We Will Rock You

Elena is becoming a very good big sister. Here she is practicing with her bear.

Pumpkin patch

This year we attempted another pupkin patch adventure. This one was in the Snohomish Valley and had a nice variety of over priced pumpkins. It looked like someone had come out and conveniently dumped perfect pumpkins every few feet. Where is the fun in that? I wanted to have to search for one and cut it off the vine.

Elena found one just her size a few feet from the entrance.

And we told her that we would buy it... until we found out it was $10. We ended up heading home and buying our pumpkins at the local Safeway instead.

But not before Elena and Kevin got to ride the "train" pulled by a tractor. The old fellow drivin gthe tractor got carried away and pulled that train across a bumpy field for no less than a half hour. Kevin's legs were seriously numb by the time they got back.

The ride in the wagon was just as fun and much more roomy.

One-month-old

Jesse at a month old. What a handsome little man.

New shoes, bad mother

Bad mother moment... Ellie's shoes were looking pretty worn and she could only wear them with really thin socks, so I took her to Target to find new ones. She got really upset when I tried putting any on her feet, so I tried again the next day at the fancy shoe store down the street. The guy measured her feet and she is a size 7! I had been trying to stuff her poor feet into 5 1/2 size shoes. We found some suitably chunky/grungy Pacific Northwest style shoes on the sale rack and called it a day. This growing thing is out of control.

Kevin's new baby...

...Cello, that is. Just a week after Jesse was born, we welcomed into our lives another new family member, a new Strad model cello made by Robert Young. Robert flew all the way from France to bring Kevin his new cello and has been working on it for many months. He set up shop at our dining room table to give the cello its finishing touches.

Here are his amazing assortment of tools and oils.

It was great having him visit and so far the cello is sounding pretty awesome.

Blogger appreciating blogger

Elena loves watching videos of Emory, Marga, William, Adeline and Yuki from their blogs. She requests to see blog videos every time I use my computer and knows all of thee above by name. All this appreciation for high tech communication makes me feel rather old. She almost likes other blogs more than Elmo's World. Almost, but not quite. Here she is appreciating a blog post of Marga dancing to her favorite song. When Elena is really excited about music, she grabs the nearest stuffed animal and invites it to dance along. She still is figuring out how to use the computer, though.

Happy Halloween, Elmo!

A red furry monster came to visit us today.

He was very friendly.

I think we'll keep him.

Getting big!

At Jesse's two week check up last week he was 9 lbs 14 oz, almost a pound and a half more than his birth weight! He is a really sweet baby, but does like to nurse A LOT.

Grandaddy and Emily come to visit

My dad and his wife, Emily are here to visit this week! Today we went to the arboretum and Japanese Gardens.

Pile of books

While the Bloomingtonaut has been reorganizing her bookshelves, she came up with some Piles of Books that read like poetry and stories. Other blogger responded in kind... so here is my contribution to this interesting new art form! This pile of books is about Jesse.

More labor pictures

I hated the pushing stage. It was so painful and so confusing. Throughout, I repeated "I don't know! I don't know!" Luckily, my body did know what to do, and I got through it without a problem. Really push!
Jesse enters the world.
He was so calm and peaceful right after birth! He did not cry at all. He immediately took a first breath, pinked up and gave a little tiny peep, then fell asleep in my arms. A few minutes later, he was nursing like a pro.

Labor pictures

My doula, Lindsay, is a photographer and took a bunch of amazing photos of my labor with Jesse. Here are a few... This one is deep in the night, before the pitocin.
Walking the halls... things get intense.
Back labor!
A rest between pushes. The smiling face on the left is my midwife, Cindie Brown.
At the end of transition, the sun rises over the mountains. This was the view from my bed. I immediately thought of the hymn "Morning Has Broken," sung by Cat Stevens (and in the 1984 Hymnal). For some reason, I thought to make a copy of it and put it in my purse. It is one of my favorite hymns and I thought maybe I'd want to sing it at Jesse's birth. I did not end up wanting to sing at all, (moan, maybe... and scream) but the sentiment was there.

MA GO???

Elena has a war cry. She yells it when she is looking for me... usually to mark my phyiscal departure, but often to mark my psychological departure. She yells "MA GO?" when she is trying to fall asleep on her own, when she wakes up in the morning, when I suddenly dissapear, when I have been gone for a long time, when I nurse Jesse, when I ignore her... you get the idea. Otherwise, she calls me "mommy," but when in distress, it is shortened to MA... MA GO!

Another funny thing she said the other day... she was watching me nurse and got a bit upset that I wasn't able to come with her and she said "Edda mommy," which sounded exactly like "Edamame." She also says, "Two babies, one, two" (Pointing to her and Jesse) and to Jesse she says: "So wittle. Wittle ears, wittle eyes, wittle nose...so wittle." (Pointing to body parts.)

In other general language news, her language has totally exploded and she parrots us all the time. She regularly says complete sentences... like right now, she is saying "Mommy make some pizza pie! Daddy, are you? Eddy wants some! More please daddy! Eddy eat it. Eddy eat the pizza pie." She also tends to harden ending consonants -- like the Germans-- so when she almost fell yesterday when I was holding her hand and I said "Oh God!" she repeated over and over "Oh Got! Oh Got! Oh Got!"

First week

Well, I survived the first week! Without providing any details, let me just sum up the first week in one word: Stitches. Yuck. It has been not a walk in the park... actually, very little walking at all. Okay, I have been walking plenty, but it has not been easy. I have left the house once this week, and it was to take Jesse to his first doc appt. To complicate matters, Kevin is preparing in earnest for two upcoming festivals, starting... next week! For one series of concerts and workshops, he will be gone for a week. I am not sure how I will survive without him (without the little of him I get now), but I hear that by next week I am supposed to feel dramatically better. I'll keep my fingers crossed. This was one of the major factors in attempting a VBAC... faster recovery? Maybe for those without toddlers?