Feeling outnumbered

Here is a shot of the Scoville boys. A mighty handsome bunch. We'll have to get J-P some Christmas PJ's.


Grandma leaves tomorrow. I think Max will have a hard time...he has grown quite attached. He definitely prefers his spry, doting grandma over his tired, sore mama.

Day Twelve

The baby is growing so fast. Too fast. I wish I could skim down my milk...I'm not prepared for another super-sized baby. He is pretty darn cute, but I'm biased of course. We had a lovely Thanksgiving, thanks to my mom. She even made the stuffing with homemade, gluten-free cornbread and rice bread so Max could eat it too. I can't believe Christmas is around the corner. There is no time to lose the baby weight in time for Christmas card pictures. Oh well.

Check out our latest pics on flickr

Day Six

Ian is great baby. He loves to eat, snuggle, and sleep. He rarely cries. Max is having a blast playing outside with Grandma. We are so lucky she is here.


Mom has been trying to recuperate from going three full days and nights without sleep and having unexpected surgery. Dad is busy changing diapers, entertaining Max, and helping out.

Ian has been very patient with Max's hugs, kisses, and love pats (see above picture). Hopefully he survives.

New Addition

Ian William Scoville

...arrived at 5:40 a.m. on Monday. He weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces and measured 21 inches long. J-P took this picture seconds after he was born. The induction went well (the gel immediately brought on strong contractions), and the birth went better than last time. The doctor did some reconstructive surgery afterward to repair the damage from delivery number one.

Ian and I had a rough couple of days (no eating or sleeping), but we are finally home and things are going great now. He is a sweet baby and has been patient with his affectionate older brother. We are so excited to have him here. I'll try to post more pictures as soon as I catch up on sleep. In the meantime check out flickr.

Busy Waiting...

While I have been anxiously awaiting a call from the hospital (induction), Max has been very busy keeping me on my feet. Gravity is definitely on my side here. I have been chasing him around the house as he tears apart all of the cleaning and organizing I've been doing. He has packed and unpacked my hospital bag several times, each time adding random treasures that he finds around the house.

When he's done tearing apart the house, we move to the backyard so he can continue his destruction. Today he ate an unusually large amount of mud. I still can't figure out why he likes it and goes back for more. I suppose I need to learn to contain my reaction.


I don't normally let him get this out of hand, but he had to endure another fasting blood test this morning so I let him go crazy when we got home to compensate for the trauma. Max + no breakfast = lots of tears. Poor kid. We also had to collect a urine sample- not easy to do when your child is not potty trained. Hopefully we will have some answers about his thyroid trouble soon.

week 40

Still no baby. I am "ripe", have had my membranes stripped, and even tried taking evening primrose oil for the first time. Nothing works. My body likes being pregnant so much it wants to stay that way forever. Oh well, J-P and Max are both sick so it's probably not the best time to go into labor. Hopefully it won't be too much longer, I think this baby gained 5 pounds this week from a Halloween candy overdose.


Max is so intrigued by my massive belly. He is slightly confused, however, and thinks everyone has a "baby" in their tummy. When we ask him where the baby is he points to his own tummy, J-P's tummy, a stranger's tummy...whoever is closest. Aside from being sick, he has been running around the house, singing, climbing, making messes, and playing 'peek a boo' with anything he can find.

Variations on a theme

...So our desktop computer contracted a deadly virus and, well, died. Since J-P has been working around the clock on grad school applications (on the lap-top), I have had minimal access to the internet. No fun for me. He finished and submitted the last one today, so I stole his computer and locked myself in the office to do some much needed blogging and on-line shopping. Oh how a stay-at-home mom needs her connection to the outside world.


Lately, I have been preoccupied with food. One day I will make a batch of pumpkin cookies, and then eat the whole batch. In one day. No joke. The next day I feel fat and guilty and cook up a storm of vegetables. After a couple days of eating vegetables, I crave sweets and make cookies again. After I've polished off a dozen or so, I ask J-P to hide them from me. A few hours later I am ready for another cookie and I throw a royal pregnant tantrum when J-P won't tell me where he hid them. After a series of threats he gives in and let's me have at least one more. The next day I feel guilty and run to the store to buy vegetables. On my vegetable days, I have been making soup. It's an easy way to eat a lot of vegetables at once, and there is something about eating soup in the fall that makes me happy. Even if it is 90 degrees outside. I have been making a lot of different versions of butternut squash soup. Some are good, some are gross...hopefully I'll perfect my recipe soon. My last attempt was a curried butternut squash soup with sauteed mushrooms, kale, and onions. I had to exercise a lot of self-control not to eat all of the curried mushrooms while the squash was roasting. Next time around I'll dump in a handful of cayenne to see if I can kick-start labor.


In other Chez Scoville news, we had a fun Halloween chatting with friends and neighbors on our bishop's driveway. In AZ a lot of people have homemade chili potluck parties on their driveway because the weather is so nice. Everyone brings their candy and passes it out from their camping chair. Much more fun than answering the door every three minutes. I didn't dress up, but fooled a few people. My favorite comment of the night: "Oh, are you supposed to be a pregnant lady or something?" Runner up comment: "Is that a costume? (as they pointed to my belly)" I chose to be practical instead of creative this year, so Max got to wear Halloween pajamas.

Let me out!

Boys are a different species. I know this because I grew up with two brothers. Being the only girl in my family was essential training for my current position: mom to Max. Max is all boy. He prefers to be outdoors at all times, thus enabling him to eat dirt, weeds, rocks, and ruin all of his clothes and shoes with mud. His self-appointed full time job is to rearrange all of the natural elements in our backyard. He takes special care to remove all the dirt from our plant pots and to strategically throw rocks into the pool and onto the lawn so his dad can run them over with the lawnmower. He is quite skilled at this task. When it is time to come inside I strip him down at the door and carry him (kicking and screaming in protest) straight to the tub. He loathes being indoors. He hangs on the door handle, cries, and begs to be released into the wild whenever we are inside. Unfortunately for Max, my medical compression pantyhose and I don't last too long in the 85-90 degree weather. Unfortunately for me, Max has no patience for nylon/pregnancy induced heat stroke. Let's just say we have some long days.


In other family news, my brother Tyler got engaged last night to his girlfriend Kathryn. Congratulations to both of you! I am very excited to have equal numbers of boys and girls in our family, as I have been outnumbered for quite a while.

New Pool Fence and Sand Box

The weather is cooler and the pool fence is in place. Max can finally play outside! This warranted the purchase of his first outdoor toy-- a sand box. We picked it up yesterday and he has been enthralled with it. Totally absorbed in the mystery of sand. I tried to get a good shot of him playing but I could not get him to look at the camera. I was putting on a one-man circus complete with song, dance, clapping, snapping, and a jiggling over-sized belly. He didn't look up once. I guess I can't compete with sand. Here is a shot of our pool fence...it turned out better than I expected it to.


You can check out more pictures on flickr by clicking on the box to the right...

Nocuous Nylons

I am vehemently opposed to wearing nylons. I don't like them. They are synthetic, itchy, scratchy, uncomfortable, and, in my opinion, only appropriate for women over 50. I don't own a pair. Well, I didn't own a pair...until today. I can explain.

With the arrival of pregnancy number two came the unwelcome arrival of my first varicose vein. That's right, just one. A small one, at that. Nonetheless, being the paranoid pregnant person that I am, I decided to point it out to my OB at my last appointment. He immediately grabbed his pad and wrote me a prescription for medical grade compression pantyhose. A prescription for pantyhose? While I agree that pantyhose should not be available for purchase by the general public, was a prescription really necessary?

Me: "Um, do I really have to wear them?"
Doc: "Yes, you don't want it to get worse."

I went to fill my prescription (not covered by insurance, by-the-way) and the total came to $115 for one pair. Yikes. Luckily they didn't have my size. I came home and found the same thing on-line for $25. I am wearing them right now. The package should have come with a warning label of the possible side effects. The wearing of this product may cause bothersome sensations such as creepy crawly, itchy scratchy, heebie jeebies, and general anxiety and paranoia. Avoid wearing this product in houses with an internal temperature of 80 degrees or more to prevent heat stroke, hysteria, and excessive perspiration. Wearing these things for the next six weeks will be sheer torture. After the baby comes, I will consider donating them to the federal government to be used in the coerced interrogation of convicted terrorists. In the meantime, I'll be waiting to exhale.