Welcome William Flint!!!

The Quattrochi's are (VERY) proud to present, William Flint, our newest family member, and most adorable son and brother.

Flint arrived Wednesday, October 20th, 2010, at 5:21pm after his long 41-week-stay in my humble (fickle) womb. He weighed in at an impressive 9 lbs, 13.5 oz. We knew he'd be big, but we were shocked at just how big! Our midwives anticipated a big 8... and even when he came out, they guessed only 9lbs.

We scheduled a "natural induction" for Tuesday, but rescheduled it for Wednesday after I gave it some thought and wanted to see if one more day would do the trick. It was a wise move for two main reasons: 1, there were two other births that ended up taking place on Tuesday, and 2, I went into labor on my own overnight Tuesday to Wednesday. I woke up with contractions all throughout the night, which were very inconsistent until around 3am, when they started coming a consistent 8 minutes apart and continued even when I got up and walked around and ate a snack, which was what killed all my previous "false" labors.

We went ahead to the birth center at our scheduled time because I was not entirely convinced that my labor wouldn't peter off as it had done oh-so-many times in the last few weeks. I was so pleasantly surprised when Jean, one of the midwives, checked me and exclaimed, "Girl, you are a good 6. I'd call it a 7."

*blink*

So, it would appear as though all that false labor I had been having was actually getting a lot accomplished. I'd take weeks of occasional, weak labor over hours of pain any day! Go uterus!

Our birth story follows...

Luke and I spent the next several hours on an alternating 30-minute regiment of breast pumping and walking in order to stimulate more consistent, stronger contractions. About three hours into it, things started to pick up. When I was checked again, I was at an 8 and Jean suggested we leave the bag of water in tact for a while longer since I wasn't in serious pain, but was still making progress. At that point, we called the family to let them know they should start heading to the birth center. We figured I'd be in labor only a little while longer because transitioning from 8 to 10 usually goes very fast.

I spent the next hour in the tub after Emily, the midwife student who supported me through the whole labor, broke my water and things started to really pick up (ouch). I moved to the toilet for a little while, which apparently is a good place to labor due to the nature of the seat. At this point, I was surprising myself with how vocal I was quickly becoming in response to the pain of each contraction, much to Luke's amusement at a few points, when apparently I sounded like Dori (from Nemo) speaking "whale."

Needless to say, natural labor is extremely intense and painful... I didn't want to move, for fear of bringing on another contraction, or having to cope through one while moving from one place to another. But I was encouraged to get back into the bathtub for the comfort of the warm water, and though I complied, was shortly moved again to the bed to push. Jean thought due to the angle and size of the baby, it'd be easier to push lying flat on the bed, inclined slightly backward. At this point, three hours into "transition," the toughest part of labor, I just wanted him O-U-T. So I rolled with it, although not quietly.

I kept waiting for this magical moment when contractions are supposed to change from "dilating" contractions to "pushing" contractions and feel different. This relief never came for me, nor did the true urge to push. Mostly I just wanted someone to pull the baby out so it would all be over, but alas, it doesn't quite work that way. I think I pushed for a solid 20 minutes before Flint's head was out. I was very much surprised (read: in a shocking amount of sheer agony) by the pressure and immense burning on top of the pain of each contraction, and found it difficult to "release" and bear down. While in the middle of a push, I discovered that my body would sort of reflex into some kind of uber-mega push in response, much akin to the sensation of vomiting and very similar to the complete lack of control one has when doing so.

There was a glimpse of hope when one of the birth assistants placed my hand on the baby's head. I knew it would soon be over and I'd be able to greet the little booger. At this point, however, the tone in their voices shifted to something more urgent as I was directed to push to get the shoulders out. With that urgency in mind, I pushed with all my sanity ... two more, maybe three times... and ... at last! William Flint Quattrochi was placed on my chest, seeming almost as worn out as me, but had enough in him to holler lots of beautiful, loud screams. I found out later that his cord was pinned between his shoulders and his exit, so we couldn't waste too much time with him stuck there.

Now, I thought he seemed small, probably due to his lack of Lyla-like Michelin rolls. The birthing team all laughed at the notion of him being tiny, and made their guesses before taking him to get weighed. Seriously? Almost 10 pounds?

Wow.

He returned to me quickly for some Mommy-Baby bonding time. I spent the next two hours recovering energy, discovering my son, smiling at my husband, and shaking violently (thank you, hormones). They did my "repairs," saw that Baby Flint was nursing well, made sure I had a good meal, then sent us on our way. How nice to be able to go home to rest and start our lives as a family of four! Well, not just yet 4, since Grandma and PapPap kept Lyla for us. But I was very much looking forward to being home and not stuck in a hospital for days...

When we got home, Luke and I couldn't resist cleaning up the boy a little more. So, he got a quick sponge bath and hair-wash. All clean and eating well, he was already settling in!

Phew! What a day! One I won't forget any time soon! We were SO happy to have Flint home!

More pictures posted at Picasa, as usual! And more blog entries to come ASAP! We've got some catching up to do!

The Lake with Lyla

Last weekend, bored with waiting for Baby Brudder and realizing our time with an only-child was drawing to an end, we had a spontaneous moment and decided to take Lyla to the lake for a picnic dinner and a little wander / play-time.

She delighted in throwing rocks and sticks in the water, walking along the bank, running through the tall grass, eating a picnic dinner (aka climbing around on the stone picnic table and consuming maybe one raisin), counting boats, and playing on the playground. She really wanted to go for a swim, but alas, we were losing sunlight, had no swimsuits, and the temperature wasn't all that warm (Yay, Fall!).

While I'm looking forward to embracing our new little guy just as much as I wanted to embrace Lyla, it'll be a bittersweet moment letting go of the "just us" time that I love so much while welcoming this new, exciting chapter for our family.

See other lake photos and the rest of September here.

Our next blog entry will be as a family of four! Wow!

Big Girl Awaits Little Brother

New Status Achieved: Big Girl!

It's official. She just fell asleep all on her own and in her new twin bed. It isn't to say she won't wake up 3 hours from now and try to schmooze her way into my big-girl bed, but it's a start.

As Lyla transitions to live up to all her new titles, including "big girl," "big sister," and "Mommy's helper," the preparations for Baby Brudder's arrival are almost complete! We are still in limbo on this whole name business, but we are confident that something will click and stick when he decides to make his appearance. Hopefully. Actually, I am clueless and slightly terrified.

Here are some images of baby-prep with my favorite helper-girl.

Helping Daddy assemble a bouncy seat.

Testing out the cloth-diaper pail liner.

Offering a guided tour (aka wanting to get in the crib).

Demonstrating proper use of the bouncy seat using Baby Sally (really, she'd like to get in it, herself)...

Showing off Mommy's fantastic crocheting skills. It only took 3 months to make this "quick and easy" blanket, but not because it actually took that long...

The Big Sister Interview from Emily Quattrochi on Vimeo.

We are closer and closer to being 100% ready for "him." Some of us are a little more anxious for his arrival than others. Namely, those of us carrying the extra 30 lbs.

Mountains or Bust!

We had anticipated Papa Sam and Lucinda's wedding for a while, but never made any firm decisions on whether or not my 8-months preggers self would join in the festivities, due to long-distance travel and high altitude. The plan was for me to stick around in good old Texas with Miss Lyla while Daddy bummed a ride with Aunt Mia's crew. However, being up to my neck in housework and stressful "nesting," I decided at the last minute that a long car drive with nothing to do might be just the thing I needed. Plus, I didn't want my Lyla to miss out on a chance to go somewhere new and see family she rarely sees.

So, Thursday when Luke got off work, I had mostly everything packed and ready to go. We zoomed off to Amarillo a little after 8:00pm, towards a beautiful (foreboding) lightning storm in the distance. About an hour into the dark drive, we were pelted with a classic Texas thunderstorm: cloud-to-ground lightning, booming thunder, minimal visibility, 60 mph winds. You know - perfect driving conditions! Fortunately, we were heading north as the storm was heading south, so we passed through it in about 30 minutes and managed to make Amarillo by 1:30am, laughing at our spontaneity all the while, and wondering if this may have been the worst idea ever...

Friday seemed like a much longer day, perhaps because we had to stop more frequently for food, stretching and relief, and also allow for some pauses on the interstate where there was road work. This didn't bother us initially, due to the lovely cool mountain breeze. We just opened the windows, sat and breather. Later on though, we were quite done. Lyla impressed us with her wonderful travel skills (aka watching videos on her DVD player, completely engrossed in "the zone"). She didn't complain once!

We arrived in Denver just in time for rush hour, extending our trip time by just a hair, and aggravating our star driver to no end. Got to the hotel with enough time to change clothes and head to Papa's house just a few minutes up the road for a visit and some appetizers before heading to a dinner. We wandered around Papa and Lucinda's gorgeous landscape and as Lyla got progressively more difficult to handle due to hunger and sleepiness, I concluded that Luke would be doing this dinner sans his Q-crew. Thus, Lyla and I soon found ourselves waiting exactly 7 minutes for our personal pan pizzas at the nearby Taco Bell / Pizza Hut and taking our meal to-go, back to the hotel. By this time, the previous night's sleeplessness and the loooong day of travel had caught up with my pregnancy hormones to have a little party, soon relieved by the arrival of the Wise-Guys to say their hellos and goodnights. Lyla and I were fast asleep after chowing down on our gourmet meal and watching approximately 2.5 minutes of Titanic on the La Quinta tube.

Day 3 consisted of wedding prep for most family members, Luke's part being repair work on Lucinda's burger-juiced Mac Book, my part being little black dress location and purchase, which proved to be a challenge. By "little black dress," I mean size 3T, which apparently isn't found at Target or Kohl's, leaving me at a loss. I made-do, as they say, by piecing together parts of various other outfits (which I planned to return later because I am sneaky that way!). Why might a 2-year-old need a black dress, you ask? Well, Lucinda had some adorable little butterfly wings for her to wear as an additional (and impromptu) flower girl, and the rest of the wedding party was wearing black. Even though I was dubious, it turned out very cute. Later on, we all caravanned to our new weekend home, the Columbine Inn, up in the mountains of Idaho Springs and discovered our new Mazda5 was not exactly made for 6% grades.

We settled in and relaxed a little while before reconvening for rehearsal dinner at a nearby Italian joint on the adorable main street of the town. Lyla did as well as she could for being a tired and hungry two-year-old, but admittedly, it's difficult to appease a busy, hungry, sleepy, overly-social little girl amongst a big crowd in a tight space. So, we spent a fair amount of time taking quick walks up the bricked sidewalk and switching off "Lyla duty" between Mommy and Daddy. Lyla was particularly fond of the piano man, and even boldly requested at one point that he play "Elmo" for her. We made it home pretty late that night and Miss Loopy-When-Sleepy spent a good 30 minutes jumping naked on the bed, singing loudly and cracking herself up.

Day 4 was Wedding Day. We had time to kill most of the day before the event was to begin, so we spent some time at a local park, wandered along the river, and ate at a pizza place down the street. My Aunt Debbie and family joined us briefly, there, and we were fortunate enough to visit for awhile, though departed in a dash to get to the nearby gold mine tour on time. Yes, that's right. Gold mine tour. It might have been a likable experience on a less stressful, cooler day, with no deadlines, having taken a nap and minus the 30 minute old-man lecture and dreadfully boring black and white mining video. By the time the actual tour began, Lyla (and Luke and I) were so worn out, instead of unloading the tram at the top of the mountain, we rode it back down and left. Lyla still talks about "the bus" as one of her favorite parts of the trip. A shame, though, we never saw the actual mines. In hindsight, it was a very good decision to select nap-time over mine-time. Also in hindsight, maybe 2 years old isn't an ideal starting age for any kind of "tour."

After the brief nap, we got dressed for the wedding and headed out to the breathtaking mountaintop where the ceremony was to take place. Now, I use "breathtaking" seriously. Breathtaking views, yes. Also breathtaking elevation (*gasp... gasp* lungs... collapsing...) and breathtaking panic on the way up (I thought we were going to roll off the narrow, steep, curvy mountainside and die). If he hadn't been busy getting groomed-up, I would have slapped Papa Sam upon our final ascent. The last part we had to walk up a rocky hill. Some of us in heals. And pregnant. In his defense, though, I guess I didn't technically have to attend. (And it was quite stunning).

The next several hours were spent taking photos, filming my sweet butterfly flower girl and trying to keep her from falling off a mountain-top. My nerves having gotten the best of me on the way up and completely dreading the journey down (in the pitch DARK!), I was mostly a useless, exhausted, anxious lump. Lyla really enjoyed her part, though, and upon completing her flowerly duties asked loudly to "do it again!" She also loved dancing with her cousins and exchanging glo-stix as the sky grew darker and darker. Needless to say, we survived the trip back down the mountain, and I am pretty sure apart from our early rise to hit the road back home, it was the best night of sleep I had the whole trip. Thank you, nerves.

We arranged to take two days to drive back to Texas, just in case, but we hoped to accomplish it in one day so we could use the second as a relax/recoup day. Success! We left the Inn at 6:30am and made it back to Keller at 9:30pm. What a long, long day... but we managed it! We were so happy to be back in our own beds. Regarding the messy house and still-to-be-done-nesting, not quite so happy.

Thanks to my parents and sister for taking care of our pets while we were away - we had a great time and hope to return to Colorado soon, hopefully able to partake in more outdoor activities and visit with family when they aren't busy getting married!

More Colorado/wedding pics and other September pics are HERE!

Behold: The Future!

"Behold!" is something Lyla has been saying quite often lately, particularly when staging herself on Gia's fireplace and sweeping her hand broadly in front of her (having no idea, of course, what this means or why she does it), as taught by her Uncle John, and immediately followed by a loudly sung version of ABCD's or Itsy Bitsy Spider.

She is a total ham!

Here are some of her other antics of late. I wonder what the future brings for our uber-smart, multi-talented, happy-go-lucky, strong-willed "big girl..."

She also specializes in drama (particularly elaborate fit-throwing), nursing (boo-boo rinsing and Bandaid application), decorating (rearranging and misplacing Mommy and Daddy's stuff), painting (painting "jus' on paper!"), modeling for Mommy (sorta), nutrition (Gummy vitamins) and absolute independence (ignoring, defiance, bold assertion, you know... two-year-old stuff!). Oh how we love this girl!

Then July Flew By...

I'm not sure where July went, but apparently it's gone!

We must have been busy for it to fly by so fast! I had to look back through our photos to make sure I could remember some of the things we've been up to.

We celebrated the 4th on the 3rd in Roanoke, at Aunt Shannon's house. We were lucky to have our cousin and her family visiting from out of town and I had a great time taking their pictures at the party. As usual, the Davidson's went all out with a bounce house/water-slide combo, grilling out, sparklers, and tons of yummy summer treats. Lyla anticipated the fireworks all day long and was quite impatient for them to start. When they did, she grabbed hold of her daddy's face, surprised at the depth and delay of the noise (but not at all afraid - ha)!

After nearly two weeks of rainy weather, the fireworks were an uncertainty, but the skies cleared for the night so we could enjoy them. It isn't to say, though, that we weren't enjoying the rainy weather!

Since the heat started to climb, we've spent as much time in cool water as possible. We got to go to Bedford Splash with Mary Jo and her kiddos. It was the perfect little waterpark for toddlers and young'ns. Lyla loved it! We also visited Pleasant Glade with some old daycare buddies, who Lyla misses dearly (and mentions daily), spent many hours in Pap's pool, and consumed at least one box of 100 count ice pops.

Other than that, we've tried to get as much activity in as possible while beating the Texas heat. Lyla did a gymnastics trial and really enjoyed it. She's been a bit of an artist lately, as well, favoring watercolors over crayons, and stamping her hands/feet over using paintbrushes. We've watched plenty of movies (if she had her way she'd watch them all day, every day). Favorites include Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Wall-E, Toy Story 2, Bolt, Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo, and most recently, Shrek. One day did almost everything from the covert, air-conditioned surroundings of a living room fort.

Being such a good tube-magnet, Luke and I took her to her first movie not long ago. She impressed us with her amazing sit-stare-snack-slurp ability. All in all, she did surprisingly well for a two-year-old. She loves to retell the story of going to the movies with "Mommy and Daddy and Lyla and eat popcorn and candy and juice and watch Woody and Buzz and Jessie and Bullseye and the bear and the toys in the box..."

We've been saving most of our outdoor play until after dinner, when things finally start to cool off, and we've had to get a little inventive as far as what to actually do outside. While placing a small slide into a kiddie pool might seem like the most fun ever for a typical two-year-old, Lyla is more interested in running up and down the sidewalk as scantly clad as possible. I'm sure our neighbors are very impressed with her (lack of) modesty.

As you can see, she likes to get messy. But... she cleans up pretty nice!

And as usual, there are more pictures posted at Picasa.