James Henry Oakman

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

6:17 am

10 lbs 13 oz.

You would think that it wouldn’t be quite as amazing the fifth time around, but it is. It is the same feelings of wonder and awe as the first time, when you hold a little person in your arms for the very first time. It’s the moment you realize that they are half you and half someone else, and completely new and unique. Someone you’ve never met, and yet someone you’ve lived with for nine months. And the most amazing part: I grew him in my belly!

Our newest little guy was born last Tuesday. We went in for an induction at 11:00 am on Monday. Once we got settled they started the Pitocin and settled in to wait. It took about 17 hours of waiting. In the meantime I had an epidural (which went considerably better than last time!). I also had an issue with my oxygen levels, so I ended up needing to wear an oxygen mask for the last few hours.

When it was almost time to deliver the midwife came in to do an exam and realized that the baby was OP (occiput posterior – it means that the baby’s head was down, but he was facing the wrong way) They called in an extra nurse for the delivery since there are sometimes a few complications associated with this position.

A few minutes later it was time to deliver. By this time the baby had rotated again and was now facing the side. Unfortunately, when he rotated the umbilical cord got wrapped around his chest and shoulder. When we tried to deliver him he had what is called shoulder dystocia. His head came out fine, but his shoulder was stuck. (Shoulder Dystocia) At this point we went from a room of three people attending us (a midwife and two nurses) to a room of about eleven people in less than 60 seconds. Everyone, was extremely busy and there were two nurses trying to reposition the baby so that we could get him out quickly! We were definitely on the clock, but we were able to deliver our little guy (in one minute and 27 seconds after they called the dystocia – we know because they were definitely timing it – we only had 2 minutes at that point). It was a bit chaotic since the midwife kept telling everyone to push, but I couldn’t figure out if she wanted me to push, or if she wanted me not to push and one of the nurses on either side of me to push to re-position the baby. But we figured it out!

After he delivered, they wisked him over to the baby warmer to make sure that he was okay. It took a while but they got him breathing on his own and he was okay after a couple of minutes. It's hard to write, as a mother, about what those moments are like. When things go from fine, to not fine in a matter of seconds, and everything stops, and everything starts spinning at the same time. But, through those moments I felt a sweet spirit of peace and assurance. It's hard to explain, but I knew that things would be okay. I didn't know what the outcome would be, but I knew that it was in God's hands. And that feeling of peace, that feeling that God was real, and knew about what was happening, never left until the doctors were sure that everything was okay.

He had a lot of facial bruising and looked a bit like a blueberry for the first day. (In fact when we went to the regular recovery floor, I dozed off with him in my arms and the first nurse who came to check on him tried to resuscitate him, because the bruising made him look so blue!) They were worried that the bruising would cause significant jaundice as it broke down. But, two days later, his color was fine. He did have a bit of jaundice, but not enough to need any additional treatment.

So our newest little man made it into the world just fine! He is healthy and happy, and I am back up and around. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to blogging this week!

Thank you so much to everyone, who has been helping us out! We’ve had wonderful support from family, friends, and wonderful people at church. We’re so grateful for the baby sitting and the meals and everything else!!

Shepherd's Pie

So this is from Tuesday's Dinner. I made the shepherd's pie and salad. We skipped the apple crisp. Even though it had a full serving of fruit and the oatmeal, I had one kido making cookies for a friends birthday (and I knew we would end up a percentage of those!) and I had to bribe another kidlet with icecream for doing homework (I know...I know....but the homework got done). And when I bribe one kid with icecream the deal is everybody gets some. Which ends up creating quite the cheering section for the one being bribed!

The only change I made to this recipe, was that I couldn't find my cheddar cheese to put on the top, so I used american instead. The cheddar would have looked prettier, but alas, I didn't find it in the back of the refrigerator until the next day. I did have to use a larger pan, than what the receipe called for, I baked mine in a 7x10 pan instead of the 8x8 in the recipe. And, I do think that it needed salt and pepper in both the potatoes and the meat mixture. Of course, that's just personal taste!!!

The kids gave it mixed reviews. I had two who liked it, one who didn't and one who refused to try it on principal. He decided that anything with "pie" in the name should never, never have meat or vegetables in it. So we may have to re-name this one a casserole next time!

The recipe is in the link to the menu on the menu page, or you can scroll down to the earlier post and find it there as well!!

Planes, Trains and Things that Go!

Sorry this is late....I'm still figuring out how to do this with different software.
Here is the PDF for the weekly theme: Planes Trains and Things that Go!

Planes Trains and Things that Go

The format is slightly different from the others I have posted. If you click on any square on the schedule that has underlined words, it will take you to an outside webpage. Even the pages that I created myself still take you to another pdf document. Hopefully this will work just as well or even better!! Since I'm still testing this out Please Let Me Know if you have any problems, or if any of the links aren't working so I can fix them!!

And of course, let me know how the activities work for you!!

Thanks!!



Pear Bread

This morning's recipe was pear bread (I made it the night before!) The recipe link is below:

Pear Bread

I made a few minor changes to the recipe when I made it. I didn't bother peeling the pears (I figure the skin has more nutrition in it, and it "melts" into the bread when it bakes, so you don't notice it - Plus it's a lot faster to make if you don't have to peel the pears!!)

I also left out the nuts, since my family doesn't paticularly like nuts, and I put in about a cup of chocolate chips instead.

The recipe does make two loaves. So, you can serve one and freeze the other. Or, serve one and suprise a friend/neighbor with the other. Or you can bake half the batter as bread (to serve or freeze) and the other other half as muffins (to serve or freeze) Whatever works best for you!!



January 28th Menu

Hello Everyone!

Here is the menu for this coming week. Sorry it is a bit late in coming. I'm using a lower version of my pdf reader, while I am home on maternity leave, so it will look a bit different. When you open the pdf link, the first page will still have the menu, but instead of clicking on the menu square for the link to that recipe. All of the recipes and links will be listed on the first page under the menu. You should be able to just click on the link from the pdf, but if that doesn't work, you can always copy the link into your browser.

This week's produce item is New Potatoes (because Safeway has them on sale this week for $.99 per pound!) Here's to hoping for a great week!!





Menu Jan 28 New Potatoes

Menu for January 14th: Broccoli

Hi Everyone!
Here's our menu for this coming week. This week's produce item is broccoli! This is one vegetable that my kids either love or hate depending on the day of the week. We go through phases like that. This week, I tried to mix it in with a variety of recipes so that it didn't get too redundant.

If you'd like to look through the recipes. here's a link to a pdf menu. It also includes a shopping list. Just a note, if the ingredient is listed in a recipe, I put the amount before the ingredient, if the amount you need is specific to the number of people you're cooking for (like apples for snack time) I list the amount we buy for my family of 6 after the ingredient. That way you know to adjust for your family.

Jan 14 Weekly Menu

Next Week's Theme: Arctic Animals

In case anyone wanted to follow along with next weeks preschool theme: Arctic Animals, here's the link to the pdf with all of the materials and instructions.

Arctic Animals

One of Those Moments

This is my first official week of maternity leave! It has gone really well.
Except that somehow in the past two days I've managed to strain my sciatic nerve. Which means that far from getting everything done, that I dreamed of accomplishing while on maternity leave, it now hurts to do anything but sit still. (Oddly enough sitting still was not on my list of things to do on my maternity leave.)

So, I've just been taking everything a little slower than usualy and stopping every 10-15 mintues to sit down and rest for 15-20 minutes. Fine. Everything was going well, until it was time to pick up the kidos from school.

My husband switched one of his night shifts to a day shift this week, so he was at work and would need to be picked up after his shift ended at 4:00. I realized as I was heading out the door at 2:30 that the younger kids had try-outs for the school play and would not be getting out until 4:30. So, knowing we would need to coordinate this, I hastily call my husband. He answers the phone but says he can't talk. Hmm... well, I don't have a cell phone at the moment, and we're out of minutes on the car phone, so we'll have to wing it.

I go pick up my eleven-year-old at middle school, and since we have an hour-and-a-half until the younger kids get out, we stop for milkshakes and then drive to the elementary school. She wants to go inside and see former friends and teachers, so I turn around to get the three-year-old out of his seat, and realize that he has no shoes. Really?? Okay, we usually have a few pairs in the back seat, but you guessed it, one of the first things I accomplished on my maternity leave was to clean out the car!

So, I send in my eleven-year-old and try to find something to entertain my three year old in the car for over an hour. I end up letting him move to the middle seat (since the car is parked) he can sit in his brother's booster seat and play with the ipod. This makes him happy. After the hour and a half is over, I'm anxiously waiting for the eleven-year-old to bring the eight and nine year old back to the car as planned. Only they haven't come yet. I'm starting to get worried that my husband is stranded at his work with no way to call and tell me. So, I start getting my bare-foot three-year-old out of the car to go look for them. (Remember the whole sciatic nerve thing?? Yeah, also means I can't lift anything -especially three-year-olds - so now he has to walk bare-foot into the school) Only now he mentions that he peed his pants. Really??? But he had a pull-up on, only aparently not a very absorbant one. Now his brother's booster seat is wet with pee. Great!

Well now, I take my bare-foot dripping-with-pee three-year-old into the school to find my other kids. Who are on their way out. They are late because my eight-year-old was the very last kid in the entire school to audition! Of course, now he remembers that he borrowed a pencil from a teacher, so he immediately turns around and runs across the corner of the parking lot to return it to her. Only he slips and falls on the asphalt because his back pack strap has broken off. (A fact he mentioned this morning as we were late getting into the car) A fact also pointed out to me by the teacher who saw him fall, and ran to help him before, I his pregnant limping mother with the wet, bare-footed three-year-old in toe could get to him.

He is of course sobbing, he's scraped his elbow, both forearms and the palms of his hands. We're late, I have to tell him he can't sit in his regular seat, because his brother peed in it. He now has to sit by his nine-year-old sister who is very indignant that she has to sit next to her brother, because he is upset, and she doesn't want to have anything to do with him. As soon as he sits down he wants his new ipod. Which causes another torrent of sobbing because apparently his three-year-old brother has changed the settings on his favorite game and now it is in French.

We finally get everyone buckled, albeit in the wrong seats, and we get moving as fast as we can to get home to see if Daddy found another way home from work, or if he's walking by this point, or if he's just hanging out waiting for us. Only we seem to be completely out of gas. And the only gas station we pass on the way home is the gas station that only takes cash or debit cards. (You guessed it, I only had a credit card with me!) Now, we're headed down the freeway, just hoping we make it home, and my three-year-old decides to unlock the car door. This does not sit well with me at this point, so now, I'm yelling at him about being safe in the car, and how the last time he didn't listen in the car he had to go to bed, and how none of us want that again, plus this day would really not get better, if we lost a car door or a three-year-old on the freeway. About five minutes later, he starts to gag, and all I can think is if we start vomiting in the too-clean-to-find-shoes car I am going to quit this motherhood gig once and for all!

Thankfully, he did not throw up. We did make it home without running out of gas. We found my husband at home, who forgot to mention that he had already made arrangements with a co-worker to drive him home. Of course his next comment was: "What's for dinner?" followed closely by: "Did you know there are ants in our closet and they are all over my white dress shirts?"

I'm still considering this motherhood gig and weather I'm really cut out for it!!!

One of the things I like about having a pre-planned menu, is that it makes it easier for me to be flexible with dinner! We had pork chops tonight, but I switched out the side dishes. I usually print out a copy of the menu and put it on the refrigerator for the week. Then I cross off the dishes as I make them during that week. That way if I have to go out of order or switch something around, I can tell by looking what I have left to choose from (and I know I'll have the ingredients on hand!)

For tonight's dinner, I made pork chops. I bought boneless chops and pan fried them in a non-stick skillet. Then I put all of them in an 11"x 7" baking dish, covered them with foil and finished cooking them in a 350 degree oven. I have an electric thermometer that you can put into the food while it bakes, and see the read-out on the outside of the oven, so I just cooked them to 165 degrees and served.

The sides I "borrowed" from Sunday's dinner.

If you're interested you can click  on the menu tab at the top of the blog and download any of the weekly menus.

 This week we started our Ice and Snow projects! At the beginning of the week, I usually print out the activities I'd like to use and put them in a binder. The binder has tabs for the days of the week. Then the night before, after the kids have gone to bed, I usually gather everything I'll need for the next day and put it in a basket. That way, when I sit down with my three-year-old to do the projects, I've got everything I need. I also cut out anything I want to pre-cut the night before! This is great to do when I'm watching TV.

 We were a bit of an over-achiever with our glitter snowflakes. We decided we needed glitter, stars, and more stars, but we had fun with it!!

This was our story board. My three-year-old was interested for about three minutes in it, until his older brother came home from school and wanted to play with it. Then all of a sudden he wanted it all to himself, and it was the coolest thing ever!

If you'd like a pdf document with all of the Ice and Snow activities here's the link:

Snow and Ice