Gideon Ned Armstrong

Gideon was born into our family on June 18th at 1:38 pm.  7 lbs 7 oz.  19 inches?  Maybe 18.5.  It really depends on if you ask the hospital that said they barely stretched him to 19 or the nurse who said he was 18.5 a week later.  (I didn't get percentiles from the hospital, but at his one week, I think his height was 2%, his weight was 16%, and his head was 66%.  Not so proportioned)  He was kind of tiny.  (Everyone, including the nurse, was surprised that he was as small as he was.  They were all sure he was going to be huge.)  His labor and delivery (and even pregnancy really) seemed pretty quick, but to us it seemed like we had waited FOREVER to meet him.  Ryan and I talked about this briefly the night before he was born.  We spent a lot of time praying and fasting and really hoping that we would have a baby #2 in our family.  We did a lot of things that we felt we had to do before we'd really be blessed with more people in our family.  We've talked a lot about some of those things too.  Most of them seemed (and still seem) completely unrelated to having children, but we don't claim to understand all the ways that inspiration and revelation work, we only claim to do our best to act in accordance with said inspiration and revelation.

That being said, I don't know if I can adequately explain the joy that Gideon has already brought into our lives.  My experience with him is way different than having Vidalia (although trust me I wanted both of them very much).  When Vidalia was born, it was just strange.  This little person that to me looked like herself and no one I really knew.  I didn't know her and yet she was my child.  It was a strange feeling that quickly gave way to adoration and abundant love.

Pretty much my whole pregnancy with Gideon I tried to convince myself that he was real and that he would be born alive.  When he was actually born he was super purple and didn't cry and I super panicked and asked a billion times if he was actually breathing (he was).  I loved him from the moment I saw him.  Maybe because I'm more experienced;  Maybe because I spent nine months psyching myself out;  I don't really know.

Now I've officially announced that he was born on our blog in probably way too many words.  I'll save more thoughts and more information on our family for future posts.

Embarrassing Moment and Funny Doings

First, the embarrassing moment (why does embarrassing need two Rs and two Ss? What a high maintenance, particular word!):
            Anyway, I was leading the Social Skills group with patients at the Utah State Hospital. We were simulating planning a road trip to practice various social skills that would be required. So I found a site that searches out hotels and such-the group wanted a package that included 9 rooms in a 5-star hotel with a conference room setup for 12 hours every day for the whole 5 days.
           I entered all this info in to the site thinking it would generate an estimate of how much that would cost and which hotels have that capability... what actually happened is the website assigned us a travel agent with a promise that she would be contacting us soon to discuss our options! whoops! So, I here publicly apologize to chubbman69@yahoo.com and to whoever has the phone number 555-555-5555.


Second, the doings that amused me today.
              We have a splash pad at the park near our house. The fountains that shoot up out of it are on a varied schedule; occasionally all the fountains will shut off at the same time for a short period of time. Every time that happened, all the kids at the splash pad let out a collective, very disappointed "Ahhhh, No..". Then, about 10 seconds later they would all shriek with alarm/delight when the water came back on. :)  Also, we met up there with our friends Melissa and Rei (Rei is 5 years old). Rei took Vidalia into the water several times, usually for about 3 minutes before they would both walk back to us and announce "We had so much fun in there! It was so fun!". Or as Vidalia would say it "We ha soma fuh! We ha soma fuh Mommy, inair!"