point form

* its 8:20pm. my goal was to be in bed myself by now, but our dear son has finally figured out how to get out of his bed and the novelty hasn't worn off for him yet. when he first started sleeping in his big boy bed, of course he discovered how to get in and out of it, so we barricaded it as best we could with pillows and blankets and, to him that was enough to keep him from attempting escape. lately, however, he hasn't been able to fall asleep at his regular bedtime and he quietly slips out of bed and comes downstairs. nearly gave me a heart attack this evening. i keep having visions of him tumbling down the stairs in the dark, so i'm going to stay up until i know he is asleep.

*little samuel is 8 weeks old today and it turns out he's not so little. he now weighs 13lbs 8oz (his birth weight was 8lbs 2oz, though he went all the way down to 7lbs 4oz) and i was surprised to find out that tristan weighed exactly one pound less when he was 8 weeks old. samuel is in the 90th percentile for weight and 60th for height (he is 23 inches and i cannot remember for the life of me how long he was at birth)

*i had no idea that they now give one vaccine orally. samuel didn't seem to care for the taste and, after he had swallowed nearly all of it, his tummy decided to revolt and he spit it all up....plus the leftover milk i had fed him an hour earlier. as soon as he had recovered from that, he got jabbed in the leg 3 times and all i have to say is thank God for infant tylenol! he slept all the way home and didn't wake up until early evening. poor little guy.

*i went to the zoo yesterday with jessica and the kids, having never been before (can you believe i've NEVER been?) and absolutely loved it. we only saw a small section of it and it took us nearly all day! my leg was killing me by the end.

*samuel has slept straight through the night a grand total of 3 times so far. 2 of those times were in a row, so i foolishly thought that he was going to continue. i stayed up far too late on monday night (yes, i was watching the bachelorette finale) and payed for it with 2 night wakings. since then he's been up at a different time each night, so i have no idea what's going on. he is, however, taking some of his naps in his own crib, which is very nice for me. still, he naps so much better when he is downstairs on the couch and can lay on his tummy since we can keep an eye on him. oh, the days when tummy sleeping wasn't forbidden must have been wonderful! trust me, i understand the reasons for back sleeping, but i can see how much more comfy samuel is on his tummy. he has his fingers within reach for sucking on if need be, his startle reflex is muted like 90% and he just hugs that couch like he's holding onto his mama. plus the little stinkbug position is just so adorable!

* tristan has, for the most part, settled into his big brother role pretty nicely. he is currently addicted to davy crockett...he has a coonskin cap, he could watch the disney movie 50 times in a row and whenever josh sings the classic davy crockett song, tristan has fun filling in all the missing words. he is very proud of his brother. when people ask what samuel's name is, tristan says, "Baby Sam, Brover" as if brother is part of his name. he kisses him all the time, but is for some reason very particular about kissing him on the lips. he has removed the pacifier just to get to his lips before which, as you can imagine, results in an unhappy baby sam. oh yes, and he is also in love with temporary tattoos.

* samuel giggles and coos and smiles and cackles, especially when i sing to him. sometimes i even catch him smiling at my profile out of the corner of my eye. already time seems to be flying by so much more quickly this time around. i've had to start a pile of "too small" clothes in his closet and i know from experience how rapidly that pile grows. in fact, it just occurred to me that he may be nearly too big for his size 1 diapers, which would explain the more frequent leakage lately.

* on the days that samuel slept through the night, i managed to pump, which means i have 4 bags of liquid freedom sitting in the freezer. i'm excited to get out of the house with my friend j'lene next week, and i'm already looking forward to seeing "the time travelers wife" with josh in the future. read that book years ago and simply could not put it down, i hope the movie does the book justice.

* its 8:50pm and i haven't heard a peep from upstairs, so i think its safe to sleep. my 21 year old self would be laughing her head off at my now 29 year old self if she knew what time i'm going to bed at. but i don't care. i'm a girl who needs her sleep and i am so looking forward to crawling underneath the covers, you have no idea

good night!

a sunday afternoon drive

i remember as a child going for sunday afternoon drives with my family. i was raised in a pretty traditional home in terms of how we "kept the sabbath holy". we didn't really work on sundays (we weren't even allowed to do homework on that day); rather we came up with family activities that didn't include causing others to work either (no shopping or eating out). we often visited parks, went for bike rides and, of course, just drove around enjoying the scenery. i took for granted the fact that i lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

i was talking to a woman from victoria, bc a few years ago, who had moved to the same town i now live in. she told me that at first, she really disliked how everything here is so brown and dry. after she got over the initial shock, she found that eventually she saw the unique beauty around her and and she began to see the brown as more "various shades of gold." i have now lived here for over 5 years and i have to say that i too have grown to love the unique landscape. so, when josh suggested going for a drive yesterday afternoon, i thought i'd just bring my camera along and pretend that i was a tourist for awhile.



essential items: pacifiers, sippy cup and snacks. good to go!



leaving town, we passed by fields of freshly baled golden hay.



a small plant nursery popped with color, catching my eye. bouganvilla grows profusely here, but josh refuses to grow it due to all the thorns beneath the pretty flowers.



we passed lots and lots of horsies (tristan often calls them cows) munching on the golden grass.



and then we headed down this curvy scenic road, overhung by large oak trees. i used to drive up and down this road back when tristan was going through his nap strikes. he'd sleep in the car until we came to a stop, so some days i'd drive around for an hour just to keep his sleep deprivation under control.



about the time we drove by this rusty old car nearly blending into the golden landscape, samuel decided that it was time for an afternoon snack.



josh found a shady spot to park in and samuel thoroughly enjoyed some fresh milk on tap. love those ankle rolls. oh, and feel free to notice that i could have cropped this picture to hide the bit of belly bulge at the bottom. but i'm all about keeping this blog real, so there you go!



josh hopped into the backseat to keep tristan company and decided to take a picture of his feet as well.



and then tristan decided to enter his toesies into the Most Beautiful Feet Contest. i vote for samuel's purely based on the fact that they are the cleanest and therefore the most edible. i declined to submit my own feet for your viewing pleasure. because i am in dire need of a pedicure, so the viewing wouldn't have been at all pleasant. trust me.



once samuel's tummy was happily full, we kept going and passed by the street we used to live on. tristan pointed to this house and said "castle!" it was always easy giving people directions to our house..."just turn left at the mansion on the corner..."



driving back into town, we were greeted by the familiar sight of our eucalyptus lined main street. josh said that this is such a comforting view for him; whenever he's been traveling he loves to see these trees because it means that he is home.

as we neared the golden arches, the thought of 99 cents worth of delicious soft serve set atop a crispy cone was too tempting to pass by. after waiting for a few minutes in the drive through lineup, we were informed by a static y voice that the ice cream machine was broken. we said thanks and carefully backed out of there to see what we could rustle up at home.



turns out that a homemade frozen juice popsicle tastes just as good to a 2 year old...and its so much messier, which means that frolicking in the sprinkler afterwards is a sure thing!

boys, boys, boys

samuel and tristan now have a brand new baby boy cousin born on wednesday morning! his name is jacob micah and you can take a peek at him here if you like. that very same day, a second cousin was born only hours earlier to my cousin terry and his wife hannah. they decided to name him samuel as well, which just shows us what great taste we have in names! still waiting on RW's baby....its gonna be a boy too, i just know it :)

seeds of encouragement

as josh was leaving yesterday to go and get a few things from the grocery store, he stepped back inside to hand me this gorgeous gift basket. i looked at it blankly for a few moments before cluing in that it was actually for me! both boys were napping, so i took my time untying the ribbon and reading the card all the way through. it said that someone was thinking of me and thought that i needed a little bit of encouragement, so they nominated me to receive this gift basket! i was totally blown away as i took each item out of the basket. there was no reference as to who had wanted to encourage me, but all i could think of was that i had to thank somebody!

our family has received countless blessings lately, often in the form of gift cards given anonymously. we so appreciate the fact that others want to help us, and as much as we thank God for His answers to prayer in all of these gifts, we would so like to be able to thank the individual who God used to answer our prayers. we completely understand the reasons behind anonymous giving and so we are only able to ask that God bless those who have blessed us so abundantly. this time, though i just thought that i had to give a shout out to whoever it was that sent this basket for me. i still have tears in my eyes today, writing about it, completely awed that someone out there took the time to do this for me. so thank you, whoever you are. may God bless you for your kindness. and thank you to all those unnamed others who have blessed us in the past....your works have helped us more than i can say....not just materially, but spiritually as well. God is faithful, and he proves it to us over and over again.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. -Romans 15:5-6

an awfully dull update

well, i survived another 2 days without having josh at home. when he walked through the door early friday evening, i literally cried tears of joy! i never managed to have both boys napping at the same time either day...for some reason, samuel wasn't keen on sleeping much at all, actually. he was up hungry every 2 hours on thursday night, but has since gone back to sleeping longer stretches, so it must have just been a growth spurt. tristan was just plain bored and sick of being home, but there weren't many other options since it was over 100 degrees outside. my brilliant idea of taking them to the library for the afternoon sort of bombed since it seemed every other desperate mom in our town had the same idea. it was a zoo in there and only minutes after we arrived, tristan was telling me that he was "all done." so instead of enjoying the AC in the library, i hauled them back into the car and took a more scenic drive home with the AC cranked, going as slowly as i could so that samuel would nap a little bit.

my mother in law was an angel, taking tristan overnight again...don't know what i would have done without her! when she brought him back home the next morning, she informed me that tristan had told her a couple of different times, "mommy says crap." hmmmm, i guess my diligence in avoiding that word lately doesn't seem to have mattered much....my child suddenly has a long memory. tristan also hopped out of bed at 10pm and marched down the hallway toward the living room at my in-law's house saying "daby cockitt!" he had been told that he could watch davy crockett when he woke up the next morning and he must have thought that 2 hours of sleep was good enough!

feeling the need for some "mommy alone time" i went and got my hair cut yesterday afternoon. i think it had been something like 10 months since my last hair cut (horrors!) so i told the stylist to take her time and just enjoyed having no responsibility for an hour. my only criteria was that my hair would still be long enough to put into a ponytail, and i ended up really liking the results.

i have a cousin who is due with her baby any day now, my sister in law cara, who is due in a couple of weeks, and my best bud RW, who is due a couple of weeks after that. neither of these girls know if they're having a boy or a girl (it seems like its more common not to find out the gender when you live in canada), which adds to the excitement. it really doesn't seem like 6 weeks have passed since my own baby was born...i feel like time has sped up all of a sudden. samuel has been giving lots of shy smiles and a few big grins lately. the other day i was giving him a bath and singing "baby beluga" to him and he smiled at me so big i was sure a giggle was about to escape! no giggles yet, but i think they'll be coming soon.

i am so ready for summer to be over already! i don't know exactly what it is about this year, but i'm finding it much more difficult to handle the heat. we've been having over 100 degree weather lately, with temperatures barely dipping below 80 degrees overnight. tristan's bedroom is the only one with a window AC unit so far, but we have awesome friends who are giving us another one for samuel's room. he sleeps so much better when swaddled, but the other evening i had to unwrap him because he was sweating SO much. after about 30 minutes of his little arms batting at the air as if he was trying to swim away, i finally put the swaddle back on him and he fell asleep shortly after...poor little guy. i've got 3 fans going in his room at the same time, and that just makes it barely bearable. downstairs we've got a swamp cooler in one of the windows that we've had to run nearly all day. even with every fan in the house going at full speed, i still feel as if i need to take another shower every hour!

maybe its just the time of day (i've been up with tristan since 4:45) but this blog post is looking awfully dull to me. ah well, sometimes a boring update is all i can muster. and if you have time to do some more reading and lots of praying, please visit this family's blog. their little girl was born only a few days ago with such major complications that its a miracle she is alive. i get tears in my eyes whenever i think about them, even though i've never met them and i know they'd appreciate as much prayer as possible.

remembering

yesterday i drove past the spot where my car accident occurred. i've ridden past it before, but this was the first time that i was in the driver's seat. samuel was peacefully sleeping in the back seat...just the two of us in the car on a sunny afternoon.... very nearly like last time. it felt strange. only for a moment, i allowed myself to re-live the crash and the memory was still so fresh in my mind that i had a second of panic. i had to force myself to stop remembering the series of events that took place and instead focus on thanking God that i am alive and well and that my precious little boy is alive and well. four months have passed and yet i still grip the handle of the car door when riding around blind corners. there are times when i smell something specifically familiar in car exhaust and the memories come crashing into my head unbidden, making me suddenly nauseous. i hope that i never catch a whiff of what a deflated air bag smells like ever again. i am blessed to say that i haven't suffered from nightmares of re-living the accident. and yet i know that i will never forget what happened, though time will take the edge off.

noticing that my knuckles were turning white and my eyes were straining to focus on the road, willing myself not to fall asleep (though i wasn't even tired) i began to pray and, as always, God's peace washed over me as i recounted to Him all that i am thankful for in my life. i have no idea why God spared my life that day, while allowing countless others to die in accidents all around the world at that same moment. i know that i'm no "better" of a person than those others. i do believe that prayer had something to do with it, and yet He could just as easily have chosen to answer prayers on my behalf with a "no." what i do know is that God obviously isn't finished with me here on this earth yet. with that thought comes the feeling of tremendous responsibility...will i let Him down? will i accomplish what He has in mind for me? my life seems so small and insignificant: a stay at home mom and wife just trying to make ends meet. but the knowledge that God has something planned for me also fills me with awe and reminds me to make each day count....to not miss any opportunity to share His love.

of course, the thought has also crossed my mind that it was for samuel's sake that He spared our lives which eases the pressure just a little bit ;)

in those final moments of labor when i was straining with all my might to push my baby out, i knew that in a few minutes josh and i would be meeting our miracle baby, our survivor. a special nurse was called into the room, i'm still not sure why. perhaps she was there because of the previous complications in my pregnancy, or maybe she routinely assisted the doctors in baby catching. whatever the reason, she came into our room minutes before samuel was born and, with a smile, introduced herself. i stared at her. she stared at me. and then we both made the connection. she was the nurse who was there beside me the entire time my leg was being operated on. her sole responsibility through the surgery was to keep samuel's heart beat monitored, making sure that he was okay. to me, at that time, she was my angel, assuring me that the baby was going to be okay, scratching my nose for me whenever it itched, and remaining calm despite the fact that she knew i was contracting every couple of minutes...a fact which she wisely refrained from telling me until after the surgery was complete. it was so special to have her there, witnessing the birth of our very healthy little boy, the same little boy who may not have survived if born 13 weeks earlier. she was the one to hand him to me as she gave him a good rubbing with a towel. i looked at her and, with tear filled eyes said "thank you" hoping that she knew i meant more than just what those two words could convey.

ever so much to be thankful for, i should feel ashamed for ever complaining about a thing.

clever little boy

once in awhile josh will suprise me with a cold starbucks frappe drink, which let me tell you, is the most fantastic thing ever invented after being up at odd hours nursing a baby. tristan always seems to discover me drinking it and will ask if he can have some too. not about to start his caffeine habit so early in life, i always tell him "no, this is mommy's drink. its yucky, tristan wouldn't like it."

today josh gave tristan a little packet of fruit snacks as a treat for being so good this afternoon. i asked tristan if he would share one with mommy and he replied "no, MINE. yucky, blech. mommy no touch, okay?" as he stuffed another one into his mouth.

cold turkey--a couple of days in my life

josh snapped few pics of some of the things i've got growing outside. love my bachelor buttons, but i'm bummed that only one plant made it. next year i'm going to skip the zinnias and do more african daisies. my cosmos are now as tall as the fence and i love how they've taken over a corner of the backyard! we've also got a LOT of tomatoes growing back there, soon to become ripe.

samuel is 5 weeks old today and just began smiling at me 2 days ago! people have asked if he has slept through the night yet, which is the last thing on my mind. no, he isn't sleeping through the night, which is fine by me as long as he goes right back to sleep after he eats, which he usually does. tristan didn't begin regularly sleeping through the night until he was 9 months old, and though i certainly hope that samuel won't follow in his brother's footsteps, i can't allow myself to expect it. tristan has actually had a lot of rough nights lately, sometimes waking up when samuel does, sometimes crying because of a bad dream. this morning he woke up at 3am for the day!! (lucky for me he was spending the night at gran & grandpa's house, but more on that later)

when you've been spoiled by having your dear husband around for the past 4 weeks, day in and day out, i've found it to be quite a shock to the system when he is gone for 2 whole days straight. josh's aunt "hired" him to paint her house for a couple of days and because she lives a 2 hour drive away, it made more sense for him to spend the night there instead of wasting gas by driving home and back. i knew it would be hard, but i really didn't let myself think about it too much. at first i said "no" to my in-law's offer of taking tristan for the night, but later realized how crazy i was, so i changed my mind.

it has been quite challenging. tristan is obviously not used to having only one parent around either, and yesterday began with a bang: samuel demanding his breakfast at 5am, and tristan waking up only minutes later. all tristan wanted to do was sit on my lap while i nursed the baby, and since that wasn't possible, many tears ensued, making it impossible for samuel to fall back asleep as i had hoped. it didn't take me long to enlist the help of the TV to babysit for me, while i got breakfast going in between frequently re-inserting samuel's pacifier.

i did manage to take the kids to the park, where tristan mostly sulked because i hadn't brought any sand toys, and then it was time for the best part of the day: nap time!! since tristan has been napping for about 2 hours nearly every day, i told myself that the first hour would be spent in cleaning up the mountain of dirty dishes in the kitchen. the second hour would be time for me to relax and hopefully nap a little bit. i had just finished up in the kitchen and samuel had finally just fallen asleep (a feat that is no longer easily accomplished) when...you guessed it....tristan woke up after only one hour! he was cranky, disobedient, tired and weepy for the rest of the afternoon and i was so ready to hand him off to gran when she picked him up before dinner.

samuel, though still not a "fussy" baby, is no longer drifting off to sleep wherever he happens to find himself. this wouldn't be as much of an issue for me if i was able to put him down for a nap in his own room, away from the noise of his brother, but we don't have an air conditioning unit in his room and it is just too hot for him to sleep up there during the day. yesterday i pulled samuel's bassinet into tristan's room for two of his naps with the ac on and he napped great! but soon he'll grow out of his bassinet and then we're sort of stuck. he seems to get distracted by light and noise now, so falling asleep on the couch like he used to is becoming more difficult. i've spent a lot of time re-swaddling him, re-inserting the pacifier and shhhhing and patting like crazy. and then chances are once he's finally asleep, tristan will come bursting into the room doing his dinosaur imitation at which sam's eyes fly open, causing me to start all over again. if i just let him be, hoping he'll drift off on his own (which i've had to do many times) he does get quite cranky and fussy.

last night i fell asleep, exhausted at 9:30pm. it was a heavenly night. how did i used to think that having 1 child was difficult (i know it really WAS difficult, but it seemed quite simple last night) the baby woke up twice to eat, falling right back asleep each time. i never had to worry about his cries waking tristan up, i never had to keep an ear out for tristan's cries. i slept so soundly. i had to wake samuel up for the day at 7:45 so that we could get ready to go for coffee. i even managed to jump in the shower while samuel sat in his vibrating chair. tristan was brought back home at 9:15 and off we went to meet up with friends.

i knew that tristan had been awake since 3am, but i refused to allow what should have been an early nap to "ruin" my plans for coffee. tristan didn't want to play outside with the other kids; he basically stood next to me the whole time and looked as if he was sleeping with his eyes open. on the drive home, he chatted with me about his new love for davy crockett (or, as he says, "daby cockitt"). i asked him a question and, when i didn't hear a reply, i looked in the rear view mirror to discover that he was fast asleep, only seconds after chatting away. i kept talking to him, trying to rouse him, but it was no use...he was OUT. got home, brought a sleeping samuel inside, still in his car seat. managed to carry a very heavy tristan inside, take off his shoes and actually considered carrying him up the stairs before realizing that it would be impossible with my leg. so i gently woke him up and he immediately burst into tears demanding i carry him upstairs. meanwhile samuel, rudely awoken from his sleep by his crying brother, joined in with tears of his own. i picked up the baby and pulled/dragged tristan up the stairs, hauled him into his bed, read a couple of stories, which weren't easy to hear over samuel's cries, kissed him good night and left the room to get the baby back to sleep. i prayed so fervently that tristan would go to sleep easily, but just as i suspected, he began crying only a few minutes later, begging for his mommy. it seems that when he sleeps in the car, even if it is only for a few minutes, he has such a hard time taking his nap.

i finally got tristan settled, then got samuel asleep on the couch after soothing him for 20 minutes and just now i heard tristan starting to wake up (after only an hour of napping). i think its going to be another very long day. josh will be home tonight, but not before bedtime for the boys. i'd absolutely love to use my sling more, but i've found that wearing it causes my whiplash pain to flare up considerably. yes, i know that there are many of you out there who do this every day and probably think nothing of it, but this is my first time going cold turkey without josh being home and i have to say that so far it sucks.

a scary blessing

i truly cannot believe that my little baby boy is already one month old! time is flying by so fast...it feels like just yesterday that i held him in my arms for the first time. samuel is still such an easy baby so far. (have to add the "so far" in there, just in case!) he sleeps during most of the day, causing me to have to wake him up every now and then to feed him. he eats every 3 hours, and can go for up to 6 1/2 hours at night before crying for food. he has never cried hard for a long period of time, and because he is so easy going, i find myself following suit and just going with the flow. i have even attempted to feed him at longer intervals during the day, but have found that if i wait longer than 3 hours, he is too hungry and gulps his food down so fast that he throws it all up afterwards. this reflux kind of comes and goes...i'm trying to figure out all the things that may trigger it, but it can often seem really random. yesterday he had 2 episodes after nearly a week of not having one single episode! i may need to begin keeping a food journal to see if what i'm eating bothers him. he spends the night in his own room down the hall and its actually been really nice to not have him grunting and snoring next to me all night :)

for tristan's first year of life, i took a picture of him laying on the same blanket once a month so that i could see how quickly he was growing. i found the same blanket and i'm going to begin doing that with samuel as well, starting today. i'll post those pictures on the boys' picture blog. i've already mentioned that i'm quite relaxed with this baby, but i also have to say that i feel so much better all around. the recovery part of having a baby hasn't bothered me nearly as much this time around. i'm not sure if its because i've done this once before, or if i've just gone through so much pain in the past 3 months that this feels like a piece of cake. i'm also sure that having the baby out of my belly has caused my leg to heal much quicker. at my last physical therapy appointment, my range of motion was declared "perfect", though it takes a bit of stretching to get it there. i still need to work on my balance, which entails practicing standing only on my broken leg without holding onto anything. the swelling in my ankle is back, so i'm wearing some super tight tubes of fabric on my leg, which is really quite uncomfortable in this summer heat, but it sure helps. we've been getting out of the house quite a bit to see friends and family and it feels amazing to be doing these "normal" things that i haven't experienced in such a long time!

i mentioned in my last post that josh has been home because he has no work. this has been what i call a "scary blessing". scary for obvious reasons such as "what will we eat once our freezer is empty?" but the biggest blessing in terms of having this time together as a family, and we are enjoying it to the fullest. we're planning on using our zoo passes to make a trip there this week, we've been swimming at our friends' pool, we've shown tristan the dinosaur exhibit at the wild animal park, and we've had the opportunity to hang out with friends. i've also rarely had to worry about dealing with an unruly toddler while my baby cries for food. tristan gets to go with daddy to do errands, and when i need to run a few errands myself, i feed the baby and leave both boys with josh, or just take tristan with me. yesterday i took the boys to the park by myself. i'm so thankful that i have a pretty obedient little 2 year old because it was a piece of cake. i didn't have to worry about tristan running around in the parking lot or taking off in the opposite direction while asking him to "come here." samuel napped in the stroller while tristan sampled every single slide and made castles in the sand.

we really don't know what the future holds for our family, and this is such a cliche, but its so true that we know Who holds the future. God has blessed us incredibly and has always provided for us and we know He will continue to do so. so far we've never missed a bill and we always have food on the table for every meal. we are all healthy and so in love with each other and though, at times like this when we could easily let doubt and fear take over, we choose instead to rest in God and allow His peace to wash away our uncertainties. surrendering my worry is something i choose to do daily and i am ever grateful to have a God that not only takes those worries on Himself, but wants to do it. "Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7