Poor Madda Madda
Mar 8, 2009Joseph was running through the house with Maddalyn (no, he's not ALLOWED to do this) and fell on top of her. She can't walk or even bear weight. We went to the ER. Xrays were normal. Ibuprofen and follow-up w/her doc. She's such a go getter. She hates to sit still. She can't understand why she can't walk. Poor baby. Don't know if she can even crawl yet. She's very clingy (rightfully so).
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Life update
Mar 29, 2009Maddalyn is now nodding her head yes and no. When she does yes, she kinda shakes her whole body too. Reminds me of a bobble head. Her personality is REALLY blossoming. She knows what she wants and gets mad if she can't have it. I think I need to buy her a spare toothbrush. She pitches a horrible fit when we are done brushing teeth and she has to give it up. I've tried letting her put it away and that only worked once until she realized she wasn't getting it back. The older kids are learning that if you don't want Maddalyn in your stuff, you have to keep it safe. Don't bother putting it "up" because just like the rest of them, she's a climber too.
Christan has recently practiced her barbershop skills on her dollies...and herself. Lovely as always. She's really enjoying school and playing with her friends. She just learned how to tie her shoes too! I"m so proud of her. My mom showed her the "bunny ears" way and she picked right up on it and the next day I showed her the "loop, swoop and pull" twice and she's doing it! Not perfect and it takes time...but she CAN do it, dang it. (Joseph can't even do the loop, swoop and pull.)
Joseph is covered in ringworm AAAAAAAAAGH. I've been putting antifungal on it and it seems to be spreading anyway. I will be calling the doctor tomorrow. He's back to riding the bus. Let's hope he can maintain his bus behavior. I"m looking forward to not taking him to and picking him up from school. Makes life a tiny bit less hectic. He sure is growing up. It's crazy how fast it happens right before your eyes.
I talked with Drake today. While he was at JDC, they stopped his ADHD meds. He went to the doctor yesterday and they started it back up for him. He said he feels a lot better and can really notice the difference. This is a wonderful thing to hear from my child who has been arguing about how the meds don't do anything and just make him feel like crap. He had his 1st day of school. He seems to like it. The family he is staying with are very nice and he is getting along well with *most* of the other foster boys. (A 9-yr-old is annoying him but hey, that's what 9 yr olds do.) He sounds wonderful! Yesterday they did community service. It sounds like he was working at a food bank type thingy.
I have had a pretty productive day. I FINALLY got the Christmas lights and ornaments taken down. I was kinda holding out for Drake to help me do it but c'mon now, it's almost April. JJ helped me take care of those. The kids and I worked together to get their rooms cleaned and I got the rest of the house picked up and vacuumed. Dishes WERE done LOL. JJ wanted to give me a break so he took Joseph and Christan to the Natural History museum at KU. Maddalyn is taking a nap and it is so quiet. I'm trying to get work done but...it's the weekend and I really want to NOT work. But....that won't pay the bills so...I'm off to do what I do before Madda Madda wakes up and says it's time to PLAY.
Pregnancy is going fine as far as I know. I have low progesterone so am taking Prometrium and have my levels drawn again tomorrow. The kids don't know I'm pregnant yet but everyone else knows. I'm ready to tell them but JJ doesn't want to because of the miscarriage last month. (We had told the kids.) So...I guess we're going to wait a while.
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Whisperings of a 4-yr-old
Apr 10, 2009Christan and I have conversations all the time about how daddy is so lucky to have three beautiful girls, how girls are special because they can have babies grow in their tummies...and the biggest secret of all...girls are smarter than boys, but we don't tell the boys that because it will make them mad.
So tonight, daddy says how he is lucky to have three beautiful girls. I told daddy that we talk about that all the time and Christan runs to him and whispers in his ear "Don't be mad but girls are smarter than boys."
Another funny...last weekend my mom was in town visiting and I was telling her about Joseph's rash and how he had a few spots on his scrotum. Christan runs to Nana and whispers "A scrotum is a ball sack." Mom couldn't help but laugh.
Christan cracks me up.
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Coming clean with a dirty little secret
Apr 21, 2009I've been having an affair. It started when I was a sophomore or junior in high school. I snuck around behind my parents' backs knowing they wouldn't approve. When I was 19, I found out I was pregnant and kicked that loser to the curb....until my MIL moved in with me when my son was 2 months old. I was driven back to my dirty little secret. And so it continued...hiding it from my parents still even as an adult...until I found out I was pregnant again in 2001. Again...I kicked it out of my life. That lasted for about 6 years. I don't have any idea how it started YET AGAIN...but it did. Unfortunately, it was going on through my entire 4th pregnancy. I've known it was wrong. In fact, I would say there are only a few CM friends that even know. I've kept it hidden because I was ashamed but now that it is finally over...forever...for the rest of my freakin' life......here goes....
I quit smoking Sunday! My affair with the nicotine man is OVER.
It is a nasty, expensive, health hazard and I will have no more of it! I chose to quit while DH is out of town. Though that is a little crazy since I have no help with the children, I decided to do it this way because he is not here for me to steal cigarettes from! I have made it past the 48 hours that it takes for your body to stop craving nicotine. Don't get me wrong, I've thought about cigarettes a lot in the past 48 hours but I know the only way to quit is to QUIT. I keep thinking of the words of a wise old Jedi master (omg, I'm such a nerd). "Do or do not...there is no try."-Yoda.
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I guess it's over
Jul 6, 2009I've updated my profile page and changed my siggy...I'm no longer pregnant and breastfeeding. Before you freak out...yes, I'm still pregnant! Maddalyn has given up the boob. It seems kind of crazy to me. It was just in March or April she was nursing ALL NIGHT long...seriously...all night. Then she stopped most of her night nursing...only nursing 1st thing in the morning (and then she'd doze off again for another hour) before naps and bed. Then she quit nursing before naps/bedtime. Then she dropped her early morning feeding. Last Wednesday was the last time she nursed.
She is the first child I have not weaned myself. I was concerned about how I would handle breastfeeding when 8-9 months pregnant and not wanting anyone to touch me but I told myself to follow my own freakin' advice and not worry about it...just go with the flow. Good thing I didn't fret over it because it apparently would have just been a huge waste of time.
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The Journey to James Dylan
Nov 25, 2009Something I should have known as the mother of four (soon to be five) is that EVERY pregnancy, birth and child IS different. This pregnancy was by far the easiest of them all. No, I don't usually have particularly difficult pregnancies but I do have physical discomfort (that is to be expected) especially in the last trimester. However, even THAT was absent this time around. I found myself weeks from my due date thinking "where did this pregnancy go? I'm not ready for it to end."
As my due date approached, I started stressing out about whether my mom would be able to attend the birth or not. She is my #1 birth partner and has taken care of me during every labor. We communicate on a level that does not require words. I do not have to express my needs to her. She just meets them. (Just as she always has...she was AP before there WAS an AP LOL.) The problem was that she lives about three hours away and also runs her own business which gets VERY busy a few days before Thanksgiving and stays that way until the weekend following. I felt like I was on a time frame of when I had to have the baby in order for her to be here. On Friday (my due date), mom called to let me know that it didn't matter when I had the baby...she would be here regardless. I jokingly told her that I just wished my water would break so that I would KNOW it was time for her to come. Although, that has never happened before and quite honestly, the thought of laboring without the cushion of my amnio sac scared me.
I had some contractions that evening from 5-7 minutes apart for about 3 hours. I hoped they would turn into something but figured they would just be more of the prodromal labor I'd been experiencing. I went to bed knowing that either the contractions would fizzle out or intensify. I was right...they faded away. I woke periodically through the night with Maddalyn hollering or my bladder hollering...but at 5:37 a.m., something really strange awoke me. It felt like someone had just thumped me in the side of my belly. I thought "that was weird" and rolled over to my other side. As I rolled, I felt a warm glug, glug, glug. "There is no way my water just broke. My water doesn't break until LATE in labor." By the time I got to the bathroom, I was soaked down to my knees. I checked the color and called my mom to get her on the road. I called my midwife to let her know what was going on and she encouraged me to stay hydrated and be sure to eat.
My day was really pretty normal. I took care of the kids, did some laundry...and a lot of pacing. My contractions began around 6:00 a.m. and would come every 10-15 minutes. Around Maddalyn's nap time, they had faded to every 30 minutes. I decided to take a nap with her because I figured I'd probably be in for a long night. By the time nap was over, my contractions were back to about every 10 minutes. I was really getting irritated. I felt like I was going to be in labor forever because my contractions were so far apart. They weren't painful at all and not requiring any attention or focus from me so I just thought they probably weren't really doing anything either.
I checked in with my midwife at 5:00 p.m. The "big" birth room (with tub) was in use by another mama and would probably be available in the next few hours. I decided that without the tub being available, there was nothing I could do at the birth center that I couldn't do at home so we just hung out a little longer. My contractions started coming about every 7 minutes around 6:00 p.m. Around 7:00 p.m., they were about every 4-5 minutes. They were starting to require a little bit of attention from me. I would lean over against my desk or table and rock my hips side to side. They weren't lasting very long and were not at all what I would call intense. I decided I wanted to get Maddalyn to sleep before I went to the birth center. She had taken a late nap with me so I waited until about 8:30 to put her down. JJ offered to put her to bed. He said "Uh, you were just breathing through that contraction and I thought you said when you had to start breathing through them, it was time for you to go." I told him I was fine. I just wanted to get her to bed.
I laid with her and at first, there was a lull in my contractions. I thought it was pretty cool...that my body was letting me get her to bed without having contractions. Then...I had three contractions with in a few minutes of each other. These were different. They DID require my attention. With the first one, I got up on hands and knees and rocked with Maddalyn the copy cat on her hands and knees right beside me (silly monkey). The next two, I just laid on my side and rubbed my belly. After the third contraction, Maddalyn was asleep and I was telling myself that I had to get up though I didn't really want to. I walked out of the room, told mom it was time to go and that I was feeling shaky. We got in mom's van at 9:09 p.m. It took 8 minutes and 3 contractions to get to the birth center. Those contractions were very different....very intense and VERY hard for me to stay relaxed through.
When we got to the birth center, I walked in and smiled at my midwife. She asked if I was feeling pushy and I told her no. The contractions were coming very close together at this point. I went to the bathroom, changed into a night gown, had my blood pressure checked and listened to the baby's heart rate. My girlfriend Melody and her daughter Olivia arrived as I was climbing into the bed and began pushing. A total of 20 minutes after arriving at the birth center, James Dylan was born. He came so quietly into the world. He didn't even cry.
I kept saying how I didn't think he was as big as Joseph (my largest baby). The midwife weighed him and asked what weight my largest baby was. I told her 8 lb 2 oz. She said, well...not anymore. James was 8 lb 11 oz, 21 1/4" long....born with NO interventions. I guess it only makes sense that the easiest pregnancy ended with the easiest birth.
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No more excuses
Apr 6, 2010I'm fat. Yes, I just had a baby, but I was fat before I got pregnant.
Let me back up. In about 2005, I caught sight of myself in my mom's full-length mirror in her bathroom after getting out of the tub and about puked. I was at my heaviest weight (240 lb) and REFUSED to gain one more pound! I joined Weight Watchers and after 18 months, lost 65 lb and felt fantastic. Then I stopped following the program, gained about 25 lb, got pregnant, gained about 30 lb (AFTER having the baby), got pregnant again....After I had James in November, the least I weighed was 218 lb...the most I weighed was 232 lb. Yep, I gain weight while breastfeeding.
I guess I've always used breastfeeding as my excuse to not "diet" for fear of compromising my supply. Well, I KNOW Weight Watchers works and I KNOW they have a breastfeeding program so...I joined on 03/26/10. Weighing in at 226.2 lb.
The awesome thing is, I'm SO not dieting. I am changing my eating habits. I am never hungry. I never feel deprived of anything. No one is telling me what I can and can't eat...except me.
As of 03/02, I've lost 6.2 lb. My goal is to be back to my prepregnancy weight...my FIRST prepregnancy weight (LMAO) which was 155 lb by my 20 year class reunion (which isn't until 2012 so...totally obtainable goal). That is a healthy BMI for my height. I know I can do this and am excited to have started my journey to a healthier life.
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