Super Mom and some Halloween

When I was in the hospital, I had a favorite nurse. She was Lainey's night nurse in the Level II nursery, and she was just fabulous. Before I was discharged, she came in my room to say goodbye and wish us luck (really, an awesome nurse! She cared enough just to come say goodbye!). At the time, Nick and the kids were there and it was chaos - kids were climbing all over the hospital bed, pushing buttons, Everett had his hands all over Lainey's newborn face, and I'm sure Ellie and Maren were yelling at each other because that is what they do, and I could see it in this nurse's face, a look that said, "you have your hands full". In fact, it wasn't just on her face, she said it too, several times. Then she told me something like this, "You need to take time to recover. Don't try to do everything. I can tell that you are the super mom type, so you'll probably try to do it anyway, but just try and take it easy." This woman had only known me for a few days - in the hospital, no less, and had already labeled me as a 'super mom'. Perhaps it was because I took such care with my appearance? (Ha! I jest! I wore the hospital gowns the entire time, didn't mess with contacts, makeup, or even a bra ;) I DID take showers while I was there, I want you to know). What is it about me that would solicit such a response? I've felt the same vibe from friends and even people I've just met in our new ward. I am doing my best with what I've got, just like everyone else here, people. My house is messy, like, all the time. My kids are lucky to get their hair combed in the morning, and lately, I'm lucky to get a shower. I am far from organized. I yell a lot at my kids. I am far from a perfect mother and have melt-downs about my imperfections at least once a week (seriously, just ask Nick). I do have meals on a schedule, but that's only because food is important to me and I get pretty ornery when I haven't eaten. There you have it. I'm not really a 'super mom', I'm just trying to get through the days, just like most of you, I'm sure. I do the best I can, and what I feel is best for me and my family. I try to find joy in the little things and do the things that keep my sanity. There, needed to get that off my chest.

And now, I jump to photos of our Lainey: A photo to document that she was, indeed, dressed up for church. We took her for the first time last Sunday. She slept the entire time, and no one even peeked at her, which, is good for the germ aspect, but no saw how cute she was! After a four hour nap, she was not impressed that we were pausing to take photos before she got her lunch.

My kids CAN play nicely together sometimes. Look, here's proof:

Maren was the teacher, Ellie the student, and Everett was content looking at books. Of course, right after the photo was snapped, Maren climbed over, snatched Everett's book away and informed him that it was there for her to use at her disposal, and not for him (not in so many words, of course). It was nice while it lasted.

Okay, on to Halloween. Ellie was just so excited this year, she just couldn't stand it. The school Halloween Parade and party just added to all the fun and excitement. Once dad got home, we took the kids to trick-or-treat at their grandparent's house to get a special treat (plus giant handfulls of candy) and then a little later, they went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and had a great time.

My little tiger hated having the hood up: And my four beautiful children all in one photo:

And just in case this blog post made you think I might be the perfect mom... I'm sitting here in my pajamas at 11 in the morning while my two middle children absolutely tear the playroom apart. Oh, and I should be folding and putting away laundry that's been waiting for me for about a week now. ;)

Seven

First of all, I love this man: Married him seven years ago today. Best decision of my life.

And here are other going-ons:

Oh, my Maren. She taught Everett to rip books, peed on the kitchen floor, and rubbed lotion into her bedroom carpet. All in the last 24 hours.

Lainey took her first real bath in the bathroom sink.

She's still tiny, but she's growing! At her two week check, she was nearly 7 lbs and had also grown at least an inch since birth. She's almost the size of a 'normal' newborn!

For Family Home Evening, we painted pumpkins.

Little Lainey

Everyone loves photos of newborn babies, right? Well, I do, especially when it is my own. :) Here's some more of our little Lainey:

I found these two photos on my mom's camera, and I thought they were sweet. Everett LOVES his sister. He always wants to see, hug, and touch the baby. The girls love her too. Ellie is a good baby holder and they both are always saying how cute she is. Here's another from the hospital that was so cute, I just had to share. And now she's a week old already. Time flies way too quickly when they are so small.

Oh, and my other kids are cute too.

Are you diggin' Everett's hair? Okay, so maybe he needs a haircut...

Things are going well for this family of six. Yep, SIX! What?! Sometimes I feel like I jumped right from one baby to four. Things are nutsy around here, sure, but we are all pretty happy. Recovery has been going okay. I have good moments where I feel all good and do something crazy like putting the dishes away :) and then bad moments where I moan and groan on the couch. The bad moments are getting fewer though, thankfully. My good husband and my mom have been taking good care of me and my kids. Life doesn't get much better than snuggling a new baby!

Lainey Mae

Lainey Mae

October 11, 1:37 pm

6 lbs 5 oz

19 inches

I've always dreamed of the "perfect birth". After a blissful nine months (ha!) with little morning sickness, I go into labor on my own, a week earlier than my due date, go to the hospital and continue to progress, un-medicated and completely in control, until the baby makes a quick entrance, perfectly healthy. Of course this whole process takes no more than a few hours. Well, it's good to start with an ideal. It's never happened for me, and I doubt it ever will. This birth was far, FAR from what I had hoped for, but in the end, I still got a healthy baby, which is the important thing.

So, Monday morning I had my 39 week doctors visit where we discovered that Lainey had turned into a breech position. He gave me some options - I could wait and see if she'd turn back on her own, but since I was so close to my due date, it was possible I'd go into labor and I'd have to have a c-section. Or, we could attempt to turn the baby and then induce labor right afterwards. We thought this was the best chance to avoid a c-section, so we scheduled an aversion (turning the baby) for the next morning.

That night I went to bed and, surprise surprise, didn't sleep very well. I layed in bed and felt Lainey moving quite a bit and was wondering if perhaps she was changing positions. Well, guess what? We had an ultrasound at our appointment that confirmed that she indeed had moved in the night and was once again head down! Good girl. The doctor there advised us to hurry on over to my scheduled induction before this gymnast decided to flip back around. We got started on pitocin at about 10:30. This is when things got exciting. Now, my babies have all shown signs of distress during labor - their heartrates have all dropped and have scared nurses and doctors. So, I wasn't surprised at all when Lainey started doing it too. However, with the others, I was close to deliver, so we dealt with it and got a healthy baby here (although it's always been tense). This time around, I was no where near delivery - Lainey wasn't moving down into the birth canal and I was only dilated to a 1 when she started showing signs of distress. Labor wasn't progressing well either because every time the pitocin was increased, Lainey's heartrate would drop to scary levels. With one of those scary dips, the doctor and a few nurses rushed in to make a decision - the baby had to get out, and quick. So, I was wheeled into the operating room at 1:28. I heard discussion about whether there was time to do a spinal or not, but my doctor was worried that it would take too long for a spinal to take effect, so while they prepped me, I was given general anesthetic and had myself a nice little nap. Of course I was sad that I didn't get to see my baby right away and hear her cry (the nurses said as soon as they got a head out she was screaming something fierce - that's my girl), but there was something nice about just being put out - and a needle through my IV sounded nicer than a needle in my back. Nick was freaking out just a little as this whole thing just happened so fast. He didn't get to come in and was pacing the hall with worry. My mom was called and was thankfully in the area and able to come quickly to the hospital. She was with me when I came out of anesthetic and sweetly wiped my tears as I came to grips with what had just happened. Lainey was born at 1:37. Nick was able to go with her to the nursery, and feed her a bottle. We were informed that the cord was wrapped around Lainey's shoulder, causing it to get pinched with contractions. I don't think she would have made it without medical intervention. We are grateful for a doctor who made the call and quickly got her here.

Lainey had a hard time maintaining her blood sugar, so the poor little thing was put on an IV and kept in the NICU for two days. The nurses were so nice to bring her to this bed-ridden momma so I could feed her, although it was against policy to do so. Four hours after birth, I finally got to meet the sweet little thing.
Brother and sisters got to come meet her the next day. Everett was all smiles and lots of hugs for "baby new sister" (as Maren would say).

Sisters liked her too.

Yep, we all kind of like her.

I just had to put that photo in because of Ellie's face. She was telling me something that had happened at school with expression. :)

Look at Lainey's head compared to dad's hand! So tiny! She is a good pound lighter than any of my others.

Baby Lainey with all her monitors and such in the NICU:

Finally a "well-baby" and in mom's room for the last few hours of our hospital stay:

So no, I didn't get my "perfect birth", but I guess that's not as important as a "perfect baby", which I DID get. Sweet baby girl.

While Sister is Away

Ellie LOVES kindergarten. She was sick one day and cried when I told her she had to stay home. I thought Maren might miss her sister while she was away, but actually, no. She really likes the time she has the run of the house and no big bossy sister to tell her what to do and how. I've enjoyed the one-on-one time I've gotten with my Missy. We've started doing "school" together.

Oh, my boy. He is just so "cool" right now (as Dad says it). He's lots of fun, and is just a content guy. He's mastering eating all on his own. He decided to forgo the spoon and just stick his tongue in the bowl to get the last of his yogurt.

And baby girl is chillin'. I think she's decided to take up permanent residency. Here I am at 38 weeks. I always hope my babies will come before their due date (Ellie was two weeks early, afterall), but I'm not thinking it's going to happen. She's still riding high and my body doesn't seem serious about childbirth at this point. Oh well. She will come eventually, right?

Picture Day

The other day was picture day at Ellie's school. Man, they really rip you off. We decided to forgo the professional head shot (which I've never really loved anyway) and just snapped some shots of my girl before sending her off to school. So, I didn't really put my heart and soul into taking some great photos, but I did capture how nice and straight her hair was. :) Maren wanted in on the action too, so we posed her right by the gas meter and weeds. She's filthy from climbing on the rocks not long after the sprinklers shut off.

My three kiddos. Maren just cracks me up. Look at that face! She is such a ham.

I have really been a terrible photo taker lately, all in all. I think you've seen all the photos I've taken to document the last few months. Just haven't been feeling it. Perhaps my desire will burn once we have a sweet new baby to take photos of.

Home: The Place Where Your Stuff Is

We have a new place for our stuff! Hurray! We officially moved in 10 days ago, and it's been so nice to have a home of our own once again! I thought I'd take you on a little tour. Here is our kitchen. It came with a brand new glass cooktop range, which unfortunately just had to go. Nick and I are gas cookers, and can't stand cooking on electric, so a new gas range (with double ovens!) was our first purchase. We were hoping to keep the other appliances, but found that both the dishwasher and fridge were missing parts, so we ended up replacing them too. It's not the huge kitchen we were dreaming of, and someday, we may expand, but it'll do for now. Oh, we also are not fans of the granite tile, just in case you were wondering. Our family room. The entire main floor is hardwood flooring, which we are still getting used to. It looks pretty, but isn't very comfy to sit on. These photos were taken with the house as is, by the way. That explains the kid clutter. Oh, and my sweet boy. We love the space! So much bigger, and more functional, than our last home.
Our living room. That ugly grape couch made it's way here too! I'm grateful to have a place to sit, but it'll be nice when we can afford to replace it. I'm in love with the wainscoting.
The entry way/stairs. I love the ironwork and the chandelier, although I dread the day we need to replace lightbulbs!
Master shower and tub. I love having a soaker tub, although this one is a foot or two too long for me! I can't lean back without fully submerging in the water! Just one of the problems of being short.
Our backyard. Like I mentioned before, it isn't as big and spacious as our last home, but it'll do just fine. The kids love having their playset back.
The previous owners had professional landscapers come in, and our property has several rock retaining walls and such. It looks nice, or will when it's been worked on a bit. It's been uncared for for several months, so we have a lot of work to do.
We are loving our neighborhood. Several friendly neighbors have come by with goodies and offering their help. Ellie has friends from school and church who live just around the corner, which she's really loved. We are slowly unpacking (I don't move very fast these days) and are beginning to feel settled. Thank you, thank you to all who have helped us through this transition! We couldn't have done it without you!