Just some early morning pilates with Kaya during her spring break. My form is not quite as flexible.

Today marked the first time I tried to take the 3 kids out without Tommy, although it hardly counts since Grandma Baba helped out for most of the day. We went to Touch a Truck at Southpoint – the girls were not so interested in any of the trucks (Kaya sat in the trash truck and we all got in the Durham public bus…and that was about it). Kaya did really enjoy watching the helicopter take off, the bounce house, begging for popsicles, and facepainting. Laney refused face painting and got about 1 foot into the bounce house before she freaked out, but I think she had a good time. Maggie slept despite the super loud truck horns. Then we had lunch at CPK, played in the mall play area, went out for frozen yogurt where we ran into a friend, and went to the Cedar Falls Playground. And I think that we may have made it through the day without all 3 kids crying at once – I’ll call it a win. Now it’s 8:03pm, all 3 girls are asleep, and I’m exhausted!

I managed to get all three of them in one frame! And semi-happy!

There is something so pitiful about watching a newborn do tummy time. Maggie actually tolerates it better than the other girls did, but still only lasts about 3 minutes before she starts to wail. I can give her a pacifier to, you know, pacify her, but then she falls asleep and that sorta defeats the purpose. She is gaining weight like a champ (over 8 lbs today!) but her neck muscles still have a long way to come.

Maggie is starting to learn to sleep more than 2 hours at a time. Last night, I was pretty excited when I woke up and it had been almost 4 hours. Unfortunately, though, I woke up because Laney had snuck into my room and climbed in bed with us, which then woke Maggie up. I had to turn on a dim light so I could see in order to tend to Maggie, and then Laney started screaming “too bright! too bright!” I tried to convince her to return to her dark, spacious bed in her own room but she preferred to just complain about the accommodations in our room. Her eventual solution? Sleeping like this.

Maggie is settling in just fine at home – she sleeps most of the time, although is still learning day and night, and Kaya and Laney are getting used to a new little sister. Unfortunately, they have both had pretty bad colds for the last 4-5 days so we haven’t been able to let them hold or play with Maggie very much. We shot this picture on day 1 before Kaya started to get sick – she was very excited!

A big league, HUGE Rose family welcome to our new baby girl, named Magnolia Jane Rose. We are calling her Maggie. Born March 9 at exactly 8am. She weighed a lovely 7 lbs 3 oz, and was 20 inches long.

After fighting a horrendous cold all week, I finally took off most of the day on Wednesday to rest. And apparently it was enough rest for Maggie to think labor would be appropriate to add on to the mix. I woke up with consistent contractions Thursday around 4:30am, woke up Tommy at 5:30 and texted Grandma asking her to arrive at 6:30. And when 6:30 arrived, I woke up the girls to say goodbye. I then lasted about 2 minutes before I realized the meditation/relaxation required to endure labor does not mix well with my children first thing in the morning. I eventually unhinged myself from the kids, and we left for the hospital.

In triage – about 30 minutes prior to delivery

We checked into triage at 7:17. I then was told I was 6cm dilated about 7:40ish, which surprised me as that was a lower number at arrival than with either of my other kids but I felt pretty far through it. Then, within 5-10 minutes, I was trying to find a call button because triage no longer felt appropriate. I then got a tv-worthy ride down the hall to an actual delivery room, where I pushed for 3 minutes and gave birth at precisely 8am. Interestingly, Maggie was born “en caul” (as was Laney) – meaning within her amniotic sac. Laney’s was a water birth so I didn’t get a great look at what was going on, but this time, it was fascinating to see the blue membrane still over her body and face, which was then manually removed gently by our midwife. En caul births are pretty rare, but two has gotta be special. (They are rare enough that our midwife had to gently remind our nurse that it was silly to stimulate the baby to cry when its face is still encased in a sack).

Baby Maggie!

Also, a highlight of our day was that the midwife on call was Cherese, who also delivered Laney. It was nice to have a friendly, calm face that we knew. My only complaint about the day was that when I ordered french toast from the cafeteria after delivery, it took them an hour and they brought me ONE piece of white bread french toast. One piece! Enough to feed one of my fingers. Luckily we made up for it with other food.

7 lbs 3 oz and loving it

We got discharged same day around 4pm and Kaya and Laney were just coming home from school when we arrived. Tommy actually managed to make dinner for our family, Grandma Baba, and Yoya and Dylan who came over and brought sundae fixins. Then we collapsed in bed.

The three sisters meet

I’m not sure when the fighting phase of siblinghood is supposed to start, but we are clearly in a honeymoon period where Laney is old enough to play with Kaya, but still young enough to willingly follow all of Kaya’s commands and rules. It’s pretty cute watching them play. And since Laney switched into the “middlers” class at school, which shares a playground with the preschool class, she also has the reputation on her school playground of being everyone’s little sister. I commonly pick her up and one of the older kids (Kaya’s old friends) will have her by the hand and will be leading her around the playground. Here’s a picture of the girls after Kaya declared nap time one day (unfortunately, this never actually translates to anyone sleeping).

With the new baby due any day now (did we mention that?), we can’t travel on weekends. But we packed in lots of local fun this past week.

On Saturday, we:
– Tommy took the girls to the dog park so I could work on a grant application
– We all went to the public library for story time
– We stopped at the grocery store and Tommy made a delicious homemade fruit salad for lunch (and salami sandwiches, and lunchables for the kids who hate good food)
– Went to the NC RV show. We went in a few RVs before the kids got bored and decided it was much more fun to watch the live and incredibly-boring-if-you-ask-me cooking demonstration from a dude trying to sell pots and pans that are somehow good for RVs (see picture below – they sat like this quietly for almost 20 minutes)
– Baba babysat and Tommy and I went to a murder mystery dinner. Neither of us was murdered or got to murder anyone, though.

On Sunday, we:
– Went to brunch with Tommy’s old college roommate
– Flew (or at least, attempted to fly) a kite at Homestead Park
– Managed to take the coveted full family nap (where everyone actually naps at the same time)
– Cleaned house, did laundry, watched Tinkerbell, and played with Playdough

Was pretty awesome weekend.

I think the family may finally be healthy – after Kaya’s GI bug, Laney got it and was out of commission for a few days, then I feel mildly ill (thankfully spared the worst of it that the girls saw). Everyone was back in action for about a day until Laney got pink eye. She got to stay home with Baba for one day and then looked well enough to go back to school. One of my patients claims that it hasn’t been cold enough to kill all the viruses going around – and I’m thinking they might be right. Here’s hoping for a healthier March!