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Monday, March 30, 2009

Where the heck did this name come from?

Duren ~ is a family name. Stephen's maternal grandpa, uncle, and brother all have the name.

Schroeder~ a name that makes us smile. We are ok if it conjures up thoughts of Peanuts.

Vonnegut~ a reference to the author Kurt Vonnegut. This reference reflects our love to read, think critically, and find humor in life. Also, this author hails from Indianapolis which is where Stephen and I were raised, met, and married. Indianapolis will probably always be our "HOME". Maybe someday it will also be where we locate ourselves year round.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Schroeder's Urgent Entry

 

 

 

 
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Schroeder's Urgent Entry

Yesterday (Thursday 3/26/09) afternoon at 3:30 we had my "membranes stripped" which with Julian caused me to go into labor within five hours. After our appointment, We went to the park with the kids, had dinner, went to Community Group, and went home to sleep. I slept pretty well all night. I was having a short, easy contraction maybe every thirty minutes.

At 4:48am (Friday 3/27/09), I heard and felt a POP! I told Stephen to grab a towel and, in the meantime, I kept my hips high as to not get water all over the bed. We called the midwife who told us to time contractions and call her back when they were 5 minutes apart and 60 seconds long.

I stayed in bed for about 20 minutes and the contractions were getting too strong to stay laying down. I moved to the bathroom. Stephen brought me the computer already set up to a online contraction timer. He then proceeded to put our things in the car and get the kids out of bed and in their car seats.

By 5:30, my contractions were 2 minutes apart and over 60 seconds long. Stephen came to get me and help me to the car. We got to the kitchen, and I said, "I need to push! I'm not going to make it!" We called the midwife and told her to come to our home and not the birth center. She told me to get back in bed and lay on my left side. I told Stephen to ask her if I had to...I knew it was going to be painful to lay down and not push.

So, it's 5:45, the kids are in the car, I'm on the bed trying not to push, and Stephen is trying to figure out what to do. He kept trying to go get Julian out of the car, but I wouldn't let him go. D'arcy got herself out of the car because she needed to go the bathroom. She walks into our bathroom and discovers a bag with a blueberry muffin that Stephen had brought in for me to eat a few minutes before. She walks out of the bathroom and casually asks, "Dad, may I eat the muffin?" At the same moment, I'm yelling that I HAVE to PUSH! She was totally unphased.

Stephen called the midwife and put her on speaker phone. The midwife tells him to check for the head, and tells him to pull the baby out and put it on my chest if it happens to come out before she gets there. He, in my opinion, very calmly says, "OK."

At 6:00 am, the midwife pulls up, parks her car on the curb, runs into our room, and tells Stephen she can see the head. Now that the midwife is here, Stephen once again tried to go get our 2 year old from the car outside, but I yell for him to come back. I give a couple of pushes through one contraction, and at 6:04am duren SCHROEDER vonnegut williams was born.

Whew...that was a CRAZY hour and fifteen minutes, but he is here and I'm sure glad to be on the other side.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I'm calling it...

Julian is officially potty trained during the day (including naptime!). I'm still stunned when I think back to the end of February when I made the decision to put Julian in underwear all day, every day, regardless of where we were going, for one week. By Tuesday of that week, after he hid behind a stack of electronics at Radio Shack and peed his pants, I was ready to take a break. I stuck with my weeklong commitment, though, and by Friday I was feeling encouraged.
Everyone says that boys are more difficult to potty train, but that hasn't been my experience. I felt like we went through the same "phases" with Julian as we did with D'arcy. The only difficulty I have encountered is teaching Julian to put his pants back on after the fact. At first, we just taught him to pull down his pants and sit normally, but pee always seems to escape from the crack between the seat and the toilet which gets the back of his pants and floor wet. So we have taught him to take his pants all the way off and sit on the toilet facing backwards. This allows him to keep all his pee in the toilet, but then he neglects to put his pants back on and proceeds to run around naked. We are always having to ask him, "julian, where are your pants? go get them!"
I'm thrilled that I will only be changing one person's diapers instead of two. Now if that new baby would ever come out..

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Why I have great kids...

I'm only eleven days away from my due date with our third kid, and in the last couple of days my first two have been doing little things that really have made life easier for me. So I thought I would share with you why I have great kids...
We sprang forward this weekend due to daylight savings. On Monday morning, not only did my kids sleep until 9:00am, when they did get up, instead of coming directly to me and demanding breakfast, they played in their playroom until 9:45! After Christmas, we turned our office into a playroom. So now there are three beds in the sleeping/dressing room, and loads of fun toys in the playroom. This has been one of the best decisions I've made as a mom. I use the playroom as a place for them to go when I'm cooking dinner or when Stephen is running late and I just can't handle having the kids underfoot. Plus, EVERY Saturday morning, they wake up and go to the playroom for an hour and let us sleep. And did I mention they get along most of the time. So I can hear them from their playroom giggling and talking which is a great reward as a mom.
Yesterday, I had some contractions in the morning which prompted me to run some of those last minute errands that needed to get done before the baby came. After we returned, I left the purchased items on the counter and went into my room to take a nap. D'arcy proceeded to put everything in the bags away...contact solution was put in our bathroom, paint brush was put on the shelf in the garage, toothpaste was put under their sink. This was extremely thoughtful.
Julian has given me the best gift of all. Faithfully going to the bathroom on the toilet! He is doing so well, I'm considering putting him in underwear during naptime to see how it goes.
We are definitely gearing up to have this baby. I bought a St. Patrick's Day Onesie as anther little suggestion to God. D'arcy is crossing off the days on her Monkey calendar given to her by Uncle Alex for Christmas. We've had a couple of conversations about how the due date is just a suggestion and that they baby could come any day. She got to come with us to our appointment last week, and she helped the midwife palpitate my belly and check the baby's heartbeat. She will most likely be at the birth, and she insisted that we pack her digital camera so she could take photos. It will be great to share that moment with her.

Monday, March 9, 2009

No more standing on toilets!

On Saturday night while helping Julian brush his teeth, I discovered that he had chipped his front tooth. Yes, I know, he'll get a new one in about three years. Still, I was pretty upset to think that he'll have a chipped tooth for the next THREE years. We aren't sure how it happened, but we are suspecting he fell off of something...
Which leads me to my next story, which occurred on a separate occasion (make that 2 separate occasions). Julian was standing on the toilet on Sunday morning in our bathroom talking to me as I got ready for church. He fell and hit his chin on the sink which led to a mouthful of blood. We later discovered that he had bitten into his tongue on both sides. Then again tonight, he was brushing his teeth in the bathroom with D'arcy and came out screaming and once again had a mouthful of blood. The story goes that he was standing on the toilet to reach the sink, fell, and bit into his tongue again on either side leaving little gashes right behind the first set of healing gashes from Sunday. Sigh. So it has become clear to me that the toilet should not be used as a stepstool.
If you have ever had a two year old, you probably are familiar with their eagerness to climb. D'arcy and Julian are notorious for pulling a chair over to reach what they need in the kitchen. Heck, I still have to pull a chair over to reach what I need in the kitchen so I shouldn't be surprised that they think it is perfectly acceptable. Now, I'm just going to be paranoid that they are going to fall over and knock out all of those little teeth.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Continued Success!

I put a diaper on Julian for naptime today. He came out about fifteen minutes later, went to the bathroom, pulled his diaper off, sat on the toilet, looked at me and said, "Leave me alone.". All I could think was, "No problem, dude. I am more than happy to not be involved in this process!"