Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Meet Roselyn


Every birth story is a little different. Even having had all of my children via c-section, things are a little bit different each time. I think that the only things that have been the same for us is that we've had the same surgeon and all of my kids have been born on Tuesday.

This Tuesday started out a little differently, since we were scheduled for a noon baby. We enjoyed a couple of hours at home with the other kids before heading off. Once we got there, things were pretty similar in the prep department. We had a wonderful nurse working with us and we knew what to expect at each step of the way. It's still amazes me that there are three doctors, an anesthesiologist, and half a dozen or so nurses all devoted to caring for me and my baby!

When Roselyn was born they brought her over to the warmer and cleaned her up. I got to keep my glasses, so I could see what was going on this time around. She did not like being out in the cold and cried a lot. She weighed a mere 5 pounds 15 ounces and was 18 3/4 inches long.

When I was done in the delivery room they wheeled me over to recovery, just like normal. But this time, baby got to come with me! In the past they have used this time to take baby to the nursery and get it all cleaned up. This time I got to cuddle with my baby and they did the washing up right there in recovery. It wasn't until we were in there than anybody asked us what her name was. Two minutes later the lab tech came in to do her first blood poke, and her name was Roselyn, too! I was worried that this baby would cry all the time. I'd never spent those first couple hours with my babies before and did not realize how much crying they did! She got it all out of her system and hasn't really cried since. Well, unless we're changing her. It's cold with no pants on!

My room was very nice, but a little small when all the kids came for a visit! Apparently when they were getting ready to leave, they told Eleanor they were going to see the new baby and she said, "no, puppy." I think she's glad for the baby now, though! She is convinced that Roselyn needs all of her blankies and toys at all times. The boys love holding her and touching her soft skin. I'm still not sure what Veronica thinks. Mostly, everyone is still excited about Grandma being here to take care of them and having all this snow and Christmas, too. What a busy week it's been at our house!

I wanted very much to come home on Christmas Eve (one day before regular discharge after a c-section). That's always been the time for our family to read from the Bible and open our stockings. Because we went into the week planning to push my recovery and discharge date, we were ready to go before the blizzard made the roads impassable. Praise the Lord! We had a wonderful evening with Greg reading from the Word and the kids acting out the story with the nativity set. They all got sleeping bags under the tree and had a slumber party in their bedroom. Sweet memories.

The most difficult part of the process was trying to get my pain meds. We stopped at the pharmacy on the way home and dropped the prescription off. They told us fifteen minutes. We figured Greg would pick it up when he took the kids to the Christmas Eve service a couple hours later. When that was cancelled due to weather, he headed out to get it then. Unfortunately, they did not tell us that they were closing one hour after we dropped the prescription off and he arrived a few minutes too late. I was devastated! The prescription could not be picked up at another location or called in to another pharmacy. We called the hospital, and the nurse wasn't sure what to do, either. Thankfully, the doctor was able to call in a prescription for a different pain reliever and Greg braved the snowy weather to head to an open pharmacy. Thanks to my wonderful husband, I had drugs on Chirstmas Day :) There was enough in the bottle to get through the blizzard until our original pharmacy opened. My husband was even willing to walk down there for me, but the main streets were plowed by then, too.

The Lord has truly been gracious to us. Other things have progressed extremely well this time around. All of our babies have had some jaundice that required extra attention, but no light therapy. Roselyn is a great eater helping to flush all that bilirubin out, and we've even been able to avoid any extra pokes! Usually my post-op swelling has me sitting in a chair with ice on my feet, but this time it's been practically non-existent. My pain has been fairly managable, too. And last night, Roselyn slept for six hours! What more could a Mama ask for a week after delivery?

Thank you, Lord, for a wonderful new baby. You have truly blessed our family with Roselyn's presence. We pray that she will grow into a compassionate woman who loves You above and beyond all else and serves You out of a grateful heart. We pray that we can be the kind of parents You desire us to be and that we will turn to You for wisdom and guidance each and every step of the way. What an adventure parenting is!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Merry Christmas

Our Christmas photo cards arrived the day before Thanksgiving. It's not that I'm that organized, it's that I found a great deal to take advantage of to motivate us to get that photo taken! So, I worked on our letter and had it ready to go a week later. Did it get printed then? nope. I e-mailed it to absolutely everyone in my contacts list a week ago (and cut down on the number that need to be printed and mailed). Did it get printed then? nope. I finished addressing and stamping all the envelopes this weekend. Did it get printed then? nope. So, here we are, six hours away from having a baby. Is it printed yet? nope. Finding time to get to a color printer amidst the cleaning and prepping for normal life is crazy enough. Add Christmas to the mix and it takes me a little longer each year. Add getting ready for baby #5 to all of that chaos and I've decided to give up! I'm going to include a little printed note with the link to this site. Why didn't I think of this three weeks ago? Oh well. Next year, I'll probably print it right on the photo cards! The December chaos will be a little lighter in the future, but we also have a birthday to celebrate from now on, too. Without further ado, here is the much anticipated Hendrickson family Christmas letter. May it make you smile. :)

Friday, December 11, 2009

Snow Day(s) in a Homeschool

Does anyone know what day it is? This snow and the subsequent schedule changes has me all messed up. I wouldn't have thought that a snow day would affect our homeschool that much, but for some reason it did! Just the feel of being snowed in, having Daddy home in the middle of the week, and feeling like it was a day to just sit around in jammies and blankies with hot drinks made for a fairly non-productive week school-wise. So, how did we fare?

Monday we spent SIX HOURS cleaning our house. And that was just general stuff- no closets or desk piles were touched! Tuesday was spent e-mailing road conditions to Daddy at work. The boys attempted to scoop the driveway, but the garden shovel wasn't getting the job done. These pics are from then, about halfway through the official snow storm. And Eleanor thought I'd let her out, too! We had Daddy home on Wednesday, so it felt like a Saturday. Unfortunately, we had some sick kids. They felt fine by mid morning, but I spent most of the day disinfecting bathrooms. We made some cookies, too. On Thursday, I thought we should get back to our school routine, but by then the school/toy room was a disaster so the kids spent the day attempting to clean it up. I also ordered some new things online that I think will help keep me on track and consistent in the spring. I'm excited about my new books, and hope they get here before Christmas. Today will probably be a day devoted to organizing some games and crafts, and reading some library books. I also get to go grocery shopping tonight (without kids). I'm so excited to get out of the house that I'm hoping it takes a couple hours!

What I did realize this week is that when one is homeschooling we can take hits like crazy weeks and keep on going. Public schools were out for THREE DAYS, and I'm sure everyone thinks those kids will turn out fine. Even though we didn't sit down with our books and I didn't get to cross things off of my school list, my kids were still learning and growing. They've watched their movie on Planets twice this week and have looked through the huge stack of library books at least that many times, as well. Zachary instigated his own experiment about planet rotation after seeing flashlights and balls as a demo in one of those books. We looked through recipes and the boys had to do some simple reading. We doubled one of the recipes and I was amazed at how well the boys did. It could have been a great lesson in fractions, but I didn't think of that at the time. And, as always, my kids are learning about diligence, orderliness, kindness, obedience, and many other characteristics every day.

It would be so easy to look back on this week and feel defeated. We didn't crack even one school book open even one time. I have a huge list of really fun projects that we could do for our planets unit and another one of Christmas crafts that didn't even get looked at. Instead, I will choose to look back on this week and see how our homeschool is such a blessing. This is what I want for our kids. I want them to go through life looking at each and every day as an opportunity to learn and grow, regardless of what's on the schedule or whether they have a structured lesson plan to follow. (And it doesn't seem to matter if our hair stays in it's ponytail, or if we even have pants on!)

So, how did you spend your snow day(s)?