Happy Birthday, Erica!

Well, we are just 1 day away from hitting the 6-week mark since Erica’s 12th birthday.  Seems like a good time to put up a birthday post for her.  :-D  (and less than 2 weeks away from the next Worley birthday.  I can’t get lapped!)

One of the interesting things about each of our kids is the number patterns in their birthdays.  Erica Danielle Worley has the distinction of being born on the 12th day of February at 12 minutes until 12 midnight!  So this was an extra-special birthday, because she turned 12 on 2/12/2012 (at 12 minutes ‘til 12).

Erica’s Birth Story

My labor with Erica was unique in that I did most of my laboring at Mom and Dad’s house!  It was a Saturday, I had had a few interesting contractions that morning, but by the time we were on the road around noon, they were barely noticeable (how strange that she would be born less than 12 hours later! – Hey, there’s that number again!)

In the afternoon, the contractions started picking up again, but I kept quiet about it and tried to appear like nothing was out of the ordinary.  Of course, when it’s true labor, that’s pretty much impossible, especially with a sister and mom in the same room, who caught on quickly and then started watching closely.  :-D

By 7:00 that evening, we decided to go to the hospital and “check things out.”  What happened after that was pretty much a blur (or at least it is by this point).  I do remember the following: 

• I was admitted.
• Mom and Dad ended up bringing Rachel and Courtney to the hospital to wait it out (10:00 maybe?) and they both fell asleep in the waiting room (Rachel and Courtney – not Mom and Dad!)
• I was given an epidural.
• Labor progressed quickly and steadily.
• When delivery began to look imminent, the on-call doctor (Dr. Sara Murphy) was paged.
• Said epidural begin wearing off.

When I convinced the staff with absolute certainty that I did need the epidural re-administered, the anesthesiologist was summoned.  However, Erica had her own time table.  Within a minute or so of the anesthesiologist leaving the room, while the staff was making the final preparations and Dr. Murphy was getting suited up across the room, Erica decided she didn’t need any assistance and handled things her own way.  Dr. Murphy made a gallant sprint across the room, just so she could claim that she delivered Erica, but we know the truth:  she delivered herself!  Dr. Murphy just kept her from falling.  The P.S. to the story is that the 2nd dose of epidural did kick in … about 2 minutes after she was born.  :-D

First, a couple of pictures from her birthday celebration this year:

Erica descending the stairs in all her birthday glory.  :-)

Now, a for a trip down memory lane…

This is one of the earliest pictures I have of Erica on my computer (pre-digital, of course).  She was about 2yo here!

 

“Please, sir, may I have some more?” Erica is dressed as “Oliver Twist” for our play a couple of years ago.

This one cracks me up.  She wanted me to get a picture of her making the same face as baby Grant.  :-D

With cousin Kate.

I’ve always loved this picture of Erica and Sarah taken at the park.

I mean, seriously, look at these cute faces!

I love the freckles in this picture!

I couldn’t decide which one of these I liked the best, so I made a collage.  :-D

Rachel took this lovely picture!

This remains one of my favorite Erica shots.  Taken in September of 2003 in Virginia Beach when Erica was just 3.  I was using a 35 mm film camera, which explains why it is a little grainy. 

She’s a reader, a singer (alto – yes!), an actress, a ballet dancer, a beloved sister, daughter, granddaughter and cousin, and most importantly, a child of God!  We love you, Erica!  Happy 12th Birthday (finally!)! 

Brooke’s Birthday

Since Erica’s birthday is one week from today, I thought I’d better grab a quick minute and finish Brooke’s birthday post, as promised.

Although it’s been 8 years, there are many details about Brooke’s birth that I remember very clearly.  I remember going into labor around 11:00 the night before.  I had fallen asleep on the couch and woken up to contractions.  I spent the next several hours laboring, alternating between walking around and rocking in the rocking chair.  It was a pretty typical labor for me, except that my water broke.  Out of all the kids, this only happened during my labor with Brooke, so that lent an extra bit of excitement to everything (as if labor and delivery isn’t exciting enough!).  Our neighbor came over very early in the morning to watch the kids and we got to the hospital around 7:00.  We called the family to let them know and Mom and Dad came to the hospital.  I remember Jennifer and Steve were out and about because Jennifer had an OB appointment that morning (she was pregnant with cousin Erin), so they headed over to the hospital. Things were progressing well, I was chatting with the family when I suddenly felt the unmistakable feeling of downward movement.  That completely changed the atmosphere in the room:  everybody rushed out (Steve had barely stepped inside the door in the first place ;-), the nurses came in for a check, and we got the green light for delivery!  At the last minute, my OB came sprinting in yelling “Wait, wait, wait!” and a short time later, Andrea Brooke was born … at 11:11 to be exact.  :-)

I’ll never forget my first look at our new little girl. So many similar features we’d seen before; same mouth, same eyes, very similar in size, but BLONDE hair! Erica had blonde hair as a toddler, but it was pretty dark at birth and lightened over time.

Being so close in age to Sarah (21 months), Brooke has been her little shadow, and they have always been very close.

And then there are the cousins.  Brooke was born in the middle of the great Griffin Baby Boom of 2003-2004.  First there were the twins in December, then Brooke, then Mason in February, then Erin in March! This picture was taken when they were all about 1 year old.

Brooke and Sophia and Isabella

Brooke and Mason

Brooke and Erin

If I could sum up Brooke’s personality in one word (which is difficult, she’s many things!), I would say “cheerful”.  She has a very sunny outlook and loves to laugh.  Happy Birthday, Brooke!

Brooke’s 8th …

The wrap-up post of Brooke’s birthday, including her birth story, is in the works, but until I get it done and published, I’ll post this picture in honor of her 8th birthday, which we celebrated today.

Pencils

One of the challenges on a typical school day around here is finding a good, sharp pencil. An attached eraser would truly be the icing on the cake … a diamond in the rough. Yesterday I spent a considerable amount of time decluttering a couple of drawers where we keep writing utensils. My goal was to separate the pencils and pens from crayons, markers, coloring pencils, etc. thus cutting down on time wasted trying to find something decent to write with. There’s nothing like finding a good ol’ yellow #2 pencil, newly-sharpened with a smooth, pink eraser on the tip.  One of the attorneys at the law firm I work with has a can on his desk filled with a mixed assortment of pens.  But there is one single, irresistible pencil (eraser up) in the middle of all those pens. Once he showed me that the pencil has actually never been used because it has not been sharpened.  But he admits he can always tell when someone has been in his office looking for something to write with, because that pencil has been picked up and set back in the can with the unsharpened lead end up.

Yes, there are pencils like that attorney’s – lovely, yellow, handy eraser attached at the end.  These are the pencils of my dreams:

Let’s get a better look at those lovely erasers:

(P.S. Sadly, I didn’t actually find these pencils among our stash, they’re just images I found online).

And then there are Worley pencils.  (cue sad music)

After throwing out a good portion of quarter-inch long crayons and dried out markers, I eventually got things weeded out to the point that I was able to start the final leg of my organizing: sharpening the pencils I’d been able to round up.  It was quite a rag-tag collection of specimens, but one thing was consistent with practically every pencil:  teeth marks.  The Worleys have a long and undistinguished history of chewers.  Not just pencils, but pretty much anything that sits still long enough to be chewed.  Some of the kids have been more orally-inclined than others, but they’ve all done their share of chewing. 

Which brings me back to my sad set of pencils.  This is what I have to work with; a random set of pencils that I just grabbed out of the pile to sharpen:

If you look closely, you might notice that, yes, even the lead end of some of the pencils have teeth marks.  By now, pencils like this are so common around here that we only notice when they’re not chewed – you know, the first 5 seconds we take them out of the box.  What really breaks my heart is the erasers - or lack thereof.  This is typical:

<sigh>  Look at that one on the right end; even the metal surrounding the eraser has been chewed!  So, we buy those handy Pearl erasers and just make do.  I wonder if, when our kids are grown, our house will have only pencils that look like this:

But knowing me, I would be nostalgic for the good ol’ days of chewed pencils.  So, for now, perfect pencils exist only in my dreams, and on Bing images, and that one pencil on that attorney’s desk. 

Finshed: "At Home: A Short History of Private Life"

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Very interesting book! Reading this makes me even more interested to visit some old English manors. It also made me appreciate and more fully understand a lot of the details in the 19th century novels I've been reading in the past year or two. I think Bill Bryson would make a fascinating dinner guest.





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Happy Birthday, Courtney!

One of the things I hear often when birthdays roll around is “What were you doing this time [x] years ago, Mom?”  The memories start coming back and certain details always remain clear about each child’s birth. 

Courtney’s G-Rated Birth Story

Due to the busyness of “undecorating” Christmas, today – well, I guess yesterday -- it is now in the wee hours of Sunday, January 8, 2012.  And, ah yes, I well remember what I was doing 14 years ago right about now.  Some friends had invited us over for dessert on January 7, 1998.  Mick, Rachel and I had a great dinner of chili then spent a fun evening visiting.  Courtney was due on January 17, so I was close to delivery, but apparently closer than I realized.  I do remember having some Braxton Hicks contractions while we were at our friends’, but that was very normal for me.  I woke up in the middle of the night feeling ill … very ill. I figured I must have picked up some sort of bug.  As the night wore on and it started getting light, I became aware that I was having fairly strong contractions.  Mick got up at his regular early hour (probably between 5:30 and 6:00 am), did his usual 5-minute morning routine and started heading out the door.  Right before he got to the door, I became aware that he was leaving for work.  I remember weakly saying “You’re not going to work, are you?”  He stopped and looked at me and I said “I think I’m in labor.” I was actually surprised to hear myself say that, because I don’t remember being consciously aware of being in labor. I had a doctor visit already scheduled for later that morning, so we took the suitcase with us and dropped Rachel off at the Orrs’. I still remember Kelly standing in the doorway and waving wildly at me with a big grin on her face while we were pulling out.  I tried to muster up a smile, but I was still very queasy, weak and exhausted from being up all night.  It was an unusually warm January day and there was a light drizzle – perfect for me to have the window down and get some fresh air.  I remember the drizzle felt heavenly on my face. I think that was the only thing that kept me coherent on the 40-minute drive to the doctor.

After a quick check, the doctor happily announced that it was the “baby’s birthday” and let’s “head over the hospital to have this baby!”  We were admitted to the hospital around noon, settled into a room, parents were called, medications administered, uh-oh: medications began wearing off, medications re-administered-- and very heavily, I might add. It was then that I learned that too much of a good thing is not a good thing.  Two things happened almost simultaneously:  1) I was completely numb from about the chest down; and 2) Courtney’s heart rate dropped suddenly.  Thankfully, I was ready to push, but unfortunately I couldn’t push because of reason #1. There was some scurrying around the room by the staff at that point, during which my calm-cool-and-collected OB came right up beside me and calmly explained that she would need to perform a forceps delivery and that the baby would be checked out by a NICU team as soon as she was delivered.  It all happened very quickly and it was very unnervering, but one funny thing happened during all this.  My OB was very petite, and when she sat on my bed to talk to me, the nurses had already started raising the bed to prepare for delivery.  The bed raised up to the point that her feet weren’t touching the floor and she had to holler at them to drop the bed down a little!  LOL!!

Courtney’s delivery went very smoothly and efficiently and she was whisked over to the NICU team, who checked her out for a few minutes and declared her to be just fine!  Apparently, the sudden drop in heart rate was due to her gripping the cord, because she was was born with a tight grip on it! 

So, from as long as she can remember, Rachel has been a big sister.  She and Courtney bonded very early on and have been close ever since. I distinctly remember the day we brought Courtney home from the hospital.  Rachel was holding her and looking at her when she suddenly looked at us and said “More."  Neither of us said anything for a minute, then I said “More what?”  And she said “More babies.”  LOL!  Who knew?

We do have some darling pictures of Rachel and Courtney together from their earliest days, but most of them are still in photo albums and boxes, patiently waiting to be scanned in and shared on this blog.  Until then, I’ll post some more recent pictures.

Animal lover.

Like most young girls, Courtney is drawn to animals, and we have a number of pictures of her with a wide range of animals.

Fun with cousins.

Thankfully, there are plenty of cousins to go around on the Griffin side of the family…

Babies.

Like her siblings (and her mom), Courtney is a baby lover:

… but she often has interesting and unusual ideas on how to play with babies …

(doll stroller)

(doll highchair)

 

We love her very much!  Happy Birthday, Courtney!