Oh, hai!

I guess I should update this once in a while, huh?

Life is crazy with 3 kids, and it's about to get crazier!

On January 10th, we learned (well, officially learned, I knew immediately! Just ask Rob, I told him so!) that we were expecting our fourth child!

9 days past ovulation, big fat positive!

Little Kumquat (or as I've been calling him/her "Baby New Year."

Couple more weeks, and we'll (hopefully) find out whether we'll be having a boy or a girl. Lulu is adamant that it's a boy, and has been the entire pregnancy. Actually, she even told Tayta (Rio's grandmother on his father's side) that I was going to have a baby- BEFORE I was pregnant!

What else is new? Well, this December, Lulu turned 4, Rio turned 8, and we had a great Christmas between their birthdays. Last Saturday, Lola turned 2, which marks 2 years (and counting!) of breastfeeding, even with low milk supply. We did it!

Rio is doing very well in school, reading at a 4th grade level. He's into Minecraft, riding his Shark Kneeboard, reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid  and Captain Underpants books, and torturing his sister.

Lulu is learning how to write, and she is constantly coming up to me to ask me how to spell something so she can write it. She loves Team Umizoomi and playing Minecraft with Rio.

Lola is a ray of sunshine, as always. She loves everything. She's beginning to speak even more clearly, and speaking sentences. My favorite is, "I lub you, mama."

Rob is working like crazy. I don't know how he is, I never see him.

And as for me, I'm doing well. Currently battling the hormonal headaches that plague me at the beginning of the second trimester. I'm a little stressed about the current state of my placenta (I have placenta previa), but hopefully, we'll see progress on our next ultrasound and I can go back to happily planning our homebirth for this fall. :)

That's all for now! I hope to write again before too long.

Lola Speaks

Lola seems to have grown up overnight!

Just a few weeks ago, her vocabulary was very limited. I was starting to worry, even though I know hypotonia can sometimes contribute to a speech delay. But she's really starting to catch up.

Here's what Lola says:

"Hi," "Mama," "Dada," "Peh-peh" (for Grandpa), "Ama" (for Grandma), "teetee" (for kitty), "Hoo, hoo!" when she sees an owl, "cheese," "juice," "shoes," "than-coo" (for thank you), "go", "dat" (for that), "dis" (for this), "tree," "all done,"... and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

She's also communicating in other ways, signing words like "dog," "sky," "cat," "more," and "milk," although she is less interested in signing now that she is trying her hand at talking. She also walks up to her high-chair when she's hungry, says "Ahhh" when she wants a drink from my water bottle or wants to nurse (lol!), points to what she wants, and nods or shakes her head when you ask her a question.

Hi!

Kitty Kitty Kittens (And the Home-birth of Lovely Pink Flower)

The day Hobgoblin came to live with us.

October 18th, 2011

My friend Amanda posted a picture of a tiny black kitten she'd found outside of the place where she worked. We'd been cat-less for a few months, and I was instantly in love. 

Rob took a little convincing. He's not a cat person.
But Lulu is very much her mother's daughter, and melted daddy's heart- we could get the kitten!
She was instantly in love, and followed the kitten everywhere. We named her "Hobgoblin," an ode to Hobbes of "Calvin and Hobbes," and the maternal cat of my youth, Goblin.

Little me and Goblin.

The greatest comic strip of all time.

But we never actually called her Hobgoblin. Mostly, we called her "Kitty."
A few months ago, I asked Lulu what the cat's name was, and she said "Lovely Pink Flower," which I thought was just too hilarious, so the name stuck.

We always meant to get the cat  fixed, but, for various reasons, never got around to it.

And then this happened:

Fully pregnant.

July 14th, 2012

At exactly 5 am, LPF came into our bedroom and meowed loudly. I knew immediately that it was time, she was in labor. She followed me around as I gathered the birth supplies I had made ready the day before, and made myself a cup of coffee. Then I made her a nest on the floor with several layers of towels and flat cloth diapers. She wanted me to be with her, and I gave her lots of affection. Soon, her contractions started in earnest. 37 minutes after she'd woken me up, her first kitten was born. She quickly licked off the amniotic sack, and ate the placenta. As soon as she'd finished cleaning the first kitten, the contractions started again, and a few pushes later, her second kitten was born. While she was busy cleaning it, I heard Eliza stirring in our room, and I went to get her.  I was feeling disappointed because I thought she was done giving birth, and we had promised two kittens to my parents and a friend, and we were going to keep one, but there was only two. 
Eliza got to witness the birth of the third kitten. I wish I had a picture of her face at that moment, she was in total awe and so very excited!
While the mama was busy with birthing and cleaning new kittens, I had the other kittens wrapped in a towel on a little heating pad, because it was cool in the living room and I didn't want them to get too chilled.
After the fourth kitten was born, I thought she was done giving birth, and moved them all into a box with clean linens, and put it in the garage where it was warmer. When I went to check on them a little later, I noticed a fifth kitten had been born! 

Newborn kittens, just hours old.

LPF is a wonderful mother. Sometimes younger cats can be aloof, or abandon their kittens, but not LPF! She is just as devoted as a mother can be, always putting her kittens first and responding to their every cry.
Both kittens and mother are thriving. The kittens are twice as big as they were when they were born, and their eyes are starting to open. Talk about cute! And 4 of the 5 are spoken for, so we only need to worry about finding a home for one last kitten. (If you're in the Tampa Bay Area, and you need a kitten, let me know!)

1 week old. Aren't they huge?

Things just got personal.

Ah, freedom.

I've been writing a couple of blogs for a while now, but because they were blogs about specific subjects- low milk supply and hypotonia, both of which were almost entirely about experiences with my youngest daughter- I was often extremely limited in what I could write about. In time, I had less and less to blog about.

So, this is going to be a blog about the whole family. Something we can look back on and enjoy in the future.