The Elusive Lion

Zach's absolute favorite toy right now is his little Fisher Price lion. This lion goes to the park, to bed, to the bath, to the table, basically everywhere Zach goes. About 2 weeks ago the little guy decided to play hide-and-seek with Zach. Zach was pretty distraught about the missing lion and I told him I'd help him find it once I finished feeding Caleb. With a lion that needed finding Zach was anything but patient but the little guy had no choice.

After finishing with Caleb I decided that this would be a good opportunity to teach Zach more about prayer. He's been enthusiastically helping us say prayers from time to time but I wanted him to see prayer in action. I told Zach we were going to say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to help us find the lion. After the prayer I decided to look under Derrick's side of our bed halfway between the foot and the head. I lifted up the dust ruffle (is that what it's called?) and waiting exactly on the other side was the lion! I'd gone straight to it. I called Zach in and had him look under the bed. His excitement at finding the lion there was priceless! I told him that Heavenly Father answered our prayer and helped us find the lion so we should say another one to thank Him. Zach's smile just got bigger and bigger. I love teaching moments with Zach and that he's getting old enough to respond to them! I'm also so grateful for a Father in Heaven who loves us and cares enough to help a little boy find his missing lion.

Happy to have his lion back

This facial expression cracks me up

A few more pictures for the grandparents. Can you find the lion in each one?

Zach got to help me make taco soup. His contributions were emptying the cans into the crock pot, stirring, and eating every cold bean he could before I made him get down. Gross.

The lion joined our family home evening lesson about Lehi and his family leaving all they had in Jerusalem in order to follow the Lord and needing to live in a tent.

Zach's recipe to get 2 of your favorite lion.

Tuesday morning

Step 1: Bring lion with you when your mom drags you visiting teaching with you.

Step 2: Sneak the lion into the diaper bag or car seat brought by your mom's companion who has to rush out the door before the end of the visit.

Step 3: Casually watch your mom search the lady's house and maybe "help" throw blankets or books on the floor.

Tuesday to Saturday

Step 4: Continually ask and/or cry for your lion even after you've been told several times your lion went to live at someone else's house.

Step 5: Expectantly go several times to the spot under your parent's bed where you found your lion after praying for help and be very disappointed you don't always find it there.

Step 6: Continue to miss your lion so much your parents order you a new one off of eBay.

Sunday

Step 7: Hang out with friends including your mom's visiting teaching companion who casually hands your mom your lion.

Step 8: Enjoy your victory once your second lion arrives in the mail on Tuesday.

Caleb's Grand Entrance

This post is LONG but I wanted to remember the details. I broke it down into parts so it's easier to skip to specific parts if anyone's interested.

Thursday, July 15 - I went to the doctor found out I was dilated to a 2+ and felt a few regular contractions. I also passed the mucous plug. I called my mom and told her she'd probably want to fly out as soon as possible since Zach came within 24 hours of passing the mucous plug last time. She bought a ticket and her flight that got in about 1:00 a.m. Friday morning.

Friday, July 16

Getting things going - Since I had my mom fly out so quickly I wanted to go into labor soon so I wouldn't feel like I jumped the gun on calling her. Zach and I had a dance party which lately requires multiple requests for "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys. He loves singing the "ba ba ba" part. I did some cleaning, bouncing on an exercise ball, and we took a trip to Walmart to walk around for awhile. All day my stomach felt weird and ached.

To the Hospital (9:30 p.m.) - It'd felt like my water may have been leaking all day so we decided to head to the hospital and get things checked out after getting Zach to bed. (Side note: It was such a relief to have my mom here to stay with him. My biggest fear going into the delivery experience had been what to do with Zach when we were at the hospital.) I was feeling a lot of pressure and was pretty uncomfortable but wasn't having any regular contractions yet. Derrick's brother Jamon and and sister-in-law Jean were at the hospital already. By coincidence we were put in rooms next door to each other. After getting hooked up to some monitors the nurse checked to see if my water had broken and sadly it hadn't. Apparently the wetness I felt was the continued drainage of passing the mucous plug. I was not happy and was afraid we were going to be sent home. I did not want to wait any longer for this baby to come.

Waiting (10:30 p.m.)- The nurse called the doctor and told me that since I was at a 4 they'd keep me overnight and see how I progressed. I got hooked up to an IV and was left to wait. Derrick and his brother got to go back and forth between the rooms to see how things were going for the other's wife. Through the night contractions were irregular. For a couple of hours they were 1 to 2 minutes apart but then stopped around 4:00 a.m.. I didn't get much sleep that night because I was too worried about being sent home. When I kept myself uncomfortable or got up and walked around, I could sometime get some weak contractions going.

Saturday, July 17

Breaking my water (7:00 a.m.) - The on-call doctor checked me out and though I wasn't contracting anymore, I had dilated up to a 6. Rather than send me home she broke my water for me. That was a strange feeling. She stuck this instrument that looked like a crochet hook and gently scratched at the membrane. When it broke it felt like a big water balloon popped inside me. Breaking my water caused me to immediately dilate from a 6 to an 8 and got contractions started again. They started getting pretty intense so I decided to get an epidural.

Getting the epidural (7:30 a.m.) - This was the worst part of the experience. Derrick had to leave the room for 45 minutes because here in Texas they have a law against letting the husband remain in the room while the epidural is being administered. Apparently one husband had a freak accident where he passed out, hit his head, and died. Talk about a traumatic labor and delivery experience for the soon-to-be mom. Instead of getting to have Derrick with me, some random nurse I'd just barely met started holding my hands which was more weird than comforting. Unlike last time, I had to sit up and hunch over during the process. That was probably the most uncomfortable position to be in when you're having hard contractions. On the first attempt to poke me, the needle pierced a blood vessel or something and my heart rate shot up 40 bpm in just seconds. The anesthesiologist had to undo all the tape she just applied and re-poke me again.

More waiting (8:30 a.m.) - I was about to be put on pitocin to speed things up when the doctor decided that there were too many babies coming at once that morning. In order to keep things from getting too crazy for herself she'd wait to hurry me along. Our sister-in-law was one of these moms and gave birth to a little girl around 9:00 a.m. While we were waiting my contractions slowed down again and stopped. I was so frustrated!

Pitocin (around 12:30 p.m.) - Once put on pitocin the contractions started up fast. They came every couple of minutes and were usually off the chart. Because of the epidural I could feel enough pressure to know I was having a contraction but thankfully no pain. Within half an hour I started feeling so much pressure down below that it felt like Caleb was going to pop out on his own.

Pushing (around 1:00 p.m.) - We called the nurse to let her know that it felt like the baby was coming and after checking me she immediately called in the doctor and setting up the room for delivery. After pushing through one contraction Caleb's head was poking out. We waited for the next contraction and part way through it Caleb popped out (1:17 p.m.). The doctor was surprised by how big he was (he weighed 8 lbs 9 oz). Apparently Caleb's size was what made it so I had such a hard time progressing on my own.

Meeting Caleb (1:18 p.m.) - After using a nasal aspirator to suck out all the gunk in Caleb's nose and mouth, Derrick got to cut the umbilical cord. Caleb was then set straight on me in all his slimey glory. It was amazing to just look at him and know he was mine. Caleb was so tiny, warm, and cuddly and figured out how to eat like a pro. After cleaning me up (I needed 2 or 3 stitches) the doctors and nurses left us to spend time together as a family for an hour before taking Caleb away to the nursery for several hours. My mom brought Zach to the hospital after dinner while Zach showed a little interest in Caleb, he had more fun climbing all over me and trying to push buttons.

Huggies Baby Look-a-like?

Caleb's Baby Blessing

On Sunday two weeks after Caleb was born we were joined by family and friends as Derrick exercised the priesthood and gave Caleb a beautiful baby blessing. Thanks so much to both sets of parents, Jamon, Jean, Annabel, and Tara for coming to support us! After church we took tons of pictures outside and then went to our apartment for brunch. We had mixed berry stuffed french toast and parfaits that tasted amazing!

It's hard to find a blessing outfit that fits a 2 week old :).

Annabel and Caleb - the twin cousins. Annabel was blessed back at our apartment.

The easiest way to get Zach to be in a picture with us is to keep his feet off the ground.

With so many babies around Zach is looking way too grown up. It doesn't help that his height makes him the size of an average 4 year old (according to the pediatrician).

Random Thoughts on the Past Few Weeks

Wow, it's been forever since I've posted on here. I keep thinking of posts to do but then remember all the more pressing things I need to get to. It's definitely an adjustment moving from being the mom of one cute little boy to being the mom of two cute little boys. Zach and Caleb keep me busy and seem to have this agreement not to sleep at the same time.

After the first 6 weeks things seem to be getting a little easier. I can usually handle both boys on my own (until they're both hungry and sleepy at the same time) and I've started being brave enough to take both boys places without Derrick there to help me. I love being able to get out of the house again during the day.

Zach's had some rough moments adjusting to sharing me but has adjusted so well for the most part. He usually ignores Caleb unless Caleb's onesie has an animal on it or he decides to poke and identify Caleb's different facial features. I did catch him stepping on Caleb and laughing one time but thankfully that was a one time occurrence and Caleb was too busy sleeping to care.

It seems like time is passing even faster with two kids than with one. Though I'm completely exhausted most of the time I'm loving being a mom and love having Caleb as a part of our family. Derrick's been an amazing help and is an amazing dad.

For those of you who don't check Facebook, here are a few pictures from July.

Introducing Caleb William Bowen

Caleb was born at 1:17pm on July 17, 2010.

Delivery went smoothly and mother and baby are both doing very well. We depart the hospital tomorrow. Enjoy some pics!

My brother and sister-in-law had their baby about 4 hours before us in the same hospital. By coincidence they were in the labor and delivery room next to us. The nurses had fun with that.

And here's some pics that make it look like Zach really liked the baby instead of just watching his movies and climbing on mommy the whole time:

Maternity Pictures

(These will be a repeat for anyone who's on Facebook but I thought I'd post them here for those of you who aren't on Facebook.)

This past weekend Derrick, Zach, and I went out at two different times to take some maternity shots. It was hard trying to get Zach to cooperate so most of the ones of the two of us involve me holding him in some way :). I'm now 38 weeks along so hopefully our little boy will be joining us within the next 2 weeks. I can't wait to meet him!

Kisses for "the baby in mama's tummy"

Zach bolted for the playground as fast as his little legs could carry him after this picture

Bye Zach!

This is my favorite of Zach's facial expressions

Birthday Celebrations for the 2 Year Old

We had a great time celebrating Zach's birthday this year. He seemed a little confused by the whole birthday idea but loved all the attention. Every time we sang him the birthday song he'd get an excited look on his face and then ask us to sing it again. We blew up some balloons and put up a sign for him. Zach loved it when we'd blow up a balloon for him then give it to him to let it fly around the room. Maybe we'll save money on presents and just give him empty balloons next year. It was also fun to see him keep looking up at the sign throughout the day and get a big smile on his face. Simple pleasures right?

We had a small family party for Zach this year since we don't know very many people around here yet. Jamon and Jean (Derrick's brother and sister-in-law) came over for the celebrations. We had a dance party, opened presents, and had monkey cake. Zach loved all the presents and people were very generous. Some of his presents include: a bull dozer, a bouncing horse, an alphabet zoo with a different animal for every letter, a puzzle, a magna doodle, and some new dinosaurs. Zach kept letting out these great shrieks of delight with each gift and was a pro at unwrapping things.

For the cake I used a wheat-free chocolate cake mix and just had to substitute out the eggs. It turned out pretty tasty, just a little denser than normal cake. Zach liked the cake so much he even ignored his ice cream - something which is unheard of for Zach. Since Zach's our little monkey boy and his favorite animal of the moment is a monkey, we decided to add some monkey-ness to the birthday.

The monkey cake. I didn't feel brave enough to try fondant so I used cream cheese frosting instead.

A new monkey shirt I designed and appliquéd for him. I got really sick and went to the hospital for a few hours the weekend before Zach's birthday so this didn't get finished until a few days later.

Zach is at such a fun age and we love having him in our family. Here are a few of his quirks that I want to remember:

- Zach is finally starting to show some interested in learning to say new words but still speaks in animal noises about half the time.

- Zach's most frequent request is for "more juice".

- For some reason he loves running in circles on the area rug in our front room and laughing like crazy. He even loves doing this nakey after bath time until we pin him down to get him dressed.

- Zach loves watching movies of himself on our computer. He calls them Zach movies.

- Zach loves to color with crayons. He's always pulling out his crayons and notebook and asking us to draw specific animals for him to color on. Lately he feels the need to add a hat and glasses to each one.

- Zach's pretty diligent about taking any trash he finds and throwing it away. Too bad he can't seem to remember which cupboard holds the trash can so he'll sometimes put trash in a pan or let it just drop to the floor in a random cupboard.

- When he gets excited he'll let out these bursts of laughter

- In the morning or after a nap I get greeted by streams of "ma ma ma ma da da da da"

- Zach's started "helping" us put our shoes on when he wants us to hurry up. He'll even try to pick up a foot and guide the flip flop on.

- We have to keep the front door locked because the only door he knows how to open is that one.

- Zach is obsessed with swinging. This is quite the contrast from being scared of them last summer.

- Zach has finally started to give kisses. He'll put his mouth up to whatever he's giving a kiss to and say "mwah!" We're still waiting for him to get the actual kissing action down but gotta love the sound effect.

Fun in the Sun

With how hot and humid it is here in Houston, we've been living in our swimsuits when we brave going outside. During one visit to a splash pad I entertained myself by snapping some candid shots of Zach. Enjoy.