Beanie baby

Claire loves, loves her brothers' bean bag chairs.

Claire photos

Claire is here!

Claire Amelia Therese Campbell was born on 9/22 at 6:15 am. She was 8lb7oz, 21 inches long, and has lots of dark hair like her brothers. Both she and I are doing very well! Thank you for your prayers. I will post pictures soon!

In Labor

David and I are at the hospital awaiting baby Claire's arrival! I went into labor this evening and I'm here to stay until Claire arrives. I am doing well now that the epidural is in place and it shouldn't be too long now!

40+1

Not too much to update here, except for that obviously I haven't had a baby yet :). I am feeling more uncomfortable by the day, but I know that's to be expected. It is exciting to think that within 6 days, one way or another, baby Claire will be here and I won't be pregnant any longer. I feel as ready as I can be, and now we are all just waiting. We will update when anything interesting happens!

The Back-to-School Crummies

I knew it was bound to happen, and sure enough, we came down with a case of the back-to-school crummies this week. I feel fortunate that: 1) it took until the 3rd week of school to hit and 2) it is not a stomach virus! The boys have been sneezing and sniffling a lot this week, which isn't all that unusual since fall allergy season seems to be starting up early.

But, Jack's had a sore throat that has gotten progressively worse over the past couple of days, and last night he was in sad, sick Jack mode, asking for ibuprofen and honey. And then I woke up at 3:30AM with a swift baby kick to the ribs, and discovered that my throat also hurt. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I ended up watching a couple of Chopped episodes and heading to the grocery store when they opened at 6AM so I could get a few things for the house (since I didn't think Jack would want me dragging him around and I didn't think I was going to feel any better later in the day). Then I headed over to the hospital for a quick pre-op blood draw for my just-in-case c-section that is scheduled for the 26th. I had planned to do that sometime today, but once again figured I might as well get it done early while David and the kids were still asleep, instead of dragging a sick Jack and 2 other little kids along with me. It went fine, but it was a busy morning for not even being 8AM yet!

So I am feeling kind of like a train hit me today, and I hope this cold is short-lived and that I can catch up on some much-needed sleep before Claire decides to arrive. I feel like I am getting more and more behind on rest and energy, and I worry about how I'll manage to get through labor and delivery feeling this worn out already. If you could spare a few prayers for me, that I recover and can get some rest before I go into labor, I would appreciate it! In return, I'll offer up my weariness and cold symtpoms for friends and family!

BIG smile!

The boys made an impressively large and complicated Lego house this summer (complete with furniture like couches, a side-by-side refrigerator, beds, a toilet).  They could (and often do) spend hours making Lego creations from insttructions or just from their own heads.  Davy is pretty trustworthy around Lego pieces now (i.e. he doesn't usually try to eat them) but he does like to take apart carefully constructed creations from time to time.

I did want to take a minute and share a couple of funny Peter-isms that I've been collecting recently.  He is just a funny kid, and it's hilarious to hear his observations and comments.  He's also extremely stubborn and will insist that he is right about something even if every shred of evidence is contrary to what is saying.

To an uncle, as an out-the-blue comment/argument during a conversation:

"The only thing is .... you only have one eyebrow." 

When we went to the dairy farm:

"The cows kind of smell like private parts".   

Peter:  "I never get any sleep."
Me:  "But you were asleep last night when Dad tucked you in, and you're asleep every night when Dad tucks you in."
Peter: "I was just resting and closing my eyes.  I do that all night."

Finally, we have figured out what we are going to name this baby girl who is due to arrive next week (but doesn't seem in any particular hurry so far): Claire Amelia Therese Campbell.  We decided to give her two middle names since we really like both Amelia and Therese, and the other boys have 2 middle names (well, not Davy, but he does get a "Junior" attached at the end of his name, so kind of).


We are all hanging in here.  We got through a few important appointments for the kids this week, so I feel good that we checked those off the list.  We have some more next week, so hopefully we'll get those squeezed in before Claire arrives.  I made a ginormous shopping trip to BJs last night and stocked up on everything and then some, including all manner of convenience foods that the kids love (and so do we) but that I try not to serve too, too often -- taquitos, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, etc. We're pretty much as ready as we can be, except that it will be really nice to have Mom here next week to help wrangle the kids if/when I do go into labor!

Let's Go O's, Let's Go!

The boys (including David) had a great adventure on Sunday at the Orioles' game.  Peter was a real trooper and walked his little legs off, but he was pretty excited to be part of the "big boy" crew.

Davy was content to color, sharpen a boat load of pencils, play with flour while I made cookies, taste a cookie, and take a nap.  It was a good day for all.

As soon as the boys came home, we turned on the 49ers game and got to watch them beat the Packers.  Let's go Niners, let's go!  :)

El Tigre

The face-painting lady at our community picnic today did this in about 3 minutes -- it was amazing to watch and Thomas was quite proud of his tiger face.  The hard part for Thomas was having to wash it all off before we went to Mass this evening.  The community picnic was really neat -- it was held at the lakefront near our house, and they had all kinds of free activities like the face painting, a guy making balloon animals, a magic show, and a couple of bounce houses.  A handful of local politicians roamed around and "pressed the flesh" which was kind of neat.  The whole picnic had an old-timey feel to it and it was an enjoyable way to pass a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon.

Tomorrow David, Jack, Thomas, and Peter are heading to an Orioles game.  Davy and I will have some quiet time together, probably reading lots of books, playing cars, and maybe making cookies or something else creative and fun.  And when he goes down for his afternoon nap, the house will be super quiet and I might just have to kick back and find a chick flick to watch :).

Zoo trip

The boys had today off school for Rosh Hashanah and I decided we should take a trip to the Maryland Zoo since the weather was lovely and, once again, these types of outings will be rare pretty soon.  We had kind of a rough start to the day with a fair amount of whining and bickering amongst the kids.  Sometimes it seems like the harder I try to make plans for a great outing (zoo trip with picnic lunch including special treats!) the more likely it is that one or more of the kids is going to have attitude issues.  I kept thinking that we could have just as easily stayed home today and had a regular day, or a "let's catch up on chores day", and then I would kind of understand the whining, but when there is whining before, during, and after a pretty fun and unique outing, I'm always a bit puzzled!  I'm sure the kids sensed my low whine tolerance level today, maybe even subconsciously, and pounced on it.  Oh well!  Fortunately, it was pretty manageable on the whine-o-meter and we all had an enjoyable day after all.

We really wanted to be able to feed the giraffes today, and Peter even wore his giraffe hat that he just received from Great Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Brian so he could "show it to the Phoebes at the Zoo", but the giraffes weren't hungry every time we passed by their enclosure.  The zoo really wasn't crowded today, and we headed right to the giraffe feeding area when we arrived (so fairly close to when the zoo opened), but the giraffe in the enclosure was on the opposite side from the feeding station and the keepers kind of shrugged and apologized and said the giraffes just weren't interested in the acacia branches.  Oh well!  It will be a good reason to return and try again in the future :).

Other than that, we're all doing pretty well!  I am 38 weeks today and am getting more excited and anxious (I kind of would like skip the whole labor and delivery part and just be unpregnant with a healthy baby in my arms :)) but I'm doing OK.

Jack says "Hi Cheetah!" and the cheetah says "Hi Snack!"

Jack was excited to snap this photo of a rare Thomas in the wild.

Jack took this one of the warthog and his crazy hair-do.

Another Jack snapshot of Davy enjoying his cookie bar.

Non-hungry giraffe

Another by Jack!

Not quite in my right mind

I don't mean this literally, but these past few weeks have been a little hard on my sense of sanity and normalcy.  I know pregnancy makes ladies a bit nutty, and these last few weeks are probably the worst in that respect, but it's difficult for me to accept it gracefully.

This morning the boys and I scrambled around the house frantically trying to find one of Jack's shoes.  It was important for him to wear regular athletic shoes today because he has PE on Tuesdays, so sandals or boots weren't going to cut it.  Jack's shoes are not tiny, and in fact look nearly man-sized, so it was incredibly frustrating that we couldn't find his one missing shoe in all the usual spots and even the unusual ones.  It's not like a Lego piece, after all!

Now, I had seen Davy wearing Jack's shoes around the house yesterday (he likes to try on his brothers' or dad's shoes and clomp around) so that added an extra layer of complexity.  Where might an almost-2year old put a shoe? Today was trash day and I was honestly a bit worried that Davy had dropped the shoe in a trashcan and it was on its way to the dump!

So, we looked for the shoe until it was a few minutes past time for the boys to walk to school, and then I had to send Jack in sandals anyway.  I continued the hunt after they left for school and eventually found it way up on a bookshelf where we store crayons and markers.  Too high for Davy to reach.  Since I had cleaned up some crayons last night, I figured that I must have picked up Jack's shoe and put it away where the crayons belonged, and then went about my business and never realized/remembered that I did that.  I must have been operating in zombie mode and just "lost" those few minutes.  It didn't really surprise me, since I haven't been sleeping too well and both my nights and days are long, uncomfortable, and full of disjointed thoughts and last minute "to do's".  But it's still pretty unnerving for someone who likes to think she has a pretty firm grip of reality and whose family relies on her sensible coordination of household, school, and kid-related stuff.

So while I was glad to find the shoe, and to be able to deliver it to Jack before his PE class, it was humbling to realize that lots of things are out of my control these days, like when the new baby will arrive and apparently even my own mental fortitude!  This loss of control is so hard for me to be comfortable with since it's my job to manage our home and be primary kid wrangler during the week, which involves deciding meal, chore, homework, and appointment routines as if I know what I'm doing :).  If I don't control many of the everyday variables  that we encounter, then no one else would and I'm pretty sure chaos and entropy would win and we would be miserable.  I know I am not in control of everything, nor should I try to be, but it's pretty hard to turn off that switch off when creating a peaceful, somewhat orderly home is my job.  I am sure it's good for me to come face to face with how little control I truly have in this world, but it is not pleasant!

Well, come to find out when Jack and Thomas came home from school, that Thomas actually put Jack's shoe up by the crayons to keep Davy from bothering it.  He had forgotten all about it this morning but remembered when I told him where I had found it.  I felt a little better that it wasn't my poor scatterbrain to blame this time, but I know there will be a next time very soon and it will be on me.  I need to remember that this a great time for prayer and hopeful anticipation, especially now since I can't really be any more ready than I am, so I will try these next 2-3 weeks of uncomfortable, scatterbrained waiting to remember Who really is in control, to let go a little bit (must unclench hands!), and to offer up my frustrations for family members and friends.