carnival!

Today we went to the carnival! We hadn't been planning on it 'til we barely caught wind of it last night at a party for Michael's work. I figure that once the baby comes in just a few weeks we won't be out and about a ton, so I want to pack in all the fun now! Stetson and Kandace had a ball. There is nothing more fun for me than watching my kids have fun. The tickets were expenssive and almost all the rides were 3 tickets/ride but luckily we ran into a co-worker of Micahel's who had some extra tickets that she gave us! AWESOME! This picture of Stetson might be my new favorite picture of him. This was the dragon roller coaster. It was like the 3rd ride we went on and Stetson had NO reservations riding any of the rides, including this one. Little did he know how fast it went! The above picture is right before it took off, and the next one is right AFTER it took off and I think mom might have been as scared as Stetson. This ride might have been a little too fast for our boy, it really whipped around on the corners and it scared me to see his little body whip around, but it was priceless all at the same time. Each time the coaster went by the guy running it, Stetson would say, "Ok I'm ready for it to stop."

Afterwards we had snow cones and mom's VERY favorite carnival treat, or treat in general, a caramel apple. Yum.

Splish splash

On Thurs. night Michael and I finally aired up our little pool thats been sitting in storage for a year. We bought it last summer and never even used it! Well the kids got great use out of it this time. It wasn't as warm as I'd hoped, but water+kids always= a good time! Especially when Uncle Jacob showed up!

Things got really exciting when this guy showed up! :)

doula

Almost everyone I told I was haing a doula didn't know what a doula was, so I'm going to share some of what I've learned on my blog.

What's a doula? The greek word doula means woman caregiver. We now use the word to descrive a trained and experienced labor companion who provides the expectant mother and her partner continuous emotional support and physical comfort. A doula also assists the parents in obtaining information before, during and just after labor.

I had an epidural with Stetson and Kandace, and while Stetson's epidural was fine, Kandace's was not. It only worked on one side and the laboring process was completely miserable. It was traumatizing and very unpleasant. Ever since then I've thought about other alternatives for managing the pain and eventually called the woman who will be my doula and have since hired her and I am so glad she's going to be there! She's given me lots of books that I've been reading and it all makes more and more sense the more I read. Natural birth isn't for everyone, and there's lots of instances where medical intervention is necessary, and I'm grateful for it. I have an MD who will be at the birth and I will be haivng the baby at the hospital.

It seems like medical interventions have led to lots of c-sections where it wasn't even necessary. The woman's body is an amazing thing and I think if we listen to our bodies during labor and trust ourselves, we can give birth naturally in a much more fulfilling way. I didn't really experience labor with Stetson or Kandace. They delivered me, instead of me delivering my baby. I am scared of the pain, but I think since I have realistic expectation of what its like (since I've experienced it) and I've been reading a lot about this, I'll hopefully have the confidence to do it. ALSO, I had postpartum depression with both of my kids, and my doula said that a natural delivery has reversed this for a lot of her moms. I was thrilled when I heard that. Anyway, if there's any of you out there who have some experience in this, please share.