He has arrived

Gavin Nathaniel Moore made his appearance this morning at 2:51 on August 31st. I was able to have a VBAC and he came so quickly that it was "au naturel." Here's the cutie pie. Will post more later about my first labor experience.

Can't sleep again...but good news!

I went to bed early tonight so at midnight after a full 2.5 hours of sleep I felt rejuvenated. So now when I go back to bed at 3 a.m. I'll still get a full night's sleep! yippee! I wish I could enjoy the sleep I'm able to get right now...it won't be very long I'll be up and down all night, but not by my choice. (Any grandparent or aunt who wants to volunteer to come and sleep over is, of course, more than welcome once the new baby arrives). hee hee

The good news is that we are scheduled to be induced on Sept 5th at 5 a.m. if the little guy decides to not join us earlier...READ anytime would be good, Baby brother!!

Being pregnant with a 2-year-old

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I will have to say that this is rare, even since I've been pregnant. I may be tired in the morning but truly am not cranky most of the time. Well not today. I was tired AND cranky. I'm at that point that getting comfortable in any position is hard but especially lying down. I am 39 weeks pregnant and did not think I would be going to this Doctor's appointment. Baby brother was supposed to already be here.
So Gabe and I headed to the Doctor. We had to wait at least 30 minutes to get in for what is normally a 5 minute appointment. The nurse practitioner said I had not progressed since last week and really should wait till my Dr. gets back in town (she was half way joking, I think). Then we headed back home. While we were out I just kept thinking, "Why does it have to be so HOT!!!???" Once back at the house, I had to muster up the energy to clean up which included sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor. I was so tired and DID NOT feel like doing this but kept thinking of my reward of taking a nap afterwards.

So I swept and got the bucket and mop out. Gabe immediately decided he wanted to "Help." He took the mop and was dragging it across the floor. I cannot discourage this kind of behavior! Hello, I love it that he wants to help and will utilize his help for many years to come.
So I'm encouraging him and praising him for helping mommy mop and trying to instruct him on how best to help.
He wants to make footprints on the newly cleaned floors and I tell him that is not helping. :)
(Have I mentioned that he has 1 million toys that are far more interesting than a mop and bucket?)
Anyhow, he finally stops making footprints and goes over near the bucket to inspect the bubbles. He keeps saying, "Dup it out?" Which is a phrase he has learned to ask when he wants to dump out boxes of his toys. And most of the time the answer is, "Sure go ahead and dump it out." (I should mention here that he has learned to ask because I have gotten so frustrated with his dumping of the toys that when he does this my reaction is, "why do you have to dump ALL the toys out?" I know how silly this sounds asking a 2 year old a question which he will have no answer for.) But I digress...
I respond, "we will dump it out in the bath tub and Gabe can help mommy dump it out, but not right now." He repeated this a couple more times over the course of 5 minutes or so and I continued to be sweet and say "No, not yet." When there was just about 5 more minutes of mopping I turn around to see Gabe dumping out the bucket of soapy water all over the kitchen tile. There's at least 1 gallon of water spreading quickly. Wow! Was I upset. Did I already mention I woke up cranky? I did not use a nice voice and told him to go to time out. I then proceeded to get some towels and try to figure out the best way to clean it all up. Did I also mention how worn out I'm feeling these days? I'm super tired and did not feel like mopping to begin with, but was mustering up just enough energy to hit the high spots.
Well, I stood there mad, upset, frustrated...and thought I could really cry over this. And then thought, "No, I'm not going to cry." But then thought, "But I'm entitled to cry...I'm 10 months pregnant, tired and miserable and now I have to deal with this." So I quickly convinced myself that crying was the best option. Oh goodness. Sometimes you need a good cry, I guess. So I spent another 15 minutes cleaning up the water mess with the mop and then the towels all while having a good cry. Gabe eventually gets out of time out and comes over on his tricycle to see me crying. He says, "Dabe ty." as he points to his eyes, indicating that he can cry too. But he soon shuffles off on his bike and is a happy camper.

I do have to say that my floor is really clean now.

And then later we went to the Mattel toy store and the man in front of us insisted on purchasing our toys for us. I have no idea why he did this but I was very thankful that God acknowledged my bad day by sending a sweet person to do such a nice thing. It wasn't about the money, but about the very kind gesture.

Gabe is so sweet and so cute and has always been very compliant. He is almost 2 and a half and has just started to blatantly disobey. We have been very fortunate. Unfortunately, it could not come at a worse time. I've already heard stories of what the older kids do while mom's nursing the baby because they know mom can't get up to stop them. :)

Can't sleep

Pathetic, right? I should be super tired and have no problem sleeping.

I'm thinking I'm in the nesting stage. My mom has been asking me about this over the past week. She says it will be semi-ridiculous what you do in terms of cleaning or having a strong need to get something done. Her example: When she was pregnant with my younger sister, Lauren she felt a strong need to plant marigolds in the front yard.
Well I have been talking to Casey over the past SEVERAL months about how I wanted to have the carpets professionally cleaned. Granted we own a steam cleaner, but I didn't think this would do the job as good and I knew I would not ever have the time or energy to steam clean the carpet. Well last night Casey took Gabe to the grand opening of the new Brewer Bears Stadium, our High school Alma Mater. :) As soon as they left, I got out the steam cleaner and for 4 hours cleaned the living room carpet, stairs and baby's room. Now I did take a break to eat dinner for about a half hour, but I moved all the furniture off the carpet and steam cleaned! This would fall into the category of ridiculous if you ask me...and where did I get that kind of energy? Last week I couldn't muster up enough energy to take Gabe to the store...and I'm moving couches! Wow...hopefully this means it will be any day now. :)

Pictures of Baby Brother

I got behind and didn't post these when we went in but here they are now. I will relocate them to the appropriate date later.

We went in for a 3-D sonogram on July 3rd. We were 31 weeks and at this point it's probably too crowded in there to get the really good shots. Our Doctor spent a lot of time with us and got a few good ones.

Here's a 2-D profile.

This is a picture of the left side of his face. His eye is closed. It's hard to tell what it is but hopefully you can make it out. :)

This shot is of his face straight on and his arm and hand are partially in front of the right side of his face. This picture looks a little like Nathaniel. So sweet!

Birthday

We celebrated my birthday today! The big 33!
Everyone came over and we had BBQ catered from Cousin's and Casey got me an ice cream cake. My friend Celeste was in town from Houston so her and her daughter Cadence came to celebrate. Cadence is 20 months old so it's fun to watch her and Gabe play together. The running joke is that they will have an arranged marriage. She won't even have to change her last name. :)
We had a really nice time and everyone left except my sister and her family. The kids watched a movie and we sat on the back porch and visited. So fun!

And Gabe has gotten very good lately at singing happy birthday! Somehow we only got part of the song but here's a video!

One Minute

Gabe has gotten very good at negotiating...some may call it manipulating.
We have always tried to give him warnings before we make him stop playing or before bedtime etc. We'll say, "Gabe you have 10 more minutes....5 more minutes...2 more minutes...1 more minute." Well he has started to negotiate the number of minutes left and it's so cute it's hard to refuse giving him an extra minute. He'll hold up his fingers and give a cute little look and say, "pive mo minut." "two mo minut." But with two he can't do the finger gesture so he says, "hep mommy, hep." And I'll help him make the number 2 with his fingers. So funny!
Here's a video of him negotiating!

Update

Went to the Dr. today and we are 2 1/2 cm dilated and 30% effaced. woo hoo. That's progress. Not very much, but progress nonetheless. :)

My Dr. leaves town next Wed. the 27th and doesn't return until the 31st. Really?? My only concern is that we want to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). And there is one of 4 or 5 doctors who is on call for my Dr. who will not do VBACs. I aksed my Dr. what recourse I had if I went into labor when he was on call and he said I had none. I would have to do a c-section. What? That seems ridiculous. Anyhow, we cleared that up today. This Dr. will not be on call while my Dr. is out of town so I should be okay.

So I've thought from the beginning about when the baby would be born. God has always seemed to use dates for significance for Casey and I. It's possible He has done this even more than I realize but I just started noticing this about 5 or 6 years ago because of the significance.
A few examples: Casey was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery on May 14th. Five days later, on May 19th, on his birthday, we found out it was malignant. For a year he went in every 3 months for scans to see if it was spreading. For the better part of that year we thought it had spread to his lymph nodes. On Casey's birthday May 19th the following year, we found out that it was a misread on the scan and it had not spread, but in fact he had been cancer free for that entire year since his surgery. AMAZING!
Casey was hired into Motorola on April 5th, 1999 And 5 years to the day he was offered a position with the Motorola in Carrollton. We were getting to move back to Fort Worth! yippee!
My grandfather passed away on my birthday, August 27, 2004. Not exactly a positive example, but a date of significance, nonetheless.
Nate and Gabe were born on My grandmother's birthday, March 23rd and of course this is the same day that Nate passed away.
And without any intervention, or plans Casey and I got pregnant naturally (complete MIRACLE) and the baby is due Sept. 3rd. Which means he could be born a week early on my birthday, August 27th. Which would make what was most recently a negative with my grandfaher's death a positive!

We will see. I'm not pretending to know what God has in store for us! It's just interesting to me how he has used dates to show us His power and glory. He is in control...and that is something that we have always needed to be reminded of. :)

Baby Shower and Baby Brother

Casey's co-workers had a baby shower for us on Wed. Gabe and I got to go and see Casey's new office and had fun visiting with his co-workers. Everything was so nice. They had our lunch catered with chicken parmesan and pasta and salad. Yummy. I brought a gift from Baby Brother to Gabe. We just had to have something for Gabe to open that was actually his because he's already started becoming very possessive. He's even possessive for other people. I digress but I took a bite of Casey's snow cone while we were driving in the car the other day and Gabe says, "No mommy. Daddy's no cone." :)

Anyhow, Baby brother got him a "peace car." He loves that toy and I'm so glad that my sister and friend Holly made the suggestion to get a gift from baby brother.

Here's Gabe at Daddy's desk.

Baby brother received a Bumbo chair with a tray. These had not come out when we registered the 1st time around, but I think came out shortly after Gabe was born. We never bothered to get one but it looks pretty neat. The minute we opened the Bumbo chair at the office, Gabe wanted to open it and try to sit in it. He called it a potty and stood on it....in front of all the co-workers. :)

When we got home he decided he wanted to sit in it with his snack. So cute!

We received a ton of hand-me-downs from a friend of my sister who has a 5 month old little boy. I washed all the clothes and while I was folding them Gabe came up and grabbed a couple of the shirts. He said, "Dabe's?" I said, "well, no they are actually baby brother's." (I haven't learned yet). He said, "No! Dabe's!" And indicated he wanted to put the shirt on. The particular shirt he grabbed was a newborn so I explained it wouldn't fit him. But I found one that would. It was a 6 month onesie. We couldn't button the bottom but it fit him like a shirt. I'm ashamed to admit it but he wore this shirt for 3 days. :) Notice the tail in the back.

Getting ready

I have now put the pack and play up and the bassinet is ready. With Gabe we used both so I assume we will do the same this time around. I actually have decided I'd like to have a co-sleeper with this one because I remember what a pain it was to use the pack n play last time. The only caveat is that our bed sits really high off the ground, 35 inches to be exact. So this makes it difficult to find the right co-sleeper.

I put together the bassinet and put some newborn diapers in the basket on the bottom. Gabe proceeded to get the diapers out and I said, "Oh Gabe those are baby brother's diapers. Let's not get those out please." His response:" No Dabe's dipers." Oh dear! Sibling rivalry and the sibling isn't even here yet. :)
So then he decided to roll the bassinet in the living room and wanted to get inside of it. I could not refuse. He's a light weight for a 2 year old so I figured it wouldn't hurt and I could keep him from having resentment about the baby. So he laid in the bassinet like a little baby, except he's about a foot too long for it. Then he proceeded to put the newborn diapers on his blue teddy (with Mommy's help, of course) and put him in the bassinet.

We had to change blue teddy's diaper about 10 times because "bue teddy go poo poo."

More funny stories

Gabe is just so cute! Yesterday we celebrated his cousin Emily's birthday at Justice for girls. It was an allgirl party so yes, he was the only boy at the party, but he just loves to be around cousin Em and Abby so I couldn't not take him. They fixed everyone's hair including Gabe's. They played games and then we were able to get a mini webkinz figurine as a party favor. We went for pizza after the party and met up with all the guys. After that we went back to cousin Em and Abby's house to play for a few minutes before heading home. Emily had gotten lots of neat Barbie presents and was playing with some of the accessories when Gabe came up to her and wanted what she was playing with. She said, "say the magic word." (the magic word in her mind was please). Gabe looked around and smiled and said excitedly, "Meestay Moostay Mickey Mouse clubhouse!" He was so proud of himself! For anyone who does not know about Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Mickey says, "Hi everybody, do you want to come insisde my clubhouse? Oh I almost forgot. To make the club house appear, we need to say the magic words. Meeska Mouska Mickey Mouse."

This is the only magic word he knows! So cute and hilarious!!!

Dr. update

I went to the Dr. yesterday and he said I was dilated 2 cm but not effaced. He also said that the baby was not engaged meaning his head was not down in my pelvis. Well with the pain I've had today I can say I think baby brother is engaged now. I feel a dull pain in my pelvis that won't go away. I am 37 weeks and ready mentally for him to come anytime. We don't have a name and do not have the beds/bassinets ready but otherwise we're good. It's kind of funny how unprepared I am for this one. I haven't done any laundry for the baby as of yet. I guess I assume he's not coming anytime soon.