Holding Grant

Katelyn and Dallin love holding baby Grant. Every time he wakes up Katelyn and Dallin run to his bassinet shouting "Rant's a-yake" leaving any and all doubt of whether he is or isn't awake because if he wasn't he is now. they just get so excited. They can't wait to hold him. Katelyn especially likes holding him. she is such a great big sister and Dallin is a wonderful big brother.

Dallin, Katelyn and Grant

Katelyn holding Baby Grant with Grandma Lousie

sleeping like a baby

As every mother knows if you find yourself comparing your sleep to a baby's you're probably exhausted. although babies sleep a lot they only sleep for two hours at a time... if you're lucky. It's a good thing they are so adorable.

I keep planning to sit down and writing a post about life with a family of five but I keep getting my mind changed. Generally when I do have time for such things I opt to take a nap and no matter how long I plan to sleep I generally only get to sleep until Katelyn, Dallin or Grant decide it's time for me to wake up. Dallin is especially good at determining when I've slept long enough. it's like he has a sensor radar on me, he plays perfectly fine with or without me until I decide to go lay down for a few minutes and no sooner does my head hit the pillow then he comes knocking on my door calling "daddy?" (we are still working on the "mommy" thing, he calls bananas mamas so Cameron has started comparing me to a banana, so now when he asks for a banana he will say "a mama peaze" and then point at me and shout “mama!” but that's the only time he calls me mama)

Except for the fact that I only sleep in two hour increments throughout the night, I don’t think it’s really hit me that we have three kids yet. My mom leaves on November 1st and I’m sure after that the realities of newbornhood will hit full force, I get small glimpses of what’s to come while my mom is napping or on the phone and I have to figure out how to nurse Grant and help Katelyn who has fallen apart because she needs Catsup for her eggs while consoling Dallin who has tried to drown himself with his cup of water.

Grant doesn’t like it when I eat chocolate, in fact when I do eat a small smiggin of chocolate he makes the experience so miserable that I have decided that it’s just not worth it. It’s all part of his plan to make me shed the baby weight before I go back to the outside world… so thoughtful.

Katelyn and Dallin love Grant, they want to hold him all the time... well Katelyn does, Dallin mostly doesn't seem to notice Grant much but when Dallin does notice he want to hold him too.

Grant William Smith

One of the cutest little guys ever just joined our family. He decided to make a quick entrance on his due date... he’s so considerate. I figured, based on my other two deliveries that this one would be fast, and although the doctor wasn’t too concerned about me delivering a baby on the side of the freeway as I was driving myself to the hospital, I was completely freaked out about it. Cameron’s mom Louise sensed my anxiety and came up early to help. Tuesday we found ourselves doing typical running around with the kids, going to the library, park, Mc Donald’s and shopping, around 4:30pm I started noticing contractions, they weren’t painful but they were regular… every 15 minutes, I called Cameron, he came home and we left, during traffic, to go to the hospital. It took about an hour and during that time my contractions stopped. We stopped at the mall and walked around a while. I would have a contraction every once in a while but nothing to write home about. Cameron was exhausted but I was determined that as long as we were down there, without kids we might as well make a date out of it. So we went out to eat. At 8:30pm, during our meal we called Louise to tell her nothing was happening and we were planning to come home. Ten minutes after hanging up I started having contractions again, this time every ten minutes, then 7 minutes, then 5 minutes. So I tried to rush Cameron along to get me to the hospital, he seemed to be dawdling, apparently when you’re not the one having contractions you don’t have the same sense of urgency. We got to the hospital at 9pm after an incident with a wasp, Cameron got stung in the car, the good news is, apparently he’s not allergic, that could have added a bit more excitement to our night…
All the rooms were full so I was taken into triage where I changed into those oh so flattering hospital gowns that open in the back. They checked me, asked me a million and one questions and decided I could stay. We all walked to labor and delivery, which was just down the hall and my water broke gushing everywhere. So gross! I was so grateful I wasn’t walking around the mall at this point. That would have been very embarrassing! It didn’t phase anyone in the hospital. It was brownish which apparently means there was meconium in the fluid… or in other words…the baby already had his first poop. So they called in a few more people to be there when the baby was delivered so they could clean out his air passage ways before he could breath it in and affect his lungs. No big deal because by the time you actually deliver a baby you don’t really care how many people are there. Soon after my water broke the contractions started coming much stronger and much faster.
They took my blood to see if my platelet count was high enough for an epidural. Apparently if your blood platelet count isn’t high enough you could bleed to death…which didn’t sound all that bad at the time. So we waited for the results. Cameron was so good, he did everything he could to make me feel better; I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband. Finally a nurse came in, said everything was fine and we prepared for the anistgiologest. She came did what she does best and I felt immediate relief. A few minutes later the doctor showed up, checked things out and told the nurses to have me start pushing with the next contraction. I was kind of hoping I could just enjoy the relief of the epidural for a while but I started pushing instead. 4 pushes later Grant was born and he peed all over Dr Cazes. They cleaned his lungs and he’s as healthy as can be.

So that’s probably way more information then you bargained for. We are home now. Louise is taking good care of everyone. Laundry is magically getting cleaned, folded and put away, the house is getting cleaned and meals magically appear. The kids love having both mom and grandma around. Louise goes home this weekend and my mom comes in tonight. I’m sure they will love having her here as well.

Katelyn loves the new baby. She is so helpful and considerate. She wants to bring him toys, blankets, and anything else he could possibly need. She loves smothering him with kisses and holding him on her lap. Dallin seems to like Grant as well but is too busy doing his own thing to really notice this new little guy. When he does notice he enjoys pointing out Grant’s facial features and saying wah wah wah, which is Dallin’s word for baby. Grant is quite the eater. So far he does pretty well at night. We are so grateful to have him in our family

Oh my how we've grown

as unbelievable as it seems, Katelyn is three now. she is changing and growing before my very eyes. I can't believe how fast it's all happening.



this is Katelyn when we brought her home from the hospital at 3 days old. She really did have black hair with frosted tips that stuck straight up, she had the cutest chunkiest cheeks and long fingers and toes. unfortunately she was not a fan of nursing, which didn't affect her fingers and toes but did cause her cheeks to thin out.



This is Katelyn around her first birthday. Everyday she looked more and more like a little person and less and less like a baby. Although amazingly she still had cute little rolls on her legs, a pop belly and a slightly chubby round face. It’s amazing because she is also the skinniest little one-year-old I had ever seen. She didn't like eating much. Well she liked grapes and pears and cheerios but surprisingly she didn't gain much weight on that diet. Weird, I know. I did feed her more then that, she would just play with it, eat a little and then throw the rest on the floor. Lots of fun for everyone. She was so fun and loved to discover new things. She has such a great personality.



This is what she looked like the week she turned two, the month of her birthday we noticed a difference in her demeanor. “No” became her all time favorite word, (well if you don’t count “yellow bus” she loved saying “yellow bus”) and she couldn't just say it, she had to shout and scream it at the top of her lungs. Mostly she became a little grumpier in general. She still had her sweet moments though. She discovered Dallin in the car. For some reason I don’t think she ever noticed that he was there until this time, and she loved to make him laugh. She would pull funny faces and make funny sounds until they were both hysterical.



and this is Katelyn now. she loves to run, laugh and play around the house with Dallin. she is generally very polite and sweet. she loves movies, especially princess movies... really anything princessy. She enjoys coloring, painting, cooking, reading, singing and playing with her babies. overall she is a wonderful little girl.

You're how far along?

Apparently I don't get very big with my pregnancies... although you would have to convince my legs, back, and expanding sides of that. just this week 4 different people on 4 different occasions have expressed their surprise that I am due in a week, yes one week. Dallin's pediatrician was concerned about some things she heard while listening to his heart and wanted to set up a follow up appointment in a few week to check it out, so I informed her that I was due in a week and asked if I could do it at one of the new baby appointments, she looked at me in shock and said she didn't think I was more then 6 months along. and then at the grocery store the check out lady had to ask if I was pregnant because she didn't want to offend me if I wasn't, generally at 9 months people don't have to wonder about that anymore. You get the picture.

don't get me wrong, I am grateful that it only takes a bit more effort to bend over and clean the countless messes a three and one and a half year old can make, and that I'm only mostly out of breath lugging these two up and down three flights of stairs multiple times a day, I just hope that after I have this baby, who has not been named, that these people wont still be wondering if I'm 6 months pregnant.

stack-um-up

many people wonder what we are going to do about strollers, car seats and other transportation when the baby comes. This is us at our last hurrah at Busch Gardens before Katelyn turned three. and as you can see our philosophy has become stack-um-up. It has worked with the stroller and miraculously Cameron has found a way to make it work with the car seats in the back of my car... so no van... for the time being.

Labor Fears

I have spent several nights awake thinking about how I could plead my case for being induced with this baby. you see I've been induced with each baby, Katelyn because I was on heparin, a blood thinner (I had to give myself shots in the stomach twice a day for the entire pregnancy plus 6 weeks after... fun times) and Dallin because my labor was so fast with Katelyn... 4 hours from the time they started the Pitocin to when she was born. my labor with Dallin was 3 hours so now that we live 40ish minutes from the hospital I thought I had a good case. so at my appointment on Friday, I had the script planned out, the fast labor and long distance, unfortunately I'm still only dilated to 1.5 cm and so my doctor just reassured me that I would be fine and to just come in as soon as the contractions became at all regular.
as I was driving home replaying our conversation, wondering what went wrong I remembered that I had forgot to mention that Cameron's current rotation is a hour away so I would have to drive myself to the hospital, while in labor and that I had two kids I needed to get down 3 flights of stairs and then drop off at some one's house before I could come into the hospital... perhaps I will have to mention this at my next visit... that is of course if I don't go into labor before then...

so basically it looks like I will have to be like every other woman and wait for my body to decide to go into labor on it's own.

Glasses

Cameron informed me the other day that medical students don't wear shorts, a little surprising coming from a guy who owns more shorts then i do clothes... but medical students do wear glasses. and so do their kids apparently. Katelyn and Dallin thought it was so cool trying on Daddy's glasses.. once they started fighting over who got the wear them and trying to run off with them we decided to pull out some glasses of their own... a smart move.

and in case you were wondering, Cameron doesn't have very bad eyesight but the glasses do help as he sits at stares at the computer screen trying to infiltrate his mind with knowledge that will hopefully help him do well on his tests.

also, if you were dying to ask but too shy, no he hasn't decided what kind of doctor he would like to be yet... he still has a bit over a year before he has to commit to anything.... I'm voting for something that makes enough money to pay off this crazy dept we have acquired and something where we can hang out with him every once in a while... perhaps ophthalmology?

September update

We like our new place, since moving here our kids have forgotten how to walk, they run constantly, if they aren’t running they are dancing, jumping and “falling,” activities which have not gone unnoticed by those who live underneath us. I have tried to keep it under control but it’s impossible to reason with a one and a half year old and slightly less impossible to reason with an excited three year old.





We are getting use to the “neighborhood.” Everyone in our building seems to be nice. We did have a run in with some kids at the playground though, a brother and sister who looked to be ages 3 and 6 decided to pick on us, swearing, calling us names and throwing mulch at our car. Thankfully we have only run into them once and we haven’t had any encounter with their parents. There is a little black girl who lives downstairs who is fascinated by Katelyn, she loves her hair especially. The other day she somehow managed to get a firm grip on her ponytail and while her older brother and I tried to wrestle Katelyn free, he was surprised at how soft her hair was. I’m sure he hasn’t had much contact with white people based on the dynamics of our apartment complex.

I spend my “spare” time trying to finish all the millions of projects started since becoming a mother…. Yeah, that means three years of projects….all to be finished before the baby arrives in two weeks. Currently I am making family home evening lessons, file folder games, and other quite activities for those times when kids are kids and don’t realize that everyone else is sitting quietly. My scrap booking buddy has moved to Texas so that has been put on hold for the time being. In its place I have started blogging. I find myself wondering about some of my parenting choices, like the time I decided to let Katelyn and Dallin use stamps with non-washable ink, or when I try to do any of my various projects while the kids are watching a movie hoping they won’t notice, or the times I have let Dallin run around diaperless after taking a bath... when will I learn?

Cameron has just begun his psychiatry rotation. He has finished OBGYN, ER, and Surgery…which means that so far he has delivered a couple babies, drained a handful of juicy abscesses, and stapled up a lot of incisions this year. What will he be able to add to his list in the next couple months? School takes up most of his day but he still finds time to play with the kids when he is home.





Katelyn turned three last Sunday and is the funniest girl we know. She loves anything remotely related to princesses and refuses to wear anything but dresses. She is getting more imaginative and has very dramatic scenes with her dolls, animals, beads, or anything that she can move around, even our TV connector cord… which unfortunately didn’t survive the experience. She gets very upset when one of her characters is calling for their mommy and I happen to respond. She loves to cook and insists on being involved in any cooking activity happening in the house. Grandma wisely chose a cooking kit as a birthday gift and she gleefully uses it to help mommy in the kitchen.

Dallin is just about the happiest little guy we know. He loves doing anything Katelyn is doing, including dressing up in her new princess clothes and putting on her purple princess high heals… he looks adorable but we should probably invest in some boy dress up clothes so he doesn’t develop a complex. He loves Elmo. He runs around the house saying “Elmo, watch” and in case he thought you didn’t hear him the first time he repeats it over and over getting louder and louder until you say, “Dallin, would you like to watch an Elmo Movie?” at which point he grins up at you with a huge cheeser smile. That’s how he says yes, he hasn’t actually said yes, ever, he just grins. However, he has perfected the word NO. He likes to play hide and seek and he is good, he doesn’t make a peep and he waits patiently until he is discovered which can take a while. So far we haven’t had fear of him hiding anyplace other then the apartment because our door doesn’t stay shut unless it’s locked and there are three flights of stairs that deter him. Last Sunday Dallin went to nursery for the first time. He loved playing with the toys. He was a little bit in shock being around so many other kids who wanted to play with all the toys as well. So far Dallin is the cleaner of the family. Katelyn makes the mess and Dallin cleans it up….ok Dallin loves to make really big messes but he will help clean up unlike certain princesses who think they are too good for cleaning.



As a family we are looking for a van…or three really skinny car seats…Cameron is leaning towards the skinny car seats idea. I am looking for one of those really nice vans with entertainment systems for the kids, automatic door openers and closers, lots of cargo space for strollers, good safety rankings, sound barrier glass, shiatsu massage seats, deodorizing air conditioning, decomposing food under the seats alarm system, conveniently located hand sanitizer dispensers, trash compactor, GPS system…or at least cardinal directions… ok something that has left and right written out, and Katelyn would like it all to be pink. Dallin would like blue but that’s ok because we think that just means a color in general. Unfortunately, due to the lack of pink vans out there, we are probably going to just buy something to cut the sides of the car seats down a bit. We can't afford a van right now so the skinny car seats is looking like the way we will go, or I guess I could just leave one of the children home whenever I want to go out during the day... so many options...

I'm Three!

Katelyn has finally admitted that she is now three, I think part of the problem was "I'm two" was her answer to every question, "What is your name?", "I'm two" (as she holds up her thumb and index finger) How are you doing? "I'm two" you get the picture... then she went into the "I'm almost three stage" where that became a sure answer to every question. now she proudly admits her age.

For a whole year up until a few weeks ago, Katelyn has wanted a pink pony birthday. she wanted Cameron to have a blue pony birthday and when that didn't pan out like she thought it should she decided she would rather have a princess birthday party, which of course translates to mean, any sort of party with a princess cake. So that's what we did. we invited a few friends and their families to come to a near by park and play in the water and have a picnic/BBQ with birthday cake. Katelyn was in heaven!

This party was voted "the best birthday party ever" by one of Katelyn's older friends... what a compliment.

Dallin decided he would rather eat mulch then play in the water with the other kids... so he sat there watching me to see if I was watching him... I think he was tired... I mean it was only a few hours past his nap time... Katelyn has fun with her friends filling up cups, buckets and other things with water then dumping them out.

Katelyn was thrilled when we found a cake with 4 princesses on it, she couldn't decide which princess she liked the best so this was perfect. The boys insisted on having a blue piece of cake. Katelyn was excited to open her presents, I think it was an unexpected surprise for her.

I found this house at Target months ago for a super good deal, I wanted to put it together to make sure all the parts were there and then hide it for her birthday so I waited until nap time, unfortunately her nap was unexpectedly short so she saw it as I was taking it down, I quickly hid it away and hoped she would forget all about it by the time her birthday rolled around, well earlier this week she asked me about it, "mommy, I want to play in that pink house. You a-member that pink house?" this girl has quite the memory. Thankfully she was still thrilled when she opened this gift and even more excited when she got to help mommy set it up.

Grandma Louise and Grandpa Bill came up later that afternoon to give us some of their old furniture (thank you!) and they had a few gifts for Katelyn, she got some dress up shoes and clothes, which she and Dallin have loved tromping around the house in, and she got a jewelry making kit, perfect for her age, and a cooking kit, she LOVES to cook with anyone who will let her. so of course not long after grandma and grandpa left she insisted we make something, so we both put on our aprons and got to work. It was Great!

The Chase

my kids were on the verge of being put up for adoption this morning, we went to the library for story time and to get some new movies... I wish I could say they just got book but the truth is they never want to check out books, just movies. and while I was in line waiting to check out they started running around inching closer to the doors that would lead them outside. They do this thing where they chase each other, Dallin thinks it's all fun and games, Katelyn knows better but gets caught up in the moment and loses all self control. so they run outside and of course into the street, at this point I am chasing them... yes two weeks before my due date. I catch Dallin and run with him in my arms after Katelyn who is loving it. I am not at all pleased so I tell her she can't check out the princess movie she had wanted to check out.. a huge disappointment because for the past 3 weeks there hasn't been a princess movie to speak of and today she finally found one... she is crushed, Dallin doesn't get his Elmo movie either but he doesn't seem too bothered, Katelyn was so mad at me I thought she just might hate me forever, it was tempting to have her calm down and then give in and get the movie but I hate it when she makes me chase her, it doesn't happen much, three times since we moved, but it makes me so upset, probably because I am huge and she was suppose to go through this stage at Dallin's age and somehow is a late bloomer in this category. unfortunately she is much faster then she was a year and a half ago.

Hands

Dallin has decided he likes holding Katelyn's hand when we go anywhere... Katelyn isn't always so keen on the idea but she puts up with it mostly. At times she tries to walk fast to get away from him and he chase after her saying "hans hans hans" until she has pity on him and grabs his hand.

They are walking to a park near our house that has a fun water play area.

Katleyn is gently guiding Dallin back to where he is suppose to be playing.