This is Claire on the first day of preschool in September . . .

This is her on the last day this week! It is amazing how fast they grow before your eyes. Sometimes you have step back so you can see it!
Whew - this is going way to fast. Didn't I just bring her home from the hospital??

This is what I saw when I looked in the baby mirror on the way to school on Friday. Brothers and Sister holding hands the whole way. I didn't know if I should cry or take a picture. I decided to take a picture :) Don't worry - I was in carpool line not driving (I've already been asked twice already).

My cup runeth over . . . this is what I see in my very full back seat. Thank you, God, for these children. I love them so much and I am so proud of them that I feel like my heart might burst through my chest sometimes.

How I almost had a baby in a Mexican restaurant . . .

OK, so maybe "almost" is a bit of an overstatement but I thought it sounded like a good title for a blog post and there is some truth to it. Here is how little Gus came into the world: It was Cinco de Mayo and I had been having random contractions all day but didn't put too much thought into them. When I went into labor with Claire my water broke first and I was induced with Ford by having my water broken so I naturally assumed that this labor would start with my water breaking first too. Rhett got home and I suggested we go out for Mexican mainly because I really didn't want to clean up the kitchen. So off we went to Sol Azteca to join in the celebration - ole! When we got there they told us it would be a 15 minute wait which seemed kind of unlikely considering the police in the parking lot directing traffic but we found a spot and listened to the live band and watched Ford dance. Maybe it was the loud music that got things moving but as I stood there outside the restaurant I started having much more uncomfortable contractions. Once again I blew them off and looked forward to some chips and salsa. Almost an hour into our wait we finally got a table.

This is when I made a pretty important decision. I decided to go off the combo list. I've never gone off the combo list at a Mexican restaurant. I've interestingly found that #18 is usually a burrito and a taco with rice and beans no matter what resturant it is and that is my standard. But this night I decided to get some fancy shrimp dish in an area of the menu I've never even read before (it was actually really good!). Anyway, as we are sitting there waiting a little longer than usual due to the crowds and my entree choice Rhett asked me "what's going on over there?" and I told him I was having some contractions. I assured him they were nothing but he looked slightly concerned (remember I was already 4cm dilated and my last labor lasted less than 2 hours). I told him I'd let him know when I had another one . . . and three minutes later I did. He got much more concerned at that point and started eating really fast (anyone who knows Rhett can understand the seriousness of that statement). I was still in denial and told him that even though they hurt they weren't that regular. He kindly laid out he situation for me: 4 cm dilated, 3rd child, contractions every 3-5 minutes = labor. Then came one of my favorite quotes of the evening "Megan, this will not go down in a Mexican restaurant!". He started telling the kids we were having a baby that night and I thought he was getting a little ahead of himself. Turns out he was right.

We got home and I called a friend and told here I was bringing the kids over. I had time to take a shower and get everyone ready and then I realized that I really was having the baby that night! I was starting to really hurt and Claire asked me what was wrong. I told her Little Baby was making my tummy hurt. She said "It's OK Mommy. You're just going to go to the hospital and push it out then you will feel better". Turns out she was right too. We arrived at the "MEU" (Maternal Evaluation Unit) where they check you out and decide whether or not you are in labor before sending you home or to L&D. I looked like a classic movie scene as I pulled up to the entrance having contractions and hurting . . . a lot. This is when I entered the Twilight Zone. I thought I was a woman about to give birth and everyone else there seemed to think I was there to get my teeth cleaned or some other non-emergent situation. I was calmly told to sign in and have a seat. WHAT?? I'm having a baby! I stood there and swayed and cried my way through several contractions while Rhett was told to park the car. Then a lady came out and called my name and led me back. She asked me in a cheerful voice to "hop up on the scale" and I thought I might be on Candid Camera. The same cheerful (oblivious) girl told me to sit down on the bed and I told her that there was no way I was sitting down anywhere. Then the questions started. I understand they have admission paperwork to fill out - I've been there - but when they asked me what kind of birth control I was planning on using after the baby was born that is where I drew the line and refused to answer any more questions. They found out in short order that I was 6 cm and that, yes, I was indeed in labor so they sent me upstairs to L&D.

So this is where things get a little fuzzy. I have had this desire for years to have natural childbirth for many different reasons. I almost did it with Ford (I feel pretty confident in calling it natural but since I technically had the epidural in my back with one dose of lidocaine I came up short). So, thinking this may be my last chance I was going for it. Can I pause here to tell everyone how you might think you can imagine how bad it must hurt but I assure you - you can't. It's off the charts. Just thinking about it makes me tear up. So I refused the epidural and just kept on trying to manage each contraction I was 8 cm at this point and having a tough time. Rhett was being so encouraging, thinking of every possible thing he could say to push me to the finish line. Now for my favorite quote of mine for the evening - Rhett said "You can do this" and I replied "Oh, I know I can do it. I just don't want to. I'm over it". Not long after that the anesthesiologist arrived with his wonderful cart of drugs and started getting set up.

This is where I took over. Let me explain . . . I am a nurse, in labor, with my third child and no pain medication on board. I know exactly what is going on with everyone in the room so I proclaimed myself in charge and started ordering everyone around. I asked the anesthesia guy - Paul - if he was set up yet and told him we were going to go for it after my next contraction. He was very kind and patient with Little Miss Bossy and did an excellent job. Sweet little Gus got his directions confused and thought he was supposed to come out face up (wrong!). So during my OBs effort to turn him while I was pushing I was very thankful I had the epidural because it was extremely painful WITH the epidural. So I am fine with the fact that I folded like a deck of cards because it got rough at the end trying to get him to turn (which he did finally). His forehead was a little bruised when he first arrived from his attempted upsidedown entrance into this world but other than that he was perfect.

Rhett announced that he was indeed a boy (we had a strong feeling he was a boy but didn't know for sure until we saw his plumbing!) and I had that amazing moment of looking at my sweet baby for the first time and falling in love with him. He is the smallest of our three kids at 7lbs 8oz. He's really the first one that has actually looked like a newborn. We are working hard to chunk him up and he's doing great. He read the breastfeeding manual before he was born and is a superstar. He was born at 10:42 and was nursing for the first time at about 10:44!

We are thankful for Gus and so thrilled to welcome him into our family. He is just a reminder of how precious life is and how perfectly we are knit together by our Creator.

Gus Harden Shirley

This is Gus Harden Shirley! We are so excited to announce that our beautiful son was born on May 5, 2009. He weighed 7lbs 8oz and was 20 inches long. More details of the dramatic birth story will follow soon. For now here are some pictures of our first day with our sweet Baby Gus.
Mommy with all her babies!
Claire holding Gus for the first time - SO excited!

Mommy, Daddy and Gus in the delivery room. Welcome to the world little man!!

Last week

Less than a week ago my precious friend Stephanie spent a morning with me and Ford taking some pictures. I had mentioned the possibility to her a while ago but as time got closer for the baby's arrival and I felt more pressed for time I was tempted to just let it go. Then I had a conversation with my other precious friend, Shanan, and we talked about how child #2 seemed to get the squeeze at times and miss out on some of the things that #1 and #3 tend to have prioritized. One of those is pictures. Although I did make sure I had fantastic photos of Ford for his whole first year I was tempted to drop the ball on 18 months due to this busy season. After Shanan and I talked I decided that I had to make it happen for Ford and I am so glad. He is such a precious little thing at this age and I am so thankful for having wonderful pictures of him to remember this age. Anyway, I've only seen a sneak peak of those pictures of him but I'll share them when I get them because what I've seen is adorable!

The main reason for this post is that I asked Stephanie to take a few shots of my enormously pregnant belly. I felt really weird asking and even more so actually taking the pictures but I can not tell you how thankful I am to have these pictures. I'm not a pretty pregnant person. I am relatively short and even more short waisted which makes for a rather large tummy but I guess even more than that I just don't feel pretty when I'm pregnant like some women do so I'm just tempted to not document it. It is now several days later and I'm not pregnant anymore. I am already looking at these pictures with warm nostalgic feelings and I'm so thankful to have them as a way to remember a very special time in my life.

Our little ballerina

One of the hardest things about moving overseas for me is thinking about my kids missing traditional American "rite of passage" events, milestones and activites. I'm pretty sure that once we are there and living a different life those things will not seem as important and there will be other aspects of our new life will replace those things in a very big way but for now I get a little sad thinking about missing out on some of these fun things. One of those things being the precious moments of dance and athletics for little kids. I've always dreamed of the little ballerina, gymnast and t-ball player that I might have. So I have a very special appreciation for these special little activities that most parents take for granted. I'm thankful that I'm able to share some of these moments with Claire. Here's our ballerina at her first performance- yay!

Obviously she looked beautiful but she was also very confident and did an amazing job dancing up there in front of so many people. We were so very proud of her!

Here she is with Daddy right after the performance - can you see how excited she was? You can imagine how entertaining a ballet recital with about 35 3 year old little girls was!

And the #1 fan of the evening is little brother, Ford. He just clapped and clapped and was so excited for her. He just adores her and is so supportive of his big sister. I love seeing them encourage and love each other in that way. What special friends they have in each other. I guess Claire may be cheering for him on the football (aka soccer) or rugby field instead of the t-ball field as I once thought. (notice the for sale sign - sad :(

Time for Tea!

Do you know that I love tea? Love it. Can't stand coffee but boy do I love a cup of tea. When I was just a little ole thing my best friend and I would go to one of my favorite places called the Lumpkin Cafe in my hometown of Athens, GA and we would have tea - properly - with a cup, saucer, sugar cubes and a little cream. We usually had English Breakfast but would occasionally venture out into the world of Orange Pekoe and Earl Grey. Can you imagine two 10 year olds sitting at a cute little table in a cafe giggling over cups of tea like we were old women?

That is why I was so excited when Claire was invited to her first tea party for a friend's birthday this week. What a fun idea! It was just the small group of girls from her class and it was so nice to go to a party that was quite calm and very lovely in all the details - in fact if Ford had not been there it might have been downright quiet!

Lucy's mom had the tea table set up for the little girls and for the Mommy's too. The girls received hats, purses and white gloves to add to their dress up outfits that they wore to the party. Claire was "dressed" at 7:45 that morning and was ready to go to the tea party that didn't start until 10:30! Do I need to tell you how much she loved it! So girly and fun!

Claire and I often sit down to a relaxing cup of tea together. I think that is something that we will always enjoy doing together. Especially after our time in Kenya where tea time (or Chai as it is called there) is almost a sacred cultural tradition that is observed every single day. I'm pretty excited about a country that celebrates tea and takes time for it each day.

Here are the girls huddled around Lucy's mom reading a fun princess story. What fun to be a little girl!

Hellooooo?

My goodness it has been a long time! I don't have a good excuse really. I wanted to wrap up our Peru pictures by doing a few posts but then just kind of got behind and never felt like I could catch up. So I'm going to do an abbreviated wrap up from our time at the beach and then get some pictures from Easter up here and start back . . .

Here is how we spent Spring Break 2009.

This is the typical view of Ford at the beach - running straight towards the water.



This is the beautiful pool at our hotel. Why didn't someone think of this "zero entry" thing a long time ago? It is so nice for little kids. If this weren't a turbo wrap up I would insert the story about how Ford got full out "rescued" by a lifeguard (who was in his socks/shoes and fanny pack) in this pool. It was completely unnecessary and kind of embarassing so you can just use your imagination on that one. I guess I will also leave out the story about how they ran out of chicken at the restaurant so suggested we substitute "steak" for the kid's chicken fingers off the children's menu. Imagine our surprise when we got the bill and saw the charge for a filet migon, the most expensive item on the menu, in place of our cheap little chicken fingers. Ooops, I guess I just told the story. Be forwarned if you stay in a hotel that has only been open for 3 weeks in a less-than-fully-developed-country where no one speaks your language - things like this might happen to you too!

Despite some cultural and linguistic disconnections with the staff we had a delightful time during our first family vacation as a family of 4 (just before we become 5!). Don't you just love that precious time spent together as a family? We really try to prioritize time spent together as our little growing family. Such wonderful memories and bonding - not to mention fun. Rhett's not much of a beach guy and I really think going to the beach with small kids can be a lot more work and a lot less fun than some other options but we had the perfect set up with about 10 steps to the sand and 2 minutes to the pool. We just alternated between the two and relaxed and had fun together. It was the perfect end to our South American adventures.

Here I am at 34 weeks - apparently stressing a lot of people out who want me to get back on American soil before I meet this baby! We both did great on the trip and aside from being pretty uncomfortable on the plane trip home with Little Baby and Ford in my lap we made it home just fine.

Thanks to all of you who have followed our time in Peru and prayed for our family. It was an amazing experience and we are so thankful we were able to do something like this at this point in our lives. We transitioned back to our lovely, comfortable, convenient American life without too much ado. Rhett worked 20 days straight when we got back so his transition wasn't quite so smooth but we are back in our routine now. I'm glad to be home for some lovely spring days and flowers before the summer heat settles in as I'm sure it will very soon. I'm thankful for being able to jump in my car and run errands without thinking too much about it. I really like going to Costco and buying obnoxious quatities of food. And it is really great not having to worry about running out of hot water by doing a load of laundry AND taking a shower. Of course I realize our daily challenges in Africa will be much the same if not more difficult so for now I just enjoy the conveniences of our life.

Our journey home was a bit more complicated and dramatic. I won't go into details but it was long, exhausting and uncomfortable for everyone. We had to pay American Airlines an additional $300 to get Ford on the plane home since they had no record of his ticket (that we had already purchased. Yes, you have to pay $300 for the privilige of holding your 1 year old on your lap for 7 hours). Actually they had no record of him every being on any flight ever. Grrr. Lots of drama at the airport and $300 later we were finally on our way home. I suggested to Rhett we not do anything else like this until our youngest was 3 years old. Then I remembered that we are doing it again in 6 months with 3 kids and our oldest being 3 years old and going 3 times as far around the globe. Oh well. Lots of lessons learned on this trip that will help us make that journey.

Update: Phil and Ted is back in business. I got a new tire and as of yesterday we are up and running again.

Catch up from the jungle

I'm sorry I've been so belated in posting. I got behind while we were in the Amazon and never felt like I had enough time to catch up. Here is an abbreviated version of our time in Iquitos (aka The Jungle). I apologize in advance for the pictures being out of order. Here is Claire with a very kind friend of Rhett's from his time in Iquitos last year, Helen, who took us around town while Rhett was in class. Here she is showing us one of the many rivers converging into the Amazon.

Watch your step . . . here is the "marina" where we caught a boat to the serpentarium and butterfly house.

More good times . . . Ford looks a little stressed in this picture. He wasn't too sure about it (don't really blame him for that). He did warm up later and had fun getting his hands wet. He had quite a bit of need of his paci on this trip - a lot of self soothing was necessary :)

Views along the river . . .

Like father like son. Rhett held every possible animal at this serpentarium and introduced Ford to big snakes. Yuck.

Ford was of course fascinated by all of the monkeys and other creatures wandering all around. Claire and I not so much.

This is as close as she would get and I don't blame her.

How creepy are these monkeys? No thanks.

Graduation party and food

I thought all of the food at the party was so pretty I had to take pictures of it. Here is a salad of heart of palm, tomatoes and avacados.

These were kind of a rice dumpling with olives. They were really tasty - yum.

I didn't realize it when I took this picture but this is actually turtle. It is VERY tender and quite good too. The biggest hit with our family was fried gator. Everyone is our crew had second and third helpings - I'm not sure if it is because it was our southern love of all things deep fried or if it was our Georgia Bulldog disdain of all things gator that made it taste so good to us Shirleys.

Claire and her Daddy hit the dance floor and put their Salsa dance lessons to the test. They both had a blast. Claire was the belle of the ball. I love the way she is holding her Daddy's neck in this picture - so sweet. When we first got to Peru we went to a party with other course participants and took the kids for a while. Claire was confused when we left and asked where the cake was. It didn't make sense in her experience to have a party with out a birthday cake. Well things have changed a bit now as she has attended quite a few adult parties in Peru and has gotten used to lots of yummy food, music and dancing. I think at the next birthday party we go to she will wonder where all the music and dancing is!

Riding in a mototaxi . . .



Riding in a boat on the way to the graduation ceremony and party . .

Street scenes around Iquitos . . .

Rhett gets his diploma in Tropical Medicine - yay!