Time Flies

Summer has flown by...we say, Brooklyn's birthday starts summer and Laekin's ends summer.  Well, Laekin's is coming up, and she reminds us daily with the question "how many days until my birthday" and it seems like she is constantly changing her mind on what she wants to do for her birthday.  Brooklyn is growing and lets us know what she wants with either signs (more, please, drink, and milk) or by grunting and pointing to things.  Like every time we walk by the back door she grunts and points to outside.  The girl loves to swing.  Brooklyn started crawling on April 15th, and she is now standing by herself without holding on to anything.  She is pretty proud when she does it.  She has learned to come down the stairs by herself, so she enjoys exploring around the house.  She has 5 teeth with the cutest little grin.  She loves peek-a-boo...she does it all of the time.  She loves to ruin block towers and anything the kids are trying to play.  She loves books, like Wheels on the bus, Peek-a-Moo, Old McDonald, Barnyard Dance, and pretty much anyone that can be sung.  The other day at a restaurant, there was music and she was bopping while she ate.  She loves music and dancing.  Her absolute favorite food is blueberries!  She could eat a pint herself.  The girl signs more and grunts like crazy when she runs out.  She giggles when I give her butterfly kisses and she thinks her brother and sisters are quite funny.  We've enjoyed swimming this summer, and all 4 kids love the water.  They can spend hours in it.  Laekin started swimming without floaties this year, and is catching on to swimming underwater.  I'd still never trust her in the deep end.  The kids are all growing up to quickly...time flies!

Adventures with Brooklyn

Brookie is the 4th child who refuses to be ignored.  She has quite the loud voice, which she trained while screaming the 1st 6weeks of her life because of acid reflux.  After she got on medicine she was a much more content baby, that is with Mama.  She didn't want to be held by even Grandma...crazy girl didn't realize that will be her candy supply one day.  Brookie didn't laugh until she was almost 5 months old.  She was sitting on the bumbo on the counter in the kitchen while I was making dinner.  She kept turning around and grabbing the cookie jar.  I said "who has her hand in the cookie jar" and she just started laughing over and over every time I said it.  So we were all excited that Brooklyn started laughing.  Well, it was about 2 months later when she started laughing again.  I noticed that after she got off her acid reflux medicine she was a more smiley and giggly baby.  I don't know if it is related at all, but I thought that was interesting.  She loves to laugh and smile now.  Brooklyn learns so quickly.  She started doing "so big" at about 6 months old after only doing it a few times.  She learned to wave bye-bye at 8 months.  She started blowing kisses, doing some sign language, and making fishy face in her 9 month.  She is not crawling, but that's because I do not encourage mobility....come on she is the 4th child and that's going to make everything very difficult.  She is a great sleeper and I love that when we walk up to her room, rock for a bit and then walk over to her bed, she pops her thumb in her mouth before I even lay her down.  She showed me her determine side in sleep training, as in I think it took 2 months, but she is great now!  One determined person versus another determined person.  As that is in feeding time with food.  I seriously thought, she would be good with nursing forever and never want food.  Wow!  It has been a battle, but the last 2 nights, she has eaten like a champ and loves beets of all things.  Here's some dates for me to remember...

Feb 8th - First tooth
Feb 15th - sat up without help
Feb 23rd - waved
March 2nd - clapped to happy and you know it
March 21st - Brooklyn sat up in bed

Brooklyn Charlie

So our baby girl is almost 10 months old and I am finally getting around to write about her birth before I forget it.  Such is life for the 4th baby!

June 4th, 2015...we  checked into the hospital at 6am to be induced because you did not want to come out and you were 12 days late.  Dr. Williamson didn't want to go past that just to be safe.  Apparently, is was a good thing you didn't come the night before because I was told there were no beds available.  So, I got changed and the nurse got started with inducing me about 7:00.  About 9:00 the contractions started to get harder, so I requested an epidural.  So at about 10:00 I got the epidural.  I was so nervous because with Laekin I had gotten the spinal headache when they punctured my spine.  Thankfully, we didn't have that problem, but unfortunately not all of the epidural took.  There was a spot on the left side that refused to go numb, and oh mercy did that hurt.  Dr. Williamson was busy with a surgery on the next floor, and I had just finished getting the epidural when he checked in on me.  Since, I didn't know the epidural didn't take, he thought I would be fine to wait a little longer even though I was dilating quickly...I mean 12 days late and 4th baby, that make sense :)  They kept giving me more and more medicine trying to numb that spot, but it only deadened my right leg so that it felt like a log.  It worked out because I had to get a shot in my leg to bring my blood pressure back up when it started dropping below 90.  Anyhow, the doctor finally came back and we got ready to go.  3 or 4 pushes and sweet baby Brooklyn Charlie was born at 12:16pm, 7lbs, 10oz and 21in long with a full head of dark hair and just perfect!  It was a pretty uneventful delivery with a precious baby in the end.  I actually had to wait in labor and delivery until 7:00 before they had a room for me to go to.  Just as they were about to move me, everyone had come up to see you at the same time.  So we had a processional through the halls of the hospital on the way to the room.  Papa and Grandma brought Sissy, Bubbey and Laekey up to see you.  They were in love and 10 months later they still are!