Blauggie

A girl on a mission

Getting her watering cup filled (none of those fancy waterung cans for us)

Watering the plants (for the millionth time)

Heading back for a refill

And Lainey!

Goodbye school, goodbye Grandma S

Today was Sebastian's last-day-of-school picnic.  Tuesday was his official last day, but today the class met at a park (well, a building at a park, since it rained and rained and rained last night) and put on a little presentation for the parents. 

Sebastian is fairly ambivalent about being done with school for the year, but I know he enjoyed it and will be happy to see his teachers and classmates in the fall.

My mom (Grandma S) was here from Wednesday night of last week, until Tuesday of this week.  Sebastian and Eliza have never had so much undivided attention, and I got to focus solely on Elaina for a few days.  We miss her.

Racers

For those of you who don't know, Derek is currently training for the Twin Cities Marathon in October.  The kids like to watch him "take off" from our driveway, and we all had a lot of fun cheering him on at his first 8k last month (where he took 4th place for his age group!).  This weekend, he had the opportunity to participate in a 5k, and we signed Sebastian up for the kids' 1k. 

Sebastian was pumped, and "practiced" running in the yard all week.

We all (Eliza, Elaina, Grandma S and I) came out to watch Derek and Sebastian race.  Derek ran his race first (and came in 2nd!), and then it was Sebastian's turn.  He ran the entire way (we thought maybe he'd tire out halfway through) with his Daddy by his side cheering him on and came back sweaty and smiling. 

He got his very own Gatorade to drink afterwards, which, if you know Sebastian, is a big deal.  Then they gave out door prizes, and Sebastian's name was the first one called!  He got a snazzy new bubble blower. 

And here's little miss Lainey, getting adjusted to life in her knew world:

Sweet

My Mother's Day started with this (homemade strawberry-whipped cream-chocolate sauce waffles):

And ended with this:

Eliza colored me a picture, and told me that she wrote "M-E-M-E" on it (thinking that spelled Mama).  Sebastian gave me a "cookbook" he made at school.  Each kid was asked about something his or her mom makes, and the teachers typed it up and put them all together.  Here is Sebastian's.

ROAST BEEF by Sebastian Bodin:

My Mom gets the roast beef at the store, it looks like chicken.  It is a chickenish color.  She puts it in a circle pan with a lid.  She cooks it on top of the stove for three hours,  It is steaming when it is done.  We get it, eat it with supper things!

 

A baby story

Well, Elaina has been a member of our family for a week now, and the transition is going really well.  She's as sweet and relaxed as I could ever have hoped.  She sleeps just about all day, which means I still have most of my day to focus on my "big kids" when they need me.

For anyone who is interested, here are the details of her arrival.  I'll start with last Tuesday, which is when I had my 39-week doctor's appointment.  The doctor told me that the baby's head was still very high, and assured me that she wasn't coming anytime soon.  In fact, he told me that if there was anything I was hoping to do over the next few days, I was probably safe. 

That night, I had several painful contractions while I was sleeping.  Because of the doctor's words, and because they went away in the morning, I didn't take the contractions seriously, and we went on with our day (a chiropractor's appointment, a visit with friends, and a trip to the park).  During that time, I had two or three more contractions, so I started checking things off my last-minute to-do list, just in case. 

That evening, Derek went to a movie with a friend.  The contractions were still sporradic and manageable, so although I started timing them, I still didn't really take them seriously. 

Fast forward to midnight.  The contractions were increasing in intensity, and, while still sporradic (which is unusual for true labor) were frequent enough that I told Derek he should call his mom and dad to come and sleep over (I know, I know, it would have been nice of me to call them long before midnight, but like I said, I really didn't think I was in labor).  They came over and went to bed, and by that point I was getting anxious to find out if these contractions were really doing anything.  Derek and I took a short walk (it was a beautiful night), then packed up our stuff and headed to the hospital. 

When we got there, I was 4 cm dilated, so they moved us into a delivery room to wait out the next 6 centimeters.  Contractions continued to be sporradic, but they were doing the trick, and by 6am I was dilated to 8 centimeters.  It was at this time I decided to get pain meds (8 cms seems to be my limit, since that was the point I got pain meds with the other two).  I opted for a shot instead of the full-on epidural, because it was simpler, and chances were that, because this was my third baby, I wouldn't need more than the two hours of relief the shot would provide. 

Wrong.  The shot wore off exactly two hours later...at which point I was still only dilated to 8.  Well, turns out that when your pain meds wear off, you get real motivated, and although it was still an hour and fifteen minutes before she was born, things started progressing more quickly, and before I knew it (actually, I remember every second!  When you're pain-free for two hours and then start feeling the worst pain you've ever felt, you remember) we had a baby. 

Derek peeked at the sex of the baby first, then started laughing and showed me.  I was SO certain it was going to be a boy!  I was, and am, thrilled to have another little girl, and a sister for Eliza.  We quickly chose between the two names we had it narrowed down to, then called our families to spread the news. 

Since everyone was healthy and doing well, we were able to come home the next day.  My mom just happened to be in town on Thursday and spent the day and night with Sebastian and Eliza, which was great because it gave them a chance to spend some quality time doing special things with two sets of gradparents, and it gave my mom, who lives 6 hours away, a chance to meet her third grandchild on the day she was born.  In fact, when I found out last Monday that my mom was coming to town (my stepdad had some work to do in St. Paul and had asked her to come with him), I started thinking about how great it would be if I had the baby on Thursday.  So, basically, I willed her to be born.  Cool, I know.  

Sebastian and Eliza have a mild interest in Elaina, which is better than being all over her.  Eliza asks to hold her pretty often, and talks to her and about her in her "tiny" voice.  She always asks, "does the baby like this book?" or "does the baby like this show?"  We're kind of in our honeymoon phase right now, with Derek being home from work all week, so I think a lot of the chages are yet to come, but I'm just taking it one day at a time, and enjoying our tiny girl.

 

Us.

The three siblings.

Sisters.

The new family of five.

? 

Elaina at home.

Eliza stealing the spotlight.

So, to reiterate, we have a nice picture of Elaina, a cute picture of Eliza...and a picture of Sebastian wrapping himself in a curtain.  

I'll post again in a few days with an update on how everyone's adjusting! 

Elaina Claire Bodin

The Bodin Family caboose came rolling in at 9:30 this morning.   Miss Elaina Claire Bodin, 7lbs 11oz, 20" long, is a happy, healthy, relaxed little girl. 

We'll post more pictures soon!

 

Guys

Sebastian had his kindergarten screening in February, and one of the "tasks" he had to perform was to draw a person.  When the screener asked him to do it, he hesitated, said "that's kind of tough," and then did a great job.  I think that might have unlocked something within him, because I've been finding drawings of "guys" everywhere since then. 

I know that other 4-year-olds have probably been doing this for a long time, but it's new for me, and I love, love, love every single one.

Not to be outdone, Eliza made her first "E" the other day.