LOVE

I’m in love. Every mom goes through it, for some it’s immediate, for me it takes a while. Apparently it takes about 3 months. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my baby the moment she was born, but at some point you fall IN LOVE with your baby. For me, it happened in the last week. She’s so damn sweet, she coos and smiles and flirts and I can’t stand it. I just want to curl up in her crib with her cause I can’t get enough of her these days. This is the love that you feel for your child with an intensity you never knew existed. The kind of love that literally takes your breath away. It’s beautiful and scary all at once. It’s the whole walking with your heart outside your body thing. It is such a wonderful, beautiful feeling.

Don’t worry TS isn’t being neglected. I had this same occurrence with her and its still going on. There are (days) moments (recent—like since potty training) when I am less in love with her then this, but the feeling itself really doesn’t go away. I often want to curl up in bed with her too. This time around I know the intensity of this feeling doesn’t go away.

So forgive any gushing I take part in during the next few weeks, I won’t be myself. It’s not my fault, I mean, how can you not be complexly in love with the dimple & curled eyelashes? Mere mortals have no chance.

My lack of focus post...with Pictures!

Quick, gratuitous baby picture to distract you into forgiveness for my lack of blogging lately. Go ahead, tell me she’s beautiful, I already know it, but you can tell me again. ;-) Know what? She sleeps as well as pretty as she is; now you can hate me. (Did that make sense, probably not, but I think you get what I mean.) Now to get you to read on, there’s more pix below. I’m stealthy like that.

I know it’s been a while. The heat has finally gone away & we're back to normal. Thank God! Lucky for all of you at Blogher. And on that note, I’m pouting about not being at Blogher, but all things considered I’m not sure how much I really would’ve gotten out of it right now, and we can’t afford it, so I guess it’s for the best. I’m still pouting though.

I’m having a really hard time with focus these days. I have a huge sense of being overwhelmed still a lot of the time. Things are better then they were, but nowhere near where I want them to be. I keep trying to remind myself that things are better and that means I just need to be patient, but I’m not a very patient person. A result of this is that I’ve falling into one of my worst habits; staying up really, really late. (note it's 2 AM now.) It wouldn’t be so bad except that it’s extremely disruptive to my health and sanity. I can’t make up the sleep because BS gets up to eat between 5:30 and 7:00 every morning. When you go to bed at 2 AM & get up at 5:30 there’s a reason for feeling overwhelmed. Duh! I’m working on making myself get to bed earlier, but it’s really hard for me. It’s not in my nature and just like some people will over eat, drink, do drugs, etc…when they’re stressed out, I will stay up late. It’s an avoidance thing I guess, although I’m not really sure why I avoid going to sleep. Years ago it was because I couldn’t sleep, so being tired, but not being able to sleep would stress me out, but that’s not a problem (knock on wood) right now. Being overwhelmed means that I have trouble getting the basic things done like housework, much less getting time to blog; my lame excuse du jour. I’m working on it. I’m hopeful that soon my life will have more structure and I will be bloging regularly. (ha,ha,ha,ha,ha….) The last several days have been better, so maybe even by the end of next week. Poor DS bares the brunt of all of this. I can be such a be-yoch to him. In my defense often times it’s because I’m in the middle of being overwhelmed & he’s snuck off to the computer upstairs to zone out on FARK. (He has all day at work to do that!!!) It’s not fair to him, but I think he knows my sense of being overwhelmed so he lays low and rides it out. He’s a good guy.

You know I’ll finally find a groove the week before I have to go back to work. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. I can already tell it’s going to be a problem this go around. It was ok when I did it with TS because it was at 6 weeks and she wasn’t really doing anything yet. By the time she got to be “fun” I’d been back to work for several weeks already. Plus last time DS had been laid off of work a month prior to TS’s birth so I really didn’t have an option about going back, I needed to. This time the need part is a little more gray area then that. We can make it on DS’s paycheck alone, but we aren’t putting anything away and we can’t do much more then pay the mortgage & eat. So, God forbid something happens (car craps out, dog needs surgery…oh yeah) cause that’s the kind of stuff my paycheck covers.

BS hit her 3 month mark on Thursday. These are the portraits I had taken. This one is being used in her birth announcement.

She’s amazing. She’s really sweet, she sleeps great, pretty much on a feeding schedule and is really good natured. She’s also army crawling!!! I put her on her stomach on her boppy yesterday and she pushed herself up and over it. She would’ve landed on her head if I hadn’t been there. She scares me; she going to do stuff like crawl early I think. And she ADORES her big sister. She beams at her now, just beams. It’s really nice. I’ll have to mark this entry so a year or two from now when they’re driving each other nuts (instead of just me) I can come back to read it. Alright, one last picture and I’m head to bed.

Hot, Hot, Hot!!!

I’ve been around, just not on the internet. You see, I live in the part of California that

MELTED THE “F”AWAY!
Right into hell.
It’s so F’ing HOT I can’t begin to tell you.

I know it’s hot everywhere, including where you are, but WE DON’T HAVE AIR CONDITIONING here because it doesn’t get hot like that! At least it didn’t used to get hot like this. I’ve mentioned before that computer is upstairs in the hottest room in the house. Well we pretty much closed off the upstairs this week. Seriously. We’ve been sleeping in the playroom. All of us. Together. I get up at 5 AM (when it's only 98 degrees up there) get our clothes and rush down stairs in a sweat and that’s pretty much the extent of my time upstairs this last week. So remind me, why did we pay how much for a 2400 sq ft house, only to be able to use 1200 sq ft of it???
Anyway, no blogging for me this week. (Said much like the Soup Kitchen Nazi would say it.)

Actually, no computer time at all, so if you sent me an email don’t take it personally that I haven’t answered you, because I haven’t read it yet. (And I haven’t checked email yet, so you all should feel special Internet. Priorities you know.) I know I shouldn’t complain at least we have electricity. This has happened to people in our neighborhood and since it’s all local transformers there’s no timeframe on when they’ll get their power back. So our friend actually have AC, but can’t use it. Let it be said, God has a sense of humor.

So why am I back if it’s so damn hot? (Hey we’re on a cooling trend, it’s only going to be 100 tomorrow. Yes, seriously, we’re down to 100.)
I GOT A NEW COMPUTER!!!
DOWNSTAIRS!!!
Yeah, for me. Now I can blog again, and check my email at normal times of day, sort of.

Ok, so now that I’m done braging I need to wipe down my new keyboard (sweat you know) and go see what important things I haven’t been aware of because of my lack of email access.

More later, for real!!!

Craig’s List

I’m addicted. A couple weeks ago I got on there to purchase a bouncy seat for my mom. She can’t find hers (we think she must’ve gotten rid of it, which is weird cause she doesn’t get rid of anything). So I found one for $8 (these normally run between $25-$45 depending on what bells and whistle it has). Before taking it over to my mom’s house I moved it to our upstairs. I liked not having to move ours up and down the stairs so much that I decide it was ours & got back on Craig’s List & got her another one. (This time for $10.)

Now, I’m in the neighborhood for a second boppy pillow. I have one I use for nursing , but they’re also great for propping the baby up to sit and “tummy time” play. This go around I got a cover that has toys attached to it so the baby has something to reach for while being mad that you’ve put her on her tummy. Thing is, I’m not that inclined to change the pillow cover all that often. And so to Craig’s List I go. I’m working on getting a free one right now, but I may end up pay $5 for one as that’s that person who has gotten back to me. Either way it’s once again, a huge bargain. I love a good bargain, (really who doesn't?) and Craig’s List is better then EBay because it’s local so instant gratification. I’m all about instant gratification.

So need me to find anything for you? I’m sure they have it on Craig’s list, for cheap!

New Time Suck

My time on the computer is so limited now and I’ve found those DIS boards which is where I seem to be heading whenever I’m still nursing and have read all my emails. (Doesn’t look good for my blogging does it?) Part of the problem is knowing the right questions to ask. There are TONS of tips and tricks to getting into/around Disney and avoiding lines, eating cheap, getting in on special promos, etc….But you need to know enough to even ask the question about them. I wish there were some list that linked you to these different areas so you could at least have a sense of what to ask. If you have any tips/advise dear Internet please do pass it on, every little bit helps. Expect to hear more about the Mouse House over the next month or so. I am super excited about this trip –can you tell? I think I will include anything I find especially interesting/excting/cool in my blog (I’ll block it out with the title Mouse Ears so you’ll know) so here’s your first one:

Mouse Ears:

I found this really cool thing on the message boards called “paying it forward” (PIF). The deal is that when a person goes to DL (or WDW) they post their dates & offer to PIF, which means the first 3 people who email them will get sent postcards from a character in the park . In most cases the idea is that the character will tell the recepient how excited they are about them coming to see them on the dates they’re scheduled to come. I think this is soooo cool!!! I totally signed up w/someone to have this done for TS. Can’t wait to see her face.

Also found out about Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique from a cousin at the reunion. (You must check out the pix here.) I have since found out that this is only in WDW. Sigh, so sad. I would’ve been all over this as a kid (and I hear adults can do this too, so if they had it at DL there’s a chance I would’ve done it w/TS. Note, the child would've been into it, I doubt highly that my folks would've paid for it.) Anyway, if you have girly girl (aka—princess) and I do, they you would probably be interested in this.

Other things:

Still working on the pix from the Colorado (family reunion). The gist of the trip is that it rained a lot (that’s our luck, CO is having a drought & we manage to go during the one week of rain they’ve had in years) and that we didn’t sleep much. BS was held ALL. DAY. LONG. so at night she wanted the same treatment. NOT. Anytime we’d put her down she’d start to cry. Under normal circumstances, not a problem, I have no issue with letting my child cry a little when I know she doesn't need anything, but the four of us were sharing a room and we didn’t want her to wake up TS. The end result was very little sleep for me. She ended up sleeping in her bouncy chair next to the bed, so if she fussed I could either give the chair an extra bounce with my foot (quiets her and if done long enough will actually put her to sleep) or nurse her. One night (at about 3AM) she did wake up TS, so DS was laying on the floor next to the bouncy chair rocking it trying to get BS back to sleep and I was in bed w/TS trying to get her back to sleep. BS gets up at 6 AM so not much sleep for me. As soon as we got home she went right back to her old schedule. Little turkey. I laid her down in her crib the first night & instead of crying she rolled on her side & went to sleep. I’m thankful I don’t have to “retrain” her on this front, but I need to find a new strategy for DL as we’ll be doing the family room share thing again. (Hopefully the fact that we’ll be so busy during the day will help. Not so much sleeping in people’s arms on that trip.)

BS, BTW, just gets more and more adorable every freaking day. She has to be upright after she eats (the reflux thing) so she sits in her chair next to me in the AM while I puruse the Web. She's playing w/the toy bar on her chair & just going to town on it; she can pull the characters with her feet and get it to play music. She likes to "talk" (coo) at the characters and beams when she gets them "talk back" (play music).

Ok, I’ve way surpassed my 10 min mark on computer time this AM. More later!

Should be….

It’s going to be over 100 here today. Hotter then hot. TS is in “school” so I can “get some things done” for a change. Since it’s going to be so damn hot & we don’t have AC I should get anything done upstairs like an hour ago. But what am I doing???? Catching up on my blogs—very productive. I’m also reading Disney message boards (we’re going in Sept.) so I’m vacation planning, right? AND I'm watching BS in her bouncy chair next to me--the kid is going nuts playing with the toys on her toy bar. Very happy baby! I love happy babies!

Here’s the list of what I should be doing:

• Vacuuming upstairs (leaving the cats alone in our bedroom for a week has created quite a few new pets: Dust Bunnies!
• Vacuuming downstairs (we’re just generally dirty)
• Dusting
• Mopping (can you say hardwood floors)
• Paying bills
• Uploading vacation photos
• Picking up new computer (long story, but I’m getting one for free from a friend for downstairs—it may even improve my blog updating)
• Finishing unpacking (mine stuff—I made sure I unpacked everyone else’s stuff first thing)
• Cleaning mirrors (something I needed to do before we left)
• Birth announcements (no, I haven’t done these yet. I don’t want to hear about it. Etiquette says I have up to 6 months, I looked it up.)
• Calling to preview new preschools/daycares (TS’s doesn’t take infants)

There’s more, but I really feel like I need to start some of it. I’ll (hopefully) get that computer & write more later. Maybe I'll even upload our 300+ photos and post one or two for you. Don't hold your breath. ;-)

We're Baaack!

And the word of the day this week was RAIN and lots of it, except, of course, on the last day. Gotta love it when your vacation is spent w/a toddler and it rains every day. I'll have to write more later internet. Just wanted to let you know the Speak's are back in town and all survived.

Neglect

Yes, Internet I’ve been neglecting you. My apologies, I’d have to say it’s the word of the week; Neglect. DS was home from Friday through Tuesday and instead of feeling like we got all this stuff done, I felt a lot like I had one more kid to pick up after. I have lots of examples, but because of time I guess let’s just say, I’m feeling very neglected. We had a really busy weekend and we’re going to a family reunion (his family) next week so this week has been hectic to say the least. Because of it, even my griping tonight is going to be super quick. Bah! So next week don’t expect much either. Sorry. If I can find an internet café there’s a decent change I may be able to post, but that would mean all the stars, planets, earth, sun & moon would have to be aligned, and you know how that usually goes.

I think my mom might be right about the PPD, I've been a bit of a basket case the last couple weeks. I guess we’ll see how I’m feeling about it after next week. If I do have it, a week in a hotel room with my outlaws will definitely put me over the edge; Happy, happy, joy, joy for everyone. Either way should make for some good blog fodder, right? It's all about the blog fodder.

Just to hold you over, here’s some gratuitous kid pix. I’ll try to post before we leave again, but don’t hold your breath. I’d offer to hide you in my suitcase, but with a toddler & baby in tow, I’m not sure how well we’re going to do packing-wise as it is, so maybe you can go with us next time. I’ll miss you & I’ll do my best to keep in touch.

Yes, yes, I know my children are beautiful, but feel free to tell me again. ;-) (hee, hee)

Craptastic!!!

When I was originally going to write this post (Last Thursday when I took this pix) I was going to tell you how “crappy” the day had been, and yes it was all related to the poop in my life. However things have since improved, so why dwell? I could not pass the opportunity to share this lovely photo of BS with you though.

Yes, I will be using this photo to scare off future potential boyfriends. She did this during dinner no less!!! And let me tell you, this is nothing, you should've seen her backside. Well, maybe it was better that you didn't.

TS has gone 3 days w/out defiling her pants. Wahoo!!! (And knock on wood.) We’ve taking the tact of taking away a toy if she does it AND rewarding w/either a piece of candy or a Madeline cookie (not just any cookie, it has to be a Madeline) when she uses the toilet. (To go #2, #1 isn’t really a problem.) This also means no cookies or candy other then those times. She lost 3 of her favorite toys before this weekend, but in the last 3 days has earned them all back!!! I am also trying to make a point of asking her to help me with everything on do and make her feel included.

BS is still having crazy huge diapers about once a day, but the reflux seems to be better. Sort of. I’m not convinced it is reflux and that’s why I haven’t given her the meds for it. I see her dr for her 2 month appointment (I know, can you believe it’s been TWO MONTHS already???) on Friday so I’ll talk to him more about it then. I believe the rice cereal in a bottle once a day and keeping her upright after eating is really making a huge difference; no projectile vomiting (ok, minimal projectile vomiting) and it seems like the “fussiness” is all related to lower intestinal stuff, which would not be reflux.

Ok, more later, timer just went off need to go get dog food & water neighbor’s plants!

Summertime Blues

I guess I don't need to post to my blog today, I'll just direct everyone to Antique Mommy's. It's so my life right now.

Now add a 2 month old who has reflux (or just severe gas or something, who knows, she not happy a lot of the time) but she is sleeping 6-8 hours a night, so I'm not really complaining. And the dr gave us reflux drugs, so we'll see. I haven't started them with her yet, but that's fodder for another post.

I was thinking maybe I was having a touch of PPD (post partum depression) because I just have no patience for TS these days. And it's so not like me. I mean I'm bitchy to everyone else in my life, but I used to be consistantly nice to my kid. (But then she used to be consistantly nice to me.) I feel so bad about it. It’s summer we get to hang together all summer, we should be having fun! But it’s not fun, at least a lot of the time it’s not. It’s a lot of work and frustration for both of us. And the more I realize that the more bummed out about it I get.

Antique Mommy's post did make me realize that it probably isn't PPD or even just hormones, it's probably just us. Both of us frustrated by our current state of life, taking it out on each other. Needing each other and not wanting to all at the same time. Sigh.

Daddy’s Day

This one is sneaking up on me a little. I’m getting better at the two kids thing (just by saying that I’m sure I just jinxed my day) but adding anything like say a holiday throws me a bit. So I’m scrambling a bit today for Daddy’s Day presents. It’s not entirely my fault I knew what I wanted to do and said it in front of DS (I was talk about for the Grandpa’s at the time) and got shot down. Ack! So did I come up with something new? No, I went into denial and now I’m scrambling. I think I know what we’re doing, but it means going to the store (possibly multiple stores) with both kids in tow. Not fun. Oh well, it’s supposed to be HOT today (finally!) so I can bribe the use of the kiddie pool for good behavior.

DS is a great dad BTW. A Daddy’s Day posting wouldn’t really be complete without a mention of that fact. I think there are people who are surprised at what a good father he is, but I’m not. He’s become the dad I knew he would be when I married him. TS has become quite the daddy’s girl as of late and it’s really sweet to see her run to him in the evenings when he comes home from work.

Happy Daddy’s Day DS!!! We love you!

My Inner Nine Year Old Boy is Working Overtime

REFUX

Go ahead, say it out loud. Didn’t you giggle? Just a little? It’s how my 3YO pronounces reflux. Yesterday, I decided that maybe the projectile spitting up vomiting, (I’ve been informed that when the spit projects it’s consider vomit. Oookay.) and the congestion that BS seems to get while nursing might be indicative of something. (I considered that the projectile poop might also indicate something, but have since been informed that “projectile poop is normal.” Of course it is.) I was thinking maybe a food allergy? So I decided that maybe I should cut the obvious culprits from my diet for a week or so and see if it makes a difference. Obvious culprits would be dairy, chocolate & caffeine. Dairy & chocolate would be my worst offenses; I’ve already been avoiding beans, broccoli, cauliflower & cabbage and I don’t do much caffeine on it’s own. Since not having my Vente Decaf Mocha every morning AND evening will just about kill me I decided to call the advise nurse and see if it made more sense to do one item at a time (and can I substitute soy, which is highly allergic on it’s own, for milk? I can use soymilk and prolong the loss of my mochas for a week or two until I have to lose chocolate.) Or would it be better to do it all at once & add them back one at a time. She called me back, asked a bunch of questions and then informed me I should be bringing BS in to see the doctor, how was 12:15 for me? It was currently 11:45, I love how they make you feel like mother of the year over this stuff.

So after much poking, prodding and questioning the doctor gave us a sample swap to swipe BS’s poop onto 3x in the next week to see if there is an indication of any allergies. She didn’t think so, but “to cover our bases.” She also gave me a list of things I need to do with BS to try and limit the spitting up; adding rice cereal to a once-a-day breast milk bottle, avoiding formula (we hadn’t used it in over a week, so not an issue,) and then mostly ways to keep her upright. Depending on her (lack of) improvement we’ll know better if they want to try medication with her or not next week. In addition to all of this poor BS has a herniated umbilical cord. I noticed it the other night & mentioned it to the doctor. She checked it out and said it would heal itself & didn’t hurt her. I’m not convinced about the hurting part. The thing sticks strait out when she’s crying, it looks like it hurts. Have you ever seen a belly button stand up? That's what it does. Ouch!

In spite of all of this BS is up to 8# 4oz (Wahoo!) Considering that she’s sleeping 6-8 hours a night consistently and spitting up half of what she’s taking in, I think I can let the kid tell me how often she wants to eat now. Like it’s ok if she wants to go longer then 3 hours during the day.

Back to my inner nine year old boy; I find it humorous that yesterday, my poop posting day, was one of the highest trafficked days of my blog. Guess I know what I need to talk about if I want more visitor, huh?

It’s Bodily Function Day!

Yes, that’s right it’s bodily function day at the house O’Speak. If you’re squeamish you should turn back now. I think it really says a lot about me that I’ve gone 6 weeks without a post about baby poop. Isn’t that usually the primary fodder for bloggers with new baby’s?

ToddlerSpeak

TS has been more or less potty trained for several months now. She does still wear pull ups when she sleeps. I decided not to mess with the current arrangement until well after BS was born. I figured the move, BS’s birth, etc… was a lot to ask, so why push it. Well, TS has given me the reason; she’s been waiting till she has the pull up on and then pooping in it. This really hit a new low now that she’s decided to take it off (full of poop) and “clean herself”.

Very special.

The other highlight that’s been happening with TS is that she has decided to start peeing herself during the day. For attention. No pull up involved, just regular clothes. She’ll have just gone in the potty 10 mins before and then suddenly announce she’s going. When she did this for the 3^rd time the other day I asked her, “Why did you do that?” And she said, “Because you have to clean it up.” I may have to kill her. Guess who's cleaning up now? Instead of death I settled on losing the pull ups altogether. So yesterday and today she wakes up dry—Wahoo! And promptly pees & poops (Saturday) in her PJs while standing on the bed. Lovely.

Babyspeak

BS has become what you (or at least my parents) would call a “spity baby”. Every time she eats she spits up. Not just a small teaspoon amount either. This kid can heave. It has now progressed to where she projectiles at least once a day. Usually the “jet vomit’ occurs within the first hour after she eats first thing in the AM. She’ll have eaten, burped (she makes her mama proud on this front too) and spits up like normal so you’ll think you’re clear. Then you put her down in her crib and about half an hour to an hour later she’s crying. You go in there & there’s a trail across the crib. I have a mat underneath her, so hopefully if her diaper overflows or she spits up I’ll only have to change the mat not the whole crib. Yeah, right. This kid often manages to miss the mat altogether. She’s kind of amazing when you think about it (and so is the amount of laundry I’m doing these days). Or she’ll have done the trail and when you pick her up, it’s underneath her, down her back, etc…Very impressive. Honestly, it's hard to believe a child her size can put out that much. She also manages to pack some force with her poop. Luckily the worst we’ve gotten on that front is up the back, which is gross, but no where near as gross as it would’ve been if I hadn’t been holding up a wipe when changing her diaper the other day and the “projectile poop” started shooting out.

There’s your visual for Monday.

EIGHT HOURS!!!

Yes, I said EIGHT HOURS, the child slept for eight strait hours last night. I, on the other hand, did not sleep for 8 strait hours. I had to stay up till midnight to pump (she fell asleep at 10 after nursing). Then at 4 AM the cat, realizing we might actually be getting a full night of sleep, decides to have a hairball on the end of our bed!!! GA-ROSS! I woke up before she really got going & kicked her ass across the room off the bed. But now I was awake and had to clean it up. Never-the-less I did get in a “decent” night’s sleep last night.

Today is 6 weeks! Can you believe it’s been six weeks already???? I think her weight is about 7# 9 oz by now. Cool. At six weeks I feel like I should so have may shit more together then this. But I don’t.

I was able to get out of the house today in 2 hours (including 2 time outs for TS) and everyone had clothes on and hair brushed. Yes, I even had on my makeup. So maybe I am getting my shit more together then I think. Or maybe getting some actual sleep makes a difference.

On a non-related side note; a friend of the family (someone DS grew up with) have been dealing with an unbelievable tragedy. Their 6 YO daughter fell 2 stories in an elevator shaft last week. She survived, and in fact is making incredible progress. You can read about it here if you’re interested. If you’re the praying type, would you mind including them in your prayers this week? As a mom the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach, and since we live far away, asking you to help pray for them is about the most productive thing we can offer them right now.

Ok, more later. I’m off to nurse some more. MOO!!!

Who’s the Queen Now?

I’ve always said I’m the “Queen of Everything”, which makes TS “The Princess of Quite A lot”. But after these I’m not sure who’s the Queen around here. Hee, hee.

This Week(end) has been hard

TS is acting out and having melt downs in ways I can’t begin to describe. It doesn’t seem related to BS, but who knows. I guess we just have to get way more “hard ass” with her over everything, stop giving her so many choices, and consistently make the choices things like, “You can do this or I can do it for you. Now.” It’s hard, I'm still sleep deprived and trying to keep my head above water when things are “normal” and then she pulls the crap she’s been pulling and it’s like I don’t even know how to describe how I'm feeling. My frustration level is through the roof.

I told DS that I think she needs to start going to school 3 days a week. I told him this on Wed & things have been worse since then.

He laughed at me.

I wasn't joking.

I do know that I need to get back on my little flylady system. I started the process of it again this weekend. I’m so frustrated that getting out the door in the morning is taking 3.5-4 hours!!! (This includes feeding BS, usually 2x because by the time I get out stuff together to go she's due to eat again.) I realized that my morning routine needs to be revamped; it just isn’t working for me with two kids. I pulled my timer out and started timing how long it’s taking me to do each task so I can set a realistic routine and allocate some of the tasks to other parts of the day. Hopefully, this will help me get some sanity back (and maybe even more sleep.) So I’d better go now, since my time on the computer is up, more later.

Blogger is Pissing me off

Ok, I wrote how Blogger was pissing me off. I couldn't get a photo to load on that last post to save my life.

However on a whim I thought I'd give it a try on a new post & volia. Go Figure.

So this is NOT the pix I was trying to load. This is a pix of TS giving BS "nosey kisses" something she likes to do often.




This is the photo I was trying to upload. It's kinda dorky, but it's BS's first "smile" (probably gas, but I'll take it where I can get it, right?)

I'm hoping I might even get a birth story up for you this weekend (don't hold your breath). Ok, I'm off to bed, I'm exhaused.

One Month

(I have some pix I'm trying to upload for this, but Blogger is not playing nice tonight.) Keep checking I'll get them added. Honest.)

Well it was one month on Saturday, May 27, but life was happening & I couldn’t seem to get to the computer for any length of time until now. I did manage to get on long enough to find a bargain on a stroller frame ($25!!! Wahoo!!! Craig’s List Rocks!!!) which DS & I picked up tonight.

I’m so cool.

On the non-kid front, outlaws left today (a large part of the reason I couldn’t get on here for any length of time; I was competing w/DS & FIL for computer time in the short bursts of free time I did have, so next to impossible.) Also, my mom is having some major health problems. I think it’s something that can be managed in way that it will hardly make a dent in her life (assuming she gets very proactive about it right away). But I may be naive in my thinking, and that’s assuming she’s on board to kick it in the butt right off. That’s a big assumption; it’s more likely that if she were committed to changing her life that dramatically she probably would’ve done it already. She’s very upset about it right now, so it may be something she’s willing to take on now. I hope so, she needs to be around for a long while. Who else can drive me nuts quite like her?

As usual, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. I have lots more to write about, but I’m going to give BS a paragraph & get to bed. I’m still exhausted most of the time.

So now, back to BS, who this post is actually supposed to be about; as with most second children she’s obviously getting less attention then the first. I’m talking about my blog postings. The kid wants to eat every two hours so she’s getting plenty of actual attention. I do believe that rather then calling me “mom” she will be referring to me as “lunch”. As in, “Hello Lunch. I missed you today.”

Overall things are going very well; she’s up to 7# 4oz (Wahoo!!!) which is exactly how much they want her to have gained. Her weight & height are both in the 5% so she’s a small baby. Note: this does not equal small quantities of diaper changing or contents. We’ve even had a couple nights involving 6 hours of sleep (More “Wahoos!!!”) Dr has given us the ok to let her sleep like that at night (assuming she’s eating at least every 3 hours during the day.) We’ve been setting the alarm to make sure she eats every 3 hours, even if she doesn’t wake us for it. She does seem to get “colic” most nights (usually between 8-midnight). All pray to the Mighty Vibrator Chair Gods is all I can say on that one. And she is starting to be awake for a couple hours here & there during the day, even getting some cooing & smiles.

This is the good part.

Happy Anniversary!

It’s FIVE years today! So much has happened in that time I can’t believe we’ve only been married for five years. I had hoped to write something really eloquent about how great our marriage is, how much I love DS and how lucky I am in general, but it wasn’t meant to be I guess. The outlaws arrived today. We also celebrated TS’s b-day with the whole family tonight, so as predicted when she was born, we no longer have an anniversary, we have a child’s birthday. We decided a while back ago to start celebrating our anniversary on our engagement, although we are going out for a nice dinner tomorrow night. That being said, this is about as eloquent as I could get, (yes, I know it’s cheesy, but it’s all I got right now) and I’m barely even making it on here before midnight. So I should just be pleased I’m getting this up, right? Definitely gives you an idea of the state of our lives right this second.

Happy Anniversary DS, ILOVEYOU!!! Here’s to many, many more years of being at least as happy as we are right now. Thank you so much for all the happiness and love you’ve given me.

(If you want to see our wedding album it's still on the photographer's website. We clean up real good & it’s a very cool album if I do say so myself, but I'm a little biased. Yes, he's wearing a kilt--it's in the family tartan. We're cool like that.)

5 years of being happily married
4 pets
3 homes
2 kids
1 TRUE LOVE

Happy B-day Miss TS.

I think back to this day three years ago and I’m amazed at the person you’ve become. You are such a beautiful person inside and out; you’re smart and funny and have great empathy for everyone around you. I’m excited to watch you continue to grow and amaze me. I’m also sad when I think back to how fast the last 3 years have gone already. You’re no longer a baby or even a toddler, you’re a little girl, you would correct me and say BIG, but work with me here, I’m your mommy and as I tell you daily; “you’ll always be my baby.”

When TS was born I wrote down her birth story & scrapbooked a page in her scrapbook. (I crop in my free time; I just haven’t had any in the last 6 months or so. HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!) So in honor of her on her 3rd birthday I did a version of that here.

A Family is Born

I had a relatively easy pregnancy with TS. No morning sickness (although I some sinus issues that made up for that,) I actually slept better then usual, my skin was radiant, and I generally felt really good. During my pregnancy I attended pre-natal yoga twice a week. I attribute the yoga to all my good and restful feelings and I recommend it highly. I also attribute it to the hernia I acquired in the sixth month. I didn’t really realize what I’d done until the seventh month when TS “dropped” and put her head on the hernia—very uncomfortable to say the least. By the time I was nearing my due date the weight of the baby on that spot was really starting to wear me down. At 37 weeks Dr. B said TS was healthy and ready to go, so there was no reason to be that uncomfortable any longer, I could induce when ever I was ready! We scheduled the induction for May 24 starting at 6:00 AM. We were so excited our little princess was finally going to arrive. Once we had that date we suddenly found tons of things that needed to be done around the house. It was a very busy week. May 23rd we stayed up late getting ready. We figured we wouldn’t get much sleep anyway. As we were getting ready for bed I told DS how glad I was we were inducing because the baby suddenly felt a lot heavier and like I was carrying her differently. I finally fell asleep sometime after midnight. Then at 2:30 AM I woke up with a start, before I knew it my water suddenly broke! (Our little princess was actually a Drama Queen, she wasn’t being told when to make an entrance—she was calling the shots.) We called the doctor who told us to head to the hospital, she’d let them know we’d be early. As we were driving to the hospital (about 10 minutes away) we passed a fast-food drive-thru that was very busy. I commented to DS, “You know people are just heading home right now.” It seemed so surreal, that was us just a year ago. We got to the hospital and settled in. We didn’t call anyone since they were planning on coming to the hospital later anyway. While contractions didn’t really hurt they were getting intense and at 4 minutes apart would definitely be keeping me awake. It was at this point I asked the nurse if they could give me something so I could sleep through the contractions. I wanted to try and get some rest before everyone showed up. They gave me fentiol which just made me sleepy and slowed down the contractions to every 7 minutes. But they were just as intense! I’d start to doze off and then wake up every 7 minutes and glare at DS who had crashed completely in the recliner. (So Rude!) At 8:00 AM they agreed to give me an epidural so I could sleep. I was scheduled to start pitocin at that time and they expected things to get much more intense. I was only 2 cm at that point but I told DS “I’m not dying or anything yet, but if this is only 2 cm, this sucks!”

Oh heaven, no pain at all.
And I could still feel my legs!

I took cat-naps as various people came by to visit. By noon I was at 5 cm and they told us it would probably be another 5-6 hours. Then a couple hours later they came to check me and I was 10 cm already! The nurse called the doctor and told me to push to get things started. I did, and apparently I did so well she called the doctor again and told her to come strait over now! I pushed some more. DS and my mom helped me by holding my legs, and SIL videotaped. I had a mirror so I could see the baby coming out. I was very concerned about the epidural preventing me from pushing well and therefore having to be turned off or down. I figured being able to see what was going on would be me focus and stay motivated. Watching the baby in the mirror was actually very distracting; I’d start watching and forget to push as hard. But it worked out fine. I’ve had harder work outs (of course, I’ve never been hooked up to pain killers during a work out.)

At 4:50 PM ToddlerSpeak was born.

And so was our family.