Cecilia:  Dis is a poop stwipe, just wike my poop!!!
Me:  ???
Cecilia:  *points to a stripe on her dress*  A POOP stwipe!!!
Me:  No, we would call that a brown stripe.
Cecilia:  A bwown stwipe just wike my poop!

...

Cecilia:  A dead bug.
Me:  Where do you see a dead bug?
Cecilia:  Um...  a dead bird.  In da water table!
this happened more than a month ago...
Me:   Yeah, but it's gone now (thank goodness)
Cecilia:  What did it say?
Me:  Umm...  Hi?
Cecilia:  *uncontrollable sobbing*
Me:  Um...  What do you think it said?
Cecilia: *sniffling* NUFFIN.  It's DEAD!!!

No, she's not dramatic at all.


...

We were driving when we saw a fire truck and ambulance pass...

Me:  Kids, you know what's a good thing to do when you see a fire truck go by with its lights on?  We should say a prayer!
We say an impromptu prayer asking God to bless the firemen and anybody who might be hurt
Cecilia:  Um...  Say another pwayer?
Me:  Sure Cecilia, what do you want to pray about?
Cecilia:  Da houses.
We say another prayer asking God to save any houses that might be on fire
Cecilia:  And another pwayer?
Me:  Sure, what do you want to pray for?
Cecilia:  Da cars and da twucks!
We say another prayer asking God to help everyone drive their cars and trucks safely
Cecilia:  And another pwayer?  About da puzzles in da houses?
And that's where I drew the line...  I told her she can pray about those herself.  Then she requested a prayer about all her puzzles before her nap.  Glad girl's got her priorities...

...

Just LOOK at those baby blues!  Britt, can you imagine the babies she and Peter would have?  We may need to guide them strongly towards the same colleges ;)

The half-smile she gives me all day long - it's rare that she'll give an open-mouthed smile anymore!

"Seriously, Mom?"

John Paul, kissing Mary Claire's head:  Grow some hair...  You need...  A hundred hair!!!
Me:  John Paul, she needs a lot more hair than that!  She needs thousands of hairs!
JP:  How many hairs do I have?
Me:  Maybe a hundred thousand?
JP:  No.  23.

Well, I don't know how to argue with that certainty...

They DO have swimsuits, they just don't always choose to wear them...

...

Cecilia, running to a fussing Elizabeth:  Oh, I will pway wif you, Ewizabif!
*picks up a foam letter*
Cecilia:  What wetter is dis?  D'you know?  D'you know what it is, Ewizabif?  It's a 'P'!!!

...

Cecilia, immediately upon waking in the morning:  I was pwacticin' my cowors in my EYES!
Me:  Oh, how nice!  And what colors did you see?
Cecilia:  Bwue!  And YEWWOW!
Me:  And did you see any shapes?
Cecilia:  Yes!  A DUCKTANGLE!!!

...

Cecilia is playing in the crib with Elizabeth when Elizabeth starts fussing.  Cecilia starts trying to shush her, and eventually settles on whacking her lightly in the chest, which seems to be working...
Me:  Cecilia, you're a good big sister!
Elizabeth starts fussing again
Cecilia: She's NOT a good baby!

Her attention *may* not always be appreciated...

...

Cecilia, watching "The Magic School Bus":  When I'm a bug, I eat bark!  It-a be funny when I'm a bug, for me to eat bark!

Cecilia, discussing underwear:  When I'm a boy, I wear boxer briefs!

Cecilia, discussing dolls:  When I'm a doll, I sweep in a box and dwink fwom a pink bottle!

You know, all those times when she's a doll.  And a boy.  And a bug...

Good/Bad/Funny

Warning:  This post contains liberal mentions of bodily functions.  If you don't want to read yet another poop post, SKIP IT!

Good:  Woke up at 5:30 to Mary Claire's squawks - she slept from 7:30-5:30 with no interruption!

Bad:  Elizabeth woke up at LEAST 3 times to nurse between 11 and 5, probably more.

Good:  Mary Claire went back to sleep in the swing after I nursed her on the couch, and stayed asleep until past 8 o'clock!

Bad:  Elizabeth woke up for the day a little before 6, RIGHT after I had fallen back to sleep after nursing Mary Claire.

Bad:  SERIOUS headache, likely a combination of several glasses of delicious sangria last night + not enough sleep.

Bad:  Went upstairs to find last night's dinner & snacks still on the playroom table.

Good:  Breakfast is served!

Just kidding.

But at least the ants didn't find all that food!

Good:  Andrew put away the clean dishes and filled the dishwasher with another load.  Almost cleaned up from last night's get together!

Good:  Made banana/pineapple/strawberry/yogurt smoothies for Andrew and the kids - next up, packing those things full of kale and spinach to cram them full of more nutrients!

Good:  Elizabeth was happy to go down for an early nap!

Bad:  Mary Claire finally woke up and was fussy for 2 hours...

Good:  Elizabeth didn't wake up until Mary Claire had gone down for HER nap.

Bad:  She spent the next two hours fussing.

Good:  Last night's rain and this morning's sprinkle means I don't have to water the plants until this afternoon, and maybe not even then!

Bad:  Mary Claire pooped enough to get her outfit dirty.

Good:  At least she doesn't wear disposable diapers, because then it would have been up her back AND down her legs, instead of just a tiny bit on the elastic of her romper.

Funny:  Cecilia comes running in while I'm taking this morning's outfit picture, wearing a potholder on each foot, John Paul's old overalls with the legs unsnapped, proclaiming, "I'M A MONSTER!!!"

Bad:  Then she had diarrhea.  3 times so far.  Edit:  Now she's up to 4, and John Paul's at 2)

Good:  At least she made it to the toilet...

Bad:  Heard John Paul saying, "Oh...  What's this???" in a very concerned voice.  Then he brought me something and dropped it in my hand.

It was poop.

Good:  At least I had just cut his fingernails.

Bad:  Cleaned poop out of his underwear.

Good:  Could have been a WHOLE lot more poop.

Bad:  Also 5 poopy diapers so far today.  And it's only 1 o'clock.

Good:  Andrew changed 2 of them before he left.

Good:  John Paul decided 11 o'clock is "school time" so he got out his craft sticks with velcro dots and started making all sorts of polygons.

Apparently once you get past 6, you can refer to them as "n-gons," so this one would be a 21-gon.

Good:  The look on his face when I printed out an info sheet that names all the types of polygons up to 20 sides!

Good:  He wrote this all by himself!

Makes me not mind that he refuses to practice ever...

Good:  After Cecilia spent 10 minutes refusing to put on her underwear, I put it on for her.  She hugged me, unprompted, and said, "Mom, you're so nice to me!"

Good:  Cecilia can get herself water from the fridge now.

Bad:  Unlimited water means a LOT more peeing...

Bad:  Caffeine & ibuprofen seem to be doing nothing to ease this headache.

Bad:  Andrew has a meeting tonight, which means I'm on my own for bedtime :(

Bad:  The playroom looks like this right now:

And the living room looks like this:

Good:  It's raining now, so I'm going to let the kids watch Magic School Bus streaming on Netflix when they get up from their naps.  And since John Paul is OBSESSED with TV, he doesn't get to watch until everything is cleaned up.  Always a HUGE motivator!

Bad:  Cecilia headbutted Elizabeth and made her cry.

Funny:  She didn't understand why that wasn't okay, so I told her that she and John Paul could headbutt each other all they wanted.  So they very gently headbutted each other for quite a while, giggling the whole time.

Bad:  Screaming match between the big kids over a Dr. Seuss book.

Good:  Led to an early nap time, since they both wanted it to be read to them IMMEDIATELY!

Bad:  Screaming woke Mary Claire up from her nap...

Bad:  Baby awake time has just been fussy all day long.  Which means I'm pretty much constantly holding one or the other.  Which means I only write this while nursing.

Good:  At least I have two arms?

So the score so far is...  21 good, 19 bad, 2 funny.  Even on one of the worst mornings we've had in a while, the good still outweighs the bad!  Hurrah!

WIWS - No Pants Edition

Well, this week was actually a pretty good week for Mass, behavior-wise.  

Andrew had the week off from singing, and the babies woke up fairly late, so they both got naps in before the 10:30 Mass and were relatively cheerful the entire time.  Hurrah!

John Paul and Cecilia weren't too bad - Cecilia did have to get taken out once, and she kept taking off her sandals (and always insists on taking off her sweater as soon as we get to Mass, I don't know why...).  But she and John Paul didn't fight at all!  And they didn't make the babies cry with their constant attempts to maul them, so I'll give these grades:

John Paul:  B (insisted in kissing Elizabeth 5 times on the head each time he got near her, yanked my arm after communion because he was trying to convince the EM that he had received his First Communion already)

Cecilia:  B (spent a while lying down on the kneeler, but at least she was quiet?  Kept shoving her face into Elizabeth's hands trying to get her to pick her nose...)

Mary Claire:  A (didn't need to nurse, made hardly a peep the whole time, sucked quietly on the carrier when I took her up for communion)

Elizabeth:  A (nursed briefly but I knew she would need to, sat quietly in the carrier for the beginning of Mass, played quietly with toys for the end)

Now pictures...  Well, every week I set up the self-timer and John Paul pretty much always jumps into the picture.  This week he wasn't dressed yet, so I assumed he wouldn't be able to hear me from the playroom.  Well, kid has ears like a bat, so he raaaaaan to me and jumped into the picture in his underwear.  Will these pictures come back to haunt him some day?

Yes.

 

I call this look "Librarian Chic" - definitely not pairing that cardigan with a full skirt again.  Anyone have good sources for cropped cardigans?  The high waist really needs something cropped, and I gave away all my old cropped sweaters from college because they stopped buttoning after I had babies...

 

And just so you see that he DID get dressed, here's what John Paul wore to Mass, blurry and shoeless:

 

Hope your Sunday is beautiful and relaxing!

Linking up with Fine Linen and Purple

7QT - July 4 style!

--1--

Happy belated 4th of July!  I really loved the pictures here:  How to Thank a Soldier - a nice reminder to thank our service members always, not just on national holidays!

--2--

We had a nice time at home, grilling and setting off our own little fireworks display:

 

John Paul:  It looks like JELLYBEANS to me!!!

Cecilia:  All da beautiful colors!!!

They each got to hold their OWN sparklers (very VERY carefully):

Big girl haircut!  No more mullet!!!

Can you just feel the eager anticipation?

And they very calmly shared a chair to await the "big" display...

We topped the day off with hot fudge brownie sundaes (homemade hot fudge - yum!) and had an impromptu "big" firework viewing on youtube, since John Paul was about to throw a temper tantrum that the fireworks were over.

Then he DID throw a temper tantrum, which woke Mary Claire up.  And of course, the neighbors shooting off their illegal fireworks woke her up again.  Elizabeth mostly slept, but it was rather a rough night for all...

--3--

 Thank you all for your words of encouragement when I posted John Paul's birth story!  

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 are available for your viewing pleasure, if you happen to be a sucker for birth stories and pictures of pregnant women!  

It took me a really long time to finally write the story because I still feel a little ashamed that I ended up getting an epidural.  Long story short, 60 hours of labor, got an epidural at 48 hours because I had only dilated 1 cm (which is where I started out before labor began), still ended up with a vaginal delivery.

Here's the thing - we took Bradley classes, we were gung ho NOT going to have any sort of interventions or medication.  But after 48 hours of no sleep and puking up everything I tried to eat, it was time for some intervention.  I've thought many times about what I would have done differently, but it's really time for me to stop the "what ifs" and stop getting annoyed every time someone on facebook posts terrifying statistics on how all epidurals lead to exploding babies or something like that.

But really, this is a post for another day...

I still need to type up Cecilia's much shorter birth story...  Maybe I'll get that done this week?  After all, I'm in a birth story kind of mood!

--4--

On a lighter note, here's what I wore this week!

It's Day 5 of my "No-Pants July" challenge - check out my original post if you want more info.

I'm excited that so many bloggers are participating!  Mary already has some lovely outfits up and Erica's closet makes me so excited for all the bright colors she'll be incorporating!

Taking a picture every day is actually pretty fun - I'm beginning to see that I really do look a lot better in dresses and skirts - would you guess from the pictures that I'm only 5'2"?  I think I actually look taller!  But maybe it's just the small children in every picture :P

I'm thinking of doing a mid-month link-up so that everyone can share their experiences, and then and end-of-month wrap-up.  This is all assuming I figure out how to DO a link-up of my own!

Anyway, I'm posting each day's outfit on the facebook page if you need any inspiration/can't wait until Friday!

--5--

Sometimes it takes me really long to write my quick takes because I'm busy reading everyone else's...  

--6--

Look!  Happy twins in a chair!

--7--

 My aunt needs messy face pictures for a project she's doing, and I was preeeetty sure I could help her out - but the twins were eating too neatly!  So I gave Cecilia some yogurt and cherries and I think I got some good messy shots:

Check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

John Paul's Birth Story: Part III

So when we left off last time, I had been having regular contractions for 21 hours, got to the hospital, and found out that I was dilated...

ONE FREAKING CENTIMETER.

Ugh.

We went home to try to get some sleep.  I think Andrew may have gotten some?  And my sister may have, but she probably just stayed up reading Sweet Valley Twins.  I, however, was lucky enough to keep experiencing regular contractions that no position could ease!  Hooray!  

I was sleeping like a baby

I lay in bed for a few hours trying to breathe through them, pray through them, adjust positions to make myself more comfortable.  I went downstairs and used the exercise ball to find a comfortable position.  I knelt on the floor and played computer games between contractions.  Finally the house started stirring and everybody began waking up!  Company!

Not me.  Pretty sure I was still sleeping. I'm usually still sleeping.

Andrew had told everyone at work that I was in labor when he had left the day before, so he awoke to a few angry texts asking WHY he hadn't given them news about the baby yet!!!  Um, because the baby was still in utero!  I ate breakfast (and puked it up shortly afterwards) and we went walking outside, timing the contractions all the while.

I think they woke me up for this part.

But it was Virginia.  In July.  So it was a liiiiittle hot!  We ended up inside watching Ice Age at about 2 pm (because there was no way we were keeping our date to see Ice Age 2 in the theater) while I moaned, flung over the exercise ball.  Things stayed spaced about the same, but the contractions were getting more and more painful.  I was crying through every contraction and was sooooo exhausted, because I hadn't been able to sleep or keep any food down in the past 33 hours.  We finally called the doctor and told them things seemed to be getting more intense, so they had us come back in around 5 pm.

We got to the hospital excited and exhausted.  Maybe NOW we would be having the baby?  After all, it was his due date!  And I had been in labor for 36 hours at this point - surely I had made progress!

They didn't make me go to triage this time - they saw how miserable I looked, how I couldn't talk through the contractions, how the tears continued streaming down my face because of the utter exhaustion, and sent me straight to a delivery room.

The nurse took my temperature and then we waited what seemed like an eternity for her to get me a cup of ice water.  She finally returned with the OB on call, who checked me.

Actually, Rosie asked for ice chips and the nurse told her she couldn't have any till after they'd taken her temperature. We're all pretty sure that's not a thing. Rosie moaned from thirst (and probably pain) for 45 minutes before I tracked the nurse down and asked if she could take Rosie's temperature so she could have something to drink. She looked at me like I was stupid and said she could have had something a while ago if we'd asked. This was when I figured out that I was going to have to do more tracking down of nurses and nagging than I'd anticipated.

One.  Centimeter.

ONE.

One centimeter.

Need I remind you that's where I was BEFORE I WENT INTO LABOR???  And again AFTER 21 HOURS OF LABOR???

And now, after 36 hours, still only ONE centimeter dilated.  I probably cried.

She definitely cried.

She suggested I take some sleep medication and go home to try to get some rest.  I think the look on my face with that suggestion made her realize what my answer to THAT suggestion would be.  Then she said they could try breaking my water to speed things along.  But I was a Bradley girl - no way was I going to consent to all those medical interventions!  The nurses were on board with my birth plan - no medication of any sort unless I asked for it specifically.  And I was going to stick to my guns, by golly!!!

To the nurses' credit, they really were on board with a natural birth. The only time anyone mentioned medication was when I went and asked them about our options for my poor, miserable, barely-conscious little sister.

So we seemed to be in it for the long haul - my sister set up camp in the waiting room with her Sweet Valley Twins Save Christmas, or whatever she happened to be reading...

I don't really remember why I was in the waiting room at any point--maybe just to give Rosie and Andrew some space? But I was out there in the middle of the night--one of the nights--and I was reading some Sweet Valley Twins book. That in itself would be bad enough, but I think that in this one they went back in time and became princesses. Usually when I tell this story I make something up about how I wanted something mindless so I wouldn't mind being interrupted and so I could read it even when I was exhausted. This being the anonymous internet, I'll tell you the truth: I love princess books written for 14-year-olds. Judge away.

So I was sitting there, reading my awesome book, when the gentleman across the room from me struck up a conversation.

"Is your mom having a baby?"

"Oh, no, my sister, actually."

"Oh! Your older sister?"

"Nope--my little sister. And her husband. They're having a baby. They're married."

Now, I'm pushing 30 and people still think I'm in college. So I can see why he thought my younger sister had no business having a baby. That's why I threw the husband thing in there. We kept talking and I must have mentioned something about college.

(Glancing at my book, then humoring me) "You went to college? Good for you!"

"Yeah, Notre Dame actually. For undergrad and grad school." At this point, I realized the man had gone from thinking I was young to thinking I must be mentally handicapped. "Oh, this? No, I read real books. It's just that this was the only one I had and...well, I wanted something that I wouldn't get too into, because...it's actually kind of an interesting book, see...I should go check on my sister."

One perk of being there forever is that by the time I gathered the nerve to go back to the waiting room, he was gone.

And Andrew and I walked the halls trying to keep my gown closed in the back (don't you love how they design those?).

The nurses came to check on us periodically and hook up the monitor every hour or so to check on John Paul.  His heart rate looked great, so we just kept going the way we were going.  I refused cervical checks because I wanted to make sure I had REALLY made progress before letting them check me again.

Things were rough though - the contraction were getting stronger and nothing was relieving them.  I had asked them originally if I could be in a room with a tub, but both rooms with tubs were in use when we got there.  Well, lucky us, when you're at the hospital for that long there will be MANY women who give birth and vacate their delivery rooms while you're still in labor!  We picked up our stuff and moved to the other room, filling the tub so that I could climb in for a little relief.

No relief.  Still awful.  We were about 43 hours in and I began wondering about those non-epidural pain relief options...  So I asked them to check me.

You guessed it.

One centimeter.

I asked about the risks to the baby for pain relief options, and we decided that morphine would be a gentler approach and since there was no way the baby was coming in the next 4 hours, that would be an okay option. 

(I just want to say here, the Bradley Method is great and works for lots of people.  But all those videos we had to watch that basically terrified me that an epidural would pretty much be a guaranteed C-section made this a rather difficult decision...)

For those of you who are keeping track, this is 9+ hours after checking into the hospital. Still 1 centimeter.

Since Rosie had been adamant about not wanting any medication, neither Andrew nor I had researched anything. As it became apparent that she was going to need medication, we tried to do some Googling but couldn't get a signal even though we'd brought a computer for just such a purpose and the hospital claimed to have wi-fi. This was back in the ark ages of 2009, though. I remember calling our older brother to Google for us but having weak cell signals. We also tried calling their Bradley instructor but didn't get an answer. Finally, we decided that if the nurses thought morphine was reasonable, it wasn't going to kill anyone. All either of us knew (from what Rosie had told us) is that epidurals are bad. Morphine wasn't an epidural, so it must be better, right? Turns out, maybe not.

So 44 hours in, I got hooked up to some morphine for some sweet, sweet pain relief.

(I don't even remember how they gave it to me)

Oh sorry, NOT RELIEF AT ALL.  Somehow everything hurt MORE.  And I started hallucinating.  And I think there were issues with my breathing, too?  John Paul was still doing great, so that was something!

But this was CLEARLY not working.  And then an anesthesiologist walked into the room and said,

"So, I hear we're prepping you for a C-section!"

WHAT????????????????????

(Aren't you glad I didn't leave you on THAT cliff hanger?)

The nurses shot daggers at him and told him, "YOU'RE IN THE WRONG ROOM!!!"

(If I had made any progress at that point, I'm sure I would have closed up tighter than the Hoover Dam...)

But at that point it seemed to me that my options were limited - if I didn't get SOME sort of rest or sustenance (did I mention I was still puking up those hospital popsicles?), there was no way I'd be able to push this baby out.  So we made the decision to get an epidural.  Because, even 47 hours in, I was still only dilated 1 cm.

At this point, Rosie was practically incoherent. She was so tired and so hungry and so miserable that she couldn't think straight. Andrew had been prepped well: Rosie can do this without medication, he'd been told. She's going to want it but you have to be strong. Just keep saying no.

And, to be honest, I think she'd only given him the negative information about epidurals since that's what had stuck out to her. So when Rosie started toying with the idea, he knew to stand his ground and defend his baby. He did a wonderful job but they hadn't been prepped for this situation: 48 hours in, no sleep, no dilation.

I was beginning to be concerned, so I went to talk to our nurse. Because John Paul was doing fine, she wasn't terribly worried. But she told me that the way things were going, Rosie's options were epidural, c-section, or death. She explained it gently, but that was the gist. So I went--against all Rosie and Andrew's requests--to convince them to get an epidural. Rosie kept crying and looking at Andrew and he kept saying he didn't know but it was pretty clear that nothing was going to progress without an epidural. We discussed how she wasn't a failure and that this was a good choice since it helped her avoid a c-section. Andrew kept telling her how every contraction was helping their baby grow stronger, which I think gave her a lot of strength. But at a certain point you have to recognize that lots of women can have unmedicated births but medication exists because some births can't progress without it. This was clearly one of those situations.

So the anesthesiologist (a different one that my awesome nurses called in from a different floor because they all HATED the one who had come into the room before) came in and administered the epidural, and it wasn't nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be.  I finally had some relief from the contractions that had been incredibly painful and about 2 minutes apart for I don't even KNOW how long!

They checked me after I was back in position.

FIVE CENTIMETERS!!!

Just like that, pump me full of pain meds, and my body is willing to get stuff done!

As is inevitable with epidurals, the contractions slowed down, but my OB wasn't pushing for any faster progress.  My water hadn't broken, and at least we had finally made SOME progress (at this point there were nurses coming back on their shifts who had been on during the beginning of my 2nd time at the hospital.  "You're still here???" was their incredulous query, because any other OB would have pushed for a c-section by then!).  I finally got some SLEEP.  

Hallelujah--sleep! Well, not for me--I was on ice chip duty, as Rosie kept waking up thirsty. But I'd slept the night before--2 nights before at this point, so I was good.

I remember it all as a hazy sort of progress - I'd wake up and open my mouth and she'd shovel ice chips in (those things are SO delicious!), or I'd moan "Yellow button!" and she'd press the yellow button for more medication to be administered.

The epidural wore off eventually, but I was still not dilated enough to push, so we got a SECOND dose around 54 hours.  That one turned out to be a dud, so I got to experience some lovely pain until they got a new bag. 

It was around here--I'm guessing transition--that Rosie turned to me and said, desperately, "Can you just tell everybody to please pray for me? And call St. Veronica's and ask them to pray?" Rosie's pretty shockingly strong and I don't think she'd ever asked me to request prayers for her before, so you'd better believe I got on it. I texted all my praying friends--pointing out that she'd been in labor for 58 hours--and called the church to ask them to pray for her. Looks like prayer works, because:

Then THAT ONE wore off around 59 hours and GUESS WHAT???

I WAS READY TO PUSH!  FINALLY!  And, despite the epidural, I could feel every urge, and all the pain associated with it.  And that was fine by me, because that's what I wanted anyway. 

As she was pushing, the dear priest from the parish they didn't even belong to showed up with communion for her. I thanked him very much and told him now wasn't a good time. What a wonderful priest!

The nurses asked Andrew and me to each hold one of Rosie's feet which was cool and ridiculous and not something I was expecting. They asked her if she wanted them to set up a mirror so she could watch and she shouted NO! Which I totally get but it was funny that she yelled at them.

John Paul finally arrived after an hour of pushing, and his lovely, conical, 15-inch head (always and forever in the 99th percentile) seemed to have been the reason it took SO. FREAKING. LONG.  To get that baby out of my small-hipped, 5'2" frame.

8 lbs 6 oz, 21 inches.  But do you SEE that conehead???

I was pretty disappointed that I didn't have the unmedicated birth I was convinced I would have.  But I don't think there's any way I could have lasted that long without food or sleep and STILL been able to push off a baby with a massive head...  The only thing that got me through it was what little rest I got from the epidural.

This was after 2 days and a shower...  I did NOT allow any pictures of me to be taken immediately after that ridiculous labor!

 

 Healthy mom, healthy baby, right?

So there you have it.  60 hours of labor, and he was FINALLY born at around 5 pm on Wednesday, July 15, the day after his due date and the feast of St. Bonaventure.  Clearly he just didn't want to be born on Bastille Day. 

Also the feast of some random St. Benedict. I tried to get them to name him John Paul Benedict Hill so his name was less monosyllabic and more hardcore, but I lost that one.

Again, 2 days after he was born.  I'm still ridiculously puffy and swollen from all the IV fluids, and yet Andrew looks glowing and wonderful.  Also, do you see John Paul's massive feet???