Introducing the Newest Perkins!

Liam Stuart Perkins
born early Tuesday morning, July 13th 3:15am
7 lbs 8 oz, 19"

So here's the crazy story...

I woke up about 2:30am feeling the first contraction. I got up and spent about 20 minutes in our bathroom partly to make sure labor was actually happening, but also because I felt like I had to go...maybe too much information, but looking back, that was a big clue to what was coming. By 3am I had woken Stu, called my parents to come over to stay with Luke & Eliana, and called my doctor. For the next 10 minutes I worked through lots of pretty wicked contractions waiting for the doctor to call me back & my parents to arrive. The doctor called, said she'd meet me at labor & delivery, and we hung up about 3:10am. Stu came down and asked me if I wanted to change since I was still in my pajamas & I said I didn't think I could. He later said I was pretty unresponsive at this point. We were going to walk out the door to go to the hospital as soon as my parents walked in, but I said I had to go to the bathroom, and Stu followed me to the little bathroom off the kitchen. I sat down on the toilet, and here's what I remember of our exchange:
"Stu! The baby's coming."
"Hurry, let's get in the car."
"No, now. The baby's coming now!"
And sure enough, Stu bent down, saw the baby's head, freaked out for a moment (not really), told me to push, and out came a perfect baby boy--all pink and rosy and screaming. Hearing those wails and seeing the baby's healthy color was amazing and set me at ease. We noticed the cord was twisted around the baby's neck, so we untangled it, and I remember Stu asking, a little frantically, "what do we do now?" I told him to calm down, give me the baby, and call the doctor back. It had only been about 5 minutes since I had talked to her. Stu ran around the house looking for my phone and at this point my parents were knocking at the door and Eliana woke up. Eliana let my parents in the house and of course they were shocked to hear a baby crying, which they knew wasn't Luke!
So now Stu's on the phone with my doctor, apologetic for disturbing her and attempting to get instructions as quickly as possible so she can go back to bed (ha ha!), and he's told my dad to call 911. The doctor asked Stu if he had any string and the best thing he could think of was his shoe laces. So he unlaced his shoes and used the laces to tie tightly around the umbilical chord in two places so he could then cut the cord.
Shortly there after the ambulance arrived and carted us off to the hospital. We received lots of praise and cheers as we were wheeled through the emergency entrance on our way up to labor and delivery. It was an amazing experience, and we praise God that everything went so well. Stu was the local celebrity during our short stay in the hospital. I'm so proud of him!

My Little Helper

Eliana helped me paint some of our deck furniture a couple of weeks ago. (I was surprised at how much help she actually was! :) While we were painting, Eliana made the comment, "Mom, I think instead of being just an astronaut when I grow up, I'll also be an artist."

Happy 30th Birthday!

On May 9th by baby brothers turned the big 3-0!

April 2010 Part II

Stu spent the week after Spring Break in Las Vegas for a work conference. My parents graciously kept the kids for us so that I could fly out and join him there for the second half of the week. We stayed at the MGM Grand, which houses a Cirque du Soleil show "KA". The company rented out the entire theater one night for its attendees. It was a great show. We had a really nice time, mainly relaxing by the pool and enjoying being kid-free! A couple of days of Vegas was enough for me, though!

Towards the end of April we celebrated my dad's birthday. We have a lot of spring birthdays in our family! My brothers are next in early May.

April 2010

Easter

The kids and I went to Harrisonburg for a few days over Spring Break with my parents to visit my dad's mom. We spent one of those days at Monticello and had a really nice time learning all about Thomas Jefferson. When it was our turn to tour the house and we got inside, Eliana asked me, "Mom, where's the president?" She really enjoyed Monticello and brought her brochure to class the next week for show-and-tell and told them all about our third President and his beautiful home.

March 2010

Since I'm so far behind on updating our blog, I figured I'd give us all a glance back by month, although besides my mom and I turning another year older, not much happened in March...

Eliana's 1st Bike!

Happy 1st Birthday, Luke!

Luke turned one last Sunday! We had a birthday party for him the day before with some close friends and family. Of course, a first birthday party is really more for the parents than the baby, but he did have lots of smiles for us. He played in the icing of his cake, but needed a little help to get a taste. He definitely didn't dig-in like Eliana did on her first birthday.




Luke had his 12 month appointment this week, and although we had some concerns about his lack of movement (not crawling or anything yet!) and his lack of weight gain since his 9 month check up, he got good marks from the doctor. There's a big range of what's considered normal for moving around - taking up to 18 months is still considered normal, so we don't have to be worried about that just yet. Even though he weighs just over 20 pounds (same as at 9 months), his height continued along the same growth curve of about the 75th percentile, which is good. He's my little peanut, but he's healthy and happy!

Luke's 1st Sick Visit

Poor baby boy has a double ear infection. I'm not used to having a sick baby. Eliana didn't have a sick visit until she was about 2 and a half, but I'm sure Luke's having a big sister who goes to pre-school makes a difference. Luke's had a fever since Saturday, been either fuzzy or lethargic, and then today wasn't eating and pulled on his ears a few times. So we went to the doctor...when Stu came home with Luke's prescription, and nothing for Eliana, she started complaining that her ear hurt! She has had a pretty relentless cold/cough this winter, but she's been as energetic as always and hasn't said anything about not feeling well or having an ear ache. Eliana went to Luke's appointment today and didn't say anything then either about her ear hurting. So we figured she just wanted what Luke had. They both went to bed early - Luke at 6:30 and Eliana at 7:30, and around 9 Eliana woke up crying and crying and saying her ear hurt! Argh! So I guess Ellie'll need a trip to the doc tomorrow, too. Luke's been moaning or crying out about every half hour since he went to sleep, so I'm anticipating a rather sleepless night for everyone. Poor kids.

Our Little Drummer Boy

Luke's almost a year old and although he isn't crawling or have much interest in moving around, he loves to sit and flail those arms! He can keep a pretty steady beat, too!

We got SNOW!!

On Saturday, January 30th, our area saw more snow around here than in the last twenty years. Since D.C.'s 30+ inches a few days ago, our 9 doesn't seem like much, but it was still quite a beautiful and exciting sight. Eliana, especially, had lots of fun, although we weren't really prepared with proper snow-gear, so her bouts out in the snow didn't last long. But they were frequent.


A blast from my past growing up in NJ: Snow Cream! Snow, milk, sugar and vanilla. Or another nice variety: snow, milk, sugar, rum extract, and coconut. :)


It was really nice having a cozy day snowed-in. We enjoyed a fire and ended the day roasting marshmellows and making s'mores.

The following day, Uncle Jason had more luck building a snow man with Ellie than we did. Thanks, Uncle J! Schools closed the Monday & Tuesday and had a delayed opening on Wednesday. I only had to work Thursday that week!

Eliana's 4!

She's been four since late November, but I've gotten so bad about blogging that I'm a couple of months late...sorry, Ellie. I did want to reflect a little on Eliana and her four years. She is a talkative, social, energetic girl, who only runs out of steam when we force her to go to bed. This has been her first year in school, and she absolutely loves pre-school. She also loves being a big sister. Luke's her little "Choey Boy" (no idea how she came up with that name), and she's excited that mommy has another baby in her tummy! One sign of Eliana's maturing over this year is that she understands that this baby could be a boy or a girl (and is okay with that), and as much as she wants a sister, we don't know what God is going to give us (those are her words!).
Here's a fun little look back at Eliana from birth to now...