Happy Birthday, Caboose! (Belated — Again!)

Caboose had his 9th birthday on Tuesday the 13th, exactly two weeks after my birthday. He was one of those new millenium babies. It is certainly always easy to calculate how old he is!

If you've missed any of my old posts about Caboose, I could summarize by saying "epitome of the youngest child" or I could just direct you here, here, here, here, here, or here, for some fun reading. He's always been like this, even before he learned to talk. We knew within minutes of his birth. Okay, maybe it took a few hours.

Caboose was due January 26th and he was a scheduled C-section for January 17th since I'd had one previously with his brother (an 8 lb. 13 oz., large-headed brother). We were able to go up to 10 days earlier than his due date, but since that would be a Sunday, we went with nine days early, which happened to be a Monday, and coincidentally Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Now I had two brand new six year olds at home and a fairly new three year old, so I didn't get to sit much. I was pretty miserable most of the time and had lots of back pain. So the week before I was scheduled to deliver I ended up going in to the doctor a couple of times. I was dilated a cm or two, but it never really seemed to change, but when I went in on Thursday the 13th the doctor told me to go ahead and go to the hospital and they'd deliver. Here is the picture Hubby took of me and the kids right before we left for the hospital. Buddy isn't very happy because we got him up from his nap, but I wasn't willing to leave without telling him.

You can see now why I'd been asked for three months prior if I was about ready to deliver. I was one big girl! Remember I'm a whopping 5'1" (back then I was 5"1 1/4" but I lost my 1/4" in aging) so there wasn't a whole lot of place for it to go.

When I got to the hospital the nurse strapped on the monitor and asked me about my contractions. I told her I had no idea how far apart they were. She said they'd send me home if they weren't at least five minutes apart. I was rather appalled and told her that the doctor was going to deliver and it didn't matter. I was praying I was right and wouldn't have to eat crow.

After a few minutes the monitor started measuring contractions and they were two to three minutes apart and hurting a lot. My nurse friend that was with me checked out the paper and they were at the top so she told me to start breathing through them. You know, I never had breathing practice! I didn't get to with the girls because I was on bed rest so early, then I just never did it with Buddy, and here I needed it. Stink! At least I knew why I'd been hurting so bad and was miserable at home, but since I never really stopped moving I never really felt them.

Here is one of the very first pictures of Caboose. He found his hands quickly. I'll show you later how much, and how come he never would take a pacifier.

He was only 7 lbs. 4 oz. and his head was not nearly as large as his brothers was. But God works in mysterious ways — we had a neighbor that also had twins and was a neonatal nurse who was a very good friend. She was scheduled to work my original C-section. Even though they normally only let you have one person in the room with you during the delivery, they let her come in as well as Hubby as long as she promised not to work the delivery and just watch. Well, she told me that the cord was the first thing that came out of my incision and that I would have had a prolapsed cord had I not had the C-section, and thus would have ended up in an emergency situation most likely.

Before we left New Jersey we popped up to Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and here's a picture across to Manhattan just a year before the World Trade Center tragedy:

Caboose's middle name is after my grandfather (passed away in 2004) pictured here in the summer of 2000:

And some more pictures of the little imp:

The first time Caboose stood up in his crib I was so excited I ran to get the camera to snap a picture. He didn't like that. It didn't matter that I had other children go talk to him for the 15 seconds it took for me to run and grab the camera, because once I walked in the room, I was not allowed to walk out. Great big no-no. Here was the result of the picture, and yes, it is in his scrapbook just like this because it is the first time. It's his own fault he looks like that. He's just lucky his face only froze in the picture and not permanently.

I've mentioned that Santa is part of my family. When the girls were little they called him Ampa Piskers, because he's their grandpa and he has whiskers. By default my mom was Amma Piskers. Now they are Grandpa and Grandma Whiskers. Still to this day. No, my mom doesn't have whiskers. Yes, we've raised eyebrows in public and given explanations. And we had one child who didn't like whiskers. Guess which one...

It took over a year for Caboose to really be in the same room as Grandpa Whiskers. He couldn't get close to him until he was really over three. Here is a series of pictures, along with his beloved bed bear, from Christmas when he wasn't quite a year old and we decided to test the waters:

Notice his loving brother in the floor in the third picture oblivious to it all. He was playing with dinosaurs and could care less.

On top of it all, Caboose was a p.i.c.k.y. eater. One of his food groups was Zesta crackers:

He had about five food groups that made up their own pyramid. Chocolate was one. Scrambled eggs, a plain pancake, and plain Cheerios were on there too. He was a tricky one. We weren't sure if he'd actually have any of his birthday cake on his first birthday because we figured it was all a textural thing with him. He ended up eating some, although Thomas the Tank Engine blue icing isn't really great for one year olds.

Remember those fingers from the night of his birth? Well, he fiddled with them, his thumb, and then flipped the fingers around and ended up with this...for years.

And that arm of that bear were always right there held tight.

Happy Birthday, Caboose! We love you and would love to give you kisses all over your head, but since you think they are yucky we'll just settle for telling you and letting you groan someday when you read it!