A few photos

 I really do wish that I had more time to sit down and type a real good story.  However, life is very full at the moment.  It seems, at times, that every minute is designated to work or sleep.  When Mariana was conceived we had no idea that she would be born just as Dave's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I laughed when I said to Dave that if his mother had been diagnosed last year, we would have said, "Thank God that we don't have a newborn to deal with as well."  Nevertheless, God knows exactly what He is doing:  as we usher in new life, we also say goodbye to one who gave life.  Life is beautiful.

 When fall rolls around, I begin a daily prayer that we will not have snow until December.  This year, in anticipation of months locked inside with a newborn, I implored that December would become January, or at least after Christmas.  Wow, was this prayer ever answered.  Snow and cold temperatures waited and waited and finally arrived three days after Christmas.  Consequently, I have easily taken Mariana and other children on daily walks enjoying our extended fall.  This weather has been a tremendous blessing - a real boon to my spirits.

 Mariana lost her newborn hair according to male-pattern baldness!  It is already begin to re-grow and seems to be coming in dark, as is her skin.  I just might have finally gotten my dark-skinned, dark-haired baby ... with blue eyes.  As Jacob tells me, two out of three ain't bad.

 Hannah showing off some Christmas gifts.  Her feet are just about my size and she has begun to share footwear with me.  I somehow don't think that we will ever share much clothing if body type has anything to say about it.

 This baby has left me very tired in the evenings.  I usually can't fall asleep anywhere other than my bed.  However, I have been doing a lot of falling asleep while sitting up and holding the baby. The other night, I fell asleep with my head down on the side of our wing chair in such an awkward position that Dave thought I was pretending.

Alas, no one in this photo is pretending.

Joseph is eight

Sarah was flipping through photos on the iPad, when she called me to look at a photo of Joe's birthday.  Seeing the photo made me realise that I had completely forgotten to load Joe's birthday post to the blog.  Here it is.
 Can you tell that the 8 candle has seen a few other cakes?

This year Joseph's birthday was on a Saturday which coincided with Star Wars movie night at a friend's house.  I asked the host family if we could bring over two cakes before the movie started to share with the other children attending the movie.  The family graciously agreed and even provided candles, "Happy Birthday" and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".

Unbeknownst to this family (and to me at the time), I inadvertently asked them to host a birthday party for Joseph.  Very sly mother.  It was a great birthday party!

This is just a random photo from my collection of not awesome photos.  I am single-handedly blogging old-style:  fuzzy, unprofessional photos vs.  professional-quality-Canon photos.  The shirt he was wearing was a gift from my parents - an Underarmour mock turtleneck.  If he can't play "real" hockey, he can at least dress the part.  Happy eight years, Joseph.  We love you to pieces.  I want to write so much more, but, "The time!  The time!  There is no time!"

Scenes from the new normal

 As a good friend said when she saw this photo, "At least someone's getting sleep at your house!"  Fortunately, Mariana is a very good sleeper at night.  She only wakes to feed and that is only twice or so at night.  She does, however, spend the second half of the night asleep on my chest.  Hannah tends to be the sibling who holds her while I get ready for bed.  Dave works most weekday evenings and is unavailable until much later in the evening when I am already tucked in bed; thus, the older siblings really help out a lot.  They don't, however, have to change diapers.

 I really am struck by how much the younger boys want to cuddle their new sister.  Ben feels most at home with Mariana when she is peaceful or sleeping and isn't embarrassed to admit that he can't calm her down.

 Joe, on the other hand, has a knack with babies.  He loves the challenge of trying to settle her from crying to sleeping, and often does so with ease.  I often look over at him as he dances with her and think, "He just looks like a very short father with his newborn daughter."

 He told me that Hannah told him that he wasn't competent with babies.  Joe almost always rises to a challenge and Hannah's words were challenge enough for him to get his baby game together.  This photo was taken shortly before sledge hockey practice.  I don't think it needs words.

 Most of you who know us well are already aware that Dave's mother was diagnosed this summer with stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to her liver.  She also had a bad fall and brain bleed shortly after Mariana was born.  Two days later Dave's sister's husband was hit by a tractor trailer while biking.  Praise God, he survived and is doing very well with a few broken bones.  Needless to say, the month since Mariana's birth has been quite eventful.  One of the greatest blessings was my mother's presence here for the two weeks following Mariana's birth and the two weeks of meals arranged by a good friend once my mother left.  Dave's staff also brought over a few freezer meals.  I am so appreciative for this help and for the love of those who support us.  This photo was taken two nights ago when Dave's mother was finally able to meet her newest grandchild.  Dave's mom, Anne, is such a witness to me in her sickness and preparation for death.  She is neither bitter or resentful and her very presence reminds me that the dust and the dirt and the not-yet-purchased Christmas presents  really don't matter.  Rather, the relationships do and I need to focus on those.  "Martha, Martha, you are anxious about many things.  Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."

 Jacob stayed home from school today to help me around the house.  He is quite unable to focus on just holding Mariana and always needs to read, eat, watch or be otherwise distracted while calming his sister.  As long as she is safe, I am happy to let him hold her.

 One of Jacob's struggles with piano is practising his right and left hands separately.  Perhaps holding his sister while practising will encourage more separate-handed practice!

Life is speeding by!

Mariana is already three weeks old!  I am trying my best to treasure this newborn time as this very well might be the last time that we have a newborn at our house.  Cue tears and sighs of relief:  bittersweet.

 She is so loved by her siblings.  Sarah has exhibited zero signs of sibling rivalry.  Rather, it's almost as if when Mariana arrived, Sarah thought, "Well, it's about time that I had someone to look after!"  Sarah is definitely my little helper.  She runs for diapers, wipes, cream and anything else I might request.  One of her favourite things is to introduce her baby sister to people:  "Her's Mariana and her's a girl."

 The boys first question upon arrival from school is if they can hold Mariana.  Ben usually waits until everyone has had their turn before he asks for his.  It's amazing how much little boys love to stare at little babies.

 I love this photo because so many of our babies have looked like this in their infancy.  She particularly favours Ben in this photo.  Lucky girl.

 She wears this semi-worried look a lot.  For a little girl with completely translucent eyebrows, she still has extremely expressive brows.  At the moment her skin looks quite olive-y and her hair is dark.  However, it is far too early to proclaim that I finally have a girl with my colouring.  Her eyes, very unlike mine, are going to be blue.

 How can a baby not smile when in the care of Hannah, the baby whisperer.  Other than nursing, Mariana is most calmed by walking with her oldest sister or by being held tightly by her father.  She is tongue-tied and has one bottle a day in order to help her gain weight.  Dave likes to give this bottle as he tells me that changing poopy diapers (which he does) doesn't quite bond him with his babies in the same way as bottle feeding them.  Hannah watched Dave feed Mariana the other evening and whispered to me, "I didn't know that dad liked babies."  She has an appointment tomorrow to get her tongue tie fixed.  Of course, in typical small-town fashion, the doctor is my brother-in-law's first cousin.

 I love this shot.  Her eyes look slightly too big for her head and she has a very adult look to her; all of which remind me of Hannah as a baby.  I told Hannah that I think she looks like her and Hannah responded with a big smile, "Oh, good."  Mariana's lips are identical to Jacob's, Isaac's and Sarah's, all of whom have Dave's lips.  Hopefully they have inherited the Afelskie perma-smile.

 Too much love!

 It is Joe's birthday on Saturday - eight years old!  He absolutely adores babies, especially burping them as evidenced by his in-motion hand.  Jacob watched me bath Mariana last night and, in his sentimental way, said, "I do hope that I am bathing a baby in my mid-twenties."  I don't make these things up.

 This photo just ups the cuteness factor.

And to prove that she takes after her father:  asleep when not running or working.

A few of my favourites

 There will be more photos, but, for some reason, they aren't appearing in my photo library just yet.  Sorry if the fluids gross you out, but this is Mariana only minutes after birth resting on my deflated (but still very cushy) tummy.  I've never had a baby so covered in vernix.

 She's holding up four fingers because she was born on November fourth.  Smart baby.

 Her arrival was fast and a little scary.  My waters broke just before midnight and they were green.  The last thing my midwife said to me at our pre-birth appointment was, "If the waters are green, get to the hospital ASAP."  Green means that the baby has begun to pass meconium in the womb.  In other words, she has pooed.  The danger is that the baby might aspirate the meconium leading to what are sometimes grave complications.  Suffice to say that our trip to the hospital was nerve-wracking as I waited to hear her heart rate on the monitor.  Alas, all was well.

 Jacob was the first sibling to meet her.  He had spent the day in Ottawa with his Aunt Julie as a subject in her PhD research.  She dropped him off at the hospital on her way back home.  Lucky boy.

 Even blurry, I love this photo.  It perfectly captures Jacob's gentle and kind nature.

And who can resist tiny baby hands?

She did arrive!

I promise photos ASAP, but I can't let them keep me from posting her arrival.  Mariana Elizabeth arrived in the wee hours of November fourth at 4:01am.  She weighed in at 7 lb 14 oz and measured 19 inches.  This makes her our third largest baby and second shortest.  She looks like everyone and entirely herself.  She is extremely peaceful and very well-loved.  Thank you, Jesus.

40 weeks, come and gone

But first, here are Isaac and Sarah playing with the beans.  They love this activity.  Me, not so much; there is a lot of sweeping required after this sort of play.

 Yesterday after Sunday mass, we decided that we had better take one last photo to immortalize this baby in utero.  My natural smile always entails a squinty right eye (as does Jacob's).  Dave tells me, "Open that right eye.  Think about it!"

 Which results in this sort of smile.  The one my father calls, "Nena's fake smile."  It also looks like a smile of hesitant resignation, oh well.  I do feel a little stupid posing for photos.

 However, my older sister asked me the other day to post some photos of myself so that she could see how long my hair is.  Oops, seeing as my hair is pulled back in an elastic and clip, there is no chance to gauge the length of it.  Rebecca, when down, my hair is about an inch below my shoulder.

 That, however, is about to change in under an hour's time as I have a haircut this morning.  I will keep you all posted, on the baby, not the haircut.

Update

Not that anyone is out there anymore, but I thought I would let you know that I am in the last week of pregnancy and waiting any twinge to let us know that this little one is on the way.  Thanks so much for all the prayer.

Pieces of Autumn

About a month ago, Sammy was sitting on the front porch in the late evening; Dave and I were in the front room watching Netflix when we heard him take off at top speed after what we thought was a cat.  Dave jumped up, opened the front door and called him in so that he wouldn't run into the street.  Within seconds of Sammy's entry we realized what we thought was a cat was not a cat at all.  Rather, it was a skunk and Sammy had been treated to the full effect of an encounter with a black cat with a white stripe down its back.

He was in the mudroom for only a moment when we realized our mistake and hustled him into the garage (where he rolled on the floor embedding the cement with skunk oil).  I bow before the power of the skunk:  that one minute in which Sammy was in the house was enough to infect our entire house with that most nefarious of perfumes.  I removed everything from the mudroom; Dave opened windows; we got out the Febreeze, put on the air freshener and used fans to blow the inside air out the front door.  And still the smell remained for the next three days.

Joe and Jacob stayed home from school the following day in order to wash the dog.  At 34 weeks pregnant, I simply could not face the task alone.  We tied the dog to a tree and washed him down with a mixture of dish soap, hydrogen peroxide and water.  Then we used Murphy's Wood Oil (as per many suggestions on the internet).  I should mention that this was also the dog's first bath ... in seven years.  Thus, despite being a water dog, he was rather averse to the garden hose and insisted on wrapping himself around the tree to which he was tied and thoroughly soaking all of the humans involved in his care.  Dave used the skunk incident in his class the following day to illustrate that our actions, no matter how private we think they are, always affect others.  The instinct of one dumb dog to chase one wily skunk caused a family of eight/nine undue stress, loss of sleep and a lot of extra work.  For Sammy's "sin", we paid dearly.

In happier news, the autumn also brought cross-country running.  Our four oldest trained hard for the annual Partridge race at the beginning of October.  Dave told Hannah that her best training would be to stay with Jacob and, if possible, beat him.  They finished each school practise in first and second, and Ben, apparently also listening to Dave's advice, consistently arrived third at the finish line.

As an aside, Jacob found this photo of the twins online.  They were 4.5 years old at the time and just about to start junior kindergarten.  How they have grown.

Back to the running:  Ben's strategy paid off and he placed second in his field and top in his age group.  The retired teacher presenting the award is actually Dave's grade seven and eight teacher.  It was he who first wore running shoes everyday to class; Dave has merely followed in his footsteps.  The blond woman wearing the toque is Jacob and Hannah's teacher this year.

As you can probably surmise, the weather was quite chilly that day.  The same day last year saw us wearing shorts, t-shirts and sunburns.  It was a full 20 degrees cooler this year.  Hannah's nerves got the best of her in the 1600m race and she limped across the finish line claiming that she had the stomach flu.  I told her to lie down in the van and see if she felt any better.  Apparently the rest (and having one race under her belt) was enough to calm the nerves and she rallied to run the 3000m in the afternoon.  Dave paced the race and ran her to first place by a full 1-2 minutes.  As a result, she won a trophy for Outstanding Female Athlete.  I was extremely proud but also very happy that she had finally seen what she could do athletically and that her nerves could be conquered.  Jacob placed sixth in the 1600m and fourth in the boys 3000m.  In his words, "Mom, do you know what my least favourite number is?" -- "Four, I hate four.  I'm always one step off the podium."  Joseph failed to repeat last year's win and placed fifth:  still an honourable finish.  Perhaps the bake sale table didn't prove the same motivation as it had the year before!

Last time at the beach house

 We first went to the beach house when this little girl was 11 weeks old.

She's come a long way since, and enjoys pride of place as our family's little princess.

Isaac thoroughly soaked by the waters of the Bay of Fundy.  He's even managed to trail some sort of seaweed from his nose.

Consummate Joseph.

Ditto.

The water here is quite cold and the rocks, without shoes, are nearly impossible to walk on if one weighs over 100 pounds.  I didn't make it very far.

Dave only enters these waters as part of half-marathon training - the ice-bath recovery.

Ben doesn't like this photo of himself, but I think his fuzzy hair makes him look very bear-like.

I'm not quite sure.

Mommy-blogger fail.  I should have taken a photo of my feet.

My sister, a religious sister, was given some money to take one of the kids out to do something fun.  As an avid horse lover, her first thought was horses, and Hannah was the lucky recipient of an afternoon spent on the trails outside of Halifax.

In real time, we are about a month out from the newest baby's arrival.  I have officially slowed down, more than with any other pregnancy outside of the twins'.  It's true, pregnancy gets harder with age!