Help needed

Our little Maisie Jay is now 17 days old and I have to tell you, as far as our State is concerned, Miss Maisie is nameless. We left her name blank when sending in the birth certificate form, not because we weren't sure if we really wanted to name her Maisie, but because we weren't sure how we wanted to spell it.

The problem is that people keep pronouncing her name wrong. The correct pronunciation is may-zee. I always tell people it's like Daisy with an "M". But many people read it and pronounce it may-see. Like Macy. It's really not that big of a deal...I just correct people who get it wrong. But it still kind of bugs me.

So just out of curiosity, I'm adding two anonymous polls to my sidebar. (And if you already knew the correct pronunciation because you've heard me say it, perhaps you can tell me how you think you would have pronounced it?)

Kathleen at the hospital (or Name Nazi as I call her) would also appreciate your participation, as she did not seem very happy about having to mail Maisie's birth certificate form in without a name. So if nothing else, please do this for Kathleen.

Our nameless wonder:

How we're doing....

In a word? Great.

I am amazed at how much easier this c-section recovery has been than my other two. I've been up and moving around quite well for the last several days. Breastfeeding has been a cinch; Maisie has a fabulous latch and great nursing mechanics, and the whole experience to this point has been virtually pain-free. (The first several weeks with my other two were excruciating.) And still no sign of mastitis!

As for Miss Maisie, she is such a little sweetheart. She sleeps like a champ and I actually have to set my alarm to wake me up in the middle of the night so I can feed her. She's happiest when she's snuggling with Mama, and this is no doubt due to the fact that I can hardly ever stand to put her down. Jace has accused me many times in the last week of being a baby hog. :) She's good-natured, has lots of dark hair, and is cute as a button.

What has perhaps been the most fun is watching Jack and Delaney with their new little sister. They are both adjusting so well. Jack has been so gentle and sweet with her, and I can already see that big-brother-protector role rising up in him. And Delaney is just flat-out obsessed with her. If Maisie is in the room you are likely to find Delaney hunched over giving her kisses and saying, "Hey bay-bee!" She wants to hold the baby all the time and has tried on more than one occasion to pick Maisie up and carry her. (I'll save those stories for later. All I can say is...sheesh.)

Jace has been home with me this whole week and is doing such a great job taking care of us. He's exclusively taking care of the two older kids and is managing to spend lots of time playing with them and doing fun things (with very minimal TV), while still feeding the family and leaving the whole house spotless every night before he goes to bed. Honestly, it's been kind of inspiring to watch how well he engages the kids while still effectively managing our home.

Meals have started rolling in this week, thanks to our wonderful church body. We're receiving meals every other day for three weeks, and every single meal that is brought to our door makes me feel so loved and supported.

So that's our first week in a nutshell! Again, I am so sincerely grateful to those of you who have been praying for us. I'm a huge believer in the power of prayer, and your words to the Lord on my behalf mean so much to me. I will leave you with some pictures of my Maisie Jay, and then I'm off to bed!

An introduction

The night before:

The big day:

The anticipation:

The first glance:
The new girl:

Introducing:
Maisie Jay Kendall
July 9, 2008
7 lbs. 15 oz. 19 in.

Everyone is doing very, very well.
More to come soon!

One more day....and a video

Tomorrow's the big day!!! It doesn't seem that long ago that the Baby Ticker in my sidebar was in the 180's...and today it reads "1 day to go".

My c-section is scheduled for 7:45 am. I am truly grateful for those of you who will be praying for us. If you do feel inclined to pray, these are some of the things I'm bringing before the Lord:

-a safe surgery
-a healthy baby
-a trouble free recovery
-protection from post-partum depression
-protection from breastfeeding problems

When Delaney was born I spent the first two months dealing with awful breastfeeding problems. I had five bouts with mastitis (breast infection), probably half a dozen plugged ducts, and one breast abscess which they thought they would have to remove surgically, but thankfully was able to be cleared up with some heavy duty antibiotics. I did five different rounds of antibiotics before the mastitis finally stopped occurring. I was at the hospital nearly every day for three weeks doing ultrasound therapy.

I learned a lot about mastitis during those weeks so I definitely feel prepared to prevent it this time around, and am really hoping that will be the case!

So until we get home and I'm able to post an announcement (probably the beginning of next week) I thought I'd leave you with this little family video I made. It features the song "The Blessing" by John Waller, which made my cry the first time I heard it because it so beautifully communicates the vision Jace and I have for our family. Even if you're not that interested in the video itself, I think you would be blessed simply by listening to these lyrics.

The song talks about how each day God sets two choices before us: we can choose life, or we can choose death. It is a repetitive prayer of mine that Jace, myself, and our kids would be life-givers. I so desire that we would not spend our lives simply striving toward a nice house or fancy vacations. I want us to truly surrender all that we have and all that we are to the Lord, and experience the extraordinary things He is able to accomplish through lives that are lived in full abandon to Him.

Dancing Queen

Miss Delaney (22 mo.) is turning into quite the little dancer. Every night before bed after the family room floor has been picked up, she points to the laptop and says, "Dance? Dance?" So Jason turns on her favorite Leona Lewis song and we watch her rock it out.

Here's a one minute video of our little dancing queen. (And yes, that is a booty spank you'll see at 13 seconds.)



Playing in the background: Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis

Backyard fun

Oh, we have so been loving this summer weather that has finally arrived. The backyard is becoming our family's most favorite place to spend time. Watering our garden every morning...little feet coming in and out the screen door all through the day....reconnecting with neighbors....I love it all.

Last spring Hubby re-landscaped our backyard, and this spring he built me a new fence for my birthday. (Thanks baby!) Then just a few weeks ago we had some landscaping guys come out and do all the remaining yard work that my prego body didn't feel up to, and that Hubby just didn't have time for.

So I was all excited to post pictures of the kids enjoying our pretty yard...until Hubby and I were looking through some old pictures and he told me that I had to post the before and after pictures.

*Cringe*

I so don't want to show you the before pictures of our backyard. But Jason's right...you won't fully appreciate how our yard looks today until you see them. Just promise me you'll remember that our yard went completely untouched for almost a year because we were planning to rip it all apart. Okay???

Before:

Okay, maybe it had been a little more than a year since we'd pruned.

After:

Before:
(stop judging me...)
After:

So last spring Jason rented an excavator and dug into the bank, and then built the retaining wall, my little garden, the brick patio for our picnic table, and made room for the ginormous hot tub he found for free on Craig's List. (Oh Craig's List....I love you and I hate you.) He also leveled out the yard itself, brought in six inches of topsoil, and got some new grass growing. Basically Jack was in heaven because we had an excavator, a dump truck, and a Bobcat all at our house within the same month.

Okay, on to the fun pictures.

Watering the garden:

Playing in the pool:

I actually just relaxed outside one afternoon with my Bible and a book and just watched them play. This is ordinarily difficult for me to do, but I had so much fun just watching the kids. And as I've mentioned, I'm taking it easy:
We made sure to designate a specific place for playing in the dirt:

Our neighbors behind us have a little boy Jack's age. They can only see each other through the fence at the very back corner of our two properties, so they just stand there and talk and show each other their toys:
My little dogwood is so pretty right now:

Jacky and I love to do self portraits:

A picture of my bulging veins, just to mix things up:

Dinner outside with friends:

And dinner outside with just my hubby, on a night we put the kids to bed early: :)

Baby pictures

I can't help myself. I'm so in baby/birth mode, especially after all those birth posts, that I just have to show you some pictures of Jack and Delaney when they were wee little babes.

My Baby Jack


First week home:


First bath:

First road trip:



My Baby Delaney



Tiny feet:
Sleeping with Mama:

A portrait I had done when she was 4 weeks old:

Despite my near constant demands that they never, ever, ever grow up, here's what those wee little babes have gone and turned into:



Words could never describe how the Lord has delighted my soul with these two little people.

A (non-menu-planning) Monday

With sixteen days left of hauling around two humans inside one suit of skin, I'm taking it easy on myself. My back's been bothering me, so the other day I decided in a sudden stroke of brilliance (are you ready for this???) that I'm not going to do as much cooking and cleaning as I usually do! I actually told Jason two days ago, "Honey, I just want you to know that I'm not going to be doing as much cooking and cleaning for the next two weeks."

It was that easy! So my meals for the next couple weeks will be oh-so-very simple, and probably horribly repetitive, but that's okay. For instance, tonight we had baked potatoes with cheese and sour cream, corn on the cob, and some fruit. All I had to do was scrub some potatoes, shuck some corn, rinse some strawberries, and throw everything on the table. Brilliant.

So Menu Plan Mondays will cease to exist around here for a while. Once the baby is born I imagine it will be a while before I'm even cooking real meals again, much less planning them a week in advance. Having an infant is a challenging season of life, but it's so sweet and so fleeting that all I want to do is bathe in a sea of oogly, googly, shmoogly baby euphoria. There is no time for menu planning when you're doped up on baby schmoogles, you know.

On a completely different note....I just got off the phone with my husband, and as of this evening the K's have dropped down to being a four-car-family. That's right, he just sold what used to be our fifth vehicle. Never mind that there are only two people of driving age in our family.

Hello, my name is Jodi and I'm married to a dieselhead.

Another random fact....my daughter is a stinker. You know that little one-year-old who's really really cute? Stinker. She developed this new habit. Anytime you put her down for naptime or bedtime she strips all of her clothes off, removes her diaper, and jumps up and down in her crib buck naked. Now, I assure you she fully understands that she's not supposed to do this, and she is fully old enough to choose obedience. So when we do catch her in this act of unclothed cavorting, she immediately gets disciplined for it.

So tonight I'm carrying her nude little body out of her bedroom and she is, cheerfully as can be, pointing to her bum and literally singing, "Panky, panky, panky! Ouch, ouch, ouch! Ouch-eeee, ouch-eeee!" Stinker.

Our birth plan for #3

You can read about Jack's birth starting here.
You can read about Delaney's birth here.

Before I start....Several people have inquired about the note which begins each of my birth posts, in which I requested that people not post comments containing unsolicited opinions about my various birth decisions. In response to your questions, yes, I have found that some people are quick to share their opinions about my births in such a way that, although I know they mean well, isn't very helpful to me. Things along the lines of what I could have done differently to avoid a c-section with Jack, or why I should have done a VBAC with Delaney.

Even more so than that though, with all the online research I've done about VBAC's, I know full and well what a passionate and emotional topic this is for many people. I mean, I know of enough people who are passionately opposed to things like inductions or epidurals or anything that could possibly be termed "unnatural", but the VBAC issue is a whole different can of worms altogether. I've actually seen a blog where a woman posted about her plan for a repeat cesarean, and an anonymous commenter stated various statistics on the increased risk of death to c-section patients and then pleaded her to consider a VBAC. I've seen many other examples of such tactlessness. While I know I don't get a ton of unknown traffic to my blog, I do get some, and it was important to me to feel like I wasn't "casting my pearls to the swines" and opening myself up to unwanted comments.

Whew!!! So with that said....

When we first found out we were pregnant with Little Number Three, I wanted to do a VBAC so much that I seriously considered looking into home birth. Even considering a home birth was significant for me as the concept has never personally appealed to me. I have two dear friends who have birthed all their children at home, and I've had the pleasure of visiting each of them within hours after they've had their babies. It looked positively wonderful to be at home in your own cozy bed, and I'm SO proud of each of them and so glad they're so happy to birth this way. But for me, I've just never thought it's my cup of tea.

In the end, I opted against home birth for four reasons: 1) The very thought of giving birth in my house just flat out stresses me out. 2) The chance of uterine rupture is a real one, and after two c-sections my risk is even greater. 3) After my labor with Jack, there still exists some reasonable doubt that my subsequent births wouldn't end in a c-section anyway. 4) After watching my birth with Jack, home birth absolutely scares the crud out of my husband.

So it was back to Dr. S's office to discuss birthing options once again. Well. Apparently there's a hospital policy which does not allow doctors to do a VBAC after two cesareans. Dr. S. told me he would absolutely love to let me labor. He said that as long as a VBAC is done correctly, it isn't even necessarily all that risky because they can catch an impending rupture well before it actually happens.

He talked quite a bit about his disappointment with the way the medical field is deteriorating, and how he barely feels like he's even allowed to practice medicine anymore. (Okay, "disappointment" is an understatement. During the conversation Jack loudly interrupted with, "Dr. S, you're not supposed to say the word stupid!") Truth be told, he's one of the few doctors at our hospital who will even do a VBAC period. But the bottom line was that there's no way a hospital VBAC is in the cards for me.

So my options were home birth or c-section, and I've chosen the c-section. My delivery is scheduled for Wednesday, July 9 at 7:45 am. A couple days after scheduling my c-section, Dr. S's office sent me this cute letter in the mail which said "CONGRATULATIONS!" in big letters across the top, and then gave all the important details of my surgery. I thought it was cute, and it perfectly complemented the attitude I'm choosing to have about my less than ideal birth plan. Recovering from abdominal surgery while also caring for a brand new baby may not be number one of my List of Fun Things To Do, but I am so thankful that...

a) I have had three healthy pregnancies,
b) I have so far delivered two healthy babies,
c) Little Number Three appears to be perfectly healthy as well,
d) I live in a time of amazing medical advancement, and
e) I have a wonderful husband to care for me during recovery.

So....the K's are counting down the days!!! With this post, I'm also adjusting the Baby Ticker in my sidebar to reflect the date of my c-section. Talk about an easy way to knock nine days off your pregnancy! We are all SO excited for this little one's arrival...I can't wait to share it here with all of YOU!

Menu Plan Monday- June 16

For more Menu Plan Monday ideas, visit I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Monday: Breakfast for dinner- omelets (with mushrooms, peppers, onions, and cheese), leftover roasted potatoes, a fresh fruit, and whole wheat toast

Tuesday: Baked potatoes (with taco meat, cheese, sour cream, and salsa), and steamed broccoli

Wednesday: Halibut, rice pilaf, and green beans

Thursday: Friends for dinner
We'll be having BBQ hamburgers, roasted potatoes, green beans, and fruit with fruit dip. I'll also heat up some chicken nuggets for the kiddos.

Friday: Lemon pepper chicken, rice pilaf, corn on the cob, and a fresh fruit

Saturday: Black bean quesadillas, salad, and a fresh fruit

Sunday: Grilled something (How's that for good planning? Yeah...it's my bedtime.)