Mason's birthday celebrations

Mason turned two today!  I can't believe he is so big!

We took him to a restaurant on Thursday (which was Grandpa's birthday) and Grandpa, Grandma and aunties came too for a combined celebration.  We took him to a restaurant called Fritz's, which is cool because they deliver the food using little trains.  When we first got there, he was really cranky, because it was an hour past dinnertime, he was hungry, he wanted me to hold him.

 Then the first train came out.  We were in a really good place, we could see all the trains coming out to deliver food.  The first couple he saw didn't have any food for us, but he still liked them and was watching where they went.

We ordered a fruit cup for him as part of his kids meal, and for some reason they brought it separate.  Maybe it is a hot food, cold food thing.  Anyway, he was eating his fruit cup when the train brought our food.  You gotta love the look on his face!

Later, Grandma ordered some more food, because she had shown up a bit late.  I got a video of Mason's reaction.

We tried to take him to a free dinosaur exhibit later, but he freaked out.  He was scared to death of the room.  So instead we wandered outside for a little bit and then had ice cream.

 Hey there trouble!

 This morning we went to a picnic by the lake for breakfast and presents.  Here is Mommy putting on his shoes.

 The people at the picnic: all his local aunties and uncles!  We missed almost-Auntie Shawna though.

We started opening presents before food was ready.  He didn't end up eating much.

 First present: Cars 2 from Mommy and Daddy.  He wanted to open the DVD case too.

 Second present:

Third present:

Auntie April's present.  You can't see the second thing well, it's a spoon and fork with Cars characters on them, and wheels on them.  I don't think he'll be eating much with them.

He got really mad when Auntie Missa took off with them to cut them off the plastic ties, and Uncle Jeffrey brought him back.

He also got a really cool present from Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Tiffany, which I will show in a minute here, after I tell a funny story.  Grandma had just poured herself a cup of chocolate milk, and when she went to put it down, she dropped it, and it virtually exploded.  All over Mason, who just happened to be sitting on the floor playing with his new cars right underfoot. 

He was MAD!  And I couldn't stop laughing.  I was trying to calm him down, but I couldn't stop laughing, which I think made things worse.  Eventually, his aunties carried him off to look at the lake, then Auntie April took him home and gave him a bath while Mommy and Daddy went to get the oil changed (it was WAY overdue).

 After lunch, while Mason was napping, Mommy and Daddy set up the cool present from Gma, Gpa and Tiffany.

Isn't it cool! They included some cars, a plane, a couple of boats for the lake, and little animals.  We laid it out in the living room and put the animals in the zoo, etc.  Mason loves it, he hasn't even asked to watch any movies all day!  I think it even made him forget about the new movies he got.

Here are a couple of pictures of him wearing the cape from Tutu.  He doesn't quite get it yet, but he likes it.

And here's happy boy playing with his new car toy.  Surprisingly, he already drives the cars mostly on the roads.  Him's so smart!

Random cute pic.

Mike came home from a church meeting a couple of Sundays ago to find Mason and I taking naps.  This is what he saw when he checked on Mason.

So cute!

Humbling experience

This afternoon after church, Mike dropped Mason and I off at home and went back for a meeting.  I fed Mason and myself and put him down for a nap, and after he was asleep went to take one myself, since last night was one of those nights when I just couldn't sleep.  About an hour later, I heard Mike come in, and a couple minutes later Mason started to cry.  I wasn't inclined to do anything about it, because Mike was there, but when the crying didn't stop, I decided to get up and check if everything was ok.

Mason was lying in bed crying, obviously still tired, and Mike was kneeling beside the bed, trying to calm him down.  Nothing he was doing seemed to be helping.  But the moment I went in the room and Mason saw me, he calmed down.  I knelt down, gave him his water, and kissed him on the cheek, as his eyes closed, and he was asleep in moments.

I made a joke to Mike about how he didn't have the magic touch, but when I went to lie back down, I was thinking about it.  It's humbling, and a little scary that I can be that important in someone's life, that just seeing me can calm him down. 

Don't get me wrong, he loves his daddy, but there are some things that he wants Mommy to do.  He always comes to wake me up first thing in the morning, and he tries to drag me out of bed each morning to get his breakfast.  On the days Mike is home and tries to help, it makes him angry, he wants Mommy.  Not entirely sure why. 

Daddy is his playmate.  Mason gets excited the moment he hears the key in the door.  And he loves to play hide and seek or tickle monster with Daddy.  He also loves to slam the door in Daddy's face as part of the bedtime routine.  After we have family prayer and Daddy says goodnight, he leaves the room and turns the light off, and Mommy sings to Mason for a minute.  While Mommy sings, Mason goes to the door, waits till Daddy comes to it, and then slams it shut, giggling madly.  Then he goes right down to bed.

And he loves to walk with both Mommy and Daddy. We've been taking walks at the mall to try to get the baby to come, and he likes to walk in between both of us, holding both our hands.  He is very insistent on it, actually, especially when we go on the escalators.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about all this for the last few hours and wanted to share some of it.  I hope that the new baby coming won't throw too much of a wrench in his life, and he will understand that Mommy and Daddy still love him, even though he will have to share us with someone else.

Fourth of July

We went to my in-laws for a barbeque for a 4th of July celebration.  Mason got to spend several hours outside, which I am grateful for, since it is too hot for me to spend much time outside these days.  First he was playing in the dog's house.  Not very clean, but whatever.

Then we had the food, and Mason had his first corn on the cob.  He liked it a lot, at least when I was giving it to him.

After lunch, he climbed in the computer chair and insisted on Mike spinning him.  It was really cute.  The funniest part was when it stopped and half the time his eyes did this funny shaking thing.  We took a video, but we didn't get him doing that, unfortunately.  The video is a bit blurred because Mason grabbed the camera lens, so it needs cleaning now.

After that he got wet in the sprinkler, which he didn't like much, and then on the slip and slide.  I don't have any pictures though unfortunately, we couldn't find the camera at that point.  He enjoyed the slip and slide, got very wet, but then decided he wanted to sit on the bench with Mommy and Grandma and watch his aunties, uncle and Daddy on the slip and slide.  Mike was wearing his slacks while he was on it.  Nutcase!  He asked me if I wanted to go for a run, but I decided that wasn't a good idea. 

On a side note, the poor little man was exhausted by the time we got home and was asleep in less than 10 minutes once we got him to bed.  It took him awhile to fall asleep last night, since he was at his Grandma's and wasn't used to it, he woke up this morning at the normal time, and he didn't take much of a nap.  He woke up from nap around the time Mike and I got there, and he was really happy to see me.  He sat on my lap for ten minutes, and made sure I was cuddling him the whole time.  This was a bit of a test run, he will be spending his time at Grandma's house while I am in the hospital having baby brother, and it seemed to work out ok.  He wasn't especially fussy, and he did manage to fall asleep.

Truly epic dirt

I've had a cold for a few days, and Mike wanted to go to the garden.  I felt too sick that day, and the weather was way too hot so I refused to go.  He decided to go anyway and took Mason with him.  On the way home, he called me to ask if I needed anything, and told me that Mason would need a bath when he got home.  It was already his bedtime at this point, so I hoped I could postpone it, until I saw him when he came home.

I had to use several buckets of water to get the worst of the dirt off him and out of his hair before I actually filled the bathtub.  Then he kept rubbing his dirty hands into his eyes after I had washed his face, and when I soaped up and washed his hands, he started rubbing his soapy hands into his eyes.  Ouch!  Anyway, he obviously had lots of fun at the garden.

Pregnant pictures

Mike decided to take some pregnancy shots.  Here I am at 37 weeks.

Mommy's day in the hospital

I had my regular prenatal appointment scheduled for 2:45 on Tuesday July 3rd, and directly afterwards I was supposed to go over to the hospital to finish pre-registration for the delivery of my baby.  I felt bad that it was going to go so long, since my visiting teacher was taking a turn driving me, but she said it was all fine.  Her teenage daughter came over with her to stay with Mason (who was napping) so we wouldn't have to deal with him.

The first issue was that when I got to the office, I had to fill out the insurance information for the office again, since it was the first of July, and apparently everyone has to fill everything out again in July.  I didn't know about it, so I was called back to my appointment late since they had to wait until the paperwork was done.

Then, when the midwife went to feel for the baby, she couldn't find his head down where it had been last week, and was pretty certain it was high up to the left.  She sent the nurse to ask the sonogram lady to make room for me so they could double check while she finished my regular check up.  That was the only thing that went quickly, she was ready for me as soon as my midwife was finished.

They did the ultrasound, and sure enough, the baby was transverse.  Transverse means the baby is lying sideways in the belly, and you can't really deliver a transverse baby naturally unless it turns during labor or beforehand.  They have a procedure they can do to turn the baby by manipulating the belly from the outside (called a version).  As part of the ultrasound they checked how much amniotic fluid I had to see if a version would be feasible, and apparently my fluid levels were really high, which explains how the baby turned in the first place.

So then I had to wait for the doctor who specializes in the version to come and check me out.  At this point I was late for my pre-registration appointment, so they called over to the hospital to let them know I'd be there later.  When the doctor finally showed up, he asked if we could do the version that same day, and when I said yes, they arranged for me to go do the pre-registration appointment first.  My midwife warned me that I could be at the hospital for up to three hours, so when I left the appointment and headed to the hospital with my visiting teacher, I told her what was up, and that I didn't expect her to wait around all that time.  We decided that she would leave me at the hospital, go get her daughter and Mason and take them home, and then we'd get Mason later.  I called Mike at work and told him what was going on, and we decided that we would play it by ear.

I went to the hospital and my visiting teacher hung around til the nurse showed up, then left.  That appointment went quickly, since I have delivered at that hospital before.  Then I was sent down to the cafeteria to eat something, since they had to do a fetal non-stress test first, which works much better if you've eaten, since it encourages the baby to move around.  It was about four thirty when I was done eating.  Then I sat for 30 minutes or so until they got me into the triage room for the test.  I had to wait about an hour for the doctor to show up, he had been in the middle of a delivery.  I called Mike to let him know I wouldn't be ready for him to pick me up on the way home from work, and arranged for him to go get Mason.

When the doctor came, they gave me a shot directly into my vein of a drug meant to relax my uterus so they could manipulate the baby into position.  It was the WEIRDEST feeling I have ever had!  It had an affect on me like a very strong stimulant.  My head was spinning, my heart rate was very accelerated and I was shaking, which lasted about an hour.  Once it took effect, it took the doctor about 30 seconds to move the baby into position.  He had a sonogram machine right there so he could make sure of the positioning.

When he was done, they plugged me back into the machine to make sure the baby hadn't been adversely affected by the procedure, and he decided I should get a Rhogam shot, just in case.  For some reason, the hospital has a policy that if they need to know your blood type for any procedure, they have to type your blood.  I don't understand why, it's on file in the midwives files, so why they can't just pull that, I can't understand.

Anyway, I had to wait for the nurse to come draw my blood for them to check the type.  When she finally showed up, I figured I could have Mike come get me, because they said the blood typing shouldn't take more than 30 minutes or so.  So I called him to come, but when he was there, we still hadn't heard from the lab, so I had to send him to my mother-in-laws house to wait, since it was close, and Mason wouldn't be allowed into the triage room.  Shortly after that, the lab sent up that there were some antibodies in my blood stream, and before I could get the Rhogam shot, they had to verify what the antibodies were.  I guess they were concerned that the antibodies could be the kind you get from having an adverse reaction to the baby's blood getting into your blood stream.

By the time they had figured out the antibodies and sent the order for the Rhogam, it was around 9.  I called Mike, and he was talking about how Mason was getting very tired.  We had no way of knowing how long it would take at this point, and Mike couldn't exactly drive him home to bed and then come get me.  Mike's dad offered to let him stay there, and when his mom got home, we decided to go with that, since the next day was the fourth of July and we'd be going over for a barbeque anyway.  So I told Mike to get Mason comfortable and come to the hospital.

He showed up a little after 9:30, and sat around waiting for me to be ready.  It took awhile for me to finally get the Rhogam shot because the pharmacy entered the information into the computer wrong, and the nurse needed to scan it before giving it to me.

The last straw for me was when the resident doctor came to check on me to release me.  He looked at the strip from the machine and saw that I had been having contractions the whole time I was there.  I hadn't felt them at all, and it isn't unusual to have contractions for a couple weeks before going into actual labor, but he seemed to think it was an issue, and that I should stay for another half an hour for observation.  I was NOT in favor of that, and the nurse supported me.  She told me that I could tell him no, that I was leaving, and that is what we did.  So as soon as she got the release paperwork, Mike and I left.  At around 10:30.  I had been in that stupid room for about 5 hours.

We didn't get home til after 11, and I got to bed very late.  I was grateful that Lorrie had suggested us leaving Mason there, because Mike and I both slept in this morning, him til about 9, me until 11.  Not continuous sleep for me, what with having to empty my bladder every few hours, and having a cold.  All I can say is, I'm glad that it's over, and I am going to do everything I can to encourage the baby to stay head down the way he is supposed to be.