Not Me

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I have not been using a small Dora brush from the 99cent store on my children daily because I've yet to replace a broken hairbrush.

I do not regularly postpone bathing my children, knowing they are going in the pool or the beach or sprinklers the following day and will definately require a bath after that.

I was not laughing like crazy the other night when I was trying to help Gracie potty, when Miss Rose slipped in the shower and almost fell out of the tub, and then Gracie was urinating as I was pulling her panties down. I did not say "sweet Jesus" only to hear Gracie mimic me.

It's not me who's been waking twice a night again, with a baby, who doesn't want to sleep more than an 4-5hr stretch.

And it's not my 6.5 month old baby, who still isn't eating solids because every attempt at cereal has resulted in vomit.

We eat healthy around these parts, and avoid fast food. So, if you're wondering you did NOT see me this past Saturday, in the Target food court, feeding my children hot dogs and icee's for lunch which I munched on an Italian sausage. Most certainly not.

Overachiever

I have a hard time putting just one toe in the water. If I'm going to put a toe in, why not the whole foot? And if the foot, why not the leg and you know how it goes. Before you know it, I'm completely wet.

What's funny is this analogy doesn't really apply to me getting into a pool. But it pretty much applies to the rest of my life. I like to warm up to a pool. But if I'm reading a book--I want to read the whole thing without stopping. If I take up a hobby, I want to go all the way with it.

I do wish I had this characteristic when it comes to housecleaning and chores. Those apparently, I will only do half-way.

A few years ago I never really understood MySpace or Facebook and I don't think I knew what a blog was. Was Twitter even in existence then? I have no idea how long it's been around.

Then I gave in to MySpace in order to connect to students in my ministry. Not long after I dove headfirst into Facebook. It was much more my style---very streamlined without backgrounds and moving images on MySpace which give me a headache. I've reconnected with SO many friends from my childhood, high school, college and youth group days.

Then it was bloggging, and now Twitter. I have these aspirations of creativity and offering useful information. I'm afraid I annoy my IRL friends who read my Tweets because they quickly became more geared towards the mommy bloggers and Tweeps.

But then I remember, I have a family and home to care for. I have a job and people to minister to. These are just my hobbies. And they don't they pay!!!

But of course, when I see this giveaway being advertised, I can't help but enter. A new blog design (because I am very ignorant in this area) would definately feed my current fascination with blogging!

Firecracker

(wearing a bathrobe I wore as a child. Don't mind the mess in the background.)

Have I mentioned how Gracie is our little firecracker? Maybe it's her role as the middle child. Maybe it's just her personality. Maybe it's having Miss Rose as a big sister. Probably it's all of the above!

Her language has just taken off since her 2nd birthday. Listening to her communicate these days, it's hard to believe that she's the same little girl who had some difficulty adjusting to a new baby in the house and didn't have the vocabulary to express herself and would just get angry and yell and hit.

She's funny. And she knows it. Gracie loves to talk in different vocal tones and accents, adding to the hilarity. She does funny things with her mouth, with make her words come out differently. It's hard to explain, but it cracks Bean and I up all the time. Even Miss Rose laughs.

(Did I mention she LOVES pasta?)


Some of my favorite phrases these days include...

"right now" she loves adding this to many requests and demands

"your Lily" said whenever she wants me to notice Lily

"there's your Lily all this time" I'm not sure why she adds all this time, but she does it frequently

"why mama" this one just started. such fun.

"stop it right now"

"nooooo"

Words she adds a -y on the end such as milky, buggy, dressy etc.


Every morning begins with "I wear prettly dress" (not a typo...she says it with an L)


"Can we watch a moooovie?"

"Can we go home?" I think she uses this phrase when she is bored. And she has been known to use it when we are home.

"My hair is CRAZY."

Gracie thinks that our contractors (who are also friends and fellow church members) are either going to live in the addition or that they already do. She often greets them with a "hi Tooony" which makes her sound like she's from New York or something.

Whenever she hears a funny sound she said "who's that mama?" A few days ago she made an involuntary noise while having a bowel movement and wanted to know who made the noise.

Oh, and she fell in LOVE with this little Dean Martin singing statue a few weeks ago. She couldn't stop hugging him and singing into his little microphone. This is was at a family members home and you can see that she likes to collect her favorite toys at other people's houses. No matter where we are, if they have toys she will find Barney, Backyardigans, Mickey and Minnie and whatever else is her current favorite.

This little one keeps us on our toes and in stitches too!

Hectic & Harried

Those are the words I would use to describe life these days.

I'm STILL trying to nail down a routine, weekly schedule for household chores.

Such as laundry. So that it doesn't sit on my loveseat for a week. Or in the laundry basket.

Such as tub cleaning. So that I don't cringe at the built-up ring around the tub when I put my baby in.

Current circumstances dicate a change in babysitting location...which means extra driving. Add in VBS this week for Miss Rose. Even more driving.

The closer our addition nears to completion...the more anxious and impatient I get. How does it work that way? I'm ready for the baby to have her own room, and to hopefully wean her off the middle of the night comfort nurse back to sleep. I'm ready to be able to read in bed before I go to sleep. Or relax in my room whenever I want. (Who am I kidding? I have three children. There will be no relaxing in my room). I'm ready for my kids to be able to play in the backyard...instead of the front.

Summer is a blast. But the routine of Miss Rose going to school will be nice too.

Sometimes, in the midst of the hectic and harried days, it's nice to let it all go.

Last night we all ate in shifts. Which allowed Bean and I time to exercise, Miss Rose time to play with her beloved neighbor-friend and we didn't stress about it.

Bean said--who cares if the kids watch more TV than normal tonight.

Just let it go. Relax. Take it easy.

So we did. Sometimes, you just have to do it. The laundry is still in the basket. The tub still has a ring. Other chores remain undone.

Oh well. It will get done eventually. Just like the baby will sleep through the night eventually. And the addition will be done eventually.

And in the meantime, we'll go on living.

Wow!

After finally completeing Gracie's birth story and then adding Lily's I shared the link on a few Babycenter message boards thinking some may be interested in my stories. I know I was very hungry for VBAC stories when I was pregnant with Gracie and then for post-rupture pregnancy info and stories (which is hard to find) when I was pregnant with Lily.

I checked my Stat Counter account today and it looks like my stories have been read almost 600 times today. Wow. I did not expect that. I'm glad I can share my experiences though.

If you are interested, here are links to the Uterine Rupture Support Group and the Pregnancy After Rupture (PAR) groups I found. You will need to apply to become a member and they are only intended for those who have experienced ruptures. But I know they have been quite helpful to me.

And if you found your way here through Babycenter, I don't mind new readers!

Final Installment: Lily Cate

To catch up, you may want to read these blogs first.

Gracie part 1, part 2, and part 3.

I was looking back in my blog posts to find a link to Lily's birth story. But I guess I never actually blogged the details of her birth. It's not like I wasn't busy you know, with the c-section recovery, pre-K, toddler and baby. Oh yeah, and throw in my job!

It's not nearly as long as Gracie's was...but here are the fun details.

If you've been following my blog you'll remember I blogged this in the morning of the day Lily was born. My labor had been stopped the night before and I was killing time before I could call my doctor to be seen.

I've realized, given my history of uterine rupture and how uncommon it is to experience a rupture and then a subsequent pregnancy, the doctor on call was nervous to make any decisions regarding delivering me. I was 36wks and 5days, just 2 days shy of the magic 37-week full-term number.

As soon as I spoke with my doctor's office, they said to come in just as soon as I could and be seen. Miss Rose and Gracie had stayed the night with their grandma, since we had been at the hospital so late. The next day was the day she normally watches them while I work, so she kept them for us again.

After hearing my story of the night before, my doctor said it sounded like I would deliver before my scheduled c-section date. She planned to let the hospital know that if I came in again in labor to call her (not the on-call doctor) and she'd come do my c-section without trying to stop my labor again. I felt better about this plan, but I was still nervous about the taxing my flawed uterus was getting.

Then it was internal exam time. Upon examining me, I was a very loose 2cm, and easily stretched to 3cm--even more progress since the night before and the head was very low. My doctor said "oh, you're not going to last. This baby is going to come. You're so close to 37, let's deliver you as soon as possible."

Now that was more like it! That's what I was wanting to hear and really put me at peace. They would call the hospital and find out when their was a slot and call me--she said it would be that day or the next. Bean and I did a few quick errands and were on our way to our old house to pick up the co-sleeper (remember, we had just moved 4 days prior), which was next to my work.

While en route I got the call to head to the hospital as soon as I was ready, as my c-section would be at 3pm. It was quite a whirlwind. I had NOTHING packed or prepared. The coming weekend, our first full weekend in the new house, was supposed to be "get ready for baby weekend."

And of course, we were scheduled to have our range delivered that afternoon. Bean initially asked his mom to remain at our house with the girls for the delivery (which killed her) because she loves being at the hospital when the babies arrive. A co-worker, who's also a babysitter of ours, offered to leave work and stay with the girls so his mom could come to the hospital.

We picked up the co-sleeper and headed to the hospital. We didn't even have our camera with us--so my mom brought hers.

When I arrived at the hospital and they began to prep me for surgery, I was already having contractions again, confirming that this delivery was inevitable. I had the most wonderful nurse who had three girls of similar ages (we didn't know yet our third girl was coming). She also had a history of c-sections and pregnancy complications. She told me I was getting the best anesthesiologist in her opinion, which I was excited about.

Everything went textbook. It was actually my best c-section. I had the fewest side effects (itching, nausea etc). The OR team put me at ease and conversated with me. We were very excited to meet our baby and both Bean and I were pretty certain it would be a girl. There were three names on our list--Addelyn, Camille and Lily. Bean told me right away he thought she looked like a Lily. And sure enough, the name was perfect for her.

Lily Cate weighed in at 6lbs, 5oz. Her big sisters were a respective 8lbs, 30z and 8lbs, 8oz--so she was a peanut compared to them. This girl was BORN crying. And she cried all through her exam, until she was brought to me. When they were wheeling me into recovery, I heard a baby crying and when Bean came to talk to me he confirmed that yes, it was our baby! Because the experience was so laid back Bean got some great photos (I'm sharing one at the end) and this was the only time he cut the umbilical cord. Things happened so fast with Gracie we didn't even have a camera in the OR.

Bean tormented our family and didn't tell them the gender of the baby at first. Once the baby was with me, he went out and shared the news with Miss Rose (who still wanted a brother) who then shared it with the rest of the family.

It was taking a long time me to be able to move my legs, but my recovery nurse knew how anxious we were for the girls to meet the baby, so she moved me to my room before I could move my legs. By then the girls were pretty tired and overstimulated, so their excitment wasn't quite what I might have dreamed of. After leaving my room, Miss Rose vomited, thanks to skittles and excitement before dinner!

After the trauma that surrounded Gracie's birth, it was a blessing to have such a drama-free and positive c-section experience. Even though it was a crazy time with just having moved and Miss Rose's birthday being two days prior, and not having bags packed or all the baby purchases made. But family and friends pitched in and we made it through.

In my eyes, they all are my miracle babies. Just knowing that I could get pregnant and have a baby was incredible to experience with Miss Rose. Knowing how close we could have come to losing Gracie, makes her a miracle. And then Lily--who surprised this planner of a mama, was in existance weeks before I knew it and decided her own entrance into the world.

I don't take for granted that I can have babies and even if I didn't have the deliveries I dreamed of, I am healthy and so were my babies.

It still amazes me.

Proof she was born crying! Check out this AMAZING photo Bean snapped.


Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it.
I've changed it to black and white to minimize the "gross" factor for those that don't appreciate photos of a surgery (yes, there is a gasket in my incision which they are pulling the baby from.)

Stop It

Kids are parrots. They say what you say, how you say it, over and over again. There have already been many times I hear myself in my children. Sometimes it causes my to cringe. Sometimes it's pure comedy! Sometimes it's so sweet to hear Miss Rose "mother" her sisters in the same way I speak to all three of my girls.

As a parent, you often have to get the message of "no" across to your kids. For all sorts of reasons. Because they are being disobedient, because they are in danger, because they are embarassing you in public, because they are having a temper tantrum. Because they are pestering their sister or coloring on the carpet. You get my drift.

I don't want to be one of those parents who barks out rude statements and comments to their kids, only to tell the kids not to say those kinds of things to each other. I'm not a fan of "cut it out" "quit it" "knock it off" and the like.

So I thought, if I use the word "stop" I will get my point across, without being rude, or overusing the word "no".

Good idea, right? But EVERYTHING backfires with kids.

So now, my kids tell each other to stop. They tell me to stop. Oh how I love it when Gracie gets mad and tells me to stop right in my face. Usually it's not even about a specific thing I'm doing. She is just frusterated about everything.

I guess hearing "stop it" barked around the house is better than "knock it off". But still.

It totally backfired.