kitchen is over.  Check back often because when my next order from Amazon arrives I’ll really have some organizational excitement to share.

A local gas station is running a contest.  I couldn’t help but laugh at the legal mumbo jumbo.  “While supplies last” indeed.

Hey out there, internets!  Remember me?  It’s the blog that time forgot … or the blogger that forgot time … or something like that.  I’ve been a bit preoccupied - but you knew that.  Thanks for being patient.  During this absence from the blogosphere the Simple household has experienced many a blog-worthy moment.  Let’s begin, shall we?

At this point, everything has been removed from the apartment and re-deposited in our new space.  There were, however; a few days in there where some stuff was here and some was there and some was somewhere in between, a situation that produced confusion, misunderstandings and ultimately a trip to the emergency room.  It seems that if one of two stressed parents is changing a stinky diaper in the car and fuming about how “this could have been much simpler if only….” and the other stressed parent is completely worn out from the demands of the day and one uncooperative three year old mistakes a couple of pennies for dinner then within 20 min everyone will find themselves sitting next to the guy with a bloody cloth wrapped around his hand.  Fun times.  I don’t have the real x-ray (and I’m not sure how to digitize an x-ray even if I did) but here’s a reasonable facsimile. (That red dot is supposed to be a penny… you know red because it’s made of copper… maybe that means it should have been orange.  Oh, well I’m not re-doing it now.  Not even to fix Brother’s clubbed foot look.)

The doctor assured us that Brother would suffer no ill effects from his escapade while, under my breath, I repeated my favorite parenting mantra.

This too shall pass.

Which makes me think of my next topic of interest:  potty training.  (How’s that for a segue?)  Changing Brother’s diapers has become increasingly difficult of late.  He doesn’t want to lay down or still.  He wants “Daddy change me!”, “No, Mommy change me!”, “No, Daddy!” then “I change me byyy mineself.”  I suspected a couple of weeks ago that he was ready to start going potty on his own but really didn’t want to deal with it in the midst of moving (or ever) but last week, finally, out of sheer desperation, I issued an ultimatum. “Listen boy.  You can either get this diaper on right now or march yourself into the bathroom and go potty like a big boy.”  His reponse?  “I go byyy mineself.”  And he did.  I set a timer for 30 minutes and he went again.  For 40 minutes and he went again.  And again and again.  Just after Will came home and I was telling him how well the whole potty thing was going, Brother went again…. in the kitchen.  Day number two was mildly successful until after lunch when Brother decided diapers weren’t so bad after all.  As it stands now, I ask him to go before bedtime and whenever there is resistance to wearing a diaper.  I remember the struggles trying to get Sister to meet my silly expectations and I am not eager to revisit those struggles with Brother.  I figure it will happen when it happens.

On the home front - the fridge, dryer & washer finally arrived on Friday.  Thankfully, the fridge worked perfectly and we were able to end our week long eating out marathon.  Too much fast food does not healthy (or happy) bodies make.  On the upside, we did find some great Chinese and pizza. Both are buffets, which in my mind is the only way to go with small, picky discerning children.  Anyway, so the fridge works and we are once again eating (mostly) at home.  The washer & dryer had a few installation … issues.  The two young men who brought them from Sears were clean, courteous and clueless.  To be fair, both units had to be installed in an extremely tight space and the outlet for the dryer (installed by the previous homeowner) was actually designed for a welding machine.  In case you want to dry your clothes with fire… or do some welding in the laundry room, I guess.  The electrician came on Monday but in the meantime we needed to do some serious wardrobe clean up (see above section on potty training) so we made a family trip to the laundromat.  When I was a child going to the laudromat was a weekly adventure and later as teen a weekly responsibility.  I would take a book and read to the rhythmic whirring of row upon row of washers.  If I didn’t have a book I would leave my garmets sudsing and walk down to the local library to find one.  In those days, in our small town one could actually leave laundry unattended and feel secure it would still be there when you got back.  I remember those days as a lot of work but also as a refreshing time alone.  Flash forward to Saturday at the Jiffy Wash, with Will and the little ones tagging along I wouldn’t say it was a relaxing experience but it was fun anyway.  And where else can you stuff 6 loads of laundry into one washer and two dryers, taking your entire wardrobe from dirty to clean in just under an hour?

I started my first load at home on Tuesday.  The new front load washer started to spin.  So efficient, so quiet, so nice …. kaplunk, kaplunk! … wha?  Wednesday, my Sears boys came back - this time with reinforcements.  It seems that you have to remove the styrofoam and packing braces surrounding the wash drum before it will spin properly.  Who knew? (obviously not the first delivery boys.)

In the last week I’ve packed and unpacked stacks and stacks of boxes, visited Lowe’s more times than I care to count and dealt with issues regarding plumbing, electric, cable, networking, yard maintenance and carpentry.  Oh the joys of home ownership.  At the end of it all Will & I decided we deserved a break so we put the kids to bed and settled into the den to watch a movie - “The Pursuit of Happyness.”  Have you seen it?  If you have then you know every little difficulty or “issue” written above is exactly that - little - miniscule, even.  I am blessed beyond measure.  There is nothing in my life worth complaining about.  In fact there is much in my life to celebrate.  Besides now having a yard to play in the kids now also have a room to sleep in…. and they do.  For the first time in almost 6 years Will and I have a room entirely to ourselves.  Oh sure, they come in for early morning snuggles but for the most part it’s just us.  Alone.  [Insert Hallelujah chorus here.]  We almost don’t know what to do with all the privacy… almost.

Brother’s birth began on August 10, 2004. That morning I lost some of my mucous plug which seemed to initiate a series of contractions throughout the day. Despite the fact that it was already 16 days past Brother’s due date (yes, 16 - that’s not a typo)I didn’t put much hope in these contractions because they were extremely light and irregular. However, around 7:30pm the rushes settled into a steady pattern occurring every 15 minutes and lasting about 40 seconds. My expectations began to rise. It was difficult to go to sleep but I tried my best knowing I would need rest for the labor ahead. The last contraction I remember feeling occurred at 2:30am.

For the better part of the 11th my body resumed it’s normal 9+ months pregnant state sans contractions. Then at 7pm a familiar tightening in my belly caught my attention. Easily 10 minutes apart and lasting only 20 seconds or so there was no need to get excited though it was hard not too. By 11:30 the contractions had increased in length to 40 seconds and though light were coming regularly every 5 minutes. As before I knew better than to stay awake, so to bed we went. Sleep was sporadic until 5am when the contractions stopped.

August 12th came … and went. Apparently, Brother was taking a little break.

The morning of August 13th, Will treated me to breakfast at the Cracker Barrel then at 11 my midwife treated me to a special blend of Herbal Chinese Tea (guaranteed to produce a baby within 24 hours… HA!) That evening, just after we’d put Sister down to sleep, again with the contractions. Light and short but a regular 5 min apart. We went to bed but awoke around midnight to discover that number had shortened to only 3 min between each one. This was surely “it.” At 4am my full bladder begged to be emptied and a slight bit of bloody show would have convinced me this was the “real thing” except … all contractions had ceased, again.

The next morning all my convictions about the evils of induction had unceremoniously left the building. My breakfast consisted of milk, a dohnut, a round of the noxious Herbal Chinese Tea and several drops of cohosh. Despite my efforts nothing happened until 7pm on the dot (Can you see a pattern here?) They were puny little contractions 30 seconds or so every 15 minutes. I threw up my hands in disgust and went to bed.

My body woke me at 10:13 with a tightening that lasted at least 60 sec (This was new.) and then another 8 minutes later, just as long, and another, and another. Finally! These required some  concentration. Now we were getting somewhere. Sometime in the night, Will recorded that I ate some toast and took a warm bath. We tried to sleep but were up at least once every hour as the contractions remained strong and steady throughout the night. By 6:30am there was no point in staying in bed. My body needed to move. I got up and wandered about the house stopping every 6 min or so to relax and allow my body to work. Will brought me some honey toast and kept me supplied with water.

Sister woke a little after 7. I wish I could remember what she did during this time but labor requires focus so all I have to go on are the notes that Will faithfully scrawled in between taking care of me and taking care of her. I imagine since Sprout was very popular with Sister during that period that she probably cuddled up with her cat and a sippy cup of milk in front of the television and allowed the haze of slumber to slowly fade to the tune of “Dddd-ora. Dddd - ora. Dora, Dora, Dora the Explorer!…” 

Around 8:30am, I returned to bed.  The rushes were starting to wear and I needed to be in a place where I could completely relax.  I remember thinking how very nice that I didn’t have to deal with any wires or monitors or getting the doctor’s “permission” for this or that.  Instead I listened and responded as my body told me what to do.  “Move… sit… rock… sway… kneel … stand very still…”

 As I scan down through the record Will kept, it is interesting to see the pattern.  Not every contraction is the same length.  In some cases there is a variance of some 30 seconds but I notice that after several long clustered rushes there was often a break.  Four to six short ones with more time in between.  Then a long one with a long break, then a couple of short ones closer together.  Labor would be impossible if it ran at full intensity for the duration so like waves that bring in the tide it advances in a steady but delightfully varied way.

I eat as I am hungry - a banana, ramen noodles, more toast - with plenty of water.  All this water, of course, means many visits to the restroom.  Sitting on the toilet seems to intensify the contractions but rather than dreading that consequence I look forward to it knowing that intensity often equals progress.

Sister leaves with Aunt P. around 10:30 to go to church and I think to myself how wonderful it would be for Brother to be born on the Sabbath.  Apparently, some part of me was still aware of and monitoring her presence because as soon as she leaves everything begins to happen much more quickly.  I roam the living room searching for a comfortable spot.  I use the opportunity between each contraction to move to a new place or change to a new position.  It is not written on Will’s notes but I remember talking and laughing between rushes then stopping at the first twinge of tightness, drawing into myself as the contraction grew, washed over me then subsided to nothingness.  I remember easily picking up the conversation until the next wave. 

Having read extensively of Dr. Odent’s success with water births, we had rented a birth pool and set it up many, many days before in our guest room.  I never knew for sure whether I would use it or not but I wanted it there… just in case.  A little after 1pm, it was no longer a question.  I needed to be in the water.  But first, I asked my midwife for an exam.  I knew that sometimes getting in the water prior to 4 or 5cm could slow or even stall labor altogether.  Having waited so long I wanted to avoid that at all costs.  I waited fearfully.  In my head, I heard, “3cm.”  With my ears, “7 - a very stretchy 7.  You can get in if you want.”   Yes!  I went to the restroom one last time and was on my way to the pool when with a slight pop my water broke.  (Hmm, how do you suppose one gets amniotic fluid out of the carpet?)

2:10 found me (finally!) in the glorious water.  It was as if my body had whispered its needs before but now spoke them clearly.  The water made it so easy to move this way or that - so easy to reach just the right position.

Transition occurred at 2:15.  I remember it clearly.  It enveloped me in one overwhelming contraction.  It was the one moment of the whole labor that I thought, “I want to go home.”  I grasped the side of the pool, looked up helplessly into Will’s eyes and realized, “I am home.”  At the very next contraction, I could actually feel Brother begin to descend.  It was an incredible sensation.  No one told me the moment his head emerged, I knew and I reached instinctively to touch my son for the first time.  One last push and the midwife gently brought him to the surface of the water and placed him in my arms.  His eyes were bright, taking in this new world around him.  He did not cry.  We sat that way for many minutes and not until Will lifted him out did he utter a sound which is, I think, a testament to how he felt about being born in the water.

Brother’s official birth time is 2:38pm, August 15, 2004 which technically means I was in labor for about 115hrs or almost 5 days.  It does make measurements seem silly, doesn’t it?

(You can click on each picture for a larger image.  Thought I’d give you a choice on that one since not everyone wants to be flashed with picks of a necked lady in a birth pool.)

There’s another picture here.

Click this if you’d like to read more Birth Day posts.

(Yes, I really did post this in the wee hours of the morn for those of you paying attention.  Hopefully, I’ll be back soon to post more of your regularly scheduled randomness.)