Bonus Post: Sound Bites 22

Grandma: Here's your water.
Gretchen: Well, I would prefer milk.

Kaitlyn, after a rather messy meal of Mexican chicken left her clothes covered in rice that subsequently fell to the floor when she got down: Uh-oh, I peed rice.

Me: You can have four of these little pizza tables, but I'm throwing the rest away.
Gretchen: Sometimes we have pizza tables in the playroom and then they just vanish.

William: Gretchen bumped my nose into the floor.
Me: Gretchen, were you chasing William?
Gretchen: No, we were both running away from Olivia.
William: She was trying to get us.
Justine: So you were being wild?
William: Well, I was just running and then I fell down.
Justine: Did Gretchen trip over you?
William: Um...
Me: Did you trip over William?
Gretchen: Yes.
Me: Did you land on his head?
Gretchen: No, I tripped and fell on the floor on my head.
Justine: Where was William's head?
William: My head was on the floor.
Me: How did you land on William?
Gretchen: We were like an X.

Me: What happened to your face, Olivia?
Bryan: She got scratched.
Gretchen: By a dragon when she was a baby?!

Me: Stop yelling at me, Gretchen.
Gretchen: I'm not yelling at anybody.
Me: You are yelling at everybody.
Gretchen: I'm just yelling at myself.

Olivia: A brother?  Well, the next one will be a sister.

Kaitlyn: Be right back!  Fias crying!

Gretchen: Why did Grandma and Grandpa's dog die?
Me: He was very old and sick.
Gretchen: When we are sick we die?!
Me: Only when we are very sick.  Not the regular kind of sick that little girls get.  Mostly he was very old.
Gretchen: Very, very old people die?
Me: Generally, yes.
Gretchen: Unless they eat a lot of spaghetti, and then they don't?
Me: ... I don't know.  There haven't been any studies about the effects of eating pasta on death from old age.
Gretchen: Well we read a book once where there was a very old lady and she ate some spaghetti and didn't die.
Me: I'll inform the scientific community.

Gretchen: Daddy, sometimes I be funny.
Bryan: Sometimes you be funny?
Gretchen: Daddy, you are Jillian.  *starts laughing*  See?  Sometimes I am funny!

Gretchen, after eating a KitKat: Daddy, can I touch you?
Bryan: Ye-- *looks at Gretchen's hand* Mmm, no.

Olivia: Daddy, your shirt is broken!
*His shirt had holes in it.*

July 2-16

There have been a couple of pictures-only bonus posts that have gone up recently, and more are scheduled for the coming weeks, so make sure you check for those.  :)

It's been a busy two weeks for us.  The first week of the month was pretty laid back, but we did have a fair number of breaks in our routine (such as it is) for the fourth of July and other summer activities.  The second week of July got much busier since we welcomed Matthias on Tuesday, July 11.  Bonus post about that coming soon, I hope.  Also this past week: we got a new table, Gretchen started school (more officially), and Kaitlyn succeeded in convincing us that she can do quiet time some days instead of always taking a nap.

I believe I last left off with the girls staying with Jillian while Bryan and I attended a wedding.  They did great, and Jillian managed bedtime wonderfully.  She did apparently try to break our car (why does it only smoke when she drives it?), but even that worked itself out.  The car problem will be resolved soon, I hope, now that we don't have to worry about a trip to the hospital while it's in the shop.  The wedding reception was at the Toledo Zoo, which was interesting.  It's too bad the kids weren't invited, because we got to pet some animals, take a train ride, and feed the giraffes.  Bryan and I decided that the next time I take the kids to the zoo I should remember some money so that they can feed the giraffes, too.

The day after the wedding, we went straight from church to Bryan's parents' house for a pool party.  The girls had fun swimming and riding around on Grandma's new giant duck pool toy.  When they were done swimming, they wandered inside for dinner and a movie while the adults took over the pool and enjoyed the sunshine.

The fourth of July was a birthday party and then a cookout.  The Eichers came to visit, so all the adults played games while the kids were at the party.  We headed to the cookout and relaxed, playing cornhole and watching the kids run around like crazy people.  All three girls got their faces painted, which was very exciting.

Jillian volunteered to babysit the Creighton boys at my house, so Wednesday was filled with kids again.  Luckily for me, Jillian had also said she'd watch my kids while I ran errands (I'm not sure if she realized ahead of time that she had double booked herself), so I got to escape the craziness for a while.

Thursday was Ivy Box, which means that we dropped Olivia off at the Wey house for some school.  I pulled the car up the the curb and sent her up the driveway all by herself, telling her to wave when she saw Mrs. Wey.  She looked very grown up.  :)  Kaitlyn was sad that we abandoned Olivia, but she and Gretchen enjoyed their morning together.

Saturday was a trip to the park and then another birthday party.  I sent Bryan to the party with the girls and purged the playroom while they were gone.  Elesha came over to hold my hand, and we sent four bags of things to Goodwill and one to the trash.  The playroom is looking much better now.

Sunday and Monday passed uneventfully, and then Tuesday was Matthias day!  Murry came to stay with the girls, taking them back to her house in the evening.  On Wednesday Jillian, Steve and Murry, and the girls came to visit us in the hospital.  Everyone was excited to hold the baby.  Murry wanted to head to Cleveland in anticipation of watching Rudy while Keshia's baby was born, so Bryan took the girls home and spent the night with them.  He dropped them off at the Hodges' before coming back to the hospital on Thursday morning to collect Matthias and me.

Our new table was delivered on Friday, just in time to seat twelve people for dinner.  The Weys came over with food for us and we had Jacob, Zach, the Eichers, and Carroll for game night.  I left them to it and went to bed.  :-P

Also in these past two weeks: Justine had a girl and Keshia had a boy, so we have two new cousins to play with.

I recently stumbled across my Day in the Life posts from years ago.  My life has changed more than I thought.  I'm hoping to do a similar post soon, once we establish a new normal with Matthias.  :)

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Pittsburgh Pictures

Pictures from the June 2017 trip to Pittsburgh.  The cousin lineups are already outdated due to babies.

Walter and Kaitlyn eat breakfast:

...Joined by Edward:

How the girls spent one morning:

How the boys spent the same morning:

Games in the attic:

Cousin line-ups:

Bonus Post: Introducing Matthias

Matthias Edward Barhorst

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

4:20 pm

9 pounds, 4.7 ounces

21 inches long

This story could have been much more exciting if it started Monday night.  We had tornado warnings, with sightings just northwest of us, around 10:00.  As Bryan, Jillian, and I sat in the girls' bathroom draped with sleeping children, I commented that given the timing we were lucky we weren't having a baby in the basement as a tornado raged above us.  As it was, the tornado passed us by and the night continued uneventfully.  As we headed off to bed, Jillian did forbid me from going into labor during the torrential downpour that followed our vigil.

Tuesday morning began routinely enough.  Bryan got up for work, I decided to rest in bed until Kaitlyn's demands required my presence.  She came bouncing in, already dressed in Gretchen's clothes, around 7:45.  No demands were made, though, and after a good morning kiss she happily went off to play.  At 8:00, I felt what I am calling my first contraction.  I'd been having fairly strong Braxton Hicks contractions for days, and the line between strong practice contractions and weak real contractions was pretty blurry.  By 8:30 I'd had three more weak contractions and figured I better start my day.

Thus passed the rest of the morning.  The contractions got mildly stronger, but not really uncomfortable.  Sometimes they were as close as 6 minutes apart, but more often they were closer to 10.  The girls and I said prayers and got breakfast.  Well, they ate breakfast.  I had three shredded mini wheats while I was pouring cereal and decided I wasn't hungry.  When they went to play, I wandered around the house doing small chores and halfheartedly timing contractions.  My tracking of contractions is abysmal at best, even when I'm not doing other things.  

Bryan came upstairs to get breakfast and I mentioned that I'd been having irregular contractions.  He thought about panicking, but I must have appeared unfazed because after asking if he should call his mom he calmly said to just come get him when it was time to go.  I went back to chores.  During this time, the dishwasher was loaded, the remaining dishes were done, the clothes were folded, and the floor was swept.  Later, as we were getting ready to head to the hospital, I joked to Bryan that his mom might not recognize our house since it was so uncharacteristically clean.  Bryan came up for lunch just before noon, and I told him that contractions were now consistently 3-4 minutes apart and I was going to call his mom as soon as I finished the dishes.  He went back downstairs to take the afternoon off work.

Murry answered her phone with "Is it time?!" and I told her to start heading our direction, but to take her time.  That seems a necessary precaution ever since she made the hour drive to our house in 35 minutes when Gretchen was being born.  I went to check the mail and stopped on the way back to pull some weeds in the garden.  Bryan, worried about my nonchalance, called Elesha and Sarah to put them on notice as back up babysitters in case we had to leave earlier.  We did not have to leave earlier, though, and Murry arrived just after 1.  We put our stuff in her jeep (leaving her the van and carseats), told the girls goodbye, and left.  Olivia was very excited about the coming baby, Gretchen was excited about Olivia's excitement (although I think the baby part was explained better after we left), and Kaitlyn was excited to see Grandma.  :)

The drive to the hospital was pleasant.  Contractions slowed down to about 6 minutes apart, causing me to question our decision to leave.  We called the hospital to let them know we were on our way and to find out which entrance to use since it was daytime.  Bryan talked about how nice it was to be making the drive in the daylight after a full night's sleep.  He claimed that this was the ideal way to have babies.  I argued that I much preferred waking up nearly in transition and having a baby within three hours as opposed to having contractions for half a day while simultaneously dealing with the needs of three other children.  I also pointed out that, as the one having the baby, my perception of ideal counted for much more than his.

We discussed which of our five boy names we would use on the off chance that we had a boy.  I was thinking Matthias, but we agreed that we'd favored Samuel more consistently during the pregnancy.  We decided that Samuel would probably be the name, and then decided that it didn't matter because we only have girls.

We arrived at the hospital around 1:45, entered through the outpatient doors, and waited through a rather lengthy check-in.  I guess when you go through the emergency room they tend to shorten the process a bit.  A short walk later, we were settling into a hospital room on the labor and delivery floor.  An IV was placed in case of emergency, more questions were asked, and the midwife ascertained that I was 7 cm.  One nurse asked my plan for pain, to which I responded, "Um, ignore it?"  After all of that, I was allowed to get up and wander around the room.  All that was left was to wait for a baby.

Around 3:15, Bryan told me he thought we'd have a baby by 4.  Sure enough, at 3:55 I had him go fetch the midwife.  Little did we know that it would still be 25 minutes before the baby made an appearance.  In an odd twist, contractions slowed down as we got closer to the actual birth.  I'd have a contraction and then wait about four minutes for the next one to come.  The midwife broke my water, but even that didn't speed things up.  Bryan and I chatted with the nurses about all sorts of things (like whether we thought this would be a boy given the difference in labor, and the purpose of the approximately 12 pairs of scissors on the table that they wheel in).  Everyone had plenty of time to get in position and get things set up.  Finally the time came to push.  The first thing the midwife did after the baby was born was ask Bryan the gender.  After he said it was a boy, her next comment was on the size.  Apparently this was a large baby.

The boy was passed up to me, and Bryan leaned over and asked, "Can we name him Matthias?"  Apparently he looked like a Matthias, even though Bryan never thought he'd be the kind of person who decided a baby's name based on his first look at said baby.  And so Matthias he is.  :)  When the nurses finally got around to weighing him an hour or so later, Matthias did indeed turn out to be a large baby, weighing in at 9 pounds, 4.7 ounces.  Our initial thought was that he looks like Kaitlyn, but as I look back on pictures of the other girls, I'm not so sure.  He probably just looks like a baby.

Murry had wanted to stop by with the girls to visit on her way back to Sidney, but the timing didn't work out well and they were excited to get to Grandma's house.  They decided to visit the next evening instead.  Dinner arrived just as everything was cleaned up (one perk to having a daytime birth was that meals were available when I was hungry) and Fr Mark and Presbytera arrived after dinner to visit and say prayers.

We spent that night and all of the next day in the hospital resting and snuggling Matthias.  Steve and Murry brought the girls to visit after dinner that day, arriving just after Jillian.  Matthias slept through getting passed around, much to Olivia's dismay.  All the girls were very happy to see and hold the baby.  They were initially disappointed to not have another sister, but upon meeting Matthias they all decided that a brother was good, too.

Bryan took the girls home that night so that Murry could head to Cleveland in case Keshia had her baby (she ended up having her son the next night).  Bryan spent the night at home and dropped the girls off with the Hodges the next morning before coming to fetch Matthias and me.  We were all checked out and ready to go before lunchtime.  Bryan, Matthias, and I spent a few hours alone at home -- enough time to watch Iron Man, because Bryan wanted the first movie Matthias slept through to be a superhero movie -- before he headed out to pick up the girls.

By dinnertime on the 13th we were all home, ready to begin being a family of 6.  :)

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Cleveland Pictures

Pictures of Rudy's birthday party.

The drive-in movie:

Dancing in hula skirts:

Painting pictures:

 

Rudy and Kaitlyn with Bernie:

Bryan:

Olivia and Grandma:

Chalk: