Ethan David Balsmeier

He's here!! Ethan was born on September 23rd at 11:42am. He weighed in at a whopping 10lbs 7oz and was 22'' long. I know--he's huge!  Not my longest baby but definitely the heaviest, by more than a pound. Everything went well. I had a C-section, of course, but they had to do some manouvering to get him out. They were concerned about his blood sugar levels because of his size but both tests came back good. He nurses well and is utterly adorable. I am feeling as well as can be expected after major surgery, but as long as I stay on top of my pain killers, I am doing alright.

Thank you, by the way, for all of the name suggestions. Some of you might be wondering where we got Ethan from, well. . .I have always liked the name Ethan and kind of never really thought of it until last week. John and I were searching on the internet for names and we did a 'biblical name' search. Yes, people, Ethan is in the bible. . .who knew? Okay maybe a lot of you did, but I did not. The name is mentioned in 1 Chronicles. He is reffered to as a musician and in 1 Kings it's implied that he was a wise man. Although all the previous kids have biblical names-- we did not plan it that way. We liked Abigail, Jacob is my g-grandfather's name, and Isaac just went well with Drake. We decided to stick with that 'theme' and I liked the way Ethan went with the other kids' names--it was just very convenient that a name I love just happened to be mentioned in the bible. David, of course, is John's middle name and there you have it--Ethan David.

I so wish I had a picture of my pathetic looking little prince to post...

Jake fell out of one of the many little coupe cars that are around here and he, of course, had to land on his mouth, where else? He came in screaming and crying and bleeding all over the place which is to be expected. He scraped up his upper lip pretty badly and I noticed that he was also bleeding from the gumline on is upper front tooth. I couldn't tell if he had knocked it loose or not (mostly due to his histerycal screaming if I even came near his mouth for the rest of that day or the next). Today his lip is not three times it's normal size anymore, good sign. I thought he might let me check his tooth (it still is bothering him when he bites into something)--still a no go. So I ask my little boy, "Jake, if you won't let me try it, can you? Can you wiggle your tooth and see if it is loose?:"

You know what he does? He starts wiggling. . . wiggling his whole head and body!!! I could not stop laughing. Then he said, "See Mom, it wiggles." Of course, how could I have been so blind!!!

Some things. . .

Jake went to the other Optometrist today and surprise-- he is color blind. Not red/green or any specific 'kind' just color blind. The Optometrist actually said that it seems that Jake sees everything in varying shades of gray. He can see a difference in shade of the basic colors and will learn, with time, to correspond a certain shade he sees with the color-name someone assigns to it. He will not see differences in shades and tones of colors like most people do. This is similar to what my father has been able to explain to me that he sees. Although, my father does say that he sees colors--it' just that many of the paint chips in Home Depot, for example, all look the same. He can't distinguish many of the different shades or tones, they look the same. The Optometrist assumed today that Jake just sees in gray, and while I still have hope that maybe he does see color, just not all of the colors, he won't be able to communicate that until he gets older. We'll see.

On a more positive note. . .I got my maternity pictures today. I am so excited and so grateful to my dear friend Rachel in Longmont. I felt so bad during the shoot before we moved--Jake was being such a snot and Abbi didn't want to do anything other than play and Isaac wanted to just run around. Rachel was very patient and got many shots that were not set-up but show the true personality of my children. Rachel, you were amazing and I love so many of the shots. Thank you so much and if any of you need a photographer for anything contact her http://racheldemartinphotography.blogspot.com/.

The Princess and I

As promised, here is a picture of my beautiful princess in her new specks. She says she is excited about them but I think the most exciting thing for her is cleaning them with the spray and cloth that she got. She takes very good care of them and is adamant that no one else touches them. I am a little impressed with how responsible she has been with them.

As far as school goes. . .she is still struggling a little with the I miss Mommy syndrome (so weird) but she really likes school and her teacher. She tells me about her days and all the kids in her class. I am really thinking that with the crazy-ness in our family right now, we just need to be consistent and patient and she will be over it soon.

And this is me, of course. Who else's tummy gets this humongous? This is me with sixteen days left until the actual due date, but really I only have to wait nine days until the C-section. So close I can taste it!!!

In other news. . .Isaac is in need of some speech therapy. He is 'normal' in every other way, he just won't use words to communicate. I am grateful that we can get it taken care of early and to hopefully reduce the yelling and screaming very soon. I love the boy, but I can not handle his frustration level lately. Jake actually goes to another optometrist appointment, one that I have heard will do the color blind test. We will update on that after the appointment and hopefully I know one way or the other about my wonderful genes being passed on to my son.

random

We have had a lot of things going on these past couple of weeks...

First, Abbi started school. Kindergarten at the ripe old age of 4. Sigh. I already posted about what she thought of her first day. She really seems to enjoy it but she goes through a little separation anxiety every morning. Which, really is weird for her. I feel a little guilty quite honestly. Our poor kids have been through so much the past few months, more than most four and three year olds go through in their entire lives. On top of all that, they don't see their dad more than one or two days a week. No, we are not separated, or anything of the sort, just trying to save on gas for his job that is an hour away from where we currently live. I am not sure which/any or all of these is contributing to her sadness every morning, but her teacher assures me that she does well at school except for an occasional, "I miss my Mom." Wow, even more sad, my poor baby!

A week after Abbi started, Jake started preschool. My handsome little man is so excited and he loves it, especially that he got a Spider Man back pack. Jake is doing well. Like I said, he really enjoys preschool. "We played on the park inside and the one in the backyard!" he tells me. I am relieved the he is really enjoying it, I was worried about him and the separation-- not abbi-- ironic, huh? We visited the optometrist the other day and I discovered that my two oldest children need glasses--poor kids. Abbi will get hers next week when the pink ones she ordered come in. Jake actually has poorer vision than she, but he is a little young for glasses and their vision can change quite a bit still at that age--so no glasses for the little man. . .yet. He was highly disappointed when his older sister 'got to' pick out glasses and he did not. It was a little amusing (and relieving at this point) that they think glasses are fun and cool, they don't realize the pain that they actually are.

To my disappointment, they both need glasses, and more disappointment. . . the optometrist wouldn't give Jake the color blind test. Color blindness runs in my family (my father and other relatives are) and we have suspected for a long while that Jake might be. He has always done really well recognizing shapes and numbers and even letters--not colors. He knows black and white and pretty much nothing in between. The doc wouldn't test him. My sis-in-law found a couple of sights on-line and had her three year old try it and he got every one of them. Then Jake tried. . .Poor kid. He had no clue there was anything in all those dots. He got the ones that everyone should get, the ones color blind individuals can't see, he couldn't see. It's definitely not a professional diagnosis but my suspicions are confirmed--the kid is color blind-- poor thing. So with his glasses (at some point in the future) and the color issue. . .well, I just feel a little bad for the kid.

A week and a half after Abbi started school, she had a birthday!! She is now the big 5. Her birthday was on a Friday and she was very excited to bring her special treat to class. We drove down to Manhattan to meet John to go out to eat for her big day. She chose Chili's and she did get to open some gifts given that her party wasn't until the following weekend. She was very excited about the Thumbelina barbie sent from Grandma Love. Her party was on the 29th and she had a big bouncy castle, a pinata and a BBQ in the backyard. All the kids had a good time and a new friend from school came--very exciting. Thank you to everyone who helped and came! Mommy and Daddy got her a new "big girl" bike so her knees are no longer in her mouth when she rides. Today, Daddy took off the training wheels and started teaching her to ride a "two-wheel bike". She did well, we will practice more tomorrow or Monday.

Isaac is here. . .and that's pretty much it. He is so super cute, but definitely trying my patience lately. He refuses to talk so he just screams and yells about everything. I can not handle all the noise!!!! He actually get evaluated to see if he needs speech therapy next week. We'll see how that goes.

My C-section is the 23rd now and I am feeling terrible. Just the normal-- tired, huge, hot, impatient and really ready to not be preggo anymore!!