Janaury - the rest of it

If you will notice the way the last two entries are dated you might get a feel for the way our lives are playing out right now. Slow motion on January 7th, and since then, you might as well roll all the days up into one entry because they all kind of feel like the same day….

Tucker has been home for two weeks. I spend an hour every three feeding him (he’s a lazy eater!), and the other two hours I spend making food, cleaning up food, or wiping one of three bottoms that require a Mommy’s help to get completely clean. And at night I sleep between feedings, once Tucker stops making noises and I poke Freeman to stop snoring.

Freeman took another week after Tucker’s birth to really shake the flu completely, then the kids came down with something, and I was diagnosed with strep throat 3 days ago, and have a migraine that comes and goes that I can’t completely shake. We are all trying to get over some illness or other and are all rather sleep deprived. Freeman is in the busiest week of the year at work, and is putting in 12+ hr days. I am ignoring my moldy toilets, my goal is keep us fed and in clean underwear. Other than that, I have no goals at present. Ambitious, aren’t I?

Surprisingly, we’re doing ok. Just another day in paradise, right? Freeman digs in and cleans/cooks/wipes bottoms when he is home. I do what I can between the all-time-consuming infant feedings, and you know, life is pretty good. I’ll take the moldly toilets, sore throats, migraines, and poopy bottoms if it means I get to be with this family that I love so much. We have 3 healthy children. We have a sweet, perfect, fresh-from-heaven love in our home. This phase will pass, and with it will go the sweetness of a new infant, so I won’t wish it away too quickly.

I should record how grateful I am for the help of extended family as well. Mom and Dad Linton had the kids for the two days we were in the hospital, and Mom has taken them since when I’ve needed to take Tucker to the doctor, etc. Teresa took them for a day, and Kristi did too. Thank goodness for family! The ward brought meals for the first week I was home, thank goodness for the church family, who we don’t even know, but have still been supportive!

We also enjoyed a visit from Grandma Janet a week ago. She came for a long weekend. The kids absolutely loved having her here, and she was so good to play with and read to them. We loved having her and were grateful for her help!

January 7, 2011

It will take an entire entry to cover this important day!

On January 6th I started to feel like baby was imminent, nothing I could concretely describe, I just felt like it was time.

When Freeman came home from work that day, he was still pretty sick, and by the time we went to bed, he still had a fever of over 102 again. I was worried. I knew if the baby came and he still had a fever, he might not be able to be with me during the birth. I knew I couldn’t do it without him.

On Friday the 7th I woke up to contractions at about 1 am. They were coming every 10 minutes and lasting about 30 seconds. I drifted in and out of sleep between contractions and watched the clock. Finally at about 5 Freeman woke up and I told him what was going on. I rolled over and felt his forehead. No fever! He jumped out of bed and announced that he felt great. This was truly a tender mercy. I needed him to be well, I needed him during labor!

Contractions were getting closer together, now about every 7 minutes. He took a shower and I started to gather the things we needed. Every time I stood up a contraction immediately seized me, and if I stayed standing they came every four minutes. So I stopped standing. I told Freeman the last minute things to throw in the hospital bag. At 6 we called Mom Linton, and she was to our house by 6:30. By then I was on the couch, talking myself through some pretty painful contractions. Luckily, our hospital is only 7 minutes away. I arrived at 7 am and Freeman wheeled me in. Once we got to labor and delivery they checked me, I was already dialated to 5 cm (with my first two it took me 20+ hours to get to that point!). They started taking my vitals and getting my history, which took 45 minutes. At that point I was having contractions every 3-4 mintues and was dialated to an 8, woo hoo! Love this third baby stuff! My doctor arrived about 15 minutes later. The contractions started to be wowzers. I was grateful Freeman was there to talk me through them. The doctor told me that when the water broke, there was meconium, so the entire NICU staff was now waiting in our room, since babies with meconium often have respiratory problems. Labor progressed, and there was a lot of barbaric screaming on my part. In front of an audience of at least 12 people. There is no way around it, the last phase of labor is just…well, painful doesn't quite say it! There was no novelty or mystery in this labor like the last.....just full knowledge that this was going to hurt and hurt bad. Finally it was time to push. It didn’t take long, I pushed less than 10 times. Tucker James Linton was born at 9:00 am. One ounce shy of 9 lbs and 21 inches long.

The relief of having the pain over was such a strong emotion that I completely forgot that the baby might be in danger because of the meconium. I just hung on to Freeman’s neck and cried because it was over. Then I looked over at the baby incubator. There was a FAT little man baby, with tons of thick, black hair, fat cheeks and thunder thighs. Nothing like my other scrawny babies. They were pumping his stomach to remove the meconium. Then I remembered that he was in danger. The doctor assured me that he was doing great, breathing fine already, and had an APGAR score of 7-8. She also told me that when he was born he had the cord wrapped around him twice, once around his neck. This could have caused serious problems, and often results in a C-section, but didn't. They let me hold him briefly before whisking him away to do some tests. I don’t remember ever noticing how SOFT a new baby is. It was like kissing velvet, no way softer. He was sooooooo soft. Oh he was so wonderful! I reluctantly gave him up to the nurses. He was back soon, searching for something to suck on.

I stayed two days in the hospital. Tucker took to nursing quickly. It was a strange hospital stay. All of our family was sick and we have no close friends here yet -- simply because we haven’t been here very long, so it was just Freeman and I, no visitors. The nurses in Oregon were very warm and very involved in my natural labors. The nurses in Texas were anxious to help, but it was clear that they don’t do many natural labors, they just stood back and watched it happen. Afterwards, one of the nurses told me that my labor was the only one that had ever made her cry in 16 years, because I looked like I was in so much pain. Nice. I guess I was just that dramatic, tee hee. She also said that she would guess than less than 5% of the labors in that hospital are done without epidural, so she just doesn’t see natural labors very often. My screaming probably traumatized the entire floor, Texans aren't used to that!

We are so grateful many blessings involved in Tucker’s birth. Freeman becoming well the MOMENT I needed him, no complications with the meconium and no complications with the cord wrapped around the baby. Every healthy baby is a miracle, and we are so grateful.

Tucker has brought so much love and softness to our home. He is a good eater, and wants food every 3 hours fairly consistently (yes, including during the hours after 10 pm). The kids love to love-maul him, and do many times an hour, if he survives that, I’m sure he’ll survive anything. We are tired and sleep deprived, but feel so so blessed to have this sweet, perfect spirit in our home.

January Week #1 & New Years

This is a very busy few weeks for us. Let me paint you a picture. December 25th: Christmas, December 28th: Anniversary, Dec. 31st: New Years, Jan. 2nd: Freeman’s Bday, Jan. 5th: Baby due, Jan. 17th: Anslie’s Bday, January 31st: Michelle’s Bday. We might as well give up any sort of life and give in to a full time party!

Our Anniversary was nice, Freeman and I went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was noisier and more full of beer advertisements that we remembered, ha. Oh well, we partied with the cowboys and enjoyed the great food.

Next Party was the next night, Mom Linton’s birthday! During the day we had a “princess party” at Elise’s house for several of the girl cousins who were having birthdays that week. The girls all wore their princess dress-ups and we painted faces, did make up, had a fashion show, and made princess crowns. Anslie has about 8 little girl cousins, all close to her age. Too fun! That night we had a birthday dinner for Mom, provided by Kristi, and then had a program for Mom while the cousins ran wild. The cousins running wild part was actually just a constant activity from December 23rd until the last out-of-town family drove away.

New Years Eve we all gathered at Mom and Dad’s and ate snacks, watched the ball drop (early, so the kids could see it), had a dance party with all the cousins in pajamas, and had a white elephant party.I walked away with some Bath and Body lotion, not a bad prize! We adults must be getting old. Used to be we’d all stay up until the wee hours of the morning any time we were together, especially on a night like New Years. But by 11 pm several had already fallen asleep on the couches and floors.

Sunday the 2nd was Freeman’s birthday. We all enjoyed dinner together, Mom and Annie made a delicious Texas sheet cake that we had with ice cream and homemade fudge. Thanks Mom and Annie for doing all the work for that get together! I made Freeman strawberry crepes for lunch, that was about all I had the energy to do for him, poor guy.

Bless Mom and Dad Linton. My goodness, feeding 40+ people, 3 meals a day, keeping up with the mess and putting up with the 25+ crazy children, its enough to do a 70-year-old Grandpa in! They were so gracious about the craziness. It was fun to be all together.

The downer part of all this is the GERMS! Boo for germs! About New Year’s Eve I started to feel ill, as did much of the extended family. Freeman got it too. Poor guy, he’s sicker than I’ve seen him in years. He was diagnosed with the flu today and got some medicine. We are hoping that he and I will recover before the baby is born.

SPEAKING OF BABY!!! TODAY IS MY DUE DATE!!! We’ll keep you updated, we can wait to meet our new little addition, coming sometime in the next week! Stay tuned!

December Week #4

All the Lintons rolled into town between the 23th and the 25th. Every Linton sibling was here! Gens and Annie, Ardene and Randy, and Mark and Colette stayed at Mom and Dad’s house. 50+ people, when all the locals came, and it was a zoo!!! Mom and Dad were unbelievable, hosting that many people for so long! Wow! It was so wonderful to be together, to enjoy each other’s company day after day. I felt badly that I sometimes had to stay home and rest or just sit on the couch at Mom and Dad’s as I’m getting pretty uncomfortable. But it was wonderful. Tyler and Anslie spent hours and hours just running and playing with cousins, so carefree and happy. In fact, I don’t know if I ever see them as happy as when they are playing with cousins. What a blessing!


Christmas Eve day was a happy memory. Freeman had the day off. We had breakfast together, then headed to a rest home that is for patients with Alzheimer’s. I had taken the kids once before. They are very sweet people. We sang songs for them, played games with them, it was awesome. And surprisingly, the patients remembered us! We left with a happy feeling. Then we took the kids to Dollar General and let them spend the pennies they’ve been saving all month to buy a present for each other. Tyler got Anslie some candy and she got him a coloring book. They were so excited about their purchases! It was a perfect day.

We spent Christmas Eve and Mom and Dad’s. We had a lovely ham dinner, then the kids put on a live nativity. It was chaotic, but great. We slept at our house and had Christmas morning alone together. Tyler and Anslie were so cute and so excited. IT was the first time that Freeman and I have had Christmas at OUR house and not spent it with one set of parents or the other. WE were the parents – crazy! And parents of children who were soooo excited for Christmas. It was magical. We opened presents, had orange rolls, bacon, eggs, and fruit for breakfast, and then spent the day playing with toys, play board games together, napping and watching movies. We spent the afternoon back and Mom and Dad’s, enjoying family.






Life is so good, isn’t it?

December Week #3

Tyler finally got his wish to have a Polar Express Party! We invited all preschool aged cousins, including Brenley and Katie and kids. We decorated the house with a train track made with painter’s tape on the floor, gave each child a ticket, read the book decorated train gingerbread cookies, colored train pictures, and watched the movie while the mommies had lunch together. Way too fun! Oh it is fun to have cousins close and let them be excited to be together! All the sisters-in-law were so great to help bring food for the lunch and help clean up. Love those ladies!


On Thursday Dad arrived for a holiday visit. We have been so excited to have him come. The next day we took it easy, had a big breakfast, and pretended it was Christmas. Dad was so sweet to bring some gifts, and the kids were thrilled to unwrap their first gift of the season.


I really enjoyed just talking to Dad during the kids’ naps, he and I are working on solving the universe together . Freeman got off work a little early and we went to the Grapevine main street, a quaint little main street all decked out for Christmas! Santa and his elves were there playing games. We took a tractor ride around the town, danced to the music in the main square, and walked to the end of the street where “The Polar Express Train” was departing. Then we stopped for dinner. So much fun!



On Saturday we took Dad to Bass Pro, an outdoor shop a lot like Cabela’s in Utah, but with an emphasis on fishing. Perfect for my fisherman Dad. It was an impressive store, with a huge waterfall, lots of aquariums of fish, and lots to look at! They also had Christmas crafts for the kids, lots of Christmas décor, a merry-go-round, and the kids had their picture taken with Santa. It was a ZOO – tons of people, and we were exhausted by the time we left, but it was a fun afternoon.
That night during our Christmas tradition time Dad led the scripture study. He talked about the Savior coming to America. He is a wonderful teacher to children, they were totally enraptured by every word.


We were sad to see Dad go Sunday night. His visit really was the highlight of the Christmas season for us. Thanks Dad for making the sacrifice to come visit, we love you!

December Week #2

On Wednesday Grandma Myreel Lewis came to visit (Freeman’s maternal grandmother). She’s staying with Mom and Dad Linton and we were able to bring her to our house and have her for an hour. Unfortunately, Freeman had already committed himself to help the missionaries that night and so couldn’t be there. We showed her around the house and did our nightly Christmas ritual with her -- putting a piece of the nativity on the advent calendar, reading a scripture, and reading a Christmas book. We read “Great Joy” – a children’s book set in the era that she grew up in. The children sang her a few songs. We had hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. After the story, the kids played with toys and Grandma and I chatted about having children, supporting a husband who is busy. She recently turned 90 years old. What a treasure. She is full of sparkle and bursting with the hope and joy of the gospel. Her countenance is the fulfillment of many gospel principles, and it is testimony strengthening. I could have talked to her for hours. It was joyful to have her, wish we lived closer.


We had a fun weekend with the kids. We took them to the shops at Highland village and rode a horse drawn carriage, only 10 minutes long, but free! And took pictures by the huge center Christmas tree.





The next morning we went to the town of Flower Mound annual parade. It was a cute small town parade made up mostly of church groups and girls/boys scouts. But everyone was throwing candy and we came away with two, count ‘em, TWO grocery sacks FULL of candy. More than Halloween for sure. Needless to say the chocolate was quickly removed and hidden for adult purposes and more than half was given away – that much sugar in a house is dangerous!



On Sunday Elise and her kids stopped by to drop of Christmas cookies. We invited them in and had enough dinner to feed them. So fun! It was a wild time, but we LOVED having them. I just love Elise's contagious energy!