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1 Silly Xandri

Smoothie Mishap

I decided to try a new smoothie recipe. Ginger chocolate pear smoothie sounds yum, right? Well, Roman was my helper and was excited to have the smoothie with me. So we were working on it. 

And then I opened it to taste it. Huh, not so yum. So I stepped away for... I don't even remember. 

Because that was when the blender got turned back on. And the lid wasn't on. 

I scrambled to turn it off as quickly as possible, but the damage was done. 

In addition to smoothie all over that half of the kitchen, Roman was pretty well covered as well. Wish I'd gotten a pic of his hair before I cleaned him off.

I gotta say, this was one of my acting rather than reacting moments as a parents. Gut reaction was to freak out  in agitation. But instead I paused and just looked at my stunned little man. Natural consequences were all that were needed. He hadn't done it to be naughty, he was just trying to help. And he had not anticipated this as the outcome. Poor little guy burst into tears. 

"Mom, I'm all dirt!" he wailed. 

I consoled him, wiped him up, explained why it happened and we learned a life lesson about lids and blenders and not reacting to sudden giant messes that wind up taking half the morning to clean up. I love that kid. 

He recovered.

Maximillian Kamahele Zickgraf

(Max, one week before he was born)

Maximillian Kamahele Zickgraf,

due to arrive September 3rd, entered the world at 6:17pm on August 15th, at 37 weeks and 2 days, just about the same time schedule as his brother and sister before him.

The Stats: 

This little peanut weighed 6 lbs 6.6 oz (sense of foreboding anyone?) and measured 18 in in length. 

The Name:

Maximillian: We like Max. For some reason, it just seemed right. Maximillian turned out to be our favorite extended version. 

Kama hele: Hawaiian for "the traveler"- from "kama" meaning "child" and "hele" meaning to "come, go, move or walk". We wanted to give him a Hawaiian name, something special from this island we love so much. It seemed to suit him and us- having traveled here to Hawai'i and with many travels still to come. I hope that he will have a love of traveling- and if he's anything like his brother, it will definitely fit him!  

The Birth Story:

Friday, Aug 12th: low grade contractions begin to come at regular intervals and continue through the afternoon and evening, slowing and stopping when I go to bed.

Saturday, Aug 13th: more of the same. Beginning in the afternoon, around the time I was shooting engagement pics for some friends, the contractions continue as on Friday, easing at bedtime.

Sunday, Aug 14th: I awake without contractions, annoyed that things aren't progressing. Go to church and endure periodic, irregular contractions. The low grade ones become more regular in the evening, culminating in some serious contractions (like 5) that lead me to think he might show up tonight. I opt to begin laboring in the tub- the warm water helps so much that- much to my dismay- the contractions stop altogether.

Monday, Aug 15th: Still nothing. Walk to my appointment at 9am. Strip my membranes. Walk home. Minimal contractions. Nipple stimulation at 12:30-- contractions start right up. Five minutes apart and decently hard. 1pm- still going strong. I wash and hang the car seat cover to dry. 

2pm- not letting up. Pick up the girls from school and midway through the 3 minute drive home I'm worried about whether or not I should still be driving.

3pm- I was gonna wait till my water broke, but I'm not sure I can take care of ALL my kids needs- some want their after school snack, and some are trying to enter the world. If these contractions hold steady or increase over the next hour, I'm going to the hospital. I call my sitter Amanda to check if she's available. She makes herself so. I finish packing my bag and reassemble the clean, dry car seat.

4pm- It's time. They're only getting harder and closer. I call Amanda and she comes right over. I text Shane (doc) and Derek to let them know, and page Derek as well. We load the kids into the car and she drives me to the hospital. I'm hoping Derek will be there to meet me at the door, but he's not and I worry the text didn't get through, but I'm pretty sure the page did. 

4:30pm- I'm sitting in the waiting room of Labor & Delivery. The nurse calls me back and as I follow her I see one of the new Family Practice interns, Erica- she offers to page Derek and Shane for me. The nurse hooks me up to the monitors. Baby's heartbeat is a steady reassurance that all is well, a reminder of what these pains are for.

She asks if I'm dilated at all, I tell her I was dilated to 5cm at my appointment that morning.

5pm- I've never been happier to see any two men than I am when these two finally walk through the door. Shane checks me- I'm dilated to 7cm and about 75% effaced. The contractions are about 3 minutes apart, maybe less. It seems like less. We chat. Well, they chat. Derek comments on the strangeness of seeing me in this room where he has now seen so many patients as a doctor. 

5:35pm- Shane officially admits me and we move into the actual delivery room. It seems like an hour later that Shane finally breaks my water, but in reality is probably only 15 minutes. 

6pm- The contractions are really truly intense now, I struggle to remain relaxed through the pains. I'm focused on breathing, listening to that fast little froggy heartbeat. Derek holds my hands, massages my back and my hips. He's exactly where I need him to be. 

6:12pm- It's time to start pushing. I push through a contraction. It lets up- so do I. Another pain builds and I push again, coaxed on by the nurse, Shane and Derek. They tell me to slow down, so I stop, then push again through their counting. 

6:17pm- The sensation of the baby's head crowning and emerging, followed by his slippery little body is a strange one. The physical sensations and exhaustion mix with emotions of relief and joy- and an immediate and insistent yearning to take this child I've held within my body for nine months into my arms. They place him on my chest while still wiping the waxy, cheesy vernix from his red skin. His newborn squalls are already precious to me. There is nothing that quite compares to the feeling I have right at this moment.

I couldn't ask for a better father for my children.

Avril meets Max and falls in love immediately. She constantly wants to hold him and thinks he's the cutest thing in the world.

The girls brought gifts for me (and Max):

Max in his going home outfit (I'm glad this fit him- everything else was too big!) and new "bankie" from Grandma Zan. Slight tangent here... Roman is a "bankie" biter. For some reason he finds it incredibly fulfilling to bite the edges of all of his blankets. Maybe the ribbon binding appeals to him. Who knows. In any case, hardly a night passes that I don't have to go in to kiss an "owie" on his finger- from accidentally biting it through his "bankie". So what happens when a box full of bankies for baby Max arrives from Grandma Zan? They must be sampled, of course! He found them irresistible. I'm a little worried someone else's fingers are going to bear the brunt of the bankie biting habit. 

I LOVE this owl hat that Maggie (Shane's wife) got for Max! I can't wait to do newborn shots of it!

Xandri likes Max, but I don't think she's quite as taken with him as Avril is. 

It took Roman a while to warm up to Max. When he first came to the hospital with Dad, he gave Max a wide berth, not quite sure WHAT would happen if he got too close to That Baby Dad was holding. When he came back later with his sisters, though, and Xandri held That Baby, well. He wasn't to be outdone. 

But seriously. What did you expect?

Things My Kids Say

M: "Hey Avril, hand me that jar over there. What is that?"

A: "I don't know."

X: "Oy it could be poison. Sometimes bad people do that."

M: (laughing) "I don't think so, Xandri."

X: (with really big eyes) "No, Mom, seriously, don't laugh. It really could be poison. I think it's poison."

X (to A while driving somewhere): "Tattoos are gross. They taste like mud!"


A (said in all seriousness relieved that X's hurt isn't too bad): "At least she's not dead!"


X to D: "Daddy, do butterflies make butter?"

D: "No they don't, Xandri, cows make butter."

A few minutes later...

X: "Do butterflies make cheese?"

D: "No, cheese comes from cows, too."

X: "Do cows make everything?"

D: "No they don't Xandri."

X: "Then what do butterflies make?"

D: "Pie."


I went to quiet down a frantically whispering Avril at bedtime tonight. Apparently, Avril, who, since starting first grade, seems to have all the answers to her little sister's questions, was stumped and frustrated by several posed by Xandri tonight while in bed trying to go to sleep. The ones she asked my help with:

How do you make blood?

What's Abraham Lincoln + 100?

Buddies

Roman has buddied up with the little boy I've been babysitting. They love getting into all kinds of mischief together. 

And when their sisters get their nails painted, well, that's just too tempting not to join in.

So when Mom doesn't let you do it, you have no choice but to take matters into your own hands with the manliest black nail polish available and help your friend get decked out.

Sometimes more than just toes need to be painted.

My Xandri's First Day of Kindergarten!

My little girl is all geared up for school! She's been chomping at the bit to go to kindergarten, so even though it freaks me out a bit that she won't turn 5 till November and she's still in kindergarten, I think she's ready.

And quite frankly, I'm ready, too. So far I'm not the mom who cries about my babies growing up. I don't know why that is. But part of it is I'm so excited for them to learn and grow and move to the next step that I don't really think about them not BEING my babies anymore. I'm not saying that the mom's who cry aren't excited for those things, too. But maybe the excitement overcomes the nostalgia in my case. 

In any case, look at this adorable kid all dressed up in her new school clothes, ready to go knock 'em dead! She's such a sweetheart and such a firecracker all in one. I'd feel like a monster if I held her back another year from school!

And here she is posing with her new teacher, Mrs. Ma. I hope she really is ready. I'm so excited for her!

Potty-Training Success!

We are finally officially out of diapers! 

For a few weeks at least...

Yes, Roman is potty trained. At 2 1/2 years old, I think he's a little ahead- I hear most little boys potty train around 3. My girls were potty trained at 2. Kind of anyway. Xandri took a while to train and would be completely and regularly clean and dry and then something would cause her to regress and we'd have to start the whole process over. Naturally, I didn't want to deal with that again, so I put off training Roman for quite a while, even though Derek wanted me to try. 

I mean, I did try once. For like a day. I used the Babywise/Pottywise method, teaching his Monkey to use the potty and then emphasizing clean and dry. But he really honestly didn't seem interested and I wasn't up to the challenge of constantly being after him to go potty. I'm pretty sure it was simply because Pull-ups weren't different enough from diapers and they were too hard to check for dryness. So I put it off- because honestly I wasn't convinced he was ready and I knew that if his heart wasn't in it then I would be the only one being trained. 

Anyway, the potty chair had been out for a while. Over the next few months we prepped mentally more than anything. We bought a potty training book. We checked out some potty training books from the library. We talked about staying clean and dry. Periodically I'd ask him if he wanted to try. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. We saw the thicker white cotton training pants at Target that I've always looked for but never seen-- and next to them big boy underwear with all the different cool characters. Spiderman, Superman, Cars... they were all forgotten once he saw Thomas the Train. 

We got home and I told him the deal: once he could keep the white trainers clean and dry, he'd get a pair of Thomas unders. Every day he stayed clean and dry after that, he'd get a new pair. We still let that idea simmer for a couple of weeks (yeah, I wasn't just procrastinating the dreaded chore... it was all completely intentional.....). Finally, one day at the grocery store I decided to bite the bullet and let him choose his potty treats. Salty goldfish and sugary cookies to induce thirst, 100% fruit juice to increase opportunities to practice and reward-- and to "offset" the candy... right?

So we were finally ready: treats, unders, mental prep. I decided to just get started. We got up that morning, changed the diaper and went for breakfast. After breakfast, we got to work. Monkey needed to learn to go potty on the toilet. So with both boy and Monkey in new white trainers, we checked to see if Monkey had stayed clean and dry. Sure enough, he did! So Roman got to give Monkey some goldfish... which he helped him eat. Monkey played for a while and then we checked him again- still clean and dry! Another 5 goldfish... let's try sitting on the potty now. After a few minutes on the potty, we checked and Monkey had peed in it! Wow! More goldfish! Now Roman's turn to try. He's clean and dry-- treats. He sits on the potty-- pees! Yay! Now he gets to choose his treat! Cookie and a juice box. We set the timer for thirty minutes, then checked again for dryness, rewarded and went to the potty, rewarded again. 

We repeated this process with varying degrees of success throughout the day. Sometimes he peed in the toilet, sometimes he didn't, sometimes he peed his pants. The next day he got a little better, now that he really figured out the treat deal. He'd go, ask for his treat and once he finished it, ask for another one. I told him he could have another when he peed in the potty next, so pretty soon he was running back to the potty right after finishing his treat. I think he learned to hold a bit back, silly boy. He stopped being interested in checking clean and dry after the first day, so I just stuck with rewards for going potty. We started using the sticker chart that came with the book we bought and I was surprised how excited he got with that. In fact, it helped him phaseout the treats. So by the time we ran out of treats (two or three days), he was pretty much 100% addicted to the stickers anyway. Every 10 stars (successful potty trips) he got a big bear sticker on his chart. Four lines of 10 stars and he was pretty well trained. 

He also got his first pair of underwear at the end of his first day. We had a few accidents even with that as a motivator over a few days. But after about 2 weeks, we're now pretty much accident-free and I couldn't be happier about it! He's still not nighttime- or naptime- trained, but I figure he'll grow into that. Until then, nighttime unders every night. I'm so happy to be diaper-free right now! At least for a month plus some, and then back to little baby-style diapers. I can definitely handle that. 

Look, Ma! No swim diaper!

Good job Roman!