Jacob

Forgive the blogging delay—I’ve been a tad occupied these past couple of weeks.

Jacob William Davis Grundberg was born at 8:16am on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at Christus St. John Hospital in Nassau Bay, TX.


He weighed in at 7lbs and 14 oz, and is 20 inches long. I was so happy to see such a big, healthy, NOISEY little baby boy.

He has a fringe of blondish hair around the bottom of his head, and his eyes are general newborn blue---I suspect they might turn brown in a few months, just like his brothers’ did.


William Davis is a family name on my side of the family. He was the founder of the Howsley ranch in Throckmorton, TX (where the Howsleys are kind of superstars—our name is {or used to be} on the movie theater. Nevermind that there are only about 1660 people still living there—in Throckmorton, that is, not the movie theater). Steven and I like names that mean something—especially if they’re family names. And though having two middle names makes for a rather big title for such a teeny guy, we liked it and set it in stone on the birth certificate.




David and Stevie are doing well in their new roles as big brothers. I think they’ve been a tad confused about why Mommy is limping around so much and why they’re continually being shipped from one friend’s house to another. But other than that, they’ve been a huge help in retrieving pacifiers, grabbing diapers, and doing their darndest to make baby Jake laugh (though admittedly he’s kind of a tough crowd at the moment).





Overwhelmed, frazzled, engrossed, anxious, and overjoyed are just a few of the adjectives that describe our feelings at the moment. But we’re so, so glad that Jacob is finally here. Though it’s sometimes hard work, we’re having a great time getting to know each other, and we feel incredibly grateful to have such a sweet, perfect little guy joining our family.

Final Thoughts

I've been up since about 2:45am, and I need to start getting ready at about 4. The actual delivery is scheduled for 7:15am (c-section), and so we have to be at the hospital by 5am. I am wide awake with excitement/anticipation/fear/nostalgia. I also have killer allergies, which helped to make this early morning a bit earlier than expected.

The boys are sleeping over at Marby's tonight. She called us around 9:30pm--David was exhausted and a little hysterical about not having mom and dad close by. It was heartbreaking to hear his sad, tired little voice on the phone. I wonder how he'll handle his new role as big brother after being the baby for so long. I watched him playing with Marby's littlest one tonight, and he looked so big. Stevie, I think, will take it all in stride and relish his new role as "eldest bro."

I think to myself, "how in the heck am I supposed to do this without Mom here?" I know it will be fine---but it's just not quite right. This was her special time, and OH how she loved babies. And I don't think I lifted a finger the entire time she was there after the boys were born. I had no idea how lucky I was--but I know now. Like I said, I know I'll be able to do it and everything will turn out alright. I just wish she was here.

Well, Jake, I hope you're enjoying these last few hours of being on the inside. I'm feeling awfully overwhelmed at the thought of meeting you at last--I feel like I've waited for you for so long. Be patient with me, kid, and remember that even though I'm sure I'll botch things up many a time, I already love you so much that it almost hurts. See you in a few hours.

Baby Shower

FINALLY, I'm managing to blog about the wonderful baby shower my friends Cindy White, Carina Olsen, Amber Cowley, Amie Haddock, Becky Eldridge, and Joan Jordan threw me on February 27th. It was such great fun!

Since I have a zoo theme for my nursery, it was also the theme for the baby shower. (We ended up having it at the church since there were so many people there. It was awesome!)


The food was A. MAZ. ING. I'm always amazed by people who can make delicious food and make it LOOK this pretty at the same time.


Chelle E. made the cake, and it was probably one of the most dangerously delicious things I've ever eaten.

We played a hilarious game where we had some volunteers compete on who could drink (sip?) all the water out of a baby bottle first. It was pretty entertaining. (Amber won, of course!)



We played a few other games as well, one of which was guessing which pictures were Jenny and Steve as a baby.



Baby Jacob and I got SO MANY wonderful things! And I had such a great time opening them.




All-in-all, it was a wonderful party. I had a marvelous time, and left feeling pretty darn loved.

List of Things to Do...

before the Baby arrives next Tuesday....

1. Buy shelves and a dresser for the nursery. Currently all the wonderful baby things we received from friends are strewn haphazardly around the house---and it's driving me cuckoo bananas.

2. Build/install said shelves and dresser

3. Babysit for people as much as possible during the next week, so as to not feel horribly guilty when I start farming out the boys after Little Bit arrives.

4. Think of a middle name.

5. Get my garden box hammered and nailed and filled with good soil and compost. Ideally I'd like to plant my tomatoes and peppers, but we'll see what actually gets accomplished.

6. Put the stinking crib back together.

7. Buy a baby swing so as to maintain sanity--I'm hoping the swift swinging motions will bewilder the baby temporarily and distract him enough to fall back asleep when needed.

8. Blog about the amazing baby shower my friends threw for me last Saturday---I’m trying to scrounge up a few pictures, because wouldn’t you know I forgot to bring my camera???

9. Write a besquillion thank you notes that express how truly, incredibly grateful I am to my beautiful friends, and how much I love them.

10. Take a deep breath and be happy that I'm finally going to meet him in just 10 days.

11. I'll take care of #11 right now. In the past I've always been a bit too horrified by the staggering enormity of my pregnant body to memorialize it for posterity, but this time I thought I would go ahead and do it. So without further ado, here I am at 37 weeks:

Non-sequential Goings-on of the Grundies

We took the Toyota in to the shop on Friday, and they STILL can’t definitively tell us why the stinkin’ “Check Engine” light keeps coming on. This must truly be an automotive mystery, as this is the third repair shop we’ve taken it too. Anyway, this means that all 4 of us have been packing into the car each day at 6:30am to take Steven to his van pool (which makes for very sleepy kids and one grouchy mama).

........Look how happy we were when we bought the Toyota 8 years ago. Little did we know the havoc it would wreak down the road.........

Yesterday, I took both kiddos in for their routine dental check-ups, and both came out with clear bills of health. I’m not completely sure I’ll be bringing them back to this dentist, though. For some reason, they don’t allow parents to go back with the kids for the check-ups. While I realize this is their “policy”, I just don’t like it one bit. I want to know what’s going on back there! Plus, Stevie was feeling a little scared, and I really would have liked to comfort him. (David, however, was JUST fine with leaving with some stranger who would be putting their fingers all up in his mouth. He even said to me, “I’m not gonna cry, Mama.”--and he didn’t).

..................Here they are showing off their squeaky clean teeth...................

I also went to the baby doctor yesterday, and they’ve moved up my delivery date! Jacob’s new birthday will be March 16th at 7am---that’s only 2 weeks away! So much to do! Unfortunately, I feel myself getting more and more sluggish as each day passes, and I feel like I could sleep for a week. Well, I better do it now, because they’ll be no sleeping once he gets here! (Am I really ready for this? Is anyone ever really ready for this?)

At any rate, we really need to figure out his middle name.