Looking Great After Labor: A Tutorial

Many of you kind people have commented on how I look good in the pictures below after giving birth. First off, thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate it. Since I'm a giving person, I decided to let you in on my simple two step process on how to look good after delivery. It really is quite simple, and anyone can do it!

Step 1: Opt for an elective induction. This way you can plan when you will deliver and make sure to have your hair and make-up done in advance. (I may have also gotten a pedicure and shaved my legs in preparation.)

Step 2: Take no more than 4 hours to deliver the baby. We arrived at the hospital at 8am. By 8:30 my Dr had broken my water and I was on Pitocin at 9am. At 11:00 I got an epidural (also helpful for looking good after). Blanche was born at 12:53 (after waiting 30 minutes for the Dr before pushing). My nurse laughed at me when I told her upon arrival I would have a baby by lunchtime. I sure showed her!

While I am taking time off for maternity leave, I am doing my best to spend it with my girls. I may or may not be blogging much, but I will try to stop in every so often with updates and new pictures. Here are a few to fulfill your cute quota.

Blanche is Here

Blanche made her grand entrance into the world last week. Here are her stats:

Born: January 14, 2010, 12:53 pm
7lbs 6oz, 19 inches long

We are home from the hospital and doing well. We have been spending lots of time hanging out, watching TV, and working to adjust to life as a family of four. BG LOVES her baby sister and wants to hold her all the time. She is very helpful - sometimes too much so. Here are the pictures that everyone really cares about. (Email me if you want to know her name - I won't be using it on the blog.)

New Church Time

I'm a religious person. I faithfully go to church every week. I fulfill my calling and do my best to choose the right.

But I must admit, 1:00 pm church is difficult. It sounds like it would be nice. Sleeping in sounds like a great plan. You would think all that extra time would mean we would be on time or even early. But that's just not the case.

Instead, 1pm church is right at nap time. The normal daily schedule involves lunch, then nap. That is difficult to accomplish when church starts at 1:00. For the last two weeks we have tried doing an early nap, then lunch and church. But that isn't working out so well. What happens is BG finally falls asleep at 11:45 and only gets an hour nap (not long enough) before we are forcing her to get up, dressed, hair done, and eat. It doesn't go over very well. The other option is no nap at all, but I fear unleashing that wrath on her Sunbeam teachers.

I'm sure having a new baby soon won't create any more complications. Or the fact that we won't be going to church for a while. (I'm not taking my newborn during flu/H1N1/RSV season to church.) I guess come spring we'll have to keep working on this scheduling issue.

My Opinion Still Counts

Last night when we were driving home BG was pointing to the lights in the sky and asking if they were stars. Since I was driving, I couldn't really see what she was looking at. The conversation went something like this:

BG: Is dat a tar?
Me: I don't know. I can't see
BG: Right there! Is dat a tar.
Me: I don't know. What do you think?
BG: Is it?
Me: I don't know. Do you think it's a star?
BG: Is it?
Me: I don't know! What do you think?
BG: You think first. Then I think.

Nice to know that at least for a little while longer, my opinion matters most.

Baby Prep

Check out the button on my sidebar - 2 weeks from tomorrow is the due date! I'm at to the point where I'm huge and waddling and ready to be done.

I went to the Dr. yesterday and we discussed an elective induction. JM is really enthusiastic about an induction for the convenience factor. We are planners and he would like to be able to schedule time off work, etc. My Dr. says I'm a good candidate and was more than happy to schedule a time right then. I panicked a little and decided I wanted to think about it a little more.

I'm working on the baby to-do list and haven't packed a bag yet (I know, I know, it's on the list). Even though this is #2 for me, I'm feeling a bit nervous and worried about remembering it all. Since today is backwards WFMW, I'm going to ask all you mommies out there - tell me your essential new mommy advice. Anything from what I should be packing to how to deal with two kids (gasp!). I'm all ears.

Mean Big Sisters

I am both a big sister to a brother and a little sister to a brother and sister (third out of four if you didn't follow that). My sister and I would often gang up on our little brother and do horrible things to him. Looking back, I do have a sense of remorse. Here are just some of the things we did to him growing up.

1. Play "Guess the Food": This game involved him closing his eyes and opening his mouth. My sister and I would put the worst things we could think of in his mouth. They were all things that came out of the kitchen, so we weren't poisoning him. We were surprised that he liked the pickle juice
2. Tease Him Until He Cried: My parents took a nap on Sunday afternoon. It was well known whoever interrupted their nap would feel the full wrath of Dad's anger. So my sister and I took advantage of that time to tease baby bro until he cried. This happened regularly - like weekly. If he woke up mom and dad to tell on us, he got in more trouble for interrupting the nap than we did for teasing him.
3. Embellishing His Lineage: He is our biological brother in every possible way. However, we enjoyed telling him he was adopted. Our preferred story, however, was that he was a Martian. For years he was told he was an alien that was hatched from an egg.
4. The Bad Little Brother: We used to tell our little brother that he was not the youngest. In fact, our family did have a brother younger than him that was given away/adopted out because of misbehavior. We threaten him that he would also be given away if he wasn't good/did what we wanted.

I'm not sure how much of this my parents were aware of at the time. I'm pretty sure they know about all these "games" now. Looking back at all the horrible things we did, it makes me worried about my own kids. Are they going to have these kinds of "games" that they play with each other?

Did any of you big sisters out there play similar games on your younger siblings? Were you the victim of such games. Or an I just admitting to the horrible nature of my family?

Turkey Stock

For Christmas, JM wanted a big turkey dinner. Since he would be the one to cook the bird, I agreed. We had a delicious dinner that night and I decided to try my hand at making homemade turkey stock. I figured it couldn't be that hard, just throw the bones in with some veggies and water and let it cook all day.

Well, up to that point, it was pretty straight forward. It was after that it got to be a little more work. I strained everything from the liquid and let it cool. After leaving it in the fridge overnight, I scrapped off the fat (eww) and poured it into containers. Any one step wasn't too difficult but when you are dealing with such huge pots of often hot liquid, it was hard work. I'm not sure if it was worth it. I got 6.5 quarts of turkey stock that I put in the freezer for later use. We use chicken stock quite a bit, so we'll see how this compares. At the very least I learned something new!