A Birth Story

It's the birthday eve of my baby boy! Two years ago on this day at this time I was just going into labor... so this is Mason's pregnancy/birth story.

Two weeks prior to Mason arriving. We got our new camera just in time to snap a few belly shots!

I really did enjoy being pregnant. I had minimal morning sickness and no complications of note. I had been running and was able to continue until the 7 month mark, at which point the protruding belly became a balance issue. I was able to continue working full time right up until the very end. It was as smooth as I could have hoped for. So skipping to the end.... at 6 days past due.

I had mentally prepared myself from the beginning to go past my due date, so as the days passed I really wasn't too concerned and knew it would happen... eventually. I just didn't want him getting too fat in the meantime. On Monday, January 19th, I went to the doctor as scheduled and showed no progress, nothing.

I remember my Mom coming out to the house to visit that afternoon, we decided to hang pictures in the nursery. She told me that if the frames were hung, the baby would "know" it's room was officially ready and decide to come...

Our house had been decorated by Grammy Barbi and Aunt Laura while we were in the hospital!

About that time I began not feeling well, just "yucky". Around 8pm I began having contractions, which were pretty unmistakable as I hadn't had anything at all up until this point. From the beginning they were about 5 minutes apart. We placed a call in to Dr. Danny (Dustin's brother) for his opinion. We were told to try and get some rest until things started progressing. Dustin took this as his opportunity to go to bed. I paced pretty much every room in the house throughout the night while contractions remained at 3-5 minutes apart, but not necessarily increasing in strength. Somewhere in there Dustin woke up to check on me :). Around 7am I talked with my doctor over the phone and she suggested that I go somewhere and walk for a while or head to the hospital. At this point I knew I was waaaay past just walking, so we opted to head to the hospital.

At the initial check around 8am (12 hours after first labor signs) I was 3 cm dilated, and they told me I'd have my baby by that afternoon. Suddenly things became very real. However after getting situated things had actually slowed considerably and I really began to doubt their prediction. They broke my water and I began walking the halls and it got very intense very quickly. I remember holding onto the railing at the end of a dead end hallway and wondering if I would make it back to the room. I did in fact make it back and was at 6 cm. At 1:59pm on Tuesday, January 20th, Mason Michael was born. I will never forget looking into Mason's eyes for the first time. What a miracle and gift from God! It was incredibly emotional and overwhelming, and in some ways I don't even want to try and put words to it. So that is Mason's birth story, and our lives have never been the same since!

Dustin would be 28 in a month, I was 24.... I feel like I look so young!

The day we brought Mason home, January 22nd, was so warm that Dustin was wearing shorts!

Losing it!

Does anyone else ever feel like some days you are just losing it? Feel free to insert whatever you'd like for "it"... your mind, your belongings, your bladder (for my fellow pregnant ladies). Anyway in the past two days we've lost a fair amount of items: Mason's monkey backpack, his winter coat, a shoe at the museum...

And unfortunately I can't even blame any of these things on him yet. Fortunately all items were recovered by the end of the day.

But it's times like these when I, as an adult, am reminded of how much patience I will most definitely need through the child-rearing years. After all, if I can't even keep it all together how much more can I expect from a two-year-old?

And I have a feeling it will happen a lot. For example, I drop things a lot... after accidentally dropping and breaking a salt shaker Dustin stated, "and this is why we just can't have nice things." I have locked my keys in my car on more than one occasion. I have gotten stains on my favorite shirts and even lost objects of sentimental importance. All this has become even more amusing to me through the years because it seems the harder I try to avoid occurrences like this, the more often they happen. And generally I like to be very prepared for every possible circumstance. I admit I love my lists and I always pack too much when traveling.

So I just want to warn my future self to be prepared for this to occur more than a million times with kids throughout the years... I just know it will happen. And when it does, it won't be the end of the world and hopefully I won't make it feel like that to my kids. After all, it's my fault it's in their genes right? :) And hopefully I'll have the patience to say "That's okay, accidents happen. Let's clean it up. Mommy drops things too."

Look Who.....

is turning 2!!!

Our "baby"...

is now a "big boy"!

Mason will be 2 years old on January 20th and we are so thankful to God for the blessing of him! We are looking forward to the upcoming year and all that he and we will learn and experience together!

Warmer Days...

I must say I am enjoying this first big snow in 2011! There's no school today, which doesn't really impact us at all... except that I've used it as an excuse to stay in my pajamas all day. Just because, that's what you do on snow days right?

I generally am an organized/prepared person, which absolutely means having a winter car kit. I don't think I've ever actually used it before, until yesterday. Yesterday I learned two things 1) My winter car kit is not as equipped as it should be 2) If you live on the top of a big hill you should definitely have a different vehicle than I do.... or you just might get stuck at the bottom of the hill and end up walking the rest of the way home.

We were heading home after church and lunch with friends and had little indication that we wouldn't be successful in making it the whole way. Try as we may, our car could not get up the hill. So we parked our car at the bottom, got out the winter car kit, bundled up Mason and ourselves, and had a nice snowy Sunday afternoon family walk up the hill and down our lane. The only thing you would assume would be in the kit car that was not... gloves. Fortunately there was a plethora of socks, which worked just as well. Had it not been 2 hours past Mason's naptime I probably would have entertained other options.... that and when else was I actually going to get to use the winter car kit?

So now we're officially snowed in, which is great by me as I'm tackling projects on my "Things To Do Before Baby Comes" list. Today is officially picture day, so here are some memories from warmer days!

Guess I should have put him in charge of watering the lawn...

I believe he was trying to escape... fortunately there's nothing but grass for quite a while :).

This is our "back yard".

We LOVE these onesies our very talented friend Cody makes!

The Tree Picture

Dustin (29), Mason (23 months), Bre (26), & Baby (6 months in utero)

I really like pictures in front of Christmas trees. Our tree, however, is all of 3 feet tall. Our only hope was to "adopt" another tree for our photo. Thanks to Erin Schledewitz for being in the right place at the right time, we were able to snag a family photo in front of the big tree at church this past Sunday!

Feel free to share in our joy that Mason is looking at the camera! This is truly impressive as he is obsessed with the tree, which is understandable as it is the largest Christmas tree he has ever seen. We may just have to leave our little 3-footer up for a while. Every night he asks for us to turn on the lights and then he sits in front of the tree as close as possible without actually touching, as he is only allowed to "look with his eyes" in order to save the balls from being used to shoot hoops. He's really into throwing things right now, but balls are the only items he is allowed to throw. It's working out pretty well, there were only a few times the real basketball was thrown at the Christmas tree. We're still working at not throwing at breakables and friends :). Ironically, the only ornament that has actually been broken this year was not by Mason....

Christmastime is such a special time, filled with many learning and relearning opportunities for the young as well as the old! We hope you enjoy the celebration of Christmas this year in all the ways that are special to you and your family!!!

'Tis the Season...

for pottytraining? Apparently not quite according to Mason. However, he does occasionally show interest in using the potty chair. On this particular night (right before his bath) he decided he wasn't going to sit on it... until he put his rainboots on!

Why rainboots? They're pretty much the only shoes he can put on by himself :).

On a side note, the rainboots were $1 at a garage sale and the potty chair only 50 cents!

Non-Perfect Pictures

So I was asked if I was ever going to post again, and I decided that I indeed would.... as soon as I got the "perfect" pictures. But then I reconsidered based on the fact that it had been since the end of August and despite the massive amount of pictures I have taken in that time, I've come to accept the fact that I have an almost 2-year-old who is not yet capable of sitting perfectly still and smiling directly at the camera as I would like and therefore I will have very few "perfect" pictures. Not that I don't like other types of pictures and for me that's not what it's about anyway...

I cherish the pictures I do have, including the many that are blurry as he is almost always moving. I'm just thankful he has a cute profile since I seem to capture a lot of side views :). So in the spirit of non-perfect pictures, here's the attempt at Christmas-themed pictures. I figured by starting early I could get a handful of photo shoots in before the month was over!

The suit I got on clearance for $6.24 at the end of last season. I remember how excited I was when I got it and then thinking how long it would be before he could actually wear it!

Mason's "fancy shoes" as he calls them, which I picked up at a garage sale this summer.

New Christmas vest from Grandpa and Grandma!

He's actually just pretending to take a nap.

He has a lot of hair.... and right now he always has a lot of static going on. I apologize in advance if he accidentally shocks you or your kiddos!

He attempted to say "poinsettia". His version had the right number of syllables... just not in the right order :).

Static in the hair clearly visible!

He's still learning that I will continue to take pictures even if he attempts to hide.

Enjoying a mouthful of dried apricot, his photo shoot treat. We later noted that he may have had a bit too much :).

Singing... the lobby in Daddy's office has wonderful echoing capabilities.

I really enjoy taking pictures, so regardless of the outcome I'm just glad to be able to capture each age and stage! We hope you are your family are enjoying this special time of year and wish you an early very Merry Christmas!