Tyler Can Read

About a month ago, I took Tyler to Old Navy with me. I was trying to find a shirt for him to wear in our family pictures. While I was looking through a stack of shirts, I could hear Tyler trying to read some letters. Here is what I heard, "A-S-S, hmmmm; A-S-S, aaa--sss, aaa-sss, Ass. Mommy, that says Ass! Ass, ass, ass!" It took a minute before I realized that he was reading these 6 inch tall red letters that someone wrote on the floor. After quite a bit of shushing from me, he stopped repeating the word he read on the floor & I was able to explain that the word on the floor was a very bad word - what we call a swear word & we don't say swear words. He wanted to know why someone would write a swear word on the floor & my answer was, "because that person was very, very naughty." He was satisfied with my answer & hasn't repeated the word since. Even though it was mortifying to hear my 4 year old son saying such a bad word, I must say that I was incredibly proud that he was able to read it ALL BY HIMSELF!!!

The Cost of a Healthy Smile

So, today I went to the dentist. It's been a long time since my last dentist appointment. Since my last time at the dentist I have given birth to 2 children and celebrated all 4 of Tyler's birthdays. That was really dumb of me, I know. Now I have to pay for it, literally. All of my fillings need to be replaced because they are in poor condition & one will be replaced with a porcelain onlay. So, it's going to cost a little more than $1800 to get all of that done! Yikes!!! Thank goodness for dental insurance. If I didn't have that, it would cost well over $4100! For any of you who live in California & don't have dental insurance, I would highly recommend doing what we did. We bought our dental insurance through Costco. It only cost $218 for our whole family to have dental insurance for a year, but it's saving me over $2300 on my dental work alone, and it covers 2 exams for each of us per year. Not a bad deal.

I just can't help but think about the other things I could have spent $1800 to buy. Here's my list of ideas that I would rather spend some or all of that $1800 on:

A New Couch

A Sleep Number Mattress

Laser Hair Removal - I'm sick of shaving

A Fun Vacation

Jewelry

A Gym Membership

A Gardener

A Cleaning Lady

A Bigger Kitchen Table

Bamboo Floors in my Kitchen & Entry

Extra Payments on Jeff's Car

Disneyland Passes

New Kitchen Appliances

Refacing my Kitchen Cabinets or

a Portion of the Downpayment on the New West Plan 1

It's a good thing that I can live without every single one of those items, although we might still invest in some of them. It just bugs me to have to spend money on my teeth! What a boring use of a large amount of money. I am just grateful that we are able to pay for that and my teeth don't have to rot out of my mouth like the people I saw on 20/20 last Friday. They didn't have the option of spending money on their teeth, they barely had the option of spending money on food. But, while you're here reading my blog, leave a comment & let me know what you would want to spend $1800 on. It will be fun to see the ideas that you all have - maybe I'll want some of those things too!

Claire's Strength

Claire is reaching that age where she is quite an entertaining little girl. She has learned that she has an opinion & that she can fight me on anything and everything. "No" is her new favorite word. When I tell her that it's time for her nap or bedtime, her response is, "Play, just one more minute." When I tell her no, she's less than happy. She's been working on her grumpy face, just like Tyler's.

She really cracks me up though. Today when I made her get out of the kitchen, she decided to throw a tantrum. I say "decided" because she carefully got herself down onto the tile floor, so as not to hit her head, before the kicking and screaming began. That took some planning to do that. I had to laugh at her before dragging her out of the kitchen. Tonight, Tyler & Claire were both in bed and I was pulling a load of laundry out of the dryer. I had just reached the family room with my laundry basket when I heard a loud crash followed by Claire's wailing. I rushed to her room to find her standing in the middle of her room. Apparently her attempt to climb out of her crib didn't go too well. I guess she's going to be moving to her big girl bed sooner than later. What a bummer.

I must say that it's fun to see my little girl developing her own personality. She will definitely not be a pushover as she grows up, and for that reason I am grateful for all of her tantrums and adventurous behavior. She's a fun little girl & I'm so happy to have her in my family!

Matthew is Here

Well, my doctor's instructions were right on. I spent time walking, pumping & bouncing to get my contractions going. In fact I stayed up until 2 am trying to get my labor in full swing. My contractions started to slow down, so I gave up & went to bed. At about 4:40 am I had a really hard contraction that woke me up. At the end of that contraction, my water broke. I woke Jeff & called my grandparents to come stay with Tyler & Claire. An hour later we were on our way to the hospital.

My contractions were not too bad, even after they started me on pitocin. But, I got my epidural anyway. This time my epidural was great because I was still able to move my legs, but the medicine made me really itchy. Shortly after 2:00 I was pretty much ready to push. I had to wait for my doctor to finish another delivery. I think I pushed for about 15-20 minutes. When Matthew was crowning, we could see he has a full head of dark hair. My doctor even gave him a little faux-hawk in between pushes. At 2:48 pm, on January 7, 2009, Matthew Gordon Cosme made his grand entrance into the world, weighing 7 pounds 4 ounces, measuring 20 inches long. He is my biggest baby so far, which really amazes me that I didn't tear at all! It is so much nicer to have a baby & not need any stitches! The recovery is soooo much less painful!

I am so happy that everything went well with Matthew's birth. Especially with all of the worry because he was breech for so long. We are all loving the newest addition to our family. He is absolutely adorable! Tyler is such a great big brother. He wants to help take care of Matthew. Claire loves Matthew too - she just wants to kiss him all the time. We're so happy that he's here & that he's healthy! We couldn't ask for anything more!

Today's Baby Update

I just got home from my check-up. I am 2 cm dilated and 60-75% effaced. My doctor was able to strip my membranes a bit. She said she could induce me tonight & we thought that would be perfect. Unfortunately, when she called the hospital to arrange the induction, they told her they didn't want to do any elective inductions tonight because they are pretty busy & had 4 nurses call in sick. What a bummer! So she scheduled my induction for the next day that she's on-call - January 12. We'll see how it goes. She told me that I should do a lot of walking, bouncing etc. and maybe my contractions would get going tonight. Since she stripped my membranes, I've had a lot of cramping & bleeding - that has to be a good sign, right? Maybe Matthew will share his birthday with my Uncle Ken tomorrow. I think he'll probably come on his own before Monday, but it's nice to know that there is a cut-off for how much longer I'll be pregnant.

Salsa

I would just like to say that I love the fact that my children love chips and salsa as much, if not more, than I do! Tyler has always been a huge fan of salsa. He feels that chips and salsa should be the main dish for his lunch almost every single day. Uncle Nathan always makes delicious homemade salsa for Tyler whenever we go to visit him in Utah - thanks Nathan, you're the best! Now, Claire is joining on the salsa bandwagon. She is actually quite adventurous with her salsa. She'll just pick up her little cup of salsa & drink it plain. We often find her eating it with a spoon. But, today at lunch I caught her dipping her apple slices into her salsa & she was thoroughly enjoying them! I think that's the most unique thing I've ever seen my kids, or anyone, dip into salsa! I don't think I'll ever try apples & salsa - but if Claire likes it, who am I to stand in her way? I'll probably be a traditionalist & stick with good old fashioned tortilla chips.

While I'm writing, just a quick baby update. I've now been having contractions for 5 days. They aren't very hard, just annoying. I have an appointment tomorrow, so I'll write an update after I see my doctor. I hope I've made some progress in the past week.

Baby Update

I just got home from my OB appointment. It doesn't look like Matthew will be here too soon. I am about a fingertip dilated & more thinned out than last week. But, I wasn't dilated enough for my doctor to strip my membranes. She said it looks like I have a week or so to go. It could be more, but chances are it won't be less. His head is still down, so Matthew is cooperating quite nicely so far!

I am glad that I have a little more time to get ready for his birth. I don't think it's really hit me that in the next 2 weeks I'll have a little baby to care for. I'm really excited to see who this new little boy who's joining our family will be. These last weeks of pregnancy really require a lot of patience - for everyone involved. Tyler has been asking, "Is Matthew coming tomorrow?" He's just dying to help take care of his new baby brother. He keeps asking me if he can rock Matthew to sleep to help me. How cute is that? Hopefully he'll come really soon so that we don't have to keep wondering when he'll get here. I'll keep you all updated.

Have a Happy New Year!