Week 4/Quinn's Birthday/Playoffs/Other Stuff

Yeah.... that should about cover it.

So, week four! And we actually got a picture on time. I just didn't post it on time. Go figure. We had a busy week. We kicked it off with Quinn's first birthday. Aaaw. His party was supposed to be on the 22nd, but we postponed it due to inclimate weather. In other words, we were afraid the roads were too crappy for our family traveling from Iowa. I whipped up some cupcakes and a really, REALLY frightening Wilton 3-D Rubber Ducky cake (more on that another day) and we had a little party with just the four of us.

Can you have too many pictures of a baby eating a cupcake? Of course not!

Not quite sure what to think of our lovely serenade.

Fire! Fire! Heh heh.

First taste of frosting. I'm afraid we have a sweet tooth on our hands.

"Seriously. Have you guys tried this? It's SO good!"

"Whoa! You can eat the part that holds the frosting!"

Our official week four picture.

Later that night, our old neighbors came over to cheer on the Steelers with us! Charlie and Ed are convinced that Charlie and I produce children whose mere presence in the world impacts the Steelers' chances of making it to the Super Bowl. I would like to say that I'm sure they are joking, but I really can't. (Especially considering the fact that they requested we all wear the same clothes, sit in the same places and eat the same food we had for the game the week before.) The Steelers won the Super Bowl the year Will was born and though Quinn was alive for last year's, he wasn't born in time for the playoffs. It matters, don't you know? Anyway, if I should ever decide that I would like to have another child, I think this is my best argument if I want to persuade Charlie.

Happy Steelers fans.

You may have noticed in the picture of Will above, he was wearing a Chiefs jersey. He claims he's a fan, but I think he mostly just really enjoys being disagreeable. So, how do you motivate a child to cheer for the team you desperately want to win? Well, you tell him that if the Steelers win, he can give his father a wedgie.

Look for our parenting book in your local Barnes & Noble... never.

A heat wave hit Kansas City last week and melted the snow enough to make it perfect for building a snowman.

We filled the middle of the week with two trips to the doctor's office, a strep diagnosis for Quinn and lots of snuggles for the poor little guy. Then we wrapped everything up with Quinn's official birthday party. It was low key, which was nice. Mom and Marv, Cindy, Dan, Evan and Zach and Ms. Karen came. We had Quinn's favorite - pizza - for lunch and then, of course, more cake. This time I called in the experts and, boy, am I glad I did. How stinking cute is this cake?

Quinn got his very own soft blankie made by Mana and Papa.

Just for fun, here is Will when he got his soft blankie on his first birthday.



Whew. Told ya... busy week! These two had the right idea.



Week 3/Snow Day

We were blessed with another snow day last Thursday and spent the day snuggled up inside. I think I like these days just as much as a kid. Give me an excuse to not have to leave the house and I'll gladly take it. We kept ourselves entertained with more tv and Wii than I'd like to admit, but oh well. We also found some time to get a little...

Wrestley (Oh, it's a word.)

Title: When Stinky Boys Attack

This perch is one of Will's favorites. I find him hanging there quite often. If you're ever on the phone with me and you hear me saying, "Get off of me!" this is what is most likely happening on the other end.

Goofy

He reminds me of a little puffer fish.

Lovey

Quinn, don't look now, but there is a giant nose heading straight towards your eye.

Chewy

Quinn crawls around with these lids in his mouth. This was the best picture I could get because whenever I get the camera out, he stops to see what I'm doing. Every time he does it, it reminds me of when I was a little kid and I loved to look through our encyclopedias. One of my favorite things to look up was the Surma, a tribe in Sudan who wear lip plates. This still intrigues me.

Crafty

Sweet little concentration face

So, Mother Nature, feel free to send another snow day our way! I'm sure we'll find something to do.



Quinnie's Big Day

In honor of Quinn's first birthday, I thought I'd share his birth story. Unlike Will's birth, where I remember every last gory detail, Quinn's birth is kind of a blur. Luckily, I wrote everything down as soon as I got home from the hospital though. I read it to Charlie and both of us had forgotten so many details. So here's the story about the night we met our sweet little Quinn.

I was due on January 17th, but around Christmas, I started waking up in the middle of the night thinking, "Oh my gosh. This is it. I'm going into labor. I mean... I think I might be going into labor. Am I in labor? I better be in labor because I'm awake thinking about this. Crap. It stopped. I'm not in labor." Or I would feel crampy through the morning and then by lunch it would go away. After a few weeks of this, I was real done with the whole thing. A week before my due date, I started calling in back up. I got in touch with a doula, a massage therapist, a chiropractor, my midwife and probably would have called up a medicine man or a witch doctor if I knew any. Actually, the massage therapist may have been a medicine woman. She busted out some tinctures and special smelly stuff and then had me put some little blue pills under my tongue. (Relax! It was totally legal.) Seriously though, it was an herb called blue cohosh and I walked out of there singing its praises because I was having some real, honest to goodness contractions! So exciting! Until... wait... no. They stopped by morning.

My due date came and went. On January 21st, my totally awesome midwife (who I would love to hang out with and be great friends, but it might be a little awkward, you know?) offered to... well, move things along, shall we say. (I'm trying to be sensitive to those of you who might not want THAT much information.) We left the appointment and headed to Will's favorite restaurant, Minsky's. (According to him, he loves that place because they have THE BEST... video games.) On the way, Charlie hit a pot hole and I told him it made my contractions stronger. Then I asked him to find more pot holes. We went home and tried to get some rest since we were hoping this would be the night. It wasn't.

The next day was Friday, the 22nd. Again, to keep the medical side of this surface level, things were happenin'. I still wasn't convinced that this was going to happen today though since these "things" can happen up to a week before you give birth. Not that I had ANY intention of going a week before I had this kid, but I still was trying not to get my hopes up. At 6:00 p.m., my dad called and was giving me a hard time about not having the baby yet. He jokingly told me that I had until the next Wednesday. (I have no idea what the consequence of not having it by then would be, but we both thought it was super funny anyway.) Well, the threat worked because I hung up the phone with him and within 30 seconds my water broke. Hallelujah! I got really busy packing Will's bag and doing laundry and felt like a woman on a mission! We called our friends, Todd and Karen, and asked them to come pick up Will, who was completely oblivious to what was happening even though my contractions were getting stronger and were four to five minutes apart. He was just pumped about spending the night with Mr. Todd and Ms. Karen and then relaying every. last. detail about the Spongebob episode he had just watched. (If you make it through this whole saga, you may conclude where he gets this attention to detail.)

We left for the hospital at about 8:00 p.m. and my contractions were two to three minutes apart and kicking my behind. The baby was posterior so I had a lot of back labor. I think the first time I asked for the epidural was actually in the car. We settled in our room and waited for the nurse to come check me. I was sure that I was going to be at least a four. (A lesson I should have learned from Will - Don't think you know what in the heck your cervix is doing, no matter how intense your contractions are! You don't know!) I was a whopping two and a half centimeters. Since some women walk around for weeks at two and a half centimeters and don't even know what happened, I was a little frustrated. I had to stay in the bed for about 30 minutes because I was hooked up to an antibiotic IV for group-B strep. It was torture because I just wanted to get up and move. I told Charlie I felt like my legs were being ripped off. (Dramatic detail I didn't want to leave out.)

My midwife showed up a little after 9:00 p.m. and we tried a couple different positions to try to ease the pain and get the baby to turn. I got in the whirlpool tub - the pain still sucked. I tried standing and leaning over the bed - sucked. I tried rocking my hips - double sucked. I was feeling a lot of pressure so my midwife thought maybe things were moving along. She checked me at about 10:30 p.m. and I was a three. I swear I have PTSD from Will's delivery because I completely lost it. I felt like I was reliving that awful night all over again. That's when I decided this was for the birds and signed up for the epidural. Best. Decision. Ever.

The anesthesiologist showed up quickly. The epidural was placed and my blood pressure took a nose dive, which caused the baby's heart rate to go really, really low. My midwife and the anesthesiologist and the nurse got really quiet and serious. Which, of course, freaked us out. They gave me a shot of something to bring my blood pressure back up, which caused the baby's heart rate to go high when it went through his system. In the end, everything was okay, but it was a little intense for a while. At about 12:30 a.m.,  they checked me again and I was four or five centimeters. I could actually feel the baby turning from posterior to anterior and getting in the right position for birth. So cool. I think the epidural helped me relax enough that he could move and put pressure on my cervix to dilate. (Too much information?) At about 2:00 a.m., the nurse came in and mentioned that my contractions were stalling out and if I hadn't made a significant amount of progress by the next time they checked me, they wanted to give me pitocin. I told her, "I don't know what your monitor is telling you, but I can tell you right now I am having regular contractions." I was laying on my side and I don't think the monitor was getting a good signal. She tried to tell me again they weren't as regular as they had been. Whatever. My midwife checked me a half hour later at 2:30 a.m. and was like, "Yeah, you're a 9." Haha! In your face! I knew I was having contractions.

I started feeling a lot of pressure and started pushing. At 2:47 a.m. on January 23, 2010, Quinn Howard Harris was born! Charlie helped catch him, just like with Will, which was so awesome. Charlie handed me this beautiful, screaming mad, precious little creature and I fell head over heels in love in an instant. When he gave him to me, he couldn't see if the baby was a boy or a girl because they wrapped Quinn right away with a towel. I said, "It's a boy!" but in all the hubbub, Charlie didn't hear me. He just stood there with the biggest, happiest smile on his face. Someone asked him, "What is it?" He replied, "I don't even know!"

Side note: I just asked Charlie what he was thinking when he didn't know if it was a boy or a girl and he said, "I don't know. It all happened so fast. I was just more worried about whether everything was okay. I just pulled him out and threw him up there as fast as I could." If you know Charlie, you can picture exactly how he said this and you'll know that I am doubled over laughing right now.

There are things about that night that I hope I never need to look back and refresh my memory about. The most important things, really. Like the pure joy and happiness I felt the second Quinn was in my arms. The relief I had knowing that we had made it through this pregnancy and he was finally here safe and sound. The pride and love on Charlie's face as he looked at our new son. The confusion and sleep in my mom's voice when I woke her in the middle of the night to tell her she had another grandson. And how she declared she knew all along that it was a boy. Then the emotion I heard when she realized that Quinn and her father now share a middle name. How I called my dad next and how truly delighted and thrilled he was to hear he was a grandpa for the umpteenth time. You would have thought this was the first time he'd ever received this kind of phone call. And how much it meant to him when he heard that Quinn carries on a family name that means so much to both of us. And, of course, the first time Will saw his baby brother and how he was so excited he couldn't stand still. He was so proud and it was truly love at first sight. How I sat in the hospital bed and held my two boys and it felt so perfect. Like our family was just waiting for this little person to arrive to be complete. These are the things I hope I never forget.

Now, pictures.

These two had a riveting discussion about cattle birth. Charlie taught her what a come-along is and how it is used when a calf gets stuck in the birth canal. I don't expect this contraption will be making its way into delivery rooms anytime soon.

Team work wins!

The moment Will found out he had a brother. Two stinky boys!

Week 2

Here we are again with another installment of the 52 Weeks Project. And, again, it's technically not week 2, but actually week 3. I can see that this is becoming a pattern.

We headed outside today to give Quinn his first experience with snow. In summary, he hated it. He did fine until I thought it would make a really cute picture if all three of us were laying in the snow making snow angels. I instructed Will where to go, made a spot for myself and then plunked little Angel Quinn down and flapped his arms and legs a couple times. And that's precisely when he started bawling. Oops! Charlie snapped a picture anyway, which looked totally weird and so I deleted it. So all that for nothin'. Poor Quinn. After that, I tried to show him how fun it was but there was no going back. Charlie took him inside and Will and I stayed outside and played.

I always dread going out to play in the snow. First of all, I HATE being cold. Second, it's so much work to get myself and two kids bundled up for such a short time. I know, I'm lazy. But every time I get out there, I'm glad I did. We ended up having a blast! We chased each other and had a snowball fight. Then we decided it would be really fun to go down the slide and land in a big pile of snow. Will had a brilliant idea that we could throw snowballs at the person who was going down the slide. We took turns sliding and pelting each other with snowballs.Will and I agreed that we should really do this more often.

Week 1

I have been inspired by my super talented and sweet friend Kelly Gorney to take on the 52 Weeks project. Since I'm often the one behind the camera, I have tons of pictures of everyone else with my kids, but few of myself. It's time to do something about that! So every week in 2011, I will stick myself in front of the camera with my boys. A lot of times I get caught up in thinking that everything has to be perfect in order to take on a project like this. I'm not a gifted photographer, my house is not spotless, I don't have a closet full of super cute clothes to wear for our pictures - I could go on and on. In attempt to give a giant middle finger to my crippling perfectionism, I'm doing it anyway! And without further ado....

*drum roll please*

Waa waaaaa *muted trumpets*

I can explain. First of all, this was taken on Sunday, which I realize this is technically week two and normally would have caused me to ditch the whole thing for all of 2011 because I missed the first week by a day. (You think I'm kidding?) So... there is a victory in that. Second, we were all sick last week. Poor Quinn had an ear infection, sinus infection and green ooze seeping from his bloodshot eyes. He was just miserable, but still managed to stay smiling and happy. He is such a little trooper. My throat felt like I swallowed a pool ball wrapped with barbed wire that sprouted vines up to my ears. Not pretty, as you can see I have documented here. I was still determined to stick with this though so we gathered in the one clean room in the entire house, set up the camera and kept it real. At least there is room for improvement, right?

Let's do this.

After much him-hawing and obsessing, I have finally started a blog. I carry a lot of guilt about being HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE, *THE WORST* about staying in touch with family and friends. Not that I don't think about y'all all the time and stew about what an awful friend/family member I am - at least you might find some comfort in that. I know I would.

I hope this serves as a way to preserve these precious days with my two little turkeys. I am rather morbid and often am quite sure that my days are numbered and I envision them stumbling upon this blog and then appearing on the Oprah of their generations' talk show and telling the world about how much it meant for them to have their time with me documented. For those members of my husband's family who don't know me really well, you should know that I'm only kind of joking. Another reason I want to start this blog is for myself, so not everything will be kid-related. I enjoy writing and it helps me from getting stuck in my head. I also would like my boys to look back at this someday and maybe gain some insight into who I am outside of being their mom.

So, because it's only mostly true that I am slightly addicted to my computer, I'm going to lay some ground rules for myself:

1.) No obsessing about what I'm going to write, how it's going to come across, if I'll sound dumb, whether or not every sentence is grammatically correct, etc. Believe me, this could turn into a monster that will eat me alive if I get all weird about that stuff. So, consider this your warning... I might sound dumb sometimes, I will probably write ridiculously long run-on sentences, I might be annoying and I also might make you uncomfortable by disguising naughty words with @, #, and * symbols.

2.) I'm only going to write for 30 minutes at a time. If I can't get my point across in that amount of time, then I'm either providing way too many details or obsessing about the things mentioned in Rule #1.

On that note, a little story about the blog title... We didn't find out what we were having when I was pregnant with Quinn. Charlie brought Will to the hospital to meet his new little sibling and didn't tell him we had a boy. Will approached the bed where I sat holding Quinn and I told him he now had a baby brother. He got a little grin on his face and his eyes lit up and he said, "I knew it. Two stinky boys!" And I wouldn't have it any other way.

And now... let the blogging.... begin.