Introducing: Andrew Christian Berry

Albeit a little late.... The newborn haze has gotten the better of me and I've kept forgetting to write his birth story before the details fade.  I started having contractions on Saturday, May 28th, in around 9 or so in the morning.  I had a ton of pretty meaningless contractions the day before that had stopped in the evening, so I wasn't sure if this was the real deal or not.  Closer to noon I had a few that stopped me in my tracks and they were getting more regular so we decided it was time to head to the hospital.  We packed the kids up and took them to a friend's house (the real reason they were excited for me to be going and having a baby.)

We arrived at the hospital around noon and went to triage to make sure I was really in labor.  Turns out, even though I was having contractions every 3-5 minutes, I was only dilated to three centimeters.  We met the midwife on call, a lovely woman named Elizabeth, who was new to the practice and so I hadn't met her before.  We chatted and then I was told to walk the halls for an hour and see how I had progressed.  And since I was Group B Strep positive and needed a course of antibiotics during labor, if my water broke I'd be admitted anyway.  So we roamed, and roamed and roamed.  And I started feeling a little, um, leaky.

So we checked back in with the nurse and she did a test to see if my water had indeed broken.  Yes!  Hallelujah!  I didn't have to go home.  I was admitted and we went to our room, got settled in, hooked up to an IV of antibiotics, monitored for a few minutes to make sure Andrew was doing okay and met my labor and delivery nurse.

And then I was finally able to get into their labor tub.  A large, wonderful, hot bath tub just for laboring mothers.  Having labored in a tub with Jack, I knew that's what I wanted this time, too.  It was so soothing and really helped ease contraction pains, because I wanted to do this delivery naturally like my others.  After being in the tub for a very uncomfortable hour, Elizabeth came in to check on me.  She chatted with Bobby and I for awhile and she laughed about how a mother had given birth in the tub a few weeks earlier, but as a rule the hospital didn't like it.  She told me to let her know when I thought I might be ready to push and we'd go back to my room to deliver.

A few minutes later I told her I was feeling a little pushy and she called in my nurse and they were getting ready to get me out when Andrew decided he was coming NOW!  He descended so quickly, she felt to see what was going on, my nurse asked if we were going to make it back to my room and Elizabeth said, "Nope!"

I've always wondered what water births were like and now I was about to have one!  Nurses came rushing in, moving all the equipment they could from my room to the spa room.  I began pushing, and a nurse jumped right in the tub with me to support me, and Bobby got in on the other side.  Just a couple minutes later Andrew was crowning and popped right out at 4:12 was brought right onto my chest and wailed.  It was an amazing delivery experience and the water made the entire process so easy and soothing.  It was by far my easiest delivery.  And, unfortunately, since we didn't think we'd actually have a baby right then, we have no pictures of it. But it was remarkable how alert and aware Andrew was immediately.  He quietly gazed at me, around the room and desperately tried to suck his thumb.

After checking his Apgars, which were great, we were bundled up and taken back to our room.  Andrew was weighed (6 pounds 9 ounces) and measured (20 1/2 inches).  I felt great.  The recovery was by far the easiest of my three.  Bobby enjoyed a couple hours with us and then went to go get Ruby and Jack and take them back home for bed.  

 

They came back on Sunday to meet Andrew for the first time and enjoy some room service.

 And then we came home on Monday.  And we've enjoyed our boy ever since.

  

Recipe for Clacita

Clacita (pronounced Klachita), also known as blintzes is a Berry family tradition from my Mom’s Yugoslavian side. Clacita is the Romanian word, Palatschinke is Serbo-Croatian. She has been cooking these for us all of our lives. She grew up in former Yugoslavia and cooked Clacita for workers in the field, by the hundreds, when she was just a little girl. She would cook them over a wood burning stove and ended up burning her arms many times. Thanks Mom for all your sacrifice. She is a true cook, which means she has no clue what proportions are needed, she does things by feel. I experimented until I believe I got the recipe down. Here it is:

2 cups of white flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

-mix dry ingredients with a whisk

2 eggs

-break egg yolks into dry ingredients

2 1/2 cups of water

-pour water into other ingredients and mix thoroughly 

**as you are assembling your dry ingredients get a crepe style pan and turn it on medium high (2/3 full flame), let it heat up for the 3 minutes it takes you to get your stuff mixed together

**brush on some sort of vegetable oil in between each Clacita. This is an important step. If you use butter or spray it will mess up the flavor. 

**use 1/3 cup of batter for each Clacita, placing the full amount in an upper third of the pan and roll the pan around after its placed to get a nice full round shape. 

**I place each Clacita on a plate and cover it each time with a cloth/small towel to help them all be warm when served.

**it is a great fun for the kids to be given little corners as they are made. Preferred verbage is “bring your lips over her.” :)

**These can be served with whatever you want: eggs, jam, sour cream, nutella...consider it a poor man’s crepe, because that’s kind of what it is. I know I know, nutella isn't too poor sounding but it tastes good. 

**They are traditionally rolled and eaten whole. 

When Grandma comes to visit...

Just about the best thing about Grandma Berry visiting is this:

Summer Reading

We've been on a reading kick at our house the last couple of weeks because Ruby has feverishly been trying to finish her summer reading program.  Every summer our local library puts on a program for the kids: they read a set number of books or certain amount of time and then they win prizes.  Our girl had gotten a little behind but was determined to finish.  So Bobby has been taking the kids to the library and checking out insane amounts of books.  His latest tally: 23 books at once.  I laughed when I saw the stack he brought home.  But Ruby has finished and is very proud of herself.

And in that latest stack that came home Bobby mad sure to get quite a few books about cars, trucks and airplanes.  And this is the result:

He can't keep his hands off them.

A visit to Grandma's and Grandpa's

Bobby had a stint with the national guard in San Antonio, so we took the kids to see my parents while he was gone for a couple weeks.  It was an easy way to pass the time and the kids were quite occupied.  Yes, they missed their dad terribly, but they were having enough fun to make those two weeks fly by.  Jack's favorite thing to do was play with Grandpa's tractor.  This car loving boy was in heaven and climbed on every chance he could get.  Ruby didn't mind it either.

My sister was there for a few days when we first arrived and Ruby and Jack had a great time playing with their little cousin.

And let's face it...little miss Lisi is an adorable girl.

We also visited Grandma Berry and saw a few more cousins while we were at it.

And went hiking up Grandma and Grandpa's canyon.  Ruby wasn't too thrilled with the idea of just walking and walking for no apparent reason, but when we let her choose the trail the second day we hiked, she thought that was pretty amazing and miraculously found the stamina to walk for a good 45 minutes.

And Jack bonded with uncle Rob and enjoyed some bro time with another male.  Gosh, that kid is so cute.  I just want to squeeze his adorableness!

We went to Leatherby's for ice cream one night, and while nothing to write home about, this boy was just about in heaven when his "ice cream cone" was brought out.  Yup, I just ordered a little kid's cone for him and this is what he got.

Another highlight was the Museum of Curiosity, a new childrens museum in the area.  The kids had a blast exploring and learning.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for such a wonderful vacation!  We can't wait to come back!

Catching Up

Sorry for the lack of updates lately...my blogging app has been giving me trouble and I haven't had the motivation to fix it until now.  Hopefully all will be well with this new one and we can get back to showing you the latest from our family.

Let's start with Ruby....She graduated from preschool and hated it, 

but also enjoyed it.

And all of a sudden she found a love for posing for pictures.

And Jack turned two and his cuteness became his secret weapon.

Seriously, can this kid get any cuter?

Trying to be like Ruby...

Jack and a Ruby have a blast together and Jack often tries to imitate his big sis. Like when she puts her feet up in the tub.








Yup, he's just not big enough yet.

In Daddy's Shoes

All Tied Up

This is Ruby's latest obsession that is starting to get on our nerves. She loves to tie things up:


Any shoelace or spare bit of string, Bobby's ties or any belt that is lying around is not safe. She twists and ties them up so well that it'll take us a good 5 minutes to unwind them. The shoes are especially annoying because we usually don't realize she's done it until we need to put them on when we're leaving.

Sledding

We got quite a bit of snow last week and invited some friends to go sledding with us on Saturday. We had so much fun. This was Ruby's first time really sledding and she loved it, she even went down by herself. There were a few tears shed when she hit a ramp and flew off her sled and face planted in the snow. But other than that she had a blast. Jack, on the other hand, did not have fun at all. He spent most of his time in some stage of an emotional breakdown. He cried when snow got in his face going down. He cried when we were pulling him back up the hill in the sled and he fell over. He cried when we put him down on the ground so we could help Ruby. You get the idea.

This picture may document his only halfway happy moment. We buried all the kids in the snow and he was quite content moving the snow around with his hands.


Needless to say, we didn't stay too long at the sledding hill. But we did come home to doughnuts and hot cocoa.


And that made Jack one very happy boy.