Tiny T-Ricks

We are thrilled to announce that Tobias Joshua Ricks arrived this morning at 5:21. I am even more thrilled to say that he only weighed 7lbs 14oz, much much smaller than our last two babies. He is a tall guy at 21 3/4" long.

We had been anxiously anticipating his arrival for more than a week because not only was I a big blue whale, I was a big blue EMOTIONAL whale. Serious mood swings times 150 tons equals chaos at home. Anyway, I was pretty convinced that little T-Ricks was coming on Wednesday. My mom even drove up from Fairborn and then everything came to a screeching halt. No more contractions, false labor. My mom stayed for Thursday and Friday but nothing was happening on the baby front and my OB appointment on Friday seemed to indicate we still had time before this little guy was going to arrive. So, at around 7 pm my mom drove back home to Fairborn. At around 8 pm, I started having contractions again. Curse you Murphy's law.

Because my mom had just left, and because of Wednesday's disappointing experience, I convinced myself that this was just another bout of false labor. I kept talking myself out of packing my bag or calling the hospital until around 3 am when I realized, amidst the fog of labor pain, that these contractions were just as bad as anything I had had with Benjamin and that likely I was having this baby really soon.

We enlisted our poor friend, Ben, to come sleep at our house and take care of the boys when they woke up. By the time we got our bags packed, Ben settled in and drove to the hospital it was about 4:50 am. Tobias was born 30 minutes later, an all natural labor and delivery. He had the cord wrapped twice around his neck, but a few seconds later he let out his first little dinosaur roar, a perfectly healthy little boy.

We are so grateful for his arrival and are truly thankful for the heroic efforts of those who have taken care of our four other little dinos while are at the hospital with this one. Thank you, Ben, for letting us drag you out of your house at 3:30 am and for wrangling little boys when they got out bed at 6 something this morning. Without you, Marc would have had to deliver a baby at home. Thank you to the McMullans for coming over last minute to feed and play with our boys, not to mention clean our house? You guys rock. Thank you to my mom for driving the four hours back to our house after only one night's sleep in your own bed. You are amazing.

Grandma and the four big brothers came to visit little Toby this afternoon. They all adored him. We are pleased that Benjamin likes him so much. We'll see if anything changes when we bring him home.

Marc wanted a picture of all of the Ricks boys together. We tried, it didn't go so well. Marc wants me to post it anyway and I guess he has a point. Life with so many little boys is just like this sometimes.

Welcome to the world, little Tobias. We are so glad you came.

Benjamin the Baby

I thought before our new baby comes I should post a few pictures and say a few words about little Benjamin before he loses his place as baby of the family. I have a feeling the transition to big brother Benjamin is going to be a bit rough. He revels in the attention of being the youngest and even though he likes baby dolls and other people's babies I think he will feel differently when it is a baby that I am holding all the time. We have a "big brother" t-shirt all ready for him to wear but I doubt that will soften the blow much.
Anyway, here are some things that 22-month-old Benjamin loves to do.
Benjamin wants to be a helper. There is nothing that gives him more joy than sorting silverware into the drawer or "helping" Daddy sweep the floor with his toy broom. Other chores he helps with include putting dishes in the sink (you have to be careful with this one, he broke a plate), taking diapers to the trash on the back porch, putting dirty clothes in the laundry chute and putting toys away.
As mentioned in the previous post, Benjamin loves to have his picture taken. Here is a self-selected pose complete with the "Cheese!" smile.

Benjamin loves to sing. His favorite at present is "Baa Baa Black Sheep". He is great with tunes, but you can usually understand only a few of the lyrics. He also sings ABCs, the chorus to Angels We Have Heard on High (the ohs), the theme to Elmo's World, and a rendition of Barabara Ann as sung by the minions which he calls "BaNaNa". We love that he sings, except when he occasionally sings really loudly in church.
Benjamin also loves to dress up- if it's his own idea. In these pictures he is stylin' in some hats and glasses the older boys brought home from a Michael Jackson themed birthday party.

 

We are blessed to have yet another book addict in the family. He would be happy if someone just sat on the couch and read to him all day. Favorites are Pigeon books, Go Dog Go, Maisy books, anything by Mercer Mayer and a board book called "To Market, To Market". I like to stop reading every once in a while and hear him fill in some of the words. I also enjoy watching him read to himself and occasionally saying some words out loud that are associated with a certain page.

Benjamin loves to be silly. He loves to surprise or be tickled and he finds his brothers' antics hysterical. Apparently, his tendency to silliness extends to when he is asleep. We are always finding him in amusing positions when we check on him at night.

We love you, baby Benjamin and we will love big brother Benjamin just as much.

My Mustachioed Men

A favorite breakfast around here is smoothies. Because I usually put both spinach and strawberries in them they taste delicious but turn an unfortunate color. Lately, Gabriel and Elijah have taken to drinking them straight out of the cup instead of using a straw (We're like Uncle Joe, Mom!). The combination of the brown color and the thick consistency makes for some great mustaches.

Benjamin insisted on having his picture taken too. Whenever he sees a camera he starts saying "Cheese!" and then requests to see the result on the digital camera screen.

David John does not drink his smoothie straight out of the cup, but he remembered me taking the other boys' pictures and requested that I photograph his milk mustache a few days later.

I am not usually a huge fan of mustaches, but on these guys it's pretty cute.

Big Blue Whale

My boys got an animal CD from the library and fell in love with a song called "Big Blue Whale". As a result, we listen to it frequently and I often find that I am humming or singing it involuntarily. The boys even wanted big blue whale pancakes for breakfast. While eating them, they discussed the relative size of the blue whale. "It is definitely bigger than a truck." "Yeah, way bigger than a truck." "It is not bigger than the earth, then it couldn't live on earth." "Yeah, but maybe it is bigger than the moon." "It is not bigger than earth, but I think it is bigger than outer-in-space."

For a couple of weeks now, I have decided that it is a very fitting theme song for a woman nearing the end of her pregnancy. I often feel like a beached whale when trying to get out of bed in the mornings or, you know, go from sitting on the floor with the boys to a standing position. So, here I am at 39 weeks, the big blue whale:

"Bigger than three school buses;

Bigger than twenty-five elephants;

Bigger than a brontosaurus and a t-rex combined;

It's the biggest animal that ever lived on Earth;

And it makes the loudest sound you've ever heard;

With a big spout of water coming out of it's head;

It's the big blue whale!

It's the big blue whale."

February Funnies

David John sometimes gets very creative with his prayers. Recently he said the following in his prayer, "Please bless Jesus to bring us toys and wrestle with us." I am glad he believes that Jesus is a real person. I am little concerned that David John might be mixing Him up with Santa Claus. Does Santa Claus wrestle?

Gabriel also says very creative prayers, although his are a little more self-serving. We've recently heard prayers including the following, "Please bless all the brothers, especially me." and "Please bless Elijah to listen to Mommy and Daddy like I do."

Elijah has become quite the wheeler and dealer. Whenever he wants something he always tries to barter for it. One evening the boys had hot dogs for dinner and David John was in possession of the last hot dog.
E: David John, how much does that hot dog cost?
D: It costs too much money.
E: That's okay, I have too much money, David John!

David John walked away from a toy in the waiting room at the dentist's office with a dejected look on his face.
D: Mom, I can't play with that toy anymore.
Me: Oh, why?
D: Because, sigh, I keep *tesploding it.
*exploding


The boys often ask about what is in "real life" and what is not.
G: Daddy, do you know any reindeer that can fly in real life?
Marc: Um, nope. I don't know any reindeer that can fly in real life.
G: Daddy! What about Santa's reindeer? They can fly. Did you forget about them Daddy?


We invited Elijah to sleep in the guest room because his brothers were being crazy and keeping him awake.
E: I don't want to go sleep in the guest room. There is one spiderweb left in there.
Marc: I can clean it off.
E: (wide eyed) There might be more we can't see.
 As it turns out Elijah has a bit of a phobia about spiders. His helpful preschool friends have made him aware that there are spiders that can kill you with one bite.


All of our boys are very interested in the concept of resurrection. Gabriel and Elijah had an argument about it that came to blows, and David John uses it as a way to reset his imaginary games. For example, after dinosaurs had eaten or pushed all of Elijah's trains off of a cliff, David John decided to make things right.
D: Look, Elijah! All of these trains got resurrected!


Gabriel was gloating a bit when he proved to be right about something and I was mistaken. We then had the following exchange:
G: Mommy, am I always right?
Me: No son, no you are not always right. No one is always right.
G: Not even mommies?
Me: Not even Mommies. No one is always right.
E: But Jesus is always right!
Case in point, son.

Elijah wasn't looking where he was going and ran into a door jamb on his way from one room to another. Obviously, this was not his fault because he immediately yelled, "Mom, you have got to move that piece of wall!"

One day when David John "missed" he informed me that he had somehow gotten his shirt, pants and underwear wet in addition to some landing on the floor. As he showed me the mess he commented, "Don't worry Mom. Pee on the floor looks just like water on the floor." Clearly, we need to be bleaching the bathroom floor more often.

Boys Will Be

... well Boys.
Here are some of the very boyish things they have been up to lately:
Some friends came and took my three older boys to play in the snow while Marc was working one weekend so that I could get a desperately-needed nap. During their snow adventure, the boys finally got to build a mutant snowman. They had drawn pictures of snowmen like this, but now it became a reality. They've never even read "Calvin and Hobbes". I guess boys are just born with ideas like this.

*Note: Roger, our friend pictured with the boys, is the oldest of 5 boys. He totally knows what he is doing.

For Christmas, we got a lot of new very manly dress-up items. They have been a hot item this last week. Here are all the boys dressed as "pirates" which apparently also requires a desert camo vest and a breast plate and shield.

It is fun to watch them act our their pirate play scenarios. Benjamin just runs around with his sword, thrusts it forward in a menacing way and exclaims "Aha!" "Ahaha!" then whacks you with it, giggles and runs away.
David John runs around and sword fights with Gabriel and Elijah until things got too intense for his liking. At this point, he suddenly falls to the floor declaring "I'm dead!" If I believed in reincarnation I would guess that he spent his former life as a possum.  After the declaration of death he assumes some sort of "dead" position. Sometimes this is the fetal position, sometimes this is a dead bug pose with arms and legs in the air and sometimes this means he is spread eagle on the floor. However, regardless of the position, his tongue is almost always lolling out of the corner of his mouth. Tongue lolling is a requirement for any good death scene.
Elijah, after witnessing David John's death inevitably issues a cry of anguish then points his sword dramatically at Gabe and yells, "You killed my brother!" Then he attacks. I keep waiting for him to say something along the lines of, "My name is Elijah! You killed my brother! Prepare to die!" but I guess we haven't shown them The Princess Bride yet.
Gabriel, for his part, always chooses to be the villain. He is definitely the best sword fighter and frequently disarms his brothers. Maybe that's one reason David John keeps dying. Anyway, Gabriel's tag line seems to be "I am going to get you! Bwahahaha!" He also makes a lot of manly grunts and says "Aargh" while fighting.
Frequently, this pretend fighting escalates into something more real and then we have to take a break, but it also provides me a good deal of laughs. I'm pretty sure we could put it on as a dinner theater production.

Wrestling, another favorite past time of our boys. After seeing some of the moves they come up with on their own, I have sworn an oath that they will never ever ever be allowed to see anything along the lines of WWE. The last thing we need is chairs getting involved.

Here are some pictures from yesterday. For a while, I thought they were taking a departure from their testosterone-filled play and exploring their feminine side. They decided to get a group photo of all of their stuffed animals. They spent quite a bit of time carefully arranging and tucking in the animals so that everyone was warm and cozy and so that each animal's face could clearly be seen. It was quite the undertaking. I got these two sweet pictures of the project:

Then, someone yelled "Let's smash it!"

They spent the next half hour wrestling on the couch and pushing each other off of the coffee table onto piles of blankets and stuffed animals which were now on the floor.

Oh my, I hope the world is ready for one more little Ricks. With brothers like these, he is guaranteed to be all boy.

Head Trauma

Last Saturday, I chose to do something brave and good for myself and good for the world. It was a win win win thing to do. Marc was working back to back 24 hour shifts and had arranged for 4 hours of babysitting so that I wouldn't lose my mind. So I decided to go get my hair cut.
This was brave because I hadn't had a real haircut in a very long time and there are always risks inherent to activities involving very sharp scissors, especially very sharp scissors near your head. This was good for me because I had found a few split ends and I was starting to feel just slightly unattractive with those split ends and that whole big belly thing. This was good for the world because I planned to donate my hair to Locks of Love and a happier pregnant woman is always a good thing for the world at large.
I went to a very nice salon which I happened to have a $25 gift certificate for. This meant my haircut was still going to cost me $50 plus tip but I figured it would be the best haircut of my life and they would use all of their magical salon products that would leave my hair soft and shiny for days so it would totally be worth it. I had high hopes of some serious relaxation and a fabulous new look.
Things started out well. I explained to the stylist that I needed twelve inches taken off so I could donate it, and then I wanted it thinned and layered. I also explained that because I was about to have a baby, I really needed enough length left to put it in a ponytail. When you have a new baby, styling your hair in the morning is just not realistic most days. Everyone seemed to be on the same page. The whole salon was excited about doing such a drastic haircut. Twelve inches! They took before pictures and had the stylist pose with her scissors next to my massive ponytail.
Then she cut it off.

Not twelve inches of my massive ponytail. The whole thing. 18 inches of hair gone with one very inexpert snip. Although I couldn't see the back of my head it felt much much too short. I'm guessing basic math isn't covered in hair school? Even very nice hair schools? The stylist was very friendly and chatted while she attacked the rest of my head. When she got finished, she commented, "Well, you don't have much of a ponytail left..." and then turned my chair around. I was speechless. Apparently "not much of a ponytail" meant zero because I couldn't even pull the very top layer back, not even with a barrette. "Ponytail" must not have been a vocabulary word in hair school. I was starting to suspect that maybe she was an impostor and hadn't been to hair school at all. I was tempted to ask to see her license. I was so upset that I left before the shampoo and style which reduced my price to $30. This meant it only cost me $5 out-of-pocket to have my hair butchered and for the first time in my life I did not leave a tip.
I got into my car, burst into tears and drove to my friend Sarah's house. I blubbered my way through the whole story while she inspected my hair. She gave me a hug and said "You have every right to be crying right now." I appreciated the solidarity but despaired at the fact that my hair really was THAT bad. Luckily, Sarah is one of those people who just solves problems. She spent the next two hours fixing my horrible haircut, during which she discovered that my hair is naturally wavy. Who knew? She loaned me a book, some gel and tried to instill confidence that I could and would pull off this new awesome short hairstyle.
I drove home feeling much better but still insecure. Of course, my boys proved very helpful. After I paid the babysitter and he left, Elijah looked at me and said, "Mom, your hair is all wrong. Let me show you." He led me into the bathroom, turned on the light and stood on a stool while we both looked into the bathroom mirror. He then started pointing to various places on my head while saying, "See? It's wrong here, here, here and here. You should not have cut it so short, Mom."
Little boys should not say things like that to pregnant women. It makes them cry. While I was still crying, Gabriel patted my shoulder then added, "Your hair looks weird. How long is it going to look like that? Why did you want to get it cut weird?"
Little boys should just not be allowed to be around pregnant women right after they get their hair cut. I think that would be a good policy. Pregnant women who get their hair cut should check into a hotel overnight before seeing any little boys... especially little boys with hair critiques.
The good news is, the sun did rise the next morning and I did my hair and went to church. I received many many kind compliments and although Marc didn't recognize me at first when he arrived at church straight from work, he said "You're so cute!" I love that man.

Now I am a week out from what I think can fairly be called my "head trauma" and still trying to master the ways of short, wavy hair. Some days I feel like I am totally rocking this hair thing, ya know, like Meg Ryan.

http://www.tapeteos.pl/details.php?image_id=1780

Other days, I look in the mirror and feel like I look less awesome, more like a boy.... specifically Hugh Grant on a bad hair day.

http://thesocialvip.com/hugh-grant

Over all, I am trying to be grateful for this new adventure in hair. Maybe 2013 is just going to be the year of the new for me. New hair, new baby, new job in a new place. I am just hoping my other "new" experiences won't be quite as traumatic.