Recipe: Very Purple Yogurt

1. Start with yogurt. We've been using Stoneyfield Farms organic lowfat, 3 months past it's expiration date.
   
2. Add purpleness (Trader Joe's organic low sugar blueberry preserves)
   
3. Mix until very purple.
   
4. Optional: add uncooked oatmeal and chopped kiwi.
   

Quinn update

Quinn is gigantic now. He is way too big for the baby bjorn, so I carry him around in the backpack. 

He is getting quite grabby. Last weekend while we were at Target shopping for Halloween costumes, he kept grabbing my right ear and trying to tear it off.

The night before, we took him to his first concert: Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit. It was a mellow lineup with Jack Johnson being the most upbeat act after ZZ Top cancelled. The whether was nice though, and Quinn stayed awake and engaged pretty much the whole night long.

Jessica's Axe

Sometime in July, Jessica used her saved-up allowance to buy her first electric guitar.

I had done some research online and the top contenders were the Squier 22.75" scale length mini strat vs a 19" Greg Bennett mini avion Les Paul clone. I wondered whether the strat might be too big for her, so I took her down the street to Gelb Music to check one out. We parked around the corner and stopped by their used gear shop on the way to the main store.

Jessica couldn't have been a cuter sight as we walked in, ragged green blankie clutched tightly.

Hanging on the wall was a used black mini strat, the precise thing we had come to see. I pulled it down and it seemed to be in good shape. The price was right too. At $59 it was 40% off the street price for a new one.

We plugged it into an amp, and I handed it off to Jessica to see what she thought. The shopkeeper watched approvingly as she shyly plunked away at her high E string only arrangement of Iron Man. From across the store another shopper gave me a congragulator "high five" look.

I'm not sure whether it was me or Jessica who was more proud as we walked out of the store with her new purchase.

Bad memories

Roxie called for me the other night and when I came in, I discovered that Lala was on the floor. I retrieved it for her, but she threw it down again. "It smells", she declared. It had been rained on earlier in the day during Googleween, and I guess this had affected it somehow.

"What does it smell like" I asked.

"Bad memories."

"Bad memories of what?"

"Bad memories of Harry Potter."

"What about Harry Potter."

"Scary things. Like ghostes."

Ant Invasion

We had an ant invasion this morning, and Roxie had some ideas on how to get rid of them. "We could scare them away! Phoebe could bark at them and I could be a zombie!" In hindsight, I should have had them do this while I videoed, but I wasn't thinking clearly under the pressure of dealing with the ants while preparing for "work day" which is technically the first day of school. I did suggest that perhaps a zombie dog would give the best of both worlds. Rox liked this. "I could have dog ears, and zombie arms, and zombie legs!" She waved her arms clumsily to demonstrate.

Quinn just keeps on growing!

He was 12 lbs, 10 oz today and he measured 23.5 inches! Woa - he is growing like a weed and in the upper percentiles for his age!

Quinn's last doctor visit

At one month, Quinn weighed in at 10 lbs, 1 oz. Amazing because he is gaining weight so much faster then the girls. Almost three pounds in three weeks is incredible for one of my babies. He was 7 lbs, 10 oz at three days old. He also grew two inces to 22 inches. We see the doctor again tomorrow. I can't believe that it has been a month. Time flies when you aren't sleeping!

Jessica In Utero Blog 5-30-00

This is cut and paste from the original blog. I will just date these in the title as I move them over from the other source. The way I am writing the blog kind of cracks me up.
************
George and Amy entertain Judd Monoson and Maureen Doyle in San Francisco for Memorial Day Weekend. Maureen and Judd drove up from LA and once they took off to drive back home, Amy decides to get ready for work the next day. She takes a pregnancy test and realizes that she is pregnant.

We conceived the baby at Will Baggott's college graduation in Colorado Springs, CO. This is the second pregnancy at very high elevation. The date of conception is most likely 5-19-00. We make an appointment to see the doctor at 6 weeks to see if there is a heartbeat this time. We are very excited, but decide to try to keep this a secret until 3 months, just in case...

*************

Keep it secret in a blog - hahahaha!

Quinn Patrick Baggott...Day 1 to Day 6

So I have kept a "blog" about our kids since Jessica was born (2001) in multiple different locations and formats. It cracks me up that I am now entering my first entry onto our cohesive kids' blog with the birth of our fourth child. I will back load all the other sources, but since Quinn is so new and the information is still fresh in my mind, I thought I would enter it now.

Quinn Patrick Baggott was born on 6-10 weighing in at 7 lbs 11 oz at 8:12 am (get it? 6-10, 7-11, 8-12!)

My water broke on Monday afternoon at 2:30 pm. I had been up all night with Roxie who had the stomach flu. She booted every 10 minutes for hours. I had an appointment with Dr. Hamilton at 12 noon so after sleeping from 8:00 am - 11:30 am, I trudged off to the office to wait another hour to see the doctor. I asked if we could skip the internal examination and Dr. Hamilton said I could if I came back on Friday for one, so I told him to go right ahead. He told me it would be at least another week. I told him that I knew I was getting close, but he said he could barely reach my cervix.

Well, when my water broke, I tried calling George at work. No answer. I tried calling his cell. No answer. I texted him as he was simultaneously texting me ("in meeting") Call home now - wyet jsut btoke. He says he wasn't sure what that meant, but that he knew it was serious. I have never had my water break spontaneously before (the doctor has always broken it for me in the hospital) and I was bugging out because when they break my water in the hospital, I have my baby within 30 minutes. I wasn't prepared to have my baby in 30 minutes this time.

Nicole had just put Roxie into bed with me and was going to pick up Jessica and Phoebe from school when my water broke, so I yelled out to her. She ran in the room and when I told her, she immediately asked if she should call George (she was totally freaked too!) I told her no, that we should strip the sheets (all I did all night the night before was wash sheets and run the dishwasher from the puking episode with Roxie so another set of sheets made my head spin). I then called Dr. Hamilton who told me it could be a long time before I was really needing to be at the hospital, so he prescribed some antibiotics and told me to stay at home until my contractions were 5 minutes apart and 1 minute long (the regular drill).

George picked up the girls from school and rushed home to find me sitting on towels and feeling pretty good. I had a contraction every hour or so, but nothing too horrible. I took a nap in the early evening for several hours (still trying to catch up from the night before) and then got up again. Finally, I went to bed at 11:30 pm and as soon as I laid on my side, my contractions started to become more regular. By 3:15 am, they were coming 5 minutes apart and lasting a minute in length - and they hurt like a bitch because I didn't have the bag of waters to provide some cushioning. I called Dr. Hamilton and told him I was going to go to the hospital and tried to get George up. He asked for 5 more minutes! I woke Nicole up (she screamed!) and kissed all the girls goodbye (Jessica woke up and couldn't fall back asleep) and we were at the hospital by 4 am.

Dan, Tracy and Chuck made it to the hospital in time for Quinn's birth. The first labor and delivery nurse was awesome and thought I was way younger than I am (we LOVED her!) and the anesthesiologist had to try for my epidural twice. My hypnotherapy for needles worked like a charm again and by the time I was ready to push, I was so completely numb because things went along so quickly with this birth, that I couldn't feel a thing. I had to really concentrate on what it felt like to push because I couldn't feel a thing! I pushed Quinn out in 15 seconds (literally!) and everyone was completely shocked! There was a male nursing student from UCSF in attendance and he was a chiropractor (for 20 years or more) and had three kids of his own and he was even amazed. Piece of cake!

George caught Quinn and cut his umbilical cord. I was amazed to find out that Dr. Hamilton is the only doctor to allow fathers to catch their babies at the hospital (one of the labor and delivery nurses told us).

Quinn had an umbilical true knot. Everyone medical person in the room was amazed to see it - Chuck said he would never eat calamari again. Dr. Hamilton said it was good luck...after a little research it seems as if Quinn's luck was in surviving the True Knot.

They placed him on my chest underneath my robe and within moments he was interested in breastfeeding and took less than 10 minutes to figure it out. He has been on the breast continuously since. I didn't allow them to bathe or weigh him for a long time and finally George had a chance to hold his son.

Jessica, Phoebe, and Roxie came right to the hospital to meet Quinn after the birth. We kept the big girls out of school that day so that they could come and bond with the baby. They were initially more interested in the presents that my parents sent them to open when the baby arrived, than with the baby, but that soon passed and they all hankered to hold him. We told Roxie she couldn't hold the baby because of her recent illness, but as soon as we were home she would get her chance.

We did not name the baby until the following day. We had to name him to get out of the hospital. I left after staying 24 hours. Our final names were Henry, Quinn, Jack, and Luke. George really wanted Luke. I had always wanted Jack (since Jessica was conceived) and George never said he didn't like it. He says he thought we would never have a boy! I found Quinn and liked that it was Irish and that it meant wise, intelligent. Henry was probably my favorite next to Jack going into the name game - I thought it was very cute. We spent weeks prior to the birth running what George called "focus groups" with all our friends and family which always ended up with the litany of stupid names for our only son. Good times! George wouldn't go with Henry...he knew a Hank that wouldn't allow him to go with that name and ultimately, Henry was the first name eliminated after the baby was born. At one point, George wanted to settle the name thing on the first day of the baby's existence with a coin toss, which I wisely shot down as a method for choosing. The next day, and after much research, we decided to go with Quinn. The Bob Dylan song "The Mighty Quinn" and its lyrics were interesting, the Irish connection to the Baggott last name, and just seeing what would suit the baby brought us to Quinn. We needed a middle name because originally we were going to use my maiden name as the baby's middle name, but it didn't sound right with Quinn, so we started experimenting with that too. We decided to go with Patrick because it was George's Dad's middle name and it was a totally normal Irish name which sounded cute with Quinn and Baggott. What a chore, but a perfect ending. We love the name now and are glad we didn't do the coin toss.

Before we left the hospital on Wednesday, we received word from Nicole that Phoebe had to be picked up from school within one hour of drop off. She was now throwing up! It was the girls' last day of school and a half day at that! When I arrived home with the baby, I sequestered myself in my room. I also experienced one of my lowest parental moments upon arriving home when Jessica and Roxie wanted to snuggle me having missed me overnight and feeling displaced by Quinn suddenly and Phoebe needed her Mommy because she felt so sick, I wanted to split into four. I nearly lost it right there while my entire family was melting down before my eyes. We had to try to explain to them that we needed to remain separated to spare Quinn from illness, but of course that wasn't a good enough excuse for them and who could blame them.

Quinn peed on his head and in his face on my second at home diaper change - very disturbing for us both. Luckily, Mommy has learned from her mistakes and no other pee in the face incidents have occurred since.

Quinn had his first doctor appointment with Dr. Elisa Song. She isn't our normal pediatrician, but we saw her in our pediatrician's absence. He cried for the entire car ride of 5 minutes and then nursed for the entire appointment (except during weighing) and for some afterwards and then slept for 4.5 hours. Longest sleeping session to date. My milk came in that day and he has been full and sleeping for stretches of 2 -3 hours ever since.

I also noticed that Quinn had a nursing blister on his lower lip when we got home from the doctor's office. I researched it and having one on the bottom lip is unusual. He also has the usual one on the top lip that is most visible when he first comes off the breast.

His umbilical cord stump came off today (seemed a bit early) but all is well in that department so far. Jessica woke up today with a fever and laid in bed and watched movies all day - but no throwing up so we are all on pins and needles waiting for that shoe to drop.

He is so perfect and we are thrilled that he is here. Today was Father's Day and George played Dad to J, P, and R all day with little interactions with Quinn. We gave him framed pictures of all the kids for his desk at work - his guitar girls and of course the one above of Quinn.