I am feeling a bit guilty that I am just getting around to posting about my darling little niece’s arrival, but I’d rather spend time visiting her than blogging about it. 
Helaina Nicole Martin arrived on Thursday, November 12, at 10:16 am weighing in at 8 pounds 13 ounces and 21.5 inches long. I am so stinking proud of Valerie. Her water broke around midnight, so she and Kane headed to the hospital since they were scheduled for an induction that morning anyway and there was some question about how clear the amniotic fluid was. They got Valerie started on the pitocin drip. It is my understanding she was at 4 cm and a couple hours later, asked for an epi, got it, got checked again and she was at 10cm already and ready to push. She got a little rest while the medical teams for the actual delivery got in gear then pushed for about an hour before Helaina was born. Whoohoo!
We went to go visit her the Saturday after she was born and then again the next weekend. She nurses like a champ and is growing like a weed. They were monitoring her bilirubin there for a bit, but as soon as Val’s milk came in, that all fixed itself. She has this lovely pointy chin just like her mother and her coloring reminds me of her father. She makes those sweet little newborn noises and when she cries I have to resist the urge to go love on her and nurse her. I think she may have been put down once or twice in her life so far because everybody loves holding her.
She already has definite moods and lets us all know when she is unhappy. She likes to be snuggled up tight and squeezed when she’s held. Diaper changes are pretty noisy since she protests having herself embarrassed and put into such an unladylike position. She reminds me of an accordion when she cries as she vocalizes on both the exhale and the inhale. It’s very easy to tell when she’s eating as well, since she makes sweet little vocalizations with every gulp and breath. Valerie says she sounds like a chicken.
Thomas got a big kick out of holding Helaina in his lap. I’m not sure why, but he has the tendency to put her butt higher than her head. He’s very gentle with her and enjoys loving on her. And then he’s off to play with his siblings or uncle who can run around and wrestle with him.
Daniel has come up several times while I am holding Helaina and pronounced her a baby. He hangs around looking at her without touching as though he wants to interact with her but isn’t quite sure how. When invited to hug her he gets all tickled looking, grin, leans in with a big “oo-wee,” and walks off looking quite pleased with himself.
Gloria merely informs us of when Helaina is crying and tells us to fix it. She doesn’t seem to have much interest in getting too involved with her at this age. I have a feeling that once Helaina starts smiling and laughing that Gloria will spend a great deal of time figuring out how to entertain her and keep those smiles and laughs coming.
Michael has gotten to hold her several times during our visits. He enjoys being able to hand her off when she has a dirty diaper or needs to eat and gets to enjoy the sweet, snuggly, sleepy Helaina.
I have had the pleasure of burping, rocking, snuggling, and even “slinging” little Helaina during lunch. For those of you not familiar with the term, “slinging” simply refers to carrying the baby in a sling type baby carrier. Slings are lovely, simple contraptions that snuggle baby up close to Mommy. There are numerous positions that you can use from the cradle position where they feel all swaddled up to sitting up to riding on the hip. I found it extremely comforting for my little ones when they were newborns. They felt secure and swaddled, and the motion of me walking around doing daily chores helped to rock them to sleep and keep them content. There was much less fussing when they were in the sling.
Back to Helaina! I will have to take pictures this Thanksgiving while I am here. I am terrible about forgetting to grab my camera. I prefer to enjoy the moment I am in rather than spend them all behind a camera and miss out!
I am aware that it has come and gone. Nevertheless, the cuteness must be shared. (Thomas was at his father’s this year, so we don’t have pictures of that.)
As many of you probably know, Gloria is in LUV with Tinkerbelle, so it was only logical for her to dress up as this fairy. At first, Daniel was to be a lost boy, but I got over the size differences and just had him be Peter Pan.
Peter Pan:
I found a peasant top tutorial online and modified it by replacing the elastic around the neck with a drawstring and cutting a short slit down the center front to make it look more “pannish” and less girlie. His pants were fleece pants from a pattern I use regularly for both kiddos. I guessed at the measurements for the hat, made out of the same fleece as the pants, and came up with something fairly presentable. I got lazy with the belt and just cut a length of brown fleece and tied it. I am truly proud of his little elf shoes. Again, I modified a pattern I found online to make some cute, pointy, soft soled elf shoes that fit Daniel for about a week before he outgrew them. (Good thing I made them close to Halloween!)
Tinkerbelle:
This turned out practically elegant. They had this lovely shade of green satiny fabric on sale at Hancock’s the day I went looking. I took the standard jumper I use for many of Gloria’s dresses and just cut the bottom jagged and lined the entire thing because the idea of hemming the bottom just boggled my mind. Daddy insisted on bloomers, so those were added from the same fabric. There was just enough after that to make her some sweet little slippers (same pattern minus pointy toes). The wings were in a bag of dress up clothes a friend handed down to Gloria. Whew! No stressing over bent hangers.
The day before Halloween we took a little trip to see Daddy at work all dressed up. There is a neat area with some ferns under the trees that just seemed perfect for little fairies and elves.
Exploring the Ferns
More Tink
Tink in the Ferns (I absolutely adore this one!)
Peter Pan with no hat
Lookin for his shadow? (maybe his hat!)
Ta Da
Ta Da Again (And the only decent shot of Tink’s wings)
Tink spent a good while having to sit still while her mother configured her hair into the traditional Tink pouf-bun the best she could with that baby fine hair.
Peter Pan was ready to go! He even wore his hat-for a few minutes.
This picture is fuzzy, but Daniel is smiling, you can see Gloria’s do, and the neat pumpkins Michael carved are visible.
This next one just cracks me up. The look on Daniel’s face, the position of the kids’ pumpkins, the pose just all look so funny to me.
Halloween evening was a little bit chilly, so we added a white turtleneck and fleece pants. And no, no socks. Those little slippers are lined with more white fleece.
Another view of that topknot.
Evil Tinkerbelle, shooting me with her magic stick.
Enjoying his candy
Finally smiling for the camera on purpose!
So I have been pestering Melissa for about 2 months now, saying that we should get Daniel’s hair cut. So finally today she decided it was time to get everyone’s hair cut (except hers).
So Daniel went first:
In the chair…
The preparation:
The Cut (shock the mommy)
Just keep that candy coming:
I have her right where I want her:
That was easy!
Gloria was supposed to go first, but bumped her head on something while we were waiting so we thought we would give her a break and let Daniel go first. She didn’t want to go second either though, so Thomas went next:
He, of course, was just fine with having his hair cut, but he did request to keep his sideburns (like Indiana Jones). I didn’t get a picture, but I think his haircut now looks like Spock. 
Gloria didn’t want to go after Thomas either so I got my hair cut. Nothing interesting there, except that for having no hair on top, she sure got a lot of hair off of my head somewhere.
And finally Gloria:
Can you smile? (Daniel did!) I recommend click on this picture to see the full size version. That way you can see Daniel smiling in the background:
Oh you were talking to me?:
Look in the mirror:
But the only way this was possible…
She had to sit in daddy’s lap:
Thank you Miss Amanda for being so patient with us:
And just so you know, haircuts cost a lot more than two bits and you don’t even get a shave with it.
A picture of Gloria at bed time, in her “80′s hairband” look:
Here is a picture from my phone: (I couldn’t figure out how to get it to publish more than one picture per post from my phone.)
So this morning, the day after the party, Thomas got up at 6am, got fully dressed and then came to snuggle in the bed with us. At about 7:30 this is what my bed looked like.
The boys were sound asleep and Gloria was saying, “Please, wake up, Thomas, please. Pretty please.”
Gloria has gotten it into her head lately, that she should decide when pictures are to be made. And mostly that means that she has decided that she doesn’t want me to take pictures of her. So when I took this great picture of her wonderful dress:
she was saying “No daddy. No picture.”
And trying to hide…
Daniel had a good time eating tonight. He was yelling at us when he would run out of food. We had some Mexican themed chili for dinner and he was using his cup to smash the beans and then eating the beans off the bottom of the cup.
As you can see, he got quite messy…
It was really funny, because he would scream at us, because he was done eating and therefore done being in the chair, but when I said “smile” he and Thomas both would:
except when they got a little bored with it:
So Daniel has been making sounds that sound a lot like words recently. A couple of weeks ago, he got a-hold of my phone and began pressing buttons. I heard him, or rather the phone, from the kitchen and called out, “Daniel, are you calling China?” to which he replied, “Yeah, Mama!” It was a bit growly, and he probably wasn’t assigning meaning to the words, but that’s how it came out nevertheless. I thought Michael was going to bust a gut laughing when he heard him.
Later that same week, Thomas offered him a carrot at the dinner table by saying, “Daniel, do you want a carrot?” And Daniel said, “Carrot.” Plain as day. We haven’t heard it since.
This morning though was the sweetest. All 3 kiddos and myself were snuggling, wiggling, and playing in the bed. Daniel laid his head down on the bed next to me so I started talking to him. We’ve been playing a game where I say, “Bye-bye” and wave his hand for him. It makes him giggle for some reason. This morning I just waved my own hand and said “Bye-bye” a few times since he was laying on his hands. He watched me for a bit, then sat himself up, raised his right hand, and clearly said “bye-bye” in a sweet little voice while waving and grinning. Then he crawled off to play. It was so obviously on purpose and not an accident. And it was soooo sweet to see that little hand waving. He looked right proud of himself, too.
Hopefully, he will get better soon so that he will stop the constant screaming. He is such an intense little guy that when he wants something he screams at the top of his lungs to get it. We are working on being quieter at the dinner table, but when he runs out of food on his tray or sees something on the table he wants, he screams until he gets it. If I look at him and speak softly, he calms down for a few seconds. I’m trying to encourage him to make a softer sound before I give him what he’s screaming for. I’m sure he’ll get it eventually. He’s already gotten better about biting Gloria. (Poor girl has little bruises where he’s bitten her.) Now if I see him thinking about it and tell him no, he stops. Gloria tells him, “Daniel, don’t bite me.” He backs off then, too. And for the record, his biting happens when he wants to love on her the way he loves and squishes on his favorite stuffed toys. He’s not trying to be mean. He’s just caught up in the intense snuggling so he bites her.
The little guy is just INTENSE!
And that’s not 139 pages of pictures or words in large print. That’s normal sized, normal margins, and no pictures my “little” boy is now reading.
Thomas came home with this REAL book in his bag and managed to read the entire thing over the weekend. (There was a lot of rain.) Since he was at his dad’s house, I was a little skeptical, but he gave me a plot summary with no trouble.
I am impressed. It wasn’t long ago that he was still sounding out words and reading picture books. Now it’s novels! Sometimes it’s hard to remember he’s only 7 when he does things like this.
I can sense many library trips are in store for this summer.
November 25, 2009 8:57 pm | 
