It's a girl!

Anna Vera Jones
(Luke 2:22-40)

Born: January 22, 2010 -- 12:42am
7 lbs. 1oz.
21 inchesMost of you probably got the email that her birth was a beautiful two hour labor. We were'nt even sure I was in labor until my water broke at about 11:40pm and then she was born an hour later. Thank you to good chiropractic care, the Bradley Method, reflexology, all the saints and angels present and of course my loving, supportive husband. Knowing my distaste for hospitals my Doctor generously discharged me later that day. Thanks be to God, this birth was balm to my first one.

The reason I haven’t posted any entries since her birth is in part because we don’t have internet at our house, but mostly our baby honeymooning was interrupted by appendicitis. I first started cramping exactly a week from when she was born, and after a day and a half when it hadn’t cleared up I went into the doctor embarrassed because I though he’d send me home with gasX or something minor. I was not prepared for him to send me to the hospital for a Cat-scan and then surgery later that night. So began probably the hardest week of my life. I chose to keep Anna with me in my room even though respiratory viruses were on that same floor, I selfishly could not bear to be separated from both of my children.

Even though my overall care was outstanding, there were two hospital mistakes that exacerbated my pain and extended my hospital stay and recovery by three times what it should have been. At the point it looked like I would never get out I became rather outraged which didn’t help anything and just made my nurse frustrated because her hands were tied by the bureaucracy.

Then Father Daniel came and prayed over me and the situation and as he was leaving my room my primary care Doctor came in (the same one who delivered Anna), I’d being trying all along to get my care transferred to him, but I was the patient of the surgeons even though my complications were not related to the surgery. He agreed he couldn’t do much, but he would do what he could, he’d lovingly visited me every day at the hospital. Then the Nurse supervisor came in and said that what happened should never have happened and I felt a sense of relief that at least they didn’t deny a mistake had been made, after her the original surgeon who did my surgery came in clearly upset I was still in the hospital and he went and sorted out why the surgeon I saw that morning hadn’t discharged me.

I think I hold the record for the fastest hospital discharge ever. The nurse cruised through my paperwork and had me wheeled out of that hospital in no time. It was an emotionally and physically exhausting post-partum experience that continued for several days even after I was home but I do have a lot to be thankful for. I AM better now; it didn’t happen while I was still pregnant and there really were nurses and doctors there who cared about me (not to mention my tireless husband, my mom who drove the 6 hours over at a moments notice and Ben’s mom who tended to Joachim for days.

first few days pictures

In the Orthodox tradition Joachim’s wife is Anna, but our Anna is named for the widow Anna in Luke 2:22-40 (as a clarification for my orthodox friends).We're not really sure who she looks like so your guess is as good as ours!

odds and ends

Joachim has a very generous heart. He shares his most favorite things with me and his buddies, I figured out that it brings him great satisfaction to share because he feels validated in his pleasure of the item. I realized this when he got offended that I turned down a lick of a lollipop he was savoring. Here he's sharing half a jelly bean vitamin with rabbit. For days in a row he'd wake up, go into the living room and exclaim, "Rabbit is still eating his jelly bean, that must be a very tasty jelly bean rabbit."
In this picture Joachim spelled "vitamin" for rabbit. He knows his letter sounds so he accurately started off with "v" then he just kept adding letters and then for some reason he went back and put a "k" at the beginning. He'd stand back satisfied and admiring his word. It's a bit of a parenting conundrum for me weather I should say, "Oh wow, what a nice word you spelled," thus reinforcing a fib of sorts or to point out that "vitamin" is actually spelled with a lot fewer letters. I usually figure it can't hurt to indulge his satisfaction.
Here Joachim reads to Dori, his night light fish that someone gave him at a yard sale. All of his neat toys and it never ceases to surprise me which ones become the favorites. Who would have thought it'd be a plastic fish with a cord that I am constantly rewinding and tucking into a lightbulb hole.

And a funny antidote from his trip to the hardware store with Ben. I've heard lots of mom's tell funny stories about their children's observations and I wondered if Joachim would ever be clever enough to make some of his own. Just recently his unique logic has blossomed.
There's a lot of taxidermy at our hardware store and they were talking about the different animals when they got to the moose antlers. Ben said, "Those are moose antlers," and Joachim responded, "Those antlers are missing their moose."

Nativity

Joachim has a great smile now... I try telling him to smile softly and he says, "I is smiling softly." Oh, well, he still smiles normally if I catch him slightly off guard.

36 weeks

We had a wonderul Christmas and were blessed with some great "hand-me-around gifts" that we were able to regift to Joachim. I'm grateful to all who shared with us. Christmas is definitely a lot of fun with kids.

Snow and S'mores

Mid December we got a nice big snow storm (big for Delta, 8 inches). Grandma made the snow man this time because since the last snow I've gotten too big comfortably bend over.Even though my belly's too big to bend over it didn't stop me from dragging him up and down the driveway for his first sledding experience. What was a brilliant idea to wear him out for his nap really just wore me out (I should have had him get off the sled and walk up the driveway himself... duh. Then downside of the snow was that it was a full week before I could get my car up the driveway. I knew from last year I should have parked at the top when it started snowing but I couldn't imagine it would last so long.Ben works until 9:30pm on Tuesday's so this particular Tuesday I rewarded Joachim and I with S'mores and Christmas music after a day of snow. He humored me for the pictures, but really he liked marshmallows, "not burned" as he put it. After he was asleep Ben and I had a nice evening eating S'mores. I hadn't thought about a stick until it was already dark and very snowy so we cut a bottom branch from the tree and sharpened it giving the marshmallos a strangely piney flavor.
Joachim's idea of decorating the tree included lining the ornaments in a row on the lower branches. I cut out christmas cards from last year to make ornaments for this year. Joachim very carefully cut out the tree ornaments hanging infront of the orange slices.

sledding

dancing too

Christmas tree cutting

Our 3rd Annual Uncompaghre tree cutting! We got our $8 permit and cut another perfect tree with all of Joachim's genuine Christmas enthusiasm. We got it just in time too because two days later we got a huge snow storm and the car would never have made it up the mesa. The snow has lasted two weeks which is pretty unusual for around here, it was a whole week before I got my car up the driveway.