Minot Memories

We SUPER enjoyed having my parents come visit over Thanksgiving, and it was so much fun that my mom could stay a whole month! It really made the start of "real" winter feel not as miserable. Mom and Dad had some funny observations from their time here, and I thought it would be fun if Mom "guest blogged" her thoughts. We hadn't realized that the things we're used to seem absolutely crazy to people who haven't spent 3+ years in the frozen tundra. So here goes...

After my sojourn of a month in Minot, these are some of my most treasured memories :

1. Putting on sweatshirt, coat, hat, muffler, gloves and boots.

2. Taking off boots, gloves, muffler, hat, coat and sweatshirt.

3. Putting on Wally's coat, hat, gloves, shoes, and blanket and Henry's coat, hat, gloves and boots.

4. Taking off Wally's, blanket, gloves, hat and coat and Henry's boots, gloves, hat and coat.

5. Buckling Henry and Wally in car seats with plenteous layers on that greatly hinder buckling.

6. Pushing double stroller in the mall with Henry and Wally and 50 lbs of coats, hats, gloves, blanket, etc. etc. (No need for treadmill action that day!)
7. Learning to improvise with whatever food is in the house - at least when it's 10 degrees or lower - that even includes Starbucks!

8. Loosening the frozen shut door to let Bailey out and giving it a good wham against the latest snowdrift the wind has deposited against the door.

9. Letting a black dog out the door and letting a white dog back in.
10. Watching Henry play with his sandbox toys in the snow.

11. Dressing in sweats everyday and STILL being well-dressed.
12. Timing conversation around the furnace kicking on, which sounds like a rumbling tank!

11. Unbelievably beautiful "snow globe trees" due to frozen fog and powdery crystal-like snow.
12. Krista and Matt's remote mailbox, across and down the street, made even more remote by the piles of snow left in front of it by the snow plows.
13. Assuming Matt will spend his first hour home from work shoveling the driveway and sidewalks every evening, due to new snow or redeposited windblown snow.

14. Feasting on amazing donuts from Marketplace (yes, of course the grocery farthest from base!)

15. Eagerly anticipating Charley's fries at the BX even though the food court has no tables protected from the blast of cold air from the door every time it opens!

16. Remembering NOT to sit by a window in a restaurant!

17. Eating out?--Focus on the time together and time out of the kitchen, not on the quality of the food served and maybe eaten.

18. Finding out that a completely white road is your friend---dark road?--ice rink for cars!
19. Unoccupied cars running in parking lots for long periods of time.
20. Realizing that any step taken outside may be a complete wipeout since sidewalks and parking lots are generally packed down snow that's never completely cleared.

21. Clomping around in boots at all times when leaving the house, and realizing that caloric expenditure feels equal to 5 miles on the treadmill.
22. Completely white and ice glazed streets, and school buses still running on time. Take note, Hampton Roads!
23. Discovering what a remote car starter is, and loving it. Now I want one in Virginia!

But of course the BEST memory is the time spent with Henry and Wally and Krista and Matt. Henry and I played lots of "fast airplanes" which involved both of us running (inside of course) with Matchbox airplanes held high. Wally learned to crawl and most recently learned to clap. Matt and Krista and I?---well, we stayed up far too late many nights enjoying snacks, of course, and the warmth of a home filled with love!

Just Another Day In Paradise!

Henry has surprised us all this winter by asking to play out in the snow a bunch of times already. I'm so glad his new coat I found for a steal at Kohl's in Bismarck came with a snow bib, because I wasn't going to buy one again since he's never liked the snow before! Just don't tell him that most parents would go out and play with him, lol. He figured out that his sand table toys work great in the snow too. He drives his trucks all over the patio table while the rest of us watch from the almost-warm indoors, haha. One afternoon, he went out in near zero degree weather (sidenote.. the school kids here still go outside for recess for 15 minutes until the temp sinks past 15 below). We had to call him inside after 15 minutes, because that's just a little too cold for my comfort! Here he is all bundled up that day...

I spent forever tonight trying to redo my blog layout so I can make pictures bigger. That has bugged me for so long! Well, I need my sis, lol. LIZ, HELP! :-) I had to create my own website for a class in college, so I used to know a lot about this stuff. I took that class over 10 years ago though, and obviously a lot has changed! Anyhoo, here are some pictures from our day today, taken with our new camera, woohoo! (The first pic of the cars in the snow was from today, too)

WINTER

(Can you guess where we were on my 30th birthday this year?)

I have somehow managed to not find anything to buy with my birthday money since May! Shocking, I know. I tried hard, let me tell you, haha. I bought a beautiful purse at Nordy's when I was home in VA with the boys in June. But I took it back because really, who am I kidding thinking I'll use it much when it'll just end up with cracker crumbs and leaky sippy cups staining it. I also tried to use my money on a cool pair of blue flats that had rosettes made of zippers on the toes. As hard as I tried though, they just didn't feel comfortable enough, so back they went!

Well thank goodness I had such trouble, haha, because now that Matt has his super nice computer (for his birthday), I figured it was high time for us to have a really nice camera in this house. Being the granddaughter of the owner of Rudy's Camera in Witchita, KS, I figured I needed to catch up with the rest of the family! Since my dad was visiting over Thanksgiving, I asked him to find one that'd be good for us, and a week later, BAM! Hellooooo pretty camera :-)

So now I have no excuse not to keep this blog going, haha.

In honor of our fourth and (PLEEAASSSSSE!!!!) last winter here, I give you my list of How Cold Is It? from our first winter. Nothing's changed, lol.

A Pug and His Boys

Bailey is such a great dog for the boys. He puts up with so much "loving" from them, and simply walks away when he's had enough. Wally adores him, just like Henry did at that age. Henry likes to show Wally how to pet Bay.

Walter David Brooks: A Long Overdue Birth Story

I promise I didn't include any gory details, but there's only so much you can leave out of a birth story, lol.

Recently, the doctor who delivered Wally died suddenly, and I am just so sad to hear about it. It's had me thinking back to my time in the hospital, and what an interesting experience it was having him as my doctor. He was in his early 70's and just loved delivering babies. For that reason, I'm thankful that he passed away still doing what he loved. Wally's birth was so amazingly different than Henry's, and I've been meaning to post it for the past 8 months, haha. So here goes...

My due date was March 8th. In the back of my mind, I kinda guessed that it would be the 10th. I don't know why. With Henry, I went into labor on my due date, and had him the following afternoon. I labored for 16 hours in the hospital and the worst part of it all was the unbelievably intense pain in my thighs with every contraction. There was nothing that calmed it down, except for a two hour stint in the tub helped me to not focus on it so much.

Anyhoo, back to Wally. Monday, March 8 came, and no Wally yet. I had started having contractions 2 weeks earlier (again, very different from Henry's), and was convinced more than once that we needed to go the hospital, haha. I still remember watching the Winter Olympics, and counting the minutes between contractions for hours, and then suddenly they'd stop. I saw Dr. Fischbach on the 8th, and he asked me what I wanted to do. I immediately said that I wanted to be done. He asked me again if I wanted an epidural. The nurses at the hospital joke about how there's the Fischbach formula for having a baby. He automatically orders one for his mothers. For the billionth time, I turned him down, saying that I'd gone without one the first time, and I wanted to try it that way again. He said that was fine, but his anniversary was the next day, so I couldn't pick that day to be induced, haha. But I could do it Wednesday. Deal.

I wasn't crazy about the idea of deciding what day to have Wally. Especially since I enjoyed going into labor on my own with Henry. Here were the factors influencing my decision:

1) Matt was given 9 days of paternity leave by his squadron, BUT, this was their genius plan: His leave started on my due date (the 8th), but if I wasn't in the hospital, then he had to go to work, and that was one less day of leave he could have after the baby was born. Awesome. No pressure at all!! Geez.

2) There was a blizzard predicted Wednesday night, and after the 3 day Christmas blizzard, I was not about to risk being stuck up on the base. Another woman on the base went into labor on Christmas day, while her husband was snowed in at the missile field, and the ambulance had to follow a snow plow all the way to town. Even Dr. Fischbach didn't make it to that delivery.

So Wednesday morning, the 10th, Matt and I drove to town at 5 am... in the snow. While I was waiting for the doctor to come break my water, I was feeling stronger contractions. Sure enough, when they came in at 10 am to do it (finally!), I was at 3 cm. I have to say, it is absolute torture waiting there, knowing from past experience, what is about to happen, lol. So off I went, walking the halls, sitting on a big yoga ball, imagining I'm home with Henry instead of in excruciating pain, haha. During each contraction, I tried to picture 2 different specific cars that Henry owned, and I would imagine us racing them on his track. It was the only thing that helped me breathe through the pain.

Three hours in, it happened. The thigh pain came back. Back when I had Henry, the weirdest part of the experience was that I felt my contractions starting at my navel line to mid thigh. The pain in my thighs was near unbearable, but it would subside every time, and since my contractions remained so far apart with Henry, I always had time to recover. THIS time, it was not so. Ohhhhhhhhh holy cow. I barely felt my contractions in my abdomen at all. The only pain I felt was very very low and then IN. MY. THIGHS.

It wouldn't go away this time either. My contractions were coming every minute, with a minute to recover. But in that minute, the excruciating thigh pain stayed. The nurse would look at the computer and tell me the contraction was over, and I would just shut my eyes, moan, and shake my head. I could never catch my breath, and when they said I was only at 6 cm, I asked my nurse if she thought an epidural might ease my thigh pain (I had already tried an IV drug for the past hour). I remember seeing my parents come in for a minute, but I couldn't even keep my eyes open long enough to say hi, haha. It felt like an entire year before the anesthesiologist came in. The nurses were setting up the room for the delivery already, and I thought maybe they had forgotten to call the guy! I couldn't even move to sit up when the doc came, my thighs were just searing with pain. The nurse had to pull me up to sit on the edge of the bed. Seriously, if the nurse had told me the only option for pain relief was hitting me in the head with a cast iron skillet, I would've reached out and done it myself, lol.

It took a long time for the epidural to work on that thigh pain. I think he gave me two more rounds before it finally diminished enough that I could almost relax. Matt decided to go get some lunch in the cafeteria. It was maybe 45 minutes after the epidural, and I was at 10 cm. They told me to start pushing and we realized Matt wasn't back yet, hello!! So mom called him, and he ran back up just in time. Dr. Fischbach came in, smiled, and said, "What happened? I thought you weren't getting an epidural!" He immediately asked for the vacuum (bummer), and after three pushes, it was over! Wally was an entire pound heavier (8 lbs, 9 oz) than his brother - no wonder I needed help. Dr. Fischbach held him for a long time and cleaned him up. Even the nurses commented on how sweetly he was holding him. One of the nurses who helped with the delivery was our childbirth class instructor, so that was fun to actually have her in the room in the end.

While waiting for the epidural to wear off, my nurse was telling me that she too had had the thigh pain with her labors, and had to use lots of drugs to get through it (she was much older). I had been searching from the time Henry was born through being pregnant with Wally, trying to find anyone who had had the same experience... and nothing! It was reassuring to finally hear someone else say the same thing. She said it's an issue with my nervous system, and that no amount of childbirth training will help with it. It has nothing to do with my muscles and trying to relax doesn't affect it. Phew. At least I know now that there was no way I could have prepared for it better. Except to have gotten the epidural sooner, haha.

My stay in Minot's only hospital was a million times better than my stay in Santa Maria's only hospital (notice an "only" theme here?). At Minot's hospital, I could call down to the kitchen any ole time I wanted during the day to get food. I had a menu in my room and could order 10 oatmeal raisin cookies at once (which I may or may not have done) if I wanted. There was a baby nursery, and Wally was actually assigned a specific nurse who came in to take him. I was even able to sleep a couple hours at night, and Wally timed it beautifully so that I never had to change a meconium filled diaper, haha. All of my nurses were wonderful, and so helpful. I almost didn't want to leave, which was a complete 180 from my previous experience! Even now when I pass the hospital, for a brief second I wish I was still up there, lol. Key word is "brief."

I have to say that I felt waaaaaaaaay better after wards this time around. I was barely in any pain. Except on the second day, the spot on my back where the epidural went in was hurting. I know my labor was only 6 hours, but I think Dr. Fischbach's help at the end really helped my recovery. I am so thankful for the experience, and to have done it both with and without an epidural. I think it is absolutely wonderful that the technology exists to ease pain like that, and I love that I was more aware of what was going on during Wally's birth, and didn't feel like a mack truck had hit me afterwards. I still very vividly remember getting out of the car and still feeling pain, at Yellowstone, when we were moving to Minot. Henry was 7 weeks old.

Dr. Fischbach always wanted the experience to be as enjoyable as possible for his mothers, and I see that more now. He was the doctor to have if there were any problems in delivery. The stories of the babies and mothers he saved from serious complications are amazing and he will be greatly missed.

Soaking Up Summer

watching Henry play with Daddy at the base pool

Henry loves his brother, but he's never been crazy about getting too close to him. He finally agreed to hold him for a second when Wally was about 6 weeks old, haha. Another day, he did agree to lay down next to him...

I don't know how I do it, but I find myself dressing them the same some days. I didn't mean to coordinate at all this day. I guess with boys though, it's pretty easy to do - navy shirts and grey pants are about all the options anyway, haha.

Henry made this airplane all by himself.

... a little help from Mommy on his tower

CRASH!

I promise I'm planning to resurrect this blog! I feel like I don't have many positive things to say during the winter, lol, so I thought I'd take a break. Plus, my computer wouldn't rotate pictures anymore. But now I really miss it, so I'm gonna start it up again soon!