And All I Really Wanted Was a Nap...

1:31 pm: (All times approximate) Benny is soundly sleeping and I decide it's nap time for mom. I gather my pillow and fuzzie and settle on the love seat because B is sleeping on the couch.
1:52  I hear squeaks and occasional howls from the couch. Benny is starving, he thinks. I have maybe drifted off to sleep, possibly for 5-10 min.
1:54  I gather the starving child and prepare to feed him.
1:57  Only he drifts off to sleep in my arms. I wait for a few mins. but he is not waking. He didn't eat anything either...
2:03  I lay him down and prepare once again to try for my nap.
2:19  I have relaxed and am 3/4 of the way asleep. I hear howls from the couch. I stare at the source and suddenly remember, "Oh yeah, that's my kid and I am the one that has to do something about it."
2:33  Benny has eaten and is sleeping. I should change his diaper but he will wake up, so I am going to be a naughty mom and just put him down.
2:41  I lay down again.
2:43  I hear a car in my driveway. Francis is here to borrow my luggage piece with wheels, because she is flying to NE for a month. (Hey, I wasn't sleeping. It was good timing on your part.)
2:46  I lay down again. My mind compsoses this blog post and thinks of a million other things.
3:02  Benny stirs because he didn't burp. I consider giving up the napping attempt. I drifted off too many times to be able to relax now.
3:15  I give up. I get up and do laundry and work on this post. I eat a piece of dark chocolate candy. I chat with my husband. I hang a bouquet of roses to dry, and discover one of them is sprouting. I decide to be brave and see if I can root it. I consider that I had 7 1/2 hours of sleep last night. I can go to bed early tonight. Or I can try to nap later. Life is good. My baby is growing. I am happy.

 Quote Of The Week:
Clark at 6:30 am when Benny wakes up for yet another feeding: "Wow, he slept all night didn't he?!
Me: "Umm, you evidently were sleeping soundly from 2:30 am to 4:00. There was a thunderstorm around then too..."  
Clark: "Yeah, I did hear it rumble once maybe." ( He didn't hear the baby though.... Ah, well, not that I care.)

Mom's Side of Things

     Clark tells me I should blog. We shall see how many days/hours it takes until this is finished and posted.
     We got home from the hospital yesterday, and are getting settled into being a family. It's good to be home, but we did enjoy our hospital stay for the most part. We have an awesome small town hospital. They had four babies over the time we were there, which meant the Birth Center was full.
     I'm not really going to post a gory birth story on the world wide web. (If any of you want the details let me know and I'll send an e-mail.)  I did end up having to have a C-section because I was at 9 cms. for over three hours. It totally wasn't in our minds at all that we could end up doing that. For those of you who wondered how I'm handling that part, I'm doing ok. There will probably always be one or two "what ifs", but I think for the most part we made the right decision at the time. I talked it out with one or two people and they agreed that we likely did the right thing, and we can be better prepared to take steps to possibly prevent a C-s in the future. The Dr. said if he would have had a smaller head it would have been fine.
     Bendick was named after his great-great grandpa Skrivseth. Sometime Clark or another relation should blog about him and his story. Jerome is Clark's middle name, and I insisted that we use it. He's going to end up being called Ben I think. I call him Benny-Boy right now.
    Clark has taken to fatherhood like an old pro. He wasn't very comfortable with tiny babies. "I'm scared I'm going to drop them." Well, last eve. he was holding the baby and was helping me with something, and I was like, "Honey, don't drop that baby!" He said, "Oh I have him. Don't worry." I also told him maybe he missed his calling and should be a nurse or labor coach or something.
    I am doing very well. I had two goals today, take a shower and a nap. Neither has happened. Every time I got in bed and relaxed, the baby wanted to eat. :)  Clark says baby can smell naps. I think we'll try to go to bed early tonight. Ben is doing very well at night, only he wants to eat every two to three hours. It took a little bit to get the nursing part figured out, but that's  going fine now.
  And for those of you begging, here are more pictures. We'll likely be adding more pictures over the next few weeks/months.  :)

PS. Leanna, how cool that you found my blog! Makes me wonder who else is lurking around here.

More Photos of Bendick

For those of you who are begging for more, here they are. I tried not to do repeats.

 

You will have to admit it, this is one lovable bundle.

 Marmee Graber

Grandma and Grandpa Hess

It's A Boy!!

Greetings and Salutations,

         Occasion: Inferred in above title.
         Gender: Mentioned in above title
         Name: Bendick Jerome Graber
         Weight: 7lbs 11oz.
         Length: 19 inches 
         Born to Charlotte Graber (Founder of Blog) & Clark Graber (Assistant Blogger)
       

        

Flowers

Hi,

        Summer will soon be over and fall will be here. So I thought I would post some flower pictures. Enjoy!!

Some wild flowers near our drive.

Mallow in my mom's garden.

Zinnias in my wife's garden.

Another zinnia.

Geraniums on my mom's trellis

A mixture of cut flowers in my mom's garden.

God Bless!!