I did not expect to take a sick day today.

Although it is nice having the occasional 3-day weekend, today was not what I expected. After cleaning up vomit for the 8th time today, my house is clean and the kids and I are tired. Thomas went down without a whimper. Joanna is asleep on the couch and just sat up and dry-heaved in her sleep and laid back down like nothing ever happened and without opening her eyes. She was dozing off while watching a "The Land Before Time" with me when I took off to the bathroom and made myself a mess you wouldn't believe. The whole bathroom had to be cleaned. Sorry if this is gross, but I had to say it. Anyway, I felt a lot better, and cleaned some other stuff too. Today has been exausting. I pray I can get some good sleep through the nausea. I'm thankful that I've been capable of taking care of myself and the kids the whole time. God is good.

Thomas really was the first one sick. He woke in a mess he threw up sometime in the night. How awful.But after his bath he was pretty much fine for the rest of the day with the exception of a few whining spurts. His mattress has a different story: it is out of commission as it continues to dry. Joanna got sick about 9 a.m. and has been puny all day. She threw up 5 times...and counting I guess. I hope I'm done at 2, but I am not that optimistic. I still feel queasy.

I'm going to cart Joanna to bed and hit the rack myself. Here's hoping for a nice restful night.

Kids update

Thomas was stomping around the house in a size 3T T-shirt that has a
picture of a dinosaur wearing boxing gloves. He looks like a little
man in his boy clothes. He's wearing 24-months sized pants and some
tops too, but the 3T fits with the sleeves rolled up. He's so handsome
and sweet. Just exactly like his daddy. He ate his first strawberry
today. He liked it, but he made the same kind of goofy faces that he
made when he ate his first tomato.

Joanna has a stubborn streak to her. I don't know where that came from...
She is absolutely precious though. Last night, she grabbed my fork
from dinner and took it with her little red chair to the kitchen sink
and washed it off (water only) and laid it on the counter top. Does
she watch every move I make or what? It is so neat to see her do
things herself. This morning she went to "school" aka "Miss Kristie's
Castle" and I mentioned to her to tell Miss Kristie when she needs to
pee and poo in the potty. She said, "I need to go pee in the potty,
now." So I went ahead and took her. She did it! I'm so proud. She went
poo a little in the potty tonight as well. I gave her the "two
chocolates" except they were little chocolate chips instead of big
Hershey kisses. I mean, it was like 9 o'clock! She didn't say anything
about them not being big (didn't even hint at complaining), they were
still "two chocolates."

Thomas Eats a Tomato

So, here is Thomas eating his first tomato from our garden. He liked it despite the funny face. He was interested in holding it and feeling the texture and tasting it. He bit small bites off at a time and ate a good few bites before he started demolishing the tomato into a mess. I rescued the tomato, chopped off part of it, and threw it in with the rest of the tomatoes that were becoming marinara for our dinner!

This picture was taken last Sunday after a short nap.

Parent-Child Dedication

On Mother's Day, we had a parent-child dedication service at our church. We pledged to raise up Thomas in the way of the Christian Faith.

Thomas is crawling

Thomas is crawling now!

He saw me come in from work and got really excited. He sat there
pumping his arms and squealing with his big smile. He realized after a
few seconds that he could get to me if he wanted to.

Thomas even crawled in the bath tub. Today He was getting toys and
moving around in the tub. Inspired by an out-of-reach toy, he got on
his hands and knees and after he got the toy, rocked back to sitting.
He likes taking a bath! He gets excited in the tub. He likes taking a
bath with Joanna and she likes taking a bath with him.

Sometimes, Joanna gets carried away and splashes Thomas in the face
with water. I think she likes to get his reaction.
They also squeal at each other too, not just in the bath, but any
time. It's pretty cute. Joanna will squeal at him in the car to try to
wake him up when he's nodding off to sleep. He dozes off anyway.
Babies can't help it.

spittoon

Joanna just gave Thomas a spittoon. She handed him a cookie tin without the lid and said, "Here you go. You can spit-up in here." We were hanging out in the office with toys in the floor and me working on the computer the best I could. It's hard to do stuff these days on the PC with two kids needing my attention regularly.

My children are my joy

My children are my joy, and of course, my husband is too. I can think
of many blessings in my life, and my husband is at the top of this
list.

Joanna is now two and a half. She is so delightful to be with. She is
two, and with that comes the boundary testing and temper tantrums, but
those begin to subside as she learns our boundaries and her own. It
helps if we are consistent as well, I have realized.

Thomas is really showing his personality now. He can sit up for a
little while on his own and he grabs at toys and holds them in both
hands. He's sticking things in his mouth and is happy to bounce and
swing and jump and be tossed around in the air. He is truly a happy
baby. He will be six months old soon.

Joanna talks in whole sentences, paragraphs, chapters, even! She can
tell a story, relaying details and opinions, if you can catch it all.
Sometimes, it takes a trained ear to catch those context clue words to
figure out what she's saying, but she is genuinely clear in most of
her words. We have caught her counting into her teens! Today, I
noticed she bounced her monkey on the couch and sang the alphabet song
like Daddy does with her. She also put the monkey in her shirt so that
his head stuck out the neck of the shirt and she walked around with
him like that for a while. She is so sweet.

I found her in her cave (Uncle Andrew built this for her) laying down
and sucking on a toy today. I sure hope that was a one-time thing.

Thomas is really watching Joanna and you can tell he really likes her
and is interested in all she does. This morning I gave him a bath and
she walked around in conversation back and forth so that she was going
in and out of his line-of-sight, though she didn't take notice of him
paying attention to her. He watched her this whole time and I could
see his expression change on his face from delight--an open mouth
smile with his eyes twinkling. to disappointment or not-so-excited
face. That was neat to see. He also peed on me as I was bathing him.
What is it about that warm water!

Joanna got a bath too. She is really getting better about letting me
wash her hair. I run a bath about 3 inches or so and she lays belly
down for some soapy suds. I got her a pink pouf a while back with some
special kids bath soap. It was for Valentine's day. Anyway, she lets
me put this soap all over her and even on her head. Then, we get out
some bath toys. I put in some "slippy bath" or baby oil so that her
legs don't turn into "alligators." I've started pointing out the hands
on the clock too and telling her that bathtime will be over soon. That
doesn't help much, though. The princess towel seems to help!

Joanna said "I love you, Thomas"

I took the kids out to work today. Before we left the driveway, just after Joanna and I managed to buckle her seat belt, she said "I love you, Mommy. I love you, Thomas." That was so cute! She was a doll all day.

Thomas had his first bottle today

Thomas had his first bottle today. Nana gave it to him! She said he drank it right down and acted like he'd drink some more.
Thomas stayed with Nana, Pappy, and Joanna and I went to the gym for a pilates class. I feel pretty good today after exercising.

Our Baby Story - Thomas

On Sep 14, 2009, I went to work as if it was a normal day. I noticed I started having mild contractions and I was a little distracted at work. A couple of times, I told Marsha, "I should probably just go on home." I stayed and ate lunch. Mike swiped Bill's peach and the three of us ate it as we sat eating lunch along with Robin at the farmhouse table. I headed out to my doctor's appointment.

My doctor told me I could "go at any time" and asked if I would like to be induced. I told him no. I wanted the experience of going into labor on my own and Jason bringing me to the hospital. So, he sent me home! I called Jason and gave him the news. He figured it was still days away, but I had a plan. I'd been talking about cajun catfish and I figured I'd see if I could find any at the store. Jason had looked when he was there last, but didn't find any.

I found a small pack of cajun chicken breasts and decided to buy ingredients for chili along with some other groceries (such as cereal bars) that I wanted to have at home when we arrived after our stay at the hospital.

Once at home, I put the chicken on the Foreman grill and started my chili.
Jason called and let me know his friend had invited him out to dinner. I thought that was great and hoped he had a good time. I told him I had chili for dinner, but him going out to eat was just fine. (Chili is always good as leftovers.)

After I enjoyed my spicy chicken I made a few calls. I gave my mom and dad the update and gave my brother- and sister-in-law a call as well. I invited them over to have some chili since they hadn't eaten. I think I was on the phone with my dad when I heard a knock at the door. It was Jon and Barbara. I didn't expect them, but there they were! They wanted to come visit in case I went into labor. We ate chili and Joanna came home from Nana's and we all went for a walk and let Joanna play at the park. Barbara's kidneys were hurting her but she was a trooper anyway. She played with Joanna and helped her go on the slide. Back at home, Jon colored with Joanna and I took a shower.

At 8:30, I was getting out of the shower when my first "real" contraction started. I wasn't 100% sure it was active labor yet, but around 8:45 I told Barb that we ought to start timing them! They were around 5-7 minutes apart already. I remembered the doctor said to call once the contractions were 5 min apart for 2 hours. So I waited. I called Jason and told him that and he figured he still had some time. He and his friend had finished dinner and were just chatting. I told him that Jon and Barb were with me and he wished I would have told him that they came over. I told him something like they came to see me, ha ha! So, he wasn't in a huge hurry to come home yet. I wasn't worried either.

However, about 9:30, the contractions started getting closer. I called Jason and told him he'd better get here, NOW! It was really close to time to go I had already called Nana and let her know that Joanna would be coming back over! I started packing Joanna a bag of clothes and Barbara washed our dishes and helped give Joanna a bath.

Once out of the bath and in her pajamas, Joanna ran around the house in circles, sensing the excitement, I guess. Keeping busy between contractions wasn't too hard.
At one point, I folded a few clothes, but soon became too distracted to do that!

Amusingly, Chris's girlfriend called. She was in Chris' car, broke down with Tim at Food City. She'd already talked with Dewayne (I later learned that he actually told her not to call us.) and he was going to help her, but she wanted to know something about the battery with the car. I let her know that Jason wasn't going to be able to help tonight since we would be quite busy. (I was a little ticked at the principle that one really shouldn't call the previous owner of a car a whole year later to find out service history info about a car.)

Once Jason was home, I tried calling the doctor. I had to punch in a callback number in order to leave a message and I ended up putting in Nana's number! Barbara took over at this point and left a message that we were heading in.

Joanna was happy to go to Nana's. She even knew to take her bag. She had it and was ready at the door for Daddy to take her to Nana. Daddy wasn't in a hurry though. He chatted with Nana for a few minutes. Barbara helped me repack my bag really quickly. I had a last-minute change of heart about which bag to take. Well, it was more like I needed more space to shove in last minute things, like Jason's clothes! :-)

We were off at a about 15 minutes past 10 pm in our Honda Service Loaner CR-V to the hospital. Did I feel every bump in the road or what? We made a few phone calls to tell everyone that it was time! My mom was sick as a dog at home and we told her we'd call again when we got to the hospital for an update. She wanted to come, but we were assured by the nurse that they wouldn't let her come in there since she was sick.
Also, she wasn't sure what exactly she had, so it would have been awful to get us all sick!

I think we were at the hospital about 10:30. We went right up to the labor and delivery area as directed by my doctor, but a nurse sent me to triage and Jason down to registration. There were two other ladies there at the same time as me. I waited and listened as the nurse instructed the first lady about what to do with the gown and the bag for personal belongings. Then it was my turn. She showed me the room I should go in after dressing and finally a nurse came in to examine me. I was at 8 cm. Doctor Stephens was on duty that evening. He came in and introduced himself and he sent me over to labor and delivery. I had him get my cell phone from my bag so I could call and tell Jason to hurry up so he wouldn't miss the baby being born!

Once in labor and delivery, the head nurse came in and started my IV and positioned the fetal monitors on my belly. She let me know my nurse, Lindsay B. was on her way in. Her personality was a lot like my best friend, Audry, so that made me really happy and as "at ease" as I could be, but not by much! Jason arrived from registering me and
another nurse came and asked me loads of questions.

Jason was helping me count and breathe up to this point, but I wasn't very cooperative! At one point, I was looking away from him and told him he wasn't being very convincing! The nurse asked me if I wanted a wet wash cloth, and I just said, "o.k." It was surprising how the cold rag on my neck actually was nice.

I got an epidural, but since it was so late, it didn't take all the pain away. I'm so thankful for the relief that I had. It was much easier to labor then! I felt like it was time to push and I let the nurse know. My water still had not broken, so she checked me (I was at 10 cm) and she had me push to see if I was ready to push. I was. She called the doctor and they broke my water. I pushed 5 times and I did a fair amount of hollering at this point and Jason told me the nurses at out in the main area commented about hearing me yell.

Thomas arrived at 12:13 a.m. I got to hold him, but not for long. The nurse took him and started cleaning him. Jason and I watched the nurse clean him off. She brought him back to us then and we got to hold him for a while. I don't remember if I told Jason to go tell everyone he was here or if Jason thought of it. However, Jason went out and gave everyone the good news.

Welcome Thomas Michael!

Thomas Michael was born on September 15 and was 10 lbs 1.4 oz and 21
1/4 inches long.

Here are some photos!
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=amyjokidd&target=ALBUM&id=5384683600852177393&authkey=Gv1sRgCKj9ifT19sKBSw&invite=CJO6rC4&feat=email