Family Picture

Family Picture

9.01.2013

Madison's Summer Report! Part1

Before we officially end our fun filled Summer of 2013 we want to share a few more things Madison enjoyed or accomplished:-)

Madison helped us out by washing our cars sparkling clean! Big benefit of having a pool is she can put on a swimsuit to enjoy all kinds of mess outside and magically get cleaned after jumping in the pool! * of course she gets pre-washed down with a hose if the mess is severe:-)


During our first visit to Sunset Beach Madison made this Seashell Castle with a little help from Daddy:-)

Madison is either getting ready to go exercise or help us wash the white rocks(our front yard project we will report in a separate post...). For some reason she enjoyed wearing the 80's headband... It makes her look extra cute, don't you think?


We don't know who she is getting this from but a class clown may be in the making!? We hope not!


I would like to think she got this from me, but one day she just decided to paint and she turned into this 4 year old Artist!! Her use of all the colors is just amazing!! is what I think:-)



Madison's very 1st work was quickly put into a frame for our wall... It's not for sale;-)



One day we got a little bored and ventured out to Santa Ana for this really cool playground complex called Atlantis Play Center where you pay $2 each person and there is tons of different play areas including this water play area... We just beat huge camp groups by about 15 minutes so Madison got to enjoy the water playground for that long before we all got squeezed out! We were glad she did not waste any time getting wet:-)








With the 2nd child we had to be more outgoing quicker than with the 1st... Violet did okay but we definitely had to get going before Madison was ready, but she was very understanding when bribed with an ice cream stop...:-)

This Summer very social Madison made a few new friends in the neighborhood and after dinner they visit each other in the front yard playing with bubbles, talking, etc...
Here she is returning from a jog around the block...don't worry she didn't cross the street herself :-)



Part 2 coming soon!

So glad Baaba is here!!

On July 29th, two days before Violet's arrival into this world my Mom arrived from Japan...:-) Her available dates to visit us happened to work out perfectly to cover 1 week before and 1 week after my due date but of course we were hoping that Violet arrived early to give her as much time as she could to spend with her new granddaughter... Well you know what happened:-)

We picked her up from the airport on the 29th and took that day easy to relax and enjoy all the cool things Baaba brought for Madison(mostly) and the next day we were able to introduce my Mom to Sunset Beach which is our newest go to beach here...:-) We love that this beach has waves for Dave and tons of sea shells for Madison. I haven't done much here since all the past visits has been during my big pregnant time and I've been just sitting on a blanket reading magazines and snacking:-)




I was hoping to have the baby on the 1st to match with Madison's birthday which is May 1st so I did walk a lot on the beach to try to encourage the baby to come out which I suppose really worked...:-)

Dave and I talked that in case the baby is early we need to fit in a trip to Five Guys right away which my parents really enjoyed last year... My mom does not eat meat but she gets a grilled cheese and absolutely LOVES the fries and peanuts!! So we were there for a long time working on those peanuts:-) Someone told me eating a hamburger helps induce!? I supposed this too contributed to my plan...:-)



Unfortunately for us this was the last day for us to freely go to places and enjoy what Southern California has to offer for a while since my wish came true at 8:22am the following morning...

I had originally asked my mom to take care of all the meals after the baby comes and we thought we will be okay but it wasn't the meals we needed all the help with, but instead being Madison's go to play buddy who can give 90% of attention to... We casually thought yes we can take care of the newborn and a 4 year old at the same time while sleep deprived and exhausted, but our 4 year old is so full of energy and has such a thirst for attention that we were sooooo glad my mom was there to spend lots and lots of time with her! AND we are really thankful for all the delicious meals she prepared for us of course;-)

I am very ashamed to tell you that Madison is not fluent in Japanese... She knows some key words but not much more and this I'm not ashamed of but my mom is not fluent in English either but understands much more than she can speak so it was really interesting and funny to watch them play or interact while speaking their first languages... and somehow it was working out! They even came up with a game that caused such loud happy squeals from Madison that we had to close the doors to the dance room so Violet could take her nap...:-) Mom said the rules of the game were a little tricky but she just went along with Madison and they had fun so we never clarified the rules with Madison since we didn't want to ruin the fun, but got it on film for our record...:-)

The simple rule of this game was to hit each other on the back with the ball but my mom said once in a while you get hit and Madison would tell you to go stand in the corner but then there is only two of them playing the game so I have no idea how the game could keep going... Anyhow as you can see Madison was just having a blast so none of the details matter!:-)



While my mom was here we started up a tradition of watching movies before bedtime and introduced mom to so many movies that we enjoy... We watched the 4 Shrek movies, Despicable Me, Cars1 & 2, Madagascar1 & 2, then Ice Age1... Usually finished a movie over two days so this went on for a while... My mom watched them in English of course but most of the time she understood and laughed at the right time so we knew she wasn't faking...:-) She loved all of them and is planning on watching all the movies in Japanese once home... It was really relaxing and fun, it really helped that Violet usually napped during the movies... Thank you Violet:-)

Another funny thing that happened was that since my mom loves walking she went out for walks by herself a few times and came home right when we were starting to think she was never gonna come back to us... One of the walks she went all the way to the near by playground she went with Dave and Madison last year and that's about 2 miles round trip...:-)

Anyways, it was the quickest two weeks of our lives and I was sooo glad my mom was able to be there to meet Violet from day 1 and to help us out with so many things. It was just impossible to see her off without tears running down my face like a crazy person... I partially blame my post pregnancy hormones but I just wished she could have stayed longer and didn't have to go back to work...:-( 



We made Mom read this ridiculously long book in Japanese...:-)

Mom and Madison enjoying our harvest:-)

My parents got Madison her very first LEGO blocks!! She loves them!

8.07.2013

Violet Nami Klein - The Birth Story/バイオレット ナミ クライン - 誕生日の話



The Short Story:
短い話:

A sharp stabbing pain woke Anna up around midnight on Wednesday. We made the decision to get to the hospital to make sure everything was okay at around 1:45am.
At 8:22am Violet Nami Klein was born!!
水曜日の夜12時頃、いきなり凄い腰痛に起こされたアンナ、そしてアンナの叫び声に起こされた僕。その後1時45分頃一応病院に行って来ようと決め、お母さんとマディソンを家に残して出発しました。
朝8時22分、バイオレット ナミ クライン が誕生しました!!

The Long Story:
長い話: 

Around midnight on Wednesday night absolutely the sharpest pain hit the side of Anna's back and woke her up and her scream woke me up. Her whole body was shaking and she was saying how cold she was which was very strange because she had always been hot with another person growing inside her... She had been experiencing a lot of Braxton Hicks up until now, but none of them had lead to a true labor so normally we would not consider the small contractions that started at around the time of the sharp back-side pain a working labor and since we were planning on a natural birth we would not leave the house until the labor is well underway at 60 seconds contraction and 5 minutes apart. BUT THIS back pain was something new and very, very painful and although it got less painful it didn't totally go away so after an hour of laying down we decided that it's better to get sent home than this pain lead to a bigger problem should we ignore it, so off we went to Kaiser Permanente in Harbor City...
水曜日の夜12頃 、寝ていたアンナが今まで感じた事の無いほどの腰痛でいきなり起こされ、その時のアンナの悲鳴で起こされた僕。アンナの体は痛みで震えていていつも赤ちゃんのせいで暑い暑いと言っていたのに、この時は寒くて寒くて仕様が無いと何かがいつも通りじゃないみたいでした。これまでちょくちょく弱い陣痛を経験していたので、いつもなら慌てて病院に行く事はしないし、麻酔とか何も無しでの出産を計画していたので、病院に行くのは陣痛がもっと強くならないといけません。でも、このとっても強い腰痛はマディソンの時には無かった物で、初めての経験なので1時間ほどしてもあんまり良くならなかった後、一応病院に行って看て貰おうと決めました。寝ているアンナのお母さんとマディソンを家に残して、朝の1時45分頃出発しました...

What we were glad was that Anna wasn't in really serious pain in the car where I had to focus on driving and not needing to give her back rubs like I had to do when we took a taxi to the hospital on the Upper West Side where we had Madison. To get to the hospital we had to take Pacific Coast Highway...this may sound nice as you envision the ocean, or the cliffs of Malibu, but not this part of the Pacific Coast Highway, this part brought you through the part of Long Beach that is not known for its niceness and has tons of traffic lights and trucks. During the day this route can get really trafficky and can take about an hour to get to the hospital so we were happy it was 1:45am and can't complain about our 20 minute drive to the labor and delivery parking spot right by the hospital entrance.
マディソンの時は家から20分ほどの所にある病院にタクシーを使って行ったから、僕は陣痛が強いアンナの腰を揉んだり面倒を見る事が出来たけど、今回は僕が運転しなきゃいけなかったので、まだ陣痛が本当に始まったのか分からないぐらいの時に病院に向かう事が出来てちょっとホッとする事が出来ました。しかも夜中の2時には日中は1時間ほどかかってしまう道も20分ほどで病院の入り口に到着と文句無しです。

As we walked through the entrance we both felt awkward because we were casually walking in and saying hello to the security guards and Anna's minor pained face didn't scream a woman in labor... We went up to the Labor and Delivery floor and pushed a button that says "I'm here to have a baby". After the 10 minutes of really painfully annoying paperwork part we were lead to one of the triage rooms and after an exam we found out that Anna was 4cm dilated... Anna remembered from the Bradley book that 4cm is when the true labor either kicks in or the false labor dies down and since we did not want to leave and come back IF the true labor started the RN nurse suggested we walk the halls of the hospital floor for an hour and a half and see what happens. If nothing changes we could go home then. That sounded like a great idea since we liked that this was happening while Madison and Anna's Mom were sleeping at home. So we walked around the labor and delivery & Post-partem floor which took us about 15 minutes each lap. I was using my stopwatch to keep track of Anna's contractions and knew that although her contractions were consistent they were not yet long enough or strong enough according to the books we read and our prior experience to expect that they were really working contractions. Anna was able to still laugh at my ridiculous jokes so I was sure we were headed home.
病院の入り口を通り警備の人に気軽にこんばんはと言いながら、やっぱりここに来るのは早すぎたんじゃないかなと思っていた僕達 でした。出産病等に着いて面倒くさい書類提出を終えた後、とりあえず陣痛が本当に進んでいるのか確認しました。結果は4センチ...僕達が読んでいた本に寄ると本当の陣痛は4センチで始まるか止まるかすると書いてあったので、慌てて家に帰ってまた来なきゃいけなくなるより、ここで歩き回って1時間後にもう一回検査をする事に決めました。マディソンが寝ている間に赤ちゃんが産めたらそれが一番良いなーって思っていたからです。でも、アンナの顔を見ると強い陣痛をこらえている気配も無く、僕のシャレに笑ったりしていたので、まだまだこ れから時間かかるんだろうなーと思っていました。 


About an hour and a half later Anna got examined again and to our surprise she was at 6cm and 80% effaced and station+1 or -1 or something! Looks like we are gonna have the baby today:-) We settled into a labor and delivery room and since we were doing natural and wouldn't be hooked up to anything we went back to walking around for another hour or so... When we first arrived the place was pretty quiet and we seemed to be the only ones needing attention but by the time we got our room and started our second round of walking the place was just starting to get a little more crowded. Anna kept walking with medium strength contractions and only occasionally had to stop walking and relax but none of them made her feel like she needed to lay down and really try to focus and relax. We used The Bradley Method(A husband coached birth) with Madison and loved it so of course we were using the same method with Violet and in the book it talks about three different emotional stages in labor to help you determine where you are... First stage being the happy emotion stage where you are supposed to stay at home, second stage where you are working serious through contractions and during this stage we are supposed to get to the hospital and finally the third stage where you don't think you can do it but that means you are almost to the pushing part... Well with Madison, Anna went through all the stages like a textbook so when Anna stayed in the first stage and was able to smile, laugh and carry on conversations during contractions we just thought we still have a lot of work to do...  but again we were thankful that all of this was happening in the middle of the night for Madison's sake...:-)
病棟内を1時間半ほどグルグルと歩き回って、再検査の結果は何と6センチ!!やったー!今日が誕生日だー:)正式に病室を貰ってまたもう1時間ほど歩 き回って、陣痛がマディソンの時みたいに強くなるのを待ちました。僕達が使った出産方法は全部医療法無しのブラッドリーと言う方法で、それは夫が出産をコーチしながら生む方法で、その本には妊婦が経験する3ステージの感情地点というのが書いてあります。マディソンの時は本当に本に書いてあった通りにまず最初の"陣痛が始まって怖い嬉しい"ステージ、そして次の"陣痛が本当に働いている"ステージ(このステージの間に病院に行くのが一番)で、そして最後に"本当に最後まで出来るか分からない弱音"のステージです。最後のステージに着けば、もうゴールは目の前でもう少しで赤ちゃんを押し出す事が出来ると言う事。アンナはここまで最初のステージの感情のままだったので、これが起きているのがマディソンが寝ている夜中で良かったと思うばかりでした。



We realized it was going to be a busy day for the doctors when we had to wait over half an hour to get examined for the 3rd time but it was well worth the wait because the face that popped in our room was no one, but our own midwife!! We were really hoping she would be on call that day and were so glad she was!! We told her more than one doctor had been trying to scare Anna into getting a heplock put in, which was basically some plastic piece that would stick out of Anna's arm and allow the lazy doctors to more easily start an IV line in case of emergency... Unfortunately, we fell for it because Anna is notoriously difficult to draw blood from and especially now with her swollen limbs so we didn't want to take any chances, but luckily the incompetent nurse who stuck Anna with the huge needle and provided Anna with (by her own words) more pain then any contraction she suffered the entire time, wasn't able to get the thing in properly... The nurse cheerfully noted she could have another nurse try, but we quickly said, "Uh, No Thank You!" to the Heplock and are so glad we did!
僕達が始めに到着した時にはとっても静かで僕達ともう一組ぐらいしか患者はいなかったんだけど、病室に入った頃には外がだんだんとにぎやかになって来て看 護婦の一人から今日は忙しくなりそうって言う事聞きました。本当は1時間半後に再検査をして貰う予定だってんだけど、夜間の先生も忙しいのかその後もう 30分ほど待つ事に...その30分後に現れたのは何とアンナの担当医!アンナと僕は感激です!この日はアンナの担当医が病院に来る日か分からなかったの で、先生の顔を見た途端とってもリラックスする事が出来ました。でも、アンナは相変わらず僕と普通に会 話をしたりと本当にもうすぐ赤ちゃんが生まれるような様子を見せていません...おかしいなー

As soon as our mid-wife Kerry arrived, that was one of the first things we told her, that we declined the Heplock, and she was totally cool about it. She told us to not worry and if worst came to worst they could get it in through my hand which they were trying to avoid since we didn't want it to be in Anna's way. Then she gave us the update, Anna was now 8cm and the baby was extremely low:-) She offered to break Anna's water to speed things along, but Anna remembered how intense the pain had gotten once her water was broken with Madison, so Anna was a little hesitant and also she wanted to feel the sensation of her water breaking on its own so we decided until she is 9cm or ready to push to try to let the water break on its own...and still we waited for the really bad contractions or some kind of stage 2 or 3 emotional labor sign post to show up...
そして先生に寄るとアンナは8センチで赤ちゃんがすごい下に来ていると全部順調の用です。 でも、ステージ2と3はいつ来るんだろー!?

Well it didn't show and after Kerry broke the water Anna was ready to push... About 20 minutes later
Violet Nami Klein was born!!
7lb12oz and 19inches:-)
全然来なかったです、しかも20分ほど押した後全部順調にバイオレットの誕生です!!
体重3516gで身長48.3cmです:)

Hooray!!
やったー!!

 Cutting the umbilical cord!
へその尾を切りまーす!

Getting cleaned! 
きれいに洗って貰いました!

Madison is soothing Violet with her Seahorse...
マディソンお姉ちゃんがたつのおの音楽で落ち着かせてあげてます:)

3 generations look on...
3世代で見守る...





Same going home outfit as Madison:-)
マディソンが来た病院退院の服:)




We were worried about having a baby at Kaiser's regular labor and delivery instead of a really nice birthing center like we used for Madison where we had a Jacuzzi tub to help the pain but after this experience we were so glad we didn't have access to a tub and enjoyed being allowed to just walk around and let gravity do its' job. If this was our first child I would have been bitter about reading all those Bradley books and learning how much work the husband has to do with the ice chips and the back rubs and the encouraging...I didn't have to do any of that this time :-) With Madison I bruised Anna's back something fierce...and she was appreciative...this time I got a little bored, only having to offer Anna a sip of water when I had nothing better to do :-) I didn't resort to turning on the TV, or sleeping though, so score for me :-)
今回バイオレットを出産した病院にはマディソンの時みたいなとっても良い出産センター(病室内にお風呂があって陣痛の間そこで浸かる事が出来た)が無かったから、とっても心配していたんだけど簡単に歩き回って陣痛を進める事が出来て、予想していたよりもとっても良い経験が出来ました。マディソンの時にはアンナの腰を痣だらけになるほど揉んだりととても急がしかったのに今回は正反対でお水をちゃんと飲んでいるように見る意外何もする事が無かったりと、ちょっと困るぐらいでした:)文句を言っている訳じゃ無いんだけど... :)

It's funny how your mind works...as Anna went through the extremely difficult first eight months of pregnancy (before she stopped working) we were sure this would be it...then the Labor and Delivery was so "easy" so now I see number three just around the corner :-)
Not sure if Anna feels quite the same yet however :-)
そのせいなのか、3人目も悪くないなーともう思っている僕です。最初の8ヶ月の妊娠が大変だったアンナはまだ3人目賛成してくれないと思うけど:)