Baby Jango Fett

Procrastination turns out to be genetic. When I said a week to 10 days (almost 3 weeks ago) I actually thought I might be overestimating. Both Mars and Odin were three days early.

At the regular appointment on November 4th (the due date from the first ultrasound), our doctor said the baby would probably come within 24 hours, so I booted down from home. Nothing. I hung around until the 7th (the due date we had been working with, also my mum's birthday), but still no action.  (Local hospital doesn't do births, so we stay at Leaf's parents, 25 minutes from delivery hospital/delivery Dr's office).

I headed back home to catch up on some outside stuff I had been procrastinating on that needed to be done before cold weather/snow.  30 seconds after I finished the three hour drive, I got the phone call. Leaf thought it was time, but, based on previous experience didn't think the action would be for another 8 or 10 hours in the middle of the night. She would call back.

No 3am call this time, but next morning I headed back down. Contractions 10 minutes apart, so I booted it. The emergency cell phone had died so I went directly to the hospital, where they said "Leaf who?"... False alarm.  This little guy was not interested in coming out.  Tomorrow?  The day after?  11/11/11 would be a super cool date.  I stuck around.  A long, long week with multiple appointments and ultrasounds and another non-stress test (baby has had an irregular heartbeat issue) and we had an appointment to discuss inducement (and Leaf's fourth sweep).


Not something either of us wanted, but made an appointment to come in at 8:30 am and have a stress test, do another check/sweep, with the option of going with inducement or waiting.  First contraction was 7:07 am, so I guess baby didn't want to be induced either.  Less than 10 minutes apart on the trip to the hospital.  Contractions were less than 5 minutes apart by the time our Dr arrived for the scheduled inducement decision.  Called the fam to come a little after 9:30, called and said hurry up a little after 10:00, baby arrived at 10:40.

I think the fastest birth yet.  84 minutes active labour, less than 1 minute 2nd stage - the pushing part.  Odin was 2 hours then push push pop, this one was a mere push and a quarter.  The quarter push was only because our doctor said stop and had to clear the cord from around baby's neck.  Leaf - the amazing baby machine. 

First meeting of new baby brother

Beautiful blue-eyed baby boy with red hair, only ten days late.  9 lbs, 2oz, 21.5 inches.  All is good, an early ECG (again because of the heart irregularities) was sent to cardiologist, but no news is good news there.

And not really named Jango Fett.  That was Odin's choice for the short list.  Mars wants Ivanhoe.  Not from the book but from the southeastern Ontario cheese company.  For now he is Baby A13864.  Suggestions on a baby name in keeping with our current theme?

Hallowe'en Pumpkins '11

Just a preview for now, as I've only just finished the basic carve/gouge of the Batman pumpkin.   I meant to time how long it took, but my mum phoned part way through and also stopped to make lunch for the kids.

I'd estimate 15 minutes prep - to open the top, clean out and prepare the inside, and tape on the stencil.  Maybe 40 minutes after that to get to this point.  I still need to smooth out all of the yellow pumpkin flesh, poke the eyes, and clean up the mouth.

As I said in my instructional post last year, I just searched google for the stencil using "Batman Colouring Page" and picked the fourth or fifth one in.  This was a great stencil because unlike last year's Tinkerbell one, I could copy it exactly.  Leave the skin where the stencil is black, carve the skin where the stencil is white.

Here it is lit up with most of the rough scraping completed.  The mouth needs to be thinned still, but with such a sliver I'll leave it until last, since it would easily break off in handling.  Still a bunch of detail scraping left to do.  Basically anywhere the pumpkin flesh is opaque or darker orange (in and around the right side of his cape) needs more scraping.  Where it is translucent and bright yellow (the bottom of the circle, his shoulders, armpit, and part of the left side cape) is almost complete.

I'll leave the rest until Hallowe'en day though, because it will dry out and need to be redone anyway..

Although partly the fault of the camera, you can also see the final product isn't as translucent.  Carving three days early allowed the pumpkin to both dry out and soften.  Do it the day of, or at most the day before for best results.  I started to scrape the dry flesh off, but the carved area of the pumpkin had softened so much that I was worried I would break it.  The only small change from the last photo was to poke the utility belt all the way through.

A plain Batman Symbol Pumpkin.  If you are just learning to skin carve a pumpkin, this is a great one to try first.  It is a simple design, like last year's Transformers pumpkin.  It doesn't take a lot of time (from start to finish it took me 30 minutes), and the lack of details mean there isn't a lot of mistakes you could make.

Pumpkins 2012: Master Yoda Pumpkin, Cookie Monster Pumpkin

Pumpkins 2010: Tinkerbell Pumpkin, Transformers Pumpkin with Autobot and Decepticon logos
Pumpkins 2009: Scooby Doo and Shaggy Pumpkin, Mystery Machine Pumpkin, Yoda Pumpkin, Boba Fett Pumpkin
Pumpkins 2008: Ernie and Bert Pumpkin, Soccer Ball Pumpkin
Pumpkins 2007: Calvin and Hobbes Pumpkin, Spiderman Pumpkin, Toronto FC Pumpkin
Pumpkins 2006: Darth Vader Pumpkin, Homer Simpson Pumpkin 

Important Announcement

I got in some trouble last child for failing to widely inform people that he was on the way.  So I get in less trouble, be it known (rather belatedly) that #3 is on the way.  More info in a week to ten days!

My children are so well behaved

Blonde hair, blue eyed Odin, age 2, was wearing his spiderman suit, making goo-goo eyes at the ladies, and flexing his padded muscles.  So I might have expected a 'your children are so cute'.

Mars was discoursing on the attributes of dinosaurs, pronouncing names I can't, and telling me what each one ate.  So I might have expected a 'your children are so smart'.

Instead, the grandmotherly lady said "Your children are so well behaved".  Personally, I thought they were getting a little silly giddy as we were about to leave the restaurant.  I said thanks.  She said she hadn't seen such well behaved children in a long time.

I find it strange.  As cute and smart as they are, the most frequent comment we get is about how well behaved they are.  At restaurants, at stores, out in public.  Every few weeks, a complete stranger will talk to us about what nice, well behaved kids we have.  I guess they are well behaved.  Most of the time.  In public.  I suppose what we consider normal is actually well behaved these days.

My knees are still shaking

We are down in the city for the weekend;  Leaf had a Dr's appointment Friday, boys had a cousin's birthday party on Saturday, and visiting my sister's today to meet brand new baby Jaide.  Absolutely adorable, and so tiny.  You always forget how little they are.  After a nice visit, we headed home.

About half way home and there is a slow down on the 401.  I generally leave lots of distance (the Stay Back 2 Chevrons! campaign being big in my area during teenage years) between me and the car in front and anticipate needing to slow down rather than wait until the last second.  Luckily.  I gently press the brakes to slow down.  Nothing.  Press harder.  Nothing.  Press all the way to the floor.  Nothing.  I quite literally said "uh oh!".  Also quite luckily, traffic had previously slowed down enough that we were only going about 80km an hour.

I think just about every option ran through my head in a split second - including the absolutely inane thought 'turn onto the runaway truck ramp' that somehow popped to the surface so many years after all those cross-Rockies trips.  I swerved into the shoulder to miss the guy in front of me.  The shoulder ended 30 meters later at an on-ramp, where - again the luck - there was a gap that I managed to cut across to get to the side of the highway.  We roll along for a bit, but seems I'm getting some brake traction now and come to a stop on the shoulder.  The lane beside us is one of those shared on-ramp/off-ramp lanes, so not really part of the highway, but still not the safest place to be stopped.

Dilemma.  We can wait to be ripped off by an unscrupulous tow truck driver (is there another kind on the 400 series highways?), or move forward a few hundred meters and get safely off the highway.  Since the brakes were now giving pressure, we decided to at least get off the 401.  Started a slow roll, tested the brakes a couple times & they worked fine, so onto the off ramp and away. Naturally the brakes turn to jell-o again at the end of the exit ramp, so into a parking lot and stopped for good.  I detest motor vehicles.