I'm so glad we had a fourth child. In many ways, this is the first time I've enjoyed having a baby.

With Iris, I was completely new to parenting, and doing anything with a baby seemed so difficult. I worried about getting everything right, and in some ways, I overestimated my influence on her. I didn't have much of an idea of how much of her behavior was due to her personality and how much was the result of my parenting. I was always waiting for her to get to the next stage - "It'll be so great when she can eat food / when she can walk / when she can talk / when she's out of diapers..." (Before having kids, I particularly looked forward to the elementary school age because it's the time to do all the fun family stuff.)

With Zinnia & Neil, I was just completely overwhelmed with having two newborns at the same time. It's common for parents of twins to say that they don't really remember much of the first 6 months - it's just a haze. It seemed crazy at the time and impossible that the super-needy stage would ever end. But looking back now, I can say that I got through it, but I don't remember how.

Taking care of Wendell seems really easy by comparison, and he's also an easy baby (healthy, nurses well, takes a bottle, doesn't spit up, sleeps from 9 pm - 5 am on his back and in a crib, doesn't mind the car seat, and is often content to hang out in the wrap or the bouncy seat and watch whatever we're up to.) I feel like we completely lucked out - he could've been colicky triplets.

We just finished 2 weeks of Ben being back at work, and we have 1 more to go before he takes the rest of his leave. This week was a little rough with Neil & Zinnia having spring break but Iris having school. Zinnia has been particularly difficult in terms of just getting into everything and not doing what I ask her to. It's interesting to see just how little she seems to care about pleasing me. Neil and Iris usually do what I ask of them, and when they don't, they see it as a big conflict and get upset about the whole thing. Zinnia just calmly ignores me or tells me "No, I don't want to." I have the feeling that her independence and not being a people-pleaser will serve her well later in life, but aagh! It's really hard to keep on top of her while taking care of a baby, so I keep finding her covered in yogurt or magic marker or climbing up the outside of the staircase or eating my gummy vitamins (only once - childproof caps aren't, it turns out). She's getting to be very interested in words and letters, and every time I read a story, she asks what some of the words mean.
Neil has been a little more independent lately. He started going to the bathroom on his own (rather than it always being at my prompting), and he's been trying to dress himself.
We dyed eggs today, which Iris had been looking forward to all week. Three small children, 18 hard-boiled eggs, solid colors, no big spills or dyed body parts.
I managed to get almost half of my garden weeded today. I'm hoping to get most of the rest weeded tomorrow and then start planting during the week. I think I have more tomato seedlings than places to plant them.
Wendell is continuing to grow, and for the past couple of weeks, he has been consistently sleeping from ~8pm - 2am, which is wonderful. I will be very happy when he starts going back to sleep easily after the 2am wakeup.

	Neil and Zinnia try on the baby clothes. What you can't see here is that Zinnia managed to squeeze 2 pairs of baby pants on underneath her dress.
	Wendell loves tummy time.
	Brothers
	Neil has taken to sleeping with quite the menagerie.

When I first held Wendell, I noticed a "birthmark" on him, which surprised me because the big mole on Iris's arm didn't appear until she was 4 months old. It looked like a smallish light brown mole right on the corner of his wrist. A few hours later, I noticed that it looked more like a scab (dark reddish-brown). The pediatrician thought that it was probably a blister that had formed from Wendell sucking on his wrist in utero and that the top had come off the blister. At any rate, it's gone now, but Wendell does like to put his wrists in his mouth.

So far, having a fourth baby is proving much easier than having a first baby or second/third babies. And not being sick anymore is wonderful! Neil is mostly better too, although he's a little rough to deal with right now because he got used to getting what he wanted whenever he whined during the time he was sick.
Wendell had a crazy growth spurt day yesterday (nurse, nurse, nurse, and nurse some more), and then he slept for almost 6 hours straight last night (and he might've gone longer if I hadn't woken him up on account of my exploding boobs). He's about half a pound over his birthweight now and almost too big for the newborn clothes.
I stopped caffeine cold turkey the day after Wendell was born in the hopes that not getting caffeine through my milk would help him sleep better. I had some coffee today for the first time, and while I'm not positive that cutting it out helped, I'm convinced enough that I'm not going to have it again for a while. :-P We've also found that swaddling in fairly large blankets (baby blankets rather than receiving blankets) works really well for helping him stay asleep. Somehow, we had never tried that with the first 3 kids and figured that they didn't like swaddling, since they just squirmed free from the tiny blankets.
Ben, Neil, Zinnia, Wendell, and I went out to the playground and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant today while Iris was in school. Wendell mostly slept in the carrier, and Neil and Zinnia seem to have gotten to the point where they can behave appropriately in a restaurant - we've had several good experiences in the last couple of months when we've tried going out for lunch or early dinner. Before that, we pretty much had avoided eating in restaurants for 2 years.
I'm trying to convince myself to get rid of most of my maternity clothes (which are not in very good shape) and baby clothes (the girly ones and later the ones that Wendell outgrows) and baby stuff that we're not likely to use (a second baby bathtub, cloth diapers with worn-out elastic, and a couple of extra baby carriers). It's still up in the air whether we'll have more children, but we will probably move before then, so it would be nice not to store and move the stuff in the meantime.
Iris has been writing a lot lately and also going through a "potty mouth" phase. These were combined recently in her work, "THE BC UV SDOOPID PENUSIS". I suppose I'm glad that the bad words she knows at this age are things like "stupid", "penis", "fart", and "poop" rather than actual profanity.
Also, Iris's hair has grown out enough that I can pull it back into a ponytail. I did that this morning, and she seemed to really like it. But I noticed that she had taken it out when I picked her up from school and asked her why. Her response was, "I took it out at lunch time because I was a little nervous." "Oh, why were you nervous?" "Because people kept telling me my hair looked nice and it made me a little nervous." I hadn't realized that she had trouble accepting compliments - I guess it's something to work on with her.

Wendell George Wiley Sittler was born at 5:10 pm on Friday, March 9. He was 8 lbs, 14 oz, making him our biggest baby, although I had guessed that he would be even bigger.

I was having lots of contractions throughout the weeks leading up to his birth. On Thursday morning, they were getting stronger and more frequent, and I thought I was going to have the baby that night. We went in to the hospital in the early evening (walking to BART and then taking the shuttle from BART to the hospital), but the contractions pretty much stopped when I got to the hospital. Walking around the halls for an hour didn't get things started up again, so back home we went. According to the discharge instructions, I was to come back if my water broke, if I had bloody show, or if I had contractions lasting 60-90 seconds 5 minutes apart for at least an hour.

After a shower, things settled down enough that I slept really well. I took Iris to school in the morning, went grocery shopping, and baked a couple loaves of bread. After all, I was just going to be pregnant for the next 2 weeks (or until my water broke) and these contractions were just something to get used to. Around noon, things started to pick up again, and I ended up watching movies on the couch with Neil & Zinnia and then making broccoli pasta for lunch. I noticed some bloody show, but the contractions were still only lasting about 30-40 seconds and usually 6-8 minutes apart. Ben helped get N & Z down for nap, and then it was time to get Iris from school. I realized that I was not feeling up for driving, so Ben drove to her school. The contractions seemed to get more frequent, but they never lasted as long as a minute. Nevertheless, when we got home, I thought it might be helpful to check and see if there was any change in dilation from yesterday.

There were indeed changes, and it took me a few seconds to realize that what I was feeling was the bulging bag of waters. Eeep! I told Ben that we really should head in soon, and he said that he had a teleconference about to start. "No, no, no, please no!" was my response. He bowed out of the teleconference and started setting up auto-reply emails to his coworkers that he wouldn't be working this afternoon/ evening and helping them figure out who to talk to instead. Contractions continued to get a little more intense and longer. Neil and Zinnia woke up from nap. Neil kept asking what was wrong and telling me, "You're going to have a BABY!" and "You'll feel better soon." Iris was making little moaning noises, and she said it was because she was worried about me. Ben was still on the computer. He finally came upstairs and I repeated that I thought it was time to go in, and added that if he washed his hands I could show him exactly why I thought that. So he went and washed his hands thoroughly, and then I heard him clipping his fingernails. After a minute or so, I called out, "Are you clipping ALL of your fingernails???"

Anyhow, he was soon convinced that I really was about to have a baby soon and that we should head to the hospital. He asked me if I wanted to take BART. Agh! No, I wanted him to drive. Now. He did, and we made it to the hospital parking garage at about 4:30. I almost couldn't walk during contractions, but we made it up to the third floor and got me signed in at 4:45. They found me a gurney in triage, and as soon as I climbed onto it, my water broke. "Oh!" I thought, "I really am going to have a baby." A nurse came in to check me and said I was complete and ready to push. In another minute, I was covered up with a sheet and rolling down the hall on the gurney. Once I got into the bed in the labor room, I was starting to push, but I was still having long-ish breaks between contractions and no urge to push during those. Another nurse got an IV into my arm. Someone called the doctor covering for my doctor and determined that there was no way she was getting to the hospital in time, and so another doctor was found.

And then suddenly, there was a lot of, "Well, I think she's going to have a baby soon, but I don't see it yet." "You can push even when you're not having a contraction." "Yeah, just give another little push." I was a little put out that it wasn't going fast enough for them! Anyhow, the head was out in another few minutes after that along with a lot of screaming on my part. The shoulders were stuck for a few seconds there, but soon enough, there was a slimy purple baby on my chest who was wailing and rapidly turning pink. He came out with bruises on his face, likely because of how fast the whole process had been. Following in his brother's footsteps, he peed all over me about 5 minutes after he was born.

The after-birth stuff went pretty well for me - the placenta came out intact, I had only a tiny tear, and bleeding was minimal. The afterpains are pretty rough though. I'd heard that they get worse with subsequent babies, but I wasn't expecting them to be worse than early labor. :-P Other than that, I've been doing well physically, but tired and emotionally pretty low.

Zinnia was sick, so we didn't think it would be a good idea to bring the kids to visit in the hospital and I felt bad being away more than necessary. We ended up leaving the next afternoon, and a home nurse visited us this morning to follow up.

The subject line of this post is a quote from Neil.

Today is 39 weeks, 4 days, which makes this the longest I've ever been pregnant. I'm thoroughly annoyed with prodromal labor, but otherwise it all seems to be going well. As with last time, I hope my water breaks at least a few hours before the baby is born, or I won't believe I'm in labor for real.

Neil decided that today would be a good day to start wearing underwear. Not the day I would've picked, but that's okay. He's been using the potty when I take him for at least a year now, and the past couple of months he's been staying dry most of the time in between - he just insisted on wearing a diaper. Also, he's been obsessed with lions and dragons lately. Before that, it was BART trains.

So burnt out.

My OB is really focussed on nutrition, and had ordered a blood test for vitamin D along with the regular prenatal panel. When we went over the lab results at my appointment yesterday, she seemed really impressed with my vitD results (59) and that I was somehow nursing 2 toddlers, taking a regular multivitamin but no other supplements and not deficient. I guess vitamin D deficiency is common, but I hadn't thought I was likely to have it because I'm fair skinned and spend time outside every day. My iron levels were borderline, as usual for me, and so I'm taking the slow-release iron sulfate pills. I'm interested in seeing if it'll make any difference in how I feel post-partum.

I had an ultrasound this morning and confirmed that we are expecting exactly ONE baby in early March 2012. I saw a different OB this time who is in a solo practice (which means that the likelihood of her actually attending this baby's birth is quite high). She had more advice on nutrition than the doctors I saw during my last 2 pregnancies - she put in to have my Vit D levels checked when I get my bloodwork done and recommended that I take fish oil or chia seeds both because the fatty acids are generally good for your health and because there's some evidence that they help prevent pre-term labor (which I had with N & Z, even though we made it to 39 weeks).
Also, it was interesting giving my medical history and marking "n/a" in the space for cycle length. (I've had only one menstrual period since November 2008, when I became pregnant with N & Z.)
I seem to be making some progress with weaning Zinnia and Neil. I've been watching the clock when I nurse and not going for more than 2 minutes except for first thing in the morning (5 min) and nap time (however long it takes them to fall asleep, although sometimes I hold Zinnia for a while after nursing to get her down). I'm hoping to cut the 2 minutes back to 1 in another week or two and try to get into some sort of non-nursing pattern for naps once the school year starts.