...And Daddy would like a shepherd to watch his flock.

So our tree is up. Seporah did the bottom 2 feet. It was pretty cute, she would be all serious and meticulously put an ornament on a branch that already had 4 ornaments on it. Someone may have to redecorate the bottom 2 feet at 2 am when Seporah's not looking (hey, if I'm gonna be up anyways...).

Felicity went for her 2 week check on Monday, 8lbs 13oz and 20.5in. I guess that's pretty good, most babies lose 5-10% of their birth weight and gain it back at about the 2 week mark (Felicity lost 10.5%, she was at 7lbs 7oz at 3 days). So at 2 weeks most babies are at their birth weight. Felicity was up 9 oz, yeah!

So I know different people read this blog, I don't know everyone, but hey people visit from Brazil, Russia and China as well as all over Europe. I'm not sure why exactly, maybe they think we're funny Americans. I guess the competition isn't so tough since Seinfield and Friends retired. But anyways, if any pregnant women on the island of Oahu read this blog go here --> www.laborofloveoahu.com That's the website of my doula, Tammy Uva and she was great. What you have no idea what a doula is? Well you really need to go there then.

By my estimates, between Seporah and Felicity, we are going through 20 diapers a day. Wow... We're certainly doing our part to fill up landfills. It almost makes me want to switch to cloth diapers...I said almost. It HAS made us run out and buy a potty for Seporah though. So far we've made it so she'll sit on the potty for 5 seconds without screaming. This is progress. And she gets a sticker for it.

In other news, I can eat 6 cookies a day and still lose weight. Literally, I have come to crave carbs and Cookie Corner cookies. Usually I don't eat a lot of carbs, but I've been starving for them the past 2 weeks. I'm just like yes! Helena Bonham Carter says breastfeeding is nature's liposuction and breast augmentation. And I didn't even say anything about the pudding and Halloween candy being consumed.

Well that pretty much covers the last 2 weeks, diapers and breastfeeding. Well I suppose I could throw in a little sleep deprivation and a lot of toddler tantrums, but if you're a parent you already know that. And if you're not a parent, well you really don't know what sleep deprivation or tantrums really are. You know both of those are used as torture methods some places.

I can't believe I forgot! If you haven't read the previous post, scroll on down and read it before you read this...


Ok, so if you are still here, I take it you read the previous post. Having taken all of those arguments into consideration, and having changed my mind on all those policies, I had to search for a candidate that believed the way I have come to believe.

Vote Hillary!

(lots of sarcasm!!!)

The cliché is that having children makes you rethink life. Well, as I have always said (and been called a racist or sexist because of it) clichés, generalizations and stereotypes exist for a reason. And the reason is that they are generally true. =) This cliché is definitely true, and Seporah and Felicity are making me rethink my political leanings.

So I thought I would start off with why Ron Paul isn't the right candidate for me, and then I would go on to who I am going with now...

1. Ron Paul is against all federal forms of gun control.

If guns were as cheap and easy to get as Ron Paul would like them to be, I would have probably already put a bullet in my head. That is definitely a strike against him.

2. Ron Paul is against the war in Iraq and wants to bring our troops home immediately.

Iraq is looking better and better. The pay is really great and I hear I can't take my kids!

3. Ron Paul is against illegal immigration. He would put up a big wall!

So um... Who would nanny my kids for 13 cents an hour and jump for joy at a $5 Christmas bonus if he deports all the Illegals? Bad idea!

4. Ron Paul if all about home schooling. He rejects allowing the government to determine what and how our children learn. He is also generally for ending the Department of Education as education is not a federal issue.

Come on! You're telling me Ron Paul wants to take away free government day care 9 months out of the year? I want schools to go year round, not go away!

5. Ron Paul wants to end the Federal Income Tax and eliminate the IRS completely. We made it as a nation for well over a hundred years without any income tax he says.

Hey! You can't take away my end of the year paycheck! I have a brand new dependent to claim! What did I have these kids for anyways?

6. Ron Paul is Pro-Life.

The more kids I have, the harder I think about this...


/sarcasm

Well, life has been interesting. We are juggling Seporah and Felicity, watching movies, and playing Super Mario Brothers 3. Yeah, the one for the ORIGINAL Nintendo. Märia is playing the cow, and I am playing the diaper changer and toddler wrangler. Busy busy busy.

The movies we have seen in the last month... :

Meet the Robinsons - very good, a must see for parents and children alike.
Stardust - something of a modern fairy tale. Not modern as in set in the modern day, but modern as in not all fairys and dragons and wizards. It is a story with real meat; it has substance. As I have said before, I am far from a professional reviewer. =)
Hairspray - I actually didn't see it, but Märia laughed all the way through it. =)
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - Highly irreverent. Very very funny at parts, but the sexual humor went over the top at times.
Ratatouille - Best animated movie I have seen in a long long time. I don't know how the pulled off making a movie about rats and frenchmen that I liked, but they did! The rat wants to be a chef and he finds a talentless dish boy to help him do it. And everyone is Jewish =).
The Jane Austen Book Club - Another I didn't see. Märia made it 15 minutes into it, and turned it off. I'll take that as a "don't watch this film".

We are also watching Heroes, although we always seem to be a couple of weeks late. Well, not quite true. Märia always seems to be 2 weeks late, and I tend to be 1 week late. =) Not quite as good as Season 1, but not is all yet lost. The writer's strike will probably do it though.


So, what we've been reading. Well, this will actually just focus on what I've been reading. I just finished Invasive Procedure by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston. As far as I can tell (and I would know), this is OSC's first collaborative work. I know Aaron Johnston from his funny church articles on Nauvoo.com (an OSC domain). Basically he talks about all those things we don't talk about, like screaming babies in sacrament meeting and how we should all have little eject buttons in front of us to eject someone embarrassing themselves or us in fast and testimony meeting. So Invasive Procedure is a thriller about crazy radical genetic scientists who learn to create a virus that replaces bad cells with good cells. I am no professional reviewer, so just trust me when I say I enjoyed it. It is a good book if you are interested in genetic engineering and elite military teams that train constantly in biosuits so that they are ready to hit hot zones, kill the bad guys and neutralize viruses and other biohazards. Fun thriller, but nothing to spin your mind around.

So you want to turn your world upside down? Read The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen. This book will totally change how you think of America and what we are here for, how we were founded and why. Full disclosure: Skousen was a mormon and taught at BYU for years and years as a religion and history teacher. Don't let that scare you away if you aren't mormon. This book has NOTHING to do with a religion in particular, and only a little bit to do with religion in general. It is about the founding of our nation. From the back cover:

The Five Thousand Year Leap tells of the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Founding Fathers which they said must be understood and perpetuated by every people who desired peace, prosperity, and freedom. These beliefs have made possible more progress in 200 years than was made previously in over 5,000 years.

These fundamental beliefs are shockingly unpolitically correct, but this book shows "political correctness" in its true light and history. It was a creation by communism. If you disagreed with the government, you were sent to reeducation camps until your thoughts were politically correct. But now, instead of using camps, we use tenure, shame, and other social pressures to brutalize people into ACTING politically correct regardless of what they know to be right. Funny how shame has fallen so out of favor with regards to children out of wedlock or divorced people (who deserve shame for making marriage so much harder on the rest of us) but we can shame a person for driving an SUV or praying publicly without worrying about the PC police. I completely rewatched all the debates after reading this book. And the choice is absolutely simple. We need a statesman who says he will get out of our way, not tells us what he will do for us. The 5000 Year Leap grounds your being in what government's real job is. It isn't to provide for us, or take care of us, or be the net to catch us. Ron Paul wants to get the Federal Government out of our business. I will write a long post on him later, but I am about to post some Seporah vids, and one has a Ron Paul reference, so I wanted to get that out there. Märia is still somewhat politically apathetic, but less so than she has been. =)Um, anything else? OH yeah, Super Mario Brothers 3. We will probably beat it tomorrow. Still just as fun over the last 2 weeks as it was 15 years ago. Luigi stinks! (Märia plays luigi) =)

Hey, so Steven lost his cell phone about 4 weeks ago and apparently told no one because we keep getting calls asking why he isn't returning messages and that his mailbox is now full. Sorry to those who did not know. Don't feel bad if you weren't in the loop, no one was apparently.

6 minute video. About 20 seconds of breast feeding in there (no nipple). It is amazing to see the last minute, the difference in how Seporah treats Felicity, the best part! =)

Felicity Orion Rushing
November 10, 2007
10:47AM
8lbs 4oz
20inches



So we went in because they called us in, as with Seporah. Märia had done a 24 hour urine test, and it came back high in protein. Ugh, Pre-eclampsia again. But she wasn't nearly as sick as she was last time, so it wasn't too bad. They gave us the option of going with an elective cesarian section or inducing labor. Märia decided she wanted to have Felicity vaginally, so we went for the induction! Pitocin started at 5PM on the 9th.



17 hours later, Felicity was born vaginally. This is the first "good" picture taken of her. I took a cell phone picture first to update you guys on that other blog, so it was the first. Märia actually cut the cord and got to hold Felicity for her first 5 minutes of life. After that they took her away and put her under the light to clean her up, suction her out and check her reflexes and such.



Märia actually snapped this picture, probably 1-2 hours into Felicity's life. We were all really exhausted. Märia really amazed me. 4 hours after giving birth her color was back, she was breast feeding and energetic. I mentioned it and she said she was tired and just working on adrenaline. But she sure had me fooled! She really looked great just a few hours later. After her C-section with Seporah she was nearly dead for like 3 days.



Here is one with Märia and Felicity just 1-2 hours after her birth. Felicity went straight to eating and then straight to sleep for nearly 8 hours with only momentary lapses into wakefulness to ask for food.



And another...



We decided to bring Seporah up to meet Felicity at 6PM (7 hours into Felicity's life). She wasn't very happy. She immediately screamed and ran into the corner and hid under a chair. She only visited for like 25 minutes before we decided it was a bad idea. So Seporah and I went out for french fries and ice cream and played at a McDonalds play place for a couple of hours before I took her back to Miss Karen's to spend the night.




















I have to tell this story though. After we came home, we put Felicity in a corner in her car seat. She was asleep. Then we brought Seporah home. Seporah was fine with Felicity as long as she was in the corner in her car seat, but as soon as she woke up and Märia got her to feed her, Seporah sprung into action. First, she screamed. Then she decided to take matters into her own hands. She picked up the biggest thing she could pick up (her tricycle) and then came running at Felicity to bash her into mush. Seriously. I was conflicted as to whether to stop her or grab a camera for this memorable moment, but I made the right choice and Felicity is still alive. =) 24 hours later, Seporah likes Felicity fine and when she walks by her, she pats her very gently on the head. =)

So Märia is pre-eclamptic again so we will probably be having a baby today. We will post pictures and text on blog.stevenrushing.com to keep you updated. The reason for the change is because we can post there from our mobile phone. Once the baby is born and we are back home everything will be moved over to here and back to normal. Pray for Märia and Felicity and everything. Please refrain from calling, we will let you know when anything happens.

I know that several of you at home have been feeling that your lives are simply not action filled like you always thought they would be. Well why not become your neighborhood/city private investigator? I mean someone has got to do it right? So here are all the ingredients required to do this:

A tree house... preferably centrally located in the center of your 1a school town.
Two mini notepads that can fit in your back pocket and a few pens.. This is for clue taking.
The complete series of the Hardee Boys.. This is ESSENTIAL! Try and have a little brother, that way this financial burden is not completely on you.
A partner/side-kick/little brother. Very convenient if it is a sibling, as when you need to compare clues you can just walk down the hallway.

Okay.. now just find some mystery to solve. A good one would be to wait til your dog disappears..

Okay, you are all ready, go have fun being a private eye!! Read More...

So I read a lot of mommy blogs, they're fun. Sometimes the only options to motherhood are to laugh or to cry, those blogs help to keep me from crying 24/7. This is a video I found on one of the blogs, the triplets are actually 3 years old now. I thought I'd post it and rewatch in when Felicity's 6 weeks old and think "Good Lord, at least there's only one of them."

Just as a side note, I HATE it when people come up and touch Seporah. It's like hello, that's not yours, get your hands off. They started when she was just itty bitty and it still goes on today, not quite as much, but it still happens and I always want to smack them. So don't touch other people's babies or kids without asking, it's just plain rude.

Read More...