5 Months Later

Today Clara turned 5 months. She has almost been with us for a half a year. It has flown by...wow. And it has not been easy. 3 kids is taking it to a "whole nutha level."

But we are getting better at it. Things are going smoother. She has such a sweet, easy-going personality and fits right into the family.

Her smiles come quick and lights up the room. She kicks and snorts in excitement when she sees her parents or siblings. We work to make her laugh and are rewarded for our effort with bubbling giggles or coughing laugh fits.

We love our baby so much. Even though it has been a challenge, our family would not be complete without this beautiful little girl.

Daddy's Little Girl

I just had to take this photo...risking waking both of my sleepers. Yet, they kept sleeping and I captured a sweet moment. See the family resemblance?

So, I don't blog much anymore. I'm much more into one line Facebook updates. That's about all I have the mind and energy for these days.

I do have a few moments to myself now, though.

Life with 3 kids is tough and has really kicked my booty. I hope that it gets better soon!

My Little Clara Beara

Well, my new daughter made her grand entrance into the world early. By two and a half weeks. I was expecting to have her early...both siblings were exactly 4 days before their due dates, but she had other plans and wanted to join us sooner. What a drama queen!

I was actually laboring most of the week with pretty intense contractions that kept me up for several nights, the loss of my mucous plug (on three occasions) and an overall feeling of yuckiness and exhaustion. Feeling like labor was getting close, I was a nesting maniac-washed her clothes, sheets, towels, got the house ready, packed my hospital bag and bag for the kids, etc. I felt like every night was going to be "the night" and was just waiting for my water to break.

Saturday night, I was up again, lying in bed having contractions. I got up and messed around on the computer for awhile, timing contractions and playing Facebook Scrabble. Finally after about 45 minutes, I decided to try sleeping a bit. The contractions were coming, but still pretty irregular. At around 5 am, I woke Michael up.

"Mike, this may be it. I think that I am in labor."

He shot up, ready to go. And within 30 minutes, our friend was over to watch the kids and we were out the door and en route to UC Davis downtown. We left so fast that I forgot to grab my purse (no ID on me, I hoped that that wouldn't be a problem). It wasn't, luckily.

We arrived at the hospital in record time. Very little traffic at 5:30 am on a Sunday morning and I was checked in at around 6. They immediately took me to triage and found me to be at only 4 cm dialated and having contrations about 5 minutes apart. I was disappointed because with Emily I came in almost fully dialated and more or less ready to go. I was worried that this time we wouldn't make it to the hospital in time, so we had come earlier in the labor. There was still a ways to go.

They started me on an antibiotic IV drip and wheeled me down to my labor and delivery suite. My labor progressed slowly and after the second dose of the antibiotic 4 hours later, they found me to be only 6 cm. Sigh. I felt like I had transitioned already and had only gotten 2 cm closer.

They offered to break my water to speed things along and I agreed, but warned them that the last time they did that, the baby came out in the next contraction.

The process of breaking my water really was really horrid this time. It felt like I was being prodded and jammed with a knitting needle for a very long time. It would not break and took several tortourous attempts to finally do the job. That was the worst part of the labor up to this point. And then came the next 9 minutes of HELL.

In the course of 9 minutes, I dialated from 6-10 cm and pushed a baby out. I felt the intense urge to push almost immediately, but had to wait for the doctor. This was nearly impossible and very painful. Luckily at the end of the 9 minutes, I had a new baby.

Her name is Clara Joy Lomonaco.

She was born at 11:16 am (the same time of day I was born) on April 19.

And she weighed in at 6 lbs, 8 oz and was 19 in long.

Pretty good sized for 2.5 weeks early.

I felt pretty rough and exhausted for the first little bit after she was born, but it is amazing what a little bit of rest, a shower or two and a peaceful day can do for you.

We go home tomorrow where we will begin our lives as a family of 5. Eeeeek! I'm so glad that Michael has almost 2 weeks off to help with the transition.

We'll post photos soon!

Cute Questioning

Emily asked me about her cabbage patch doll the other day.

"Mama, where did this doll come from?" she asked.

"Oh, the White family gave you that for your birthday, remember?" I said.

"Are they snowmen?" she wondered aloud.

White...snow. Get it???

A valid question, indeed, from an inquisitive two year old.

33 Weeks

So here I am at 33-34 weeks pregnant. I'm being told constantly how cute I look. And by cute, I am quite sure that people mean HUGE.

I have about 6 weeks to go. I can't believe how quickly that is coming up.

There is still much to do in this time to prep for our new little girl, but I am not really getting too worried about it yet. What's a few loads of laundry, cleaning an entire house and setting up Emily's new big girl bedroom? Really is it such a big deal if I don't get to any of that? NO!

I threw in this photo of Mike so that you can see what poor children we have. A couple of nuts for parents. Sorry, kids.

Emily Pretty Ballerina

My little girl, who became obsessed with ballerinas late last year because she received a Nutcracker book, just took her first Tiny Tots dance class last weekend. She did awesome, especially for a two year old.

She loved following her teacher and romping around in her tutu and new ballet shoes on her toes with the other girls.

I wasn't sure what to expect, because she often yells at me to stop dancing with her when "ballet" (classical music) is on and I try to join in at home.

"NO, Emily dance!" she says while swinging at me to sit down and go away.

I've been working on her and told her that she would have to dance with the other girls and be nice in class or the teacher would ask her to leave. She did just fine--no arm swings or threatening comments. I was so proud!

She is so into ballerinas that she begs to put on her tutu first thing every morning. Wants to dance to music throughout the day. And sleeps with her Nutcracker book and tutu cradled in her arms. She gets out of bed to get the tutu each night to take in there with her.

As a side note, we are planning to name her new baby sister Clara Joy after the main character and ballerina in her favorite story. And as an added bonus, Clara is my grandma's middle name and Michael's grandma's confirmation name and Joy is my sweet sister's middle name.

26 weeks

Here I am about a week ago. Pardon the bad hair and growing beer gut. It's the middle of the night, so I should be trying to sleep again...

All you skinny ladies out there can bite my butt!;-)

Happy V-Day! Tell someone you love them today.

The Wrong George

When I was putting Lucas in his car seat this afternoon, he had a strange request for me.

"Mama, will you play that George Bush song?"

"Huh?" I asked, racking my brain and not recalling any song that I played him about or by our former president.

"Do you really want to hurt me," he sang.

"Oh... you want to hear Boy George not George Bush." I was cracking up by now.

We listened to my Wedding Singer soundtrack on the way home and then showed him a video of Boy George tonight. And the song is still stuck in my head.

"Do you really want to make me cry?"

History

This morning on the way to and from dropping Lucas off at school, the inauguration was playing on the radio. I actually cried as I heard Obama being sworn into office (yes, I am so hormonal and weep at the drop of a hat when pregnant). It wasn't because I was so happy or even sad about the event, but just that I couldn't believe that I was "witnessing" such a historical happening. Finally, a black president after 43 white ones! Pretty cool.

Anyway, I turned the TV on when we got home and Emily and I watched the rest of President Obama's speech. After a few minutes of patiently putting up with a "boring," non-kids show, she asked me to turn it off and turn on Mickey Mouse instead. Sheesh, two year old's have no attention span for history. If only it had been a cartoon.

Pessimisim

I saw a headline in the Sacramento Bee the other day that read:

"Folsom Lake is Half Empty."

What a negative attitude I thought. The news is always so depressing.

Living Large

This is me and the growing baby belly taken a few days ago. I am 21 weeks pregnant or a little over halfway there. By the size of the ball I am carrying (and the fact that I am outgrowing my size small maternity clothes), I am truly living large. Starting to feel a bit gross, too, unfortunately. Darn the stigma that we women need to always be thin to be pretty. It's hard to lose that mentality that is drilled in us even when pregnant. Don't worry, I am absolutely not starving myself (I like food too much for that), just am not feeling super good about how I look with this freakish belly that is only halfway as big as it will get.

Friday morning is my ultrasound where we hope to find out the baby's gender this time.