Family Updates | 1 Comment »

Family Updates | 1 Comment »

Just a tip: to just see all of the latest pictures I’ve uploaded just go to the Image Gallery, scroll to the bottom and click on the first picture in “Last Additions” - then click on the slide show icon and it will show you the most recent pictures. That way you won’t have to dig through all of the albums to find the recent photos.

Enjoy!
N

Family Updates | 1 Comment »

Five months later I’m, hopefully, going to finally post another update. I started a Christmas note (and a few others) and never got further than the first paragraph.

So what has kept me so busy? Two words: three kids.

Besides that, just to make it easier, here’s a breakdown of what we’ve been up to since I last communicated on this page:

OCTOBER:
Darrell began recording the songs for our church’s worship album - a collection of songs that had been written in our 8 years of existence (album will be called “8″). He also installed a sound system in a night club called “Hush” in Ventura, run by our friend Jared Williams.

Darrell’s band, BASA, played at the “Temple Bar” in Santa Monica. It was a good show and they developed some great merchandise to sell: between Eric (lead singer) who is an interior designer and artist and Jeff (bassist) who is an amazing artist (actually makes a good living off his drawings and paintings) the two of them made some amazing one-of-a-kind t-shirts that, I think, could become very popular even aside from being band merch.

D and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary but didn’t do anything special as Coltrane wasn’t quite ready to be left with anyone but Mommy. Not a big deal to us as this will be our last year where we’ll have a new baby getting in the way of marking a special occasion like an anniversary.

Aside from a voice lesson, all I recall doing was taking care of children that month.

NOVEMBER:
Darrell continued recording vocals and instruments and generally producing the “8″ album. Pretty much all of his spare time outside of work was taken up with this project. We basically didn’t see him for about 6 weeks until it was completed.

During this time I was what I call a “married single mom”. This is when Darrell gets so busy that I only ever see him when he’s sleeping or heading off somewhere. These times are definitely a challenge and allow me to feel deep respect for women that are actually single moms raising kids on their own. At one point I reached my bursting point: my house was a mess in every single room with every toy on the floor, dishes and food dragged everywhere and all surfaces were covered with miscellaneous things. Those who know me well know that clutter makes me feel anxious and if it gets out of hand I start to go a little loopy. So, feeling overwhelmed, I looked around the room and decided “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” I went to the tables and swiped everything off with one big sweep and then I tipped a few chairs over and kicked a few toys. Layne watched in horror as her Mommy lost all sense of decorum and started yelling at me, “Mommy you can’t do that! You are not being a good listener! You are not being a good citizen!” She then took my hand and led me to a chair that was still standing and sat me down. Then went over to the microwave to set a timer saying, “Mommy, you need a TIME-OUT!”. She then fetched the phone and instructed me to dial my mother, and when my mother answered, she took the phone from me and tattled on me! By this time I was laughing so hard I was over my moment of lost sanity and was able to start getting my house back in order It’s good to know that Layne will take charge and do the right thing even when her Mommy isn’t able to.

So what else happened in November… A group of us has continued meeting Tuesday nights at our house to discuss what we’ve temporarily dubbed “TOCA” (Thousand Oaks Christian Associates - taken from the name of the city and the name of the church planting organization that is supporting the idea). I’ve described that in more detail in the blog below this one if you’re interested in finding out more.

We had a nice visit from Victoria friends in November: Michelle Maggiora and her 7-year-old daughter, Alexandra, stayed here for a couple of nights. It was nice to interact with Canadians again and catch up with news from back home plus Layne and Alex hit it off immediately and were kindred spirits from the first moment. The big bummer was that Michelle loaded her whole trip’s photos from their camera onto our computer (they were in California for a couple of weeks, including Alex’s first time at Disneyland). Darrell unplugged and took off with the computer before the pictures got saved (at least I think that’s what happened) and the pictures were all lost into oblivion. I still feel badly but what can you do?! Anyway we have nice memories tucked away in our brains even though there weren’t pictures to prove it.

Aside from that I looked after kids.

DECEMBER:
Darrell completed the CD project and we had him back in our lives! The album sounds amazing and everyone is very pleased.

Our little Coltrane finally returned to going to bed around 8pm and sleeping 12 hours through the night so we were able to bring in a babysitter (thanks Kathryn) and attend our holiday parties! He had been a SUPER easy baby for about a month and then, for awhile, he started being fussy in the evening again and not going down for the night until after midnight like when he was a newborn. I finally figured out that he was ready for a little heavier fare than breastmilk and had been staying awake until he had gotten enough calories to get him through the night. The first time I gave him an 8 oz bottle of milk he guzzled it down desperately and then immediately slept for 12 hours that night. After I figured that out he went back to going down for the night at 7:30pm and waking up at 8am! I must say it was an amazing thing to have my evenings (and sleep) back to myself.

So after that was sorted out it was time to get out of the house! First up was a nice, cozy party at the Tschudi household. Kendal (known as Kendal Payne) had been practicing playing carols on the piano since April (she’s a guitarist) and we had a very fun singalong whilst enjoying good food and good people.

The next night we attended the Line6 Holiday Party and had a good time watching the bands of rocker-wanna-be employees play on the big stage at the Canyon Club (OK some had been rockers but had had to get a real job). Darrell only played keyboards for one band this year and didn’t do sound so we could actually sit together and enjoy the evening out without kids.

We also enjoyed a nice family evening out at the Morris’ where our treasured friend, Laina Graf, made delicious food and we were able to enjoy some stimulating conversation while other people enjoyed and entertained our children.

Darrell’s Mom and sister (Beverley and Sandra) came out to California for Christmas. They shopped every day the stores were open (saved their Christmas shopping for here so they wouldn’t have to lug presents down) and stayed in a hotel down the road so our little place wouldn’t be too crowded. Lots of fun and some good photo ops had by all - check out new pictures scattered around the albums in the “Image Gallery”. Darrell went crazy cooking Christmas dinner as usual with lots of choices and lots of left overs. We told the family not to buy toys for the kids because we already have too many (and most of them we haven’t even bought ourselves) so Layne got tons of art supplies and an easel and Sadie got some cute clothes and books so that worked out well.

New Year’s Eve was rather insane but fun as we went to four (yes 4) different parties! Darrell was doing sound at two different venues at the same time, which happened to be only one block apart so he spent the day setting up at the two locations. The kids and I headed out to our first party at the Barone’s at 6pm, I put Sadie and Cole in their jammies and drove to Mikee & Vera Bridges’ for 9pm, set up two portable cribs and transferred the sleeping babes to their beds. I left Layne to party there with her friends while I met Darrell at “the bridge” final bash, then we wandered over the block to “Hush” to check out the night club action and found ourselves in their inner room where we stayed for awhile to soak in the inspiring sounds of some of the most talented musicians on the planet (Alex Acuna on drums, for example). I then headed back to my sleeping children to hang out with the Bridges until 2:30am, at which time I was too tired to drive the 1/2 hour back home so we stayed over night! What an evening.

JANUARY:
My Mom & Dad visited (Joe & Nettie Balzer) from Shellbrook Saskatchewan and it was so nice to have them here. In fact, they extended their trip an extra week at our request because Darrell was particularly busy during that time and I really needed the help. They are so handy to have around: my mom did my laundry, helped with meals, baked cookies, tidied my kitchen, found other things to clean and generally kept up with the “kid clutter” that happens every day; my Dad fixed my fountain, cleaned the leaves off my patio, repotted plants, replaced batteries and light bulbs, fixed my plant-drip system and built a new trellis to hide the view of the dirt hill in the back. Besides all that they spent a lot of time playing with my kids - getting them outside, blowing bubbles with Sadie (she called them “Gamma” and “Grumper”) and feeding/changing Coltrane. Ahhhh….I was so spoiled for awhile….it was very nice!

Our Sadie had her 2nd birthday on January 9th and is full-on into acting her age. She throws the typical tantrums of a 2-year-old but, the next moment, you can have her giggling and she’s forgotten all about it. She likes to eat her fruit and veggies (and pretty much anything else she can find). She likes to point to strangers and say “you STINKER!”.
So my parent’s are very conservative and the worst word to come out of my Dad’s mouth is “jeepers!” - and my Mom thinks that’s going too far. Which made it even funnier that Sadie picked up her first not-so-nice word from them: now when she gets mad at someone or a toy isn’t cooperating she’ll yell “YOU STUPID!”. (We had made that word off-limits at our house awhile ago simply because Layne was using it way too much and we didn’t want her using it towards people). Sadie even used it when my Mom had to scold her for something - she looked at Grandma, narrowed her eyes and said, “Stupid.”! When my Mom, horrified, asked where Sadie had picked up language like that I laughed and said, “From Grandma and Grandpa!”. After that they were both surprised at how often that word came out of their mouths once they started looking for it. Knowing Sadie could have learned much more offensive expressions from her own parents made it even more hilarious that her first “bad” word was learned from people who don’t actually have bad language in their vocabulary

During the month of January Darrell was busy rehearsing with his band, BASA, as they had two gigs in the same week: one at the opening of a new building in LA and one at (drum roll please…) the House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard. I was able to attend the HOB show (with my Dad who was very proud to be there to see Darrell play) which went very well for them. BASA has been gaining popularity mainly through word of mouth on their myspace site (www.myspace.com/basaband - they’ve gone from about 3000 “friends” in November to over 13,000 currently) and, apparently, there were several important “label” people there that night to check them out live. Since then they have been conversing with people, trying to figure out how they want to go about this band business if it does happen to blow up into something bigger. They are in the midst of recording an album as they get email pretty much daily asking them where their album can be purchased. Darrell even got a phone call from someone from the ABC TV network wondering where he could buy their music and for permission to use it on upcoming TV shows. So now we’re into yet ANOTHER album project - but both Darrell and Eric are being very careful to make sure that family time is placed in priority over working on the record so that’s been helpful for us involved families. We’re very supportive of seeing this through, however far it goes and it should be an interesting ride whatever happens. Who knows..maybe we’ll be attending the Grammy’s next year…one can always dream.

Our boy is now 7 months old and growing into a happy, chunky boy. He’s currently only 7 pounds lighter than his two-year-old sister (17 lbs and 24 lbs respectively) I nursed him for the last time mid January - which is much less than I nursed the girls - but he really wasn’t interested anymore and it was a fight to keep him on for very long. Any slight noise in the room and he would be off, looking around to find the source of the sound. Now, at least with a bottle, I can follow his head when it turns. This is a boy who can’t miss anything. Even as a newborn he didn’t want to be held lying down - had to be upright so he could see. This will be a busy boy… Fortunately for now he also loves his sleep: he usually sleeps 1 1/2 of every 3 hours and then from 7:30pm to 8am. He also likes his schedule

FEBRUARY:
This month has been fun so far. I actually got to go out and rehearse with a band and gig while Darrell stayed home with the kids!! I was the jazz singer at a Chinese wedding reception. They told us that they wanted us to have a fun set with vocals for the dance they would have at the end of the evening so I sang a few songs at the beginning and then we decided the band would play without me for much of the reception and save my set for the end. Well it turned out it wasn’t much of a drinking or dancing crowd: after I spent the evening hanging out with the very bored bar tender and most people were clearing out to go home I ended up singing for the few stragglers and the clean-up crew. Aside from that I messed up the song for the bride and groom’s first dance (fortunately my mic was very quiet and people just complained they couldn’t hear the singer) and it was a mostly-fun learning experience. And it was just nice to be out making music while D was home with the kids It may also lead to more jazz gigs for me which would make my life complete.

This past weekend was my 35th birthday! We spent the day at Disneyland and otherwise have had a nice, lazy weekend at home getting caught up on cleaning and laundry (which is what I consider a nice weekend).

March should be fun with my sisters coming out for a visit and a Speech Level Singing teacher’s conference (if we can afford it). Hopefully I’ll let you all know about it before another five months goes by…

Thanks for sticking it out and reading to the end. What a trooper you are

Let me know how life is for you when you get a chance, K?!

Love from the 5 Smiths

Family Updates | 2 Comments »

We’ve been meeting Tuesday nights with a small group of people (there are 6 of us) to discuss what we’ve temporarily dubbed “TOCA” (Thousand Oaks Christian Associates - taken from the name of the city and the name of the church planting organization that is supporting the idea).

We’ve come to the conclusion that we want to attempt to plant a church in an upside-down sort of manner: usually it starts with gathering a bunch of Christians together (and all that ensues: renting a building, hiring a pastor, paying staff, etc) which we then have to entertain (worship music) and feed (teaching) followed by trying to get them to serve their community/world (which is usually a bit like getting people to volunteer to have their teeth pulled), not to mention the fact that what we usually end up with is a bunch of consumer-believers who think that bringing their unbelieving friends into Christian-bubble culture will convert them. OK - this is a very cynical description of the way church has been done and in some ways it is relevant and working for many people - I apologize if I have offended anyone in my description. I’m just at a point where I’d like to do something a little different.

So what we’re HOPING to do is to START with the serving end of the whole deal. We want to begin by being salt and light to our community and join up with other organizations that are meeting needs, whatever they believe or don’t believe (by the way, I can’t stand the term “non-christian” - it sets up such an “US vs THEM” mentality. That and it gives me the feeling that I’m about to vomit in my mouth a little whenever I hear it used.) So by starting with the serving end of the deal we hope to attract people who share a passion for serving, in the process also building a sense of community and family with whomever joins us through the sharing of meals and the joys/burdens of life in general. It is our desire to build this kind of relationship with people simply because they are PEOPLE, and people we desire to be in relationship with, not just beginning a relationship with folks for the purpose of converting them to Christianity (and if they don’t convert we dump them like yesterday’s mashed potatoes).

We’d love to get to a point where those involved would join us for some sort of discussion of beliefs where some form of worship would take place but this would be a separate event from the serving/community and would be optional.

We’re actually hoping that we never get to the place where we need to rent a building, pay staff and entertain/feed people as, it seems to us at this point, that will mean we will have abandoned our reasons for existing in the first place - plus there are no end of churches already doing this and it would just seem redundant for us to repeat what already exists. Of course, nothing is written in stone - everything is up for being rewritten and if I have to eat my words then I’ll eat my words. For now we figure that if it ever gets to the point where we’ve outgrown whatever space/home we’re meeting in, then we’ll divide up with whatever leaders have emerged and start over with the smaller groups. Of course it could also all go nowhere and that would be a good learning experience as well.

This idea feels “new” to me since it is different from the way I grew up doing church but it really isn’t new at all - in fact the more I think about it the more I realize that this is the way the church began in the first place and had gone on for some time before the historical church became institutionalized, switched to Sunday to coincide with pagan holidays and began to control people’s lives through Kings, Queens and Popes. Again, my personal opinions creeping in here…

So you are probably wondering what happened to “the bridge” - the church we have been attending for the past 5 1/2 years. Well, in a nutshell, the community decided that certain things were working well and others weren’t and it was a good time to put the whole thing to rest. They decided that “the bridge” as we knew it would die as of December 31st 2006 and, God willing, something new would resurrect in the New Year after much prayer and discussion. A smaller group is still meeting just to share meals and talk about what may rise out of the ashes and are prayerfully awaiting their new direction. So far this year Darrell and I haven’t been involved in the new phase, partly because of the business of life the past weeks and partly because we are feeling like we’re potentially moving on to something different with the whole TOCA thing. We haven’t officially let anyone know that we may not be involved in the resurrection side of things but I guess we’ve felt a little torn because we still care so much for that community of people and value the influence it has had on our lives. It’s been a little harder to move on from that than we planned. So we may start popping back in - I’m sure there’s still more we can learn from that community that we can take with us to wherever we go from here especially since they are in such a particular position of listening/learning at the moment.

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Well our wee boy is over 2 months old now and growing fast. I would guess he’s over 11 pounds by now and has grown about 3 inches already. He’s starting to phase out of the trying newborn times (my least favorite stage) and is becoming a happy, smiley boy who sleeps 9 hours at night and puts himself to sleep at naptime sucking his thumb. I LOVE thumbsucker babies! They are the easiest! I’m starting to like him a lot I find newborns more annoying than anything else and I tend to just keep reminding myself constantly of one of my two mottos of life “This, too, shall pass.” (my other motto/mantra is “*&%# happens.” - censored for you delicate readers) They just eat, sleep, poop and cry and I lug them around, rolling my eyes at them and mocking them: “Oh, waaah, waah, I cry all the time, waa-waaah!” (that’s how I keep my sense of humor). It isn’t until after about 8 weeks that I start to like them. Wow, I sound really nasty - I should explain that I really LOVE my babies from the moment they are born and cover their sweet-smelling heads with kisses all day long: I just don’t start to LIKE them until they are done being annoying newborns

I experimented with giving Coltrane a bottle of formula the other night to see if a) he would take a bottle and b) he would stomach formula. He took to the bottle right away and had no reaction to the formula so that leaves me some options for going out every once in awhile. Darrell and I really need a date and want to go out for our 12th anniversary in a few weeks so that may actually happen now. I can pump milk, too, but it’s hard to make the time to pump, store and sterilize everthing. What I really need right now is more work to do.

I did have some help from my oldest sister, Verdeen, when Cole was a month old and it was SO wonderful to have her here for a week. It was like having two of me here: one to hold the baby and the other to do whatever needed to be done with the house/kids etc. We just took turns between the two of us. I felt bad I couldn’t take her exploring or do any tourist things while she was here but we’re hoping she and her family will come out and visit us when we don’t have a newborn and will be more free to drive into Hollywood or spend a day at the beach. Verdeen was invaluable and, though we did try to talk her into staying with us permanently, she elected to go back to her husband and kids in Calgary afterall

The girls are doing well. Layne is really enjoying kindergarten and we are very impressed by her teacher. We are a little intimidated as well as she has a lot of expectations regarding the parent’s participation in the child’s education and we’re a little worried we may not live up to her requirements… we’re keeping up with the homework so far
Layne finally lost one of the loose teeth that have been dangling in the front of her mouth like hillbilly teeth for the past month or so: we were at a McDonald’s Play-place and a little girl crashed her head into Layne’s mouth and finally knocked the tooth out. Layne won’t let us pull them out so they just hang there for months. Plus, she doesn’t want us to brush them too hard because it feels uncomfortable - Darrell had been obliging her on that request so not only are they hanging there, but they’re gross and yellow, too. Her other front tooth has been loose since March, she lost her two bottom front teeth awhile ago and now the next two bottom teeth are loose! I had just started getting her to say her “th” sound correctly (ie: Mother instead of Mudder) but I think we’ll have to put that lesson on hold now until all those teeth fill in again…

Layne has been practicing being a good big sister and has been doing a lot better lately with that. We’ve been having lots of talks about how it feels to have someone talk to you in a mad voice with a mad face all the time and she has been really making an effort to find nicer ways to communicate with her little sister. Layne was laying on the floor the other night and Sadie came and sat down on her tummy as Darrell and I waited to see what Layne would do: she ended up giving Sadie a bouncy ride and tickling her instead of shoving her and saying “get OFF me!” and Darrell and I stared at each other in amazement, not wanting to disturb the moment. Due to this positive effort Layne has started realizing just how much fun it can be to have a little sister. She’s gotten a lot of praise and attention from treating Sadie nicely so we expect it will continue to improve. Of course, she is allowed to get frustrated every once in awhile - you can’t always be happy with someone who sits on you, rips your books and plays with your toys! Layne is starting to take notice of her little brother, too, and has recently shown an interest in holding him and making him smile. It seems like she needed a second sibling in order to fully adopt the role of big sister so we’re quite proud of the effort she has been making.

Sadie (now 20 months old), on the other hand, has fully embraced being a big sister from the start and is very into having a baby in the family. She continues to smother him with kisses, hug him and generally crowd his space whenever she can. I caught her sitting on top of him in the bouncy chair when I turned my back for a moment yesterday - I pulled her off in a panic but Cole didn’t seem to have even noticed the intrusion. He just kept on smiling at her like nothing had happened. I can just see those two in a year or so, conspiring together and tearing my house apart as a team…they’ll be trouble together, I can already tell

Speaking of trouble, Sadie has been embracing it with gleeful abandon the last couple of months. She eats crayons, empties my recyling onto the kitchen floor several times a day, colors on the walls and furniture, eats dirt, rips paper and generally takes things from one area of the house and deposits them somewhere else. It sure is hard to keep up with her (and sometimes I don’t keep up…what am I saying, “sometimes”….). I can have my house clean and tidy one day only to have it look like a hurricane has gone through it the next morning. This will be my life for awhile yet, though, as Coltrane will be happily joining her in this pursuit soon…help! When Sadie really gets me frustrated and I’m just ready to scream she looks at me, standing in the middle of whatever she wasn’t supposed to do, smiles sweetly and say’s “hi” with an innocent wave of her hand….trouble with a capital “T” I tell ya

Sadie’s vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds. She is starting to put words and thoughts together: yesterday she picked up a toy dog and said to Darrell, “Daddy, wook! A Gog!”. She likes to present us with different objects and say, for example, “Wook! See? A baw.” (Translation: Look! See? A ball.) And now when she wants food, etc she asks using her own name: “Sadie duce? Wadoo?” (Sadie juice? Water?). It’s nice that she is beginning to be able to express her wants/needs verbally rather than being so frustrated by her limited language skills.

It’s definitely chaos with three kids right now with Sadie tearing the house apart, Layne having homework and play dates and Coltrane just being a new baby. I’m coping pretty well the majority of the time except when I have too many nights in a row of not sleeping well. I kind of go between feeling disproportionately blessed and wanting to run out of my house screaming but, fortunately, the former happens more often than the latter.

Darrell is lots of help, of course, and takes care of the girls and most meals when he’s not at work. He has had a few things take him away from us lately so I’ve had quite a few days/nights on my own: Darrell has been doing some extra work on the side designing and installing sound systems in churches and night clubs, which he is considering turning into a full-time business someday. And last weekend he went camping for 4 days for our church’s “guy’s getaway”. He had been disappointed in last year’s meals (cereal and pop tarts for breakfast, for example) so this year he volunteered to do the cooking on Coleman stoves for 25 guys. Apparently it went very well as the guys came back with rave reviews on his hot breakfasts, etc. Plus he led worship as well - so he’d down a few bites of whatever food was left then head to his tent to pick out some tunes that he’d lead a few minutes later. Of course he enjoyed all that he got himself into and had a great weekend spending some quality time with the guys. He got back from that on a Sunday afternoon, drove home to grab some gear and headed back to Ventura to play keyboards with a worship band that evening. I was quite finished with being on my own with the kids by the time we had him back on Monday!!

Well I finally got a post up on our website - I think that may mean that life is balancing out a little…I can see the light, pin-prick though it may be from here.

Okey-dokey-smokey,
Noreen

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Yes, folks, you heard correctly. Darrell, the man who vowed he would never drive a mini van, has finally relented and we have leased a Honda Odessey! I can’t tell you how nice it is to be able to fit all five of us in our vehicle. Layne even has the back seat all to herself and the van is so roomy that I can’t always hear what she’s saying (I like that in case you didn’t catch it).

We weighed our options and couldn’t, in good conscience, drive an SUV what with gas prices, environmental responsibility, etc. And we decided to lease because Darrell figures that in five years car companies will have stepped up to the challenge of creating vehicles that don’t consume so much fossil fuel and we won’t want to have a value-less car on our hands when we want to purchase something easier on the planet.

I just wanted a car I could fit my kids into without having to shove my entire body weight against the doors

So there you have it. I love my mini-van and I’m not ashamed to say it.

Toodles,
Noreen

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It’s hard to believe that two weeks have passed already since the birth of Cole. It’s amazing how quickly it can feel like a baby has always been a part of your family.

As you’ve read, the birth went quite smoothly and I can now personally attest to the fact that having a birth assistant (or doula) makes a HUGE difference in coping with labor and delivery. Having a calming woman’s voice beside you who knows what to say and when to say it helped me to feel like there was never a moment when I couldn’t handle the pain. Of course, I was glad to have Darrell there, too - he said he didn’t feel left out at all and enjoyed being free to document the experience instead.

It was wonderful having Darrell home from work with us for two whole weeks: he did a pretty good job of taking care of everybody, keeping up with the house and making yummy food. He’s pretty much in charge of the girls and I take care of the baby so that works out well. It gives him much more empathy in regards to how much work it is to run the house and take care of the kids, which is nice! I must say that he evolves as a father/caregiver every time we have another baby - not that I’ll be having another one to see how far that goes

Speaking of not having another: I had the tubal ligation surgery the day after I gave birth and it wasn’t too bad other than the first three days or so after that were a bit agonizing. I had never had surgery before (other than my tonsil removal at age 6 which I don’t really remember) and it was strange waking up after general anaesthetic and then suddenly feel the pain of everything that had been done to you all at once. Plus they had put a tube down my throat for the surgery so my throat was excrutiating and it took a few days to get my voice back. My nurses were a bit concerned about the pain I was in and were trying to think of some medical reason they could keep me there another day or two but had to send me home the next day after all. By the end of the week I was feeling a lot better. They put the incision in my still-outie belly button so now that it has started to go “innie” again there are no scars to show for it so that’s nice.

Our family has been adjusting to its newest member fairly well. Layne is generally indifferent once again - that is, until he’s big enough to get into her stuff, anyway! Sadie, on the other hand, is quite obsessed with baby Cole and is constantly at him: hugging & kissing him, trying to pick him up, going in to see him when he’s supposed to be sleeping, climbing on him while I try to nurse, etc. When she wakes up in the morning she immediately asks, “where baby?”. It is a challenge to keep Coltrane out of harms way but I’m taking it as a sign that they will be close as siblings as they get older. I’d rather have that than Layne’s apparent annoyance about her sister’s existence.

So Layne was fascinated watching me nurse the baby the other day and asked me if I REALLY had milk in my nipples. I squirted some at her to prove it and she was taken aback with shock about it for a moment. After pondering for awhile she said, “Only mommies have milk in their nipples, right?”. I said yes. Then she pondered for a few moments before she looked at Darrell and said, “Then daddies must have beer in their nipples.” Sounds logical to me

We’re expecting my sister, Verdeen, on Wednesday and I’m looking forward to having her help as Darrell is returning to work this week. After she goes I’ll be on my own during the day with all three children! Help! I’m definitely not designed to have tons of kids - three is PLENTY

Must run for now. kisses.

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It all started Sunday morning, the 16th of July. We had been through 3 boughts of 4 hour labour over the past week, starting early Sunday morning the 9th. Noreen had tried just about every known herbal, reflexology natural way to coax the baby out. Today she drank 2oz of Caster Oil - nasty stuff. Within about 4 hours labor began. And it came on fast. At 3:30 she awoke from a nap with contraction 5-7 min apart. We rounded up the kids, took them to our Friend’s home, and by 4:10 were on our way to the hospital.

Arrive at the hospital @ 4:30PM Sunday, July 16.

4:45 PM - Ok we’re in LDR6 at Los Robles Hospital. Noreen’s contractions are 3 min apart. We’re here with Nerissa (Noreen’s doula), the monitors are hooked up and away we go! 3cm dilated 80% effaced

5:15 PM - Contractions are still 3 min. apart. The baby’s heart rate is hanging around 120 BPM which has put me in a Disco mood… Everyone’s in good spirits….

5:50PM - Contractions every two minutes. Doing another exam… 4cm dilated 90 % effaced.

7:30 PM - Doctor Block shows up. Noreen is 7-8cm dilated. He breaks her water. And went to change his clothes…Contractions are now 2 min apart. Noreen’s so excited to meet our baby boy.. We share a tear of joy…. The baby feels lower now. He’s coming, and the staff has fully set up the room. (With Sadie the staff was not ready at all.)

8:30 PM - Dr. Block checks Noreen again. We even tried a push, but the cervix isn’t quite ready yet. He figures another 30min… Noreen moves to laying on her side. We’re definitely at a 10 on the pain scale. Things progress quickly from here. Within a couple of minutes, we’re pushing the call button, because Noreen feels the need to push.

8:35 PM - Ok she’s pushing, she’s on her side, and the baby’s crowned. Dr. Block is in position to pull him out, and with a couple good/insane/heroic pushes…

8:37 PM - Coltrane Smith enters the world. 8 lbs 9 oz. With one or two pushes, he’s out, and let me tell ya: Cole is beautiful, he’s pretty mello considering all he’s been through, he’s got dark hair, huge gonads, totally sweet feet, long fingers and a full set of nails.

I texted a ton of folks, announcing the birth of Coletrain Smith, which is the phonetic way to spell it, however his name shall be Coltrane, with my apologies to my lovely wife.

Talking about Noreen. What a dame. Even though she never wants to be pregnant again, she has handled all three pregnancies with grace and good humor. She is/was a birthing machine. Totally inspiring, totally committed, willing to bare the hardship to finish well.

Cole started feeding immediately. He took to the breast in seconds. Amazing. 21″ Long, totally healthy.

I am sooooo happy. Thanks for sharing with us in this way. Check out http://rockitroll.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=15&page=1 for the photo gallery!

Best,

D

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We’ve been fairly housebound this past week - at least, trying to stay within home range as we’re just not sure when this birth thing is happening. I had a check-up on Thursday and was “ripe” but not dilated more than a centimetre. I was getting a little desperate so when my doctor suggested we could induce the next day (Friday) I jumped at it before I really thought it through. Then when I got home I cried a bit when I thought about how frustrating it is to be in the hospital for the entire labor, hooked up to IV drips and monitors and having the possibility of emergency caesarian always lurking in case they want to speed things up or something goes wrong with the induction. But I had said yes so there we were. We got up bright and early Friday morning to head over to the hospital, then got a phone call saying that all of the beds were full and they would get back to us in a few hours…a few hours later they called to say they’d have to try again Monday so I was actually quite relieved that this baby had the chance to come on his own again.

On Saturday I had contractions all day again starting at 3am and going until about 2pm before they packed it in again. I did lots of walking and tried to help it along but just ended up wearing myself out.

Had a good long sleep last night and, this morning, I did some reading on Castor oil inducing labor and then took a small recommended dose (horrible experience but bearable). I’ve lost the plug this morning (won’t go into that further other than say that I had Sadie the day that happened with her) so my body is ready, just need to get contractions going to get this done. Apparently the Castor oil should assist with that.

As before, we’ll keep on updating and will hopefully have some news soon….

Noreen

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