From a Tired Mommy

This is a poem I found that was just what I needed to read right now:

This sentiment is something that I am really struggling with right now in my life. I feel like this time with my kids is slipping by so fast, and I am so tired that I find myself just "existing" and trying to stay alive long enough to make it to bed time. And bed time isn't even that much of a reprieve because I have not slept all night in two years. There was one month when Abigail was 10 months old where she slept all night, but then I got pregnant, and even though she was sleeping, I began having lots of insomnia and night waking very early in my pregnancy that lasted til the very end. And then obviously I have a baby who wakes up several times a night now. I. am. tired. I feel like even saying it with periods after each word is still an understatement. Like, understatement of the century.

Not only am I tired, but for 6 months I have been co-sleeping with T Patrick and if you have ever breastfed in the "side-lying" position, you know how your neck feels when you wake up after falling asleep that way. If you have never fallen asleep breastfeeding like that, just imagine sleeping on your side with your bottom arm all the way up under your head ALL NIGHT. So my neck and my trap muscles hurt always. And I am always having stingers in my neck. So much painful nerve things going on, and soreness, and it is just interfering with my ability to participate in life.

On one hand, I have a husband who gets frustrated with piles of laundry and things around our house. See our house tour to see just why he is always frustrated with me. On the other hand, I have a beautiful two year old who, when I open the door to let her occupy herself in the backyard while I get things done around the house, or just rest, comes to me and says "hand? hand? hand? hand? hand?" because she wants to walk around our back yard holding my hand. It breaks my heart that most of the time, resting or cleaning takes priority over playing with my little girl, who will only be two years old for 340 more days. And don't get me started on my sweet little boy. I could just bite his little cheeks all day long. He is the cutest thing ever. So squishy! And growing so fast. I love my babies. But I'm not enjoying them as much as I want to. 

If anyone reading this didn't already know, I live in Washington state. My parents are in Oklahoma and Patrick's parents are still in Louisiana, where we are both originally from. I don't have a lot of time to make friends up here, and the good ones I have made have all moved away in the last year. One of my closest friends from up here hasn't left yet, but lives about 45 minutes away from me. I don't know any of my neighbors, because I don't have the energy to try to meet them and maintain a friendship with them. So this means that I have NO help. I am with two small children day in, day out, without a break once in a while to take a nap, paint a cabinet door, or get a pedicure. Or just have a couple hours with no responsibility. No constantly being on guard for a toddler about to get into something she shouldn't be, or a puppy thinking about peeing on the floor, or a baby that may or may not be crying waking up from a nap. It can get exhausting to always be "on duty." And yes, I have my husband here, but he is tired too. He gets up for work at 4:50am and is out the door by 5:15 every week day, and often works weird overnight schedules and weekends. And he does help out and give me breaks every now and then, but it's not the same as having my mom live down the road and being able to come help me out when I'm having a rough day. I am completely on my own. 

I am not trying to complain really, just putting it out there. I know lots of people make it through life every day with two kids 19ish months apart. I just feel like it is SO HARD. I don't know how other people do it and make it look so easy. I'm writing this so when my kids are older, and I am sad that I didn't enjoy them as much as a should have when they were little babies, I can read this and remember how difficult it was and not be too hard on myself. 

Oh, and back to not having time or energy to appreciate my babies...we are currently trying to get Bubba to sleep through the night. I feel so guilty about letting him cry so much. I am of the opinion that sleeping through the night is a developmental milestone just like rolling, crawling, sitting, etc. And I don't think you can make a baby sleep all night if they're not ready any more than you can make a baby crawl before he is ready. Despite that belief, I am going to give "cry it out" the old college try, because I am just at a loss with the sleep deprivation and neck pain. 

To make a long story short, does anyone want to come spend a few hours at my house, a couple days a week, so I can take some breaks, do some chores and have the rest of my time to spend enjoying my beautiful, smart, sweet, adorable babies?? 

Blogger 411

I saw this on a friend's blog and thought it would fun to share some relevant and some random information with y'all!

1. How long have you been blogging? And what got you started on blogging? Has your blog changed?
I have been blogging officially since Mother's day this year, so only two months! My blog hasn't had much time to change yet!

2. Did you go to college? If so where, and what did you study?
I did, I spent three years at Oklahoma State University, moved to Washington and got married before my 4th year, so I've been working on finishing up online at Columbia Southern University ever since. Yes, still not done...whomp whomp. If you're counting, that's 7 years of college under my belt folks, and still no BA. I studied nutrition and exercise for two semesters at OSU, and the rest of my years have been spent studying marketing and finance.

3. Where have you traveled?
I have been to most of the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Belize.

4. If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you would buy?
A different house and all new furniture, of course! (well, new to me...lots would be antiques!)

5. What are your 3 biggest pet peeves?
1. Grammar
2. Driving like an idiot (that includes fast idiocy, and slow idiocy, and all other types of driving idiocies)
3. Pets (har har...get it? But for real...not a fan.)

6. What is your favorite movie?
I like so many now that I don't think I can pick a favorite. But for the longest time, in like, middle school, My Best Friend's Wedding was my favorite movie! I could watch it over and over!!

7. What is your drink of choice; wine, beer, or liquor. Or Water, Soda, Tea?
I quit drinking alcohol for the most part after gaining 26lbs my freshman year of college! So I don't really have much of a taste for it. However, back in the day my only drink of choice was diet coke with either vodka (vanilla smirnoff in particular) or whiskey. Nowadays my only drink is water! I prefer to eat my calories rather than drink them, so water it is! 


8. What is something you enjoy to do when you have me time?
Projects around the house! Or sleeping!! Sleep is a big one. My kids don't think I need much, but they are mistaken. I also like to read and look at house eye candy on the internetzz. 

9. If you could have a $10,000 shopping spree to one store, which store would it be?
Oh my. One store...I would have to say Whole Foods so I could get grassfed meat for my family instead of the CAFO crap in the grocery stores. We {try to} eat Paleo in our house, so eat A LOT of meat, but the quality is not great and that concerns me. I would love to be able to afford $6/lb ground beef and pork chops from grassfed animals! 
If that answer is too boring, I would also LOVE to spend $10000 at a good flea market and get some awesome antique furniture, fix it up and start a shop selling it.


10. Share with us an embarrassing moment of your past? Or present. 
I am lucky enough to have gotten by so far without any catastrophically embarrassing moments in my life, but recently I have had the top button on my button up shirt come undone a few times in public. This happens to be a very crucial button that keeps my boobs inside my shirt, so it's not cool when it pops open.

I also farted on my husband's lap once. Which may not be embarrassing for a lot of people, but I am not a "fart and poop in front of my husband" kinda gal. So as far as he knows that is the only time I've ever farted in the last 4 years. Is this TMI? I think it might be...

11. What day would you love to relive again?
This is a hard one. I've never had any really particularly awesome days. My wedding was just kind of whatever, my childbirths were cool but awfully painful so I don't think I'd relive that again for the same kid...I guess I don't really have an answer to this question. Although it would be nice to relive any day when I weighed 125lbs. I would appreciate it more this time around!


12. If your life was turned into a movie... what actor would play you?
I was told once that I looked like Sandra Bullock in my driver's license photo. But I do not at all look like her. So it wouldn't be Sandy. It would probably be Kristen Wiig from SNL/Bridesmaids, etc. I am way not as funny as she is, but I am a big spaz and pretty awkward. So if she could be more awkward, in a less funny way, she would do a great job playing me. 


13. What are the jobs you had in high school/college/the early years?
In high school I worked at the Hot Spot tanning salon in Mandeville. Then I worked at three more tanning salons in Stillwater, OK while I was in school at OSU. Then when I moved to Washington, I worked for a psychotic chiropractor for 3 weeks, then spent a year working for American General Finance (now Springleaf Finance). And that right there is my whole resume, folks. I have been a stay at home mom since I was 21 weeks pregnant with Abigail. 


14. Show us a picture from high school or college.
I love looking at old photos of people, so I am going to post a bunch of these! 

This is me and my dad at the Sweet 16 for the sophomore girls at my school. I was 15 here though.

This is me and my baby boy Pepsi. He was my first horse that I got when I was 11 and he was 3. 

I love him!

This is me and my husband in 2004. I was just starting my senior year, and this was in Mississippi after one of his fights. {he won, hence the medal :-) } There is a better version of this floating around somewhere where Patrick's eyes are open, but I don't know where it is. :-(

This is one of my favorite pictures from college, I think it was the beginning of my sophomore year. These girls were my best friends at OSU! 

15. If you could travel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go?
I would go to Greece! Hands down, I think it is so beautiful, I would LOVE to go there for FREEEE. I am hoping to eventually pay to go there anyway, but if anyone out there wants to foot the bill, you are more than welcome to!


16. Show us the most current picture of you or you, or your family, or anything of meaning to you. 

This is my family at our photo shoot in early June. I <3 my family! 

17. Where do you see your life 5 years from now?
Hopefully somewhere WARM! We should be living in the south somewhere, maybe with one more kid. But mostly I hope that we are all happy and healthy! And that my house is pretty and my husband and I don't get divorced over decor disagreements...ahem...

Some Bubba Eye Candy

This is just a picture dump of my boy and his dog. Enjoy!

"Hmm this looks yummyyyy...."

Nom nom nom...

Oooooohhhh...what's this???

Mom I think he is trying to get me....

That's all folks. Haven't been getting much sleep around here so I haven't had much energy to do work on the house. Here's hoping for a restful night tonight!

Let's Talk About Vacuums

This 1980's hideous awesomeness will soon be coming to live at my house! And I am actually SUPER excited about it!! My current vacuum just bit the dust a few days ago, and my parents were nice enough to foot the bill for the majority of this bad boy from their dealer in Tulsa. It will be shipped to my house for FREE and have a TEN year warranty! I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to have a vacuum cleaner that is guaranteed for TEN YEARS! Can you tell how excited I am?????!!!!!

I can't believe I am so excited about a vacuum cleaner. I think that's how you know you are an old lady. Excited for a vacuum cleaner at age 25. But guess what. My mom has had her vacuum like this for 25 years. WHICH MEANS....I could still be using this vacuum cleaner when I have grand children. Sah-weet! Looking at my record so far with vacuums (two for about $200 in the last 4 years) this vacuum cleaner will have paid for itself in like 8 years, and anything after that is just awesome free vacuuming!!

Since I burned everyone's eyeballs with that hideous vacuum photo above, here is a picture of my little fruit thief at the grocery store:

I turn my head for 5 seconds to grab some peaches, and I must have had the cart too close to the produce, because when I turned back around she had taken a nectarine and already eaten two bites. At least my girl loves good food! It could definitely be worse!

Freebies! and a Miracle

Sorry for the tease in the title, but this post is not about freebies for any readers...I'm not famous enough for that yet! (However, if anyone reading this would like for me to review something, or use my blog to promote something feel free to contact me!)

What I'm talking about is all the free stuff I scored at Lowes yesterday! I went in just to price out having two more pieces of glass cut to match the piece I stole out of an old 11x14 frame and used in my new homemade frame. I asked the salesman about acrylic too, because I thought maybe it would be cheaper.  Well it turned out to be a LOT cheaper, because he had a bunch of scraps already there, and cut me two pieces for free! :-) Abigail was with me, and also got a free wooden toy to put together at home. It was their kid project for the day, and the lady who was taking the toys to set up walked past us and showed it to Abigail. It was a "Kung Fu Panda" on a stick that swiveled. Not the coolest toy ever, but Abigail was excited about the "PADA" so the lady gave us one to take home. Patrick put it together, and now this guy lives on our kitchen table, until it winds up on the ground and Stewie eats it.

And now for the miracle...

Abigail held her bubba all by herself on the couch yesterday for a few whole minutes AND SMILED while I took her picture!!! I am so excited! This NEVER happens!

Our photo shoot started like this:

Looking at the TV like usual, trying to figure out why the picture and sound goes away every time mommy gets out the camera.

Then she miraculously looked at me and did THIS:

And THIS:

(No, they are not the same picture...I promise. But I do have about 5 more that look just like these two. Just call me Patti Perkins. (That's my mom, and for those of you who don't know her, she is camera-crazy. For real. (How many parenthetical notations can I make inside eachother?? Should I stop?)))

Then when I thought we could call it done and had turned off my camera, she started giving Bubba the cutest sugars ever! So I pull my camera back up and by then I kind of missed the moment. I asked her to give him some more sugars, but all the pictures I got just look like she is torturing him. But here they are anyway for your viewing pleasure.

Disclaimer: No babies were harmed during the making of these photos.

Patrick Junior's Grand Entrance

I know a lot of people like to read other people's birth stories. Or maybe I'm the only one. If you don't like birth stories, then go ahead and skip this post! Ok, on with the story.

I had been getting weekly membrane sweeps since 38 weeks. We all thought I'd be having a big baby, so I was hoping for sooner rather than later. Fast forward to February 2. I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant. I had been sick for a week, and also had been in prodromal (or false) labor for a week. Slightly uncomfortable contractions every 7-10 minutes. For a WEEK. With no progress. I was GBS+ this time, so the goal was to get to the hospital with enough time to get some antibiotics. This made it tough to know when to go in, and we had 2 false alarms where we decided to go ahead and drop Abigail off with our friends and go to the hospital. But each time I was only 4cm dilated, which meant that I wasn't progressing even though my contractions would get to be 1-3 minutes apart.

Ok so I backed up a little after I fast forwarded. So February 2nd rolls around, and my contractions are starting to get closer and stronger again. I am really feeling like this is it, so around 5ish we leave for the hospital. We brought Abigail with us this time, so we didn't bother our friends for a third time in case it was another false alarm! Sure enough, I am still 4cm dilated. We ask if we can just go ahead and break my water since they had already offered that to us the second time we went in, and it seemed like that was the only thing keeping him from dilating my cervix all the way. They said they couldn't do it at that time because they were not staffed enough for an "elective induction." So we decided to go home. Again. My midwife offered me some morphine to help with the contraction pain so I could get some sleep since the pain appeared to be futile (as in, not doing any work to open my cervix.) While pretty uncomfortable, the contractions weren't unbearable at the time, so I turned down the morphine. I also didn't like the idea of taking something like that when I didn't really need it since, you know, I'm growing a person in my belly and sharing my blood with him.

On the way home, my contractions started getting a little stronger, and I was so annoyed that I was having all these contractions and no progress! I got home and bounced around a while on my exercise ball while watching Grey's Anatomy, but decided I was tired and needed these contractions to stop so I could get some sleep. I took a warm bath in hopes that relaxing would get them to stop, or at least be less strong. I always think baths are a good idea, until I get in my tub and remember how stupid it is because the water turns luke warm after like 5 minutes. Not cool. Anyway, I start not loving my bath, and I feel like my contractions might have let up a bit, so I get out and get in bed.

As soon as I laid down I got the longest, most intense contraction ever (for this labor, anyway...). Then another one. I would classify these as "fairly excruciating" because I actually had to "breathe" through them, or make noise or anything else to cope. I get out of bed and call the L&D to see if they can call in the prescription for Morphine for me. No dice, turns out Morphine is a shot, not pills. Duh, Amy. I am in so much pain I can barely talk so while the girl on the phone was talking to me, I just blurted out "I'm just going to come in" and hung up. I was a little hesitant to go out of our room and tell Patrick we needed to go BACK to the hospital after just coming from there, but I was really hurting so I figured something had to be going on. My contractions were coming one on top of the other, so I just barely managed to load myself into the car while Patrick got Abigail out of bed and buckled in her carseat. Patrick asked me to call our friends who were watching Abigail and let them know we were coming. I said no way, Jose...So he had to call them as we were leaving.

We pulled up at their house after like 15 or 20 minutes. I am just writhing in the front seat of the car. (Ever tried going through transition in the front seat of a car? Not fun) Patrick ran Abigail, still buckled in her carseat (!) to our friend's front porch. Lindsey met him out there and grabbed her overnight bag and we were back on the road.

After another 15 or 20 minutes, we pull up at the Emergency Room. Now, let me take a minute to explain the procedure for when you're in labor with my hospital. You are supposed to enter through the ER. You fill out some paperwork at the first window, then someone takes you back into a hallway and you fill out some more paperwork in a little room, then wait for someone from L&D to come down and get you. L&D is on the 14th floor. (It's really the 13th, but there is no "13" on the elevator buttons) So this is why I came in through the ER. Back to the story...

We park illegally right in front of the entrance. I couldn't even move and had to wait for my contraction to end before I could get out of the car. I finally managed to climb out of my seemingly enormous, gargantuan, Mt. Everest-sized vehicle (really just an Expedition) and waddle my way into the first window at the ER. I tell the girl I am about to have a baby. I am very clearly in extreme pain. She says OK let me just ask you a few questions, and I say no that's ok I need to go up to L&D, we can do the paperwork later. Then she says "hehe, I'm afraid that's not how it works :-)" (smiley face added to indicate her silly, cheery tone while saying this to a laboring woman who is in so much pain that she has dropped to her hands and knees in a nasty inner city ER) My poor husband answered all her questions for me while someone else came out with a wheelchair to wheel me into the next paperwork prison. The wheelchair felt terrible so I walked/crawled/hitched a ride on Patrick to make my way down the hall to fill out more papers.

Once we get to that room, I hit the floor again. This time I feel some stuff going on down there, and I yell out "I'M PUSHING!" Someone runs at me with a wheelchair, and I try to sit down, but I could feel the baby's HEAD so I jumped right back up and freaked out. Patrick was right in front of me and when I jumped up, I flung my arms around his neck and pretty much started climbing him like a tree. I felt like I was trying to climb away from the baby's head. I'm not sure what I thought that would accomplish, but it just happened.

Next, they brought me a gurney since the wheelchair was a no-go. Someone asked me if I wanted to go up to L&D, or if I had time to make it up there, or something like that. I said NO! So they wheeled my gurney into some room and pulled the curtain shut after like a hundred people came in the room. I was group B strep positive this time around, which means you need to have antibiotics during labor, preferably for four hours prior to giving birth. I told the nurses this so they would know that I hadn't been able to get the medicine, and they put the heplock in my hand anyway to start administering it. Turns out having a baby is a great way to distract from the pain of getting a needle stuck in your hand, because I didn't feel a thing. I was too busy using every ounce of strength I could muster to fight through the pain of a contraction and lift my butt off the gurney so they could remove my sweatpants.

Two pushes later, Patrick Jr's head was out. (That's right, I was about 2 minutes from having a baby in my pants.) His head was out and my water STILL had not broken! My midwife later told me that my "bag of waters" was one of the strongest she's ever seen. It finally broke when I pushed again to get the rest of his body out. It exploded everywhere, and was really gross. And he pooped right as the water exploded, so there was just this huge mess of baby funk everywhere. But anyway, he was out and it was such a relief to not be pregnant! They handed him to me, and I hiked up my {Patrick's} sweatshirt to feed him a little while all the people were running around cleaning and doing whatever else they needed to do.

Everyone was like "He's SO big!" and "Oh he has red hair!" They did his apgars and he got a 9 and a 10! It is really rare to get a 10, even for full term healthy babies, my little man is such a champ at life! After all that, they wheeled us up to the maternity floor where you stay after you've had your baby. I got all stitched up, and they weighed Little Patrick and confirmed that he was indeed a huge baby. 9lb 11.5oz and 21inches long. Then they got all concerned about him being "macrosomic" (which just means "big" or larger than 4000grams to be exact. I don't know how many pounds that is, feel free to do the math if you're curious) and started throwing around words like "diabetes." I was not diabetic during my pregnancy, so I wasn't very worried about it. They did a blood test to make sure he didn't have high blood sugar, and it turned out his blood sugar was actually too low. So then they are like, "we will have to test his sugar every 4 hours for a while to make sure it stabilizes, and if it doesn't, he will have to have some formula." I just continued to feed him whenever he wanted to eat, and his blood sugar continued to be completely normal for every test after that first one.

We ended up having to stay in the hospital until Saturday afternoon (I gave birth Thursday night) due to his blood sugar and GBS+ issues. But he was perfectly healthy. My giant perfectly healthy baby boy! Patrick had gone to pick up Abigail from our friends' house on Friday and hung out with her at home for a while before bringing her to meet her Bubba. It was love at first sight for her, and she has loved her Bubba ever since! We think he's pretty cool, too.

Voilà!

Yesterday I left y'all with an almost finished picture frame. I had spray painted it white with just one coat. After applying the second coat,  I liked how it looked kind of white washed and I could still see the wood grain through the paint, BUT the look I was going for was a pretty solid white. I got out my handy dandy Kilz spray primer and did a quick coat to get more coverage. Two more coats of white satin spray paint and I was high as a kite and my frame was good to go! (Just kidding about the high part, but I spray paint in my garage so I could definitely smell it a bit in our living area...woops.)

After all my paint was dry, I set the glass in the frame, then laid the matte and photo down on top of it. Then I used some trusty duct tape to secure the glass. It might not sound very safe, but with the notch in the wood, the glass was flush with outside of the frame (if that makes sense?) So the duct tape has a pretty easy job.

With everything secured, I slapped three 3M picture hanging strips on the back (two on top, one of bottom...this sucker is a little heavy!). Then I took down the mess of a gallery wall above my sofa, and popped this guy up using a small level and my best guess as to the center of our sofa!

Here is a close up of the finished product:

And here is a somewhat zoomed out view. Please ignore my shelf disaster in the corner!

Soon the other two will go up on either side. I am waiting for my photos from MPIX to arrive. Snapfish threw a bog ol' wrench in my plans for an 8x10 close up of each kid on either side when they sent the close-up of Bubba with like an inch of his head cut off. I was able to adjust the cropping on MPIX though, so I am crossing my fingers for frame-worthy prints this time!

Speaking of my adorable babies, here they are out running errands yesterday: 

Abigail has really been loving her Bubba lately.She has always liked asking to hold him, but usually would try to push him off saying "all done!" as soon as he hit her lap. Well the last couple days she has actually held him for minutes  at a time! And she loves giving him kisses! Whenever  I pick her up from daycare (she goes twice a week to get some little kid play-time) she looks for him in his carseat and says BUBBA!!! If Patrick happens to be home and able to keep him, she gets very concerned and asks where he is, it's so cute!