The Tsukayama Corner

Our beautiful baby boy at 6 days old. Do you think he's changed? Look at those chubby cheeks!













Dominique loved sitting here holding him. He was so alert and just kept looking up at her. Too sweet!

















Brother-sister bonding. :)



















Joshua felt left out and had to get in on the action!













Our three munchkins.














Daddy, Joshua and Dominique all ready for church this morning. I still wasn't quite feeling up to getting out.



Well, I still haven't said much about the birth, but now that it has been a week, maybe I can be more positive about the experience. :)

On the bright side, everything went smoothly and there were no concerns or complications. On the "dark" side, it was HARD!!, much harder than Dominique's birth. It was only about nine hours of labor, but it was very intense and left me rather exhausted and feeling like I had been chopped into smitherenes through the midsection by an axe! Doesn't that make you want to have a baby?!
Back to the bright side, all of that is over now and it was worth it for the precious, lovely result! I am feeling better and stronger day by day and life will soon be back to normal ~ a new kind of normal, that is. The kids love him and haven't shown any kind of ill-will toward him at all, and he is very laid-back so far, which I am very thankful for!

Now, about his name....
We still had not completely decided on a name when he was born! You could say that Joshua chose his first name, actually. About four months ago, maybe, he announced to me one day out of the clear blue that he would like to name the baby Israel if he was a boy, or Olivia if she was a girl. I don't know where he picked these names from, but I liked them! Actually, Israel is a name I have liked for a long time, but Fabio always said that it was the name of a country, not a person, and if we were going to name him the name of a country, we should just name him Brazil! lol!
Anyway, about an hour after he was born, as I was taking an herb bath with him, Fabio and I were discussing his name. When Fabio said "Israel", he turned his head and looked right at Daddy! He was so alert! (That first pic I posted of him was also taken in the bath. That's why it was kinda dark.)
So, we decided on Israel, and just then Joshua bounded in and exclaimed, "I know what we can name the baby ~ Israel!!" Good idea. ;-) {By the way, he is not a bit disappointed that we had a boy, even though he said throughout the pregnancy that he wanted a baby girl. I had tried to prepare him for the possibility of a boy, and once asked him what he would do if we did have a boy and he answered with a shrug, "I'll just give him to Dominique." }

The Lincoln part was recent, that is, it's not a name we had considered or discussed for long. About a month ago, Fabio just said, "How about Lincoln?" and I think he was actually joking, but I kinda liked it! Then he suggested combos like "Lincoln Mercury", "Lincoln Nebraska" and "Abraham Lincoln" ~ lol. I also liked the meaning once I looked into it: "settled by waters, a pool, or lake." It reminded me of Psalm 1 which talks about the man who delights in the law of the Lord and does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly being like a tree planted by water, who bears fruit in season, whose leaf does not fall, and whatever he does prospers. I pray that this will be a theme chapter for little Israel Lincoln's life.