Another example of being a good man

Nathanael regularly helps the neighbors with their recycling bins and trash cans when he attends to ours. Today the neighbor's yard waste bin had fallen and spilled. So Nathanael was putting the waste back in after righting the can. He returned inside with these for me saying "there were more but they were all folded and not good":

Happy Birthday Matthew James!!

God again has been gracious to our family and blessed us with a healthy little boy.  His coming was much anticipated and watched, and when the time came for his birth, it came quickly.  My parents had come over on January 28th, and we had been joking that I would soon be in labor upon their arrival.  It made sense.  For each of the other boys, my water had broken shortly after the arrival of my mother.  For the girls, my mother had been on the road when I checked into the hospital with regular contractions and delivered the girls shortly after having my water broken.  However, Matthew was not to follow any previous appearance of a pattern.

We all had a hard time functioning and focusing on what needed to get done, because we had all expected the baby to be born.  Finally Thursday afternoon while monitoring rest-time for the girls, the contraction timer app on my phone indicated the contractions were about every 5-8 minutes apart.  They still were not really painful though.  So, I decided to change position and lie down in the girls' room and see if they changed.  Lately they had been going away if I changed activities, indicating they were not "true" contractions.  However, to my surprise and joy, they started feeling sharp.  So I changed to walking around the kitchen, scrubbing and clearing counters.  They kept coming regularly and I started having to breathe through them occasionally.  All this time, I had been sending Forest text messages at work about them.  He decided to leave the office around 3:30 to head home so he wasn't caught in traffic when I decided the situation was genuine and urgent.

While this was happening, poor Josiah started to develop a mean fever.  So as Forest came home and gathered things to take to the hospital for the birth and my hospital stay, I gave my mom instructions in treating Josiah's fever.  Then we headed to the hospital.  My labwork bracelet was time-stamped 16:31.  I continued to have contractions and labored well in the room for a bit, then I began saying "I want to be done, I don't want to do this anymore" which usually means we're just about done.  Sure enough, the midwife came in and broke my water at 8cm and she would not leave the room even though she had three other patients down the hall.  She asked Forest if he wanted to cut the cord, and if he wanted to catch the baby.  He said, "why not?" and she got him some gloves.  Finally my body told me it was time to push, and after a few contractions and a few pushes, Forest laid Matthew on my belly!  He was born at 5:57!  That was the quickest labor and delivery yet!  All 8 lbs, 9 oz, 21 in of him was finally here, in our arms.  He is the second biggest of our babies, and the easiest recovery of them all.  We also think his birthday should be easy to remember: February 2, 2010, looks like 2-2-12.

The next morning, Forest and my parents got the big brothers and big sisters all ready to come up to meet their baby brother.  Poor Hannah was trying to jump over the cracks in the sidewalk, and tripped and fell and cut her chin pretty badly.  But she was so excited about meeting our baby, she didn't complain about it one bit.  The oldest two were just happy, Talitha was gushing about how cute he was, and Josiah couldn't stop saying "Matthew" as clearly as could be.  They could hardly wait to take turns holding him, and Hannah got to go first since she needed to go downstairs to the ER to have her chin stitched. 

Happy Big Sister

Excited big sister

Not-so-sure big brother

Proud Big Brother

Now that he's been home a few days, he is nursing well, making plenty of messes, and getting loved on more than enough.  He's even gained a few ounces already.  Everyone wants to hold him and race to be the first to germ-x their hands so they get to hold him first.  Josiah even looks for him and wonders where he is more than where I am.  We look forward to what God has in His plans for our newest little boy.

Oh, and his name?  For the longest time, Nathanael had been saying "God is going to give us another baby, and it's going to be a boy, and we're going to name him Matthew."  He began saying this shortly after we brought Josiah home from the hospital.  So, when we found out God was indeed giving us another baby, and indeed it would be a boy, we decided to go with the name Matthew, which means "gift of God" and if you remember, Nathanael also means "gift of God."  So the two boys have a very unique story about their names.  Now James is a family name.  Forest's middle name is James, his dad's name is James, and his dad's dad's name was Henry James. 

We are truly blessed to have this little guy in our home, and everyone wants to hold and touch and kiss and hug him.

Being Men

Forest has been taking the kids out on a Daddy Date each month. When he takes the boys (minus Matthew) they talk about being a Godly man.

Today Forest mowed the lawn for the first time this season. Nathanael wanted to go help. While Forest could have done it much faster alone, Nathanael would not have had the practice of being manly and caring for the yard. So he let the boy help.