Sunday, August 31, 2008

Katherine Greets Her New Baby Brother







By this time Katherine has been staying at her Nana's house for about 4 days and is missing her mother something fierce.  We have all been a little worried about how Katherine will handle a little competition.  The big day finally came yesterday when Brandi got home from an early morning doctors appointment.  As Brandi walked into the room Katherine ran to her squealing and excited, surprisingly more to see her new baby brother over her long lost mother.  Jack now has 2 mothers.  

Jack gave Katherine and David presents when he came home yesterday and Katherine's was a baby.  Katherine is all over Jack. She wants to feed him, hold him, see him what is he doing and whenever you answer any of her questions you then deal with the automatic Katherine follow-up question of WHY?  Needless to say one of my favorite things to do is to turn this on her and ask her why until she becomes quite annoyed and yells at me to stop and leave her alone! or "What is your problem!"  I thought she would now obviously see how this is annoying and stop but alas no, everything is still WHY?

Kung Fu Katherine

Ok for the 2 of you that read my blog I am sure you are having Stewart Blog Fatigue. I went from a flurry of posts in May to nothing until this last week, but I figure while I have a little downtime with the new baby I would catch up people on our summer and some funny Katherine experiences. Today is Sunday and I am here helping with Katherine and Jack (actually mostly blogging). Jack basically slept all day yesterday and was wide awake from about 3 until 6:30 this morning, unfortunately my shift. As I was reflecting on church and unfortunately missing it today I was reminded of a recent experience with Katherine. A little while ago we decided to go to Kung Fu Panda as a family. This was our first effort with Katherine in a theatre. My fellow movie buff David is fairly experienced. We got popcorn, drinks and treats and sat down with both grandpa's in tow. First she was disappointed that the movie wasn't a ride and didn't move. After 45 minutes of multiple questions of why this and why that she announced she was done and Brandi, who hates all animated movies (apologies to Walt Disney), was more than happy to take her to the dinasaur museum.
By now you might be wondering how this relates to church or you may have stopped reading but I will press forward. Katherine has become a fairly prominent person in nursery. She has struggled with some issues of aggression to the point we now before each nursery have to run through a litany of possible abuses and forbid them. For example here is how the conversation goes on the way to church:

Dad: Katherine are you going to be a good girl in nursery?
K: Yes I am a nice girl.
Dad: Yes you are; Now you remember nice girls don't hit, kick, poke, or shove. You won't do those things will you?
K: But can I bite?
Dad: No.
K: Can I push?
Dad: No Katherine.
K: Am I a nice girl?
Dad: Yes Katherine

We then send our little princess of to nursery. A couple of Sunday's ago we picked up Katherine from nursery and one of the nursery leaders told us she had kicked a kid. When we got home we cornered her and started threatening her ever going to nursery again. When we asked her why she kicked the little boy, she adamently denied doing it. She informed us she was Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu'd him. As we stifled laughs and smiles through gritted teeth we added Kung Fu Panda to the list of forbidded offenses. David always our little helper and enforcer has been assisting us in enforcement. When we got home from church last Sunday he was, mind you in a very serious tone, reviewing church with her and grilling her about her nursery and did she hit, poke, kick, shove, push or Kung Fu Panda. We are happy to report she has been incident free!

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Big Brothers Visit to the Hospital

The First Smile!

Proud Big Brother

Big Brother David got to visit Baby Jack in the hospital.  I picked him up from school (he started this week) and took him up to the hospital.  He was a little nervous but as long as a I promised I would take him back to Papa and Nana's to finish his sleepover he was willing to come.  David was a little reluctant to hold his brother but after some threats and guilt he finally came around.  I have been trying to post a video but it won't for some reason.  David was holding Jack and got the first smile (gas) and we got it on film.  David was holding Jack and Jack grunted and cooed so David said he got the first smile and first word.  He is pretty excited for a baby brother.

First Bath




Some Pictures of baby Jack Jack's first bath.

Baby Jack


Brandi, pictured here, is Ready to Get it Going! Unfortunately her body wasn't. We called at 6:30 am (I should say Brandi called I was still asleep) and the hospital said to call back at 8:30 am. Brandi called back and the hospital said come on in and we could get the party started. It is funny how all of our kids births have been nothing like you see in TV or on movies. Brandi's water never breaks there hasn't ever been a panic scrambling around the house as she screams in labor pain. We nonchalantly took the van in for service ran a couple of errands and showed up to the hospital at about 11:30 am. After we arrived and checked in they hooked Brandi up to Pitocin to help kick start labor. Brandi had been induced for our other two children and David had taken about 7 hours and Katherine 4 hours of being hooked up to the pitocin drip before giving birth. So in Brandi's mind she was going to be done with this baby thing in under 3 hours. Well, 3 hours into the ordeal and Brandi had dilated to a 2. A couple of more hours pass by and she is stuck on being dilated to a 4. At this point she is a little stressed and doesn't understand what is wrong. For those of you who know Brandi her biggest fear of the whole birth is the epidural. For David she waited until the pain of contractions was greater than her fear of the needle. By the time she got the epidural she was shaking because of the pain she was in and she was lucky they would still do the epidural. With Katherine she was extremely stressed and her anxiety was through the roof. In fact the nurses kept telling her she needed to settle down because the baby was stressed bad things were going to happen if she didn't get under control. She finally let them do the epidural. Having to watch my wife go through this and hearing everything from the nurses I was holding her hand when the anesthesiologist came in. About 2 minutes into the procedure and I went to my knees and they had to rush in another nurse with some juice and a paper bag. The epidural went well and I fully recovered from my dramatic experience. This go around we got the epidural early. As she was being prepped to be poked she asked our nurse to hold her hand. The nurse kind of sheepishly said would you rather have your husband and Brandi emphatically said NO!  Go figure apparently she didn't like me taking some of the limelight last time.

Joining Brandi and I in the delivery room were Mandy (sister-n-law), Joni (Brandi Mom), Melissa (Brandi Sister), and my Mom joined a little later.

It is now about 7:00 pm and Brandi is convinced that the epidural is wearing off. She is shaking quite a bit from the medication and everyone is convinced she is cold so they keep putting blankets on her. Brandi is now convinced that she is never giving birth and is starting to cry from pain and fear. They pumped up her meds and then checked her at about 7:45 and she is now fully dilated.  She went from a 4 to a 10 in about 30 minutes. They call the doctor and get ready for birth, the irony is they told her to hold on so the doctor could get there. The staff are now in full swing and getting everything ready. The doctor arrives and a couple of pushes later the baby is born and in his mother's arms.

This is the first time in Three kids that Brandi was able to hold the baby right after giving birth. Both David and Katherine had minor complications that had to be dealt with immediately after birth. It was pretty cool to see her holding the baby and tears streaming down her face.

Here I am looking in a little pale but not to light headed. I was given the job of holding one of Brandi's legs while she pushed. That was a little close to the action for me but I am happy to report I stayed vertical throughout. Although I think my mom or Mandy might have like to see me go down so they could step in.

Here are the Grandmothers Tattooed By Jack's Feet
7 LBS 4 OZ




Hello world! Baby Jack arrived Tuesday night at 8:15.  He weighed 7 lbs 4 oz and he is 19.5 inches long. As you may have guessed by now his name is Jack Nelson Stewart.  Since I am fairly lazy the next several posts will likely be about Jack!



As you can see Brandi is very relieved and exhausted yet still striking!


Brandi and I both feel very blessed to have 3 healthy children. We are extremely grateful for the awesome responsibility of being parents for the third time. In watching Brandi go through this process again I am in awe of her strength and courage. I am very lucky to have such a wonderful wife and amazing mother to my children. After everything was done I went into the hall to make a few phone calls and spread the news. After one of the phone calls I had to sit down and I wept with gratitude for everything going so perfectly. It is truly a miracle to witness the birth of a child. We love you all and are grateful for your thoughts and prayers. We look forward to seeing each of you and introducing you to Jack Nelson and yes he is the cutest baby ever.

The Beach

Well now I am back in the blogging world from a summer long hiatus I thought I would post one of my draft postings from our disneyland trip in May that never quite got posted. Cute pictures! I hope I will stay more on top of this but who knows.


After a fun day at the beach we rented a bike and rode it down the boardwalk. This wasn't just any bike it would seat 12 people! We were quite the spectacle. Johnny was in front and supposedly steering. The highlight was when we would all stop pedaling and Johnny would be the only one.

My cute little beach rat

David buried with Gibson watching and then Grandma jane with David. She was a lifesaver on the trip!



Just another day at the beach.  Katherine's fever was now gone so after a feast cooked by our amazing hosts we headed off to Newport Beach.  Katherine was knocked down by a wave early on and didn't recover for quite awhile.  She got sand in her mouth and every time she tried to wipe it out she would put more sand in from her hands.  It was pretty sad.  Brandi rescued us all and took her on the peer.

Mostly we built sandcastles and played in the water.  Johnny tried to do some boogie boarding but never quite caught the big one.  Gibson ate about a third of his weight in sand.  He literally 
shoveled it in as you see below.
Brandi and were talking about how much fun we had on this trip. Johnny and Jen were amazing hosts.


Tuesday, August 26, 2008

David's First Day at School

Ready for the First
Day of School



David started school today. Brandi postponed her induction a day later so she could be there for the big event. She is a great mom. Brandi was a little disappointed in the clothes selection for the first day but David would wear nothing different.  His mother got the last laugh when she packed his bag for staying at his Nana's she only packed "cute" clothes.  
Last week David went to meet his new teacher and be evaluated. He wanted to get it over quickly because Nana and Katherine were swimming at home and he was missing out. Mrs. Burnside, Brandi and David sat down to get acquainted Mrs. Burnside was very cute in introducing herself and telling David she was very excited for this upcoming year. As David sat down he let out a big, dramatic sigh and said, "I just hope this doesn't take to long." Mortified Brandi explained that he wanted to get home to swim. Mrs. Burnside went through several little exercises to determine some basic skills. She had him read some words, count out loud and to our surprise asked some simple math questions which he answered. After he answered each question and his teacher would compliment him he would turn to Brandi and give her a thumbs up and a wink! That's my boy always the showman.



If David Get's a Picture so does Katherine

Monday, August 11, 2008

Potty Trained?

Brandi and I are wondering if Katherine is ever going to be potty trained. With the baby coming soon we have given up for now. We got our hopes up the other day when Brandi got Katherine up from her nap and she had put on "big girl underwear" and taken off her pull up. Brandi explained that she had to tell Mom when she needed to do tinkles because we don't tinkle in big girls. Katherine's reply? "Then put a pull up on me." So we did.

My Spiritual Child

Last week David asked Brandi what day it was. She told him it was Friday and asked why he wanted to know. He let out a groan like he was in great pain and said "I hate Friday! It's so close to Sunday and then I have to go to church!"