Summer fun

We fenced in our backyard this spring and got a castle and a swing set for the kids to play on and a comfy set of furniture for the parents to relax on. It has been great having a fenced yard so I can safely take all 3 kids out to play when I am by myself.

We got a blow up pool this summer which gave the kids hours of amusement. It was particularily popular at their 3rd birthday party. It met an unfortunate end when it ended up at our neighbours house (two down and across the road) during a large wind storm.

Tony and Vinnie, our horses, are very popular around here. The kids love going out to help feed them. We have been getting 50 pound bags of carrots lately and Anna and Alex have great fun throwing those out to the horses. They also love (Evan too) raking and using the hay fork to clean up the hay in the barn.

The water tables and mixer that Anna and Alex got for their 2nd birthday were once again well used this summer. Evan loved them too. All 3 of them spent many many hours playing in the water with toys, splashing and having fun.

We got the chance to get to the shore a few times this summer and the kids loved walking in the water and throwing rocks. The Bay of Fundy is a bit too cold to do much swimming though. Next summer we will take a trip to the sandy beaches on the South Shore.

We all love berries and we have managed to pick lots this summer. Blackberries by the shore, blueberries at Mount Uniacke Park and cranberries in our back yard. Yum Yum!

We have gotten the chance to visit with friends this summer. One of the twins best friends is our neighbour. She is a hoot, and loves playing with them and her younger brothers and sisters.

We have spent many days doing crafts and art activities this summer too. Playdough, coloring, drawing, water colors, fingerpainting, playing with glue, scissors and stickers. We have had loads of fun. I try to do some arts and crafts every couple of days with the kids. They love it.

The kids love music. They have a load of different instruments including a walk on piano mat, real guitars, recorders,xylophones,drums, whistles,tambourines etc. While visiting Grammy Olga they had a chance to spend an hour or so playing with a drum teacher. They loved listening to her play and trying some stuff out for themselves.

Pony rides at Grammy Olga's were a big highlight this summer!

Getting outside to play in the woods and in wide open spaces where it is safe to run and run is always a favorite. This was at the bottom of Casey's field, after a long hike up almost to the top and a slow walk back down the steep hills.

We got a chance to go to the exhibition this summer too. It was a load of fun seeing things from the kids perspective. They loved the little kid rides, seeing all the animals, eating the greasy food and watching the shows in the ring.

Hiking

One of our favorite things to do as a family is to go for hikes in the woods.  We live close to a large park with trails through the woods and around the lake, and have explored much of it.  We also go for walks around home or at some of our friends houses.  I think everyone in our family needs to spend time outdoors and in the woods to be happy.

Upates (long overdue)

 Alex turned 3 in July.  He has magically become a "big" boy lately.  I have found such a change in both he and in Anna since they turned 3.  He still finds sharing hard, and likes to get his way when it comes to toys, BUT he is very empathetic and feels great concern for other people.  If someone is hurt, he is the first to ask if they are okay.   We have been hiking a lot lately, which Alex loves.  He is often out in the lead for most of the hike, stopping to let the rest of us catch up.    He has soooooo much energy and loves to be active.

 Miss Anna also turned 3 in July.  She is so grown up acting some times, although we also have moments when she seems like she is more 13 than 3 (not in a good way).  Anna loves art (they both do) and has created some beautiful crafts, drawings and paintings lately.  Stickers are a big favorite.  Anna also loves animals.  She loves "her" cat Mandy, and the various dogs she gets to spend time with.  She also seems to love horses.  She always wants to go feed our horses and she loved riding Baldur through the woods at Grammy's house.

Little Evan is not so little any more.  He is 11 months old!  At 9 months Evan started taking a few steps and at 10 months he was walking like a pro.  He toddles everywhere now and has basically given  up on crawling.  He also is able to climb onto furniture now, which is scary.  He is a big, solid boy and has  out grown many of his clothes.  He now wears mostly size 18 and 24 month clothes .  Pretty soon he and Alex will be able to share outfits.  Evan loves to eat, never really eating baby food, and eats pretty much everything the rest of the family eats.  He isn't picky and will scream if the twins get something to eat and he doesn't.  Apples (peeled) and yogurt are 2 favorites, although he is a big lasagna fan too.  Evan still loves to nurse, and breastfeeding is going well.  I am so happy that I am able to do that for him.  We have no plans to stop any time soon.  I am still using cloth diapers for Evan, which is great.  I have never bought one disposable for him!

Evan's 5 month update

Our little guy is 5 months now...

He has 2 teeth, and knows how to use them. Breastfeeding has become painful at times because he likes to bite. I have been assured by some breastfeeding pros that with time he will stop doing this.

He likes to be cuddled and entertained. Evan is a happy go lucky little guy, until he is put down by himself or is ignored for a few minutes, then he can shriek like a banshee. I love having him close, but do find it hard to have to hold him so much. We did just introduce the bouncer, which he LOVES, so that has freed me up a little as he is content to stay in there by himself for a little while. He will also take an afternoon nap in his swing, which gives me some free time too. The twins love his swing too though, so I can only use it when they are napping or upstairs.

He is growing like a weed. He didn't get measured this month, but his clothes keep getting tighter and he has some nice chub. He is still tall and skinny like Anna and Alex, but not as slim as he once was. He loves to eat and nurses a LOT (1 to 3 times in the middle of the night still). I also have to give him a little formula in the later part of the day to keep him satisfied and gaining well. I hate doing it, and wish he could be exclusively breast fed, but the few oz he gets are just a small percent of his daily intake, yet make the difference.

Evan is obsessed with food and tries to grab it off my plate, out of my hand, out of my mouth etc. He will stare at me and mimic chewing motions and drool. He will really be ready to eat when he hits that 6 month mark (if I don't give in before).

He is on the move all the time. Wiggle wiggle wiggle. He rolls over both directions, pushes himself backwards and around in circles and is trying to scoot his knees up underneath his bum. It really isn't going to be long before he is on the move in a forwards direction. I hope he takes a while longer...

4 month update

Evan is 4 months now and doing great. He is a happy little guy and a real joy. All 4 off us Frossts just love him. Anna and Alex are great Big Sisters and Brothers (most of the time).

He had his 4 month Drs appointment this week and weighed in at 14 pounds and is 64 cm long (I think). He had his needles too, which are never fun. I nursed him through the needles though and he seemed to handle the pain okay and didn't have any reactions the next day.

Birth story: part 2 Evan's arrival

It has been 4 months now since Evan arrived and I haven't finished writing down his birth story. Well at least not the 2nd part. I think the time has come to finish it up.

After discovering that my water had broken and that I was a few cm dilated I was admitted to the hospital and given a room on the birthing unit. I remember very clearly the relief I felt at that time.

I was hungry and the nurse said I could eat, so Ian went out and got me a bagel and a smoothie. By the time he was back another nurse was there and she told me I couldn't eat. I explained that the first nurse had said it was okay, and she agreed to pretend we had never had the conversation where she told me not to eat. I knew I still had a long way to go and needed something to give me energy.

My contractions were coming about every 3 minutes or so, with a little break between each one. I would lay down for 2 minutes and then have to jump up and get moving again to deal with the contraction. I was unable to control the pain unless I was moving. A lot of this time was just a blur of contraction after contraction and hours of walking in circles around the delivery room (which was large and sunny with a nice view). I did take a hot shower for a while and the running water helped to make it through each contraction. There was a tub available, but it was just a regular sized one, not a birthing tub (or even a big soaker tub like we have at home) so it didn't seem worth it to try to soak in the tub. They kept wanting to come check me for things (monitor babies heart rate, take blood etc. and it was basically impossible for me to sit still. Everyone was nice though and would try to do what they had to do in the short breaks between contractions.

Finally as the evening wore on they offered me some pain medication and I decided to go for it hoping that it would take the edge off the pain enough to get a little rest. They gave me an injection of pain killer, saying it would last about 3 hours. The injection (morphine I think), Did really help with the pain, but it didn't help enough to allow me to be still. I still had to keep moving during every contraction.

Because I had had a c section previously, and because labour had been going on for so long, they encouraged me to have an epidural due to the risk of having a uterine rupture. I decided to get one put in place just so if there was an emergency it was there. At the time I didn't want it to be activated, and they assured me it didn't need to be that it could just be there for safety reasons. Well I guess the explanation I got before they put it in was different (or I misunderstood) but it did apparently need to be activated for a little while to see if it worked and then could be turned off so I could be free to walk around. I remember being terrified that the epidural would stop my cervix from dilating, and since it was moving so slowly anyway, I didn't want anything to slow its progress down. So I finally agreed to have the epidural as night was arriving.

I had had 2 before, so I knew what an epidural involved, but it is much harder to sit still when you are contracting. Fortunately the Dr was quick and the epidural was in before I knew it. Because they had to turn it on for at least half an hour to make sure it was working properly they wanted to use this time to monitor the baby. I was hooked up to the monitors and was enjoying feeling very little pain for a while. It was nice to finally (after days of not being able to) lay still through a contraction.

Then things started to go wrong... They were having trouble keeping the monitor on the baby and decided they needed to put a fetal monitor on his head (up my vagina). This now meant that I couldn't get up to walk around as easily. They also hooked up an IV. I was starting to feel like a patient instead of just a woman giving birth, and was not happy. My plans to turn the epidural off and to continue to walk around were quickly fading. I was going to be stuck on the bed and I knew with out the freedom to move I wouldn't be able to deal with the pain.

And then alarms started going off... The babies heart rate was decelerating. Drs started rushing in, and there was mass confusion. Nurses were yelling at me to change position and everyone seemed in a panic. I could smell C section in the air. The Dr came to talk to me, and I knew if I said okay to a c section at that moment I would be on my way. Everyone was pushing for it. I once again changed position (not to a very comfortable one sadly) and the decelerations stopped. Baby was okay. I had an oxygen mask on and as long as I took big deep breaths his little heartbeat stayed regular. If I took the mask off or moved too much he would have issues. So I decided not to move. And as the monitors stopped beeping , people started to drift away and calmness returned.

After almost a week of constant pain the epidural was a total relief. I could barely feel the pain from the contractions. I was tired, couldn't move, so I went to sleep. The night passed in a blur of people coming to check me, sleep, etc. The epidural was set up so I could push a button to give myself some more relief.

I woke during the morning shift change. I hadn't pushed the button for a while and could feel the contractions again, but on top of the contractions I had a huge urge to poop. I really truly thought I might poop myself. The new delivery nurse arrived and I told her I needed to poop, she decided to check me and low and behold I was a full 10 cm dilated and his head was "right there". It wasn't poop, it was a baby!

The Dr. hadn't arrived yet, but the nurse got everything ready for me to deliver asap. I have no memory of her name, or even what she looked like. All I remember is that she was young, had a trustworthy face and a pleasant voice. I basically closed my eyes and listened to what she told me to do. I have to give thanks to this nurse, because she was wonderful. Encouraging, clear, reassuring. She got me into position (with feet up on a bar) and started talking me through the pushing. At some point the Dr arrived, said something about getting changed, I heard the nurse say "no time, here's your gown". It was less than 20 minutes from starting to push until Evan arrived.

The delivery was the most magical feeling I could ever imagine. I had enough epidural working that I wasn't in horrible pain, but I could feel everything very clearly as his head emerged and the gush as his body followed. I am so glad that I got to experience those moments as there is nothing quite like it.

I had always dreamed of my baby being placed on my chest straight away, but because he was over due, because he was born more than 24 hours after my water had broken and because he had been having those decelerations they had a NICU team set up to check him out first ( they warned me that this would happen before I delivered him). There were a scary few minutes for me as I waited to hear him cry. Apparently he was breathing fine, just really slow to cry. The Drs had to ping the bottom of his feet to get him to respond apparently.

During the time Evan was being checked over (Ian was with him on the other side of the room) I delivered the placenta and then was stitched up. The delivery was quick for a first vaginal delivery and there had been some tearing. I had 2nd degree tears according to the Drs. At first they thought I must have enough epidural to be able to stich me up without it hurting. No way! They froze me and then the stitches didn't hurt as badly.

Finally I was all put back together and Evan was checked out as being okay except for low glucose from being over due. I finally got to hold my little guy. The first time you hold your baby, being number 1 or number 3 is magical. I was so happy and relieved that he was here in my arms and that FINALLY the contractions were over.

Big kid beds

Last week Anna and Alex made the move into their big kid beds. We had purchased single sized beds for them for their 2nd birthdays, and had them set up in the room across the hall from their shared room. We had attempted to make the switch to their beds a couple of times, but it always ended up in a pj party with one or the other twin in tears and out of frustration we would move them back to their cribs. Well last week , after putting them down for the night, we heard the pitter patter of little feet. They had both climbed out of their cribs and were running around. After a few attempts to get them to stay in their cribs, to no avail, they were moved across the hall to their beds. Eventually tiredness took over (after 10 at night) and both collapsed into bed to sleep. This pattern continued for the next few nights, until it was decided that enough was enough. The cribs were moved and a bed was placed in each room. They now sleep in their own room, in their own beds, by themselves at bedtime AND for naps. It has been close to a week now and it is peaceful. They both look so cute and tiny in their big kid beds by themselves in their huge bedrooms.