Gavin's Birth Story

It was a typical Monday. Mike was off to work, Ethan was off to school.. I stayed home with every intention to relax but somehow "relaxing" only made me more anxious. I had watched every show on DVR, trolled craigslist for baby gear, did a few loads of laundry, even finished painting the mural in Gavin's nursery. I went to Target that morning, got some Chinese food for lunch, Walgreens that afternoon to buy snacks for Mike (for whenever I go into labor). It was becoming quite apparent how exhausting it is just waiting to go into labor. Gavin wasn't due for another week, but I did convince my doctor to push my induction to Wednesday morning. 2 more days, I kept thinking... 2 more days...

So you can imagine my surprise that Monday night... we had just finished watching the latest episode of House. I felt like crap, as usual, but wasn't having any contractions. And then... the uneventful event happened. My water broke. No... I didn't stain the couch. I didn't pee all over the carpet either. But it broke alright... it was around 9:30pm. I yelled for Mike, and after calling my sister to tell her "this is NOT a drill" and a few minutes of last minute packing and Mike nervously looking for a "rope" to tie off the umbilical cord in case we don't make it all the way to the hospital... we were off.

By the time we got to the hospital, my family was already there. They wheeled me off to Labor and Delivery and I got comfortable in that horrid hospital gown pretty quickly. Slowly, my pain rating climbed from a 2 to a 4 to a 6. It sucked, but it was manageable. My mom said if I was still texting, that it couldn't be THAT bad.

I told the nurses the first chance I got that I wanted the epidural, but for some reason or the other, they couldn't give it to me right away. I had to get my blood drawn, they said. I don't know what the hell was going on at 10pm that it took them forever to draw my blood and get it to the lab.

Within 2 hours, the contractions have gotten so bad that I found myself yelling in pain -- something I didn't remember doing when I gave birth to Ethan. For what it's worth, Mike talked me through breathing through the contractions. I found a spot on the ceiling to focus on and held on to the siderail because I didn't By the time they drew my blood, the lab got the results, and the anesthesiologist got to the room, I was already 9 cm dilated. I was ready to push. I remember the anesthesiologist talking to the nurse, telling her it was too late for me to get it. I just kept thinking.. holy shit, this hurts.

No, no, no. Unacceptable. I don't remember if I spat out profanity, I don't think I did.... I just remember saying "please" a lot. I could've cursed them out politely, I suppose. Mainly, I begged for them not to let me go through it without drugs. Sure, people do it all the time. But I wasn't about to if I could help it. Mike kept saying "you can do this, I know you can". No offense, hun, but I hate you right about now.

They ended up administering the epidural after much begging. By then I was already ready to push. The anesthesiologist told me he can't sit me up because I was in too much pain, so he'll have to do it with me laying down - which apparently takes his difficulty level up a notch. I promised to stay still through the contractions, which is A LOT harder than it sounds. He stuck my back and waited inbetween the peaks. It took maybe 20 minutes for me to feel it, but it was too late..... It was go time. I don't remember much anymore after that.

Next thing you know, he was in my arms. He was finally here.... there's no feeling like the first time you see that baby. He was perfect. But my favorite part of it all was introducing Ethan to his baby brother.

Ethan, meet Gavin. Gavin, meet Ethan.

Gavin, meet the world.

Sometimes, First Place is just Better!

Didn't seem all that long ago that we're bribing Ethan to ditch his training wheels. Why am I ever surprised anyway? This kid has far excelled in everything he does!

Still, when we entered him into his first bike race, we knew we had a lot of work to do as far as teaching him good sportsmanship.

"It's not always all about winning."

"Always do your best and have fun."

We try to focus on making sure he has fun, above all else. But really, kids know the difference between winning and losing, regardless of whether or not there's a scorekeeper or medals or trophies. I've learned that ranking achievement is something they pick up on their own, and as parents, the best we could do is try to help them not be discouraged whenever they do end up on the losing end. I am a firm believer that sometimes, it's in losing that we learn the biggest lesson, and failing is what propels the greatest to succeed.

As my Tito Jess would say, "Try and try until you succeed!" :)


In Ethan's eyes, of course, things are much simpler than that. Competition is competition. And at 4 years old, he's pretty convinced that you're not a winner unless you cross the line first.

So he did just that this weekend!

This is Ethan BEAMING after he won. His excitement was priceless!

Proudly showing off his medal

Family support is very important to us and there sure is no shortage of that when it comes to cheering on Ethan!

Ethan's biggest cheerleaders!

THIS IS MY FAVORITE SHOT: Ethan telling the baby all about him winning the race!

F-O-U-R!!!!!! (and we're not talking about golf)

I know I still need to post details about his birthday party, but I couldn't resist posting this one. I've been scrapbooking like crazy the past week (Winkflash has a flat rate book sale and I want to make one for his first year at least) -- I'll post those too when I get a chance.

Ethan's First Report Card

It's Official! We're Homeowners!

We finally got our keys today!! We're all super excited!! After months and months and months of looking... out of probably over 30 houses (yes, that's a lot of touring) that we looked at, this was the first house that we submitted an offer for. But after 2 heartbreaks from being passed over for other offers on this house, I almost didn't want to make the last offer after it went back on the market for the third time. But.... everything happens for a reason...... and I think we were meant to get it.....

So we're not proud homeowners..... and IT'S DECORATING TIME!!!!

Congratulations Jojo!

I can’t believe my baby brother (using the term baby somewhat loosely) has graduated high school!!!! Not only does that make me very proud, it also makes me… well…. feel VERY old.

After 4 long years of high school drama and exasperating varsity football, he’s giving up his football cleats and exchanging it for a stethoscope! He’ll be taking nursing at a California State University about 2 hours away (so he’ll be going “away” without ever being “too far” – which I’m sure makes our mom happy). I told him he’ll always have a spot in our couch for those pesky frequent visits :)

Note to self: 3-year-olds DO NOT fair well with long speeches. After trying desperately to keep Ethan occupied through speeches from 2 co-valedictorians, the class president, the school district superintendent (and a bag of Oreos)…. he was over it. Not to mention having to wait through 100 names to hear Jojo’s name called out, and then waiting for another 500 others after his name was called out.

We're in Escrow!

So, we finally did it. We sort of maybe bought a house. I don't know for sure. That's because we're in "escrow" and I don't actually understand what that means. We signed the papers last Wednesday and the bank signed it the next day… so that’s official, right? Our realtor beams with the “I’m so proud of you for finally making the decision” smile, and gives us the congratulatory “Yes, you are now in escrow”.

And then in the same conversation, she said something about the deposit going into escrow.

Right, okay. The escrow company hasn’t cashed our check yet… what does that mean?

So I’m a little confused. Your money goes into escrow, and then you are in escrow, except you most certainly are not in the same place as your money. Somehow "escrow" has become a sci-fi planet, and you and your money are both on it but in parallel dimensions. But you’ve already signed the “contract”, which meant you were already in escrow anyway. Huh?

Nonetheless, the good news is that if we jump through about a dozen more hoops, we’re told and that it will close 45 days from when the bank signed the paper – which was on the 14th, so really, we should start packing.

With that said... let me take you on a tour.

This is the front of the house

This is going to be the formal living room and formal dining room from 2 different angles... Depending on the budget, we were thinking of tiling the walkway from the front door all the way up to the back sliding doors.

This is the kitchen... they've just installed ugly linoleum on the floors, that we'll be replacing with tile as soon as they give us the key. Eventually, I'd like to upgrade the counter tops to granite, but for now, the tiles are in pretty good shape and the cabinets are practically brand new (although we're going to be staining them in a darker color).

This is the walk-in pantry (it's actually much bigger than it looks on the photo) -- the second one is where we'll probably put a smaller dining table...

This is the family room with gas/wood fireplace. We're getting some estimates on putting hardwood floors here since it'll be the highest traffic area, although we might wait since it's all brand new carpet downstairs anyway.

This is one of the bedrooms upstairs with a balcony... There's a decent size storage room just outside the sliding doors (by the balcony) which is a plus.

This will be our bedroom with the fireplace and balcony.

This is the master bathroom with the whirlpool tub. There's brand new carpet in there (all upstairs) as well, but we'll likely tile this when we tile the kitchen downstairs.

This is the humongous walk-in closet connected to the master bath. We'll definitely have to put some shelving in there, but I can't wait to finally have room for all my purses and shoes! :)

This is the balcony off of the master bedroom.

This is the loft, separating the master bedroom from the other bedrooms. It'll likely become a playroom for Ethan with maybe a seating area/entertainment area on one side (it's already equipped with surround sound).

This is the tandem 3-car garage. The plan is to section off the third space and maybe make it a 5th bedroom downstairs for maybe my mom when she comes over, or could potentially become Mike's "man cave" :)

This is the backyard... not as big as I had originally wanted, but there's plenty of room for Ethan to play safely and not a whole lot of gardening for me to do (I unfortunately did not inherit my mother's green thumb).

Well that's it for now! I will keep this posted on any renovations we end up doing!

We had our inspection yesterday and so far so good -- the only major problem the inspector found was the water heater not working, and hopefully the bank will fix that before escrow closes. The rest were just minor fixes, and that's what I married a handy man for! :)

Til next time!
I'm so excited!

Easter Recap

Belated Happy Easter everyone!

We had a lot of fun over the weekend. Ethan went Easter egg-hunting 4 times, 3 days in a row – Friday at school with all his friends, Saturday at a local town center put together by a Kiwanis club, Sunday morning at home and then another one after church. I’m telling you, this boy is an egg-hunting machine!

I remember last year when we still had to kind of lead him to where the eggs where… but not this year! He tracked those eggs down like there’s no tomorrow. Granted he was with his own age group, I almost felt (a little) bad for the other kids who just stood there and stared at the eggs in front of them while Ethan swooped in to grab them with no remorse. I couldn’t believe how competitive he’s gotten!

After church with family, Mike, Sissy and I headed to LA for a Meet and Greet with the Lakers. My plan was to get my cast signed (which I’m hoping to get rid off today) and sell it on eBay, but we didn’t quite get that close to the players.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a blessed Easter like we did!

I’m off to see my orthopedic. Wish me luck!