Introducing Maddox Ammon Livingston

So what has happened lately? Oh yeah, the new kid. I guess the blog needs to be changed now, since it’s five instead of four, but oh well. Anyways, his name was a last-minute entry and squeezed out the other contenders just a few hours before he left the hospital. I found it on a baby name web site late last night after the kids went to sleep. I told Carol this morning and she liked it, so that’s what it ended up being. Now, let me get to all the details.
Some of you have heard some of them (or all of these, maybe), but many have not, so here is the whole story. It started Friday evening the 19th. We did our family baby pool. The days were June 20 – July 4 (due date was July 1). The last two dates available were 20 and 21. I had the last pick so I went ahead and put my name down on 20 figuring Carol would want the 21st. She said, “that’s OK, I’ll take the 20th. I said: “I can just see it, you’ll have the baby tomorrow, just so you can win.” So at 4:00 am on Saturday the 20th Carol woke up with a strong contraction. Again, at about 5:15, another one woke her up. I was planning to go to the temple that morning with Daniel Bird. She assured me that she was Ok, and that she didn’t really think it was anything. So off we went at 6:45 to make the 7:30 session. I called when we got out and she sounded fine. So everything was fine, I thought. No baby today.

We got home at 10:15 and the Bird’s two young boys were at our house, and we find Carol on the chair in the fetal position in the middle of a contraction. Trevin had a sports class at 11:00, and Carol again assured me that we should go and she would be fine. But by 10 to 11:00 she is having the contractions fast and furious. So we load the kids up and take them to the Bird’s at 11:15. I told Daniel: “About two hours.” He said: “Right, yeah whatever.” I said: “Seriously, we’ll have a baby in about two hours.” So we get to the hospital at 11:30 and 20 minutes later, when they finally check her, she was completely effaced and the nurse accidentally broke her water while she was checking for her cervix. They got her to the room and then things stopped for a little while. But this is Carol, so it didn’t take too long.
He was born at 12:58 PM on June 20th (so Carol won the pool). She did have to push for 28 minutes, which was about 23 longer than normal. He was face up, so it took him longer to get through the birth canal. He came out looking really good, though, and looks a lot like his brother Trevin.
Funny side story to that; when we had Caden, Bailey was the only one who wanted a boy and she got one that looked just like her. This time, Trevin was the only one who wanted a boy and he got one that looks just like him. But he still won’t hold him.

Tyler and Bailey were disappointed to hear it was another boy, but they got over it. And everyone but Trevin has been excited to hold him and touch him and look at him.

Trevin will take a little more time. Caden, on the other hand, just loves the new addition. When we got home, today (Monday) he got his blanket, which he is quite attached to, now, and ran to the car seat, saying: “blanky for baby.”

It has been a busy couple of days for me, but I’ve managed to keep my head above water. However, Saturday night was entertaining (or will be for those of you who are about to read about it). I made a big mistake when I put the kids down to bed. They were all bawling cuz they missed their mom. Bailey kept saying: “It seems really strange with just you here, dad.” So after baths and everything else, they got to bed at 10:45. I had a lot of other things to catch up on after they fell asleep, so I was up till 12:45. Then, at about 2:45 Trevin comes in to my room crying. I picked him up to comfort him, but felt that he was extremely wet. At that moment, the Motherly instinct was out the window, and my fatherly instinct immediately kicked in as I set him back down on the ground as fast I could. I got him into their bathroom and discovered that I had forgotten to put a diaper on him (he still wears them over night). He was soaked from chest to toe, so at 3:00 o’clock in the morning I gave him another bath, by the light of a flashlight. I got him into my bed, and then went to take apart his bedding and find him some dry clothes, in the dark. I don’t know what time it was when I went back to sleep, but at 6:00 Caden cried out. I ran into their room and he yells: “I wet!” And he sure was. I hadn’t forgotten his diaper, but he peed right through it and his bed was soaked, too. I changed him, then pushed Trevin over and laid Caden in my bed, too. At one point I woke up and Trevin was laying on top of Caden, and both were still sound asleep. I pushed him off, then I went back to sleep again.

At about 9:00 in the morning, Caden was still asleep and Trevin came out. We were going to go change his clothes and I noticed he felt wet again. I asked him if he peed again. Sure enough, he peed right through the diaper and got his clothes wet and our bed wet, too. I said: “Man, you’re a peeing machine.” I told him he had made our bed wet, too, and Caden was still sleeping in our bed. He said, with a big smile: “Ha ha, Caden sleeping in a pee pee bed.” Oh, that boy, never misses a chance to add another “funny” to the blog. Well, that’s our birth story for number five. Mom and Maddox are both doing well. Thank you everyone who helped us out one way or another throughout these past couple of days. We appreciate all of you and all that you did. Now, enjoy some more funnies…

The kids have certain things they have to do each day before they get certain privileges. So Trevin was talking about playing the Wii. Bailey was still at the piano unfinished with daily 15 minutes of practice. She responded to him, and said: “I don’t care about the Wii. I like playing school and drawing and things like that. I like doing girly things, not boyly things!”

Bailey was having toast with butter one morning and Trevin asked: “Are you having jam?” She replied: “Nope, I’m just having grease.”

A couple more from Bailey, recently: She was practicing the piano and the song was just on a single piece of paper. The ceiling fan was on and the paper kept getting blown to the ground. I told her to put it behind her books, but she said she needed to look at it cuz that was the song she was practicing. She complained about the fan, so I said: “Then just turn the fan off.” Her reply: “I never would have thought of that.” The very next morning I came out from my room all dressed and ready for the day (instead of in my lounge-around-the-house-all-morning-shorts), and she asked: “Dad, did you already take a shower?” I said, “Yep, last night when I got home from work.” She replied: “I just don’t think I can believe that.”

Grandma Shirts watched the kids one night while I was at work and Carol was at enrichment. They were racing around our “track” inside our living room and kitchen and if they took a short cut and skipped the kitchen, grandma said they got disqualified. So the next day Trevin was explaining the game to me and said: “If we took a short cut we got crucified. Bailey got crucified twice, and I didn’t get crucified.” I was thinking “what kind of game was Grandma playing, anyways?” I asked Bailey and she cleared it up for me.

Carol and Bailey were out together and they saw a Ford Expedition stretch limo. Bailey said, “Wow, look at that huge car!” Carol said: “That’s called a limousine.” Bailey said: “That’s the biggest car I’ve ever seen in the world. That must mean they have a lot of kids.”

So we’re trying to get Caden interested in potty-training and we broke out the training underwear. Some the pairs have big trucks on them, so I was showing them to him and trying to get him excited about it. I called Trevin into the room to show Caden that he wears underwear and not a diaper. I told him that Trevin wears underwear and not a diaper. Trevin then said to Caden: “I don’t pee in my underwear.” Caden then said, while rolling his head back: “Ohhhh” (kind like Ohhh, now I understand). Then he added: “Nice!” (kind of like saying cool, or sweeeet).

So we were saying family prayer and Caden was sitting with me. I was the voice for this prayer so I wasn’t paying close attention to what he was doing during the prayer. As the prayer ended Carol was looking at him as he kept rubbing his finger on my arm. Carol asked me: “What is that?” So I looked down and there was something little on my arm that kind of looked like a crumb. He kept pointing at it and pushing it around on my arm. I asked him: “What is that?” Without hesitation, he replied: “Boogie.” And upon further review, he wasn’t kidding.

Carol told us all that Braden Erickson (a kid in our ward) had broken his thumb while doing a blocking drill at football practice. Bailey said in a very serious tone: “So he doesn’t have his thumb anymore?”