1 year ago: Henry's birth story in photos

It's been a year. One full, wonderful, amazing year and it seems like it was just yesterday and it seems like we've never been without him.

It's been a year and I haven't posted his birth story. I'm going to start writing it today. I still get emotional when I think about the drama of Henry's birth and maybe that's why I still haven't written it down. For now, here's a photographic look back at one year ago today (starting with what I did just before the birth started).

A trip to the salon. Good thing I did that because I wouldn't go again until 8 months later.

Hope's graduation from preschool. I think my laughing (to the point of almost losing control of my faculties) at Hope exposing herself in a church to approximately 200 people is what caused my water to break that night.

Preparing for the homebirth that didn't happen.

Walking to the hospital for IV #2. We didn't leave the hospital again until Henry was in our arms.

My amazing midwife, Mina, hooks up the IV for the penicillin. Dang that GBS. Gets me every time.

Getting a little help from John.

Looking a lot more chipper than I was probably feeling.

After the epidural (it ended up being the right decision as I had to push him out extremely fast to get him breathing again... 4 minutes of pushing and he was out. That's when I thanked God for the epidural).

Almost ready to push. He was actually born at 4:30 - the clock there is just before 4:00.

First photo of Henry. This part doesn't bring back great memories. He wasn't moving or breathing but they had him pink and screaming a few minutes later. The longest few minutes of our lives.

See? Pink and screaming.

And huge. 3.96 kilos. 8 lbs 11 oz.

First moments with Daddy.

Measuring time. I love the squishy pinkness of just-born babies.

First moments with Mummy. That grey hair was earned during your birth, Henry.

First moments with Aunt Sue. John's sister was there for the labour and delivery. She is massage therapist extraordinaire and was so amazing through the whole thing.

First feeding.

And ready to eat again.

Henry's path of destruction

I think I need some cupboard locks... or a housekeeper.

T-ball rundown

It was cold out there, folks. The wind was whipping. The skies were grey. The ground was soggy. In fact, the ground was nowhere to be seen.


Being the tough and seasoned players that they are, the team pulled together and threw together a makeshift diamond right next to this pond, using car floor mats as bases and fueling themselves with spit and gumption. It was a tough game, the crowds were surly and the scoring was high. After two innings, the game was done. Even though it had been a hard slog, the two teams met at the pitcher's mound to shake hands.

And eat freezies.

All right, so Sports Illustrated is unlikely to call me anytime soon. But it's good enough for 4-year-old t-ball.

The day really turned out great after a pretty rough start. Hope walked in to meet her team and get the photos done in a nearby arena and after finding out that her coach was a man, she promptly sought shelter behind my legs. She came out only after a lot of prodding by me and then broke into tears and stayed in tears until the end of the photo session thirty minutes later. She wasn't able to pull it together for her individual photo but she was able to sit through the team photo albeit with the biggest pout that you ever did see. The photographer told me that we'd try the individual photo again after the team photo because in his experience (and I gather that he's had a lot) that usually works to bring reluctant kids around. He was right. She even smiled.

We followed that up with hot chocolate (a bribe for that smile) and we headed out to the game and it was like a new kid was beside me. A new, old kid. The old Hope that I had been looking for a few minutes before. All smiles, laughs and excitement to try something new and exciting (but not too exciting - she's not a total thrill-seeker). She loved t-ball. I think it's going to be a great few weeks.


More photos of our first t-ball day can be seen on Flickr.

T-ball

Hope is starting t-ball today. She us UBER excited as this is her first year. She was supposed to play two weeks ago and then last week but all the rain this spring meant that the City of Ottawa couldn't allow players on the diamonds until this week. So today is her first (make-up) game and team photo. And guess what?

Yup, it's raining. And cold.

We're taking a giant golf umbrella and a big thermos of hot chocolate.

And great attitudes!

New favourite: beet hummus

While I was in Austin, my sister whipped up a batch of beet hummus, a concoction I'd never tasted before. It only took one loaded cracker to have me hooked. During my first grocery shop after I got home, I picked up two mammoth beets and last night I made my first batch.

It's extremely easy... if you have a food processor.... and an oven. And it is so good with veggies or crackers or pita or whatever hummus delivery vehicle you like.

Beet hummus

Roughly chop lots of beets and place in roasting pan with water. Cover with tin foil and roast at 350F until cooked through. Place beets in food processor with two large tablespoons of tahina (or to taste... I like a lot of tahina), one or two cloves of chopped garlic, and the juice of at least one lemon (again to taste) and salt and pepper. Blend until a hummusy consistency. Delicious!

I've succumbed

I made the decision a while ago that I wouldn't become an e-reader user. I love to read and I also love the experience of reading. I love turning real pages of real books; I love dog-earring the page to mark my place; I love the smell of the pages; I love browsing the shelves of the library or, if I'm feeling really indulgent, a bookstore (I say indulgent because if I'm in a bookstore I find it almost impossible to leave without buying a book and with a library literally a ten-minute walk away it is indeed indulgent to spend money on books); I love reading in bed, laying down, not propped up on pillows.

But I have an iPad now and with an iPad comes the ability to download thousands of great apps (and lots of not-so-great ones). Kindle and Kobo are two of the free apps that are available. So, given what I said above, what did I do?

I put those suckers on my iPad quicker than you can say Luddite.

My first reason was curiosity. I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about even though I felt I'd made up my own mind about them. My second reason was that I'm going through a short list of Victorian classics that I've somehow never read (Jane Eyre is the bomb!) and I'm having serious trouble getting them at my local library and I know that they're free through Kobo.

I may also have purchased The Postmistress and The Hunger Games.

And so I cuddled up with my iPad two nights ago in bed and started reading The Postmistress. After two nights reading in bed with my iPad I have short list of pros and cons. Mainly short on the cons.

Pros

1. No heavy books to prop up while I'm laying down
2. The light the iPad gives off eliminates the need for a reading light (which I haven't had for a while thus annoying John as I turn on my table lamp every night while he is trying to sleep beside me)
3. I can switch to a different book very easily if the mood strikes

Cons

1. Laying down reading with an iPad isn't very comfortable.

I can find my way around the Con here. I can start sitting up to read or I can save my iPad reading for the living room, deck etc (if my kids will stop playing the cookie baking game on it long enough for me to get my hands on it). I can see why people who travel a lot love their e-reader. I'm going to be loving it at the cottage this summer and on our trip to New Brunswick in a few weeks.

My assessment so far is that it's pretty cool and it will definitely have its place in my reading life but it won't completely replace the traditional book for me especially since, while I'm an avid reader, I'm also a frugal one and prefer to get my books for free at the library.

Do you have an e-reader? Do you like it? Love it? Wish you'd never bought it?

Happy Mother's Day and happy birthday to me

Today is my birthday. I'm 39 years old.

As a kid I didn't like having my birthday so close to Mother's Day every year. I felt like I had to share the spotlight. Selfish, I know but what kid wouldn't be? Now that I'm a mother, I love having my birthday right around Mother's Day because instead of two smaller gifts, I almost always get one larger gift. And John has been on a roll the last few years. This year he has outdone himself.

In fact I'm posting this from my gift: my new iPad.

LOVING IT!!!

I'm trying out the Blogsy app. So far it is much better than the iPhone app Blogpress. I'll give a fuller review after I play around a bit more.

And while I remain a traditionalist about books, I did find myself reading from the Kobo app before going to sleep last night. I can't see myself using my iPad for my bedtime reading frequently but it will be great for reading in the living room while ignoring my children. Especially today when I plan to have lots of tea, reading and by the end of the day, a martini of some sort. I am almost 40 after all.

Austin Days 4 and 5

Yesterday was another hot day in Austin - I think it was about 34 degrees and very humid. My hair is suffering badly here - it's dry and frizzy and totally unruly and not in a I-meant-for-it-to-look-like-I-spent-no-time-on-it kind of way. I've completely given up on my hair here. I have very long, big, curly hair. It is not suited to humidity. To put it mildly. If I lived in an extremely humid climate full-time, I would have one step short of a brush cut.

We stayed around home yesterday morning. Kate and I used a cereal box and some toilet paper tubes and a paper bag to make her an awesome space jet pack and space helmet and then we played Astronaut Kate. I was Mission Control. Her bunk was the spacecraft. It was just a little bit fun.

After lunch we all - Beth, Graeme, Owen, Kate, Henry and I - went to a local outdoor pool that was open for the season. We pretty much had the wading pool to ourselves. The water was chilly at first but the kids all got used to it quickly and had a great time. It was Henry's first time "swimming" outside of a bathtub. He wanted to ease into the pool but after a bit he couldn't get enough of it.

After the boys' afternoon naps (we've relished in the boys having the same daytime sleep schedule), we went to a pizza party at friends of Beth and Graeme's. There were a few families there - they have a habit of getting together for pizza nights every so often - the kids had a great time playing, we all sat outside and had wine and good food and laughed, laughed, laughed. Given that we pushed well past the normal kiddie bedtime, the kids did great. The evening ended on a high note with a sing-a-long of The Gambler with guitar accompaniment. You know it's a good night when it ends with The Gambler.

Today was hot again. And humid again. While Henry slept this morning, I spent a lovely hour and a half doing our taxes. I rewarded myself with a noon-hour spritzer mixed by Beth and a lunch of cowboy steak grilled by Graeme. After lunch we loaded Kate and Henry behind the bikes and made our way to the UT area for a small (and extremely cool) craft show that Beth's friend was part of. All the vendors were Etsy sellers from Austin who had been handpicked for this show. There was lots of cool jewellery and vintage clothing and kitchen stuff. I found a really pretty glass necklace for myself for seven - yes, seven - dollars and a stocking stuffer for each of the girls. From there we biked onto campus to make a stop at the turtle pond, right behind the UT Tower. The pond is chalk full of turtles of all sizes and about 3 or 4 different breeds. It was very cool. Emily and Hope would have loved it. It is on our list of stops the next time they are here. After the turtle pond, we biked home for the next nap. While Beth and I were inside settling the boys into their beds, a weather front blew in that made the temperature drop about 15 degrees in as many minutes. Beth knew this was coming... she'd read about it in the forecast. Apparently this is not unusual in Austin when a front comes in. It is really something to experience. Beth says even Austinites find it crazy.

Crazy, yes, but oh, so refreshing to sit on the front porch in jeans and feel cool. I will enjoy sleeping with the windows open, no fan on, and shivering.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Austin. We don't have any big plans but I'd like to bike some more (I'm really enjoying biking around town, which I've done lots of times before in Austin... I forgot how much I loved it) and maybe do some cooking or baking for Beth for the week.

One big strawberry

and one less tooth!

John sent me this photo this morning. So adorable!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Austin Days 2 and 3

Yesterday, Day 2, was all about hooping, hula hooping that is. In the morning after brekkie we walked over to the local bakery, Quarks, and got treats before heading to the local park. I did my usual, chatting with friendly local Austin parents. In the afternoon while the boys slept, Beth, Kate and I hooped. I still have some skills but now there are tricks! And lasso moves! And twirls! And booty bumps! On my list of to-dos when I get home is to build 3 hoops for the girls and me.

Beth arranged a babysitter from 5:00 to 7:00 so we could go out for happy hour. We went to a great Mexican place that we biked to where we had Mexican martinis that had a jalepeno stuffed inside the olive, jicama sticks, incredible chicken wings, grilled cactus and lots of other taste sensations.

Today was THE BIG DAY. Beth and I were in front of the computer at 5:00 watching Kate and Wills tie the knot while scrutinizing the fashion choices made by the guests. Biggest fashion criminal was Princess Beatrice with her antelope fascinator.

After the wedding we dropped Kate at preschool and walked along dried-up Shoal Creek. We stopped at my favorite Austin bookstore, Book People, where I bought several gifts to take home and then made one more stop at Whole Earth Provision, my other favorite Austin store before heading back to get Kate.

Thus afternoon was chillaxin and trying to make it to supper without passing out due to exhaustion.

Beth's friend Laura Sue (Kate's surrogate grandmother) joined us for dinner at Julio's for Amazing roast chicken and wickedly strong Mexican martinis. Needless, there was a lot of loud talking and laughing. Henry dumped a glass of ice water in my crotch and I didn't flinch. I was feeling that good.

Tomorrow: swimming and a pizza party?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Austin Day 1

I won't go into my travel day to Austin. As usual it was riddled with flight delays and a baby unwilling to nap on the plane. However, Henry remained in a great mood throughout and entertained everyone around him on the flight. And due to a long delay in Chicago I got a workout in as I walked every concourse multiple times. If you know that airport, you know that means I had some serious time on my hands.

Yesterday was my first full day here. Kate went to preschool for the morning while Beth and I and the two boys hung out around home. We washed the car, got the boys to nap and went and picked up a minivan for the week. The rest of the day was playing around home. In the evening we went for a walk to the Intramural Fields with the dog after all the kiddies were asleep.

Today we plan to take the kids to the library by bike and go to Happy Hour sans kids later. That will likely be my favorite part of today.

And for all those of you in the great white north, it was 34 degrees C here yesterday. Heh heh.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The impetus I needed

Participating in Andrea's Photo An Hour game yesterday got me back in the blogging habit for twelve hours or so or at least reminded me how much I enjoy it and need to get back in the habit on a more permanent basis. It also showed me that I can get used to posting through Blogpress on my iPhone if that's the only way I can get posts up frequently. Although I also find that my writing isn't quite as poetic when I'm thumbing. Must be all the cramping and the perpetually sticky screen.

Today I have a very long list of "to-do's" because tomorrow Henry and I are flying TO TEXAS! Oh yes we are!

So of course at the top of my list to do today is:













Not packing, laundry or shopping. Oh no. It's making strawberry jam. I've had two batches of crushed berries in the freezer from our spring picking last year in Waterloo since.... well, since our spring picking. We ran out of jam this week causing a fairly large meltdown from Hope over jamless bagel and so this is priority number one today.

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Hourly Photo Project, Easter Sunday 2011

I'm participating in the Fishbowl's Hourly Photo Project today. I'll be taking a photo at the top of the hour all day long of whatever I, or we, happen to be doing at the time.

6:00 a.m. First order of business



7:00 Shower time


8:00 am


9:00. Arriving at church for Easter breakfast


10:00 waiting for church to begin


11:00. Church about to begin


12:00. Post-service



1:00 pm. Teatime



2:00 pm. Emily shows me her wiggly tooth



3:00. Hope's Easter ensemble. It's always an event when she gets dressed.



4:00. All set



5:00 pm



7:00


7:30.... and look what happened! (this deserved a half-hour photo)



8:00

9:00 Forgotten eggs


10:00



11:00


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thumbing

I really don't like blogging from my phone but I've come to the realization that if I don't post from my phone, I don't really post at all. And so here I am, thumbing away while Henry plays with my necklace on the floor and I make all kinds of typos. I need an iPad. My birthday is in 3 weeks. Just sayin'.

I have a few Powys that have to get up here: a few stories from my time in Edmonton, a post on the course I just finished, another one about Henry and maybe one about the baking business.

But right now Henry has lost all interest in my necklace and my thumbs are getting tired.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Heading West

I got word on Monday morning during my class at Carleton that my grandmother - my dad's mum - died on Sunday night. My grandma was 88 and not in good health. She'd had Alzheimer's Disease for about 7 years. I'm glad her suffering is over.

I lived with my grandma and grandpa for 4 months from September to December 1995. I was on a work-term from my program at the University of Waterloo. I was working at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. My grandparents lived in Sherwood Park, Alberta - a very short commute into Edmonton. It was a great four months. I got to know my grandparents so much better and I spent a lot of time - mainly laughing, eating pretzels and playing cards - with my uncle and aunt at their house which was a short bike ride away. I was really lucky to have had the opportunity to spend that kind of time with my grandparents. I heard a lot of stories from both of them that I hadn't heard before. I helped Grandma in the kitchen. We talked a lot. My favourite stories from Grandma were about living in Saskatchewan during the Depression. She told me about men coming to the back door asking for food after hopping off the nearby trains. She also told me about she and her brother, Uncle Bob and her dad riding bikes around all the country roads on Sunday afternoon. She told me about her very grumpy grandmother who she never saw smile. Grandma laughed a lot. She was almost always knitting something. She loved to travel. She said that maybe growing up by the railway tracks gave her "itchy feet."

She didn't always have the easiest life but she greeted each day smiling. She made the best bread. She made an amazing beef stew with dumplings. She had a killer recipe for cappuccino muffins. She was particular about how the dishwasher was loaded. (Terrible photo below but all I can dig up at short notice.)


I'm looking forward to talking about her next week with everyone and hearing other people's stories.

I have to admit, I'm not looking forward to a two-hour time change with a baby. Five a.m. is going to come very early.

As an aside, I will be the one on the WestJet flight hauling a full case of Girl Guide cookies as my carry-on. My family out west has demanded that I bring a case for them to buy, which I think is amazing, and also very very funny. We Reyburns really like our baked goods.

The Sugarplum Fairy dons a bunny suit

I've decided to branch out of being a one-season Fairy and try my hand wooden spoon at the Easter Season.

I have updated my Sugarplum Fairy blog. If you are in the Ottawa area and are itching for some homebaking (gluten-free available now as well!), please contact me! All my particulars are on The Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking site.

What recipes do you think of when you think of Easter? I find everyone has different opinions on this and I would love to hear about your Easter baking traditions (and possibly glean some ideas from them!).

The March Break I'd rather forget

My last post was so full of naive optimism. Since then I have become a dark and brooding soul, ripe with cynicism, dark humour and biting sarcasm.

At least in theory. Truth is, I'm still my peppy and perky self. Now that March Break, otherwise known as The Week I'd Rather Forget, is over.

To backtrack, we decided to go to my dad's in Gravenhurst - about 4 hours from Ottawa - from Tuesday to Friday last week. We got out of town about an hour later than we would have liked... which was fully expected because we always get out of town an hour later than we would have liked.

The kids were asking to watch videos literally 2 kilometres from our driveway. I should have known then that this would become The Trip from Hell. We should have turned around at that very moment.

We stopped seven times - yes, seven - on the way there banking a 6.5 hour trip. We stopped twice to feed Henry, once for lunch, twice because Hope thought she was going to throw up, once because I drank too much tea, and another time for who knows why. Henry did not sleep ONCE during the trip. We had to completely reorganize seating because Hope's tummy was very jumbly in the back. WARNING, WARNING! Did we turn back for home? Nope. Did John say outloud "I forsee this being a total disaster" and I say "you are such a glass half-empty person!"? Yes and yes. Was that the foreshadowing that had this been a movie would have left the audience screaming DON'T GO IN THERE at the screen? Oh yes it was.

We finally get to the bumpy, curvy road going into my dad's house. (FORESHADOWING, FORESHADOWING!) We're literally 500 metres from his door when Hope's face turns white and then green and then she projectile vomits all over herself, her car seat and bits of the car. We had about 3 seconds warning which was enough time to stop the car and watch helplessly as she showered herself in Wendy's french fries and ketchup. Luckily, I thought, no one ever drives on this road so it's okay that we're completely blocking this single-lane road. Oh Sweet Jesus, will I ever learn?

That's when man-in-Oldsmobile drove up behind us.

As I'm holding vomit-covered Hope in front of me at arm's length, I'm simultaneously explaining to man-in-Oldsmobile that one of our children just upchucked all over herself.

The look on his face was a cross between disgust and pity.

I stripped Hope down to her underwear and she sat on my lap in the front seat until we got to my dad's door. Emily, always looking for the up side (her mother's daughter) said: "Hope you're so lucky!" I'm thinking Hope wasn't feeling so lucky at that moment as liquid lunch dripped off her chin. I'm all about the visuals, people.

Arriving at the house, Hope went straight into the shower, washing away all the bad mojo we'd accumulated on the drive up. Time to start fresh! Right? Right?

Wrong.

That night Henry was up SEVEN times. The next day Hope whined all day and then puked at the end of the day at which point we realized she wasn't car sick, she was just plain sick. John threw his back out. He is still walking crooked. Hope declared her bed "not comfy" (a declaration I heard way too many times that week from her) and Emily moved into bed with me, John moved to the futon, Hope moved to the bed Emily was in. I got up 6 times that night and the rest of the night I was serenaded with Emily's teeth-grinding. Henry scraped his knuckles to bloody on the sides of his playpen simply because it made a cool sound (so he tells me). On the plus side, I baked bread in the stone bake oven which was really fun and we went in the hot tub on the deck many times. Donna even served me a glass of wine while I was in there at one point (alone!). I think that was the highlight of the week for me.

The next day was the good day: tobogganing (no one puked! Hope was happy!), walk on the lake, hot tub. Bad part: visit to the Muskoka Wildlife Centre which should have been good but Hope whined the ENTIRE TIME. The rest of us thoroughly enjoyed the place though.

When we got home, Hope hurled.

Next day... time to go home. The Griswalds pulled away. Drive home, 6.5 hours. Great lunch in Bancroft. No extra stops. Drove a beautiful route on the Opeongo Road. Had tea but didn't have to stop an extra time (still can't figure out then why it took us the same amount of time to get back as it took to get up there but whatev). NO ONE PUKED.

As much as I love going up there, sitting in the hot tub, playing in the snow, visiting my dad and Donna, someone will have to SHOW ME THE MONEY to get me to leave home for March Break for many years to come.

I need a holiday. Can we get a do-over?

Yes, of course there were some fun moments. If only there was less puke, more sleep, less pain. I have put some photos below to give you some moments (mostly good) from The Week I'd Rather Forget.

Hope and Henry sharing a puke-free moment on our first day in Gravenhurst.

Emily staying under the radar lest the Universe comes to get her, too.

A really fun morning of tobogganing. This was the first smile from Hope in a while.

Another smile! Tobogganing saved our trip for a while.

At the Muskoka Wildlife Centre. Lest you think Hope is looking for a dropped contact lens, she's actually refusing to move because she feels like stink.

Pretty much the happiest look she could muster.

Happy in the hot tub on the morning we were heading home. The hot tub was the other happy place. Especially for John's back.