Welcoming Jack Gerard

Thursday made me realize I do not possess the Jedi mind tricks needed to speed up the clock. Physically, I felt pretty bad so I started watching the clock. "Was that a contraction?" Start the timer .
4:05. 4:06. 4:07. 4:08.
"Was that a contraction or is my back finally giving out after lifting Cameron? Wait, what time was my last contraction?"
The minutes continued to pass by. I actually stopped trying to figure out if and when my last contraction occurred, and I just resorted to establish a time when Brian would get home.
5:15. 5:16. 5:17.
"Should I call him? Maybe I'm just being a wimp. Do I go upstairs and take a shower? I really need to wash my hair first. I'm sure we don't need to go in."
5:18.
"My water really needs to break so I know for sure. What do I do with Cameron? Am I packed?"
The pain is definitely getting very regular at this point.
5:31.
Brian walks in and I'm lying on the sofa. "You probably want to eat something quick and take a shower because we may be going to the hospital tonight." He says, "Okay," then picks up Cameron and starts playing.
5:33.
"No, like you need to take a shower right now." Panicked, he says, "Oh, okay. I'll just take a quick shower and pack my bag." You are kidding me, right? I'm almost 39 weeks pregnant, and he still hasn't packed a bag.

At around 7:00 we finally get to the hospital, and Brian had strict instructions not to remove a single bag until I was admitted. I was about 3 cm dilated and contractions were about every 2-3 minutes. At 8:10 we were officially admitted and they wheeled us up to a labor and delivery room. The doctor came in and asked if I was going to do this natural. "Not at all." "Well then let's get an epidural, break your water, get some pitossin and have this baby." I like this doctor very much. :-)

By 10:30 I had all the above and was at 4 cm. At 11:00 I had my hand on the Call Nurse button because of the pressure I was feeling. The nurse checks me and I'm fully dilated. Brian wakes up mid snore, and I'm sure my eyes are as big as his. I started doing a couple of practice pushes before the nurse tells me to stop because the doctor is in another delivery.

28 minutes. It was 28 minutes of my legs in the stirrups while Jack's head is trying to forcefully rip out of my vagina. All I heard was the nurse saying, "You're going to need a bag of ice after this." Great. Now I'm going to need reconstructive surgery to put all the pieces back together because everyone is refusing to catch my kid. 28 minutes and the doctor walks in. He empties my bladder and as he does that Jack's head comes out. Does "I told you so" fit right here?

All that being said at 11:56 we were so blessed to welcome Jack Gerard Rodrigue into our family. He was 8 pounds 2 ounces and 21 inches long. Thank you to everyone for all the prayers and support. We're taking him home on Sunday. You can resume the prayers. :-)

License to drive

We're having a hard time getting Cameron to point to parts of his face, but if you ask him to turn on the windshield wipers, he can! Meme lets Cameron sit in the driver's seat and press buttons. My child thinks this is the greatest toy anyone can have. He screams uncontrollably when you try to take him out of the car. It really is too cute to watch because he's so into it.

The Big Boy Bed is in!

The bunk beds are in and the final stage of sleep training has begun. The first few nights he would wake up at about 11:30 pm, 12:30 am, 1:30 am, and so on and so forth until I carried him downstairs to watch the news. After two nights of this, my son knew what was coming so he refused to calm down to go to bed. Brian made three trips upstairs to try to put him back down, and the conversation went something like this:

Brian: That's it!!! I'm going spend the money and just buy another crib tomorrow.

Me: Really? Don't you think you're blowing this out of proportion. It's one night.

Brian: No, this is the third night in a row I have to go up there multiple times to try and get him to sleep.

Me: (rolling my eyes and trying to choose my next words carefully) Well don't even worry about a damn thing. I got him from now on. (Not the words I would have liked to use at all, but I am a mean pregnant woman.) (I storm up the stairs to snuggle up next to Cameron in bed. We both slept great after he kicked me in the nose so hard I suffered a mild blackout.)



The new bed that he sleeps in is actually the top bunk with the guard rails all the way around. We just have the beds separated for the time being.
Of course the escape route needed to be tested. He fell on his face a couple of times but the carpet absorbed some of the sting.
The two chests of drawers actually make up the sides of the bunk beds. To Cameron they provide endless entertainment.

Meeting with Mario

What to do on a Saturday? Pull over and take a picture with a guy dressed as Mario? Sure. Why not? This Mario character was advertising for the local Game Stop on Airline in Prairieville. As we passed him in the car - yes, I said "passed him" - Brian looked at me and said, "I mean should we turn around." He justified it by saying we had a camera in the car and how often do you see this. We weren't the only ones who detoured off of our original path to take a picture, but it sure doesn't look like it was Cameron's idea.

When toys aren't good enough...

The Pumpkin Patch

We took Cameron to the pumpkin patch in St. James on Saturday. It was a success in that we left there with a pumpkin, but I don't think Cameron understood why these orange things were such a big deal. He just walked right past the pumpkins and continued exploring.

We threw him back in the mix with the pumpkins. All it did was provide agility training for him to weave his way around the pumpkins to get out.


Nothing says "Pumpkin Patch" like a picture on an alligator.

Cute photo. The sad part? I only took this picture because I couldn't keep up with their pace.

He'll thank us for these next two photos one day. :-)


Waving bye bye? Nope. He didn't want a single part of his body to touch the hay. We thought it was cute so like the good parents we are we kept sitting him back on to get a good picture. Sad realization...when we got home the kid was covered in itchy, bright red patches everywhere on his body that touched the hay. Ooops. That was our first hay encounter. Thank the Lord we didn't go on the hay ride.

37 weeks

Not much longer to go, but I guess I'm to the point where it's noticeable I'm large. I went testify in court and almost every police officer in there asked me to please not have this baby in court. I really would like to get a shirt that says, "Yes, it's just one," because people are not believing me when I say it aloud.

Big boy bed update

Is this what jealousy looks like - climbing into baby brother's car seat and waiting patiently to go bye-bye?


Where is the manual or instruction book for this kid? Cameron has never been a good sleeper. He didn't sleep all through the night until about 11 months so I don't know why my expectations changed. I have provided every excuse in the book for him over the past several weeks so that his father and I don't decide to give him away. Maybe he's teething. Maybe it's cold. Maybe it's too hot. Maybe he's itchy. Maybe he's scared of the dark. I'm not sure what it is, but it is crunch time for training.

On average I'm getting up between 3 - 5 times a night. I haven't given into the cry it out phase yet because I'm afraid he'll turn into the Hulk and rip the gate right off the top of the stairs. (My mind thinks up these crazy things.) I have refused to sleep in bed with him after one night/morning of a reign of terror. He woke up at 11:45pm, and when I say "woke up" I mean he was wide eyed and ready to monkey around. He jumped on the beds, he rolled off the beds, he played about 3 hours of his music box, and he managed to talk the night away. The last straw came at 4:15am when I was lying on one of the mattresses, and he ran with all his might and jumped on top of me. So what's my plan? We're still in the staring-at-a-blank-page phase.

Here's a buyer's beware for all you out there looking to buy furniture: Rooms to Go has been a very good furniture supplier for me in the past. That is now "in the past." Sure 5-6 weeks for delivery is ridiculous, but I don't consider it unheard of. Their automated system did call to let me know that they would be here on Tuesday, October 18 between the hours of 7am and 10pm to drop off my furniture. No, that's not a typo. 10 PM. I promise you if someone shows up at my house after 7pm to deliver furniture they better hope I'm not home. Don't test a hormonal, pregnant woman's temper when she is already lacking sleep.

35 weeks

Why? Why has the thought entered my mind that I could go early? I wish I could erase this terrifying and highly unrealistic thought. The weekly question from complete strangers, "Is it twins?" wasn't enough to make me think of an early delivery. The thought entered my mind after my last doctor's visit.

The sonogram showed Jack squished in there. Imagine you're in a tent and trying to crawl out from underneath all that fabric. That's what he looked like. His knees are supporting his chin, and his arms are constantly trying to fight for more room. You can't say I'm not providing a spacious home. Then they told me the size. 6 pounds 14 ounces. Actually, I wasn't the least bit surprised. Cameron measured 7 pounds 3 ounces at this stage. Then with the numbers crunched, "You due date still looks like October 26." Excuse me? Don't toy with my emotions at this point. "You mean November 5?" The tech comes back with, "All of my measurements calculate the 26th as your due date, but of course the measurements could be off by about a pound or so." Too late...thought formulated.

I waltzed into the doctor's office for my pelvic exam, and I can't concentrate. I'm not sure what I was supposed to concentrate on, but I needed to not think about an earlier due date. The doctor examines me, "Two, very close to three centimeters dilated." My exact response was, "What the hell?" Thought permanently etched in my mind. I was instructed that being that dilated really didn't mean any earlier of a due date, but now I'm living in this crazy paranoid world.

Every time I squat to pick up Cameron I'm waiting for my water to break. Every time I vacuum or mop I start having "contractions." Any time Brian leaves I'm formulating a "plan of action" in case I go into labor. I shouldn't shop for groceries thinking what if my water breaks. Do I abandon a cart full of groceries and head for the exit? Do I mention a clean up on aisle 7 to one of the employees, but not mention what exactly he would be cleaning up? Or would I press my luck and just check out like nothing ever happened? Things to think about.

Just fun