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Today is the day that is celebrated with potato salad, barbecued chicken, flag cake and fireworks, which I miss terribly. It’s tempting to move back home to the States just to have the freedom of having backyard fireworks.

I strongly believe backyard fireworks are a human need, a staple. Like eating.

Must have sparklers.

Since we’re in Canada and we just had the baby our ideas for celebrating Independence Day are limited to watching a movie and going to bed early. As soon as Laurelyn closes her eyes I need to be in bed tonight.

So, have some potato salad, light a sparkler and think of me because I’m wishing all of my fellow Americans a beautiful weekend.

Don’t forget to leave your suggestions for my Ya-Ya night. You can see what I’m talking about here.

Dad Lab is a website with videos that are both educational and hilarious.

Who doesn’t want to know what the messiest snack food is or see a grown man in a front loader washing machine? Both of those things can be seen at Dad Lab. There’s a new video every day of the week, there’s polls that are relevant to parenthood and there’s giveaways.

What more could a person ask for?

Well, I’m asking you to go check them out. The dads that run the site are funny, witty and are obviously thrilled to be dads and I have to give two thumbs up to any dads that are happy to enjoy their paternity.

Did you see that Sandra Bulloch movie, The Ya Ya Sisterhood because if you didn’t you won’t have any idea of what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about a Ya-Ya night.

My girlfriends and I were joking around and laughing about it we decided to actually plan a Ya-Ya night. We’re not exactly sure what we’ll do although one suggestion was to bring my placenta bowl and we’ll have a bonfire. Why not, right?

We could also light some candles, prick our palms and become blood sisters and maybe even write some fun chants and dance around the fire.

I’m game for all of these activities but I thought I’d write a quick post and see what you guys think.

If you were having a ladies night with your absolute best friends, celebrating your friendship and your womanly essence, what would you do? Maybe we should have our own name instead of the Ya-Ya’s. I suggested the Sha-Sha’s but I was shot down so if you have a better idea, which couldn’t be that hard, leave it in the comments.

Where’s Laurelyn?

Oh, there she is!

One more picture for good measure. Who could possibly get enough of staring at this precious baby girl? Not I.

We had our baby girl on Saturday!

I started feeling what I thought was constipation so I jumped into the tub to relieve the discomfort and that’s when I realized my ‘discomfort’ was coming every three minutes. My mom called Chuck and the midwives and we got to business.

I loved being able to stay in the tub and have the open window blowing cool air on my face while I breathed through my contractions alone in the bathroom. It was wonderful. The kids would come in to see me, give me a kiss and then go back out.

I was having back labor but thankfully the warm tub made the pain so much easier to handle. In the end, the kids came in to see their baby sister come into the world. They were so good, quiet and they loved being there. I think it has especially helped David to see his baby sister born. It’s helped get him use to not being the youngest anymore.

Everything went smoothly although we did have a small snag with the bleeding afterward. I lost a lot of blood and had to go into the hospital. Luckily I had very well trained midwives who were able to do everything possible for me until we got to the hospital and they had a great relationship with the hospital staff.

The ob/gyn on staff who took care of me said that we were very smart to have had a home birth because in my case, with my fast labors we would have delivered the baby in the car on the way there and then been needing to deal with the bleeding afterward without medical care. I’m so glad I followed my instincts and had a homebirth.

Laurelyn was 7 lbs. 4 oz, 20 1/2 inches long born at home after 1 hour and 15 minutes of labor.

It was a great Saturday afternoon!

Because of the blood loss I have been on bedrest and I’m slowly getting my strength back. Posts may be slow coming over the next couple days.

Yesterday was the day.

I woke up this morning and turned the phone off in response to all the phone calls I got yesterday from well meaning people who wanted to know if the baby was coming.

I didn’t want to talk about it today.

I walked around the block as fast as a big pregnant belly would allow. I spent some time squatting and getting things moving down. I went to the midwife and had her check things out which made some contractions happen and made everything hurt for a while. I drank cups of red raspberry tea and I went to bed hopeful.

I woke up without a baby and it is now the day after my due date and I’m taking phone calls. I hurt everywhere because I definitely overdid it yesterday. I’m walking slow, doing as little as possible and taking sick advantage of my mom being here.

I’m trying not to think too much about it. No woman has had a baby in her womb forever but if you happen to be trying to call me and you’re not getting an answer, the phone is off.

Sorry but I’ll call you back after the baby is born.

To keep you entertained in the meantime, here’s some pictures of the kids playing with Grandma.

They’re playing with clay making fertility statues. Can’t you tell?

Here’s some of the other fertility statues.

The kids were awfully proud of their creations!

Today’s the day.

D Day.

Supposed Delivery Day.

I have walked stairs, I have done some other things that you need not concern yourself with imagining, I’m sipping red raspberry tea and my midwife says I could go into labor at any time. That could mean tonight or that could mean a week from now. I just need to be patient.

Anyone who knows me at all can attest to my lack of patience. It must have something to do with being the first born but regardless I am not good at waiting.

My body is showing signs of getting ready and I’m hoping that a brisk walk with my mom, out in the fresh air will help progress things into action. I’ll keep you posted.

It has been so nice having my mom here. I miss her more than I realize until I am sitting across the dinner table from her and I am just so happy to see her, here, close enough that I can wrap my arms around her. She’s been helping me cope with the house and the kids and food preparation. My three most favorite things to be taking care of when I feel like I have a grapefruit stuck between my legs.

Mom and I have walked with the kids to the park and we’ve gone video shopping but other than that we’ve mostly stayed home and enjoyed each others company. It’s nice to laugh with my mom. We have so much fun together that I’m half tempted to keep my legs crossed just to keep her here longer. I couldn’t do that to my siblings waiting at home who call every day to talk to mom.

Haha, she’s here with me, neener neener.

In other news, here’s some photos from today.

Jason is doing his math work outside in the sun. There was a lot of action going on in the backyard and he didn’t want to miss it.

This is what was going on. They were grading our backyard which involved this Mighty Machine as well as three bobcats and two big dump trucks. Who knew construction could be so fascinating? Mom and I stood out on the deck and watched them almost all day.

I have lived away from my family now for over 9 years and it’s a bittersweet arrangement. I’m happy to have my independence and I pride myself on how well I’ve adapted to being away from their support. On the other hand I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t wish I could depend on the arm of my mom and my sisters.

I really believe that women need women. We gather strength from the women around us and collectively we make each other stronger. I wish, often, that I had my sisters and mom around so I could gather strength from their feminine wisdom.

On the other hand I find myself preparing for my mother to come help with the kids while I have our last baby and I am surprised by all the little things that feel strange. I have to show my mom where the kids’ pajamas and diapers are because my mom has never been in our new home. I want her to feel completely comfortable in this home that Chuck and I created and I don’t feel certain that will happen because this is her first time here. I wonder about how she’ll sleep and how the kids will behave. I wonder about whether we’ll end up sitting around bored, staring at each other after having run out of things to say.

I’m sure it’s pregnancy hormones that are making me brain mush but I hope that we can enjoy each other in the simple tasks that I do all day. I hope that we can get to the end of the week, after the baby is born and the kids have drained her of Grandma time and we can feel like our feminine strength is renewed and our appreciation of one another is restored.

It’s amazing how getting a new camera gives your blogging new life. I have been meaning to blog about some of the things I’ve been doing to keep myself busy until this baby decides to come but I wanted pictures of it all.

Well, here are some pictures of one of my projects. Ignore the natural pool of water that’s accumulated behind our house. I’m so glad we bought our lot which is a walk out basement on a lot that is slanted so the water runs away from the house. I don’t think they’ll get those lots sold until we get enough sun to dry that mud puddle.
My kids keep asking to swim in it.

Not likely!

I planted strawberries, basil, orange mint, lemon thyme and chives.

I did container gardening because we’ve been advised not to landscape for the first year so the land can settle around the house. Next year we have plans for a lilac bush, a larger herb garden and something for the kids to play on. For now though I couldn’t stand looking at my deck, all that space with nothing green on it so I planted just a few things. I’m hoping to enlarge my herb selection once we return from Osoyoos.

Here’s the deck although it’s been raining lately so it looks much more drab and overcast than this region usually does.

Because of the cloud coverage you can’t see the mountains but I’ll get some shots of that on Tuesday, if it warms up like they say it will. For now though you’ll have to settle for these shots of the view from our deck.

While I was visiting my family back in March my kids broke my camera. I was devastated! I have a love affair with taking pictures of my kids. I like to capture their facial expressions and their obvious joy at the world around them.

What was I going to do without a camera?

Now that my mom is coming to see my new house for the first time, the baby is coming, we’re going on vacation for a month, Jason’s getting baptized and the baby is being blessed, it’s a good time to have a camera to capture all of those moments.

Chuck brought me home a Canon Powershot S5 IS.

A new camera! Something I can play with and sit in front of the fire while I pour over the user manual! I’m so giddy it’s ridiculous but now I can relax about missing those precious moments.

Here are the first shots we took tonight while the kids were watching The Three Stooges. Jason loves those old movies. Jocelyn loves having her picture taken so both of them are having a good night.

Jocelyn immediately posed when I brought the camera upstairs.

Jason gave me his posed smile.

This time I caught him in a real smile!

David wanted to get in the camera action but for some reason I was nervous about handing my two year old my brand new camera. He got the old one from years ago.