Miscellaneous Life

So I am finally able to catch you all up on the comings, goings, and doings of the Halaby clan. It's been a while so I apologize if things are a little haphazard. Seems my editorial finesse is elsewhere, perhaps hiding behind the bags under my eyes. Lots of room there, ya know. I hope I'll make it up to you by sharing lots of pictures!

Last Saturday was a big day. Maddie turned six weeks old and Jalal and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Since he had to work that night, we had to wait to actually celebrate until last night. We got a babysitter and went out to dinner. It was nice, especially the bottle of Cabernet. I haven't had a single drink in probably close to a year, so that was wonderful! I don't know if it was the wine or the relief from being out with my husband at dinner and not having to replace anyone's pacifier or ask for the 17th time if someone would please drink his milk. We really had a nice time, only we didn't have time to make it to a movie and we didn't know what else to do, so we just drove around a while and then came home early. We joked about getting a hotel room and just sleeping for a couple of hours, but it was cheaper to just go home and go to bed early. Hah! What a couple of dorks we are.

Maddie is smiling now, and it's adorable. She gives this big gummy grin and her dimple shows, and it just makes my heart melt. It's hard to catch on camera since it's just me trying to make her smile and take the picture at the same time, but here's what I've gotten so far.




Quinn is such a beast now. He has so much energy that he just literally runs around the house slamming into things at random. Whenever I get mad and fed up and tell him to stop doing something, he throws himself on the ground so hard that he ends up hurting himself. Does it make me a bad mom that I don't feel sorry for him one bit at that point?

Ok, to back up to what I've missed. We had our Easter Egg-stravaganza at the Bridge the week before Easter. Quinn had a blast, decorating cookies, coloring pictures, and finding eggs, of course. I love my church. We all feel so at home there. I have friends there who come up to me and say, "Quinn's a little stinky, so I'm going to take him to change him. Where is your diaper bag?" Isn't that crazy? It's amazing that it really doesn't take long to feel like they are family. My pastor's wife, Chris, is awesome. She works at her kids' school, so she had spring break last week. Midweek, she emailed me and emphatically insisted that I take her up on her offer to watch the kids while I go out and do something. I finally agreed and had almost two hours to run not-so-kid-friendly errands, like the Cartridge World, because of course I ran out of ink just as I received my first job after Maddie's birth. I also hit Hallmark because can you imagine me struggling with Maddie while Quinn ran up and down the aisles "reading" cards? Especially now that he knows some of them play music, I can't control him in there. Anyway, so Chris made it through most of his stack of puzzles while Maddie slept the whole time in her swing. It was so great of her to do that.






Speaking of puzzles, Quinn is amazing at them. He mastered his 12 and 20 piece puzzles months ago, but he would do them over and over again. When Trish came up for Maddie's birth, she brought this 48-piece construction scene puzzle from Melissa & Doug, a company I LOVE! I told her it was way too difficult. But it was just a few weeks later that I had to go out and find more of them because he was putting it together so well. I found two more just like it at Ross, a fish one and a dinosaur one. Here we are less than 5 weeks from his first attempt at the first one and now he can put them all together just about as quick as I can. It's crazy!!

We made it to the mall to visit the Easter bunny again this year. It started to look a little iffy with Quinn beginning a minor freak-out, and all I could think of was the Santa Claus fiasco last Christmas. I hate paying more than $20 to have pictures of my kid screaming on the lap of a stranger dressed up like a character. But when we told him he had to show his little sister how it's done and that he could ask the Easter bunny for a "special treat," he changed his tune. They turned out pretty cute. Here are the ones Jalal took.




Easter was really nice. We got a few pics of the kids all dressed up. Miss Maddie looked absolutely adorable in her Easter dress, and Quinn, of course, was quite the handsome little man. After church, we had a lovely traditional Easter dinner. For the first time since we met, Jalal made his mom's baked ham recipe, and I loved it! Those Hawaiians really know what they're doing with that ham and pineapple combo. Mmm mmm starts with M, as Quinn would say. Here are the little lovelies.






Somewhere in there in the last few weeks, we went to a circus in Spartanburg. To be honest, it was a little ghetto. Well, it was sort of half-ghetto/half-redneck. Hope I'm not offending anyone, but we were all abused by the urchins sitting behind and beside us. They were horrible. One little girl even reached over and grabbed a handful of our popcorn!! Seriously? Does anyone teach their children manners anymore? Do you think they have the decency to be ashamed? (The parents, I mean.) Anyway, Quinn had a good time, and he even rode an elephant. I think the next time we'll spend the extra money and go see Barnum and Bailey instead.




Well, I was flattered when I got an email from my contact at Cambria Press two weeks ago asking if I was ready to come back to work for them. I suppose that's a good sign, right? I just finished my first project for them, and wouldn't you know it was in Chinese. It was a good book, actually, but it was literally in Chinese. Well, some of it was. I have now done books that were partly written in Chinese, French, Herati (an Afghan dialect), and math. Yes, that's a language, and one I don't speak. But as stressful as it is watching the dishes and the laundry and the diapers pile up while I work frantically toward a deadline, I am so happy to have work. And I do like this job, so I am glad they like me, too.

Whew! That was a lot. I'm sure there is stuff I've missed, but it's probably minutiae. Like Quinn making Maddie scream when he throws her "teddy bear" (GloWorm) at her and hits her. Or how all of Maddie's pants are about 2 inches too big in the waist and fall off her. Or how we tried to take Quinn to a movie today to see "How to Train a Dragon." How even though we'd just eaten lunch, we had to feed Quinn peanut butter crackers, yogurt-covered raisins, Reese's Pieces, and a lollipop just to make it through the movie. (Don't judge us!) We also have had a couple of play dates with Maureen and Sarah and even met a couple of new moms. So we are making new friends, which is great. Oh, and whoever taught Quinn to say "are we there yet?" can bite me. Okay, time to go to bed. I'm exhausted! You probably are, too, after slogging through this post, which feels huge to me. That'll teach me to wait this long before writing! Love, Us.

Happy Spring!

I didn't even know it was the first day of spring today until I turned on the Today Show. And I wouldn't have turned on the Today Show unless Miss Maddie decided she needed to eat again just an hour and a half after her first breakfast. It's completely appropriate that it is spring now, since the weather here has been GORGEOUS! Plus it explains the manic cleaning I've been doing for the past three days: spring cleaning. That makes more sense than what I thought it was: post-baby nesting. I tell you, when Mama puts on her yellow rubber gloves, watch out! I cleaned the downstairs bathroom top to bottom, even the baseboards and the toilet brush holder. Then it was on to the kitchen, prompted by the fact that Quinn had shaken loose a bunch of my canisters that then fell back behind the lazy susan pantry thing. That took emptying the shelves, Quinn holding a flashlight, and me using a pair of long tongs to reach everything. I couldn't believe how many boxes of scalloped potatoes we had that expired in 2008. Whoops! Clearly we did not do much spring cleaning last year. I still have a long way to go, but I should be able to finish the kitchen today and move on to the upstairs bathrooms. That all depends on the cooperation of my children, of course. So far, Maddie has been extremely needy this morning, which wasn't much fun after a night of less sleep than usual. I guess I should be happy that we made it a full four weeks since Maddie was born without Jalal having to stay overnight at the hotel. Well, technically it was just two weeks since he went back to work. If it weren't for the income and the daily phone calls, I might start to feel like a single parent!! (Just kidding, not downplaying how tough it is for true single parents.)

So that brings me to the fact that Madigan is now four weeks old (give or take a few hours). Her doctor's appointment yesterday went well. She is 8 lbs, 9 oz. (30th percentile) and 21.5 inches long (61st percentile). Everything else was great. It was one day shy of when she could get her second Hep B shot, so we'll have to hold off on that. Quinn got a lollipop for behaving well, which he tried to share with Maddie. I told him Maddie couldn't have candy yet, and he asked, "why not?" I told him it was because she didn't have teeth yet and that we would just have to give him all the lollipops until then. He said, "Good idea, Mama! Good idea!" I thought he would like that. ; )

Here are a few pictures taken of Quinn and Miss Maddie lately. Hope this makes some of you happy (namely Trish and Mom!). Love, Us.



Quinn's special St. Patrick's Day breakfast: green milk, green eggs, and shamrock-shaped toast.

Pictures

Maddie will be three weeks old tomorrow. She is generally a good baby, requiring very little soothing other than to be held. She is starting to get a bit more demanding though, especially late in the evenings. Tonight, for instance, she is practically inconsolable unless I am holding her, which means I am practically inconsolable without a large bag of M&Ms. I am looking forward to early next week, when we are planning to introduce a bottle, so I can maybe get a stretch of sleep of more than three hours at a time. Quinn is a great big brother, but I need to start getting him out more because he is driving me crazy jumping around and running through the house and literally bouncing off the furniture. Every so often, he just forgets where Maddie is and lands a little too close to her head after a flip or something. I have to admit, though, that I am sick of answering his two favorite questions: Mama, what are we doing next? and What is baby Maddie doing? Usually he asks the former six times in a row; the latter is usually met with the answer, "Not much of anything, honey." My wonderful friends from church are providing a few meals, so I think we'll have enough chicken casseroles to last a while, which is actually a good thing, since I can cook maybe one chicken dish to every five beef dishes. I was worried about getting burnt out on my own ground beef meals, but not this week! Well, I know that isn't much of an update, but there really isn't that much going on. I think I'm going to have to feed this squalling baby and then put us both to bed. Good night! Love, Us.

Better Late Than Never

I know I should have done this 2 weeks and 4 days ago, but give me a break! I had a baby! Here are the details: Madigan Ruth Halaby was born at 1:44 p.m. on Saturday, February 20, 2010. She weighed 8 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 21 inches long. She was born with dark blue eyes and long dark hair (well, long in back anyway; it was sort of a mullet) with blond streaks. She prompted all sorts of comments about her size. The doctor pulled her out and held her up by her feet, saying, "I should charge by the pound!" The nurse measuring her tried desperately to fit Maddie's footprints onto the baby book page--barely. Trish and Jalal were there to help me bring her into the world, thank God for them. The laboring didn't go exactly as planned or hoped, but the end result was perfect. [Warning: Detailed labor story will follow. If you are not interested in this information, skip to the next paragraph.] We started the Pitocin at 7 a.m. that morning. After having fantastic nurses the day before and overnight, the nurse with us during labor was, well, lacking. She seemed like she could care less about my pain, and just kept knocking the dosage on the Pitocin higher and higher. Jalal and Trish helped me fight for getting out of bed and at least sitting on a birthing ball or changing position. I started the day at 3 cm dilated. After hours of laboring, I was hurting pretty bad. I could not catch my breath between contractions, and the monitor wasn't picking them up, so I didn't know when they were going to hit. Jalal and I had worked out a safe word for pain medication, so he didn't give in too easily. I really wanted to go without an epidural, and considering we did it with Quinn, I thought it was possible again. At around noon or so, I finally decided I had had enough, which was actually our safe word. He suggested we find out how far dilated I was at that point, thinking that I would be disappointed if I requested an epidural at 7 or 8 cm (he was right). So we asked Nurse Could Care Less to check me again. She did, and said I was at 4 cm. After 5 hours, about 3 of which were spent in a lot of severe discomfort, and I had only progressed one centimeter! At that point, I was ready to be out of pain and able to rest. So I ordered an epidural. Unfortunately, while my legs got nice and heavy, I still had pretty significant pain from my contractions. After another dose of the epidural medicine, the "hot spot" got a little smaller, but I still had painful contractions in the center of my abdomen. I kept thinking, Come on! If I'm going to give in and get an epidural, I at least want to feel no pain, right? I felt like such a baby because I was still complaining about the pain, and I could swear that the contractions were as bad at four centimeters as when I was in transition with Quinn. The nurse decided to check me again, and she said, "Oh, well, that explains the pain. You're at 10 cm." This was about an hour after I was at 4 cm. Yeah, I'd say that explains the pain. I had to hold on a while longer until they could get the doctor in there, and then I had to push twice. Within 20 minutes, Maddie was born!

So while it didn't go as planned, and it hurt a whole lot to get from 3 to 4 cm, going from 4 to 10 was pretty fast, and I didn't have the "burning ring of fire" that I had pushing Quinn out. I wasn't quite as delirious this time around, so it was a very different experience immediately after the birth. I will post more soon about the last couple of weeks, but I wanted to get the basics out before I got too many complaints. Love, Us (all four of us!!).

Going to the Hospital and...Gonna Have a Baby!

Well, it would appear today is a beautiful day to bring a baby into the world. Yep, Jalal and I are at the hospital. We checked in yesterday for observation after tests showed low amniotic fluid. So we've had a lovely date night in the hospital getting prepared for a morning induction. Despite the fact that I was the one given a sleeping pill, I have been up for some time now. Jalal peacefully sleeps on. As he should, since I'm going to need him a lot today. Everything surrounding this situation has come together. Mom is here, despite having to wait at the airport while we were stuck at the doc's office having tests, watching Quinn. Trish arrived late last night and will be coming up to the hospital in the next hour or so. All we have to do now is wait for the doctor and do what needs to be done. I'm so anxious to meet my first daughter. She's going to be amazing--at least, if her brother is any indication. Well, I'm not sure I'll sleep anymore, but I'm going to at least try to get some rest. I'm sure you'll hear more from us later today. This should be better than the last time. When Quinn was born, at 3:00 a.m., I attempted to send my first ever text message at 10:00 that night. I was delirious and confused and not very capable. But look at me now! By text, by email, by phone, by blog, or by Facebook, the world shall know about the arrival of my darling Madigan Ruth Halaby. And hopefully all without the slightest freaking out by one worn-out Mama. Hope your day is not as exciting as mine will be! Lots of love, Us.

Tough Choices--Oh, and Brownies

Warning! This blog may tend to ramble a good bit, considering how long it's been since I posted and how much is going on in our lives. What? Stuff going on? Have I mentioned that today I am 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant? If it hadn't been for a strong conviction that Maddie and I weren't ready and a tough decision to do what was right for us, she would probably be here right now! That's right. We almost scheduled an induction for today. Our options for inducing were today and Thursday the 25th. There are so many "good" reasons to induce, from Jalal's time off and scheduling convenience, to having my mom here both to watch Quinn while we're in the hospital and to be here when the baby comes home, to knowing that Trish would be here for the birth, to not having to worry about going into labor when Jalal was stuck at work 40 minutes away and the roads were icy (we actually had almost 3 inches of snow Friday night and ice again yesterday morning). It would take a lot to counteract all those "pros." But the single biggest "con" was that I wasn't all that excited about checking into the hospital at 5 a.m. and getting hooked up to all the crap and machines and, my least favorite, the Pitocin. I hate Pitocin. I was on it for about 5 hours with Quinn, and it was no fun. Well, I guess it was a little fun in hindsight for Trish and Jalal (and probably the nurses) to laugh at all the things I said and did. ("I'm sorry I pushed!!" is still a big joke around here.) But I was so looking forward to avoiding it this time around if at all possible. I was (and still am) convinced that a second labor will be easier and shorter and totally doable without pain meds--as long as I don't have to have Pitocin. That's my goal, and my plan. Hopefully Maddie will come on her own in the next 8 days and we can avoid all that mess altogether. Another issue is that yesterday was my deadline for editing a 500-page economics book. I finally finished it after a sprint to the end at about 7:00 last night. If I had to then get up before dawn to be at the hospital, my mood last night would not have been relieved. As it was, I have been feeling great today! Catching up on my QT with Q-ball, going to the bounce house today and then playing an exciting game of Candy Land, taking a long nap without setting an alarm, painting my fingernails and reuniting with Facebook, which Jalal had parental blocked me from for the past week so I would get my edit done. Granted, I still have a lot to do, from baby laundry and writing thank-you cards, to paying the hospital bill in advance (seriously?) and charging the camera battery, to cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming the stairs (yes, it really needs to be done even though I am 9 1/2 months pregnant--blame the hormones). And of course, there's the Olympics to watch. Can't forget that. I guess what it comes down to is that I finally (agonizingly) made the decision that I felt was right for me, even if it means Trish and Mom can't be here and even if it messes up everyone else's schedule and even if it happens in the middle of the night. So be it. So there.

Something that is bugging me right now is the stupid Marriott. Jalal took Thursday and Friday off this week to prepare in case Maddie came as those are his last two days of his work week. Now it turns out he has to go in to work at 6 a.m. on Thursday to suspend someone and for a couple of hours on Friday because the general manager is doing an audit of his departments. That sucks!! My mom is flying in this Friday just after our very last OB appointment, and I was so hoping maybe Jalal and I could get away just the two of us for a little bit, maybe for lunch or a movie. Guess not. Oh well. I'm sure we'll get back to our biannual date nights in a year or so. :(

Last Friday afternoon, we got some snow, real snow! The last wintry weather we had in Greenville was all slush, so it was great to see the fluffy snowflakes falling fast and furious from about 3:15 until around midnight. We went outside twice to play in it, and Quinn discovered just how fun it is to throw snowballs at Mama and Dada. We could barely get him back in the house and had to bribe him with hot chocolate. We had a really great time, made a couple of small snowmen, and even took some pictures of the baby bump (pretty bumpy at this point), which are so overdue and which I will post at some point when I find the camera (I think it's still in the pocket of the coat I was wearing that night). I can't believe we got almost three inches in that short time, and that it was all melted off my car by about 3:00 the next afternoon. We did go through a ton of firewood, though, and now have just about half a dozen logs left from our whole truckload. Let's hope winter is close to over now!

Last night I was so happy to be done with my job for a while that I decided to make brownies at 9:00. When they finished, they smelled so good, and all I wanted was a warm, fresh brownie and a glass of cold milk. I pulled out my trusty plastic knife that I use only for brownies and went to work cutting them almost fresh out of the oven. I got through the first two slices and then the knife pulled up a corner of one of the brownies. I pulled it out to see why, and saw that the tip of the knife was bent into a hook shape. Guess the brownies were still a little too warm. Whoops. Now I have to find another brownie knife. Hah!

So it's crazy to me how different this pregnancy has been than the first one. I started off with Quinn almost 30 pounds lighter, I was working out pretty regularly before and during that pregnancy (dragon boating, walking hardcore, weights, belly dancing), and I worked full-time, so I didn't have constant access to a kitchen full of food (at least, not my own). This time, I am starting heavier, working out less (did I mention I have a 2-year-old?), and I spend most of my time at home, where Jalal reliably buys ice cream and snack foods whenever they are on sale (um, every week!). So how is it possible that I feel so much better this time? I still weigh less than when I delivered Quinn, and barring some crazy binge sessions in the next week, I can't possibly gain enough to pass that number (and no, you don't need to know what that number is). I am surprisingly not miserable. I do waddle, of course, but I can keep a decent pace up walking for a while. I don't groan EVERY time I have to stand up. And most importantly, I don't have cankles!!! This is huge for me, since with Quinn I had to rely exclusively on flip flops (which I hated), and even then they left upside-down V indents in my hugely swollen feet. I was so grumpy and miserable one week before Quinn's birth that I almost refused to go out for my birthday. My sister and Jalal and a couple girls from work had to drag me out for lunch and ice cream cake. Ice cream cake!! I almost turned down ice cream cake, if that tells you how dire the situation was. It makes me pretty happy that I'm not just wishing this to be over.

Well, I think that's all the rambling I have for tonight. Hope y'all managed to stay awake for that. If not, no worries. Have a brownie. I think I will. Night. Love, Us.

Sick and Tired

Oh what a week! Last Saturday was supposed to be my baby shower, but we got nasty sleet and ice the day before and the day of, so it was postponed until today. Earlier this week, Quinn came down with a fever and was miserable for three days. He managed to make me miserable, too. He was either listless and drooling on the couch (about 20% of the time) or screaming and angry (80%), which included lots of "mine!" and "No, Quinn do it!" He did not sleep well, which means of course that Mama and Dada did not sleep well. When he got over that, we all felt better. Then, last night, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with serious contractions. I didn't want to wake up Jalal until I knew they were for real, so I eventually just came downstairs and tried to relax. After about three hours, they went away, but I couldn't for the life of me fall back to sleep until about 7:30, which means I got a whopping 45 minutes of sleep before the boys came downstairs. Still, I was so looking forward to the baby shower that I wasn't too worried about how tired I was. I managed to get Quinn down for a little over an hour's nap before we went over to Kim's. Everything was so pretty, especially the cake, which was pink and brown and had a baby with a cute little naked bottom on the top. Well, just as we were getting into the second game, Quinn comes out of the playroom and says his head hurt. He said he didn't hit it or bump it, so that was weird. He cuddled on my lap kind of whiny for a while, and then he started crying. Before you know it, he had thrown up all over himself, me, the big upholstered chair we were in, and I'm sure anything else within 5 feet. The poor kid. Everybody was so sweet and helpful, but I just lost it. I guess with all the crazy preggo hormones and hardly any sleep and of course the puke, I got a bit overwhelmed. A couple of women helped clean up Quinn and change his clothes, while Maureen cleaned me up. I insisted that Quinn and I at least move to the tile floor of the kitchen on a wooden chair with a trash can and a towel under us. So we were prepared when he got sick again. Quinn wouldn't go to anyone else, and he was actually downright rude, which bugged me. He's not like that often, but anyone who came near us was met with a nasty "Get out the way." Which means "leave me alone" or "don't touch me." As if him throwing up wasn't embarrassing enough. After making Sarah open up some of the presents for us because I was otherwise occupied, I made the call to just pack up and leave. It was too much to ask Quinn to hang out there when he clearly was miserable. Someone at least had the bright idea to pull out a crib pad from the presents and wrap it around him in the car so he wouldn't make a mess if he got sick again. Ali even followed us home to help me get Quinn into the house. After another round of sickness and a couple hours of sleeping on the couch (both of us), Quinn was feeling good enough to eat a bunch of cheerios and a banana and a half. He was in a great mood until it was time for bed (at 10, since he hadn't woken up until 8:30). Then he pitched a mega-fit until I had to carry him up the stairs, which did a number on my back, let me tell you. Now I'm totally ready for bed myself, and though I desperately need to catch up on my work, I don't really think that staying up past midnight to do it is a good idea. Well, that's enough about my crummy week. Oh, and the baby! We're at 37 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Talk about the end of the line! We're so close now I can taste it! Wish us luck and I will try to keep y'all up to date on the preggo progress. Love, Us.