Our Family Doctor

I absolutely love my Doctor. Her name is Shelly Savage, and she is wonderful. She is a family practitioner, so she takes care of all my pre-natal care, delivery of the baby, and then she is my girl's Doctor, too. She is the mother of 6 kids, and it is very comforting to me that she has 'been there, done that'. I will be very sad to leave her when we move away from Provo.

Maggie Phyllis Betts, March 25, 2008
7 pounds 6 ounces

Chloe Dee Betts, July 27, 2009
9 pounds 6 ounces

Home From The Hospital and Still Surviving

We've made it through an entire day without incident, I'm so proud of us. Chloe is such a sweetie. She definitely has a different temperament than her older sister. Chloe is very mellow, and content. We love Maggie to death, but she came with attitude from day one. You know it's bad when the nurses on the maternity ward say, 'good luck with this one.'
Maggie is quite curious about Chloe. For the most part, she has been pretty gentle with her. She likes to watch her and does the sign for 'baby' over and over. I have to keep a close eye on Maggie, as she is obsessed with pointing/poking at Chloe's eyes. Maggie tries to 'share' her soother with Chloe, I think this is adorable seeming as it is such a precious thing to Maggie.
We are in love with our little girls. I was so nervous about bringing a newborn home, but it's been a fairly smooth transition so far.

All stretched out

Packed up, ready to go home

Welcome home Chloe. Maggie is doing the sign for Baby.

Let's get you outta this thing.

All Tuckered out.

Oh, I just love those cheeks.

Just checking her out.

She is such a clown.

Our Maggie loves to talk

Maggie is quite an impressive little talker. She has had a cute little jabber from early on, and she likes to squeal and squawk and make all kinds of little sounds.

Maggie's speech is helped by the fact that she is quite a little parrot. I'll make noises, and blow raspberries and she'll copy what I do. If she hears her cousins or her new little sister crying or yelling, she'll squeal and follow along too. Maggie does the same with words. She doesn't always know what you're saying, but she picks some word you say to repeat nearly every day. We are going to have to be careful with what we say. Just this morning Maggie grabbed at her poopy diaper while I was changing her. I panicked and said "Crap!" as she got some on her shirt (no pun intended). The next thing I hear is "crabp" from Maggie and she raises her little hands up in the air to do the pincers for the sign for "crab". Quite cute, but I've got to watch my language.

Speaking of signs, one of the things that has helped Maggie's vocabulary is Signing Time. My sister Melissa gave us the first three volumes almost as soon as we announced that Laura was pregnant with Maggie. Maggie started watching the DVDs at about 6 months and we bought her another set of three for her first birthday in March. Since then we have checked out nearly a dozen other volumes from the library.

Maggie has loved the DVDs from the beginning. The songs, and all of the little kids featured in the DVDs really keep her attention. Laura loves Signing Time too, because they can keep Maggie occupied long enough for Laura to take a 2 minute shower, wash a few dishes or otherwise tidy up her self or around the house. The songs do get stuck in your head for the rest of the day, but for the most part the music is enjoyable. After multiple repeats, songs that aren't absolutely abhorrent is quite a feat for children's programming - Do I need to remind you about Barney and other such ilk for kids? Signing Time has an advantage that the majority of the songs are enjoyable even after multiple viewings.

Because Signing Time is educational, we only have to feel a little bad that the TV is helping out as a part-time nanny. Maggie sat quietly through the early viewings, but lately she has been acquiring vocabulary like crazy. I wonder if she picks up a new word or sign every other day.

She is so attentive to the Signing Time DVDs now, it's hilarious. We'll check out a new volume from the library and she gets excited to follow along. We laugh as we watch her try and sign words that she has in all likelihood has no idea what they mean. ¿"seasons"? ¿"weather"? Just last night Maggie sat down with the latest volume from the library and was diligently trying to repeat all the signs for colors. I so wanted to video her sitting in her Dora chair following along with her hands, but the batteries in the camera needed to be recharged from our hospital stay for the birth of Chloe.

Difficult signs are funny too. "toys" is finger-spelled, and when "toys" comes on, Maggie holds up a closed fist and rolls her wrist to do the for "toys".

All of this talking and signing started up close to the beginning of this year. Maggie's first words came around probably in January: "dada" of course, followed shortly by "ball". Her first sign was "dog" showing up close to the same time as her first spoken words. If you have ever seen Maggie with dogs, you wouldn't be surprised about her choice of signs. Over this last month or two her vocabulary has exploded, both in speech and in signs.

Maggie follows some of the typical speech patterns for kids. "dada" for "daddy", "wawa" for water, and "baba" for bottle. When she's really excited to see me, "dada" turns to "dadeeeeeee!" We have also watched some words mature. For example, "book" started out as "k", but has now changed to "guk". "walk" used to be "kkkkk", but is now "walk" with a soft "k" at the end. She works hard on the pronunciation to differentiate between "walk" and the "wawa" of "water". She would hate to miss out on a chance to go for a walk.

To pass the time in the hospital as we waited for Laura's scheduled c-section, we started in on a list of the words that Maggie knows and uses. Here's what we came up with: Maggie has spoken 63 different words (15 only spoken not signed), signed 76 different signs (28 only signed not spoken) and a total vocabulary of at least 91 words. *(see footnote).

These are the words that are a regular part of Maggie's speaking vocabulary. These words come unprompted and we know that she knows what they mean.

baby, ball, banana, bath, book, bottle, bye bye, car, cracker, daddy, Dora, duck, eyes, flower, gorilla, grandpa, hat, hello, hippo, hot, keys, night-night, owl, puppy, shoes, strawberry, swimsuit, walk, water, yaa!, yogurt

These are the words that Maggie says on occasion, but often with some prompting. She probably knows the meaning to most if not all of these words, but they don't make appearances as frequently as the first list.

cheese, cookie, fish, girl, grandma, light, mama, no, outside, pelican, rock, suzie (for her soother), teeth, thank you, turkey, turtle, uh-oh, washcloth, yes

(Did you notice Maggie's gender bias?)

The next set is the list of words that Maggie has tried, but only make irregular appearances. We're not sure how many of these that she knows what they mean or if she's just playing parrot.

boo, boots, bunny, crab, diaper, dolphin, eat, leaf, pajamas, poopy, shirt, swim, wait

There are plenty words on the last two lists of what Maggie will say where she does know the meaning of the word, but signs more often than she vocalizes. In addition, from the list that I made, there are at least twenty-eight signs that Maggie does that she just doesn't say at all. There are words like "bear", "pig", "plane" and "thunder" where Maggie does the sign, does a sound "rawr", "snkkkh", "pbbbbt", and "kkkkkoh" but never says the word. There are plenty of words that Maggie says semi-regularly or irregularly, but she signs more frequently.

Here are Maggie's signs that she does on a regular basis, generally unprompted and we assume that she knows the meaning of these words.

baby, ball, banana, bath, bear, bottle, brush hair, car, cheese, chicken, cold, cow, eat, fish, flower, gorilla, hat, ice-cream, leaf, penguin, plane, pretty, puppy, rain, shoes, strawberry, thunder, towel, walk, washcloth, water, wind, yaa!

These are the signs that we see on a less regular basis, of which Maggie probably has a good understanding of the meaning of most of these words.

bug, bye bye, cat, cookie, crab, cracker, diaper, duck, frog, girl, grapes, horse, light, lizard, monkey, no, owl, pajamas, pig, sheep, shirt, Signing Time, snake, sun, swimsuit, thank you, wait , yes

And these are the signs we have seen Maggie try, but only on rare occasions. This list does not include the signs she has done while trying to follow along with the Signing Times DVDs.

book, boots, dolphin, grandma, grandpa, hippo, hot, mama, outside, porcupine, potty, rock, swim, toys, turkey

We have had a lot of fun watching Maggie learn to talk. She always surprises us. In the mix of baby jabber of "baba" and "wawa" comes a nearly perfect "cracker". We were sure that she thought her chair was named Dora (it has Dora the Explorer's picture on it), but then a quick picture of Dora apeared in just the corner of the TV screen and we hear "Dora" from her little mouth. I'm excited to see what comes next, speaking or signing, from this little girl.

* Using the Jaccard Index of similarity (= shared units divided by total units) gives us an index value of 53% -- 53% percent of Maggie's vocabulary is shared between signing and speaking, leaving and 47% of Maggie's vocabulary is unique to either speech or sign; ≈31% uniqe to sign and only ≈16% unique to speech.

A Different Experience

While this visit to the hospital didn't exactly feel new… we're only 16 months removed from the last c-section… this visit was definitely different.

Unfortunately for Laura some of the differences were not so pleasant. For example, receiving the epidural was much less comfortable. Less comfortable isn't quite right. The epidural was beyond uncomfortable. Laur was quiet, but I saw a long chain of her mouthing "ow, ow, ow, ow" as the doctor jabbed a needle into her spine. And this epidural didn't block out as much of the feeling as the epidural for Maggie. Laura felt much more of the work done on her in her c-section. With Maggie, I had to tell Laur that people full-on yanked with their body weight on her stomach. This time, she was much more aware. This extra level of sensation wasn't so good for getting sewn back up.

Adding to the discomfort of the surgery, our new baby girl is a big one. Chloe was measured at 9lbs6oz and 21 inches, and there was some major pulling to drag her out. The doctor even took the salad spoons after her. I'm amazed at how durable a baby is; the way they are yanked out into the world. The doctors pulled pretty hard on Maggie's legs to drag her out, and they lifted Chloe by her head and neck and she's still in one piece.

I watched both c-sections, although the anesthesiologist this time started out trying to tell me to stand at the head of the operating table. I did eventually move down to the foot of the table to watch like I did for Maggie's birth. This time, I had the camera. We didn't even think about bringing the camera in last time. Last time I wasn't sure if I was going to watch the whole operation or not, or how much help Laura would want from me. I got a few pictures and a few video clips of Chloe's exit.

Laur's anesthesiologist didn't give her the running play by play like the last one did, but he did pull down the curtain so that she could watch Chloe's exit. Between that and the video, Laur has seen a lot more than last time.

I don’t think that there was as much fluid with Chloe, but there was still a lot. Chloe's exit was less stressful (from the point of view of the baby) than for Maggie. Maggie had her cord around her neck, and was zipped right out to the NICU doctors to make sure things were okay. Chloe came out and had plenty of time to start yelling in the OR. What a screamer. I didn't follow Chloe immediately out, so I had time to check up on Laur for a minute and to see the placenta get pulled out. The placenta was a huge, lumpy, uneven, red mass. Between our giant baby, the copious amounts of fluid and the mass of placenta, Laur is easily down 20 pounds. Yeesh.

Fortunately Laur's recovery seems to be easier this time. She seems less sluggish, and getting out of bed for the first time seemed earlier and easier.

Chloe, being big, gave the doctors a few concerns. There was a lot of fluid to expel from her lungs, in part because she was a c-section delivery, and she was breathing a little fast when we got to the nursery; nothing too serious, but just enough to make them watch. They tried an oxygen tent for 15 minutes but eventually we went up to the NICU for a CPAP. Again, nothing too serious, but they just wanted to get her lungs expanded fully so they wouldn't have to worry the whole day long.

Probably the worst difference with this delivery was the waiting. For me, it seemed like the c-section with Maggie was so quick after the arrival in the OR. This time, I felt like I had to keep getting out of the way to wait some more for the initial incision. Laura had much more waiting time than me. Chloe was born at 1:21pm, but by 2:30 or so we were in the NICU. The NICU was supposed to be a one to two hour visit. The CPAP was supposed to be on for an hour. I visited Laur in recovery for a few minutes at 3:30, but it was a while before I really got back to her. There were a ton of births at the hospital yesterday, including at least two sets of twins, so everything was delayed. I sat in a rocker with Chloe for close to an hour waiting for the nurse to come and do the final check out from the NICU. We left the NICU around 6:00pm, and had to go back to the well-baby nursery to get all the stuff done that they didn't do in our last visit. I got to wait there for the nurses too. Laur didn't get to hold Chloe until almost 7:00pm. Laur could have been happier.

Above all, Chloe is a different baby. She looks like our baby, but she's not Maggie's clone. Chloe might have a chin dimple, but if she does it will be like Laura's: mostly hidden, but there if you look for it. Chloe does have big cheeks and a tiny chin, but she has more of a double chin than Maggie did. Chloe has a small mouth, with thinner lips – AND she closes it. Chloe has hair; maybe not as much as Maggie did, and not as much of a curl on top, but some wave to it. Chloe's hands and fingers seem different, and Laur thinks that Chloe is going to have Grandma Phyllis's nose. Chloe's nose does seem pretty distinct.

It's hard not to compare a little here at the beginning, but I think I've always had in mind that our two girls were going to be different; different looking, and different experiences. It will be fun to see how Chloe's temperament will develop. I'm excited to see her personality. It's good to have our baby here. Chloe has had lots of cuddle time with her mama, as they've caught up on some rest after their hard work yesterday. Laur is happy for this baby to be here.

"I can't believe it's all over… there was a lot of baby in there." -- Laura Dee Betts, 1:31am Jul 28, 2009

Speaking of Big

I Am Ginormous!!!

Tomorrow is the day. I have one more night of pregnancy, thank goodness. I don't remember being this uncomfortable with Maggie, maybe I was and I have just blocked it from my memory. It has seemed like all my ligaments and muscles have just given up on giving me any sort of support. I know that the heat the past 2 weeks hasn't helped the situation. If I go outside at all, I'm guaranteed to drip sweat from my forehead for a at least an hour. I really do not like being pregnant. All week, every place I go, at least 2-3 people comment on my pregnancy. I've heard 'oh my goodness, I hope that baby is coming soon!' plenty of times. I've heard this from the checker at the grocery store, the girl that gave me my pedicure, and even from a passing stranger in the mall. They all seem as relieved as I am when I say, 'Monday is the day, whether she likes it or not'. I appreciate all the concern.

Maggie's New Stats

Maggie had her 15 month check up today....it's only 1 month late, I decided that I needed to get it done before Monday when our world is going to change. Maggie is very healthy. Our Doctor was very impressed with Maggie's vocabulary. She uses at least 30 words and knows at least as many signs....my little genius (just kidding). Maggie is getting so good at walking. She's walking all over the place now, and I think she is very proud of herself. I hardly ever see her crawl anymore. She loves music, just like her Daddy, and loves to dance in front of the stove to watch her reflection. I love her little personality, she cracks me up. I'm going to miss her so bad when I'm in the hospital, but I'm excited that she gets to spend time with Grandma Betts, and then with Grandma Evanson when she comes in just 10 days.
It's hard to believe that in only 6 days we will have a new member of our family. I'm anxious to see what she looks like. I picture a round face, bum chin, with lots of dark hair, just like Maggie, but this new little one could look totally different. We'll know soon enough....
Maggie's Stats:
Weight - 24 lbs 4 oz. 75%
Length - 31 inches 75%
Head - 48 cm 95%

Messy Face

Two of Maggie's favorite foods are noodles and blueberries. Of course, these both make ginormous messes, so she doesn't get to have them very often. Last night I stripped her down and let her go to town. She definitely enjoyed her meal.

Happy 4th of July

We had a fun day yesterday, celebrating Independence Day. We went up to my Sister-in-Law's family and had a BBQ. It was so nice of them to let us crash their party. The thing I was most excited about was that Maggie got to wear her Tommy Hilfiger sundress. This is a hand-me-down from Tia and Jovi, and I think it is so cute. She definitely looked festive.

My American Girl

Very serious about her music (it looks like she's in pain, and like she only has one leg)

Maggie was very impressed with the backyard fireworks show. She kept saying 'oooooh' and 'wook' the entire time.

Watching the show.

By 10:00 Maggie was getting pretty tired. I don't get snuggles from this girl very often, so I'm glad Dave was able to capture this rare event.

Happy Canada Day!!!!

I've been a little homesick today thinking about my Home and Native land. I've been a 'Dual Citizen' for over 5 years now and I've lived in the U.S. for over 8 years total in my life, but my heart will always be Canadian. I love my American husband and (soon to be) 2 American daughters. There are so many wonderful things I love about the U.S. but since it is Canada's big day, I'm going to express a few things I love and miss about Canada.

1. The Metric System....it's way easier for me to figure out how long it will take to go 158 km, than it is in miles. I know how warm 28 degrees Celsius is, and how long 49 cm is. Not that 'Standard' measurements are hard, metric is just how my brain is wired.
2. Ketchup Chips, oh how I miss them.
3. Loonies and Toonies, nothing better than thinking you just have a bunch of change, then realizing you actually have $20. 'the Queen with a bear behind'....it never gets old.
4. Canadian sarcasm....we really are a bunch of smart 'A's.
5. Socialized Medicine. Not to get too political, but man do I think the American Medical System is messed up, insurance companies are of the Devil. Back in my working days, one day a week was spent on the phone arguing with insurance companies, trying to get them to fulfill their contracts. I gotta say, I'm routing for Obama. Let's be honest, the people that would abuse a public health care system are on medicaid, abusing the system already. I can't tell you how many times I heard on my mission 'I just need to gain 20 more pounds to get on disability, then all my diabetes meds will be paid for.' ps. I, myself, am very grateful for medicaid, otherwise we would have had to wait until Dave was done school to start our family and let's face it, we're not getting any younger.
6. Wonderbars, Smarties, Mr. Bigs, Kinder surprizes, Caramilk, Aeros, need I say more.....
7. Alchololic Gripe Water (when you have a fussy baby, you need the hard stuff)
8. Hockey Fans....they are a group all to themselves and I sure miss them.
9. O Canada. I really miss hearing it, I think it is such a beautiful song.
10. Canadians in General....I miss the diversity of Canadians. I realize that I am in a 'Utah Bubble', therefore I don't see a whole lot of diversity that I'm positive exist outside of Utah, but from my standpoint, Canada just seems more diverse. I miss the Hutterites, the First Nations, the East Indians, the Polish, the French, the Ukraines (mmmm perogies and cabbage rolls), and especially I miss my Canadian Family.

It's hard to know how to celebrate Canada Day here in Provo, Utah. With no Raymond parade, BBQ's or fireworks at Henderson to attend, I was left to figure it out on my own. I tried to think of something 'Canadian' to fix for dinner tonight and the only thing I could think of was Poutine. For those of you that have no idea what Poutine is, allow me to enlighten you...Poutine is a delicious French Canadian dish comprised of french fries, gravy and cheese....totally healthy :). For dessert I made a yummy no-bake cherry cheese cake and I am now sufficiently sick to my stomach, as one should be at the end of Canada Day.

Poutine (Heart Attack in a bowl)

I'm actually pretty proud of my creation, cherry pie filling is not the easiest to work with.

And of course..... the Maple Tattoo on the cheek. I was making faces at her, trying to get her to smile, and she was copying what I was doing.

It really brings out her cheek bones, don't cha think?