Happy Birthday Jonas!

Today is Jonas' 3rd birthday! He is such a fun kid, we are so lucky to have him. This post will be a tribute to Jonas...from day 1 to day 1095. It is very long, but its a good history keeper. I'll try to put up some pictures too, but I have to hunt them down on CD as we're formatting our hard drive this week.

My due date was originally March 24...then with the discovery of a long lost calendar (about a month before I was due) we found that date was wrong and my doctor changed the due date to March 15-thank goodness! I don't know if it was just my clinic, or if was the hospital, but they really didn't want to induce labor unless I was at least a week over my due date or there were issues that merited going sooner than that. For about 6 weeks I had been having false labor a couple times a week. My doctor kept saying, "any day now" or "I won't be surprised to see you this weekend"...thoroughly getting my hopes up. On my due date I actually went in to my clinic to be observed to see if labor was happening, I was there for a few hours and then they sent me home, again saying "I'm sure we'll see you back soon." I think it was later that day I actually took almost a complete bottle of castor oil, I was that desperate. I was getting really depressed, all the "could this be it?" and ensuing disappointment was horrible.

On the morning of Wednesday March 17, 2005 I called my doctor. She wasn't there yet, so she called me back a bit later. I was in tears. I just needed to have a light at the end of the tunnel, I had to know it would actually end eventually. She said she'd call the hospital to see when she could get me in. She called back and said she'd induce me on Saturday. I was relieved! Just knowing the baby wouldn't be inside me forever was wonderful! A few hours went by and I got another call...my doctor (wonderful woman that she is) had called the hospital back to see if I could come any sooner and they said if I could be there by 3:00 that afternoon I could have the baby that day! This was about 1:00 pm. I'm sure going into labor on your own and rushing to the hospital is more exciting, but we had plenty of rushing in our 2 hour interim. We took Bryant to the Rollins, ate some food, packed some stuff, called some people...then headed to the hospital.

The first hour was just paper work and monitoring, then the pitocin started about 4:00pm. Ethan went back to school for a lab or test or something and came back to not much having changed. I was walking as much as I could and I was feeling some contractions, but not much was happening. In fact, by 8:00 that night I had only progressed from a 1 to a 3. At this rate he probably wouldn't be born until Bryant's birthday! Well, once again, my doctor came to the rescue! She said she thought she could break my water and see if that gets things rolling. Within an hour I was really feeling the contractions. By the time another half hour went by I was feeling a lot of pressure! Somewhere during that time I had some narcotic (I think) that took the edge off. I was totally relaxed and felt so at peace between contractions...so much that I dosed off during that time. I told my most awesome nurse, Lori and my fabulous doctor, Dr. Kennedy (who were both with me the majority of the time after breaking my water) that it felt like I needed to push. They checked me and sure enough I was ready. It was an intense couple hours, but it worked! I was expecting pushing to be horrible (long, painful and long), that was my experience with Bryant. However, with Jonas, I pushed through 3 contractions and he was here!

I was much more coherent after Jonas' birth than I was after Bryant's. I actually wanted to see and hold him. I told Ethan to go take pictures of our new baby. I was shocked when they told me he was 9 lbs. 3 oz. I thought for sure, if he was that easy to get out, he must've been smaller than Bryant. He was all bruised was his abrupt drop with the breaking of my water, but he was still beautiful. He had a big square head with no cone shape at all...he hadn't been in the birth canal long enough to have it shape that way. It wasn't until the next day that I took his hat off and thought, "who's baby is this? My baby can't have this dark, dark hair!" I thought he looked a lot like Bryant until I saw all that dark hair. The color of his face was more normal now and I thought he was perfect!

We debated about names all that day. We tried a few out and finally settled on Jonas Dave Woodbury. His middle name is odd, I know. But my Grandpa Holliday was named DeVerle, but his grandma wanted him to be named Dave and so she insisted on calling him that. It stuck and most his siblings and cousins called him that. When I was younger I was at their house and answered the phone, the person asked for Dave and I told him he had the wrong number. It was Grandpa's brother Uncle Tom and he called back and they got a good laugh out of it. My grandpa was one of those men that was always helping others. People loved him and were drawn to him, we used to say that we couldn't go anywhere...in the city, the state, or country it seemed, without Grandpa running into a friend. Looking at who Jonas is now, I think he is the perfect namesake. We decided the name was a good choice, if he didn't like it he some options. He could go by Jonas, Jo, Dave, or JD (thank you Scrubs). I told Ethan before we left the hospital I thought it was perfect and I was really glad we went with it...he was a little less sure of its perfection, but the great thing about naming a baby is that no matter what you choose, it ends up being the perfect choice.

Jonas started out big and he just got bigger. At his 2 week checkup he had gained about a pound. He grew into the biggest butter-ball you could imagine. My Relief Society President commented every time we saw her (which was a couple times a week) on how huge he was. My brother, Sean, was constantly making fun of him (in the good natured uncle sort of way). He was 20 lbs at his 4 month check up and we had to buy a new convertible car seat because he'd out grown his carrier. He was a good baby, I used to say even more laid back than Bryant had been. Grandma Call was amazed at my luck. He didn't smile a whole lot, but when his aunt Brindy and uncle Kim came to visit they had the magic-every time. He's been stealing hearts since.

When he was 6 months old, we learned he was going to be a big brother. I cried when I looked at him because I knew he wasn't going to be my baby anymore. I hated that he was going to have to grown up. But we rolled with it and he was already on his way to growing up way too fast. He was a faster mover than Bryant, he was crawling around 6 months and pulling up at furniture around 8 or 9. He started walking about 10 1/2 months. His teeth came in about that time too. His speech was no where near where Bryant's had been. He was smart, but not vocal.

His first birthday he tore into his birthday cake, holding nothing back! It was hilarious, but that is the way Jonas is, he has a mind of his own and he likes to do things his way. He was still a big boy, though not quite "off the charts" big anymore. At one, he was in 24 month clothes almost exclusively. This was one of my favorite times with him too, I would get him out of bed in the morning and he would just snuggle in bed with me. Every morning we got to have snuggle time while Bryant watched TV, it was priceless!

When his baby brother Levi was born (Jo was 15 1/2 months), he was fantastic! At the hospital he kept just looking at him and wanting to give him gentle kisses. He was always very loving to the baby, sometimes to a fault. He is just so physical! After Levi had been with us for a few months Jonas started to get a little less enamored with him. For about a month we struggled with him wanting our attention.

Jonas has seemed older than his age for a long time. When he was 2, we went to McDonald's for his and for Bryant's birthdays. I remember being amazed at how much he plays with and like the older kids. He still didn't talk as well, but he was improving all the time, so we didn't worry. In November, when we went to a family member's family's house for Thanksgiving, they were all amazed at how well he could hold a conversation for being only 2. He is mature (can you say that about a 3 year old?) his brain makes connections, even if his words aren't always clear, you can see that he gets it.

During this time, he also became quite a sneaky boy. He gets a look in his eye that just screams "MISCHIEF!" Making connections is a good thing, for the most part, but he also really liked to see just how much he could get away with. He loves to play with his brothers and does quite well playing by himself. He really likes to pretend. He will have little conversations between himself and his reflection or some toys. He almost constantly has sword in his "sword pocket" and a pillow case "cape" around his neck. He even goes to sleep with them at times.

Jonas was the easiest boy to potty train I could have imagined. I have heard of people having an easy time, but I never really believed it could be that easy. About a month ago he started wanting a diaper change whenever he peed, that and some other signs and I told Ethan, "we can't miss this window, he's ready!" So we went to the store and he picked out some cool superhero underwear. He started wearing it and (I'm not kidding when I tell you this) day one he had 2 accidents, day 2 he had 1, day 3 he had 2, and since then he's been dry-day and night! It is amazing. I don't have to remind him to do it, he just gets it! It was a firm testimony to me of when they're ready, they're ready...don't push them until them. I think if I had pushed it wouldn't have worked, but I just let him figure it out! What a breeze!

Some of his favorite things currently are: Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Swords, Capes, playing Robin Hood and Peter Pan, being read to and then "reading" the book himself, singing nonsense songs (last night he was singing over and over "I'm a big boy now!"), cuddling with mom and dad, flying off the couch into the bean bag, changing his clothes (like 4 times a day), playing with friends and cousins, having grandma and grandpa come visit, and eating treats.

He is going through and emotional phase right now, and gets really upset (either sad with tears, or angry with yells) when he gets in trouble or when someone hurts him or bugs him.

He is so funny! Making us and others laugh almost all the time. Saturday morning he came into my room and was being pretty grumpy, I said, "Why are you so grumpy?" to which he replied, "I'm not grumpy, I'm just weird!" and he pulls this funniest faces. He is very expressive with his face (not sure where he gets that from) :o) He is a delight! We are so blessed to have him in our family! The last 3 years have been fabulous and I'm sure the future will be too!

Happy Birthday Jonas! Thanks for being so great!