3 Weeks of Life!

Forgotten story: In the week before Sundance was born, I planted my garden plants. They died, but that's not the point of the story.  As I was coming in and out of the garage getting all my stuff together, Tom and Katie were playing in the yard. On one of my trips out of the garage, I saw Tom standing by the light pole at the end of the driveway with his pants and underwear at his ankles.  "Mom, I'm a big boy because I pee on the tree all by myself. Dat's why my a big boy!"  Okay, good to know you can take care of yourself like that.  So I sent the kids to play in the front yard while I planted the garden.  Ten minutes later, I see Tom walking across the side yard towards me, yet again with his pants and underwear at his ankles.  "Mom, I'm a big boy because I poop on the tree all by myself and I'm a big boy!"  Oh, dear!  I ran inside for some toilet paper, cleaned the boy's butt, pulled up his pants, washed my hands and asked him to show me where he pooped.  He couldn't find the exact spot, but he showed me the general area and I instructed him to stay away from there, and to tell me the next time he needs to poop.  What a kid.


After Dancy came home, Katie took to being a homeless bag lady. She confiscated every blanket and outfit for Dancy and walked around with it all piled on her stroller.  She still thinks every blanket in the house belongs to her.  Shad once counted 7 in her bed and repossessed 5 of them.

 

Pris came hours after Dancy was born and stayed for 2 days.  She took the kids to the park 3 times in that time, and entertained them a lot otherwise. Shad and I had lots of time to rest and enjoy our fresh little daughter.  She's grown so much since then that she looks so tiny in this picture.

 

After 2 days, Pris went back to Geneva Saturday night and then came back the next day with the rest of the family.  Tom and Katie were actually kinda happy to see her leave them, because they were excited that she'd come back with their Bumpa, Ruthie and Levi.  Bumpa and Dancy took a nap together on Sunday night.  They left Monday afternoon to go back home.

 

Tom and Katie absolutely love having their very own baby sister.

 

My mom came to stay for a week on Wednesday, 2 days after Pris and everyone left, and 6 days after Dancy was born.  That day we had a tornado watch issued at 1 pm for the rest of the day.  Mom got here safely, Norton didn't have any tornados, and youth activities were NOT cancelled.  Shad was on his way home from Phillipsburg when this rain storm hit:

 

http://youtu.be/6AqdVdzqD6k

 

We found out the next morning that there was a tornado that hit just 17 miles east of us.  We saw shredded, twisted trees on the way to church on Sunday.

 

My mom cooked most of the nights she was here.  One of the favorite meals was Chicken "Muggets" (Tom gets his N and M sounds confused sometimes) with a melon salad.  Katie loved cramming melon balls into her mouth.

 

100%

 

Everybody loves to hold our new girl.

 

We had a rainbow one night and it was really exciting.  In fact, Tommy now uses the word "exciting" in his vocabulary.  "Mom! The missionaries are here! That's so exCITING!"  Stuff like that.

 

Whenever Dancy is on the floor crying, I can always be sure that some little person will be there to try and comfort her.  They bring her all sorts of blankets, toys, pacifiers, clothes, and if that doesn't work, I usually get told that she needs milk from my boobs, or "pat her to burp" or that she needs her diaper changed.  But when Momma is busy, the next best thing is to hold her and sing to her.  Tom is explaining the picture to me at the moment, "I hold my Dancy and say, 'I got my Dancy! I got my Dancy! I got my Dancy!' Where's Dancy? She in her bed?" Did I mention that he loves his sister?

 

 

Tom Singing to Dancy

 

http://youtu.be/oaQ7eXkbxiw

 

We went to the library as we usually do on Thursday mornings and there was a special music event--Randy's Music Jam.  Randy is a Norton native who sings songs for kids.  Tommy enjoyed talking to him after the event, and Randy gave him and Katie kazoos!

 

 

While Mom was here, Shad and I took advantage of a date night to go to the movie theater.  Since Epic was one of the movies there, and we prefered to see it over Gatsby, we decided to bring Tom along.  He watches movies so well that I wanted to take him for a treat to see one at the theater.  So he worked concessions with us.  He manned the candy counter and was great at offering recommendations to his customers.  And keeping them in check with their manners--"Say 'pease!'" Then when it was time to go in for the movie, we got our popcorn, soda and candy.  He was so excited to have his very own box of popcorn with his soda and candy in it.  He loved the movie, and wore his 3D glasses for the first half hour or so, then decided he could see better without them.  Shad and I don't blame him. We don't like wearing them, either.  After the movie, we swept the theater.  Would you believe this boy's excitement over getting his own broom?  And look at this face! How could anybody resist taking this boy to the movie theater?

 

 

Dad came over the weekend that Mom was here.  We took them out to Prairie Dog State Park.  We walked the nature walk trail and then played at a playground in a campground by the lake.  Katie really enjoyed pushing the stroller around for a bit. 

Dad pointed out that, in teaching Tommy about pirates, I failed to show Tommy Pirates of the Caribbean and introduce him to Captain Jack Sparrow.  I've since fixed that problem and now every time Tom plays swords, he says he's Captain Jack Sparrow.

100%

 Grandma brought a new book with her that Tom and Katie just love. It's called Blue Hat Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.  Tommy reads it to Katie, who laughs at each page.  After my mom left, Tommy saw the book in our living room and was worried that Grandma forgot her book.  I told him that she said he could keep it, and he replied, "Oh! Dat be so nice of her! Because she yoves me!" And here's the video we got of the kids reading the book with Grandma before she left.

 

Blue Hat, Green Hat

 

http://youtu.be/QdzRfA-QmQQ

 

Tommy didn't make it easy for Grandma to leave--clinging to her legs, crying out, "Don't YEAVE me! Just stay in Kansas by me!"  But he and Katie both handled her departure well.  She left last Wednesday afternoon.  Shad didn't have to work overtime on Friday OR Saturday last week! Natoma is starting to cut back on the overtime.  He doesn't have to work either day this week, either.  Oh, it feels like we can breathe and get things done that need done. On Friday we went down to Hays to get set up with new phones. Sprint's coverage changed and dropped northern Kansas, so I got on to Vern and Pris' family plan with Verizon, and Shad went to StraightTalk from Walmart.  We went to Gella's Diner for dinner.  Shad heard about it from a coworker.  They brew their own root beer, and that was the main point of interest for Shad.  Upon some internet research, we learned that they're highly rated on tripadvisor.com for their excellent food, brew, prices and quick service.  We found everything we read to be correct.  It was fantastic!

 

Saturday we got to sleep in late.  Then Adam came over to play Magic with Shad, and I went out to garage sales.  I found a nice microfiber couch with recliner ends.  We picked it up to replace our abused and broken blue couch in the basement.  It was just two blocks down the street at the house one of his coworkers just moved into.  The guy had a truck, so he and Shad just loaded it in right then and we got it home.  Then Shad and Adam had a not so fun time getting that hide-a-bed couch out of the basement.  I'm not so happy about some scraped paint, but can hardly blame the guys.  That couch just should have come out in pieces and then it would've been a different story.

 

Tommy got stuck in the bathroom at church on Sunday.  Before sacrament meeting started, I noticed that Katie had a dirty diaper, so I took her out to change it.  She went back in to the chapel while I took the diaper out to the dumpster, grabbed my bag from the van and went to the Primary room to return a piece of music.  When I walked into the church, I heard a little person crying.  I identified that it was Tommy and started looking for him.  When I called out his name, he wailed out to me, "Momma! I'm stuck in the door!" After checking a couple different doors still trying to find him, I finally realized he was crying out from the bathroom door.  He said he had gone looking for me and Katie.  He wasn't able to open the door to get back out of the bathroom.  What was so sad to me was that I almost didn't go back to the Primary at that time. And if I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have been too concerned about where Tommy was because I'd have assumed that he found a friend to sit with.  It just breaks my heart to think about that poor, distressed boy being stuck in the bathroom, crying for help for an hour.  I'm glad he was only in there for a few minutes.  Him being stuck in there though, reminded me that in the church building I grew up going to, they have handles at little kids' height on the bathroom doors.  Our bishop was out of town, but our stake president was there, so I told him about that and he said he'd talk to someone to get that done. 

 

I've been doing okay on my own with my 3 little beings.  That doesn't mean that I've successfully kept up on dishes, cleaning and laundry, but at least all those things got caught up while my mom was here.  Between the two of us, we were able to get all that done.  Now things have fallen to the wayside again as I have my little friends to play with and hold and feed and diaper and then take care of myself as I lose energy.  On Tuesday I came down with a summer cold that wiped me out for most of Wednesday, seemed better on Thursday, but is much worse in my chest today.  My visiting teacher came over Wednesday to help me set up some buckets for container gardening and that effort in the morning had me on the couch for most of the rest of the day.  I just ached all over. It hurt to sit up to eat lunch.  Shad stayed home from youth activities to help me so that I wouldn't be disabled Thursday as well.  I went to the doctor yesterday and was prescribed antibiotics.

 

Last night after dinner, we walked up to the library to return DVDs and pick up some new ones.  Last week we Jack Reacher and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  We really liked Jack Reacher, but decided not to finish watching Wallflower.  This time we got Wreck-It Ralph and Valkyrie. We watched Wreck-It Ralph with the kids last night.  Tommy was excited to get to eat popcorn out of a movie theater bucket.  I thought the movie was good; Shad was disappointed. 

100%

 

Before Dancy Came...

Tommy fashioned a gun out of a kitchen set pan and a broken rocket.

 

 

We got adopted by a cat on the way home from a walk.

 

He visited us for several days, played nicely in the yard with the kids, and helped himself to my lap.  Not knowing his gender, I decided to name him Zeus if he's a boy and Hera if she's a girl.  Ultimately, I refer to him as Zeusorhera.  However, he only came to us those few days before Dancy was born, because then we disappeared and weren't outside to play with him anymore. We miss Zeusorhera.

Shad loves this picture he got of the kids riding the grocery store horse.  We played a caption game on facebook with it and got some good captions from people.  Feel free to contribute your own.

 

Our kids like each other.

 

Tom had unbelievable energy one night, and in the interest of attempting to walk out a baby, we walked down to the track to set the boy free.  When I got him out of the stroller and told him that the track was a special place where he could run all he wanted, his eyes lit up and he ran a mile.  Took a couple 30 second pauses to make sure that Shad and I were still behind him, and to watch baseball ball practice, but otherwise kept himself going well.  Shad says there's nothing like your 2-year-old out running you to make you feel out of shape.  And no, this didn't wipe the boy out.  He still had loads of energy and didn't sleep any different that night than any other night.  Even now, he's looking at this picture over my shoulder and asking to go run at the track.  If only it weren't 96 degrees...

 

 

Ruth was in town the weekend Dancy was due to go to the Norton High School graduation and all her friends' parties.  She stopped by to see us a couple times and introduced Tom and Katie to Raffi songs--Banana Phone, Down by the Bay, Baby Beluga, and Mr. Golden Sun.  Tom spontaneously sings Banana Phone and Mr. Golden Sun, and Katie sings Baby Beluga.

 

I'll Love Her Forever

I'll like her for always.  As long as I'm living, my baby she'll be.

Wednesday morning started out with extra discomfort in my pelvic area.  Just feeling extra weight and pressure, and having an extra waddle in my step.  The kids and I went to a prenatal appointment.  Katie loves to go to the "Doctor, doctor!"  Dr. McKinley asked when I wanted to have this baby.  I told him that she'd come when she's ready, but ideally, 4 days ago.  Sundance's timing was better than my own, though.

We continued our day normally by going to visit Shad at work for lunch.  I'll admit I exercised some self-restraint when he said, "Well, that's good!" after I told him how uncomfortable I was.  Tommy had to pee while we were there.  Shad's coworkers were all impressed.



I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in our recliner.  I didn't want to go out walking without someone with me.  Light cramps started around 5:30 in the evening.  We all went out for a walk after dinner around 7, with light contractions occurring by then.  We stopped by the movie theater to pick up a couple of popcorn cups for the kids to snack on while we finished walking.  They love getting movie popcorn, and they love Jeremy for getting it for them.



We decided to go to Paul and Mallory's house around 8:30 to pick up their exercise ball, because I've used one at the hospital for the other two births and wanted to stay at home as long as possible this time.  On the way to their house, something popped into place in my pelvis mid contraction and suddenly intensity seriously increased.  We ended up hanging out with Paul and Mallory until 11:30, when we left to go to the hospital.  We brought the kids' bag and my hospital bag just in case such a situation would happen. They admitted me without question when they checked me and found me to be 6 cm dilated and obviously having frequent contractions.  And because my labor was progressing so quickly (thanks to Mallory's raspberry leaf tea:), they wouldn't let me sit in the tub for fear I'd give birth there.  That was a sad thing.  I missed my tub soak.  It makes it so much easier to relax during the process.  But regardless, 3 hours after heading to the hospital, Sundance Victoria Kendell was born at 2:29 am on Thursday, May 23, 2013.  She was 6 lbs 10 oz, 18.5 inches long.

 

 Tom and Katie were so excited to come see Sundance at the hospital. We've been talking about it for weeks.  Pris arrived just a few minutes before Shad got back from picking up Tom and Katie. And then the kids argued over who got to hold their sister first. Tom is so dear and sweet with her, hugging and kissing her, singing to her, telling her everything is okay when she makes the slightest sound.  Katie cooks food in the kitchen for her, and is ever bringing hats, clothes and blankets.

The kids were jealous when my nurse brought in my afternoon snack, so Shad took them to the vending machine.  They were so happy to sit in their chairs with their very own bag of chips.

We left the hospital at 7 that night.  No need to stay for another night of uncomfortable beds at hourly nurse disturbances.  Tom and Katie were elated to have Sundance in their house,though it still took some explaining that it was okay for them to go to bed because she'd still be here in the morning.

 

A couple things to note about Dancy's timing in entering the world:
1. She came with perfect timing for Shad.  He took a paid day off for Thursday, simply said he couldn't work the overtime on Friday, and Natoma had already decided to not work overtime on Saturday.  And Monday is off, too.  So Shad is home until Tuesday.
2. She was born on Shad's grandpa's birthday.  The grandpa who passed away 9 months ago, just before Dancy was conceived.

AND for those who are interested in knowing the origin of her name, I looked it up because I didn't know entirely myself.  We were inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but I didn't know where Sundance got his name.  He was 15 years old when he got arrested for stealing a horse in Sundance, Wyoming, and thus was called Sundance Kid.  Sundance, Wyoming is so named for the Native American sun dances.

 

Yes, I'm Still Pregnant...

Just to let you all know, I'm due on May 18th and will announce when we're going to the hospital, and again when birth has happened.  I'm not going to give play-by-plays up until then. 

 

And so until then, here's what's been going on in our lives.

Elder Painter got transferred.  He was only here for 6 weeks, which was short.  Shad and I were both pretty bummed to say goodbye to him already. 



 

I've been reading about kitchen scraps that you can regrow.  Here's one week of celery growth.  Just cut off one inch off the bottom of your celery and put it in water.  Spray it once a week to keep the top moist.  I also grow green onions (put it in a container with water and cut off the greens as they grow; change the water once a week).  And I've got aloe vera leaves in water.  The florist told me that you can cut aloe vera leaves off the plant and put it in water to root.  Then plant each leaf and you've got a new plant.

 

One night after we had put the kids to bed, I saw their light on at 9:30.  When I went in, this is what I found.  My kids reading a book together on the floor.  My hand still reflexed to turn the light off, and Tom called out, "But Mom! We need the light to read our books!"  Shad and I told them to turn the light off when they were ready to go to bed.  At 10:15 Shad went up and told them to get in bed.  Katie was already sprawled out on the floor, giving up on staying awake, but unable to go to sleep because she was up with Tom.  She happily crawled and flopped herself into bed.

 We've gone out to the lake several times to play at the playground in the campgrounds.  Tom likes being a bear:)

 

Katie's been liking wearing a hat everywhere we go lately, no matter what type of hat or the temperature.  Kinda reminds us of that hat girl from Despicable Me.

 

One of my happy little laundry helpers.

 

After painting Katie's toenails Saturday night, she wanted to paint Sundance's nails.  So I pulled out some acrylic paint and painted my hands to make footprints on my belly.

 

Then we painted the toes to match Katie's toenails.

 

I don't remember what I pulled my camera out for during this lunch, but look at those faces!

 

How is this not a manufacturing fail?  Baby's 1st Doll: "Shake Me!"  Oh, Fisher Price, how you've just undone all the efforts of social workers everywhere.  FAIL.

 

Katie wanted to wear Tom's underwear.  She put this pair on herself.

 

Katie loves to play the sunglasses game when we go to Shopko.  She usually only plays it with Shad, and this time, Shad wasn't with us.  She still looked for him and when she couldn't find him, I took my glasses off to show her that I could play the game with her.  The game is just that she gets several pairs to swap on and off Shad's face, and since I already wear glasses, she's never tried to play with me before.  She was really excited to see that I could play the game with her though.  She even included Tom, who was playing with Iron Man and Captain America toys across the aisle.  And then we all had to take pictures.

 

 

 

We went to the Grant's house after church for lunch and games, and stayed til 6.  Katie fell asleep sitting up on my lap at 5.  I think that's the longest she's stayed awake before.  And guess what?  I'm STILL PREGNANT in this picture.  Thanks for asking.

 

Other events from our lives the past two weeks:

 

On Saturday, the kids got sick.  Tommy lost appetite, wouldn't play outside, and developed a fever.  Katie had some unpleasant diapers.  She at least was still able to be functional.  Tom couldn't do anything but lie motionless on Shad.  It's always hard to see the kids feeling sick and miserable, but to not even get to hold and comfort him really made me emotional.  It's completely okay that he wanted Shad in the little time he gets with him, but I just missed that comfort time.  So while I enjoyed the Mother's Day gifts (Peanut Butter Cup Chips Ahoy, a card game, and my choice of a fruit tree!) that I got in the morning, the best one was having my boy run in to the bathroom while I was getting ready for church.  He was happy, energetic and back to being himself.  It's so true that we need opposition in everything so that we can truly appreciate the good things.

 

The Relief Society had a musical number to sing on Sunday, and I was asked on Wednesday to accompany it.  And figure out how to connect the two hymns.  I called my cousin Michael on Thursday.  He composed a 2 measure bridge for us.  I have no doubt that it only took him about 5 minutes to come up with it.  Thanks again, Michael!

 

In the past month, Shad has had one day off, aside from Sundays which don't really count because half the day is gone with church anyway.  The house has been a wreck because there's only so much I can do to keep up with all the cleaning, laundry, cooking, dishes and now gardening by myself, with the kids, being 8 months pregnant as I am.  9 months, now. 

 

Tom had quite a quotable day last week.  He stumbled into some mud while we were visiting Shad at work for lunch.  He was very upset that it was on his shoes, and kept trying to kick it off.  He finally got so mad that he started cursing it.  "Stupid dirt! Stupid dirt on my shoes! Stupid dirt on my hands! Stupid, STUPID dirt!"  Luckily, I had a wipe in the van to clean him up.  It wasn't a concern to me, but he was very distraught.  My phone was having some serious issues that day, and as I had to power it down for the second time, I said, "My freaking phone is an idiot." He agreed, "Yeah, your freaking phone is an idiot."  We went out for a long walk later that day and Tom had to learn to pee on trees.  He told me, "I'm a big boy because I can pee on trees just like a big boy!"  He was very proud of himself.

 

We went to Phillipsburg on Wednesday night last week with Shad.  Now, just the night before, Shad had put a pull-up and diaper for Tom into our diaper bag.  When I was out shopping, we didn't make it to the bathroom in time for Tom, and he pooped in his pull-up.  No big deal, we'll just change it, I thought.  But there wasn't anything in the diaper bag for him.  When I got back to the church, I was going to try to MacGyver a diaper for him out of pads, but saw that his shirt and shorts were messed and unwearable.  Great.  So I got him all cleaned up in the bathroom, and then put my size 5 diaper son into his sister's size 3 diaper, and sent him off to play until Shad was ready to go.  Tom ran around the church telling everyone he was The Hulk.  Of course.

 

Yesterday was a rough day.  Katie cried for us at 5:30 am.  When Shad went in to get her, she was in Tom's bed.  Shad found that she had thrown up in her own and climbed in with Tom.  She slept the rest of the morning in bed with me.  She spent the whole day in and out of sleep.  When she was awake, she'd either cry until I coaxed her back to sleep, or she'd eat, throw up, and fall back asleep on me.  She slept most of the day on me.  I didn't get anything done.  Suddenly at 3:30 she just sat straight up and had energy to play and be her perky self, asking to get shoes on to go somewhere.  Of course, then she had diarhea.  It was an extra emotional day for me because, aside from being sorrowful that Katie was sick, I was suddenly grateful that I didn't have Sundance yet.  I went from hoping all day Mother's Day that I would go into labor, to hoping that I WOULDN'T go into labor and being slightly paranoid that I would.  I couldn't leave my Katie when she needed me so badly!  It was very emotionally taxing.

 

Katie's back to herself today.  She woke up at 7:30 and was fine to play downstairs.  I joined her at 9 and we had breakfast together.  She ate one bowl of cereal at her own table, then decided she'd rather come sit with me and share mine.  And play Sudoku with me.  I finally sent her upstairs at 9:45 to wake Tommy up because I was tired of waiting for him and didn't want their nap schedules to be off today.  I was determined that I was going to get my few plants planted in the garden today, but found out at 11 that it's supposed to be 98 degrees today.  It was already 90 then.  Maybe I'll get it done after the kids go to bed tonight.  Then I'll have Shad to help me.

37 Weeks and 4 Days

We're having a quiet night and I'm still pregnant and here, so I figured I could write something.  We had a fun Friday night after I wrote last.  We had our usual Friday pizza for dinner, but picked up some wings from Pizza Hut and Rise of the Guardians from Redbox.  It was actually a good movie.  I didn't think I'd like it much since I'm not into the holiday character myths.  But it was good and Tommy sat through the whole thing transfixed.  Katie was her usual all-over-the-place self,  and that was fun too.  She took turns cuddling with me and Shad.  I love how she asks for "nuggles!"  We were bummed to see a missed text from Paul on Shad's phone asking if we'd be able to babysit for them to go to the movie theater.  It would have been easy to add their kids into the mix with us! We felt awful for not having seen the text earlier.  In our defense, Shad's phone didn't chime when it came in.

We've been going out for walks most evenings without the stroller.  We love how the kids come back with their energy spent, even if they still manage to stay up til 10 or later playing and reading in their room.  On Sunday after walking, Tommy wanted to go to the lake.  We decided it'd be okay to go play at the park by the lake.  When it really warms up, we'll have to get ourselves out for the actual water.  He just can't wait to use the Spiderman swim trunks I bought him!

This week I've been working on food projects.  I dehydrated 3 sleeves of celery and am still just shocked at how much it shunk down.  It can't be more than a cup and a half!  I bought somewhere around 25 lbs of bananas at 38 cents a pound.  I've got some dehydrating in the food dehydrater, others flash freezing for our smoothie freezer bag, and plenty to eat fresh.  And I've made 3 dozen banana muffins.  I made around 2 dozen breakfast burritos (for the freezer).  Started garden seeds indoor.  I still want to make zucchini bread and calzones for the freezer.  I also made yogurt for Elder Painter on Monday.  He and I are both fans of healthy and natural food, so we love talking all about food every time they're over.

The kids were seriously off their rockers today.  They spent most of the day shut in their room because they couldn't figure out how to play nice and not be screaming/crying/squeeling every five minutes, and I wasn't going to tolerate it.  I don't know the last time I had so much time to myself.  I loved it!  After the past two weeks with so much time being the only adult with Tom and Katie, I was glad to have a bit of a break.  Okay, I loved it to the point of tears of joy.  True story.



Here's a few pictures I found on Shad's phone:

 

We stopped at Arby's in Colby on the way home from Colorado.  Tom was so excited that he frolicked through the restaurant like this.



 

Then the kids crashed on the way home from Colby.

 

The kids like to put trash away no matter where we are.  Katie was so determined to throw away our sandwich wrapper at Subway, but was too short.  So we sent Tom to help her.

 

A while ago, I taught Tommy that if he's sad he can sing "I Am a Child of God" to help him feel better.  He has taken that above and beyond in application.  Katie woke up from a nap recently and didn't want to come downstairs, but stood at the top and just cried.  Tommy tried to coax her down the stairs and when that didn't work, he stood at the bottom and sang up the stairs to her.  He told me that he was singing "I'm Child God Song" to Katie so that she can be happy.  Any time she's cranky, he wants to sing that to her.  Any time he's upset, he asks me to sing it for him.  I love that boy.