Pages

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

My sweet baby girl

So as everyone knows by now, IT'S A GIRL!!! Tessa Grace. And I already love her more than words can say. It's weird how that works. I mean, before we had a sono, I obviously knew a baby was growing inside me and I loved it. But when we were having the sono done and she was showing us the heart and the brain and the hands and feet, it really hit both of us that there is TRULY a baby in there! Like, a living, breathing, growing baby. And THEN she said it was a girl........and I cried :) I'd been praying for a girl. Don't get me wrong, I am head over heels in love with my baby boy and there is such a special bond between moms and sons. But the thought of a baby girl that will be cuddly and hopefully close to me for the rest of my life was such an awesome thought. I'm such a girly-girl and I needed someone to pass all that pink onto! I NEED another girl in the house!

Her name........we've had her name picked out since before we knew if Tommy was a boy or girl. We knew our firstborn son would have the name Thomas, after Nick's dad. And I knew I wanted all the kids to have names that start with the same letter. So we knew we had to have a girl's name that started with T too. Have you ever tried finding a girl's name that starts with T?! Oh my word. Not many choices. I know a few Tessas, none of whom I'm close to but I've loved that name since the first time I heard it. It's just different enough that you know there's not going to be 4 other Tessa's in that class, but it's not weird where people are gonna be like, "How do you say that?!?" The other option was Teagan. I really liked this name too, but Nick hated it, so since we only had those 2 options, we went with Tessa! Her middle name, Grace, is after my mom. I feel like now that we know she's a girl and we know what her name is, we can really start getting to know HER.

I hadn't felt her move much until the sono. There were a few times when I thought I felt a kick, but I wasn't 100% sure because they weren't very strong. Then during the sono, I could feel her kicking and turning around, which is the coolest thing ever. Now, she is SO active at night and early in the morning. I love being able to feel her. I think that has to be the best part about being pregnant. I can't wait until Nick can feel it, although if she's anything like her brother, she'll be ornery and stop kicking every time dad touches my tummy.

And now to figure out our living situation. We have 2 bedrooms upstairs and our biggest bedroom (which is where we currently sleep) is downstairs. If it was a boy, I was going to have Tommy and the baby share a room, but I knew if it's a girl, I wanted her to have her own room. Silly? Maybe. But I want to be able to decorate and for each of them to have their own space. Plus, Tommy is such a light sleeper I don't want him waking up every time the baby cries during the night. So the dilemma is, if they each have their own room upstairs, where are we going to sleep? Not sure yet. We have a living room upstairs that we literally never use. I think we've sat up there maybe twice a year since we moved in. I want to make it our bedroom, but Nick thinks that's weird. The front door is off that room, but we never use that either. Everyone comes in through the garage. I think the only people who have knocked on that door were Jehova's witnesses :)  My thought is, it's our house. We can use the rooms however we want! And it's not a permanent solution. Ultimately, we'd like to build a barn and turn the garage into a master because it's already insulated and drywalled. So it would just be for a year or two. We'll have to see if I can get him to agree :)

So in the meantime, we buy bows!! And tutus and ribbons and flowery junk and ruffles and tights and pretty shoes. Our bank account is going to be vicariously low for awhile until I get it through my head that she does not need 15 newborn dresses now matter how stinkin cute they are---and you guys, they are SOOOOO cute. Thank you God for a healthy, beautiful, sweet (hopefully) baby girl!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Grace is enough

I wish SOOOOO bad that I could say the sex of the baby right now, but that's gonna have to hold off until after we tell the whole family at dinner tonight. But the sono we had this morning did open my eyes to a few things that I feel kind of guilty about.

I pray a lot for this baby. I pray almost every night. I pray that it's healthy and growing well. I pray against any deformities, brain issues, cancer, heart problems....I mean, I literally go through the whole body (or as much as I can get to before I fall asleep) and pray over it for this little one. And I thought I was trusting God to answer those prayers. My thought has always been why ask God for it if you're not going to trust that He will provide? I mean, if you needed a favor and you had a best friend but you didn't think they were capable of doing it, would you still ask them to do it and just hope it turned out okay or would you find someone else who you were completely confident would do the job to completion without error? You would find someone else! So if I'm not putting my full trust in God, why even bother asking for his help? So when I pray, I usually walk away feeling good about it and knowing He'll take care of me.

When we were going in for our sono, I was so excited to find out if it was a boy or girl that I hadn't really thought too much yet about the rest of the baby today. Then the tech started going through all of it's parts. And I started freaking out. I work for a pediatric neurologist, so I see a lot of worst-case scenarios. While she was measuring the brain, she measured this little tiny spot towards the back of the head and my first thought was, "Oh my gosh! Is that an encephalocele?" (An encephalocele is when the skull doesn't close completely and the brain tissue starts growing outside of the skull in a sac). But why? Why was THAT my first thought? It's like, as soon as there's one little nagging less-than-ideal moment, it shatters my trust and confidence in God. It makes me sad and mad at myself because at the end of the sono when she said everything looked good, I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

It seems like my whole life I've fought against the instinct to wait for the bottom of every situation to fall out. And I hate it! It's really dumb. I want to be a Suzy Sunshine, a glass-is-half-full kind of girl.......I really want to start trying to see the best in things and EXPECTING the best in things instead of just waiting for something to go wrong. So if we're together and I'm being negative, hold me accountable (in a nice way so I don't get offended and rip your head off :)! I was driving from the sono to work and this song came on K-Love and I tuned out the whole song except this one line that says, "His grace is enough." And it SO is. His grace is enough to forgive my doubts. His grace is enough to take perfect care of both of my babies. His grace is enough to help me get through anything that doesn't fit into "my perfect life plan." HE IS ENOUGH!

Don't get me wrong, I DID think about all these things during the sono, but it was a really good experience overall. It was SO awesome to see our little baby moving around. I actually got to feel it kicking while the tech was doing the sono. My OB said my placenta is on the top so it's probably going to be a little while before I feel much movement, so I was really happy to feel those little kicks and turns. And just to see how perfectly like a baby it looks but how very small it really is....it's amazing. Truly. So stay tuned to find out the sex!!! We have dinner with my family and Nick's family tonight to share the news and after that, it's facebook status update time :)

P.S. I proofread this a billion times to make sure I didn't write he or she instead of baby. Wouldn't want anyone catching on early, now would we? ")

Monday, February 20, 2012

13 months

It's time to do my first TODDLER post!! What? I no longer have a baby, I have a toddler. Nuts.

Tommy, at 13 months, you are:

*weighing about 25 lbs and are 29 1/2 inches long. I think you've been 25 lbs since you were about 10 months old, but you keep staying the same weight and growing taller. You've started slimming down and are growing into a little boy rather than a chunky baby!

*wear 12-18 month clothes. You were wearing a lot of 18 month jeans, but now they're getting too big on you around the tummy, so we've been putting you in 12 months stuff. It's kind of an impossible situation because the 12 month pants are almost high waters on you but the 18 month pants almost slide off your butt! What to do, what to do.....

*still wearing size 4 diapers.

*eating like a 13 year old boy! But not really. It seems like you eat all. The. TIME. But when I think about what you're actually eating, it's not that much. You eat your 3 big meals and then you want crackers or a granola bar or cheese or ANYTHING you can get your hands on between meals.

*ornery as sin. Oh my goodness. You have this little grin that you give (as shown below) that lets me know you are getting ready to do or just have done something you KNOW you're not supposed to! It's usually this face followed by a loud crash or you running in to the bathroom to play in the trash or SOMETHING mischievious. Let's just say, you keep us on our toes.


*talking up a storm. Not much of it makes sense, but you're starting to make a lot of word sounds (if that makes sense). It's not so much pointless jabbering now as actual letter sounds. You say dog and dada consistantly and I KNOW you know I am mama but whenever I tell you to say it, you give the face shown above, pause a minute and then say, "dada." And then you and dad laugh. A lot.

*SO stinkin smart! You know what pretty much everything is. We can tell you to get a diaper or your shoe or your hat, etc. and you go right to it and pick it up! You also know what it means to throw something away although you don't always LEAVE the trash in the trashcan after you've thrown it away. We're working on that. Mom can say, "Let's go upstairs!" and your little legs carry you just as fast as they can to the stairs. We just love watching you learn new things every day. It's amazing what you pick up without being intentionally taught.

*able to find your eyes, nose and belly!! I'm truly worried that at some point, you're going to poke your eyes out or get you finger stuck in someone's nose because you get so excited that you just jab really hard at whatever your finding. And for some reason, when you "get someone's nose" you like to stick your finger up their nostril, which is disgusting and extremely surprising to whoever's nose you're getting.

*nosy as all get out. You cannot stand if someone is doing something and you can't see it or be a part of it. You dig through my purse, follow us into the bathroom, throw fits if we leave you and bang on any door that's closed because you're just SURE someone is doing something fun in there.

*have been hitting a lot lately. And I HATE it. I don't want to "spank" your hand because to me, that's hitting to teach you not to hit. So we just hold your hand, tell you it's not nice and ask you to give loves to whoever you hit. And sometimes you look sorry and sometimes you laugh. Lovely.

*so sweet (when you're not hitting-ha!). You snuggle everything and I mean EVERYTHING! Books, phones, stuffed animals, my knees.....if we say, "give it loves," you wrap your arms around it, lean your head to the side and squeeze. It's adorable.

*so funny. You put your hands up and shrug (like you're saying, "I don't know!") ALL the time. Like if I tell you to find something and you can't, you do that. And you do that to pretty much any question we ask. It's so cute.

*love drinking out of water bottles. We finally just started giving you the actual water bottle because you're got it down to where you can get a drink from it without spilling toooo much water. You freak out if you have a cup of water and we have bottles of water, so we just eliminated the cup :)

You are so funny. And smart. And cute. And crazy. I feel like as soon as you turned one, you were a whole new kid, learning whole new things with a whole new attitude. It's so neat (and exhausting) to watch you explore everything. I love your kisses and hugs. I can't get enough of you! I can't wait to see you as a big brother. Tommy, you're getting so big!! I wish I could freeze time, but I know each day with you will bring something new and exciting. I love you, sweet baby.


Thursday, February 16, 2012

Thursday Randoms

*Our sono is moved up to 1/24/12!! Yes!! Only 8 more days until we find out........if the baby cooperates, of course.

*I'm so tired, I think I might be sleeping as I'm typing.

*Nick doesn't have to work Friday night! It's a miracle!! It will be so nice to have 2 full evenings with my husband! Still praying that something works out for him to be on first shift. I have faith it WILL happen!

*I want to feel this baby move. Like 100% no doubt in my mind that it's the baby kicking. I keep thinking I feel it, but it's not consistent enough to be sure.

*I watched the movie Courageous. It was really good, but I wish I wouldn't have read the book first. It totally takes away any suspense the movie might have had.

*Me, my mom and Tommy ate at the Huddle House in El Dorado last night. It was pretty good! And cheap, which is always a bonus.

*I have an urge to go shopping and spend lots of money I don't have. I don't know why. It just hits me sometimes to go buy stuff. Let's hope my will power is stronger than my urges :)

*My husband is going to be 30 in 2 weeks. What?!? Where does the time go? At least I have a few more years before it happens to me ;) I'll be reminding him frequently (until I turn 30 myself, of course) that he's no longer in his twenties.

*I've been drinking a lot of lemonade , pickles, really just sour stuff in general--and munching on candy. My bottom drawer at work is full of candy (Werthers, Red Hots, gummy worms, Jolly Ranchers, lemon heads, etc) because I'll buy something that sounds really good, then just eat a few and be over it.

*I wish I had more time to craft. I can't wait until it's summer because a lot of my crafting/painting needs to be done outside and it's just too cold and gets dark too early to do anything after work.

*I need to find some kind of corral to put Tommy in outside this summer since our yard isn't fenced in and being many months pregnant, I won't be able to catch him if he runs (okay, I probably couldn't catch him even if I WASN'T going to be extremely pregnant!).

aaaaaannnnnnnd.........just because I love this kid and his extremely wacky hair............a picture to end it




Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Why I love him

*Because he almost always wakes up with a smile, even though he KNOWS I almost never do :)

*Because he loves my son in a way that nobody else ever could

*Because he's patient with my craziness

*Because he has stuck by my side for almost 7 years now, even when he was scared of committment

*Because he knows I love crushed red pepper on everything I eat and bought me a 16 ounce bottle of it

*Because he smiles in a way that makes my knees feel like jelly

*Because he gets along so well with my family, it's like he's always been there

*Because he pretends like he has no idea what day my birthday is, but every May 13th I get a card and present

*Because he refuses to be "mushy" by telling me I'm his best friend, but will quote, "I love you, Ricky-Brady" (a spin off from Ricky-Bobby) whenever I tell him he's mine

*Because he pretends like my hair looks good when it air dries (and trust me, it doesn't)

*Because I can wear pajama pants all day and he still slaps my butt when he walks by

*Because he held my hand through two of the hardest days of my life this year

*Because he makes me laugh when I don't want to

*Because he tells me to drive slower on country roads and to watch out for deer

*Because he'll drop anything--ANYTHING--to help his family or friends

*Because he takes our leftovers to our elderly neighbor and it was his idea to do it

*Because he knows me--inside and out, every little thing about me, annoying or wonderful--and loves me anyway

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

It all adds up to amazing!

This.....
+
this.......
=
THIS 

Which eventually morphs into this..........

Which in turn, grows WAAAAAAAY too fast into this........

And now THIS.....
........is being added to the equation.

Oh my. The math in my life is quite overwhelming and wonderful. It's hitting me. I'm having another kid. Now I just can't wait to find out what it is!!!!!!!!! Only 21 more days :)

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

You know you're a mom when.......

In the last few days, I've started to realize that I am a MOM. Like, full-on, hair in a ponytail for lack of time, food in your hair, crusties on your clothes MOM. And I've been doing lots of mom things that make me realize I'm a mom. Like the following:

*The other day, I hid cookies underneath my shirt and then once I was downstairs, I hid them under a blanket and would only take a bite when Tommy wasn't looking. Because otherwise he would want a bite and one bite is NOT enough for him and then he freaks out when I say no.

*I found a bottle in my car that had red mold in it. What?! Since when is mold red? Sick.

*I now refer to myself as mommy, even when Tommy's not around. In my head, I'll say, "Mommy needs to go pick up milk at lunch." And then I sigh because of how rediculous I feel when I realized what I've done.

*I shut every door behind me every time I leave a room. It's 2nd nature now because little people get into EVERYTHING.

*I spent 15 minutes last night singing, "Go Tommy, go Tommy, go Tommy!" because he loved it and danced the whole time I sang.

*The Wonder Pets theme song gets stuck in my head most days. Wonder pets, wonder pets, we're on our way!

*Most of my weekends are planned around nap time.

*I have a slight panic attack when I realize we're out of goldfish. My heart starts palpitating and I sweat in fear of the moment when Tommy starts whining and it's the kind of whine that means, "Give me goldfish NOW, Momma!!!" and I have nothing to give him!!

*Every time I put something down, I prethink about where I'm putting it. "Okay, if I put it here, he can use that pillow to stand on and stretch his arm out as far as he can and get it........but if I put it over there, he can climb up on his chair and if he bounces juuuuuust a little bit, he will be able to grab the cord and yank it down."

*I'm scared to death of dying (did you see what I did with that play on words there;). Not because I don't want to die, but because it breaks my heart to think of my husband and my baby living life without mommy there.

*His puke doesn't bother me (yet). That's one of the biggest things that reminds me I am a mommy. I hate vomit. Like, hate it so much I would quit my job before I would clean up someone's puke kind of hate. But Tommy's doesn't bother me one bit. I'm too busy feeling bad for him to think about how disgusting it is.

Having a kid has changed my life drastically, to put it mildly. My thought process for everything is different. My schedule is different. My energy level is different. But it's so worth it. He's awesome in every way. Even when he's hitting me because I said no (we're working on that) or throwing himself on the ground because he didn't get his way (working on that too). So let's end this with a few little reminders of why we moms do what we do:





Be still my heart.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Baby T2

Well we went for our 2nd OB appt for Baby T2 on Wednesday, 2/1/12. It started out just a touch dramatic. They called me 40 minutes before my appt (keep in mind I need to leave my job 30 minutes before I'm supposed to be there to get to my appt on time) and left a message on my cell phone to call them back regarding my appt. So I called back. And they put me on hold for 10 minutes. I had to hang up and call back AGAIN to get someone to talk to me. She put me on hold to "check on the situation" and when she finally came back she said, "I think they were wanting to confirm your appt with Dr. Lowden is tomorrow on the west side." Okay, first mistake--I don't go to the west side. 2nd mistake--I'm not seeing Dr. Lowden for this pregnancy. I had made it clear to at LEAST 3 people that I was to be on Dr. Hague's scheduled. So I put on my best no-nonsense voice and was I was all like, "Ummm, no. My appt is TODAY in TWENTY MINUTES on the east side. Do I need to come or are you cancelling it?" Because trust me, working for a doctor, I TOTALLY get that things come up and especially for an OB/GYN, they're of course gonna have to deliever babies on occasion :) But my frustration was I was on the wrong schedule and if I was going to be seen that day, I needed to get going ASAP or I would be late to my appt which is a HUUUUUUGE pet peeve of mine. So finally my little friend was like, "Oh! You're not seeing Dr. Lowden? Well let me check on that................(insert long silence here). You're right!! (Duh. Of course I'm right). You are set up as Dr. Hague's patient. Go ahead and come on in!"

I was afraid when they checked me in that my blood pressure was going to be high, but good news! It was normal. The appointment actually went really well. Dr. Hague was about 1 million times friendlier than Dr. Lowden ever was to us (don't get me wrong--Dr. Lowden is a great doctor and I would trust her 100% to safely deliver my kid, but I need a doc who makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about my baby and she is SO not that kind of doctor). We heard the heartbeat after the dr. looked forever! It's so funny the noises that come through the doppler. It sounds very windy inside my uterus :) The heartbeat was 160!!! Woohoo!! Now, trust me, I know that doesn't mean anything medically, but word on the street is a high heart beat means a girl, so I'm goin with it! Plus, it's MUCH higher than Tommy's ever was. And Nick said this pregnancy has been so dramatic already that it has to be a girl because boy's don't have that much drama attached.

We get to find out for sure what we're having on 2/29/12. Only 26 loooooooong days away. Hopefully it'll fly by because this girl is NOT known for her patience. Overall, the appointment was great and I'm so glad they didn't have to reschedule it because that would have been the 2nd time. I can't wait until February 29th!! I forgot already the excitement of seing your baby and hearing the heartbeat and finding out if it's a boy or girl! So keep your fingers crossed for tutus and cute shoes!!!


Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Birthday boy


The following pictures are of my little guy on his birthday morning. The picture on the left is his new "picture face." I'll say, "Smile for mommy! I'm gonna take your picture!!" And that's what I get :) It's hilarious and charming and I love it! The only time I get an actual smile is when he forgets he's supposed to be hamming it up.
 

So as previously mentioned, I wasn't going to do a themed party for Tommy's first birthday because 1) he's too young to have any preferences and 2) I didn't have any idea what to do :) And I'm pretty much tired 24 hours a day due to the life I'm growing right now, so the thought of putting together a well-planned party was exhausting just to think about.

But then I started thinking that wasn't fair to Tommy. Why shouldn't he have a fun party for his first birthday just because I'm pregnant and busy? I didn't want him to look back on pictures and think, "Dang my mom was lame. No decorations or anything?!?" So on Wednesday (his party was on Saturday), I decided to go ahead and do it. I thought long and hard about the things Tommy likes--other than Ritz, goldfish and cheese--and finally remembered that he LOVES his sock monkey. He carries that thing around all the time. I went with a sock monkey theme. Mostly sock monkey colors for lack of time and sock monkey decoration availability :)
I borrowed these awesome drink dispensers from my friend Hannah (they will also be making an appearance at Brooke's wedding). We had water and Hawaaiin punch--didn't want to get too complicated.

I set up a favor station for the kiddos. It said "Thanks for 'swinging' by! Take home a bag of your favorite monkey treats!" Then we put out monkey mix (colored M&Ms), monkey vines (licorice), monkey wafers (vanilla wafers--original, I know), monkey bites (little chocolate sandwich cookies) and monkey pooh (whoppers).

I made these monkey cupcakes, which got mistaken for a moose and a lamb (don't ask). But I thought they turned out cute!!

We served chili, taco soup and ham and cheese sandwiches! It felt like a feast, but we didn't have much left over.

We ended up having pretty much everyone except for out-of-towners show up! Our house isn't small, but we don't have one big open area, so it was pretty full. I was so glad we have so many people that love our little boy!

After we ate, we went downstairs to open presents. Now, Tommy's party was at 2pm and he had not napped all morning. Usually he's taken at least 1 nap by then, but he wasn't having it that day, so he was exhausted. My mom had gotten him a wagon which he'd already opened, so we used it to put all the unopened presents in. It was a disaster. When he's tired, he gets clumsy. And man, was he clumsy. He fell directly into the wagon at least twice and got a HUGE knot on his head. It kind of took away from his present opening experience, but he seemed to get over it quickly!


The tears after the fall

Diggin the tissue paper!

He loved diving into the presents (PS--please ignore my outift. It's one of those "you think you look good until you see yourself in a picture and then you think what the crap was I thinking" outfits).

After presents, we went BACK upstairs so he could dive into his cupcake. And dive, he did. He LOVED it! In his first bite, he bit off the whole top of the cupcake (which of course, had all the frosting). He didn't even hesitate to make sure it was REEEEALLY okay that he was doing it. He saw his opportunity and took it!

Taking the first lick.......yup, he liked it!



Aunt Brooke decided to get in on the cupcake action too. Actually, I think someone shoved a cupcake up her nose, but I thought she would appreciate this super good picture of her being on my blog :) Love you sis!
Overall, the party was a big success and I'm glad I decided to do more than I had originally planned. Tommy had a good time and took a 3 hour nap afterwards! It was a great time and I loved having our house full of family and fun and people who were there to celebrate our sweet baby boy's birthday! I can't believe he's one already! Better start planning for birthday number two............. :)