Debut of Mr. Silas

Because Zoe and Paul had both arrived a little before their respective due dates, I fully expected our most recent addition to also debut a bit before expected. As such, I gave Dan a bit of grief about scheduling an out of town interview on March 17, knowing I was due on March 20. The day came and went, with not so much as a contraction in sight, and I got a bit of grief for prolonging the job hunting process. Soon Dan was on vacation and seemingly a bit annoyed that we had moved his vacation to accommodate my due date and his time was being wasted. Our little bundle of joy continued to sit tight past his due date as we approached the long string of interviews scheduled for what was supposed to be my second week with the baby. On Wednesday, we decided to take steps - Castor Oil. A most unpleasant experience: there were contractions, I suppose, but it could have just been the serious gut-cleansing because they stopped as soon as the oil began to wear off. The midwife on call said she'd be happy to induce me after the day of awfulness, but we'd lost precious time and didn't want to risk a prolonged induced labor.

So Dan went off on another interview as we approached a week overdue. We went through our normal school routine, exhausting though it was at this point. Nanna came over to hang out with the kids and make things run a little more smoothly. We even went to Fun Friday at the library as we usually did, but with no big change in things. As Dan flew home Friday into Saturday, I got a few of my first contractions. By morning, I let Dan know I'd had a little hope and we decided to go forward with our plan to induce on Saturday morning. We got the kids up before dawn, got them into the car in their jammies, with the promise of a box of waffles when they got to Nanna's. Paul didn't let go of those waffles from the moment I attempted the bribe until Nanna cooked them.

After a quick breakfast, we headed to the hospital. We got into the triage area pretty fast at 10am, but waited until noon for a room to become available. Inductions, even past due date, are lower priority than folks in active labor. With no contractions to speak of, I was at the bottom of the list. Once we had a room, we got started on the antibiotic and pitocin. Ahh, contraction medicine...I did not miss it. I had gotten hearty doses of the stuff after Zoe was born in an attempt to stop the bleeding. This lovely bag of gut-wrenching evil would be my companion for the next 24 hours. I started this scene with 4cm dilation, so knew it could be a long haul to 10cm. Dan and I hung out in the room for a while, chatting. Another check- not really exciting progress, so let's break the water. Some more time with weak contractions, sitting on the exercise ball and chatting away. Eventually, contractions got uncomfy enough to ask Dan to hook up the TENS machine. Things were then pretty bearable and we continued to talk about travel plans, who was coming when to help out, etc.

Eventually the midwife and nurse returned - apparently her other patient had delivered successfully and she could turn her attention to me. We all sat around as talking as the contractions continued to strengthen. It was weird, though, because everyone kept looking over my shoulder at the machine measuring the strength of my contractions.
    "Did you even feel that one?"
    "Yeah, and it was a decent one."
    "You didn't even flinch."
    "I did feel it, though."
I felt like I was the star of my own episode of Nature as my audience watched the line on the monitor and then glanced at me to check my reaction. Eventually, I started to feel very shivery and the contractions became more distracting, so I lay down under the covers for a bit. The midwife checked - 6cm at about 6pm. Ugh! These contractions were painful. I couldn't do another six or eight hours of this. Then, inexplicably, the midwife asked the nurse to get the delivery kit opened up. A few minutes later, she asked if she could check what was taking so long, with a hint of urgency in her voice. Someone came and opened the kit. After that, I was pretty much in the zone, so don't recall too many specifics. I had made what is likely an unusual request to take things very slowly during the delivery process. I had powered out Penny and Zoe in a hands and knees position, giving myself some nasty injuries each time. Paul I delivered on my side very slowly and his delivery was pretty problem-free. This time, I delivered on my back, I think I responded appropriately to requests to pause or push a little, and thankfully avoided any serious injury to myself.

I soon (6:44pm) had a little boy plopped onto my chest - his hands slightly blue, but otherwise pretty active and awake. Dan said he had a heart-stopper on his end of things (he often watches the emergence since I'm pretty ok during the pushing part of the program) because Silas emerged totally blue, with the cord wrapped around his neck twice. The midwife adeptly released the cord upon exit and soon had the little guy breathing fine. However, Dan emphasized again that he did not wish to return to the delivery room for fear of losing someone.

Recovery went well, but the late hour of delivery meant a two night stay at the hospital. A nice respite for a newly minted mother of four. I was beginning to fear that they wouldn't let us go at all, though, because Silas absolutely refused to pee. He was a little jaundiced the second morning and the nurse thought perhaps a bit dehydrated. So we went on a serious breast feeding campaign and by lunch time had a nice wet diaper to show for it. Yay! We were cleared for take off.

Because Dan had already taken off for his next interview, we had actually left our three little dears with Aunt Rose, Aunt Helen and FCOR John. She'd had a crash course with Dan on their schedule. We simplified things by keeping Paul out of school for the day. Dan gave a driving tour of schools and other important landmarks. But they were all on their own for that first day and I can only imagine how much fun that was. After Girl Scouts, Aunt Rose ventured into Brooklyn to pick up me and Silas. So that's Silas' heading home outfit - perhaps convict stripes shouldn't have been my first choice.

We had an uneventful journey back to Staten Island, where I just caught Penny as she was drifting off to sleep. Everyone else had somehow managed to get to bed already. Kudos to Aunt Helen, who was our holding down the fort person, while Aunt Rose explored the neighborhood via trips to schools, etc. Nanna came over to visit the next day (seen here shadowed by photographer Penny's finger). The rest of the week was nice and quiet, without visitors, which is honestly how I like it. We then ventured out to Easter dinner at Dan's uncle's house for Silas' second big field trip since going home. There, he received a warm welcome, with lots of comfy shoulders to sleep on. Thus did Master Silas Prodeep debut to his New York family!

Confession

Every year, Penny's school has a number of contests and I always rail a bit about how parents get a little too involved in creating their kids' supposed submissions. One such event is the one hundred days hat. All the kids have to make some sort of hat with one hundred things on it. Most of the hats are big hats purchased at the store and the parent or kid chooses one hundred of something that the parent hot glues to the hat. They then parade around the school and some sort of judging occurs.

Penny's first hat - she wanted hearts, so we cut out 100 paper hearts and I mounted them on pipe cleaners that emerged from the holes of Paul's green baseball cap (that way he'd get to have his hat back). Year two: Penny wanted flamingoes, so I cut a paper plate with flamingoes facing each other and forming a heart, then she covered it with 100 sequins. Perhaps a little too cheap looking.

This year, she decided pennies. Heavy. My first thought was Chinese crowns - golden, covered in flowers or other designs that have lots of little disks. I showed Penny, sketched a phoenix hat with a fanned tail...no interest. I did a little more digging in the photos and came across some peacock shaped crowns. I tried a new sketch  on Penny and it was well received.

I cut out a cereal box to form the backbone of the hat, gave Penny a stack of Christmas paper to choose from for providing her hat with basic background colors. I traced, she cut out and glued. I counted out 100 pennies from Paul's piggy bank (replaced by quarters), then set them in some vinegar to shine them up a bit since many were collected on our walks to school. Once they were dry, Penny began the arduous task of gluing on all her pennies with our bottle of Elmer's. When we found the form was too small to fit the 100 needed, I devised some pipe cleaner add-ons (using scraps from prior year's hat). I used beads from the playground for head bobbles, She placed jewels from other craft kits for face and decorations, then used some hole punches I'd made to put the eyes on all the peacock's spots, and voila, a 100 days hat to be proud of. Total project price: $1 (or however many pennies would get lost over the course of the parade).

The morning of the parade, we had just finished up gluing the last batch of pennies (had to do batches for the band because one side would slide off depending on which side was up). I asked Penny to pose with the hat on because we had discovered that pennies popped off every time the cardboard bent to fit her head, so this would be the only opportunity to see it intact. She went to pose and my other little hams tried to muscle their ways into the picture. This blurry shot was all I could get as they moved around trying to get the best position in the picture. Sadly, Penny tilted her head to dodge Paul, dropping the hat to the floor. Instantly, dozens of pennies shot in every direction and there was only one hour until Penny had to be at school.

I lost it on her. After all the work I had put into this hat, she had completely destroyed it at the eleventh hour. How was I going to fix it in time for school? Elmer's glue takes time to dry and I don't have a glue gun or other method I could whip out at this late juncture. I tore into her about how stupid it was to dump her hat like that when she knew it was so hard to balance. She was soon in tears. I continued to grumble as I hurriedly glued all the pennies and blue dots back into place. I carefully placed the hat out of reach on the counter, then dashed to get everyone ready to head out the door to do school drop off. First, we took Paul to school, then came back to the house in hopes that 30 minutes was enough time for the glue to at least keep things in place enough to be transportable. I gently placed the hat in a stiff bag for transit and then dropped Penny off with explicit instructions to handle with care until parade time so the glue could set properly.

For the entire rest of the day, I ruminated on how I had completely ruined what should have been a fun activity for my daughter by tearing into her and making her feel awful about her hat. She takes this kind of thing to heart, so I felt really bad about hurting her feelings. I had gotten so bent out of shape because I was offended that she hurt MY artwork. I was guilty of that sin I so often condemn in others. As soon as I picked her up from school, I apologized for how I had acted in the morning. She, of course, forgave me because she's awesome like that. She also handed me a bag with the hat and a pile of loose change rattling around in the bottom. She was excited to have found a nickel that day because she was pretty sure she lost some of the pennies.

When asked how her day went, she said the hat was nearly impossible to wear because of the weight and the fact that it was SO front-heavy. Her teacher really liked her hat. Apparently, the teacher pointed out her hat specifically whenever they passed another adult during the parade. I wouldn't exactly describe her tone as excited as she mentioned this, but it seemed like she was at least pleased that her teacher had taken an interest in her hat. I asked Penny whose hat she liked best and she cited one of her friends, whose mom had hot-glued 100 particularly cute little chickies to her hat. A few days later, Penny said that there was an announcement about the 100 days hats, listing three winners from each grade and all three winners for first grade were in her class (the contest is for pre-K to 2nd grades, but there are 5 first grades classes, each with 30 kids, so still a pretty stiff competition). She was proud to tell me that hers was one of the names that was announced and she got this spiffy certificate as well. She seemed a little more pleased about the public recognition of her hat, though I'm not sure she totally sees it as "her" hat. I felt pretty darned excited that someone thought the hat was cool. I was pretty proud of the process and ingenuity of the hat. I obviously still need to work more on giving Penny a say in how it is put together and giving her more ownership over the project, though.

I haven't decided what to do with the hat. Though I am darned proud of its construction, I am also ashamed about how I behaved about it. So far, it sits in tatters on the counter, little glue spots indicating where its fine feathers once stood. The certificate hangs on the fridge with artworks whose authors are more clearly delineated. Perhaps I will leave it a bit longer to remind myself to let the kids have more say in how they put together their projects. It seems like such a fine line sometimes, so it is good to be reminded to be aware of that line.

Conspiring

Collaborating to construct a play house

 My little cuties are beginning to conspire together. The other morning, I was awake before them, probably making school lunches. I sat down on the couch to rest for a minute. I heard all three of them upstairs plotting to sneak up on me. I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to have fallen asleep on the couch.

Now the first question that popped into my head as I listened to them hushing each other and planning what they'd do when they reached the bottom of the stairs: "How did Zoe get out of the crib?" I'm not totally sure of the logistics, but Penny is helping her out, perhaps by climbing on the outside of the crib and then giving her a giant hug. Somehow, this occurs without dropping or Penny collapsing under her weight. Zoe is close to 20lb, Penny about 40lb, so it is a pretty impressive feat in the grand scheme.

The next question is, of course, "What are they going to do when they think they're free to do whatever they want?" Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Penny went to the kitchen and grabbed the folding stool. She got the cereal, bowls, cups and handed them to her younger siblings to put on the table. Then she got down and handed out spoons. It is important to remember what a complicated task this is - not only are these items on high shelves, but each one of them has a color preference and a certain way they like to have things on the table, so setup can be a bit complicated in the morning. They were conspiring to put together their own breakfast because Mommy was too tired to make it!

Working together to free the Mega Blocks

Eventually, somebody did something that upset Zoe and she came crying to me to fix it. I patted her on the head, told her to hush and not give away that I was awake. Penny and Paul continued their setup for another minute or two. Then I had to "wake up" so that I could administer the milk and cereal and breakfast could get underway.

They are such funny stuff some days. Paul has been increasingly articulate, which allows him to tell us not only what he wants, but how he'd like to help out. He often loses the ability to talk when frustrated, so we had no idea he was getting frustrated about being unable to help in the way he wanted.  He is very particular about how things are supposed to occur or be set up, so getting more talkative has been rather revealing. I'm hoping the trend toward being helpful continues.

Zoe MUST choose her own gloves

Zoe (in contrast to Paul) is becoming very independent. The other day she was very determined about putting on her shoes and socks for herself. She now does it rather regularly. Dan was all excited that perhaps Paul would not like to be shown up by his little sister, so would begin to start dressing himself, wiping his own nose, etc. I explained that, unfortunately, that's not how our son works. Paul is a stickler for rules and procedure. Zoe puts her own shoes on...he takes them off because she's not supposed to wear them in the house - even if that means tackling her on the stairs and ripping them off her feet as she slides down the stairs. She puts on her hat and gloves, he takes them off and shoves them back in the drawer because it's not time to leave yet. There's a lot of sobbing about things being put away in their proper places around here. Zoe's pretty determined, though, and I'll need people who can take care of themselves, so I think she'll find a way to continue to build that independent streak.