Moving Along

A dull post, but just letting people know we're alive and doing well. Not much specific stuff to detail. We've been staying busy as usual. Pool parties, birthday parties, trips to the park, etc. So far Christian has mostly slept through all of it. That kid LOVES his car seat. Today I put him in it at 1:30 as we prepared to go to a friend's house. He fell asleep the moment the car started moving and he woke up at 6pm. Hard on a nursing mom, but great on a nursing mom with 2 other active toddlers, so I don't complain.

In addition to sleeping, his other great talent so far is spitting up. Sometimes dainty streams; sometimes huge, violent bursts. Either way, I'm very grateful for my washing machine and my very resilient carpet. However, because of this great talent, I was very excited when his belly button healed and I was finally able to give him a nice bath. I assumed if he was a true Dalton child, he'd love the water, and I was right. He was fussy as I undressed him, but the moment I lowered him into the warm water, a look of pure pleasure showed on his face. Ah, another kid who will love the fountain at the zoo more than the animals. At least he'll have company. (Benjamin served as my photographer and his work leaves something to be desired, but here's what we've got.)




For German mom's club this week we went to a friend's house who has a backyard pool. The water was ice cold and most other kids didn't want to be in it but mine were in there most of the afternoon.


Here's my favorite picture from that afternoon, though. Bella wanted me to push her on the swing, but Benjamin thought he could do a good job too. Bella wasn't having it and kept screaming, "No, mommy do it!" Of course, he wouldn't listen and kept pushing. Here she is mid-"NO!" I think it cracks me up because it's just so typical of life with them. He loves her but poor Bella sure puts up with a lot from her know-it-all, bossy older brother.


Case in point: bedtime. The oldest two are now sharing a room and Bella is a motormouth. She loves to talk all night long and keep Benjamin awake. A common conversation heard after dark consists of, "Benjamin! Benjamin!" "Be quiet and go to sleep!" "No! Look what I do, Benjamin!" (Sound of Bella jumping on her bed.) "Go to sleep!" (Sound of Benjamin's pillow hitting the wall behind Bella's head.)

Tonight I heard, "If you don't stop talking, I'm going to push your bed!" followed by a thud and a violent, piercing wail from Bella. I ran in there to find Bella's mattress overturned on top of her and she (and her stuffed animals and blankets) pinned between the mattress and the slats making up the bottom of the bed. She was screaming hysterically and was unable to get up. Benjamin had apparently crawled underneath it and pushed it up with his feet, overturning the entire thing. To his credit, he was terrified at what he'd done and was hurriedly trying to free her as I dashed in. He cried harder and longer than she did after that. Alas, did it teach her to be quiet? No, after I got them both tucked in again, I heard her babbling on anyway. I guess, on second thought, sometimes she deserves what she gets. :)

A Few New Pictures

It's so true how you take a thousand pictures a day of your first, a hundred of your second, and possibly one or two of your third. I really haven't managed to take a whole lot of pictures in the last few days. However, here's a few of my favorites. I really am so enamored by this little guy. He's adorable and so sweet. Even at 3am, I'll hold him and marvel at how amazing he is. I think it may be that I've got more experience with newborns now but I'm really enjoying this guy more than I remember enjoying my others in the first week. I spend more time just staring at him and cuddling him. It also doesn't hurt that he's a great eater and sleeper. :) And the kids really love him too. Bella is so excited to be sharing her changing pad and former bed with him. Benjamin wants to hold him all day long. It's really fun to see. Three kids is complicated, (like when I came out of the bathroom to find Benjamin had climbed on the roof, Bella was up the street on her scooter, and Christian was crying to be fed) but he makes it so worth it.

He's Here!

We're excited to announce the birth of Christian Daniel Dalton on Saturday, August 14, 2010. He weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. and was 20.5 inches long.

Kelly brought Benjamin to the hospital to pick us up.



At home, Bella seemed a bit nervous around him at fist, but she warmed up quickly.



For this delivery I had three wishes - 1. that it not be in the middle of the night (as Isabella had been), 2. that I have the same anesthesiologist as I'd had with Benjamin because she's a miracle worker (and I'm convinced the one with Isabella had been one of Satan's minions) and 3. that I finally get my favorite doctor from my OB practice to deliver the baby, since it's been someone else the other two times. I got all three wishes! I started having really strong contractions at 2am on Saturday (our 9th anniversary) but Kelly was on a scout camp-out so I hoped they would fade. By 6am I knew that wasn't going to happen. So I called him and asked him to come home. He came home and we got to the hospital at 9am.

On the way to hospital and when we first got there, my contractions nearly stopped all together. I was worried it had been false labor and that I'd called Kelly home for nothing! However, they checked me and saw that things were indeed progressing - I was at a 2 and 80% effaced, so they asked me to walk around for a while and see if that helped. If it didn't, I'd need to go home. So we walked for a while and the contractions returned. When they checked me again an hour later, I was at a 4 and 90%, so they admitted me. It turned out that my favorite doctor - Dr. Cantor - was on duty, so he came in and broke my water and called the anesthesiologist. I didn't recognize the name, but when she same in, I saw that my 3rd wish had been granted - it was the one I'd wanted. (I have scoliosis and probably because of that or simply because it was the middle of the night last time, but the other lady had done a terrible job. She'd had to poke me 4 times to get it right.) This doctor got it right the first time with no issue at all. Almost immediately the pain subsided and everything was smooth sailing. At this point it was about 1pm and I was at a 6. They also gave me a little pitocin to keep things moving and about at 3pm I started to feel A LOT of pressure. Doctor Cantor came in and I was at a 10 and ready to push. It really, really hurt to push so I didn't want to prolong it any more than necessary. I pushed as hard as I could (in fact, at one point the doctor said, "woah, slow down, not quite so hard and fast!") and after 3 long pushes, little Christian was out, pink, and screaming. It was my easiest labor and delivery yet. No vomiting, no 5 minute long pitocin-induced contractions, no hellish epidural experience. All those things that had been hard with the first two were not there. Everything flowed and worked perfectly. It was wonderful. All my wishes granted. And now I have another beautiful little baby boy. And 24 hours later, I packed up and went home! People were surprised to hear I was leaving so soon, but would you enjoy staying where they come in at 5:30am to draw your blood???

I'll be sure to post more pictures when we take some more. For now, all three kids are sleeping, so that's what I'm going to do too.

Young Environmentalists

A few weeks ago Benjamin started asking to plant a tree in our backyard. I can't remember how it started. We must have had some conversation about the positive impact trees can have on the environment or some similar tree-hugger type conversation I'm always trying to have with my kids. Start brainwashing them young! Anyway, he got excited about the idea and asked every day when we were going to plant our tree. I figured, how hard could it be? Dig a hold, put in the tree, fill it back up! Sure, Benjamin, let's plant a tree! Luckily I had the foresight to wait until a Saturday when Kelly could join us or we would never have gotten past the dig-a-hole stage. Our backyard is apparently all clay once you go more than a few inches down. So Benjamin and I dug a little and poor Kelly dug a lot, but the whole family had a great time planting our little oxygen replenisher and now if I can remember to water it, we might stand a chance of it growing! By the way, it's lilac (my choice) so it's beautiful and sweet smelling too. A win-win! It was cute to see Benjamin so very excited about all that went into the process (which had far more steps than I anticipated.)

Dig the hole.


Fill with top soil (from our compost bin - go us!)


Add some bone meal as fertilizer


Water generously (Benjamin's favorite part)


Put tree in and refill with dirt (Bella's favorite part)


Water again (and again and again, if you're Benjamin)


Surround the whole thing with fencing so it survives the night in our rabbit-infested backyard.


Smile proudly at your effort to save the earth.


Many have asked for pictures of me and my ever-expanding belly and I refused. However, one of the ladies I visit teach is taking a photography class and begged me to let her photograph me and my kids to give her practice taking portraits. She promised to delete any I didn't like and give me copies of all of them. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. So, I invited her over, got my kids all cleaned up, did my hair, etc. We were all ready and waiting when I got a text saying she wasn't doing well and was at the doctor's. What do we do now? The kids had gotten really excited about the idea of pictures, so I decided we'd do our own. We went in our backyard and the kids took turns taking pictures, I took some pictures, and we used a tree branch as tripod and took some timed shots. Some didn't turn out too bad! So here, at 2 days to my due date, are a couple pictures of me and my darling kids.




Finally, my favorite picture of Benjamin from this past week. This week my German mom's club met at a member's house who has a swimming pool in her backyard. (In addition to the 3 playstructures, sand box, kiddie pool, slip-n-slide, t-ball set, etc. etc. We all joked she should rent out her backyard for birthday parties). Benjamin spent pretty much the whole afternoon in the pool and this picture so perfectly captured his excitement. He's become so fearless in the water - especially for someone who still can't swim! We all hated to leave.


Benjamin has three goals he's working on right now - learn how to swim (he can do the strokes, but sinks like a rock if he's not wearing a life vest), learn to ride his bike without training wheels, and learn how to pump by himself on a swing. He practices at least one of these three every day, but progress is slow. Surprising really, considering how quickly he picks up most physical things. He's so incredibly enthusiastic about it, though, that I'm very excited for him. So cute to see him growing so fast.