The new man in my life

All three of my guys.

He looks so tiny to me in this picture.

Proud Papa.

Tita is very happy...

...and so is Mamaw.
Already trying to lift his head.

Joel Terrell Villarreal entered this world on Tuesday, December 1st at 1:23 pm. (Gabriel was born at 1:05 pm. This must be my time of the day to have babies.) There are so many things about the experience I want to remember.

The first thing I'll always remember is how stupid we were to think that my doctor might not change his mind and want to admit us on Monday night instead of early Tuesday morning. I had to drive to Aledo for my last appointment at 2:15, and he informed me that he wanted me admitted by 5:30. I got on my cell to call Jav, who already knew he had to work late that night to be off the rest of the week, my Dad to see if he could take me to the hospital, and the vet's office to see if we could board Molly that night. I tried to make a running list in my head as I drove back home of the prioritized things I had to get done and threw out the things I wanted to get done. I finished packing for me and Gabriel. I took a quick shower, realizing I hadn't had one yet that day. I took Molly to the vet and dropped off Gabriel's bag at Jav's Mom's. I think the hardest part of that whole afternoon was saying goodbye to Gabriel. I bawled when I got back to the car. Then I went back home to wait for my Dad. I put the sheets back on the bed, emptied the dishwasher and took care of feeding the cats before he got there.

My Dad was the best Dad ever, again, and stayed with me in the hospital until 9 when I finally kicked him out. He didn't want me to be up there by myself, but I assured him that Jav was on his way and I would just work a crossword puzzle until he got there. Jav, however, was having a nightmare of a time at work, thinking he could leave at one point and they called him back in to fix a spreadsheet that wasn't working. Luckily, I couldn't eat any dinner until after 10 anyway so it all worked out (although I was having fairly strong and repetitive Braxton Hicks contractions when my Dad was there and was just a little worried that the baby would come when no one was there with me.) I was really glad to see Jav (and glad to see my dinner).

They induced me at 5:30 in the morning and the contractions started getting pretty bad by 9:30 or so. I got the epidural and all was quickly better. My parents got there around noon and finally convinced Jav to go get some lunch while they were in the room with me, and because there had been little change in the progression of the baby for over an hour. As soon as he left the nurse checked me and said, " Are you ready to have this baby?" So we called him and he was eating in the room when my doctor got there. By then the baby was crowning. I went through two rounds of pushing and breathing and he was out. Dr. Tatum, who is usually very conservative about guessing weights and such, said "He's huge" when he pulled him out. I think it was a real point of pride to him that he got Joel out without any broken bones. But I was still pretty shocked when they yelled out the weight: 10 pounds, 13 ounces of baby boy. Apparently I was born to birth big babies.

Some other things I want to remember about our hospital stay is Gabriel's first meeting of Joel face to face. I wish I had been videotaping to get Gabriel's face. He was just shocked to see a real live baby. He kept pointing to my tummy and saying, "Baby Joel?" and we kept telling him, "No, Baby Joel came out and here he is!" I think he finally got it, and even asked to hold him before Jav's parents took him back home. Another wonderful thing about my stay was the nurses. Every one of them were just so helpful and wonderful. I never had to wait for anything, they were bringing me pain meds, food and drinks, and plenty of advice about breastfeeding my whole stay. (Their advice was much better than the lactation consultant we finally saw the day after he was born).

And the best memory I will have is early the morning after Joel was born, just after Jav left to run home and feed the cats. He had left the blinds open for me to see that it was starting to snow, and at first it was just a few flakes. But then as I held Joel and felt just so thankful that he was here and healthy, it started snowing really hard and was so beautiful to see. We'd joked through the whole pregnancy that he was our Rain Baby because we had such a wet summer, and very much on schedule it rained the day he was born. But I wasn't counting on snow. It just seemed so easy to believe in miracles that morning.

Waiting for your destiny

Jav and I have decided it's a very strange feeling when you are in the last weeks before a baby comes. I'm sure with the first baby the strange feeling was stronger since we had NO idea what we were getting into! You would think the feeling wouldn't be as anxious the second time around, and it's not. But there are still some unknowns - like what it will be like to have two (one of whom will demand constant attention), will this one sleep well, will Gabriel adjust well to him.... on and on.

So when the doctor set the "Date to Induce" to be next Tuesday, the clock on all that has become normal and routine in our lives started to tick down. It's just a strange mix of joy, excitement and curiosity to meet the new guy, and a little dread at knowing how little sleep we will be getting and that nothing will be routine. Being a self-admitted control freak, I thrive on routine. And Gabriel now thrives on routine, so his little world is about to get a shock also. We have our lives down to a nice rhythm now and there's not too many unexpected things that occur during our day. A new baby is going to be a big, sweet bundle full of unexpected for awhile.

And I cannot wait to hold that bundle. To see his face and smell him... to feel that softer than soft baby skin, and slowly get to see his personality develop. I got a glimpse of his profile at the ultrasound Tuesday and I don't think his cheeks will be as big as Gabriel's were, and I'm now wondering what else will be different about him. It's also a wonderful feeling to know Gabriel will now have a brother. He got a little upset when I told him that the baby will be sleeping in our room for awhile. He wants him to be in his room, which is all fine and good as long as he's the quiet lump moving around in Mommy's tummy. He may be glad of the arrangement once he realizes that the lump is going to cry, eat and poop - and not much else.

And so we all wait for Tuesday, when everything gets turned upside down in our little world. And a big bouncing baby boy fills that little world with more love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Misarable

That's me. I have only gotten three or so hours of sleep for the last three nights. Every time I think I'm close to drifting off, I start coughing, We came really close to driving to the emergency room last night, but I kept telling myself I could make it another hour before we resorted to that. I've pulled ligaments all under this gigantic belly and can barely walk. I called the doctor back yesterday to beg for stronger medication, but they took so long to get back to me that my Z-pack wasn't ready until today.

It's a fine line to walk between being willing to take anything to get better, and worrying that I could be harming the baby somehow with all these meds. But I went to the OB/GYN today and they said I HAD to get better and hopefully wouldn't go into labor while I was this sick. So I'm trying to put the worry out of my head and concentrate on getting better. My sweet mother-in-law offered to keep Gabriel most of the day, with my sweet sister-in-law picking him up late this afternoon to hang out with him until bath time. The coughing seems a little better, but no sleep still. I've watched Top Chef reruns all day and have made progress on the book I'm reading. But I really just want to go to sleep. And can't.

Looking forward, I have a sonogram scheduled for next Tuesday. My doctor wants to see how big the baby is. If he's over 10 pounds, he'll want to schedule a C-section once I hit 41 weeks and still show no signs of labor. He told me as he walked out of the exam room today that if would just go ahead an have him next Monday or Tuesday he wouldn't have to worry about any of that. I told him I'd work on that this weekend. It's a good thing I've learned to appreciate his dry sense of humor.

Waking up in the middle of the night

Not so peaceful. I have a hacking cough that attacks mostly at night and is getting progressively worse. I went to the doctor Friday but he saw no infection and therefore gave me crappy medicine. Nothing is helping the cough and I'm starting to get a bad pain in one side where the ligaments are stretching. It's probably my imagination, but it feel like the baby is lower, too, over the past few days. I cannot get comfortable and have tried various places in the house to try to sleep besides my bed (I feel worse knowing that I'm keeping Jav up). I wish we had an old, comfy recliner...but we don't. I'm currently sipping a big mug of hot water and lemon which is helping my throat but not the tightness in my chest.

I REALLY need my sleep right now and am going to call and beg for something stronger tomorrow. I can't believe I made it through the whole pregnancy until now without getting sick.

Waking up

I've always hated to hear the alarm going off in the morning. But now that I've been a stay-at-home-Mom for awhile I hate it even more. I set it, because I still have to get up early (earlier than my work-going husband). But I have an internal clock that usually wakes me up between three to five minutes before the thing actually goes off. One day when I have to go back to work I will invest in one that has a really cool sound so that it won't put me in a bad mood first thing in the morning. I also give Jav grief all the time because he obsessively looks at the clock every time he wakes up during the night. I think this is crazy, and go out of my way to NOT look at it, so I can enjoy the rest of my sleeping time without worrying about how much time I have left to go.

Saturdays are my one day to sleep in. Instead of 6:15, I sleep until 7:15. I realize this doesn't really constitute "sleeping in" to most people, but it's nice to have one day in the week that is a slight break from routine. It helps my psyche. I've been having trouble sleeping all week with a bad cough that only shows up at night when I'm horizontal, but I slept a little better last night. I alternate between sleeping on my right side with my head slightly propped up and a sitting up position. For some reason I start coughing immediately if I try the left side. This morning I was dozing in the sitting up position and could hear things here and there.

First I heard Molly licking some part of herself, which has a tendency to drive me nuts. I whispered for her to stop, and she did. So then she started snoring. But it settled into a really low snore that actually put me back to sleep for awhile. Then I heard the cardinals, the first risers of the bird world, with their little "chirp......chirps". They were probably happy that I remembered to put birdseed out for them last night. I drifted off again, but then woke up when I heard Gabriel whispering something on the monitor. He must have been talking in his sleep, because then all I heard a slight wheezy breathing from him. I remember thinking that Jav must really be sleeping good because he usually makes some slight snoring noises, but he was completely silent and still beside me. Back to sleep again until the baby started rolling, then violently kicked all of a sudden, waking me completely up. At the same time heard a coven (is that right?) of crows way off in the distance fussing at some predator. I must have drifted back off until I heard Zoe meowing her complaint, as she always does on Saturdays, that I'm not up when I'm supposed to be.

So I finally opened my eyes, stretched all over, and finally looked at the clock. It was 7:13. Perfect! I hefted myself up for the day. Some people might think all of these sounds were an annoying way to wake up in the morning, but I found them all very peaceful and woke up feeling great for the first time this week.

Sleepytime songs

This post is pure indulgence for me. I want to remember as much as I can about my kids being young, and this blog will help to jar my memory, hopefully. So to all three people who read this blog, this is probably going to be a bit boring.

I started singing songs to Gabriel as soon as he was born, some lullaby-type songs, and some slower and melodic pop songs. Slowly things have evolved over the past three years into a nice pattern before naps and bedtime, where he now expects certain songs from me. About a year ago, I (being the way-too-organized person that I am), devised somewhat of a system to help me remember what songs to sing on which nights. I like to add new ones in sometimes, but it's hard to find the right songs. I love it on nights when he decides to sing along, which he does alot since he's actually learned most of these songs. I think the repetition is comforting and the familiarity of the songs helps to relax him. So here is our current "playlist". I have tried to cover several different genres.

Sunday is supposed to be the 70's, but it's turned into the Carpenters day. I either sing "Sing" (which is a Sesame Street song, but I like the Carpenters version better), or "Top of the World" before his nap. Then a favorite before bedtime: "Close to You". He loves the end when I do the "Waaaaaaaaah" in the style of Rick Moranis on Parenthood.

Monday is 30's and 40's day. The nap songs goes back to when he was born, because this is a song my grandfather used to sing to me. It's "On the Good Ship Lollipop", which I'm not sure how much longer will last because it's kind of a girly song. My niece Macy now requests it every time she spends the night over here, which I love. Bedtime songs rotate between "Singin' in the Rain" and "Fly Me To The Moon", of which there is a wonderful version on one of his Laurie Berkner CD's. Every once in awhile I throw in "Blue Skies", (Ella Fitgerald version without the scatting).

Tuesday used to be Beatles day, but has sort of become 60's day. I would sing "I'm Only Sleeping" before nap, which turns out to be a wonderful lull-into-sleep song. I added a slow version of "Can't Buy Me Love", and "Eight Days a Week". But since this is a Mother's Day Out day during the school year, I don't get to those very often. Nighttime songs now rotate between two songs: The Beatles version of "Till There Was You", which is an old 40's song that they covered and another one my grandfather used to sing alot, and "Happy Together" by the Turtles, which is one of his favorite songs of all time. Usually he requests it three or four times a week, but I stick to Tuesdays. I actually added some funny background vocals to the Beatles song, and he sings them every time now.

Wednesdays started out being Willie Wednesdays (as in Nelson), but I never could remember words to more than one Willie Song that was appropriate for sleepytime. So now it's Old School Country. I sing either "Walking After Midnight" or "You Belong To Me" by Patsy Cline at naptime. If you are familiar with "Walking After Midnight", you will know that her backup singers do alot of "wa wa wa wa wa" singing, and Gabriel has learned their parts perfectly. Nighttime song never rotates here, it's always "I'd Have to Be Crazy" by Willie. Jav was amazed (while listening in on the monitor) when Gabriel would try to sing along even a year ago.

Thursdays are Mary Poppins day. Nap time was always "Jolly Holiday", but since this is another Mother's Day Out day now, I rotate that with "Chim Chiminy" and "Stay Awake" for nighttime. Sometimes I go crazy and do a medley.

Fridays were James Taylor day, but we've had to do some adjusting. Nap time is always "You've Got a Friend". Bedtime used to be "Sweet Baby James", but now Friday is the one night a week Jav reads to him and gets him to sleep. And in a strange twist, every Friday night Gabriel now wants to sing one of our Mass songs with Jav, something he's never asked me to sing. It's an Alleluia that we sing every week, and we noticed Gabriel was singing along sometime this summer.

I tried to sing Saturday songs on Saturday, with "Saturday in the Park" before nap. But it's a really hard song to sing and I always mess it up, so I stopped. Now I sing Sweet Baby James instead. Saturday night's song is always "Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night", a Tom Waits song that Shawn Colvin covers on my CD. This is another really good luller-to-sleep. I didn't think Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" was a good bedtime choice.

And every night after I sing the featured song, I sing two more quick ones. One is a Laurie Berkner lullaby that she wrote for her new baby, Nona, that is just so sweet. I just change the name, and here are the words:

Gabriel, Gabriel here's your song.

Gabriel, Gabriel all night long.

Gabriel, Gabriel rocking chair.

Hold you close and take you there.

Gabriel, Gabriel time for bed.

Gabriel, Gabriel sleepyhead.

Gabriel, Gabriel know it's true..

Now and always I love you.

I love you.

So simple, but so very wonderful.

And I top off our night with a song my Mom sang to me, "All Through The Night", an old Irish lullaby: (I only sing this first verse, even though there are two more)

Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night.

Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night.

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping, hill and vale in slumber sleeping

I my loved ones' watch am keeping, all through the night.

And that about does it for this post. Good night!

Who's to blame?

Up until this week, I had been getting more and more concerned about the H1N1 vaccine, and my inability to get any. All I hear on everybody's list of at-risk groups is pregnant women, pregnant women and more pregnant women. But I just have kept chugging along, thinking that if we've made it this far, maybe we can make it until the baby comes without incident.

But then Gabriel got sick Wednesday night. To be more specific, he started projectile vomiting in the bathtub. He had been absolutely fine up until that moment. And since he's only vomited once before in his short life, it totally freaked him out. Jav got him cleaned up and calmed down about the time he started again. And on top of my fear for him and wanting to comfort him and make him feel better, I started to feel another emotion that I couldn't quite pinpoint until later when everything had quieted down. It was anger.

What is up with the way the State of Texas is handling this crisis? Or is it their fault at all? We were last on the list of states on the ratio of population to vaccines made available, but now have moved up the list 4 or 5 states. Big woo hoo. Tarrant County has had one clinic, last Friday, for pregnant women and at-risk children where they had 3000 vaccines available. That is laughable and I refused to fight the crazies and stand in line for one (my OB/GYN totally agreed with my reasoning). Although I did hear that they actually had some left after turning people away all day long. I just don't have the energy to stand in line who knows how long with a bunch of people who might be sick already. What is causing all these delays?

Gabriel, it turns out, has a stomach virus. A doozy of one that's making the rounds, according to our pediatrician. He stopped throwing up that first night around midnight, but we were worried about dehydration and woke him up every couple of hours to take his temperature and make him drink gatorade. His fever has never gone over 102 and was down to 99.1 this morning. The nurse had said to keep an eye on him for signs of congestion or coughing, because that would probably mean he has the flu. He didn't ever show either of those, but kept sneezing and sounded stopped up all day. But then last night he seemed back to almost his normal self, and we stopped worrying so much. He slept through the night like a rock. Our fear returned this morning due to his listlessness and the fact that he kept wanting me to hold him. At one point I walked into the living room and he was laying on the floor facing AWAY from the TV just staring into space with his little hollowed out eyes. I immediately called and said we wanted to come in today, and Jav's boss let him come home to take him so I wouldn't have to risk the waiting room full of sick kids.

Having to decide about whether or not to take Gabriel to the doctor was a no-brainer. Having to make the call between what could be worse - Jav losing good favor with his new boss, or me risk getting the flu was a horrible decision to have to make, and one we shouldn't have to be making at this stage. Gabriel, who is slowly making his way down the road to recovery, (it's supposed to take 3 or 4 days to move through your system before it goes away), got a nasal dose of the H1N1 vaccine today But he has to go back in a month to have another one. I'm very glad he's started the process, at least, but I'm still afraid for both of us. I feel like our well being is relying on a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in a government office somewhere, and that's a very frustrating feeling.

Post-Halloween post

This is Gus. He was the most popular attraction of (and newest addition to) our Halloween decorations this year.

This is Stuey, short for Stuart. We felt bad for him because it rained on him almost the entire time he was on display. He was probably happy to get back into his dry box and head to the attic for another year.

I bought some dress up hats a couple of days before Halloween, hoping to go back the day after and find full costumes on sale. I didn't make it, but Gabriel still loves his hats.

This may be one of my favorite pics of him of all time. He looks like a goofy cowboy from an old Hollywood western.

So who looks better in the hat?

I just had to say a few more words about how much fun we had this Halloween season. Gabriel especially. He still turns to me every couple of hours and says with a very dramatically sad voice, "Halloween is over". I posted his costume pictures while he was out trick or treating with Jav, and they ended up going to a different street on our neighborhood for the annual Haunted House that a couple puts together every year. I knew it was extremely popular with our residents, but we wondered if Gabriel was ready for that many "scary guys" to pop out at him. Well, it turns out they do a bang-up job, Jav said, and when they realize it's a younger child going through, all the bigger people stay still while he or she is making his way through. But a couple of things still popped out, like a big fake bat that dive bombed them from nowhere. He's still talking about that too. He never cried or wanted to turn back, just held onto Daddy a little tighter. The other great thing was that most of the houses surrounding the haunted house also do Halloween in a big way, so he got to do some old-fashioned trick or treating. By the end of his journey he was an old pro. I was actually a little sad, too, when we boxed up all of our decorations Sunday.