Two Months

Elam is two months old already and I have documented nothing of his life so far. It is very sad.

Two months ago, we met this handsome little devil. He was so alert! And he was actually smiling at me the next day in the hospital.

When he was born, we thought he was another Church boy clone with the features that typically come standard: blue eyes, blonde hair. After they washed him up, however, we began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we had a feisty red-head on our hands. And as his hair has gotten longer, we've discovered that it's actually a bit curly.




We checked in at the hospital at 5:20am for the induction and found out that I needed a 4-hour treatment of antibiotics first, which no one had mentioned. So that was a surprise. They started the Penicillin drip undiluted and I thought my arm had caught fire! I think it was the most painful experience of the delivery, thankfully.

I kept telling the nurse that once I get started, I go fast and I'm fairly sure she didn't believe me at all, which is why I kept telling her. I wanted to know what the time-frame was on the antibiotics, so I'd know when the get the epidural, since they were gradually increasing the Pitocin as the time went on. Finally the nurse told me she'd bring down the anesthesiologist since I "seemed so concerned about it." I had the epidural around 10am and they increased the Pitocin drip quite a lot. Nothing happened for a while and I was beginning to wonder if it was working at all when I got a really painful contraction and inexplicably felt like I was ready to have the baby. Then suddenly the nurses were panicking. Did I not warn them? My doctor was rushed from her office to deliver the baby that was imminently coming. The head nurse explained that in all her years of nursing she had never had to deliver a baby without the doctor and was praying that her record would remain unbroken. Luckily my doctor showed up in time, to the relief of everyone and Elam was born 5 minutes later. Doug was able to catch the baby again. I'm not sure why he enjoys that part so much, but he has "caught" (with the help of the doctor) all of our babies and cut the umbilical cord. I think it's nice he likes to be so involved.

As soon as I had the baby, I realized that when I was sitting up, I had this awful headache and such congestion in my ear like they needed to pop. I asked the nurses if maybe it had anything to do with the epidural and they replied that it was unlikely (though I know now, that these were classic signs of a spinal block headache). It went away after about 2 weeks, but it was very limiting and extremely annoying.

As the weeks went by we realized a few things about our new little guy: he had a very tight lingual frenulum that we had to have clipped. It sounds much worse than it is. The ENT just opened his mouth and used the surgical scissors to clip the skin under there, Elam fussed a second or two and went right back to sleep.

He also had an umbilical granuloma that needed an application of silver nitrate to help it heal up. And finally, he was extremely fussy every night and sometimes during the day. When he was screaming non-stop for about two hours one night, we decided that something else must be going on. We tried Gripe Water which didn't seem to help at all, unfortunately, so then my friend Michelle persuaded me to try eliminating dairy from my diet. Fortunately (and unfortunately) this was a big part of the problem. Eventually I found that he also dislikes anything tomato-based, and anything remotely spicy. I now have a very limited and bland diet, but also a happy baby, and that is worth it!

With the Great-Grandparents, Bobbie and Jack

Halloween was a blur!

Here we are two nights before we had the baby at the ward trunk-or-treat




Evie for her Kindergarten Halloween party. Cutest bunny I ever saw...


My Ninja and Spice-youMan (as Hylton used to call him)


Our neighbor John gets a kick out of scaring the crap out of the kids- every year. Can you see the tense body posture of them all?


Reading with Daddy

All four kiddos- they all love him so much! Evie is so mothering and will try to soothe him when he's sad. Hylton randomly walks by and kisses him. Sterling likes to hold him (for a very short period of time).


Three Church boys: Papa Dewey, Doug, and Elam and The Girl


Thanksgiving was a little less chaotic.


Getting our Christmas tree at Strawberry Hill. The other kidlets are running around the farm somewhere.


Then Doug went outside, one fine day, to do some yard work and pulled a major muscle in his back while he was sweeping. He came inside supporting his upper body weight by propping his hands on his knees (try that while walking). Pretty much looked like Quasimoto. Sterling took this lovely picture of Doug trying to stretch a few days after it happened.


Elam was blessed on December 11th. Look at him! He's such a flirt!


The kids with Grandma DeeDee and Aunt CC








He likes to lay in bed with his brothers and sister while we sing to them all at bedtime.


And he likes to fall asleep in unlikely places, like the bouncer.


His hair is just the coolest. I am so jealous of that coif. Most of the time he's sportin' an eighteenth century hairstyle: swe[t forward on the sides and the curls in front flipped-up, a la Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Bingley:

We spent Christmas Eve at my Dad's. Between us being sick and generally home-bound, and my Dad having a month-long illness, this was the first he had seen of his new Grandson, besides the baby blessing.

The kids got to see "reindeer" out the windows. Do you see the hidden deer? He had his eyes locked on me.


A family of three deer were outside here.


Christmas Eve at our house. Christmas is truly magical.


As I was taking photos off my mom's camera, I found these oldies from this summer:

This is what a mellow family dinner looks like these days. This summer, there will be two more kiddos at the table (my sister is due with her 4th in May). But, luckily, there are now two less pianos in the room, so that will be better.... (haha, Mom!)

The craziness is so much fun... most of the time... I loved all the time we got to spend with our cousins growing up and our kids love it just as much!

The Vessey siblings. Yeah, we're a sad bunch of posers. With, apparently, only two facial expressions among the four of us.


My little Hylti on our camping trip - accessorizing.


Doll-babies.

Whew! And now we're all caught-up!