Name Banners

The girls and I made these names banners out of their old stained baby clothes. We just used fabric glue for the letters. We also glued a chopstick to the top of each triangle to keep them flat and then glued all of those to a ribbon, pinning the banners up over their beds.

Paul Meets Joel

What is that screaming thing?

We have high hopes that these boys will be best friends, but for now, we'll have to keep them separated. Paul literally goes straight for the eyes every time.

The peace and quiet of the hospital has ended.

The Hospital Experience

I haven't really enjoyed my past stays in U.S. hospitals and usually asked to be discharged as soon as possible. Here was another story. The private hospitals feel like hotels with a lobby, nicely appointed rooms and everyone in uniform. The standard stay after birth is three days, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The best part was they didn't check me from 9pm until 6am each night, and they would take the baby (at my request) in between feedings at night, so I actually got three nights of good sleep before I went home.

Joel Michael Crawford

I don't have much of a story to tell, but that is a good thing when it comes to labor and delivery.

We went to see the doctor in the morning.  She wanted to induce, but I said no. I sent J to work and within an hour called him back to say my contractions were 5 minutes apart. They weren't very intense, but regular, so we dropped the girls off at a friend's, left Paul with our helper, and checked in at the hospital. They did the fetal monitoring for 30 minutes. I got in the tub for two more contractions, got out of the tub to push, and he was born.  I almost laughed at how easy it seemed. I had never had a baby during the day. It was perfect.

Thirty-six

I was kind of hoping this baby would be born on J's birthday, but he wasn't. Instead, the two of us got to go out to lunch at a delicious French restaurant, and then we had a small family celebration with a pineapple upside down cake. The girls picked out their own Thai ties to give Daddy.

Easter

 Easter this year was one of those times that I realized that I have to make traditions happen if we want them. I can't really count on the Easter Bunny to just show up. We had already been to a mini egg hunt at a playgroup and another big one at the embassy, so for that reason and the hope that our focus will be on the Savior rather than the bunny, I decided to only do Easter baskets. Instead of Easter grass as padding, I used a baggie of Cheerios (since I also knew we wouldn't have time for breakfast before church). They got an Easter pencil, a new book and two or three plastic eggs with candy. They were thrilled, and I'm happy that I didn't set a precedent for myself that might be hard to live up to each year. We would have decorated eggs, but they only sell brown eggs here, and I didn't think they would turn out as well. Next year...

We did make my favorite Easter sugar cookies earlier in the week and took them to the playgroup.

Songkran

 The big holiday in Thailand is Songkran. It falls during the hottest time of the year and has basically become a multi-day water fight. Besides soaking strangers at the park, we also joined in some organized water games in the expat community where many of the embassy folks with school-aged kids live. The girls had a blast with the super soakers, and even Paul caught the spirit of the day and climbed into a bucket of water.