The Family Shopping Outing

Yesterday was our first full "outing" with the whole family since Rebecca was born. We had a few tough times, but we all survived.

Our first stop was at Kathryn's pre-school for a fundraising Fun Fair. I volunteered to help, and was assigned to the Bean-Bag Bucket Toss (like Bozo buckets, with candy in each bucket). The kids were mostly around that happy age that delights in everything (somewhere between 2 and 6) so I had a blast! Kristin took Kathryn and Rebecca around to the other games, and Kathryn came back with a lot of goodies.

Then we drove down to Pita Inn for lunch. Kristin doesn't like it as much as Kathryn and I do, but she still enjoys it in moderation. After that, we hit the main object of our day: Woodfield Mall. We found some early Christmas gifts, and some birthday gifts for Kathryn and for my mother. And we did a lot of walking.

I particularly enjoyed one moment, during dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. Rebecca started getting hungry, and the nearby Motherhood Maternity store allows breast-feeding in their fitting rooms. But our food had just arrived, and Kristin naturally wanted to eat a bit before being chased out with Rebecca. So I held her for a while, using my pinky knuckle to satisfy Rebecca for as long as I could (see the post Rebecca's Habits). Of course, now I can't eat, since both of my hands are occupied. So Kathryn used my fork to feed me some of my pasta while I held Rebecca.

And another notable occurrence: Kathryn's been coloring her speech with many little extra flourishes lately, as in this example yesterday, "It's a good thing I got that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card, because on the very next turn... BAM... I landed right on the 'Go to Jail' space." For some reason, that "BAM" really cracked me up.

Rebecca's Habits

Over the last two weeks, we've discovered a lot about Rebecca's habits. Everyone warned us that "no two babies are alike." Well, they're right (at least as far as Kathryn and Rebecca are concerned).

Like Kathryn, Rebecca is generally very well-behaved. But Rebecca moves her arms and legs a lot more than Kathryn did. To this day, Kathryn sleeps on her back, completely still. But Rebecca is rarely completely still.

Of course, Rebecca's main activities are eating and sleeping. I love holding her while she's sleeping, but I can't really do anything with her when she's hungry. Babies have something called a "rooting instinct", which the Wikipedia defines as, "When the baby's cheek is stroked, the baby will move his or her face towards the stroking and open his or her mouth, demonstrating the rooting instinct." And (partly because Rebecca moves so much) she often accidentally brushes her cheek with her sleeve. We've lost count of the number of times we've seen Rebecca lying on the floor, straining with mouth open to latch onto her sleeve. She doesn't have much control over her arms or legs yet, so it's a bit like watching a dog chase its tail!

But once Rebecca decides it's time to eat, my sole contribution is to delay her long enough for Kristin to get ready to feed her. Sometimes it takes a while for Kristin to get ready (especially if she's in the shower, or if I'm just trying to give her some time to sleep before she has to feed Rebecca again). So, in the meantime, Rebecca thrashes her head from side to side, trying to find anything to latch onto. Fortunately, once she finds something to suck on, she stops crying for a short while. Over the last two weeks, I've discovered precisely how long a given item will keep her satisfied:

• Pacifier: varies from three seconds to one minute
  
• My sleeve: two seconds
• My cheek: three seconds (our version of a "kiss")
• My arm (sans sleeve): ten seconds
• Her own thumb/finger/hand/fist: fifteen seconds
  
• The tip of my pinky finger: twenty seconds
• The knuckle of my pinky finger: five minutes!

So as you can see, if Kristin is ever more than six minutes away, there's nothing I can do if Rebecca is really hungry. But most of the time, she just wants a cuddle. That's another difference between Kathryn and Rebecca. Kathryn was content to stay on the floor on her back between feedings. Rebecca demands a bit more "cuddle-time".

More Rebecca pictures

It's been a crazy few days. All of the grandparents have visited (at least once, if not twice). But we're starting to settle into a routine, of sorts. Kristin and Rebecca came home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. That night, Rebecca slept very well. Unfortunately, Friday night was exactly the opposite -- she wanted to eat every minute! But last night was wonderful again. It seems that Rebecca is alternating between good and bad nights. So Kristin and I are expecting a very sleepless night tonight.

In case you're wondering (and in case there's anyone left who doesn't know the story), Kristin allowed me to choose Aileen as Rebecca's middle name. It was my paternal Grandmother's name, and I've really missed her since she died. Kristin chose Rebecca as the first name because (as she says) her first choice (Amanda) didn't work very well with Aileen. In some variations, Rebecca means "to bind or captivate". And Aileen is a variation of Helen, which means "light". We thought it was pretty cool to give her a name which means "captivating light"!

On Saturday, Kathryn, Randy, and I went to the Trinity Homecoming football game. Kathryn has already started to express jealousy toward Rebecca. So we wanted to make sure that Kathryn still had her special outing on Saturday. (Trinity won, by the way. 24 to 3 against Joliet's University of St. Francis.) Kathryn absolutely beamed when I showed her the place in Johnson Hall Lounge where Kristin and I sat after our first date. Then I told her about how "Uncle Bill" came in and gave me such an exuberant greeting that he nearly knocked me over (seat and all). Kathryn's response was, "Uncle Bill is so silly!"

I'm going back to work on Wednesday, so Kristin's mom is going to come back that day to help Kristin around the house. The time has been going by so quickly! I can't believe it's Sunday already. But anyway, here are a couple extra Rebecca pictures for you to look at. I took them to church today, and was nearly mobbed by the entire Women's Ministry team as they each tried to be the first to see pictures of the new baby.

Rebecca Aileen Howk

Here she is!

10-03-2006 9:21 p.m. 6 lbs. 9 oz. 19 1/2 inches.

Baby Update

Kristin says this much better than I ever could, so here is the copy of her e-mail:

Baby has, somehow, mananged to make it to week 37 (probably due to all your prayers), so when she comes she will not be a preemie! YAY!! Now on to the medical details.

During the past week (week 36) I was in the office being checked out and monitored every day except Friday. On Wed morning and Sun night (early Mon morning, really) we had some false alarms. Last night (about 1am) I thought my water had broken, but the nurses at the hospital said otherwise and, since I was still only dilated to about 3 1/2 and not having contractions, they sent me home. :-(

This morning, at my 11am appointment, I saw both the doctor and the nurse practitioner/midwife, who said "I can't figure out why you're not in labor, you're dilated to 5cm." Then they hooked me up to the monitor and confirmed what my own experience told me: I'm not having contractions right now. In fact, between being sent home from the hospital at 3am and going to the doctors office at 11, I only felt contraction. So I'm not sure how I went from 3.5 to 5 so quickly, though I highly suspect those prayers for baby's continued development are why it didn't happen sooner. :-)

The doctor told us (Michael arrived at the office towards the end of the monitoring session) that it's dangerous to be walking around dilated to 5, as the baby could decide to slide out on her own. So, he's going to give me today and tomorrow to go into labor on my own, and then on Wed morning, if needed, he will induce labor by breaking my waters (the amniotic fluid/sac surrounding baby).

So baby should be arriving soon! (And it's just as well, the waiting was starting to really mess with my mind.) Looking forward to seeing all of you, and showing off the little one (who has hair, remember).