Random baby experiences

Some of the adventures Susanna has brought to the family:

- Tim caught a wiff of the smells of having a new baby, and immediately hurled. His comment was priceless: "It smelled so bad my food had to jump out of my stomach."

- Susanna will smile at everyone but Dad (and he's nice to her - really!)

- When the the new home teachers showed up, the children were excited to tell them about our new addition... a new table. We pointed out we also have a new baby. The response by Maggie, spoken with true apathy, "Oh yea, we got her too."

- She still refuses to stay on a schedule for more than 3 days.

Family Fun Night

It's been a fun week with Nannie here. She pulled out a fun activity for the kids last night - Big punch balloons. Amirrah's fun and laughter with her balloon was contagious. We couldn't help but laugh with her.

After some time with the balloons, we moved to the theater for our family activity - LEGO Rockband. Maggie rocked on the mic, David was amazing as always on the guitar. Nannie, Tim and Melissa took turns on the drums. Hmmm. Needless to say, there were no 5 star performances. Even on easy drum pieces, it just didn't happen. I guess everyone will have to practice more.

Another Reader

Back in June 2007, we had a POST about Magdalyn's reading goal.

Now Tim has met his reading goal. Again, we have used "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." He's only on lesson 76 but his reading has become accomplished to the point that he can read the scriptures without help on most of the words.

He struggles to sit still with the small print of regular scriptures so last month Melissa bought a large print Triple and he has excelled with it.

So Friday before Susanna's 2 week appointment, Tim got to choose his own new scriptures. The 8 1/2" x 11" copy he's started using is a bit big for taking to church each week so we went with the middle size - larger than the average set but smaller than the 8 1/2 x 11. Of the black, green, brown and maroon option he had, (David has blue in that size so it's not an option for him) he went for the green.

We also bought him a carrying case that has a shoulder strap to help him with the added weight of the bigger set. And of course, he got some scripture marking crayons. He started at the beginning of the Book of Mormon a few months ago reading 2-3 verses every day so he just picked up from there in the new set and started marking right away.

Now Amirrah is anxious to do reading lessons, too. She can identify and tell the sounds of a few letters but has a ways to go before we fork out for her scriptures.

The Great Brain Project

Magdalyn's school has a program which offers students an award for extra work done. For the Great Brain Project, she was to research a topic, write a report, make a visual aid, and present the information to her class. After discussing several topics of interest, she chose to research elephants. David was home for a week helping care for the children to allow Melissa to rest and care for the baby so he helped guide her through this new process. Monday 8th--decide a topic and come up with questions to ask during the research. Tuesday 9th--find answers to those questions. Wednesday 10th--compile the information and dictate it to Dad as he types. Thursday 11th--work with mom to make an elephant head piece for a visual aid. She took everything to class Friday but with the Valentine's day party and her teacher just back from two sick days, there wasn't time for the presentation. She finally was able to present on Wednesday 17th. Overall, she loved the challenge and experience. The presentation was "awesome!" in her words and she had fun acting like an elephant with the headpiece.

Pictures, as requested

February 7, still at the hospital
February 10, post bath.
February 11, lounging with mom and dad
February 12, another sleeping shot
February 13, her favorite pacifier
The main photo above, in which she actually has her eyes open, was taken at 12:22 AM February 13. She really does wake up now and then.

Surrounded, and losing ground on all fronts

Animals sense fear. Children sense weakness.

I miss Ami's approach to middle of the night wake-up calls. She would scream, get changed, guzzle both tanks, and be back asleep in ten minutes. Twice a night.

Susanna takes after her father. If she wakes in the night, she'll be up for a while, think about some things, look around, enjoy the silence, stars, scriptures and the solitude - except that she does not want solitude or scriptures. Her approach to the nights is to casually eat over a period of about six hours while expecting attention the entire time.

Tim is pressing his luck. Trying to throw away food instead of clearing his plate and still getting dessert is just the start. At one point today, as David assisted on the homework battle front and I was working with the other ladies, he flanked our positions and went into our room. It wasn't until about an hour in we realized that we had not heard his constant karate chop and gunfire background noises. We found him, hidden under our bed, having watched the majority of a movie on David's iPod.

Even Maggie tested our fatigue-riddled parenting by informing us "No" she would not do her chore for the day. We're not that out of it Little Miss.

Fortunately a couple friends have brought us delicious dinners the last two nights, providing some respite amid the chaos.

Now, Ami decided to drop her pants and pee on the bathroom floor. Twice. Why?

Because children detect weakness.

At times like this David asks if we have reached the point when duct tape is appropriate.

Tempting...

Post-baby FAQ

I bet Adam and Eve did not ever have people wonder how to pronounce or spell their children's names. Oh well. In case you care, and to answer the questions on spelling, nicknames, and such, we keep getting, here are some brief answers:

How do you spell her name?
Susanna Jean

How do you pronounce her name?
sus-ZAh-nah

Why that spelling?
- Spelled without an "H" because of her namesake (Luke 8:2-3)

What do you call her?
- We generally call her sus-ZahN for short
- We have NOT been calling her SUS-en which is the common pronouncation of Susan.

What is she like?
sus-ZahN has got a set of horror-film worthy pipes when cold wet wipes hit the cheeks. She is also a guzzler and a great eater. Which should make for a fat baby. We loooooovvve fat babies.

Why didn't you invite me to the baby shower?
Sorry, no need to have one if our baby needs are met. People generally don't give hunting equipment, rifles, reloading equipment, or cheese (the things we lack - you can never have too much quality cheese) at baby showers.

How are the other kids doing?
Maggie - fine. Tim - normal. Ami - poor, the princess is no longer in the center ring of the circus. She has transitioned to attention from Dad. Maggie and Tim are used to that, Mom usually focuses on the youngest one on trips, activities, and outings.

How's Mom and baby?
Have you noticed how no one asked how Dad is doing? Mom is phenomenal, baby is doing fine, might need a little sunshine, but doing okay.

Why would anyone ask how Dad is doing... it's not like you just gave birth!
Tired, thanks for asking, they all have been getting sleep.

What are you doing with the old kitchen table?
First engaged sibling gets the set as a temple sealing present. That's right Gary, Richard, Sherry, Kelli and Judy - let the games begin. *maniacal laugh*

Maternity Test Confirms Melissa Is the Mother

Melissa awoke about 2am on Saturday 6 February 2010 experiencing initial contractions. The 8 minute apart contractions surprised her since the baby was not due until Wednesday by our calendar and valentines day by the doctor's calendar.

Shortly after 4am she woke me up with contractions 4 minutes apart. I started the necessary preparations for departure, things were fairly consistent until about six am. We got the other children up. Gave them their Saturday baths and got them ready to depart.

Unfortunately, there were some slight complications. No, not those kind of complications. The night before, we bought a new table that would fit the growing family. I scheduled a pick-up at 10:30 Saturday. To complicate matters, Melissa left her wallet at the furniture store. We contacted two of our most trusted friends, and they agreed to procure the wallet and the table for us in addition to watching the children. What would we do without trusted friends?

We packed up the necessary supplies. dropped the children off and headed for the hospital. What is the difference between the first child and the fourth child? About 50 mph on the freeway and Dad stressing versus discussing a tax refund. Contractions were occurring about every 3 minutes.

At the hospital, the nurse determined Melissa was dilated to a 3. Once she sat down in the hospital bed, the contractions went back down to every 6 minutes. Since most of the births have been within about 10 hours start-to-finish or less, we figured we would just hang around Provo when they discharged us. We grabbed some bagels to eat with my brother, then went to Sportsman's Warehouse so Melissa could walk laps while we examined rifles. Then we went to the mall, so Melissa could look at some of the stores she wanted while doing laps.

The contractions became far more painful and back to every couple minutes, and so we went back in. After an hour, they kicked us out again, only dilated to a 4. Lame. At least they gave her a morphine shot. Unfortunately, she would not share, so I did not get any.

We called my sister, she was kind enough to let Melissa lay on her bed and scream for a few more hours. I attempted to nap on the couch while she and her boyfriend "studied and took a take home test" (danced in the kitchen). Right about the time it was time to order a pizza, Melissa informed me now it was time. We went to the hospital, and about 45 minutes later at 5:45pm Susan was born. 7 pounds, 7 ounces, 18 inches long with black, yes you read that right black, hair. Maternity tests confirmed that Melissa is the mother.

Initial impressions are that she has a lot more of my gene pool than Melissa's this time. The nose, eyes, and ears are more from the Hoffman line.

Mom and baby are well. Mom is reporting pain level as 0.5 out of 10, and baby is a binge drinker.

The children were more interested in what color bow the nurses put on her (purple) than anything else about Mom and baby.

Upon seeing the pictures before bringing them home, Maggie reported, "She looks wrinkly, like when I've been in the bathtub, under my fingers and toes."

Many thanks to the family, friends, doctors, nurses, and food service workers that made this possible. We are deeply grateful for your help. Sorry if you did not receive our initial mass-text relaying the details.

Mom and baby have been instructed to avoid too many visitors and public places for a few weeks, particularly anyone who has been ill. Thank you for understanding.