a week gone by...

Today marks Pike's 1 week birthday. It is amazing how it seems like just yesterday he was born and yet it feels like he's been with us forever. I couldn't have dreamed of a more pleasant baby or an easier adjustment.

Pear and Jovie LOVE him. Anytime he is in Jovie's sight she coos and makes sweet baby noises. She is constantly wanting to pet and kiss him. Pear couldn't be a more proud big sister. She repeatedly tells me, "mom, he's the best baby ever!" She is so sweet and is constantly asking to hold him. Not only are the girls being good to Pike, they have been so good and cooperative with each other as well!

We had a couple of fussy days and nights when we first came home from the hospital but I'm pretty sure we are over those. Pike's little body just had to figure out how to process all this food! He now wakes every 2 1/2 hours to eat and then drifts back to sleep. He seems to naturally be getting into a good routine with an eating, playing and sleeping cycle every 2 1/2-3 hours.

As you may have gathered thus far, God is pouring down blessings on our family and we are so happy to be receiving them.

Welcome Pike Henry!

What a sweet baby boy he is. We are all so in love with him already! We welcomed him into the world on May 19th at 10:15pm. He weighed in at 7lb 2oz and was 20in. long. He has a perfect little head with hardly any hair, however, Pear says she was right, he has "black" hair. I'm pretty sure it will be just as blond as the girls' over the summer though.
Warning: If you do not wish to read a birth story, read no further.

Never going into labor naturally, (I had to be induced with Pear and Jovie due to the complications of Cholestasis,) I didn't really know what to expect. I had prayed diligently that I would go into labor and have Pike on Wednesday and I woke Wednesday morning with a feeling that "today is the day!" Mid morning, I began having slight cramps along with braxton hicks contractions. By 4pm I thought, yeah, this is probably it. But I was still really unsure if this meant that labor was coming soon or in 12 hours or 3 days. By 5pm My "braxton hicks" were about 7-8 minutes apart and still only crampy feeling. Nothing was painful enough to make me stop what I was doing and I was still full on tending to the girls, lifting, taking potty, cleaning after. It was at that point though that I called my mom and she came to pick up the girls to spend the night assuming that things would progress. 6pm rolled around, the girls had just left and Stephen and I decided we'd go to the mall and walk around a bit. On our way to the mall, my contractions began getting a little more intense and about 4 minutes apart. We thought we'd better head to the Lacey mall (closer to the hospital) and ended up at the Lacey Target where we walked around for about 30 minutes and I didn't really feel like we were progressing so I suggested we go over to the Westside mall to have a larger area to walk. We walked there for a bit and contractions seemed to remain about 5 minutes apart and not intense enough to stop walking or even to stop talking. So, I suggested we go home and I'd bake up dessert and stop thinking about it for a bit. If they got intense I'd start timing it again. We arrived home at about 7:20pm. I made some pastry cream and choux pastry for cream puffs. As I was making the choux pastry, I noticed an increase in intensity and started timing again. Contractions were about 3 minutes apart and were intense enough that I didn't want to talk and I would pause from stirring the pastry during them. It was just as Stephen sat down with his latte and hot fudge sundae and just as I stuck the choux pastry in the oven that I realized we'd better go to the hospital. Stephen was more than ready to give up his latte and sundae in order to not be delivering a baby at home, by himself. We got to the hospital around 8pm and everyone took their time checking us in, the nurse stuck me in an exam room with the NST machine and came back to check on me after about 20 minutes. In the meantime, my mom arrived and she said that as she came in, the nurse advised her that she didn't know if I was a keeper (she must have thought I'm just an inexperienced mom who was much too calm to be in actual labor.) I was dilated to 5, 95% effaced at that point and when I advised her that with both previous pregnancies I delivered babies within 2 hours of dilating to 5cm she frantically set up a room and called the doctor. I think I surprised her! We got settled into our room and the contractions increased in intensity. The doctors and nurses granted all of my wishes in my birth plan. I had intermittent fetal monitoring, no pain meds and no IVs. The nurse took a specimen to see if my water had broken as I told her I thought I was leaking fluid but not much at all. When the specimen came back positive, she asked me how long I had been leaking. She WAS NOT HAPPY to hear that I had been leaking for 3 days. (I took all precautions to avoid infection and was watching the quantity of leakage carefully. I didn't call the doctors because if I had, they would have induced me within 12 hours of the start of the leaking which I wanted to avoid.) I was given freedom to labor and deliver basically however I wanted. I found the only way to get through the contractions was to walk through them. I was walking until I felt I needed to push. Dr. Harriage arrived at 9:45. I told him I'm feeling pressure. He got changed and came back to check on me. I still had 2cm to go so I got up and kept walking and breathing through contractions. At 10pm I felt my water break and said that he's coming NOW! Dr. Harriage checked me again and said I was ready. 10:15pm Pike Henry Backholm entered the world cuddled up in my arms and was quite calm. We had to rouse him a little to make him cry. He remained calm all night. He'd wake or we'd wake him but after nursing he was completely calm and slept wonderfully. The doctors and nurses were amazed at the birth. My doctor said that it was really refreshing to be a part of a birth that went just as it should have. So, how long was my labor? I'm not really sure. I guess you could say that it started around 5pm. But labor the way that I pictured it didn't really start until about 8pm. I am blessed to have such short labors. I feel for women who have to endure longer. Also, I don't know how women do it when they are strapped to a bed with IVs and monitors. Walking around was the only way I got through it.

Psalm 28:7 The Lord is my strength and my shield;my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.

All about Pear

Pear is nearly 3 1/2 years old! It's crazy to think how time flies. I just wanted to write a little about where she's at in life. Let's see...she is sooooo "excik-ed" for baby Pike to come. This consumes about 25% of her daily conversation, which is saying something because Pear can talk your ears off! She still thinks I'm silly for thinking he'll have blond hair and she still thinks he'll have black hair. I think she's most excited to change his diapers. I wonder if that'll change once she sees the reality of it.

Her favorite thing to do is play "pretend". This means that she comes up to me and says, "mommy, how about you're the little girl and I'm the mommy." To which I reply, "okay." She then proceeds to name me, usually Flower or Lollipop. Jovie is always MY little sister. And if I forget, Pear is sure to remind me who's who. We go through daily routines such as breakfast, lunch and dinner time where she cooks me food, reading books, playing on the slide, and my favorite- nap time. We have worked a lot over the last couple of months to cease the whiny responses when we ask Pear to do something that she doesn't want to do, such as, me saying, "Pear, it's time to take a nap." For a while, she would respond whining with a "I don't want to take a nap!" Or the times when I'd ask her to put her shoes away and she would whine back, "but mom, I'm too tired." We've explained the correct way to respond is, "yes mommy," or "okay mom." So now, she tests me as we play pretend. I'll ask her (as she is the mommy) "will you read me a book before nap?" and just to hear me respond to her, she'll say "no books today Flower," to which I always respond, "okay mommy." It's fun to watch her facial expressions and how much fun she has being the mommy.

Pear is constantly dreaming of her next birthday. I'm pretty sure her birthday is her favorite day of the year (takes after her momma!) and she is daily changing the color of frosting on her cake or what "kind" of birthday she'll have. She is also constantly aspiring to be "bigger than Aspen." And is excited to be 4 years old, and then 5 years old... etc.

Her daily attire of choice is still jammies. She'll wear her jammies ALL day if I let her. She'll change from one pair to another every couple of hours and usually by the end of the day, we end up in the same ones we started with. I do make her get dressed when we go out (which is not very often of late) and then her attire of choice would be a dress or skirt. She dislikes pants, especially jeans.

As far as Pear's relationship with Jovie, it's still not quite the "best of friends" relationship I'd hoped for. Don't get me wrong, she loves Jovie and Jovie loves her but they DO NOT play well together. It is our constant struggle. It seems every time I walk out of the room, one of them is screaming because the other one took something or wants something or hit her or pulled hair or...the list goes on! When the girls are separate, they are angels, but together, my goodness! We are working on this. We are working on changing the heart issues so that they desire to share, be kind, love each other and play nicely together. The love is there but so is a great deal of selfishness.

I love my Pretty Little Pear to pieces and am so thankful to be blessed with such a fun, smart, imaginative, beautiful little girl!

Little angel???

By looking at this picture, you just might think so. I'm almost convinced. And then I see something like this:
And it makes me think again. Yes. She is a little angel. Do you see the dust pan and sweeper? That's what I see when I look at this. This little girl was being a little girl and exploring. She made a mess and wanted to fix it...for me. She loves me and I LOVE HER!

With that in mind, I don't always see it this way. And at times I wonder if she's out to make my life a ton of work or if she really does love me. In the end, I know she is a wonderful little blessing in my life, she loves me and she is making me a better person- messes and all!

Another side note: This happened during my 10 minutes of sanity- a shower by myself! And yes, I do think it was worth it. And no, I didn't do anything about the bag of flour in the cupboard. And yes, she got into it again about an hour later while I was attempting to dry my hair! Is she still a little angel? Let me enjoy this time while she's sleeping and I'm pretty sure I'll think so when she wakes up.

these are the moments...

...that make life wonderful.