Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Juliette's Birth Story

In light of the fact that my memory seems to be rapidly disintegrating, I thought I ought to write down Juliette's birth story before it is forgotten.

Juliette was due on the 27th of January. Both of my other two babies were late and I didn't go into labor with either one. Annalise was induced nine days after my due date. And with Zachary, they broke my water five days after my due date because I was six centimeters dilated but not in labor. So we assumed that baby number three would take a similar course. But long before we were even pregnant, Jason and I had bought 1.20.09 shirts from the Bush's Last Day shop. With Juliette's due date so close to the inauguration, we joked about how awesome it would be to have a baby on that day. But in actuality, we thought it would never happen. (And if by chance this baby was early, it would be before that -- just to stick it to us that we would have THREE Bush babies. Ugh.)

When I was seven or eight months along, our doctor was a little concerned that the baby wasn't growing well, so he put me on a kind of a modified bed rest. I had to lay down at least 2-3 hours during the day (because that's easy with two other kids) and eat as much as I could. Fortunately, it worked and the baby showed some significant growth after a month. With a little over a week to go before my due date, our doctor was convinced that the baby was a good size and gave me the go ahead to resume my activities. Of course the next day I did four hours of gardening. (It was a lot after almost two months on my butt.) And did I mention how hot it was? All my kids were born when it was freakishly hot, so I should have known that a heat wave in January was a sure sign that a baby was coming.

The night of Monday, the 19th I started feeling contractions. I knew that I had a long way to go because on Friday I had only been one centimeter dilated. So I tried to read and then I took a bath. At some point I woke Jason up and packed my bag. After the bath, it became clear that my water had broken. After some discussion, we decided it was time to call my mom. Since Zachary had come so quickly, we didn't know how much time we'd have. My mom came over at about three in the morning to stay with the kids. Jason and I headed off to the hospital alone. This would be our first delivery without any other support staff. My mom had been at both births and my friend Jenn was with us when Annalise was born and Sarah was with us for Zachary's birth.

At the hospital they determined that my water had indeed broken but that my contractions weren't doing enough quickly enough for my doctor's taste. He wanted to put me on Pitocin. Now Pitocin and I have met before. Pitocin was in the house during Annalise's delivery. I know Pitocin and Pitocin is not my friend. I had really wanted to go all natural like I had with Zachary, but the idea of many more hours of Pitocin contractions and I was ready for an epidural. It was actually a really easy decision. So around six in the morning, I got my Pitocin and sometime after seven I got my epidural. In the meantime, we were able to relax and watch the inauguration. By this time, it was clear that we were indeed going to have a baby on 1.20.09. Unbelievable. We just hoped the baby would hold out a little longer so that she or he would be an Obama baby.

Watching the inauguration while in labor was a really surreal experience. We were watching what we thought was one of the most significant historical events to happen in our lifetime. And at the same time, on a personal level, we were having one of the most significant events of our lives. In short, it was amazing.

Our labor and delivery nurse stayed in our room all morning. Jason and I watched the whole inauguration with her. Right around the time that Biden was sworn in, she checked me and I was ready to push. She paged our doctor and was surprised to find out he had never left the hospital. We thought he would be right there and were pondering having a baby born while Biden was vice president but Bush was still president. Fortunately our doctor took his sweet time. (It turns out he was watching the inauguration in the doctor's lounge. He didn't want to miss it. Of course he had no idea we were watching it, too. It's a good thing I'd had that epidural and could hold off on the pushing for a bit!) Obama was sworn in, our doctor finally arrived and we started pushing. (In between pushes he would turn around and watch the TV!) During the singing of the national anthem, at 9:35 in the morning, Juliette was born. It was one of the coolest moments of my life. I was so glad I'd had the epidural because I was able to relax and enjoy her birth and the inauguration. I was so present in the moment. Her birthday will be celebrated by so many people. It really is the best birthday ever. I even have the t-shirt to prove it!

Memories, or Lack There Of

On Saturday, Annalise woke up with a fever in the middle of the night. So I gave her some Tylenol and got into bed with her until her fever dropped and she finally fell back asleep. While we were lying there, she asked me to tell her stories of when I was a little kid. Most of the stories I have to tell she's heard again and again. I'm running out of stories and I don't know if that's because I just don't remember or because my life was really pretty boring and there's really not much worth remembering. Still I was able to come up with enough to keep her distracted and amused.

In the meantime, I started to worry because I am starting to forget what my own kids were like as babies. I have very specific memories of them as they got a little older -- ten months or so and up. But before that, I have these vague recollections of a lot of crying (not just me) and walking and walking and walking and nursing and nursing and nursing. I do have some memories, but stories, not so much. Is it just because in the long run they all kind of do the same thing at roughly the same age and in retrospect it's really not all that intgeresting? I don't know. This concept seems so weird for me, too, since we are enjoying Juliette so much right now. Why wouldn't I want to remember this? So I'm going to try to take pictures in my head of her as she dances with that goofy smile, showing her little dimple. I'll try to remember how much she loves Cheerios and how she does some weird sucking thing when she eats something a little sour. (See, already forgotten what the sour thing was. Just remember the face.) I'll remember how much she loves to wrestle with her brother and giggles that beautiful baby giggle. I won't forget how she used to look up at the pictures of Paris and Venice above her changing table and dream of European vacations. I won't forget that for one week she stuck her tongue out so far she looked like a frog. I won't forget how happy to she is to see the people she loves walk throught the door. I promise, Juliette, who is waking up as I write, I won't forget...

Friday, October 9, 2009

Treasure Hunt Party

This weekend we had Annalise's seventh birthday party. According to her, it was, "the best day EVER!!" We did have a great time. Did I mention before that she wanted to have a rock star party? I thought this was a great idea; we could do karaoke. All well and good except that half of her friends can't READ! So the rock star party was out. Somehow we ended up on the idea for a treasure hunt. Here's what we did:

Invitations: For invitations, I always have a picture of the birthday kid. For this one, we "hid" Annalise in the plants with her binoculars. The invitations read, "A treasure is hiding somewhere on our street. Where could it be? The puzzle's incomplete..." And a word to the wise about inviting kids to a party in September -- they all come. Not so in July, but in September, if you want 15 kids, then only invite 15 kids.

Preparations: This party had a lot of prep work before the kids got there. I divided the kids into 5 teams (4-5 kids per team, plus one team of 6 younger siblings). I wanted to divide the teams so that everyone knew at least one kid in their group. This meant the groups changed a bit as I got RSVPs. Then I mapped out where each group would go. It took some cross checking to make sure that the groups were spread out across the neighborhood and not all on top of each other. For the clues, I took pictures around the neighborhood, plus in our front and back yards. (I got the neighbors' permission first.) Then Jason printed them out onto cardstock and I wrote the address where that picture was taken on the clue. Then I cut them up and placed them in numbered envelopes, color coordinated with each team's color. (If you're doing this yourself, make sure you label each envelope with a post it saying where each clue is to be hidden.) Before everyone got there, I ran around the neighborhood hiding clues. (Another time saving hint -- group them by address so you can do them all at once.) This sounds kind of complicated, but it was actually pretty easy.

Activities: For a "craft" and something to do while waiting for all the kids to come, we decorated t-shirts. I had divided the kids (18 big kids and 6 younger siblings) into 5 groups. I ordered t-shirts online for just over $2 a piece. Each group was a different color and decorated a t-shirt in their color. (We used fabric markers and ribbons.) It was amazing what the kids came up with to decorate their shirts. One kid drew an awesome pirate. Lots of the girls made belts out of the ribbon.
When everyone was there and had decorated their shirts, I called all the kids inside for "rules:" things like you have to find all ten clues; don't take a clue that isn't your color, etc. Plus I showed them what they would be looking for and what their clues would look like all put together. (Meanwhile, Jason hid the front yard clues.) They got into their groups and introduced themselves to each other. Once again I had my incredible tutoring kids come to help; one kid per group. Then I gave them their first clue and they were off. It was great to watch them all working together to put together their puzzles and then running all over the neighborhood in their matching t-shirts.
The treasure boxes Jason hid at a point when all the kids were out of the backyard. (We have a hill in our backyard, and he hid all 5 boxes up there.) For the boxes, I found smallish used cardboard boxes at Ralph's market that were ready to be recycled. They were happy to let me have them. Then Zachary and I painted them each the five different colors with tempra paints. We filled them with goodies from Target. Each kid got a Halloween pencil and eraser, some gummy Lifesavers and a pack of gum. Also, I found those punch balloons, so they each got one of those. But the big hit were these balloon launchers. Each pack came with a pump and 20 balloons that blew up to be about three feet long.
When the hunt was over and we had sung happy birthday, we still had some time to kill. So the kids all took their balloon launchers into the street and launched balloons way up into the air. I was nervous about having time left over, but they were all having a great time playing with their balloons, so it actually turned out to be great.

Food: All we did was water bottles, pretzels and popcorn. (I find that kids are generally too busy to eat much at parties and I can't stand the waste.) For cupcakes, we frosted them with either chocolate or vanilla frosting and then put frosting polka dots in our five colors.

This party was soooo much fun. I think all the kids had a blast. And, aside from what went into the treasure boxes (which really could be as simple as you wanted), it was pretty inexpensive. I did no decorations, and used regular table cloths instead of the cheap plastic ones. And since the party was in the middle of the afternoon, I didn't feel like I needed to provide a whole lot of food. Also, since most of the set up was in making the clues, we didn't have a whole lot we had to do the day of the party. (In fact, Jason and Annalise were gone at soccer for most of the morning.) It was totally age appropriate and lots of fun!