sleeping, flip flops, its all the same.

i truly do not understand the phenomenon that is tired children. for some reason when children are tired they do not have the ability to just go to sleep like regular people. im not sure why, i dont think the concept is that hard, when im sleepy, i just go to bed. but for some reason my children do not know that when they are tired they can just close their eyes and take care of business. instead they cry and scream about how tired they are... literally, the older one will scream 'night night,' but to actually go to sleep on his own. no way.

its almost like standing in a fully stocked kitchen and whining about how hungry you are. ok, maybe its not totally like that because who hasnt stood in front of the fridge with door open for a good 7 minutes and still not found anything to eat. maybe its more like getting ready to walk out the door, looking at your flip flops and for some reason unbeknownst to you, you are unequipped to actually put them on your feet therefore rendering you unable to leave the house. yeah, i think its more like that.

so if anyone wants to come over and teach my children how to put on flip flops and go to sleep on their own it would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

the magic of 'no.'

i want a no 'no button.'

at some point my sweet, adorable baby boy learned that he has the amazing ability to say 'no.' and since this discovery was made he has been putting it to use no less than 178 times a day.

he says no to everything.

::at lunch time me: 'do you want a sandwich or yogurt?'
him: 'no.'

::at playtime me: 'are you having fun with your cars?'
him: 'no.'

::at snack time me: 'would you like some fruit?' (his fave)
him: 'no.'

basically at any point where 'no' could possibly be an answer, and even in cases where it makes no sense as an answer, it IS his answer. we will even be doing nothing, maybe im making dinner and hes playing near me, he will just say 'no mom, no' for no reason. he just likes to say no.

the worst part if the whole situation is that in my head if hes saying 'no,' then that means he knows what 'no' means. so when i tell him no to something and he continues doing whatever it was he was doing, then he is specifically ignoring what i said. not cool big guy, not cool.

im really hoping the little one isnt hearing all of this 'no' talk and scheming in his cute head about all the things he is silently saying no to...

i should get an award.

breastfeeding is difficult for many different reasons.

of course theres the issues of mama being the only one to get up in the middle of the night, the annoyingly boring task of trying to pump if you know youll be out, the awesomely fun scavenger hunt for the 'nice bathrooms' at the mall that lend to more comfortable nursing, and the oh so embarrassing problem of occasional leakage in public.

while the above mentioned things arent the most awesome, none of these are my biggest issue with breastfeeding my child. i feel like the sweet bonding time we share together and knowing that i am the only one able to do it are worth all the troubles... except for one.

my child bites.

he doesnt have teeth just yet, but they might as well be in there. he is teething like his only goal in life is to get those teeth out. every waking moment he has to have something is his mouth, either a toy, his fingers, your fingers, a blanket, anything. but the most awful part of it all is when he gets his undeterrable urge to bite while part of me is in his mouth. not cool.

it is especially unpleasant during the 4 am feeding.

heres the scenerio: baby starts stirring just a bit, i wake up, turn on the bathroom light and mostly close the door (i need a little light- my aim isnt perfect). i get the baby up, we sit in the nursing chair, and while we are both half asleep he begins to nurse. in the middle of fighting my own body to stay awake there is a sudden stab of pain! of course i cry out, (i mean, come on, someone just bit my boob) and my voice startles the baby who also then cries out. from there on it is just a downward spirial of crying and sadness from all parties. but soon enough i get us both calmed down and resume the nursing.

im pretty sure i sure get an award or something.




a picture of the cute little biter.

adventures in grocery store land.

as those of you with children are well aware, just trying to get out of the house is an ordeal in itself. i often find myself so frazzled by running around like a crazy person trying to get the boys together that by the time im ready to actually leave the house, i dont even want to go where i was going anymore.

i mean really... a typical day would go something like this.

wake up, feed kids. straighten up after breakfast and realize while flitting around the kitchen that i am missing an ingredient or two for dinner, so my next thought is 'oh well that gives us a reason to get out of the house for a bit, we'll just run to the store real quick.' real quick are the key words here...

once it has been decided that we need to leave the house there are numerous things that need to be done before the errand can be accomplished. first, i need to get myself ready which is never pleasant because there are two boys under the age of 2 that have both decided that at that exact moment they absolutely require my immediate attention. so if you have seen me out lately and noticed my lack of make-up and hair that looks like it may or may not have been brushed you now know why.

the second task at hand is getting the boys ready. the little one is easy enough because he cant really go anywhere to escape the changing of the diaper and clothes. score! one kid down. his brother, however is a completely different story. once he knows we're getting ready to go somewhere he is super excited, but at the same time completely unwilling to cooperate in any way. so i have to chase him down and change his diaper and put clean clothes on him all while listening to him cry about the car that he dropped while wrestling to get away from me. finally two kids, dressed and ready to go.

the last and most important thing to do before leaving is the sorting and filling of the diaper bag. this might be the worst part of the getting ready process just because i have to totally empty the thing before i can start adding supplies because i have a terrible habit of thinking that there are plenty of size 2 diapers in there when really i have 37 size 4's and no size 2's. so i dump everything out and separate everything between what is the big boys and what is the little boys. (i really honestly tried to have to separate bags for the boys to make it easier on the arranging and when one is left with someone and somebody else has the other... it works about 30% of the time) once i figure out what i need to grab, the extra outfits and diapers, i just kinda leave everything hangin because i now have to make the emergency bottle for the little man, fill up the big boys juice and snack cups, and make sure i have binks for both. while i am doing these things i realize that big boy is unusally quiet which is never a good thing, so i walk over to the diaper bag only to discover that the package of disposable wipes that i failed to zip back in the bag protecting it from little toddler hands has been completely emptied and i now also have a pile of unused wipes that i have to shove back into their home. fun.

we are finally ready to go, right?! wrong. while i was getting everything together, cleaning up big boys mess, and putting the dog up, the little man has either spit up all over his outfit or had the biggest poo poo explosion of life, the remedy of either situation requires a costume change.

boys are now both clean and everything is ready to go. i first take out boy #1, buckle him in his seat, make sure he has his juice cup and a toy. then i run back in to get baby boy #2, put his seat in the base and start the truck, yay, finally on our way! we get to the store approx. 3 minutes later and while getting the big boy out of his seat, i realize his shorts are soaked with the juice from his cup that he let drain all over his lap.

its a good thing its summer, he'll dry quickly.

'twirled like a ballerina'

clearly i am the worst blogger of all time since i refuse to be consistent in my blogging as of late. i keep telling myself that ill be better about it... we all see how well that has been working out. but i have recently been thinking about the lack of my blogging during my most recent pregnancy, i started worrying that fin might look back or hear stories and feel left out about my not sharing every detail of his pre-life life... so im going to tell the story of his birth and honestly, i dont know how awesome hes gonna feel about that either.

we will start with the wbb (week before birth), i went to my final check up before reaching the almighty week 40, i was totally hoping to set an induction date if i didnt have him on my own by the time the magical projected date of arrival rolled around. so the dr checks me out and of course i was only dilated 1 cm... but as hes checkin out the downtown i am in some serious pain, it was hurting like woah. and i so dont remember that hurting when i had the first, but i definitely cried this time around, and thats when he informed me that my uterus is posterior which basically means that it was tilted backwards so he was all up in there to check it and thats why it hurt. not cool. i didnt think much more about it at the time... and because he made me cry he felt bad and went ahead and set up my induction date, including two rounds of the fantastic cervical gel to help my body get in gear which of course it didnt...

so the hubs and i get to the hospital all bright and early and totally ready to have a baby! ok, maybe we werent that enthusiastic but you know...

i get all hooked up with the iv and pitocin and not long after my contractions start which is awesome because who wants to be in labor all day long? so theyre coming on stronger and stronger and they decide to break my water which is a totally weird feeling, it didnt work out the right way the last time so it was kinda a new experience this time around. i totally felt like i was peeing the bed but like the most pee ever in your life all at one time... weird. a little after that the contractions are becoming a little more painful so they decide to go ahead and give me the epidural- yes! the dr said i could probably wait a little longer but my nurse kinda pushed for it so they said ok... not that it mattered much. so i get the epidural and its almost like instant relief, for about 5 minutes then all the pain i was feeling in my stomach had just transferred down lower to my actual vagina. thats right, i was feeling the contractions in my vajayjay. its a little alarming to me since i felt absolutely nothing when i had my first. so im saying 'hey, this might be weird but im feeling the contractions in my downtown,' the nurse tells me to go ahead and push the button to release more medicine (didnt have that luxury the first time around either). so im in a lot of pain now and i can only describe what i looked like as 'writhing in pain.' only because i was holding my body up with my hands on the rails of the bed and was doing everything i could to keep the lower half of my body from touching the bed because the pressure in the downtown was outrageous. so im kinda thrashing around yelling about how its time to push and how i just cant understand why i feel it when my mom finally grabs the nurse to come and check me out. they had just checked me not three minutes earlier and i was about 6 cm dilated (you have to get to 10) so shes thinking that im not ready but when she takes a peek she rushes outta the room saying they need to get the dr in there now. she starts prepping me for pushing but all im doing is pushing and pushing that button yelling about all the pressure when she comes over to me, gently puts her hand on my arm and calmly says 'honey, if youre still feeling it then youre just gonna feel it.' im sure i looked like a deer in the headlights because i was absolutely shocked that my epidural wasnt gonna work. so all throughout pushing (which felt like hours and didnt even last 10 mintues) i just kept yelling 'but why?! why can i feel it?! i just dont understand!' at some point the dr is trying to get my attention because the baby was upside down in there which is why that whole 'posterior' thing earlier mattered. so while im feeling all this pressure and pain from a baby trying to gegt out of my vagina, i now have to push in a certain way that the dr is describing to me so i can help to turn the baby over. apparently when i did what he said the baby just twirled right around like a 'ballerina in a music box,' according to my mom. side note: my first labor i banished the hubs to above my shoulders so he wouldnt see the horrors going on in the downtown area but this time because everything was so fast and rushed, i was all sorts of spread eagle on that bed with no sheet or anything to keep anyone from seeing anything. so its a good thing that at some point right before the pushing began i screamed at my sis to get my son outta there, i feel certain he wouldve been scarred for life seeing something like that. ok, so the baby twirled, he came out and was good to go. he was 6.14 lbs and 20.75 inches long.

im back!

its been a real long time and i totally shouldve kept up with this thing much better throughout this pregnancy but having a crazy little man running around and knowing that people i know read this means ive been having a hard time being completely honest the way i was the first time around... not that ive lied about anything, i just havent given out all my gory details. and in my life gory = hilarious. ha ha!

so gory details quick!

i still pee when i sneeze and laugh, and new to this pregnancy, i also pee when i cough! ta-da! and if we decide to go down pregnancy road again i most certainly will try to have another summer pregnancy... winter pregnancies almost always equal catching at least one cold and with colds come coughing... terrible, awful, pee-causing coughing. sadly and disgustingly enough i even had to wear a pad because every two seconds i was peeing just a little, and by day two of being sick i had run out of all clean underpants! terrible. so the pads were a gross must.

gross fact #2: i complained about constipation my last pregnancy as well, but if i had known what i would go through with this one, i wouldve kept my mouth shut! oh ma gah! my iron fortified, poop preventing prenatal vitamins teamed up with my also constipation causing vomit meds and decided to wage war against me. i actually had to do something that i never thought i would ever do... numerous times. i have only just recently been able to go without the use of duh duh duh... a disgust-o-rama enema! gross.

ok... that is all for the yuck of pregnant krp.

onto the baby business. up until yesterday everything was going just fine. i stopped losing weight from being sick all the time which is good, i havent had to take a vomit pill in almost two weeks which means i can poop on my own (very good), and the baby was growing right on track. my dr even said the other day that i am 'carrying the baby beautifully in my pelvis.' ha ha!

i did have a little weirdness that i was pretty reluctant to mention to the dr just because i felt like an idiot... the baby was moving really weird, i would have described it as a 'fluttering,' just like the early movements but it didnt really make sense since hes so much bigger now. so i asked the dr if that might be normal or if there was any possibility that the baby could be having a seizure inside. i was told that there are mixed feelings about it but it was definitely something he wanted to look into, so i was sent back to the specialist to have a more targeted ultrasound to make sure everything was ok. the first visit went fine, he was doing well, his growth was right on track and nothing looked out of the ordinary. but i still had to come back 4 weeks later for another check up, that wass yesterday.

fast forward to yesterday and big changes... the baby isnt doing so great anymore. i had the regular stuff done with the regular tech i always see there and i could tell that something wasnt right because she kept trying to measure something with the oxygen and blood levels and clearly she wasnt getting the results she wanted. so i was done, she said the dr would take a look and possibly bring me back in there to look at some other things. they took me to another room, had another tech do some more checking on the blood and oxygen but i couldnt see anything in this room, the screen was definitely not facing my direction. then after more waiting the dr finally came in and did some more measuring, i had been in there for about an hour and a half before they told me anything... that is torture for anyone, let alone a crazy, hormonal pregnant lady. i finally found out that the baby is now measuring pretty small, and his head is measuring even small than his already small body. the only measurement they gave me was his weight at 3.13 lbs and that is below the 10%... and the umbilical cord is wrapped around his neck and possibly his shoulder, and this might be the reason that his growth has slowed down. not fun news to hear at all.

so the plan of action is to monitor the baby more closely, i will now have ultrasounds every other week and in the meantime i have to fill out a movement/kick chart everyday which they say is really just for me to be more aware of the babys movements or lack thereof. if we dont hit a certain number of movements in a day, or there is a big change from one day to the next i need to get in touch with the dr immediately. kinda scary. but were really hoping that the baby will figure out how to get out of his little cord mess hes gotten himself into... and if things stay this way then were thinking that ill probably keep him in here for at least 4 more weeks and maybe theyll take him early like they did with our first. we will see! its just a big scary waiting game now.