nothing but blue sky

rolls

2012-01-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

...delicious enough on their own (no butter needed).

what's new?

2012-01-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

(tristan & samuel taking a walk with their grandad)

well, apparently the year is new. funny, cuz it all changed without me hardly noticing. my parents were supposed to arrive here on new year's eve, but because of the fog, they had to land at a different airport and so they got to ring in the new year while on a long bus ride down to san diego. i rang in the new year by sleeping = best thing ever.

tristan being 5 years old is new. he's been five for all of 4 days now and he absolutely loves it. once in awhile out of the blue i'll hear him give a contented sigh and say something like, "i just am so happy that i'm five years old." i wasn't looking forward to this milestone at all; five sounds much too old to me. but so far i've found that things are pretty much the same with him. he's still as sweet and frustrating and cuddly and bossy as ever. i just love that boy.

ava taking a decent morning nap is new. it seems that, at five months old, she's beginning to realize that all of this rolling around on the floor and jumping up and down in her jolly jumper are taking their toll and she just needs a little bit more beauty sleep during the day. her morning nap is usually a good hour and a half, (though her other naps are still only 30 minutes) and that nap is pure bliss to me. i bought some chocolate biscotti to celebrate and i like to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee with my biscotti while ava naps her little heart out. then, 10 seconds later, i remember that i have 2 other kids to look after, so i quickly gulp down the rest of my coffee and go cuddle with my boys while my arms still have room for them.

samuel pooping on the potty is new. he's been doing it for a couple of months now, but has only recently been telling us he needs to go instead of us pestering him about it. the funny thing is, he never pees on the potty, just poops. so when i try to put big boy undies on him, they are soaking wet within half an hour and he is just completely clueless as to how they got so wet. i know i'm going to have to buckle down and pee train him soon, but for now i'm just enjoying the fact that i'm not changing anymore disgusting poopy diapers. (ava's poopy diapers don't count cuz she's still only breastfed, so they're not disgusting at all).

getting away with josh for a couple of hours without worrying about the baby is new. we went out for lunch yesterday and i think i thought about ava exactly once. the last time we went out, i inhaled my food and immediately asked josh when we could go pick the kids up. this time i took my time knowing for certain that she was going to be okay without me. she's just become so much happier in the last little while, making this so much easier and more enjoyable for all of us. she's definitely still a mama's girl (and a part of me hopes that she always will be), but she can actually handle not seeing me for awhile. its very freeing and i hope to get some more "time off" with my amazing husband in the near future.
that's what's new over here. what's new with you?

roly poly girl

2011-12-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

the title of this post could be in reference to ava's abundance of rolls, (so many rolls and oh, are they ever delicious!) or it could be in reference to the bug of the same name which, when flipped over onto its back, looks quite funny for awhile as its legs flail about until it finally rights itself and goes on its merry way. however, the sort of roly poly i am referring to in this post is the no-big-deal typical type of rolling that most babies generally do as their first means of becoming mobile. except that for us, ava's rolling is a huge deal because neither of the boys ever rolled much, and if they did it was only by accident. ava's rolling is done very much on purpose. in fact, it seems that she believes that her only purpose in life is to roll because she does it ALL THE TIME. if ever she is put onto her back, quick as a wink she has rolled onto her tummy, much to the boys' constant delight and applause. this means that she feels the need to attempt rolling while she is nursing (which doesn't work out all that well), while having her diaper changed, and also while she is sleeping. the only problem with this new rolling business is that she doesn't really enjoy being on her tummy, but she hasn't quite figured out how to roll onto her back again, so she gets a bit stuck. if i'm in the room, i am constantly rolling her onto her back so she can again repeat her favorite skill over and over and over again. if i'm not in the room, the boys get all excited that she has rolled, and then they sort of forget about her as she grows more and more agitated, flailing her arms and legs much like the roly poly bugs do except she does it while on her tummy instead of on her back. so finally mommy comes to her rescue and flips her onto her back where she enjoys about 3 seconds of relief before, woops! there she goes back onto her tummy and begins getting frustrated all over again. (i've started to wonder if she may be showing early signs of OCD and is compulsively rolling over without really wanting to, but feeling the need to do it nonetheless.)

now, it seems that i should be feeling a sense of sadness that ava is already growing up a bit and becoming mobile, rolling off to become a dependant young woman and oh, how the past 4 months have flown! except that's not at all how i feel. i feel as if the past 4 months have been the longest 4 months of my entire life. it has felt more like 4 years since i have given birth to my daughter and i am thrilled that she is finally beginning to discover a world outside of my arms. i don't think that makes me a bad mommy; i just think that it makes me a tired mommy of 3 young children, a mommy who is ready for my baby to grow up.

(. . . . but only if she grows up just a little bit.)

as real as i can be

2011-12-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

hello there. my name is heidi and i suffer from postpartum depression. (there, i said it. that wasn't so hard was it?) actually, it is very difficult for me to type those words out, knowing that with the click of my mouse, they will be sent hurtling into cyberspace for anyone to read. i've mentioned my struggles with this disease previously a time or two, but have always hesitated before doing so. why am i (and so many others like me) so afraid of sharing? i can remember dating a guy once who i was really into. and when he shared with me one day that he was on anti-depressants, that completely changed the way i looked at him. from then on, i wondered if his words and actions were fake, the result of "happy pills" instead of his true and genuine self. i wondered why, as a christian, he wasn't able to allow "the joy of the Lord" to fill his heart and mind. i wondered what kind of sad and awful characteristics lurked just beneath the surface of his smile. and the sad truth is, i haven't wanted to share about this particular aspect of my life on my blog because i didn't want anyone wondering those same things about me.

obviously, its a pride issue. its me worrying about what other people think too much, and i have decided that i need to get over it. i've always tried to be as real as i can on my blog. i find the thought of writing only about the happy, golden moments of life stifling, so i tend to share (perhaps too much) about the good, the bad and the downright ugly. in keeping the fact that i am depressed from my blog, i have come to realize that i have writer's block. i can't write about my life, pretending like everything is okay when it really is far from okay. i write not only to connect with my readers, but also to keep an account of these hectic, crazy, wonderful and scary times in my life as i desperately try to parent three small children. i don't want there to be months of nothingness on my blog anymore. i want to document everything.

if its true that "we read to know we are not alone" as cs lewis once stated, then i want this blog to be a place where other moms' loneliness dissipates. i have found the loneliness this time around so hard to bear and have been almost compulsively reading anything i can get my hands on in regards to other's experiences with postpartum depression. (my most favorite book so far, written by a fellow blogger named heather armstrong is called, "it sucked and then i cried" which not only made me feel much less alone, but also caused me to literally laugh out loud on several occasions, which was an extraordinary miracle.) since it is estimated that 25% of mothers suffer from some sort of postpartum depression, i am positive that there are many, many other moms out there who, like me, are trying daily to just grin and bear it, but inside feel like they are breaking apart.

every woman's journey through depression is different and each one may or may not find their own solution. i am in no way saying that the solution i found will work for everyone; i am merely sharing my journey with you and am hoping that i may encourage at least one other person out there. this is what it felt like for me: i would wake up in the morning and immediately feel nauseous as i realized that i would have to get out of bed and be a mom. more than anything else, i just wanted to close my eyes and fall back asleep and never ever wake up. mornings were the worst for me, as the day loomed long and dark ahead of me, filling me with dread and despair. it was as if a heavy, grey cloud was thrown across my life and nothing filled me with excitement or joy anymore. ava's coo's and smiles were responded to by my own empty smiles because i knew the proper response, but didn't feel the proper emotion. tristan and samuel's needs seemed endless and exhausting and often caused my feelings of despair to turn into impatience and anger at them. every time i had to leave the house and interact with other people, i felt like a big, giant fake. tears waited just behind my eyes and sprung forth several times each day, often without any warning. i lost it in front of my kids all the time. tristan finally stopped asking me if i was okay each time he saw me crying. i would call my mom and sob and sob on the phone to her, pouring out my sadness to a listening ear, but would find no reprieve from the dread i felt. anxiety caused my stomach to churn constantly, worried about every day things, finding the simplest tasks overwhelming. i kept thinking of other people who would love to be in my shoes, with a loving husband and 3 healthy kids, but then all i would feel was guilt because i still couldn't erase the sadness. i knew that i needed help, but i felt unable to get it. the thought of bringing all 3 kids with me to a doctor's appointment gave me a panic attack and i just didn't feel like i could do it. i would give myself a time frame like, "if ava reaches 12 weeks and i still feel like this, i'll make an appointment", but i never did. i did try some herbal pills and waited in vain for them to start making a difference, hoping that one day soon i'd wake up to find the sun breaking through the clouds.

about a month ago my mom in law came by to pick up tristan for a morning outing. in a firm, yet sweet way, she told me that i needed to call my doctor and that she would wait right there until i did so. i got an appointment immediately and, though ava cried and samuel misbehaved (he actually lay on the floor on his stomach and licked the ground in the exam room.....seriously i couldn't make this stuff up if i wanted to), the relief i felt while sobbing to my doctor, knowing that something was going to be done, and that i would feel better soon, made it all worth it. i picked up my prescription for zoloft later that day (God bless the person who came up with the idea for drive thru pharmacies!) and didn't even make it out of the parking lot before taking my first pill.

it took weeks, but eventually i began to notice subtle changes. after finally getting on medication when tristan was 6 months old, i remember josh coming home from work one day and lovingly saying, "you're back!" which was my way of knowing for sure that i was getting better. this time there are so many other signs: hearing samuel laugh and climbing onto my lap for hugs and kisses when he used to just cry and cry, tristan telling me, "i'm happy because you're happy today, mommy" and feeling a thrill of joy when ava looks at me and bursts into a huge grin. i am excited for christmas! i can cook dinner without crying! when ava's naps fall apart, i don't fall apart! i wake up in the morning and don't feel sick to my stomach! i feel normal, not high or unusually chipper, just normal. i can still cry. i still get frustrated with the boys now and then and lose my patience, but i no longer have that crippling knot of anxiety and despair hanging around in my stomach, or a wall of tears waiting to flood my eyes, or a dark cloud tainting every aspect of my life. i feel normal and i feel thankful that i found a solution that works for me.

and that's my story of how a broken mommy got fixed.

happy balls

2011-11-29T16:08:00.000-08:00

today has been a very productive day so far. i did some essential grocery shopping this morning, fed my kids breakfast, lunch and snacks, did 3 loads of laundry, filled and emptied and re filled the dishwasher, read christmas stories to the kids, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, vacuumed the living room and even had time to bring my kids outside so the boys could ride their bikes in the driveway. all this while keeping the baby happy, which is not always an easy feat. i'm posting this because you have no idea how proud i am of myself.

because there have been plenty of days where things have not gone so well. where we set off to the grocery store for a few things, and i get samuel wrestled into the front of the shopping cart and ava wrestled into my faithful moby wrap (because this one time i set her car seat in the front of the shopping cart with her in it....and it fell off, onto the pavement. with her still in it. super traumatic for both of us) and just when i'm thinking that i'm Super Mom because i haven't forgotten anything on my list and we are headed back to the car, i suddenly remember that i need to wrestle 3 children into their car seats. and then once we're home, i need to get them all out of their car seats and into the house, along with lots of bags of heavy groceries. and that i have to put the cold stuff in the fridge, but that the boys will be whining for a snack and ava will be crying for a boob. and that its a half hour past sam's nap time, but i can't put him in bed until i've changed his poopy diaper. and just as i've realized all of this, ava decides to have a blowout of epic proportions, with yellow mustard poop climbing all the way up her little back. and then we all have a good cry. on those days i try really really hard not to vent my frustrations onto my children and decide instead to aim them towards the dummy who came up with the idea of "keeping all of the balls in the air" because doesn't that just sound like a fun little game, with happy little balls in the air? because i'm here to tell you that IT'S NOT A FUN LITTLE GAME. sometimes it really stinks.

but today all of my balls stayed in the air and they remained happy little balls, which makes me a big happy mama ball. and i just wanted to share that.

just some pictures

2011-11-15T19:26:00.000-08:00

you know the old saying, "if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all?" well, that's the reason i haven't updated on ava's sleep situation for awhile. things are rapidly deteriorating to the point where her 45 minute crib naps sound like a blessing! its a struggle to get her down for any sort of sleep, despite trying everything i can think of, being diligent about not allowing her to get over tired or over stimulated, and spending way too much time in her room. thank you for all of your kind comments, it is so nice knowing that people do care and i have definitely tried many of your suggestions as well. obviously to no avail.

my sister cherie and her husband ben drove down from alberta to visit us last month and she took so many great pictures while they were here, so i thought i'd sift through them to see if there were any childless photos that i could post.

samuel's hand. as long as they have those little dimples along each knuckle, they are still babies to me.

we picked the hottest day of the month to go visit our local pumpkin patch and lasted about 20 minutes before hurrying back to the car for some air conditioning.

the boys loved uncle ben, who never seemed to tire of playing with them. i so appreciate the effort my family makes in staying connected with my children even though we live so far away.

a week after ben and cherie left, my dad arrived with his telescope for the moonless run. he stayed in our garage (he claims he doesn't mind!) and was able to be present for ava's baby dedication in church. pictured, from left to right are: josh's mom chris, me holding ava, my dad, josh and gramps.

God has been reminding me daily to count my blessings. there is a pumpkin on my kitchen windowsill with the words, "give thanks" inscribed on it. as i'm pacing the floor with the oven exhaust fan blaring, while trying to calm a sleepless baby i read those words over and over and continue to give thanks for all of the blessings in my life, of which i have many.

all about naps

2011-11-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

i'm forewarning you that this post is not going to be very exciting, and for some reason its difficult for me to actually put this out there. i feel like since i'm doing this whole baby thing for the 3rd time, i should have my act together and know exactly what to do, but the fact is that i don't. and so i need some help. advice, or even just a good old fashioned slap in the face would do.

so. from the moment ava was born, she wanted to be held. all the time. this was okay during the first week when my parents were still here and we had plenty of arms to hold her in, but the day before they left, i realized that i needed help if i was going to be carrying a fussy baby around all day and care for 2 little boys. help came in the form of my moby wrap, which enabled me to keep the baby close to me, which kept her happy, and also have my own 2 arms to tend to the boys.

it didn't take long for my neck injury from my car accident to start acting up a little bit, since ava has never been a light baby. not only that, but there are certain things you can't do while wearing a baby (like bending over for instance) and i was growing weary of feeling like i was still pregnant. not only that, but i couldn't really hug or cuddle my boys and samuel especially began feeling very neglected. i didn't have time to help my baby to sleep in the babywhisperer ways that worked so well for my boys. i couldn't leave my boys (especially sam) alone for any long period of time, and even though the babywhisperer methods are gentle and effective, they generally take a lot of time. i had tried nursing her to sleep, rocking her to sleep, transferring her from the moby wrap to her bed asleep, and of course doing what all the books suggest, which is laying them down drowsy but awake. oh boy, that last one was a laugh! i know that it works for some babies (like my sam), but NOT for babies like ava.

i finally resorted to trying a modified version of letting her cry it out, where i would only let her cry for up to 5 minutes before going in and soothing her. to my surprise it actually started to work! and then, a few days later things got way worse. she wouldn't stop crying, even when i would try to soothe her and she'd often get so worked up to the point that she would gag and choke. when i did some research online, i found that crying it out is not recommended for infants under 4 months because it increases the stress hormone in their brain and makes it difficult for them to calm down. oops. i felt AWFUL. even writing about it now is hard for me because i've never been a fan of that method anyhow, and to use it on my itty bitty newborn makes me feel like such a bad mom.

from that point on my goal was to rebuild trust with ava. she would cry sometimes even when i'd bring her in her room, so i just wore her in the moby non stop for weeks, then gently started trying to transfer her to her crib as she slept. i had some success with this at times, but for the most part, she'd just awaken about 10 minutes after i had layed her down.

she is now 3 months old and i'm exhausted. because she is more alert and aware of her surroundings, having her fall asleep in the moby is becoming more difficult. when i'm at home, i have to turn on the exhaust fan on the oven to create white noise and i can no longer do noisy chores like dishes. i'm constantly hushing the boys because she awakens to sharp noises. not only that, but she is waking up after 30-45 minutes and not re-settling easily...it usually takes about 15 minutes of me bouncing her and shushing loudly (on top of the oven exhaust fan noise) in order for her to fall back asleep and finish her nap. she occasionally will tolerate being rocked to sleep, but always awakens after 30-45 minutes in her crib.

with sam, who was a pretty textbook baby, short naps didn't bother him much as long as he got a nice long one in at some point during the day. with ava, who is very much like her brother tristan was as a baby (touchy, sensisitive, easily over-stimulated) it isn't so easy to just let her get by with 30 minute naps all day. not only does she become over tired and melt down, but her night sleep is very affected by her day sleep, so the better she naps during the day, the better she sleeps at night. on a perfect nap day, she will often even sleep straight through the night, so the incentive for me to get her to take decent naps is incredible!

i'm sort of breaking down, though because i can't be away from my boys for 45 minutes in order to rock her to sleep, and i can't keep wearing her so much because now my ankle, which has screws in it, is also starting to act up from walking her all day long. i started using sam's nap time to do the long rocking session, but that just means that tristan is all alone every day for that period of time and he needs his mommy time as well. the 45 minutes where she is napping in her crib are often taken up by me running around like a chicken with its head cut off, emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the floor, doing laundry and generally trying to keep my house from looking like a major earthquake hit.

so. what do i do now? i'm seriously considering trying to rid my mind of the knowledge of how important naps are and just let it all go and suffer my losses by having broken nights of sleep. i'm fearful of doing this, however because as emotional as i get now, its even worse when i'm sleep deprived. still, i'd be spending more time with my boys and less time shushing them. i really don't want to try letting ava cry it out again, even in a month when she'll be able to tolerate it better because of her sensitive personality. i don't think she'd stop crying and i'm just not going to go there yet.

okay, that's about it. i know that this too shall pass, i know that things will get easier, but you know, its been a long 3 months and hearing those things right now just don't really help. i need some tangible things to do to help the situation. things with samuel seem to only be getting worse and tristan is now super attached to me, to the point where he cries when leaving me. i sort of need to fix this soon.

thanks for reading.

things are gonna get easier?

2011-10-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

i sing this song to myself at least 20 times per day.

un-neglecting my blog

2011-09-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

i've been neglecting my blog for some time now, as evidenced by my infrequent posts and the fact that i can't even be bothered to correct the spelling of my youngest son's name on his age ticker on my sidebar, or change the "i am currently reading" title to the actual book i am currently reading. well, attempting to currently read would be more accurate. i've also had this draft getting stale on the back burner for days now and i think its time to finally get around to posting it. so here it is:

i clicked onto my blog this morning to check out a few updated blog posts from my list before the baby started crying and sort of froze when i noticed something: i have lost a follower. i know that i've had 56 followers for awhile and today i have 55. the funny thing is, this actually made me sad for a moment, wondering what in the world i have done to make someone not want to follow my blog anymore? and then i snapped out of it, realizing that its not surprising since i rarely update anymore due to lack of spare time and when i do update, my posts have been less than exciting. but that one lost follower at least inspired me to post an update, which i shall now do.

in some rare free moments i have been updating the kids' picture blog (link on the sidebar) not because a bunch of people look at it (actually, i believe the only 2 people who ever visit it are my sister and my mom) but because its sort of become my own virtual scrapbook to capture every month in my childrens' lives lest i forget all about this crazy world of mine right now like i've been forgetting so many other things. like doctors appointments and green cards and pin numbers, just to name a few. yes, i was at the grocery store this afternoon and i'm trying to pay for my groceries, but i just couldn't remember my pin number!! after years of having the same number, my mind went completely blank. it was ridiculous, but not surprising since i figure that my brain has been misplaced for the past 8 weeks or so.

yes, ava is 8 weeks old now. she weighed 14 lbs at 7 weeks and i believe she is off the charts. its funny, but i never had any issue in calling tristan chubby or even fat, but with ava, i feel like i have to cover her ears! which makes me sad, knowing that its just our culture right now that causes me to think twice before calling her chunky in the most loving way. anyhow, she slept through the night for the first time last night (7pm-6am!!) and i'm writing it out because i'm definitely not expecting her to repeat that amazing feat tonight. not expecting, but hoping, perhaps! she is a talker, loves to babble away, but she has to have your undivided attention in order to do so. she is also very attached to her mama and there have been days where i have literally worn her the entire day because she'd just cry and cry when i'd try to put her in her crib. there are also days, like today, where she will nap in her crib, and i've learned not to take those days for granted. i've also learned not to run around doing household chores the entire time she's napping, but to also make sure and at least try to relax a little bit here and there, which is easier said than done. but when i am firm with myself about this, i find that my mind isn't falling to pieces quite so much at the end of the day.

ahhh, the end of the day. when all 3 kids are snugly tucked into bed asleep, and its just me and my hubby, i feel like i can breathe again. sometimes this just doesn't happen if ava is having one of her endless evenings of fussiness, which i try to solve by walking her around outside. the other night i walked her for 2 1/2 hours and by the end of it, i think we were both crying. then there are evenings when she'll nod off within 10 minutes, and those are the evenings where i find i'll start to feel a bit like the old me again. the me that isn't utterly exhausted and counting down the days till saturday. its been 8 weeks and i *think* i may just be starting to get the hang of this.

things about right now that i don't want to forget

2011-09-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

(tristan took this picture a few days ago)

ava's first open-mouthed, delighted smiles accompanied by her little voice cooing and squealing as she basks in the glow of our attention.

the way tristan absolutely adores his little sister. while pretending to listen to daddy's heartbeat the other day with his toy stethoscope, he said, "daddy, your heart says beep....beep....beep". daddy was holding ava, so tristan decided to listen to her heart next. "and ava's heart is saying, cute.....cute....cute"

samuel's insistence on wearing hand-me-down cowboy boots that are too big even for tristan, and staggering around the backyard with his cowboy hat on saying "haw! haw!" (his version of yee haw, which sounds more like a baby crow.)

the evening walks that i've started taking ava on while wearing her, in my sometimes futile attempt to keep her evening fussiness at bay. last night i walked with her for over an hour around the neighborhood as the sun set and just enjoyed the way a hush seemed to fall over the town as the dusk deepened....seeing families gather around the table through windows still left open, hearing snatches of conversations through screen doors and noticing the wide variety of television shows watched on flickering screens.

my husband's hand encompassing mine on our way to church; a bit of comfort while trying to keep my over-emotional and exhausted tears at bay.

tristan's thoughts on heaven: "mommy, i don't want to go to heaven." "why not?" "because i don't want to see all of those people up there. i'll be shy of them.....but i won't be shy of God and Jesus because i already know those guys."

smelling the top of my last baby's head, wondering vaguely how long that baby smell lasts before its gone forever?

how samuel repeats every.single.thing his older brother says and mimicking every.single.thing his older brother does to the point where tristan explodes, "STOP copying me samuel!!!!" and i gently try to explain once more how samuel thinks tristan is so cool and how he wants to be just like him, which doesn't seem to lessen tristan's annoyance.

the way josh holds his daughter in his arms.

for these things i am thankful; these are my blessings.

our weekend away

2011-09-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

i know i've said this before, but don't you just love weddings? my "little" brother james (who is no longer very little) got married last saturday to his beautiful bride jacelyn and i was so blessed to be there along with my sweet baby girl.

up until thursday (the day of departure) i was a wreck with the stress of a baby who wouldn't nap and an empty suitcase that i was unable to fill due to the aforementioned non-napping baby. i had visions of all the things that could go wrong during our flight (not anticipating a very Major, Awful Thing that Did Go Wrong on our way back home...) and was positive that i'd burst into tears if i so much as dropped ava's pacifier on the dirty airplane floor. in actuality, the departure and flight up north went amazingly well! God is so good in that nothing is too minor for Him to care about. i had a lovely, kind woman sitting next to me who held ava whenever i needed her to and my little girl slept and ate and looked around and made not a single peep the entire flight.

not only did ava sleep well while traveling, she also slept amazingly well at my parents' house. one night she slept 7 hours in a row, which is unheard of for her, and also took a whole bunch of 2 hour naps, which i attribute to the cool, fresh air. it was so wonderful to share her with my family, see her give out hesitant smiles and enjoy her as if she was my only child. we did a lot of bonding during those 3 days, and i loved being able to shower all of my attention on just her.

those days were so, so short though, and i spent as much of them as i could soaking up time with my family, most of all my mom and my sister.

cherie and i even had a chance to do a quick starbucks run and hit up a grocery store where i bought a few canadian treats for my boys. because the rehearsal dinner was happening on basically the same street as 2 of my closest friends, i got to spend some time with RW and her adorable kids

(her daughter is samuel's age and i got such a kick out of her) and then got the quickest of hugs from leah.

i hadn't seen these 2 ladies in almost a year and a half and i've no idea when i'll get to see them again.

the wedding was perfect. it was outdoors and the finicky weather cooperated beautifully, providing a sunny, but not too hot day. i've never seen my brother smile as wide as he was smiling the entire time.

jacelyn was a vision in her elegant vintage style dress. so many of the details, such as the fabric flowers and reception decorations were lovingly handmade by the bride and she did a fantastic job.

both james and jacelyn are quite bookish, and one of my favorite details was the hollowed out book that the ring bearer (who was adorable, by the way) held containing the rings.

and instead of a lighting a unity candle, the couple transplanted a bonsai tree that james began growing when they first began dating.

ava put on her best behavior during the ceremony, by falling asleep in my arms. she awoke to eat once it was over, then fell asleep while in the moby during the reception, allowing me to enjoy the delicious food (.....though the decadent looking cheesecakes sadly were not enjoyed by me since i'm still off of dairy) she felt fancy enough to spot a wardrobe change halfway through, after spitting up all over her first dress, and was admired by many. i was able to visit with friends and cousins that i haven't seen in so long, particularly my sweet cousin miranda who's son was born only 4 weeks after ava.

i still almost can't believe that i made it after all and i'm so thankful that it all worked out. on sunday, the newlyweds boarded a plane headed to paris, france and i boarded a plane headed to san diego. however, before i got to board the plane, before we even got to the airport, the very Major, Awful Thing that Did Go Wrong occurred. you see, i am still a canadian citizen, but live in the united states as a legal alien, carrying a green card. because bringing ava across the border required her birth certificate and a notarized letter signed by josh, allowing me to bring her out of the country, i was so focused on all of that paperwork and not at all focused on what i needed to bring besides my passport. so when the grim and unsmiling customs agent asked what allowed me to live in the fine country of america, i gave him a blank stare before realizing, oh! i need to show him my green card. duh, like i haven't done this a hundred times before.

well, i opened my wallet to grab it and it wasn't there. i sifted through all of my cards and it wasn't there. i took every single item out of my wallet and my green card simply wasn't there. by this point my heart was beginning to race and the customs agent was beginning to become even more grim and unsmiling. he directed us to pull over and enter the customs building and my mind started racing with words such as deportation and illegal alien. and what would become of my daughter, would we be separated since she was an american citizen and i was not? and ohmygoodness, what about my flight? we had to catch that morning's flight because it was the only one headed for san diego until tuesday. Mr. Grim, who was by now extremely agitated informed me that there would be a $580 parole fee and that i most definitely could say goodbye to my flight. and then he left to go make sense of the mess i had made. and then i burst into tears. thank God my mom was with me and kept trying to console me, but i was pretty inconsolable, thinking about worst case scenarios as always, and wracking my brain, trying to figure out why my green card was not in my wallet like it was supposed to be. my mom then hugged me tight and prayed with me, that mercy would be shown and that a miracle would happen and that i would catch my flight.

and you know, that's exactly what happened. a female customs agent began working together with Mr. Grim and she seemed to have a bit more sympathy for my situation. i was fingerprinted and then paperwork was done up quickly, and i was then informed that the fee had been waived...but only this one time. i was lectured on how important that card is and i nodded and whispered "thank you" the entire time and finally we were out the door and driving madly towards the airport, my mom passing every single car she came upon. i raced through security and ran through the departure terminal, my little lady's head bopping along in her moby. i did make my flight i don't exactly know how this happened, but i had nobody sitting next to me, so was able to sprawl my diaper bag and boppy pillow and burp cloths all over the place without invading anyone else's space. ava did great on the flight home and i got to see my 3 boys pull up to take us home and i was thisclose to bursting into tears all over again, so thankful that i was home and was with my baby and that we didn't owe $580.

the end.

all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go...

2011-08-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

one of the first concerns that popped into my mind when i unexpectedly discovered that i was pregnant for the third time, was that i would miss my younger brother's wedding. we had just had a chance to meet his sweet girlfriend jacelyn the previous april and we knew that he was planning on proposing soon and that an early september wedding was likely. because my due date was originally august 1st, and because i had no idea if my baby would be on time or healthy and also because i'd need the baby's birth certificate in order to cross the canadian border, i really didn't think that things would pan out for us to be able to attend. and i was sorely disappointed. instead of waiting until the last minute to see if it would work out, all the while trying to save up enough money for 4 plane tickets, we decided to just give up on the idea all together and tell james and jacelyn that we wouldn't be able to make it to their wedding.

my dear, sweet mom, however, never lost hope. she assured me that the baby could be born early, that her birth certificate could arrive in time, and that she and my dad would, without hesitation, help us out with the plane tickets. moms are so often right, aren't they? josh picked up ava's birth certificate last week and my mom booked the tickets the very next day. because it would be too difficult for josh to take any more time off of work, he and the boys will stay home and it will just be me and my little girl flying to my hometown for a whirlwind weekend visit, leaving tomorrow.

aside from the worries that are plaguing my mind (what if the airport security people chuck the gripe water because the bottle is 4oz instead of 3oz? what in the world do i do with my baby if i have to use the bathroom on the airplane? will she cry for the entire 3 hour flight?) i am extremely thankful and super excited to be able to make it after all. because weddings seem to attract all sorts of friends and relations, i'll have the chance to introduce ava to so many people, including all of my siblings and her canadian cousins. so there's a bit of fear and excitement all rolled into one, but i can feel the excitement is gradually taking over.

a bit of comic relief...

2011-08-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

...so i had the title of this post picked out before having any idea what to post about. i figured that my posts lately have been a tad angst-ish and perhaps not terribly enjoyable to read. so i' ve been scrounging around my brain trying to think of a good tristanism or sam story to share with you, knowing that they've said and done the cutest things lately, but do you think i can think up one.single.thing? um, no.

but in going back into the archives of my brain, where things were kept much more tidy and organized before the chaos of 3 little ones hit me full force, i do recollect a cute tristanism that i don't believe i shared on the blog. probably because it involves boobies and i'd usually rather not post things about my boobies, but now that i'm breastfeeding an infant, they're pretty much a constant in our family's life right now, so why not add them to the blog as well?

so, a few months before i had ava, i was changing in my room while tristan was telling me some enthralling story, probably about a dragon and a snake and a t-rex all fighting together. he paused his storytelling as i put on my bra and then exclaimed, "those are the same milkers that you used to feed sam, mommy! i remember those!" and that made me laugh really really hard. it also makes me wonder: would men's fascination with breasts dwindle at all if they became officially known as "milkers"? no, probably not.

life right now

2011-08-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

i only have a few minutes on the computer before one of the littlest wakes up, so i need to be quick, but i wanted to post a bit of an update.

my tristan is so sweet and intuitive. he's always asking questions about the baby and the other day was asking me, "so mama, baby ava sleeps and eats and then she's awake for a bit and then she sleeps again more?" i nodded and he thought for a minute before saying, "does she do that at night time too?" and i told him that her tummy is so small right now that yes, she has to eat at night as well. he looked at me with concern all over his face as he said, "but mommy, you need to sleep too!" oh, son, how very true. so i explained to him that babies grow quickly and their tummies grow too so that soon she'll be able to sleep longer and longer without waking mommy up. the whole time i was telling him this, i was praying that it would indeed be true for ava.

the last two nights i've had 3 hours of solid sleep at a time, which has felt heavenly. she is slowly learning to fall back asleep after her night time feedings, though there are nights where it seems she's forgotten how to again. during the day she is so much more alert and awake, taking so much in at once. samuel was pretending to be a dinosaur yesterday and was "roaring" quite convincingly at ava, when her little face scrunched up and she burst into tears. sam was horrified once he realized that he had scared his little sister, and was quick to kiss her over and over again. as much as i want her to learn to get used to the noise level of this household, i'm finding it difficult not to shush the boys so much when she's about to fall asleep. loud noises seem to really bother her and so many times she's on the brink of dreamland, only to be jerked awake by some noise, begin to cry, and then start trying to fall asleep all over again.

naps, for the most part, take place in my moby wrap, which she still adores. once i know she is deeply asleep, i transfer her to her crib. i'm so not ready to begin sleep training with her, (not letting her cry it out, but rather to gently teach her to fall asleep on her own in her crib) just because of how time consuming it can be, so i'm enjoying the feeling of a drowsy baby against my chest while having both hands free to do other things like fold laundry or get the boys some lunch. still, i do wish that she enjoyed a bit more time not being held because i feel like my cuddly boys are missing out on mommy hugs and snuggles. sam is having the most difficult time of it as the middle child and now cries when we drop him off at sunday school (which i don't think he's ever done before) and often wants me to pick him up and hold him. tristan is more understanding, but is constantly asking if he can do something with me instead of playing independantly or with his brother and i do as much as i can, but sometimes i feel so spread thin. what keeps me sane are the evenings when ava happens to fall asleep at a decent hour, when i can curl up on the couch with josh and watch tv while we take turns giving one another foot massages. i don't know what i'd do without that man.

today was the first day that i was brave enough to venture out with all 3 kids to do some groceries. we made it out of the house right at sam's usual nap time, which didn't bode well, but it was ava who had the biggest issues, hating her car seat more than ever. thankfully i had packed the moby in the diaper bag, so there i was in the middle of the cereal aisle, intricately wrapping a hundred yards of fabric around my body as fast as i could while the baby screamed, samuel fussed while rubbing his eyes, and tristan reminded me over and over again that he had to go pee so bad! i am proud to say that i remained calm throughout the whole ordeal, even though i sacrificed the last few items on my shopping list in favor of a quick escape. and for the first time ever i said, "yes please!" when asked if i'd like help to my vehicle. so the nice young man who bagged my groceries also placed them into my car while i got the kids all strapped in, saving me quite a bit of time and keeping my sanity in tact.

so, its been an incredibly challenging past few weeks, but i'm thinking i've survived the worst of it! that is, until the teething kicks in. but we won't think about that yet...

treading water

2011-08-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

the title of this post pretty much sums up how i'm feeling these days. the past (almost) 3 weeks have sort of flown by, but in some ways each day also feels like it takes an eternity to pass. dealing with sleep deprivation has always been difficult for me, but this time around it seems nearly impossible to keep my emotions and patience in check when dealing with my 2 little boys. God gets about a million tiny little prayers from me daily, things like, "God, give me peace!" and "God, please help her to fall asleep!" taking this moment to blog feels almost wrong somehow, as there are so many household chores that need to be done, but i'm gonna take this moment and hopefully keep my sanity in tact.

the days are hectic and the nights can be downright cruel. the other evening josh and i took turns walking a fussy little girl up and down our dark street in the moby wrap, only to lay her in bed and have her scream minutes later. after hours of trying to settle her, josh finally took her downstairs with him to watch some tv and i fell immediately into a deep sleep. he put her in her bed at 11 and by 11:45 she was awake again, ready for another feeding. yesterday i spent $15 on a tiny bottle of gripe water and if last night wasn't just a fluke, if it really and truly took away her tummy pain and caused her eyelids to shut so quickly, then i will happily pay $15 over and over again for such liquid gold. i've been extra strict with eliminating dairy from my diet and am thinking about eliminating soy as well, though that one is a lot tougher. my meals have become very bland and redundant, but i really don't care as long as my baby girl isn't in pain and is getting the rest she and i both need.

yes, things are tough right now, but as my husband very lovingly reminded me last night, its important not to dwell on the tough things, but to revel in the joyful things. like how samuel held her little hand in the backseat all the way to our playdate yesterday and she remained quiet the entire time! or how tristan says, "good morning little cutie" every time i bring her downstairs. the smiles she gives that i swear are social smiles because they light up her eyes and not just her mouth. or the way she just stares and stares at things and people as if she is trying to figure this whole new world out.

so here i sit in front of the computer at 1pm, still wearing last night's jammies that are spit up stained, with my hair in its constant ponytail, listening to 2 different baby monitors, wondering which child will awaken first. this is my life now, my new normal which i am slowly getting used to.

my ava

2011-08-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

my ava is 12 days old today. she is still a chubby little muffin, and even though i haven't had her weighed since her birth, i definitely think she is gaining weight.

my ava has dark blue eyes fringed with tiny, delicate eyelashes. her cheeks are round and fat. she likes to suck in her lower lip, especially when she is sleeping. her ears are still all squished and folded from the position she must have lain while in my womb and i think her nose is absolutely perfect.

my ava is adored by her 2 older brothers. tristan wants nothing more than to see her and hold her as much as possible. samuel can't keep his little lips off of her as he kisses her head, her toes, her elbows and pretty much everywhere else. tristan is especially thrilled that ava gets to sit next to him in the car and even her loud cries of protest while in her car seat don't dampen his enthusiasm for his new riding buddy. samuel, on the other hand, doesn't like it at all when she cries and often joins in when it gets too loud. he is constantly finding her pacifiers and bringing them to me, finding blankets and putting them on her, always trying to be helpful.

my ava has the longest big toe on her right foot that i've ever seen!

my ava gave her first smiles to my mom before she left on the day ava turned 1 week old. call it gas, call it "non-social smiling", but i choose to believe it was a genuine goodbye smile to her sweet grammie who loves her so much.

my ava loves the moby wrap (and so does her mommy). the swing she is still unsure of, but the wrap seems to cure the fussies and replace them with sweet slumber. she also loves the swaddle and having her back patted. but the thing she loves the most is eating, and she goes after her meals with such vigor that i have nearly gone through a whole jar of nipple ointment already. she is neat and tidy about her meals though, and hardly ever spits up.

my ava seems to be sensitive to something in my diet, as she cries out in pain throughout the night. yesterday was the first day that i cut dairy out entirely and last night for the first time ever, she ate and went straight back to sleep without a fuss, meaning that i got 5 hours of sleep last night!! i celebrated by actually taking the time to brush my teeth this morning.

my ava will most likely be blond, despite my expectations for a brunette little girl like her mommy. the small amount of hair that she has is already lightening and her eyebrows look invisible because they are so white. i'm so curious to know who and what she will look like as she gets older. right now she still looks so much like her daddy.

my ava has brought a great big tumultuous shift into our world that we are all trying to find a new balance on. the boys have been acting out in their own ways, i have been an emotional mess and my dear amazing husband has been there to hold everyone together and be there for us as we all need him so much. a new normal is beginning to emerge from the chaos and i know it won't be long before the old normal will be so far behind us that it will be barely remembered.

my ava is my darling daughter that i have waited my whole life to have and i am still awed and thrilled that God would see fit to provide me with such a sweet blessing.

the transition

2011-08-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

you may remember that when we first found out that we were pregnant with our 3rd, it was a huge shock to both of us. i was very, very scared because i didn't think i was the kind of mom who is cut out for having 3 children. (obviously, God had other ideas). after the initial feelings of panic and anxiety subsided, i made a concious choice to focus only on the positives and to be thankful for the blessing that was being added to our lives. i read somewhere that when it comes to new babies, your attitude should be, "don't expect; just accept." i am the queen of expecting, which is just a nice way of saying that i'm a worrier. i think way too far in advance and try to anticipate the pitfalls in any given situation in order to avoid them. when i was pregnant with samuel, i did this all the time. i remember tristan going through a phase where he would only fall asleep if he was on the floor of his room with me laying next to him. i'd lie there with my big belly, waiting for him to fall asleep thinking, "WHAT am i going to do when the baby comes?! i can't do this!" i had such anxiety about having 2 kids and then when samuel arrived, it really wasn't so bad! God blessed me with a super easy 2nd baby and circumstances beyond our control enabled josh to be home for a couple of months after he was born. for me, the transition to 2 was much, much easier than the transition to 1.

this time, i kept telling myself over and over again not to expect. who knew what sort of a baby i'd have, if she'd be a good sleeper, or colicky or the kind of baby who barely makes a peep? i knew that worrying about how i'd handle 3 children ahead of time would only make things more difficult for me, so i simply didn't do it. i had no expectations. (i'd be lying if i said i didn't have hopes, but that's entirely different.)

now that i have 3 children (wow, it still trips me out even to write that), i can tell you i'm glad that i didn't expect. and i am trying so very hard to accept. things have been difficult, not as severely difficult as they could be, but difficult nonetheless. my sweet baby girl has a hard time sleeping at night much at all. at first i thought she just must have her days and nights mixed up, but even when i conciously keep her awake after each daytime feeding for a bit, she still won't sleep much at night. i know that its only the first week and i also know that many moms go through this "survival" type of time at first, but knowing those things doesn't do much to help the fact that i'm only getting about 2 or 3 hours of sleep per night and those hours are all fractured up into 20 minute pieces. having 2 active kids to care for during the day just makes this whole sleep deprivation thing more overwhelming than i ever thought it could be. even now as i type, its just me and ava in the house with the intention of getting some much needed sleep. she, however has other ideas and is just not willing to settle down easily, which is why i decided to blog instead.

so, this is my life right now. i know for certain that in time i will look back on this blog post and barely remember the particulars of the situation i'm in, but at the moment these days are so, so long. and the nights are even longer.

the birth story of ava britain

2011-07-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

to start properly with this story, i must go back a little bit. a few months ago, while reading fascinating midwive's memoirs, i found myself drawn to the idea of a natural, drug-free birth this time around. i was hesitant to voice my thoughts, but eventually asked josh what he thought of the idea, since he hated seeing me in pain for my last 2 deliveries and was begging for the epidural nearly as much as i was! josh, of course, was very supportive and i was thankful not only for that but also that my mom was (hopefully) going to be present at the delivery as well, since she delivered 4 babies naturally. i wasn't planning on using any one "method" for natural pain management, but rather found that by reading about other women's experiences and especially talking to other moms who have been through it, i was encouraged to begin remembering the little things that worked for them and keep them in my mind so that i could try a variety of things while in labor to find what worked for me.

in the week leading up to giving birth, i couldn't stop reading. stacks of child birthing books are still by my bedside and many many birth stories were found on friends' blog archives and re-read. because of preparing myself mentally for a natural birth, i really didn't want to try to bring labor on before i was supposed to. still, by tuesday i found myself googling "natural ways to induce labor" and requested a friend's recipe for a labor inducing concoction that had brought her little girl out exactly on her due date.

as it turns out, i had no need to go out and buy weird ingredients. on wednesday the 27th (my due date) i began feeling strong, regular contractions at around 4pm. eager to keep them going, i stayed on my feet preparing dinner and tidying up the house. after dinner my mom and i took samuel for a good long walk and, though i never had to stop walking and breathe through them, i could feel them getting stronger and stronger and by the time we got home, they were close to 3 minutes apart. i then took a breather and sat up in my bed, timing them while my mom got the boys bathed and into bed. i was excited, but also a little skeptical. being sent home from the hospital once while pregnant with samuel had left its mark on me and i definitely did not want to be admitted to the hospital in the evening, only to spend the night there and find that my labor had stalled. so even though my mom and josh both were ready to get to the hospital, i kept wavering until around 10.00pm when i finally just said "let's stay home." the contractions were beginning to become a little sporadic and some weren't as strong as they had been. that night i did sleep, though i remember having dreams about elephants stomping around my room causing me to contract every now and then.

on thursday morning, i awoke and felt a contraction here and there every 20 minutes or so. josh was determined to get things going, so he called into work to take the day off and he and i went out for a good brisk walk at 6:30am. we came home to a delicious homemade pancake breakfast thanks to my mom. i had no idea that was the last meal i would enjoy all day! i was so set on having my baby on the 28th that i set to work grocery shopping, watering the garden and vacuuming the entire upstairs. by the time i was done all that, i took a quick shower and declared to josh, "let's go!" my contractions were again 3 minutes apart and strong and i thought that it wouldn't be the end of the world if the hospital turned us away since it wasn't like we'd be missing out on a good night's sleep or anything. the hospital is about a 45 minute drive from our house and during that drive, as dreaded, my contractions slowed way down so that once we had parked and were on our way to the admissions desk, they were 10 minutes apart. still, we were shown to a room and when the nurse saw in my records that i had been 4 cm dilated 2 days earlier, she went ahead and admitted me before i was even checked.

the team of midwives that i had were wonderful! one was a bit of a spazz and kept things light and fun, and the other one was quieter and more down-to-business, but super sweet. they came in to check me and were happy to exclaim that i was 6 cm! i was, quite honestly, shocked because even though my contractions were strong, they were super manageable and i didn't feel like i was truly in active labor. and so we set to work walking the halls of the birth center. i was allowed 30 minutes at a time of walking followed by 30 minutes of being hooked up to the monitors so they could keep tabs on the baby's heart rate. i asked not to be hooked up to the IV though, since i had plans of using the shower once things started getting tough. well, the toughest that things got at that point was keeping myself from salivating while watching josh and my mom devour their lunch in the corner of the room. it was torture! i was starving, but of course all i could "eat" was ice chips. (and they were pretty good ice chips if i do say so myself.)

so josh and my mom took turns walking the halls while i waddled and i'd smile at the other pregnant women who were waddling around in their hospital gowns as well, all the while wondering how in the world i could be 6 cm dilated and smiling! the midwives were eager to check me after awhile, since there were a ton of laboring women around, but i was the most progressed. even after all that walking, i was still 6 cm (which didn't surprise me a whole lot due to lack of intense pain), so i gave the go ahead to break my water. once she had broken my water, the midwife had a puzzled expression saying, "why is there no fluid?" she was positive that she had felt the "pop", but there was no fluid either gushing or trickling, even when i stood up to walk some more. so we just went along and resumed walking/waddling and growing quite bored with the same scenery and lack of proper contractions. after about another hour, the 2nd, more calm midwife checked me, found me to still be 6 cm and also found that the bag of water was still intact! aha! so this time she broke it and oh my word, it was like a fire hose! neither midwife could believe how much water kept gushing out and one even commented about the baby being smaller than they originally thought since i had so much water in there.

once my water had for sure broken, the contractions gradually picked up, which was nice because i was a little worried about being slammed immediately into transition. i got out of the bed and started swaying with each contraction, finding it most comfortable to sling my arms around josh's shoulders and lean my head against his chest. we slow-danced like this to songs playing softly on my ipod that i had picked especially for giving birth. i focused on breathing and on keeping my body relaxed instead of tensing up each time i felt a contraction come. i also remembered some great advice that my friend michelle had told me, which was to work through each contraction separately, not worrying about all the ones to follow, but just focusing on getting through that one single contraction.

soon my breathing out was replaced by low moans that i didn't feel capable of stopping and i began feeling the urge to go to the bathroom, so i got my mom to page the nurses station. my midwives came bustling in and when they saw me swaying and moaning against josh's chest, one of them rubbed her hands together and said, "its christmas morning!!" i had to get back into the bed to get checked again and was found to be 8 cm, so no pushing allowed. i was still pretty focused at this point and loved feeling josh massage my shoulders through each contraction while my mom's cool hand rubbed my left arm. then things got fierce.

only minutes after i had been 8 cm, i felt myself spinning out of control, unable to get on top of the pain. instead of holding josh's hand with loose fingers, i was gripping it as hard as i could and my breathing had gone out the window. i had that panicky feeling of "i can't do this!!" as the most painful of all contractions gripped my body, one on top of the other leaving me no room to recover in between. and then the urge to push happened. i've never felt the urge to push before. both times before i've been too drugged up with the epidural to feel any sensation, so i've always pictured it as feeling like you're going to the bathroom. i had absolutely no idea how forceful that urge would be. i would describe it more like the involuntary urge to vomit, your body just heaves and does it without your consent. the midwives remained calm, but told me to hold on a moment while they checked me one last time and sure enough, i was fully dilated and ready to bear down. i've read that pushing feels like a "welcome relief", yet in my experience it did not! it was the most crazy part of all and i'm pretty sure that the array of noises i made would have terrified those poor pregnant women waddling the halls into asking for epidurals immediately upon returning to their rooms.

i bellowed, i roared, i snarled and just pushed with all of my might. and then pushed some more. for some reason the thought of holding onto my own legs and curling over my belly to push just seemed impossible, and that's when i let out the "i CAN'T!" but i did and it was the craziest sensation to feel my baby being propelled down out of my stomach. and then The Crowning happened. i'm not trying to scare anyone out there, i'm just telling it like it is, but that crowning was something else. the midwife looked into my eyes and told me that i was going to want to pull back, but that i needed to push through it, and so i did. it hurt. a lot. and then her head was through and i was wondering why it was still burning so much to push the rest of her out. well, that was because she takes after her daddy in the shoulder department.

finally she was on my chest and was looking at me with her dark eyes and i felt my hand all wet and realized that my mom had been bawling and had cried all over it. and josh was there talking to our sweet ava and i was in shock and in awe and in love all at the same time.

it took a long while to get stitched up (something i won't go into details on, but let's just say the pain rivaled parts of my labor) and then finally i could really hold her and nurse her and just look at her. all the nurses and the midwives were speculating on how big she was, but nobody was more shocked than me when she was weighed and found to be 10 pounds, 3 ounces! i felt like superwoman right after it was all over and i knew that i had done it, but finding out her actual size made me feel even more like some sort of super-human.

honestly though, it was so crazy and intense and i am thrilled that i had the chance to experience all of it. and if you ask me if i'd go natural again, i'll just smile at you and tell you that i don't have to answer that question because i don't have to go through it again. we are done, our family is complete and i am so thankful to God for the miracles that all 3 of my babies are.

~the end.

baby update #2

2011-07-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

today is my due date. i've never been pregnant on my due date before. i don't think i like it very much. i've gone from feeling serene and patient about this whole thing to feeling annoyed, impatient and just done. a woman yesterday told me, "i hope you have that baby soon because you look miserable!" that's always a nice thing to hear.

when i saw my midwife yesterday, she was very surprised that i hadn't given birth yet. i'm still pretty much 4cm dilated and almost completely effaced, so she just went ahead and stripped my membranes again and asked if i'd like to schedule an induction date for this weekend. i said no, so she scheduled me an ultrasound appointment for friday instead to make sure the amniotic fluid levels are looking okay. i really really don't want to be induced, but i will be allowed to go 2 weeks past my due date before they make me. and the thought of being pregnant for another 2 weeks makes me feel like crying.

my dad arrived on monday evening (he drove down) and now it definitely seems like we're just sitting around, waiting on this little girl. the boys are loving all the attention from their grandparents though. tristan and grammie are at this very moment having a "picnic" of hotdogs and watermelon inside their little travel trailer. sam, who is his grandad's biggest fan, hasn't been very fond of sleep for the past few days (neither naps nor bedtime) because he thinks he's just going to be missing out on something. the other day i left him in his crib for 2 solid hours and he didn't nap at all, so i finally gave up much to his delight. that evening it took him almost an hour to fall asleep for his bedtime as well and i'm really hoping that he decides to get back to his regular routine once the baby arrives so that i'll be able to keep my sanity.

oh, and by the way, if you see me around town within the next couple of weeks, exclaiming, "WOW, you're STILL pregnant?!!?" my not be the best way to start our conversation. just a head's up ;)

baby update

2011-07-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

yesterday the boys and i picked my mom up from the airport. the original plan was that she would fly down on sunday, but after my appointment with my midwife on tuesday, we decided to expedite her arrival by a few days. even though i walked into my appointment without the intention of being checked for dilation, i had had a rough day that day and my sweet midwife could tell. she sympathetically told me that i looked like i was about done and when i mentioned feeling vast amounts of pressure much lower than before, she said, "i'd really like to check you then." and i did not argue. the whole reason that i didn't want to be checked in the first place is that with both of my boys i was dilated quite early on and the doctors had given me hopes of delivering early. with tristan, my doctor was spot on (he was born 10 days early), but with samuel, i was told week after week that i could be in the hospital "any day now" and that just didn't happen, which was so discouraging.

this time was much the same, though i was given no promises. the midwife was happy to report that i'm already dilated 3-4 centimeters, very thinned out, and that the baby's head is "right there!" thus the uncomfortable pressure. she did set up my appointment for next tuesday and then said, "though i don't think you'll be making it for that one" which is the only hint she gave that labor could be imminent. the nurses, on the other hand, were filled with glee for me, one of them telling me, "just go home and have lots and lots of sex and you'll be in the hospital tomorrow for sure!"

even though i tried not to, of course i got really quite excited and called my mom as soon as i got home and told her that sunday may be just a bit too late. and so she booked a thursday flight and is here now, and i love that.....but i'd be lying if i said i wouldn't love it just a little bit more if the vague contractions i've been having were getting stronger and closer together. our plan this morning is to head down to the mall and walk and walk and let the boys get their energy out in the air conditioning before the stores open. if tristan is correct about the date he insists that ava wants to come out on, then she'll be born today....which would also be cool because she'd be sharing her birthday with her cousin jacob and 2 other little second cousins as well.

thankfully though, i'm still feeling very much at peace and not in a hurry to end this magical journey called pregnancy. every time she squirms around in her squished little home, i rub her back or try to grab her heel both dying to know what she looks like, yet knowing that soon i'll be missing those movements inside of me.

girly things giveaway

2011-07-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

back when i was pregnant with sam and was pretty much on bedrest, i became addicted to entering blog giveaways. it was fun for awhile, but soon i got burnt out with keeping track of all of the ones i had entered and i never ended up winning anything anyhow. yesterday, however, when my friend connie posted a link to a Creme de la Gems giveaway on facebook, i decided to check it out. and oh! the cute little girly things that are to be given away!! yesterday the giveaway was for some beautiful vintage flower bobby pins and today's giveaway is for a $50 giftcard for her Creme de la Gems Etsy site which is where you can find gorgeous personalized handstamped mother's jewelry.

the stuff is so beautiful that i just had to share....oh, and i also just had to share because i get an extra entry for sharing on my blog :) head on over to participate, its worth a shot, right?

precious photos

2011-07-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

i recently got a comment on my facebook wall from an old friend, urging me to post some belly pics. she said that, "Girls care so much more about that - Ava will ask for sure . . ." i had never really thought about it that way, but it made sense. i haven't been asking josh to take nearly as many belly shots this pregnancy as i have in the past, so when my awesome friend jessica offered only a few days later to take some family pictures of us before ava arrived, i was ecstatic!

we met at a local park 2 evenings ago and had so much fun walking around and posing now and then while jessica snapped a ton of pictures. getting tristan to smile was like pulling teeth, and getting sam to sit still was almost as difficult, but when she emailed me the results of her hard work, i was in shock with how well they all turned out!

we've never had professional family photos taken before and, while jessica wouldn't call herself a professional, i would beg to differ.

i am so thankful to have these photos to treasure always and i'm sure that one day ava will be thrilled to look through them as well, knowing that her anticipated arrival was the reason they were taken.

counting down

2011-07-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

samuel had his 2 year checkup this morning (he's 15th percentile for weight and 60th for height if you care about those things) and i was so involved with wrangling one bossy boy and one mischievous boy into the exam room that when the nurse asked me when i was due, i stared at her, just blinking for a few moments before i remembered that i was pregnant and that i am due in a mere 2 weeks. that is how forgetful i am. its gotten worse each time i've been pregnant to the point where i am now misplacing money, sunglasses, my wallet, important papers, my flip flops, the books i'm currently reading and, of course my car keys. ALL THE TIME. i'm late for everything, forget to feed my boys lunch and often have to scramble to figure something out for dinner because even though i've got good intentions and make a weekly menu, that doesn't mean that i'll actually remember to take what i need out of the freezer.

but forgetting that i'm pregnant? even i think that's a little odd. at night time its impossible to forget because if i'm not dreaming about delivering babies, then i am taking 5 minutes to roll out of bed in order to go potty at 12:00am, 2:00am, and 4:00am. i am also re-arranging pillows constantly to accommodate the uncomfortable pull of my belly and also to elevate my feet which resemble water balloons about to pop by the end of the evening. but during the day (especially a day like today which is a lovely, cool 75 degrees) i can honestly get caught up in just doing my day to day mommy thing that there are times when it suddenly hits me how soon i'll be cuddling a tiny newborn and i have no choice but to be blown over by this fact as tears prick my eyes. and don't even get me started on envisioning josh holding his daughter for the first time, that just turns the tear pricks into streaming waterfalls.

at this point with both of my previous pregnancies, i was impatient and frustrated. with tristan, i was told that the baby would for sure come early (which he did, by 10 days) and that just made every single moment of every single day seem unbearably long to wait. with samuel, we had hoped and prayed that he would stay put until at least 34 weeks after going into pre-term labor at 27 weeks, so when the 34th week came and went and especially after the 37th week, i was so ready to begin walking on my own again and meet my little miracle baby that i couldn't handle the fact that he was taking so long. (he showed up 3 days early, so i've no idea what i was complaining about). this time, i can honestly say that i'm feeling much more serene and content and i just want her to come in her own time. sure i've had days where its 86 degrees in the house and i'm in a horrible mood and i feel like not being pregnant anymore would be a wonderful idea, but for the most part i'm just cherishing my last pregnancy, knowing that i'll never be participating in growing a miracle ever again.

tristan, by the way has asked baby ava when she'd like to come out and he has informed me that she wants to come out on friday. when i asked him whether she'd like to come out on this friday, or next friday, he said, "next" very matter-of-factly and i can't help but wonder if he knows something that we don't (like how he was convinced she was a girl before we knew for sure). josh is thinking she'll be here on the 24th, which is also the same day my mom is planning on flying down. i really really want my mom to be here for the delivery this time, so i'm hoping that neither josh nor tristan are correct in their guesses. my guess is that she'll be here on the 28th, a day after her due date. both me and my sister have birthdays on the 28th (though not of this month) and i like even numbers. and thursdays. we'll soon see who is right!

all for ava

2011-07-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

over the weekend i was blessed to be thrown my last baby shower for my first baby girl. it was a lovely afternoon with great food, loving friends, and of course lots of fun little girl things to "ooh" and "ahh" over.

it was an extremely warm day, so the refreshing drinks and array of summery food were enjoyed immensely.

my sweet friend mara did an amazing job of hosting and organizing the shower along with the help of some of my other amazing friends.. (there is something so humbling about people coming together to do something special like this for you, simply because they love you!)

sara made the most delicious and beautiful filled cupcakes ever! seriously, these little morsels from heaven tasted just as scrumptious as they look.

i was overwhelmed with all of the gifts that were given, and i spent lots of time over the next few days organizing and putting everything in its place in ava's little nursery. as i type this, there is a load of delicate little dresses, bibs and blankets in the laundry that will soon be lovingly hung up and folded, awaiting my precious little babe's arrival. ....3 more weeks!!!!

(p.s. thanks to jessica and chris for taking these photos for me!)

my view these days

2011-07-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

sitting in the backyard, peering over my belly to read a book,

admiring my newly-painted toes (thanks to my friend lynea who came over and did them for me, since the aforementioned belly would have made it impossible for me to paint them myself),

watching my sunflowers sway and dance in the hot breeze,

and loving most of all the splashes and giggles coming from our new swimming pool.

the only thing i forgot to take a picture of was my ginormous glass of ice water sitting next to me. its actually mostly ice and a bit of water, since i've had the insatiable urge to chew on ice cubes this past week and have been re-filling the ice cube tray in the freezer about 10 times a day.

i can't quite believe that it is now july, the month that i am due!! (though i'm anticipating that she'll arrive in august with the hope that i can avoid some of the end-of-pregnancy-impatience this time around) when i turned the calendar page over this morning, i felt butterflies dance in my tummy. so soon! i now have weekly midwife appointments and she is still head-down, still doing well. i've been having lots of sometimes painful braxton hicks, which have dilated me to 2cm already, but i don't have my hopes up that she'll be early. at this point, i still sort of hope that she'll come right on time at the end of the month in order for me to feel ready for a newborn, because i still don't quite feel that way.

tristan, on the other hand is more than ready to meet his baby sister. he was asking me yesterday why we couldn't move his bed into her room so that he could sleep right next to her. i tried explaining to him that babies wake up a lot at night and he probably wouldn't like being woken up so much, but he just told me that he'd tell her, "its okay baby bodie, don't cry. i'll go get mommy so that you can drink some of her milk." so then i told him that his bed wouldn't fit in her room and his solution was that he'd simply sleep on the floor. i have a feeling that he is going to be super protective of her, which is so sweet. when we got some hand-me-down dresses from relatives in scotland last week, he picked up a particularly beautiful flowered one and said, "oh! when baby bodie wears this dress, i want to dance with her!" (i didn't have the heart to tell him that it was size 0-3 months, so there would be no dancing happening on her end). then he thought for a moment and said, "or, maybe when she is 5, she can wear this dress and i can marry her!" my sweet, sweet boy.

samuel is beginning to concern me a little bit when i think about a newborn entering our house because only about a week ago he somehow developed a bit of a violent streak. he's been making a fist and punching people without any provocation, and bit tristan so hard on his back that he left red teeth marks. i'm good friends with his sunday school teacher who told me that there are a couple of boys in his class who have issues with hitting other kids, so i'm wondering if that's where he gets it from? we've been trying different forms of discipline, but so far nothing has really stopped him. i'm praying its just a short phase and that he won't have any desire to harm his baby sister. just in case though, would anyone out there be interested in borrowing a violent 2 year old for a few months? ;)

summer!

2011-06-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

it is now officially summer and we have been busy doing such summer things as....

celebrating daddy's 35th birthday,

watering thirsty flowers,

enjoying carrots picked fresh from our garden,

gazing at my profusely flowering nasturtiums,

donning swim trunks,

and sliding....or in this case, tumbling down the slide into the pool.

and, since tristan is such a careful day-tracker on his own little magnetic calender, he informed me today that it is the first day of summer. and since the "first day of summer" magnet has an ice cream cone on it, well, that surely meant that we must eat ice cream cones today!

and so we did.

summer savory

2011-06-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

i find it funny how pregnancy can sometimes bring out cravings for foods that i haven't eaten nor thought about in years. back in january, from out of nowhere, i was hit hard with an intense craving for green bean soup, which is something my mom used to make often for dinner. i called her up immediately, asking for the recipe, and as i wrote it down, i was deflated with the realization that the key seasoning ingredient, summer savory is not available down here in southern california. i've looked for it before on grocery store shelves to no avail. my dad would always grow it in the garden and then dry it in the garage so that we'd be well stocked with green bean soup seasoning all winter long. i asked if they could bring me some the next time they drove down, and my dear dad did even better than that: he mailed me a little seed packet so that i can begin to grow and dry my own summer savory.

well, truth be told, he actually addressed the letter to tristan and put him in charge of helping me plant it and keeping it watered. tristan was thrilled to be enlisted to help in such an Important Task, and kept asking me when we were going to plant "grandad's seeds" until finally, last week i got around to it.

i poked the holes in the dirt and he put the seeds in. the seedlings will be thinned once they've sprouted so that there will only be 2 or 3 plants in the planter, which is a good thing since those seeds were tiny and i've got a feeling that many more seeds were scattered than what was intended despite the utmost care taken by my little gardener-in-training.

sowing seeds is very intense work, and by this time it had started sprinkling outside (i know! such wonderful early summer weather for a very pregnant girl!), but he just pulled his hood over his head, sat on a chair and kept working hard.

we set the planter in an empty space in the vegetable garden and made sure that it was near enough to the kitchen window so that tristan can take a peek now and then to see if his seeds need watering. samuel had nothing to do with helping out, but he was there to make sure that the spot we picked was a good one.

grandad had left specific instructions in his letter saying that if any money was leftover from buying the potting soil, that it was to go towards an ice cream cone! and so we happily went through the drive thru and tristan got an ice cream, generously sharing little licks with his brother and mommy.

tristan has been very attentive to his soon-to-arrive plants and is quick to let me know if the dirt is getting dry. i love how he is learning the thrill of watching and waiting, checking every day to see if there are any little green shoots poking up through the soil.

thanks, grandad!

sticky

2011-06-14T21:34:00.001-07:00

samuel hasn't been a fan of his veggies lately, so i decided to use an old trick on him that used to fool him back when he was younger. i told him he could have some applesauce, which i poured into a bowl, then added some pureed squash and a sprinkle of wheat germ. when i re-entered the room only minutes later, this is what i found:

apparently he is no longer fooled. and just so you know, getting bits of soggy wheat germ out of curly wet hair is not an easy task.

a wedding!

2011-06-09T08:49:00.001-07:00

i, like most women, love weddings. however my dear husband, like most men, doesn't really care for them. he insists that he enjoyed his own wedding, but finds going to other people's sort of boring and awkward. he was mentioning this very fact last fall during our bible study, when a young couple in our group sort of laughed and mara told him, "well that's too bad because mike and i were going to ask you to officiate our wedding ceremony." josh sort of swallowed and smiled and told them that he'd be honored to do it.

their wedding was last sunday and it was beautiful. honestly, the grounds were breathtaking, the bride was radiant, the ambiance was perfect and the food was SO good! i think the best part, though was the company. we sat at a table surrounded entirely by friends of ours and that made the whole event so much fun.

i took various pictures, trying to capture how amazing everything looked and i thought my pictures turned out okay until i saw shayna's professional photos on facebook. then mine looked like crap. so i've decided to use her stunning photos here and there throughout this post because they're just too beautiful not to share.

josh was nervous, that goes without saying. this was the first time that he has officiated and i was so proud of him, he did so well! the ceremony was short and sweet, which i'm sure everyone appreciated, and once it was over, josh was free to relax and enjoy the rest of the evening.

the theme was vintage inspired and there was a schoolhouse from the 1890's on the premises which was full of fun antiques to look at. there was a wheelbarrow to stack the gifts in and a birdcage to place the cards in. branches with white lights were strung under the eaves and long crystal ornaments hung from some of the trees.

it was a wee bit nippy out, but the tent where the reception was held was nice and toasty warm. unfortunately, i had indulged a little too much on the cocktail hour's delicious spread of fruit and cheeses, so i wasn't able to finish my main course (stuffed sirloin and chicken marsala with vegetables and mashed potatoes), but josh didn't mind cleaning off my plate for me. there was a self serve coffee bar with flavored syrups and whipped cream that i visited more than once since the open bar wasn't an option for me. (7 more weeks until i can sip a nice glass of wine!)

and then there was the photo booth. instead of a guest book, mike and mara provided scrapbook pages to paste photo booth pictures into. there was a trunk full of props, like glasses and hats and feather boas and these wonderful little moustache-on-a-stick's:

josh isn't much of a dancer and i didn't feel like waddling on the dance floor with my big belly bouncing, so skipped out when the music turned up and managed to get a few photos of just the 2 of us as well.

our boys were happily asleep at their gran & grandpa's house by the time we got home and we hit the hay by 10:30, feeling like such old farts, but not really caring anyway.

thank you, mike & mara for sharing your wedding celebration with us. we loved every moment of it.

nesting & baby update

2011-06-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

when i was first pregnant with tristan, my friend zandra immediately purchased "the pregnancy journal" for me, saying that it was an absolutely essential book to have for a new mom. and it was. i loved reading every single day what miraculous detail was forming or taking shape in my unborn baby's body. there was also plenty of space to write down how i was feeling, or what i was craving on that particular day. i found that during my second pregnancy, the book was even more fun to read because i could compare my pregnancies and see all of the similarities. (oddly enough, josh first felt samuel move the exact same day gestationally that he first felt ava move!)

last night i was dutifully reading my pregnancy journal and read that when i was 32 weeks along with samuel, i was having such a strong urge to nest, but couldn't do a thing about it because of my broken leg and inability to get around. it broke my heart to think of his room all cluttered full of boxes and random non-baby items, without a single onesie washed or folded into tiny little drawers awaiting his arrival. never mind that i still had 8 weeks of pregnancy ahead of me; i somehow wanted and needed to prepare his room immediately!

i smiled as i read my notes from 2 years ago, thankful that this time i can nest to my heart's content any old time i choose and wondering what my hurry was last time. then, this morning, after running errands and eating lunch and nap time, i was suddenly seized by the urge to nest. the box of hand-me-down clothing sitting on the floor in ava's room suddenly became unbearable to look at. i had to put those clothes away. but then i realized that i didn't have any extra hangers, so i went into the boys' closet and began pulling down shirts of theirs' that were becoming too small so that i could use those hangers for ava's closet. but then what to do with the too-small boys' shirts? well, tristan's had to be put away in the correctly labeled storage bin, of course and samuel's had to be bagged up and set aside to give away. this whole need to hang a few items up in ava's closet ended up causing me an entire afternoon (and into the evening) of sorting and folding and there were clothing bins and hangers and piles of different sized clothing EVERYWHERE.

i found a bin of 24 month hand-me-down clothing that i never even knew existed, so samuel now has about 10 new shirts hanging up in his closet. that, of course, then led to the need for more new hangers, so the size 7 shirts that are too big for tristan were binned and labeled and put away for awhile. the blue hangers had to be exchanged for white ones (oh, it would never do to have blue hangers in a little girl's closet, don't you know!) and finally, finally the mess of boys' clothing was organized and put away and i got to nest away in my little girl's room. there really is nothing sweeter than a teensy pair of pink plaid newborn size shorts. well, she'll obviously be sweeter than those shorts, but i think i'm going to have to take them out of her drawer once every few days and just look at them, then tuck them away again.

i had another midwife appointment on tuesday morning and she looked concerned when feeling my tummy. she said the baby is head-up (which i knew just from the sorts of movements i've been feeling, like kicks to the bladder) and she mentioned that if the baby hasn't turned to a head-down position by my next appointment (in 2 more weeks) that she'll send me to the hospital to get an ultrasound confirmation and then have a doctor there try to turn her. i asked her if i would be allowed the chance to deliver a breech baby, if it comes to that and she looked apologetic as she said "no". c-sections are so routine and "simple" nowadays that most doctors aren't familiar enough with breech deliveries to be comfortable doing one.

so, after coming home and googling a few things, i'm wondering why the concern so early. babies turn and turn until around 36 weeks when it becomes more difficult for them to do so. i love my midwife, but i sort of wonder where she's coming from in this situation, so i'll be sure to ask more questions at my next exam. reading about how they turn babies made me cringe (its apparently quite painful and not without risks), so i'm going to do my little baby-turning exercises and pray that she's head-down during my next exam, just to appease the midwife.

i miss blogging

2011-05-27T11:21:00.001-07:00

i really do. i miss typing my thoughts out and recording what my kids are doing and saying and reading every one's comments. i feel like this year i've been in such a big blogging rut and i can't quite figure out why. perhaps part of it has to do with the fact that i've chosen not to post photos of my boys' faces, so that limits the amount of "easy picture posts" that i can do. (unless i get creative, like in my last post). i feel as if picture less posts are boring posts, but honestly who wants to look at pictures of my flowers every time i write?

the other reason i think i don't blog more is because i often have random thoughts and ideas to write dancing around in my head that are more suited to a facebook status update than an entire blog post. just small little things that i feel aren't worthwhile to share on their own, so then they just don't get shared at all. and i feel that's a shame mostly for my sake because i rely on my blog so much to look back on in the future and remember what life what like at different stages of my kids' growing up years. so.... i will write a random post today and i'm telling myself that even if my blog becomes only a collection of random posts from here on out, i will still continue to blog. and i'm hoping that writing it out will help me to keep to it!

*josh and i celebrated our 7th anniversary last saturday and had a fabulous time eating dinner at pf changs and then taking dessert home from the cheesecake factory. we did a little bit of shopping, watched a dvd and had a child-free night thanks to his parent's keeping the boys overnight. what i loved the most about our time together was that josh pretty much planned all of it....including 1 hour massages that we get to have tomorrow! yeah, my man rocks.

*next weekend is samuel's 2nd birthday. all 4 of the men in the family will celebrate their birthdays in a joint party on saturday, but i'm going to make cupcakes especially for samuel so that he can blow his own candles out and go to town on his own little cake.

*the following day (sunday), josh and i are attending a wedding of friends of ours. well, josh is doing more than just attending it, he will actually be officiating the ceremony! this will be his first time officiating and he's more than a little nervous, but i'm so proud of him and excited to watch him up there. the boys will again be spending the night at my in-law's which i'm also excited about. we're sure taking advantage of their free babysitting service before the new baby arrives :)

*i have now entered the 3rd trimester of my pregnancy and both my appetite and my weight have been skyrocketing. this seems to be the case with every one of my pregnancies and my mind is just telling me to throw up my hands in surrender and say, "i don't care anymore!" but the truth is that i do. i know very well just how difficult it is for me to lose pounds accumulated during pregnancy. there are many days that i eat way too much of the wrong things, but i don't let myself become a runaway train; instead i do my best to wake up the next morning, knowing that its a brand new day and start fresh with eating clean and healthy. i am also going to start doing hill walking once a week with a good friend of mine, mostly to make sure that i'm not completely out of shape when its time once more to push a baby out.

*this is the first time that i will have a midwife deliver my baby and i'm really happy about that. i've been reading a lot of books written by midwives lately (the baby catcher being my all time favorite) and i feel like i have more knowledge about birth than ever before. i'm not going to declare that i plan on giving birth without an epidural this time, but i do know that i have a say in nearly everything that goes on in the delivery room and that i'm going to use my voice a lot more this time around. i've been watching the show "baby's first day" a lot as well and its really becoming obvious to me that there truly is such a strong link between pitocin lowering a baby's heart rate, causing the need for emergency c-sections. sam's heart rate dipped very low after i was given pitocin (at 8cm dilated! sheesh!!) and knowing what i know now, it makes more sense to me. it seems that so many doctors are in such a hurry for you to have the baby and move on out of there, so i am hopeful that my experience with a midwife will be much more respectful, patient and calmer.

*tristan. wow, he is growing up way too fast. he looks much older than he really is, due to his missing front tooth and his large size, but i love the fact that he still wants to cuddle with me and isn't too grown up for public hugs and kisses. he is extremely bossy, especially with his brother, but also has quite a shy streak that comes out mainly when meeting new people or in new situations. he is so excited about a new baby sister, still insists on calling her "baby bodie" and often talks about how he will help out when she is here. despite growing up, he still comes out with the funniest things at times. he pronounces beer "beard" and the other day he was talking about getting really big and being a daddy. he said, "when i'm a daddy and even bigger than my daddy, i'm going to drink beard." and you know, there's a good chance that he will become bigger than his own daddy (who is 6' 2'') because when we measured him at 2 1/2 and doubled it, the prediction was that he'd be around 6' 5'' as an adult!

*samuel. ever the little monkey. at times endearing, then at times very frustrating. he doesn't technically talk, but the words he does say only we can understand. he now says "no" (which sounds like "oh") and oh my goodness, is he quite the defiant little boy! he has a certain tone of voice that he uses which shows that he already has a bit of an attitude, so we are in the process of nipping that in the bud, though its difficult when most forms of discipline seem to just roll off of his back. he loves big trucks and cars and motorcycles. he also likes horses and baby girls (hoping that will stick around a bit longer) and water and dirt and rocks. he is seriously just all boy, so rough and tumble and tough (for the most part). he's also quite small and has what i think is a very tiny head, so i'm having a difficult time letting josh buzz his hair this summer since i think he will look very very funny. and not in a good way. he is also a cuddler, loves to give kisses and is always the first one to comfort his brother or whoever else may be crying.

*braxton hicks contractions are already coming and going daily, reminding me that these last 2 months will probably fly by quicker than ever. i still don't feel like i'm ready yet, but i know by the end i definitely will. josh is hoping to set up ava's crib this weekend, which i think will make her room look so much more put together. the changing table and rocking chair are already in there along with some hand-me-downs hanging in her closet. i love the fact that this time around i am able to nest; during the last few months of samuel's pregnancy i wasn't able to get anything ready in his room and we didn't even set his crib up until after he was born! the feeling of preparing and readying a place for our baby girl is incredible; it fills me with peace and thankfulness. we are so, very blessed.

hiding

2011-05-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

i'm hiding, i'm hiding
and no one knows where;
for all they can see is my
toes and my hair

and i just heard my father
say to my mother -
"but, darling, he must be
somewhere or other;

have you looked in the inkwell?"
and mother said, "where?"
"in the INKWELL?" said father. but
i was not there.

then "wait!" cried my mother —
"i think that i see
him under the carpet." but
it was not me.

"inside the mirror's
a pretty good place."
said father and looked, but saw
only his face.

"we've hunted," sighed mother,
"as hard as we could
and i am so afraid that we've
lost him for good."

then i laughed out aloud
and i wiggled my toes
and father said —"look, dear,
i wonder if those

toes could be benny's?
there are ten of them, see?"
and they WERE so surprised to find
out it was me!

~by Dorothy Keeley Aldis

a poem i remember well from my childhood.

our trip to disneyland (a really long post)

2011-05-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

so, last week we took the boys to disneyland for 2 days. our time as a family of 4 is drawing to an end and we wanted to do something fun and vacation-like this summer as a family before the baby arrives. our ideas about a time share in palm springs weren't really coming together, so when i found some 2 for 1 passes online for disneyland, we figured that it was time to just go for it. we'd have loved to take tristan on his own and leave samuel behind, but when josh and i talked it over, we realized that samuel (though still very much a little monkey) doesn't mind sitting in the stroller for long amounts of time and would probably really enjoy it even though he won't remember it....plus he's free, so that sort of sealed the deal.

we waited until the day before our trip to let tristan in on the news. he was thrilled, of course even though the only time he's been was when he was 2 and he doesn't really have many memories of it aside from some pictures and videos we took. on wednesday morning we were in the car by 7am, making the 2 hour drive up to anaheim. we had The Largest Bag of Snacks Ever (turns out we didn't even eat half of them) plus lots of coloring and story books for the boys which we didn't even end up needing, since they pretty much zoned out and dozed off during the drive. we found our lovely hotel easily, registered and then set off in the shuttle to California Adventure Park.

i am such an organizer and planner, you're gonna laugh at me, but i had gone online ahead of time and written down every single ride that both boys could go on, plus the ones that tristan would enjoy and put them on a list according to each park map so that we wouldn't be walking around aimlessly. i also thought that i had picked the perfect days to go....middle of may, post-spring break, pre-summer vacation....so that the parks wouldn't be terribly crowded. well, the list of rides worked out pretty well except that we forgot to check ahead of time to see which rides were closed and walked straight to the furthest end of the park only to find that "toy story mania" was closed until the afternoon. josh took advantage of the 20 minute lineup to see woody and hopped on the "california screamin" roller coaster by himself while i coached the boys on how to pose quickly and happily next to woody while mommy snapped some pictures. my instructions obviously fell on deaf ears since, when it came time for my boys to see woody, samuel hugged him and would NOT let go, while tristan stood next to him without cracking a smile.

the boys loved the bugs life area full of little kid rides (though i didn't hold onto samuel tight enough when i went on the spinning ladybugs with him. he went flying and bashed his little head) and then we hit up "monster's inc" which tristan declared his favorite, before grabbing a bite to eat. i got to go on "soarin' over california" with tristan and loved it; he was totally lifting up his feet so they wouldn't get wet when we were flying over the river and he ducked so quickly when the golf ball came flying towards us. josh got to go on the river rapids ride with him, which he also loved while me and sam waited on the bridge to watch for them floating underneath us.

samuel took a little 30 minute nap in his stroller while josh and tristan played some midway games. tristan won 3 little stuffed animals and chose one to share with his brother. after that we grabbed some ice cream while pondering whether samuel could handle the 40 minute wait for the "toy story mania" ride that we had wanted to try for the first time. we figured we'd regret it if we didn't go on it, so we stood in line and when samuel began losing it, i pulled 2 large lollypops out of my purse that i had been saving for just such a time. samuel immediately calmed down as he slurped on his sucker and i gave myself a pat on the back for being such a brilliant mom, until it became obvious that most of the lollypop was being left on samuel's face and all over his hands, arms and shirt instead of going into his mouth. i knew that taking it away would result in the loudest of screams, so i just did what i could with a napkin (which didn't do much) and prayed for the line to move faster. when we finally got onto the ride, adorned with huge yellow 3D glasses, i could hardly concentrate on the games inside the ride because samuel looked like a bobble-head about to fly out every time we spun around and he was getting lollypop sticky all over the ride. so i just sat there and laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks. wish i could have captured it on video. i felt so sorry for the person sitting in samuel's seat after we got off the ride.

even though we would have loved to stay and watch the "world of color" water show, we know our boys better than that. sure enough, after trekking out to the parking lot, waiting for our shuttle and arriving at the hotel, it was only 6 pm, but they were both completely knackered and ready for bed. i don't think they even got a proper dinner unless you count their lollypops! our main criteria in choosing a hotel was that it had to have a separate bedroom with a door for josh and i so that we wouldn't be held captive in a dark room, unable to watch tv lest we awaken the kids. tristan slept on a futon and samuel in his pack-n-play (which he has so outgrown) in the separate living room and josh went out to buy some del taco for dinner, which he and i ate while watching tv. i know, so romantic, right? even though the boys fell asleep quickly and easily, samuel kept waking up and crying over and over throughout the night. i figured he was just uncomfortable in such a cramped little bed, but didn't want to move him to the futon for fear he'd embrace the freedom of an open bed and wander around the room at odd hours of the night.

the next morning we enjoyed a delicious, large, free breakfast before packing up our room and grabbing the first shuttle for disneyland! the plan was to hit the "buzz lightyear astro blasters" ride first thing, and that was the only plan that really succeeded that day. we got to the park the moment they opened and went on the buzz lightyear ride twice without waiting a single minute in line, much to tristan's delight. (monster's inc. was a thing of the past; the "buzz lightyear shooting ride" was his new favorite) then he and i went on a rocket ship ride together that goes around in the air and he thought he was just the coolest thing ever, pushing and pulling the lever so that we went up and down. meanwhile, josh was noticing that samuel wasn't his normal self. there were horses pulling carriages and statues of mickey and minnie and samuel just didn't care. he sat in his stroller with the saddest face ever and didn't make a sound besides whimpering now and then. when i reclined the seat in his stroller, he gratefully lay down, closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep.

we then headed to fantasyland and were dumbfounded to see that the ride for "peter pan's flight" was already 30 minutes long....at 9:30 in the morning. my attempt at choosing the least busy time of the year didn't pan out so well, as the park just got more and more crowded during the day until the point where i started feeling claustrophobic and told josh "i am just so done with other people and their kids!" the fact that samuel had a fever didn't help at all. we took him down to the first aid station where they told us that we'd have to walk all the way to downtown disney (the monorail wasn't working) to buy him some tylenol because he's not quite 2 yet, so they couldn't give him the children's tylenol that they had. we decided not to waste the rest of our day in walking there and back, but instead tried to keep him as cool and comfortable as possible and just cut our day a little short. the only rides he went on was the winnie the pooh one (you know that samuel is sick when tigger can't even coax a smile out of him), the "jungle cruise" and the train that goes around the park, which we saved for last. tristan however, got to go on "mr. toad's wild ride", "pinocchio", "pirates of the caribbean" and "big thunder mountain railway" (the last 2 he didn't terribly care for). and then, when it was time to go, tristan got diarrhea. which was wonderful considering we had a 2 hour drive home ahead of us.

was it fun? so much fun. still, if i could do it all over again, i'd go a week earlier when the park was apparently empty, leave samuel behind with whoever would take him, not bring jeans as my only wardrobe choice (it was hot!) and ditch the del taco dinner in favor of taking tristan to "bubba gump shrimp" which was just down the road from us. next time we go, i think we'll wait until our youngest is 4 because tristan seemed to be just at the perfect age to get so much out of it. and if you've made it to the end of this Longest Post Ever, congratulations!

my poor blog

2011-05-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

right now i'm exhausted from the past few sleepless nights due to a sick little boy, but stay tuned for details of our latest mini-vacation.

more girly things

2011-04-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

i think i've just fallen in love with this clock. i'm having way too much fun setting up ava's baby registry online and now i'm dreaming of how sweet it would look hanging on the wall of her nursery.

and then for some artwork.... i don't believe i could've ever dreamed up something so absolutely perfect as this adorable print. i promise, the stuff they make for baby boys just cannot compare to what is available for girls. trust me, i've looked. and let's not get me started on the clothes. we just got a treasured selection of girl clothes that our niece kaylee wore 8 years ago and i never thought that a pretty little white shirt with flowery details could tear me up until i held it up and pictured my own little girl wearing it this summer.

3 months left. that's all!

making paska

2011-04-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

easter is truly my favorite time of year. i adore christmas dearly, but easter has always meant much more to me. i love that it happens during spring, and i love the spiritual significance of it. the gift of eternal life is an amazingly huge thing to celebrate! so you'd think that i'd be in the "easter spirit" a little more than i am this year. its already good friday and i have yet to pull the easter decorations out of my holiday box in the garage. i have so many great easter books that i've collected for the kids over the years, and they too are lying somewhere in the garage, covered in dust no doubt. i'm not sure if the reason i've been so lazy about easter preparations is because its so darn late this year, or if its because i'm just pregnant and lazy, but on wednesday i kicked myself in the pants and made myself do one "easterly" thing. i made paska.

paska is a traditional mennonite sweet bread made only at easter time. i grew up eating my grandma's paska at our yearly easter family gathering and it was never something that i particularly looked forward to or desired at any other time during the year. it was paska, plain and simple and sweet and very very yummy. since moving to an area where i don't believe i know of one single other mennonite, the lack of paska has never really bothered me much. until this year. it must have something to do with the baby girl inside of me and her insistance that i continue to consume citrusy tasting things, because suddenly i began to crave paska like none other. reading friends' facebook statuses about paska didn't help matters and pretty soon i was consumed with the notion that i just had to have some. and pronto.

i knew that paska only tastes perfectly delicious when it is eaten fresh, so having some shipped down to me from canada was out of the question. i even called josh's sister to see if her mennonite mother in law who lives about 40 minutes away was making it this year, but sadly she doesn't make paska. i only had once choice left.... i decided to bite the bullet and attempt to bake (scary word) a yeast bread (even scarier words) all by myself. i was worried that it wouldn't turn out, but when i read over the recipe on the mennonite girls can cook blog, i realized that i had every ingredient on hand, so if it flopped then i wouldn't really be wasting much.

i believe i started making it at 10:00am and had iced the last of it by 3:00pm. it wasn't a ton of work, just a lot of waiting for dough to rise, then rise again. and again. i was freaking out a little while kneading the flour in because apparently the trickiest part of the recipe is figuring out how much flour to add and i really didn't want to end up with dry paska, but in the end.... it actually turned out okay! i made one traditional loaf, and the rest i put into muffin tins to make little buns. yes, the loaf in the picture below is far from perfect looking, but that's what the icing is for, to cover it all up!

unfortunately, most of my little paska buns got burned on the bottom, so they ended up looking more like this: (the one with icing already on it was devoured within seconds of taking that photo)

but the rest of them turned out nice enough to take to our friends' house for dinner.

and our friends either genuinely thought that they were good, or they were just being nice, but either way i was happy. the big loaf is coming out of the freezer on sunday for josh's family gathering and the burned ones are being slathered with buttercream frosting and eaten far too quickly for my online calorie counter's liking.

~happy easter, everyone!

peaceful bliss

2011-04-19T12:17:00.001-07:00

"There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep"

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

thanks for all of your helpful comments on my last post. an hour and a half after putting him down, he fell asleep and then when i tried to wake him up 2 hours later, he refused to awaken. so i just watched him sleep until i couldn't stand it any longer and had to hold him and kiss his pudgy little cheeks. today i put him down 30 minutes later than i normally do, and he went down without a peep, so i'll keep plugging away for awhile, experimenting with timing.

napless issues

2011-04-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

i have a question for all of my mommy-blog readers out there: how old were your kids when they stopped taking naps? i'm sort of hoping that many of you will say "right around 2 years old" because then i can stop pulling my hair out and throw in the towel on this whole nap thing all together.

samuel has always been a great napper....until recently. as in about a month ago. at first i just thought it was the time change throwing everything off because his bedtime became a battle as well. then i blamed it on removing the rocking chair from his room (which i had used up until that point to get him drowsy before laying him down), but now its gotten so bad that i think he may just not be tired enough to want to nap anymore. is this possible at 23 months old? often he'll be awake in his crib for over an hour before finally falling asleep, only to awaken 30-45 minutes later seemingly refreshed. not long ago i'd have to wake up him after 2 hours of sleep in order to preserve his bedtime!

tristan gave up his nap just before he turned 3, which i thought was awfully early at the time. i can remember having 2 daily battles of getting him down for his nap and getting him down for bed, then once we lost the nap, bedtime became super simple because he was so exhausted and we were down to no battles at all, which was just heavenly. yet i don't want to do that to my baby if he isn't quite ready yet. not to mention the fact that i'd lose my precious 2 hours of "me & tristan time", which would disappoint us both.

as i'm typing this, i can hear him partying it up in his crib through the monitor...and its been an hour since i put him down. i think i'll just leave him in there for another hour and see what happens. advice appreciated!

girly things

2011-04-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

gramps took me to babies r us last weekend to buy some things for baby ava. the lamp is my favorite; when you turn it on, butterflies appear on the lampshade. gramps was adamant about buying her a blanket that she would come home from the hospital bundled up in, but when i shared with him that she probably won't be bundled up in the heat of july/august, he picked out the set of 4 light receiving blankets for her instead...and then i couldn't help but pick out a matching crib sheet.

3 1/2 more months. i wonder if the fact that i'm having a daughter will have sunk in by then?

what's in a name?

2011-04-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

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people keep asking me if we've decided on a name for our baby girl yet, or if we're telling people what it is. its funny that even though we've had her name picked out for over 8 years, and even though i didn't hesitate in sharing the boys' names long before they were born, for some reason i don't want to start telling every single soul what we're naming our daughter. i have a feeling it's because over the past 8 years since we first agreed upon it, the name ava has bounded up the "most popular baby name list" from #47 all the way up to number 5 and has remained thereabouts for the past few years.

josh and i were officially dating for only a month or two before we began talking about marriage. my time in england was coming to an end and we both knew that if we parted without a great deal of commitment, our relationship could very well fizzle out. he was 26 and i was 23 at the time and neither of us wanted what we had to fizzle out. i'll never forget sitting next to him in a cozy loveseat, chatting while we were supposed to be studying, and having my breath taken away by him asking me, "would you be willing to move to san diego?" this guy hadn't even told me that he loved me yet and he was already asking me if i was willing to move out of state....no, make that out of country for him! though i was somewhat surprised at his boldness, i surprised myself even more by answering, "yes" without hesitation. (i suppose the idea of sun drenched beaches and palm trees swaying in the breeze probably had something to do with my quick response, but only a little!)

it wasn't long before we had professed our love to one another and were making plans for future visits, meeting each other's families, and talking about spending the rest of our lives together. while playing a game of ping pong in our school's sports hall, we somehow began talking about names for our future children. i remember that he very decisively told me that he wanted to name our first son tristan. which one of us brought up the name ava, i can't quite recall, but i do remember falling in love with that name right then and there. ava sounded graceful and elegant, beautiful and intelligent all at once. we thought that the names ava and britain went well together, fusing a name we both loved with the country that we fell in love with one another in.

since then we've bounced different girl names off of each other and pondered them, most often disagreeing (josh prefers musician inspired names such as dylan and presley, while i tend to swoon over emily and cassandra), but we've always come back to our original girl's name pick: ava britain. today the girl behind the counter who was cutting my keys asked me what i was having and then what name we've picked out. i told her and, sure enough she said, "oh i know so many little baby ava's right now!" which is exactly the kind of response that makes me want to keep her name a secret until she is born. but as i walked out of the store, i was able to shrug my shoulders and just tell myself "so what?" so what if she'll be the 3rd ava in her class at school and always be known as "ava s."? she may be one of many ava's out in the world, but she will be our one and only ava, a girl who is so precious to us that we picked her name out while still in the giddy stages of falling in love.

2 new recipe successes

2011-04-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

for the past couple of months, i've been dedicated to trying at least 1 new dinner recipe a week. the criteria is simple: it must be healthy, it must be affordable, and it must be something both my husband and children will eat. well, that sounds like simple criteria, but it isn't always easy to come up with something. we've had a couple of hits and many more misses, but last night i tried 2 new recipes that were both hits in my book!

the temperature hit close to 90 degrees yesterday and i soon realized that cooking anything in the oven was out of the question, as our oven is completely inefficient and heats up the entire house (which is great in the winter, but not so great during our 9 months of summer). tortillas were on sale, so i grabbed those as well as a few other ingredients and then went online to figure out how to make my own pollo asada marinade.

i was first introduced to carne and pollo asada after i moved down to southern california and wow, is it ever tasty. it is basically just beef or chicken marinated a certain way, grilled, then chopped up into small enough pieces to put into a soft taco or burrito. the marinade that i came up with after reading about 10 recipes did not look like authentic pollo asada, nor did it smell very much like it, but i have to say it still tasted great! here's my creation, which i will call:

Garlic & Lime Grilled Chicken
1/3 cup lime juice (freshly squeezed is best, uses about 3-4 limes) 1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp white vinegar
4 garlic cloves, smashed
1 tbsp onion powder (you could also just dice half an onion, but then josh wouldn't eat it)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
dash of cayenne pepper (or you could add some spicy red pepper, which i didn't have on hand)

*throw all of these ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
*pour over 3-4 raw chicken breasts and allow to marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours
* put chicken on the grill, cook until done, chop it up and enjoy!

we ate our chicken wrapped in tortillas with homemade guacamole, tomatoes and lettuce, but it would also taste great on a salad (which is how i am going to enjoy the leftovers today).

speaking of salad.... i've been experimenting with making my own salad dressings lately. mostly because of how simple and inexpensive it is, but also because i've come to realize that the long list of naughty ingredients on salad dressing jars just isn't good for my family's health. i had to make a special shopping trip to make a delectable Creamy Cilantro Tomatillo Dressing (first time purchasing a tomatillo!), but it was worth it because i will for sure be making this recipe again and again. i won't bother typing out the recipe, because you can just click on this link to view it, but i will note that i made a couple of changes to it: i left out the jalapeno for the sake of my children, and found that the dressing was rather runny, so i increased the amount of greek yogurt and mayonnaise (try using veganaise instead; you won't be able to tell the difference). if you can't buy tomatillos where you live, just use a regular tomato instead, or even half of a cucumber!

the pairing of chicken soft tacos with a huge salad drizzled with that dressing was perfect for a hot day. the flavors were light and cool and everyone in my family enjoyed it!

my not-so-secret obsession

2011-03-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

as a child, i can remember moving into the house my parents still live in when i was only 3 years old. i remember a big tractor coming into our backyard and plowing up half of the grass to make way for a huge garden. i remember little seedlings sprouting under bright lights in the dining room every spring (when i was a teenager, many of my friends asked if my dad was growing pot) and i can most vividly remember enjoying the fruit of my parents' labor all summer long in the freshest possible tasting fruits and vegetables that i must have just taken for granted. i couldn't understand why my friends hated to eat their vegetables until i visited their homes for dinner and realized that a can of peas doesn't do fresh-from-the-garden peas justice. in the fall and winter months we had frozen veggies and canned fruits to tide us over until fresh produce was again ready for picking in our backyard. we had cherries, apples, pears, peaches, plums, raspberries, blueberries, kiwis, grapes, asparagus, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beans, peas, beets, spinach, corn and potatoes....and i'm sure i'm forgetting a whole lot.

i also remember my mom planting her own seeds and keeping the seedlings in the windowsills of our home until they were strong enough to be planted outside. her flower gardens were tended to with lots of love and every year she would choose and plant a different selection of flowers to make our home look pretty on the outside. who knew that i would inherit my parents' green thumbs and love for growing things? i hated being made to pull weeds as a child, and now i find such a therapeutic satisfaction from it.

my obsession with growing things started out small the first year we were married and has grown and expanded each and every year. i think part of my addiction lies in the fact that little seed packets are so inexpensive..its difficult to buy only a couple of them. once i come home and sprout the seeds indoors, it always seems like there's room for more, so the next time i see seed packets for sale, i buy a few more and, in time, my kitchen table and windowsills are crammed full with seedlings sprouting like crazy.

(see the foxgloves growing to the right of my mom? i seeded them early last year and now they are finally starting to bloom!)

this year will be my first time planting an actual vegetable garden. i've stuck with flowers up until now, apart from some tomato, strawberry and pepper plants and a few herbs. my idea for a garden just outside of our kitchen window turned into reality when my dad spent an afternoon digging up the ground for me while he and my mom visited us last week. but he didn't stop where i envisioned the boundaries of my garden would be....oh no, he kept digging all the way along the fence so that my actual garden will be triple the size of what i originally envisioned! this large area of newly dug brown soil looked rather intimidating to me at first, and then i visited the hardware store and discovered that it wouldn't be difficult to fill that space at all! yesterday i planted my carrots, the bell peppers are being started indoors, and once my windowsills clear of the cherry tomatoes, larkspur, shasta daisies and nasturtiums that i'm about to plant outside, i will begin seeding the watermelon, lettuce, beets, cucumbers and pole beans that i purchased yesterday. and once those are in the ground? i'm sure i'll be back at the store buying more seeds.

warning: there is poop in this post

2011-03-19T10:33:00.001-07:00

(this image was meant to invoke thoughts of the cool green color of pistachio ice cream. it was in no way meant to invoke images of green poop, though with the title of my post, i've no doubt that it has done just that. if you are in any way grossed out, i apologize. i, on the other hand, now have a giant craving for pistachio ice cream.)

oh, my poor blog. its been almost a week since i payed any attention to it. i do have a longer post brewing in my mind, but for now here are a few things that have been going on:

*the baby's room is painted the color of pistachio ice cream and i love it! it will be my parents' room for all of next week and then we'll be able to move the crib in and start setting up the nursery. we found a crib this morning at a garage sale for $20 including the mattress!

*my parents are arriving on monday for their annual spring break visit. my mom and i have plans to shop for a mother of the groom dress, and tristan has plans to show off his bike riding skills and fly his new kite with grandad.

*i fell down the stairs a few days ago while holding samuel. my belly is getting in the way of me seeing my feet and i didn't notice a shoe left on the stairs. i went sliding down on my back, cracking samuel's head against the wall and jacking up my left foot. i have bumps and bruises on my elbow and hip, but the baby is totally fine and so is sam's head.

*the day i went for a tumble was also the day that i decided to pull out the potty chair from the garage and see how interested sam is in it. he had just finished dirtying his diaper when i sat him on it, so i thought it would be harmless to let him sit on it naked while i took his diaper outside to the trash. when i came back in, he was proudly holding 2 handfulls of poop. i think i handled it well, praising him for going, and helping him put it all in the toilet, while silently screaming "ewww! ewww!" the entire time. the potty chair hasn't made much of an appearance since.

*i was seriously discouraged about my body's ability to gain WAY too much weight during pregnancy after my first visit to a dietician. she was quite harsh with me and gave me some completely inane and ridiculous advice, which after speaking with friends who actually know something about nutrition, i decided to ignore. i am doing my part, however, to eat even healthier and i'm going crazy on the veggies now, making large batches of scratch soups and fun, colorful salads. i have a feeling that no matter what i eat, i'll still gain an enormous amount of weight, but my goal will remain to eat as healthy as possible and to not get discouraged and give up just because the scale doesn't say what i'd like it to. (and i'll be open enough to share that i've gained 16 lbs so far in this pregnancy, 5 of those pounds piling on just in one weekend. oi.)

*this time change sucks. its been almost a week and my youngest still hasn't gotten the hang of it. he goes to sleep at night an hour later than normal and wakes up an hour earlier than normal, so he's only been getting 10 hours of sleep at night. this makes for a very grumpy little boy who is already beginning to throw himself on the floor, crying when he doesn't get his way, 2-year old style. its just lovely. oh, and he still enjoys eating dirt whenever possible.

this post was supposed to be short, so i'll end it here before i get too carried away. have a great weekend, everyone!

life lately

2011-03-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

(aren't they sweet? just as i'd hoped, both of my boys are following in their parents footsteps and becoming quite the bookworms. this makes my heart happy)

thank you for all of your notes of congratulations on my last post. we are beyond thrilled to be having a daughter and sometimes i feel like i need to pinch myself to see if i'm dreaming! i've had to restrain myself from becoming a whirlwind of organization and from completely emptying her room out so we can get it all ready. i've still got 5 whole months, but i want to get it all done now! we've started the process by giving away all of our boys' clothes that samuel has grown out of to our friends who have or are having little boys soon. we've also bought paint for the walls, which we are hoping to get to next weekend, and i've filled her closet with little pink clothes hangers which i found at the thrift store last week. they're pink! seriously, this frilly stuff is all so new to me, its going to be tough not going overboard in how girly i make everything! oh, and i found the perfect crib bumber at the thrift store as well. (99c for pottery barn kids brand!) i didn't think that i was going to be using a crib bumper this time, but when i saw the price tag and the pretty little purple flowers and butterflies all over it, i changed my mind.

tristan's reaction to hearing the news after the ultrasound was cute. i asked him if he remembered why i had to go to the doctors and he just blurted out, "which one is it mom?" (meaning is it a boy, or a girl?) when i told him it was a girl, he got this huge grin on his face because he was right all along. he was a little heartbroken, though when i told him that his sister's name won't officially be "baby bodie". i assured him that he could continue calling her bodie for as long as he wanted to and that maybe she'd like that name better than her real name. he seemed to like that idea.

samuel is completely clueless when it comes to this whole new baby thing. even when i point at my tummy and tell him there's a baby inside, he just looks at me as if to say, "so?" he does love little babies though and is very intrigued with my friends' newborns that he sees now and then, touching their little toes and smiling with delight when they yawn or make noises. he'll be a good big brother, but i think we're going to really have to work on the "being gentle" part or he'll just go ahead and poke her in the eye or sit on her tummy without thinking.

we had a lovely 2 week period where the boys did great sleeping in the same room together. all good things must come to an end, though and lately samuel has been having a difficult time falling asleep at night. he tosses and turns and grunts and kicks noisily at his crib slats and all of this would be easily ignorable if it wasn't for his older brother trying to fall asleep in the same room. i've been pretty strict with not allowing him to nap for more than 2 hours a day, and tonight i put him to bed 15 minutes later than normal to see if he'd be extra sleepy, but its been half an hour and i still hear him in there. oh well, i guess its just another thing that tristan will have to get used to. hearing his brother rolling around in bed is probably preferable to hearing the teenager next door practice her karaoke :)

the icing on this cake is....

2011-03-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

definitely PINK!! not to mention the fact that she looks perfectly healthy and that my placenta has moved upwards. my mascara ran during my entire drive home; we are so, so blessed.

the wait is almost over

2011-03-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

tomorrow is the big day: the ultrasound. its kind of felt like its taken forever to get here and even the thought of waiting until 10am tomorrow seems like a whole bunch more of forever. yes i'm excited, but i'm nervous as well. we've had 2 perfectly healthy little babies already and it almost seems like too much to ask to have a 3rd healthy baby. i'm also hoping and praying that the placenta has moved upwards like it was supposed to so that i can resume my normal activities....like picking up laundry baskets and large bags of groceries.

and then, of course, is the anticipation of finding out the gender. people ask me what i "feel" like i'm having. i'll be honest with you: i feel like i'm having a girl. BUT, i also "felt like" i was having a girl in my last 2 pregnancies. i think its more wishful thinking than anything. when we found out that tristan was a boy, i was shocked and, at first, a little disappointed. obviously, i got over that and wouldn't trade him in for the world, but i always knew i wanted to have a daughter and i thought that it'd be ideal to just have a daughter first and get that out of the way. when we found out that samuel was a boy, i was purely thrilled. i was so happy that tristan would have a playmate and i knew that they would be best buds.

this time around i know for sure that this will be our last child. (finally, josh and i agree on this issue!) so i feel like that changes things a little bit. having a boy would be very economical ~we have everything we need for a boy. we'd have a lot of room-sharing options in the future and josh and i wouldn't have to foot the bill for an entire wedding. it seems simpler somehow to have 3 kids of the same gender. but, to have a daughter..... i'm not even going to try to put into words what it would mean to me to find out that we're expecting a girl. i just try not to go there in my mind at all because i'd hate to have any feelings of disappointment if we discover that we will never have a little girl. i purposely avoid looking at the adorable racks of baby girl clothing in stores and when i find myself day dreaming about decorating the nursery with flowers and butterflies, i give myself a talking to and try to clear my mind.

i'll tell you this, though: i have not had one single person tell me that they think i'm going to have a boy. even my father in law, who was so adamant that i was carrying boys with my last 2 pregnancies, slipped up the other day and called the baby a "she". in every single dream i've had about the baby, its been a girl. tristan has such vivid dreams about his "baby sister named bodie" that he'll tell me that he visited us in the hospital and baby bodie had a pink blanket on. does this mean anything? i don't believe so. i still know that there is a 50% chance that we are having a girl, and a 50% chance that we are having a boy. i'm telling myself as often as possible that i may very well be a mother to 3 boys and that i had better get used to that idea quite quickly.

no matter what, i am very much looking forward to getting to see our little one on the screen, to hear the heartbeat and watch the movements that i can so clearly feel in my tummy. i'm praying for a healthy, whole little babe and the rest? that's just icing on the cake.

new recipes i've tried

2011-02-22T19:03:00.000-08:00

i think you know for sure that you're stuck in a recipe rut when you can't find anything that sounds good in your recipe binder, so you hand it over to your husband to see if he can find anything that sounds good to him.....and he can't. he very sweetly, yet boldly told me, "i think you need to try some new recipes, honey." so i did!

i started out rather fancy (okay, so anything that isn't made in a casserole dish is somewhat fancy to me) and tried a fish piccata recipe i had seen on the food network. i love the show 10 dollar dinners and have tried a few of melissa's other recipes before successfully. the fish piccata worried me slightly, though because josh is not a fish guy at all. he loves his shrimp and calamari, but not so much the regular flaky kind. i had never cooked tilapia at all before, nor eaten capers. oh, and josh isn't a fan of the taste of wine in cooking either. obviously i went out on a limb a little bit with this recipe, but tilapia was on sale last week and i just went for it. and i'm so happy that i did! it was DELICIOUS, josh asked for seconds, there were no leftovers and i'm craving it again just writing about it. i'm ready and waiting for the next great sale on fish and i'm going to try a whole new recipe with it next time.

2 days later i made another new recipe, this time with disastrous results. the meal was much easier to prepare and it sounded pretty foolproof to me, but neither josh nor i could even finish what was on our plates and i've no idea what to do with the leftovers still sitting in the fridge. (i'm not going to post the link to that recipe because that just wouldn't be very nice of me.)

the third new recipe i tried this week was one that i've been waiting months to try! i've been collecting the necessary ingredients and one final, extremely hard to find ingredient finally arrived at our local hardware store. i was thrilled to finally take home my 2 boxes of washing soda and make a 5 gallon bucket full of homemade laundry soap. this past christmas was a "homemade christmas" for my side of the family. each family member had to come up with something homemade to give the rest of the family. my homemade granola, though made with much love, stood humbled next to gifts so artistically designed that i immediately questioned whether they were truly homemade or not! thankfully, my mom went the practical route and made everyone their own pitcher of laundry soap which not only worked wonders on my boys' stained clothes, but also made my granola look less artistically impaired. i asked my mom to bring down the specific type of soap from canada called for in lovella's recipe, though i've since come across other recipes online that call for any bar soap that you find in the laundry aisle. i love the light, lemony scent of the sunlight bars and the day i made the soap, my entire house smelled so lemony fresh. no more giant, expensive jugs of laundry soap for me; i've got plenty to last me a long while and plenty to share as well!

do you have any great new recipe finds to share?

sleep & stuff (what's new?)

2011-02-14T18:42:00.001-08:00

well, josh and i took the plunge and moved tristan into samuel's room over the weekend. we've been planning on doing this for a long time....even before we found out we were expecting again. having 2 kids of the same gender makes it pretty easy to decide if they should share a room or not, and we were hoping to use the smaller bedroom as an office/guest room. obviously, that's not going to happen now that the new baby is on the way, but we figured it would be better to transition earlier on so that they could get used to sharing a room long before the baby arrives and adds his or her own disruptions.

i have balked at this idea ever since it was first brought up. if there is only one thing in my life that needs to be orderly and routine based, that would be the kids' bedtime. i couldn't fathom how our 2 boys, both with very different bedtime routines, would handle being roommates. well, i knew that tristan would handle it fine; it was samuel i was worried about. i'm not sure if this fear of change in the sleep department is something that came about when tristan was born a difficult sleeper, or if i would have been this anal about sleep regardless of my kids' temperaments. nevertheless, i was quite worried that samuel would be so excited about tristan sharing his room that he just wouldn't ever fall asleep.

of course i was wrong. we've kept their bedtime routines somewhat separate so that tristan still gets his story with daddy and then the light goes off before i bring samuel in and rock him a bit before putting him to bed. to be honest, i don't think samuel even knows that tristan is in the same room. i was also quite worried that samuel's fussy night wakings (i know, the kid is 20 months old, he should be over this, right?) would awaken tristan, but after a pretty rough night the first night, tristan informed us that he didn't hear samuel once. i am very thankful for our white noise machine, which i'm sure helped out in that area. last night i let sam fuss without running in there like i was doing the first night, and tristan still didn't hear him, so this is a good thing. tristan wakes up at his normal 5:30am and samuel has been sleeping in until his normal 6:30am and so this whole room-sharing thing hasn't made much of a difference. except that now i have a cute little empty room that i can get all nesty in when the time comes. i've already put in a request to our landlady to see if we can paint the room a light green, and i'm hoping she will say yes. green with lavender accents if it's a girl, and green with brown accents if its a boy.

now here's the thing, the reason why i am writing this post now as the boys settle in for the night: we live in a duplex and the room that shares a wall with the boys' bedroom is our neighbor's pre-teen daughter's room. she has a karaoke machine in there that she cranks up and then belts out top 40 hits terribly off-key. i don't care about the noise during the day, but when the kids are trying to sleep, its a little annoying. a couple of weeks ago samuel just wouldn't settle and, after about 45 minutes, i timidly knocked on our neighbors' door and asked if the music could be turned down. the woman was super friendly and told me to let them know any time their noise was keeping our kids awake.

well, its happening again tonight. i can literally hear the words to the songs through the baby monitor. again, thank God for our white noise machine, but even that thing has trouble masking the terrible sounds snaking through the wall. samuel has been in bed for 30 minutes and he still isn't asleep. he isn't crying or anything, just shuffling around and making little noises and i'm sure he's having a difficult time drifting off because of the music. i've already knocked on their door once before and i really really hate doing things like that. on the other hand, our neighbor told me to let her know if the boys couldn't sleep because of the noise. what would you do? hope your child gets used to it, or talk to the neighbors again?

the "after" photo

2011-02-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

well, he ended up being the champ i was hoping he'd be. what was supposed to be just a routine visit on friday to check on the tooth and meet the children's dentist we'd been referred to ended up being The Visit that he had been waiting for. the dentist was wonderful and she offered to fit us in for the extraction that same day. it was a good thing for me that i didn't have much time to think about it. while we waited, tristan was giddy with excitement, talking non-stop about the tooth fairy, his favorite movies, and how daddy could eat a giant pizza all by himself. when they called his name, he walked to the door by himself, turned to give me a brilliant smile, put his hand in the hygienist's hand and together they disappeared down the hallway.

i was so thankful that i had brought a book with me to read, otherwise i don't know what i would have done with myself for the next 20 minutes. the dentist came to get me when she was through and brought me to the room where he was still laying in the chair with an oxygen mask over his face to "rinse out" the effects of the laughing gas. he was so engrossed with the cartoon that was playing on a tv in the ceiling that he barely even glanced at me. she said that he was wonderful ~ he didn't even flinch, and that it wasn't a difficult extraction, so the pain should be minimal. they gave him all sorts of stickers and little toys along with his tooth in a small blue box to put under his pillow. he had gauze stuffed in his mouth to control the bleeding, so he couldn't talk to me until about 15 minutes later when we arrived at the mcdonald's drive thru window and i handed him an ice cream cone.

he said it didn't hurt at all, he said the laughing gas didn't make him feel like laughing, it made him feel like laying down, and he kept craning his neck to catch his reflection in the rear view mirror, smiling like crazy in order to admire the gap in his teeth. he never once complained of pain, even when the numbing wore off, though i got a little paranoid that evening and gave him motrin before bed "just in case." the next morning he came into our room at 5:30am, holding his little blue box, saying "guys! guys! the tooth fairy gotfor (forgot) to take my tooth box!" i sleepily told him to go in the bathroom, turn the light on and open the box. he did and both josh and i chuckled when we heard him softly exclaim, "WOOOOOW!" he got $1 from the tooth fairy ( i've heard the going rate is closer to $5, but i figure we've got a lot of years and a lot of loose teeth in our future, so we thought we'd stick with something we wouldn't go bankrupt over) and the next morning he went out with daddy and bought a donut with sprinkles on it.

he looks so much older with his tooth gone. WAY too old for my liking, but i have to admit that it is rather cute. he has a bit of a lisp now when he says his "s's" and he hasn't gotten tired of admiring his new smile in the mirror. yes, it happened 2 years too early, but at least he won't get his gargantuan permanent teeth in for awhile.

headless & almost toothless

2011-02-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

*okay, so the word "toothless" really isn't that accurate, but it sounded good in the title, so there you go.

tristan has only recently become very interested in drawing. i think his cousin sarah got him into it when she visited because she loves to draw and is very good at it. i wouldn't say tristan is terribly good at it yet, but he is practicing a lot and its fun to see his imagination take the form of illustrations. yesterday he brought this picture upstairs to show me and josh. he pointed out who everyone was (mommy, sam, daddy and tristan) and, when josh asked if tristan was a stick, he replied "no, i look like a gun." ...i tell ya, boys and guns, they must learn all about them in-utero because samuel is already picking up random pointy objects and making shooting noises....but that is a whole other post.

so, then i noticed that it seemed tristan had drawn a frown on josh's face rather than a smile. i asked tristan, "is daddy sad?" "yes", he replied, "you, sam and daddy are sad." "Why?" "you are all very sad because i don't have a head." both josh and i burst into laughter and couldn't stop, which made tristan a bit perturbed. we had to assure him that we weren't laughing at him, but that he had drawn a very funny picture.

having a blog is handy for all sorts of reasons, but i especially love the fact that if i ever forget when something happened in the last 6 years, i can just do a quick search on my blog to find out. i was surprised to find that tristan fell and hit his front tooth only 6 months ago; i had thought that it was longer ago than that. last month, josh noticed that the area on his gums above his "grey tooth" was looking almost blistery. it went away and then reappeared, so we had josh's mom (who works for a dentist) take a look at it. she immediately made an appointment for him and, a week ago, he had another x-ray that showed that not only is his tooth pretty much dead, but he has an infection in his gums. he was put on antibiotics and we were given a referral to go have his tooth pulled. before the dentist left the room, he mentioned that the root of the tooth is pretty far gone, so he said that it may be quite easy for us to pull it out ourselves.

and so we've been wiggling. well, not we exactly, because just thought of wiggling a loose tooth is enough to make me gag. i'm very queasy about things like that for some reason. josh has been wiggling the tooth and tristan tries to, but its been a whole week now and it doesn't seem like its gotten very loose at all. which means.....i have to make an appointment for him to get it extracted. ugh. i've no idea how it will go, if he'll be a champ, or be traumatized for life. all i know is that parents are not allowed in the room during the procedure and that makes me want to cry. tristan is excited to put his tooth under his pillow like his big cousins do and he asks me every day if we can go to the dentist RIGHT NOW to get his tooth out. i'm thankful that he isn't frightened of it yet, but i have a feeling that the tears will start once we get there and he realizes that it may hurt and that mommy won't be there to hold his hand. any advice on how to prepare your children for a painful procedure would be appreciated!

me & my tummy

2011-01-24T18:42:00.000-08:00

this picture, which was taken today at 13 1/2 weeks pregnant is posted for:

a) my mom, who seems to think that there are never enough photos of me, and

b) my friend kari and any other pregnant woman out there who feels huge at 20 weeks. this is proof that i am huge at 13 weeks, so i've got you beat. you can all feel better about yourselves now. ;)

time keeps on going

2011-01-18T12:17:00.001-08:00

so, i had another appointment this morning and got the results from the ultrasound. everything that we were concerned about is fine, but the placenta is extremely low, covering my cervix. my midwife said that most often, as the uterus grows, the placenta will move upwards and away from danger, but we won't know if that is happening until my next ultrasound in 5-7 weeks. so i was commanded to do no heavy lifting and no exercise until we know if i'm in the clear. tristan weighs a good 44 lbs, so i'm going to have to remember not to pick him up to lift him onto things anymore.

apart from that, everything is going well. i'm 13 weeks tomorrow and am feeling more queasy-free moments throughout the day. even though i still weigh less than i did before i got pregnant, my stomach is completely hanging out and i reluctantly opened my big box of tired old maternity clothes the other day. i'm definitely still chubby-rather-than-pregnant looking, but nothing says comfort like a pair of elastic waisted pants.

we went from having cold days and freezing nights only a couple of weeks ago, to having summer temperatures every day. its been really nice to be outside so much and i'm beginning to get the itch to start seeding my spring flowers soon. spring has always been my favorite time of year, mostly because my parents' backyard was full of fruit trees that would blossom like crazy in the spring. the first year i lived down here, i remember taking a walk on my birthday and noticing that there were a ton of fruit trees blossoming....in JANUARY!! i felt like it was a birthday present for me, and now every year i look forward to enjoying such a super early spring.

now that i'm beginning feeling better, josh and i have been talking more and more about taking the plunge and moving our 2 boys into the same bedroom. we figured it would be better to do it early so that they won't feel so displaced once the baby arrives. i've been putting it off for so long because, frankly, i am so rigid about the bedtime routine that i can't bear to think of so many changes taking place at once. i rely on a quiet, calm dark room with a little bit of rocking to help samuel get nice and drowsy before laying him in his crib. its worked so well for so long that i have no idea how he'll handle having tristan in there with him. and it looks like the rocking chair may not fit in that room once they're sharing, which is fine because i'll want it in the baby's room anyhow, but i'm wondering if samuel really "needs" that part of the routine, or whether i'm the one who needs it the most! its going to be hard for me to see sam turning into a big boy when i still think of him as my baby. i do know that once the dust has settled, my boys will love sharing a room. and josh and i will sure love having only one spot to put all their toys instead of having them scattered in nooks and crannies around the house.

i hear the baby waking up from his nap (see? i can't help but still call him the baby!), but before i sign off, i wanted to share a little tristan funny from the other day. it was sunday morning and i was getting ready for church. tristan was in my room, telling me all about the dream he had, and i decided to wear perfume, which i don't often wear since having kids. as i'm holding the perfume in my hand, tristan stops in the middle of his story and gasps, "mommy! that bottle is SO beautiful! and you look so beautiful too, mommy." i sprayed some perfume on my wrists and then bent down to give him a hug and thank him. i heard him sniff a couple of times, then he looked up at me with his nose wrinkled and said, "but it smells like pee!" in defense of my perfume, it is my most expensive, most favorite perfume, and it most definitely does not smell like pee, but i think tristan just isn't used to me wearing such a strong scent. i laughed.

just one!

2011-01-11T17:38:00.001-08:00

one perfectly healthy little 12 week old baby who's first picture makes it look like a gummy bear. i have to wait another week for my next doctor's appointment to hear all the details, but from what the ultrasound technician shared with me, it seems like everything looks perfectly normal. i teared up when i saw a perfectly formed hand with all 5 fingers apparent, the thumb inside the baby's mouth. no matter how many ultrasounds i've had in my life, they never ever get old.

thanks for your thoughts and prayers. i think this whole thing has given me a huge dose of perspective. only 3 kids? no problem!

the way it is

2011-01-10T11:09:00.001-08:00

this past week has felt like one of the longest of my life. in true heidi fashion, i've allowed my mind to run in a million different directions while i wait for the telling ultrasound tomorrow. the way i see it, if i think of all the possible scenarios in advance, i'll be slightly prepared for each one. prepared if there's just one 15 week old baby, prepared if there's 2 babies, prepared if there's a baby and a fibroid, prepared if there's just a fibroid and no baby, prepared if there's a baby with no heartbeat, prepared if there's 3 babies.....but really, who am i kidding? agonizing over it isn't actually preparing me, its really making me more nervous. so i pray for peace, which i receive in boatloads, then proceed to dump the peace out of my mind so that there will be more room for "preparing myself" again. oh, and the dreams! last night i dreamed that they were going to induce me tomorrow, knowing full well that i'm only 11 weeks along. it made perfect sense to me while i was dreaming, except that i was a little bit disappointed that they weren't going to do an ultrasound after all, so i'd have no idea whether i was delivering just 1 baby or not.

its really not that big of a deal. of all the things i could be waiting for this past week, this ranks pretty low on the scale of things to be concerned about. i suppose part of it has to do with the fact that i'm a stay at home mom and lead a pretty mundane life, so there isn't much to take my mind off of it. josh and i have been starting to think of things we can do as a family this summer, taking advantage of the ease of having only 2 kids before the baby is born. it hit me today that samuel has never been to the beach. i had opportunities to take him last year, but he was in the height of his dirt-eating phase and i was worried that there wouldn't be a bit of sand left for everyone else to enjoy once he was through. this year we will definitely take the boys to the beach and to the aquarium as well. my younger brother just got engaged and is planning a september wedding. initially, i just assumed we'd all fly up to canada, but the reality of flying with a newborn who may or may not have their birth certificate in time (which would make customs tricky) is causing us to think that it may just not end up happening. i'd be devastated to miss james and jacelyn's wedding, so as a consolation prize, we're going to see if we can save up and stay overnight somewhere a bit more local instead.

these days i'm usually schlepping around the house in my fluffy blue housecoat, sans makeup and hair in a ponytail. i'm regularly sipping on my ginger tea, occasionally pushing my sea bands bracelets further into my acupressure points, and constantly trying not to breathe through my nose when a smell ~any smell drifts by. (i've been close to passing out, holding my breath while changing samuel's poopy diapers before). i try not to count down the hours till bedtime until its past noon and sometimes the thought of playing outside with the boys lures me into the sunshine instead of staying bundled up on the couch. the idea of planning dinner (never mind a week's worth of dinners) is sometimes so daunting and nausea inducing that i tell myself its okay to have hot dogs or scrambled eggs or nothing for dinner again. my poor husband is learning not to ask "what's wrong?" or "how are you feeling?" because the answer is always the same. i'm pretty sure he's counting down the days till my second trimester as diligently as i am. i promise i'm not complaining; i'm just recording the way i feel now for posterity or something. after all, this is my last pregnancy and i want to be sure to remember every moment of it, pleasant or not.

spaceships and sock lint

2011-01-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

while my youngest naps and my oldest is out on a "date" with his grammie, i will try to get a quick post written.

i had my 2nd doctor's appointment this morning and got to meet my midwife - a charming grandmotherly type with a welsh accent. the baby's heartbeat was nowhere to be found, which didn't concern her, since 12 weeks is usually the point that the doppler begins to pick it up, but she was slightly concerned about the fact that my uterus is measuring larger than it should at this point. she said the reasons for this could either be: a) i'm further along than i thought, b) there is more than one baby in there, or c) i have a fibroid. she scheduled an ultrasound for me next tuesday, so i have a week to wait during which i'm sure i'll be plagued with dreams that i'm delivering triplets.

tristan still calls the baby bodie, says its a girl, and told me the other night out of the blue, "mommy, there's 2 little babies in your tummy." i have no idea where he got that notion, especially since i've never mentioned the possibility to him. i just said, "i don't think so, honey" and smiled a tight smile, while my heart skipped several beats. obviously, i'm praying very fervently for option "a" right now.

tristan turned 4 on saturday. he was all flushed cheeks and un-erasable dimples, thrilled at everything from the buzz lightyear napkins, to the amateur looking cake my mom and i made for him. when the cake was first unveiled, he exclaimed, "i like it!!" then i asked him what he thought it was and he said, "i don't know." after showing him what was supposed to be a spaceship with fire coming out behind it, he thought it was even cooler than before, which made me ever so happy.

the evening of his birthday, he was taking his black socks off before getting into the bathtub and noticed little black lint balls between his toes. i told him it was just from his socks and he said, "no mommy, its from my birthday cake." i had to admit that the pieces of lint did resemble chocolate cake crumbs, and by then he was carefully picking each piece out saying, "how did this happen?" i got the giggles and couldn't hide my laughter from him, so he chastised me sternly saying, "mommy, no.... we don't laugh at this."

my mom leaves in 2 days and her visit has been such a godsend for this tired mama. she watches the kids while i rest in bed, tirelessly washes all of our dishes by hand (our dishwasher is broken yet again), and plays hi-ho-cherry-oh with tristan to his heart's content. having her around makes me realize how alluring the idea of a nanny would be to those who can afford it. its not that i'd hire someone to watch my kids while i'd go out to shop and get my nails done; but just having another set of loving, helping hands around makes such a big difference both to me and to my kids. josh and i were able to get away for a double date (dinner and a movie!) on sunday and my mom is taking us all out to dinner tomorrow night. we sure feel spoiled when my parents are in town, and we savor every bit of it.

enough of blogging....i'm going to take advantage of this quiet house and take a nap. happy new year!

the thing about christmas is...

2010-12-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

...you spend so much time getting ready for it and looking forward to it and then it's gone in a flash. we usually take down our tree and all of the decorations on the 26th or 27th because tristan's birthday is right around the corner, but this year my mom told me she'd help me take everything down when she arrives on the 30th. and so i've kept it all up and its rather nice sitting by the glow of the christmas tree lights in the evenings.

i've felt a bit disenchanted about all things online lately. i even went for quite awhile without catching up on FB or blogs because it just seemed like too much. i didn't have the excuse of family in town, or a bazillion christmas parties to attend, i just had had enough for awhile of reading sugary sweet status updates and life-is-wonderful blog posts. (can you tell i've had serious pms-like moodiness lately?) i'm not saying that all of you all write nothing but fluff....not saying that at all, but it seemed to me as if there was just more fluffiness than normal floating about, especially on FB and i was not in the mood for it. thankfully i scanned the pages and pages of news feed that i missed and discovered that a dear old friend of mine had her baby girl 4 weeks early (talk about a christmas surprise!) and josh reminded me just in time that it was christy's birthday yesterday, so i was able to shoot her off a happy birthday message without it being completely belated (i am sadly infamous for forgetting friends' birthdays). its crazy how much we rely on the internet to keep us updated on so many things, important and not so important.

anyhow, our christmas was nice. due to flooding and drainage issues at my in-law's house, our christmas day celebrations were changed to take place at sis and rob's an hours drive away. i really didn't want our own little christmas morning with the boys to be rushed, so we did something amazingly bright this year. we had the kids open up all the gifts from my family on christmas eve. it was perfect! josh and i even had a few under the tree from my folks and it was so nice just to take our time and watch the boys get all into it. then, the next morning, all we had left to open were the stockings (which i purposely didn't wrap this year), each of their gifts from santa, and a few presents from us. we still ended up being an hour late for josh's family christmas, but we didn't feel stressed or rushed about any of it and i think we're going to keep up that tradition in years to come.

i felt great for most of christmas day. i even had enough appetite to enjoy all of the scrumptious food laid out. it must have been some sort of christmas miracle because the very next day i was hit harder than ever before by morning sickness and could do nothing more than sluff around in my housecoat and new cozy slippers, moaning while opening and shutting cupboards, trying to find something ~anything that sounded good to eat. chex mix is good. breakfast cereal, still not good at all, which i find strange because chex mix is mostly made out of breakfast cereal.

yes, it was all done and gone much too quickly, but any sadness i have over that is snuffed out the moment i remember that my mom will be here in 2 more sleeps. its been 6 months since i've seen here.....the longest i've gone in my entire life without seeing her! and i simply cannot wait.

the santa thing

2010-12-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

it all happened quite by accident, i assure you. when tristan was nearly 1 he enjoyed celebrating his first christmas with us and we enjoyed celebrating our first christmas with him even more. after opening a few presents at home as a family of 3, we packed the car up and drove to sis and rob's house to spend the rest of the day with josh's family. as we pulled up to their house, kaylee and johnny, then 5 and 3 (in adorable matching red plaid pajamas) bounded out of the house so eager to show us that "santa came!!" the evidence was clear: a large bite taken out of each of the 3 cookies left on the plate, almost an entire glass of milk emptied, and pieces of carrot strewn about the backyard leftover from the reindeer's snack. not having grown up in a home where santa was a real, live, magical person, i wasn't sure what i thought of all the hubub. sure, it was cute to see the wonder and genuine belief in their little eyes, but it sort of seemed rather misleading to me.

the following christmas, tristan was nearly 2. we flew up to canada to spend a wonderful white christmas with my family and i doubt the name "santa" came up at all. then, last year happened. tristan was nearly 3 and the perfect age for starting to "get" the whole idea of anticipation and surprises. i had no intention of promoting the whole santa thing to him, but my old beat up copy of "rudolph the red nosed reindeer" became his favorite show, and so he learned pretty much everything he needed to know about the jolly old elf. seeing his eyes light up when we'd pass an inflatable santa in somebody's front yard only fueled my desire for him to experience a bit of childhood magic, and so i started telling him things now and then about santa which eventually led to sitting on santa's lap (his eyes closed tightly shut because he was so shy) and whispering into santa's ear that he wanted a "buzz with wings" for christmas. on christmas morning, his own face filled with awe as he saw big bites taken out of the cookies he had left the night before and the glass of milk almost empty. and then when he opened the one gift for him that was from santa.....well, there was no turning back after that.

i've never had anything against santa at all. the real saint nicholas was a wonderful man who did a lot of good and i think its wonderful to remember such generosity and celebrate it. what i do have a problem with, however, is how santa and his reindeer and the presents are so exciting for children that it can all very easily overshadow the real reason we celebrate christmas: the manger. this is why my parents never pretended with us that santa was still alive; they knew we'd hear a lot about santa from everywhere else, but they wanted us to hear and learn about the true meaning of christmas in our home.

this year, i've spent much more time talking with tristan about the christmas story and helping him to understand the importance of the event of Christ's birth. i still read "twas the night before christmas" to him when he wants me to, but the majority of christmas books in our home are retellings of the nativity. instead of sitting on santa's lap this year, the boys tied their christmas lists to helium balloons and let them sail to the north pole. each boy will get 1 present from santa, wrapped special in an enormous bow and we will definitely set out cookies and milk on christmas eve. i don't feel guilty at all for make-believing with my kids something that many parents in the Christian community tend to shun. neither do i feel like i missed out on something in my childhood and need to make up for it with my own kids.

how do i know that the excitement of santa isn't overshadowing the humble babe in the stable? well, for one, i can't seem to keep the various nativity sets in my home nicely displayed. the ones that are within tristan's reach have everyone clumped together with their backs turned to the room. he explained to me, "but mommy, the shepherds and kings aren't supposed to look at us; they all came to see baby Jesus, so they have to look at him!" which is very true. the other hint was when we pulled up to the christmas tree farm last week to cut a tree down. tristan was expecting an inflatable jumpy to play in since they had one last year, but there was no jumpy to be seen. "its okay, tristan" i told him, "we still get to go pick a tree and cut it down and that's the best part!" "no it isn't, mommy!" he said earnestly, "the best part about christmas is baby Jesus; not christmas trees." oh, right. my bad.

the unbearable aftertaste of breakfast cereal

2010-12-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

is it really that odd to eat a bowl of soup for breakfast instead of a bowl of cereal? i've come to realize that my morning sickness is aggravated by the aftertaste that sweet foods leave in my mouth. breakfast cereal is the worst. this morning i ate a bowl of cereal, then ran upstairs to brush my teeth. later, i ate an orange and was so overcome by the lingering sweetness that i popped a piece of peppermint gum in my mouth, only to discover that once i spit it out, the aftertaste from the gum was even bothering me. salty things are pretty much fine...almost too fine. last night at a christmas party, i indulged in quite a lot of shrimp cocktail and now i can't stop thinking about shrimp. i crave chili (weird, right?), mexican food, and tomato soup with cheddar cheese sprinkled on top. christmas baking holds no appeal for me whatsoever and i have very sadly discovered that even my favorite holiday drink, peppermint mochas are simply too rich for my taste buds to handle. hopefully there will only be 5 more weeks left of this perpetual carsickness before i can resume my normal eating habits.

our house is once more empty of house guests, but only for 2 weeks. my mom flies in on december 30th to celebrate tristan's 4th birthday with us. so far she hasn't missed a single one of his birthdays and i love looking forward to her new year's visit because then the letdown after christmas is postponed a couple of weeks. tristan has told me that he wants a buzz and woody cake this year, which i will attempt to make myself. (picture of cake may or may not make an appearance on this blog depending on how successful my attempt is.) he also tells me that he wants thirteen candles on his cake. thirteen is his current favorite number. if i tell him that we're going to leave the house in 20 minutes, he always responds with, "how about 13 minutes, mom? that sounds good." he's sort of fanatical about numbers right now, counting everything in sight (and he can count up to 50, so it can take for-ev-er) and walking around with josh's calculator, pressing the buttons and then reciting the numbers, always starting with "0". this morning i found him shining a flashlight into samuel's mouth, trying to count his teeth. samuel, of course, was laughing like a maniac.

now that jacob has left, samuel again refuses to say "mama" or any other words. he's our little mute boy signing and grunting and fussing when we can't understand him. i thought tristan was a slow talker, but even he was saying quite a few words by this age. samuel is terribly good at running and jumping and getting into everything he shouldn't be getting into. surprisingly, our christmas tree hasn't proven to be as much of a sam-magnet as i thought it would be. he's more fascinated with the lights than the actual tree or the ornaments. we've taken the boys out driving after dinner a couple of times to look at the christmas lights and samuel is very vocal in his appreciation of all the festive, lit up lawn ornaments. the grocery store has a huge blow up santa and a snowman on top of 2 of the aisles and, while waiting in line the other morning, samuel was pointing to them and loudly "ahhhhh-ing" and "wow-ing" his delight. the teenage girl behind us in line was texting and kept looking at samuel with a frown and then turning around, trying to see what he was so excited about. any time she turned back to her phone, samuel became quite urgent with his pointing, wanting her to see exactly what he was seeing. finally, after i had paid i leaned over and told her, "he's showing you the huge santa and snowman" and her face lit up when she spotted them. she smiled at samuel, saying "that's what you were showing me!" and his grin was enormous. it really will be nice when we finally have a breakthrough and he begins using words to communicate.

but not nearly as nice as when my mouth has a breakthrough and won't be bothered by things like breakfast cereal anymore.

from 2 to 4

2010-12-11T17:38:00.000-08:00

i interrupt this last week's worth of silence to bring you the above picture of my boys with their canadian cousins. in my opinion, it doesn't get much cuter than that.

in other news, i'm finally back to my pre-samuel weight due to the roller coaster of nausea that visits me every day, all day. maybe my memory is just foggy, but it seems that this is the worst bout i've had of all 3 pregnancies.

the visit with my brother andy, his wife cara and their 2 children, sarah & jacob is going wonderfully well. sarah and tristan have really hit it off despite a 2+ year age gap, and samuel is not only learing how to say "mama" because of jacob, he is also learning that you can't just get up in your cousin's face and pet his hair as if he were an animal....jacob wastes no time in asserting himself and shoving his overly-social cousin away from him. it's really quite cute and humorous, though samuel doesn't seem to think so ;)

more later

p.s. how many of you read the title of this post and thought that i was expecting twins? gotcha!

the details

2010-12-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

first of all, i have to say thank you for all of your congratulations comments.

yes, this whole announcement is early. super early if you're one of those people who wait until 12 weeks to share that you're expecting. i've never been able to wait 12 weeks (i think i usually shared on this blog after 7 or 8 weeks) but 5 weeks? well, the plan was to wait until christmas to let everyone know. but of course i just had to call my mom minutes after seeing 2 lines on the test. and so that meant that my dad knew as well. and then it was thanksgiving, which was the perfect time to share it with josh's family. and then, about a week after we found out, josh and i both sort of said "whatever" and went ahead and facebooked it and let the madness begin. i'm horrible at keeping secrets.

here is what happened....the full, unaltered, honest truth (because i always strive for complete honestly on my blog). ahem, i recently decided to try a more natural approach to birth control. mostly because birth control is a pain in the butt, but also because it can be so dang expensive. i felt quite frugal and "in touch with my body" as i charted my cycle and kept track of it all in my mind. (that was my main mistake. i should never ever keep track of things in my mind, it just doesn't work the way it used to.) so, obviously, my "natural approach" allowed nature to take its course which resulted in panicky pregnant dreams, odd cravings and a cycle that just wasn't quite right.

christy was here when i started to get a niggling in the back of my head and i spent the entire 24 hour period before taking the test verbally exhausting my list of reasons why a potential pregnancy would SO not be a good thing. looking back on it now, those reasons were all pretty selfish ones, but that's where my head was at: me, me, me. christy patiently listened to me worry about something i had no control over, suggested i take a test and left it at that. i had 1 pregnancy test in the cupboard that hadn't expired yet and i intended to take it the next morning when hcg hormones are the highest. over dinner i mentioned to josh that i was seriously worried about this whole thing and he just shrugged it off as if to say, "why are you all upset about this? its not like you're really pregnant or anything."

that evening, after putting the boys to bed, i could stand the suspense no longer. while josh and christy watched tv downstairs, i took the test and then took some deep breaths while waiting for the results. before even 30 seconds had passed, i glanced down at the test not expecting to see 2 very dark pink lines indicating that it was positive. i stood there in complete and utter shock, and then started to cry a little bit. i sat down and dialed josh's cell phone number. when he answered, i asked him to come upstairs, which he did without question. as soon as he entered the room, he saw me with my mouth still open, tears in my eyes, holding the test. it took a moment for everything to register and then he just held me and said, "let's pray." and he did. oh, i love that man.

that's when i called my mom, who was just as shocked as i was. my dad seemed pretty nonchalant about the surprise and, if anything, happy that it had happened. i heard him saying things like, "accidents are girls, you know" and "august? that's a perfect time for us to drive down!" in the background. my mom told me, "at first, it will be hell. you'll get used to it, a couple of years will go by and it will get easier." i was still shaking and teary-eyed when i got into the shower and used that time to pray myself. the moment i opened my mouth to talk to God, i was overwhelmed with feelings of peace and a revelation of how blessed i really am. instead of pouring out my worries and questions to Him, i found myself saying over and over again, "thank you God, for blessing us with this incredible gift."

because i had already gone through all of the not-so-great-things in the previous 24 hours, i felt like i could then move on, saying, "well, this is happening!" and just begin to anticipate all that is to come. yes, i am terrified of not being able to handle 3 children. yes, i am worried about how much of a strain another family member will add to our financial situation. yes, i am scared that i'll continue to be sleep deprived for the next 5 years. but the moment that God showed me how selfish i was being, i opened up my heart and allowed myself to completely love our little unborn baby. we didn't plan this, but He did.

so, today marks 6 weeks and sure enough, i'm fighting nausea all day and Overwhelming Fatigue has hit hard. i have my first appointment on december 15 and since we have different medical insurance than we did with the boys, i have no idea what we'll get in the way of ultrasounds, but we're planning on definitely finding out the gender as soon as we can. we've had a girl's name picked out since before we were engaged, but we never had a third boy's name, so we're trying out a few and trying to agree on one. from my calculations, i am due on august 1st and this time i hope to have my mom in the delivery room with us, though that will depend on if my parents can make it here on time, since they have a 2 day drive ahead of them. tristan at first wanted another brother and wanted to name him "tristan", but he's since changed to telling me that it's a girl and that he is going to name her "bodey" (no idea where he got that from). he talks about singing to her and pushing her on the swings at the park. samuel really doesn't care either way, probably because he can't comprehend it yet :)

there's all the details, and now i'm going to lie down and try to eat some saltine crackers.

one more thing...

2010-12-02T07:51:00.000-08:00

please, please, please go to this blog. just do it and trust me that you will laugh (or at least smile very hard) and then please, please, please comment on her post. yes, i am unashamedly begging you because my fabulous friend leah is starting to blog again and i think that if she gets enough encouragement (ie. comments) she will keep writing. and i desperately want her to keep writing because she is so good at it and because i miss her so much and reading about her life with her adorable twins makes me feel a tiny bit closer to her.

thank you.

and yes, details to come soon, i promise.

a confession

2010-12-01T13:20:00.000-08:00

go to my post from november 20th.

look at point #8.

i was wrong, so very wrong.

oh well, there's no turning back now!

happy december 1st, everyone :)

christy

2010-11-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

{ i took this picture of christy in balboa park in the summer of 2006. cute, eh?}

the first time my friend christy came to visit after i got married, we met at disneyland. i was a non-working newly-wed awaiting my green card and had all the time and energy in the world for gallivanting around southern california. we spent all day together chatting through the lineups and enjoying the rides. it was lovely.

the second time my friend christy came to visit after i got married, she came to stay at our home in the summer of 2006. i was newly pregnant with tristan and had a bit of trouble getting time off work, but we still managed to have lunch at seaport village and spend a day at balboa park besides doing other vacation-like things such as reading out in the sun beneath the palm trees.

the third time my friend christy came to visit after i got married, she came to stay at our much smaller home shortly after tristan turned 1. we made it to the mall to do some shopping and got a few other stops in before the screaming toddler in the backseat did us in and we gave up on long outings. (the screaming toddler ended up being sick and had to have breathing treatments at the doctor's, a wonderful addition to christy's vacation plans.)

the fourth time my friend christy came to visit after i got married, she came to stay at the same, tiny little house. tristan was 2 and i was 6 months pregnant with samuel, so i didn't have much energy, but i did have time to go to the beach in the frigidly cold wind and peek in a few surf shops. thankfully nobody was sick during this visit.

the fifth and final time my friend christy came to visit after i got married was last week. our tiny little house seems to have shrunk considerably since samuel's birth, so she had to sleep at my in-law's place. an exciting trip to sea world was planned, only to be cancelled due to my youngest son's impeccably timed stomach flu. i got the same bug a few days later, up heaving our grand plans of a thanksgiving crepe brunch (pun not intended). even our shopping trip was hurried and frantic with 2 little boys and rush traffic to worry about. oh yes, and it was too cold for flip-flops and it even rained a bit and i kept apologizing to her for everything (especially after samuel vomited his lunch all over her lap). she just smiled sweetly, saying "its okay" and telling me that at least she was avoiding all of the snow back home.

that girl. sometimes she's just too nice, but gotta love her :)

point form

2010-11-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

{picture taken from my parent's backyard 2 christmases ago}

* it is raining again, after a week of hot weather. i think it may be safe to take the air conditioner out of samuel's window. then again, december can still be pretty warm some years... i heard it snowed back home last night and that always seems to make me a little bit homesick.

* tonight i am driving to the airport to pick up my friend christy, who is flying here from canada. it has been almost 2 years since she has visited and we are all excited to hang out with her for a week.

* a week after christy leaves, my brother andy, his wife cara and their 2 kids are coming down to stay with us. we will have a full house and are still trying to figure out sleeping arrangements, but i am thrilled that they are taking the time to visit us and can't wait to see the cousins play together.

* 2 1/2 weeks after that, my mom will arrive for tristan's 4th birthday! by then we are hoping to have tristan and samuel in the same bedroom.....something i've been avoiding for as long as i possibly can. samuel still wakes up during the night (he easily falls back to sleep) and tristan is a light sleeper, plus tristan is an early riser and i'm afraid he'll wake samuel up instead of allowing him to sleep for an hour or so later in the morning. any ideas from moms who have successfully made the transition from 2 rooms to 1?

* i am enjoying this mommy thing a whole lot lately. especially the "stay at home" part of it. i love setting up playdates, getting to know other moms while we watch our kids play and interact together. i love teaching tristan basic skills, and seeing his knowledge increase. we are not sending him to preschool and i'm happy with our decision because he gets a lot of social interaction from the playdates, and a lot of learning happens in our home. i'm also loving just being there for so many small things: popping popcorn, baking cookies, playing board games, building sandcastles at the park....things i wouldn't have nearly as much time for if i was a working mom. i'm grateful to God for providing for us and for my husband who works so hard, making this lifestyle possible.

* samuel is still not talking. he says "hi" all the time and "apple" (which sounds like "ah-oh") and that is it. i am not even a tiny bit worried because he signs a lot, but i am definitely looking forward to hearing his cute little voice chirp out a few words now and then.

* tristan didn't start talking until he was 2 and not very fluently until he was 3. now i can't get the child to stop talking! his latest thing has been to make up stories, starting with "once uponta time"... i posted a video of a robot story he told on the boys' blog recently. he is not even 4 yet and is wearing size 5 & 6 clothing. some of the bigger shirts that i had boxed up, waiting for him to grow into are actually already too short, so i've learned from my mistakes and now hang every one of his hand-me-down shirts in the closet so i can see right away when they'll fit him. he has a long torso like his daddy.

* i regularly dream that i am pregnant, and i always wake up terrified. just for the record, i am not currently pregnant.

* we are celebrating thanksgiving in a week and, as thrilled as i am at the thought of turkey and stuffing and yams and all of that, i am especially looking forward to the start of the christmas season. because thanksgiving happens so late here in america, most families tend to wait until after thanksgiving is over before pulling out the decorations and putting lights on the house. i've been listening to christmas music since the beginning of the month and i am SO ready to put away the pumpkins and bring out the nativities (which, according to josh, i have far too many of). let's get this christmas thing started already!

these are the moments

2010-11-10T11:18:00.001-08:00

first of all, i just have to vent a little bit about this ridiculous time change. we had a really good thing going and, since sunday, we no longer do. even though i tried to gradually move the boys to the new time, we still had tristan waking up for the day at 3:45am and now samuel isn't seeming tired enough for his nap time or bed time (more likely he is beyond tired and is in the middle of his second wind), so now my nice, neat little routine that i adored and felt so secure in has become smashed to smithereens and i feel a wee bit lost. i've said this before and i'll say it again: i had no idea how much of a control freak and lover of predictability i was till i had kids! and as much as it annoys me about myself, i'm pretty sure it annoys my poor husband even more. ever heard of the term, "just go with the flow"? well yeah, it sounds great in theory even to me, but i find it nearly impossible to do.

okay, vent over and moving on... yesterday tristan and i were having fun looking at pictures and videos on the computer from last year. i opened the september '09 folder and let tristan scroll through to his heart's content. he didn't recognize his 3 month old brother at first, but he sure recognized himself. he kept asking about the shirts he was wearing in the photos, wondering why they aren't hanging in his closet anymore and if they got lost. i kept explaining to him that he is bigger now and has grown out of all those clothes, but every time he'd come to a picture where he was wearing a different shirt, he'd ask the same question. anyhow, once we started watching the videos from that month, i became awestruck. there is samuel, all bobble-headed and drooling away and there is tristan running around and talking here and there and i seriously couldn't understand a word the kid was saying! i was thankful when the me-in-the-video would translate for the camera because i hadn't a clue. and this was my own kid! the strangest thing was that, though i have vague memories of that time... wiping spit up, holding an infant, potty training tristan.... i don't really remember it. at least not as clearly as in the videos. it hit me then that there are not only moments that can escape our memory; there are literal weeks and months and perhaps years where we'll go on living for all of that time, but barely have any memory of it at all down the road. its sort of sad, yet inspiring at the same time.

so, after samuel woke up from his nap in the afternoon, i got the camera out and began recording the boys. they weren't doing anything special, just being themselves: samuel signing away like a little deaf boy, tristan pretending to fight a snake, then a shark, then a pirate, both of them tumbling around on the bed, on each other, on me, like adorable little puppies. i wanted to capture the way samuel tries to jump, but can't quite get his feet off the ground and the way tristan still hasn't mastered saying his "L's" yet ("wets all go wook for a powar bear!"). then, when josh came home, i made sure to sit in the backyard and capture the 3 of them playing together and how much the boys adore time with their daddy.

i know that even though these little moments are a part of my normal, every day life right now, in a year's time i won't be able to recollect much of it unless i look back on pictures and videos. and yet there are times when i find myself stuck behind the lens of my camera, trying to take the perfect photo instead of just living in and enjoying the moment. there is a fine balance between these two things and i am hopeful that one day soon i'll be able to master it. for now, i'm going to keep focusing on savoring my little men every day, but i'll be sure to do so with my camera in my pocket, for easy access.

apple picking, so cal style.

2010-11-05T18:48:00.001-07:00

going apple picking is something quite autumny in these parts, akin to visiting the pumpkin patch and such. apples don't generally grow in this part of the country, but there is a cute little mountain town called julian not too far away that has a high enough elevation for apples to grow. in fact, one of the things that the town is known best for is their delicious apple pies. our friends dave and j'lene invited us to go apple picking today along with their 2 daughters. immediately, my mind went to apple butter and homemade applesauce and maybe even an apple pie or two. i pictured the children running through the orchard, holding hands amidst the beautiful autumn landscape while we adults laughed and chatted, picking perfectly ripe apples and carefully placing them into a great big box to take home.

here's what actually happened: we were late in meeting our friends (i blame it on samuel.....he ate his lunch entirely too slow) and then, once we got to where the apple orchard was supposed to be, there was nothing but beautiful rolling hills and woods and curving roads for miles and miles and miles. still, we traveled on, missed the turn, made the turn, then missed the next turn and ended up in the parking lot of a winery. we finally found the parking lot for the apple orchard, unloaded the kiddos and began tromping down a very long driveway in search of somebody...anybody with whom to do business. nobody was around and, as the 8 of us walked further down the lane, we began to notice that the odd, rusty junk laying around was actually strange and twisted works of art. j'lene remembered reading on the website that there were sculptures for sale at this particular orchard, but she hadn't really expected sculptures that looked as if they had come straight from the set of edward scissorands. there was a run down shack at the end of the driveway and, just as i was cautiously about to go around it to the front door, i saw what looked like a human head on a pole with black hair trailing down. i literally gasped, then saw that it was just a grotesque halloween mask, but i motioned to everyone behind me to turn back; i didn't want any of the little kids seeing it and freaking out. we decided to turn around and head back to our cars.

meanwhile, sweet j'lene was apologizing profusely for picking such a strange place and i couldn't stop thinking about a nice big slice of julian apple pie with cinnamon ice cream. we were almost back to where we started from when we heard a dog yipping and we saw someone walking towards us. josh said to j'lene, "did they say anything about charles manson owning this orchard on the website?" seriously, he looked like a cross between dog the bounty hunter and captain jack sparrow....and then when he started talking to us, he had a british accent. he told us that there were plenty of good apples still on the trees (even though the smell of rotton, decaying apples was quite strong) and that we could fill a bag for $10. i was already thinking that ten dollars was a little bit more than what i had expected to pay, but then he handed us our bags.....they were barely larger than paper lunch sacks. by this point, i thought we may as well just get the most out of the whole experience, so we payed for our tiny little bags and started out looking for sweet juicy apples. after about 5 minutes, we realized that we'd have to look pretty hard for what we wanted because this is all that we could see:

even when we'd find one that looked perfect, we'd pick it only to discover a gaping brown hole on the other side. i was snapping pictures left and right, realizing the humor in the situation and, i admit, thinking that it may just make an interesting blog post. about half way down the tree lined paths, we found that there were in fact a few apples here and there that hadn't gone bad yet. i took a bite of a golden delicious, expecting it to be sour, but it was really really good! the next aisle yielded lots of great empire apples and before we knew it we had filled our minuscule bags to overflowing and headed back to the entrance where i made sure to snap a few more photos of the interesting art.

we finished the outing off with a stop at mom's pies where, after thoroughly enjoying a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream (i changed my mind from apple to rhubarb at the last minute....i haven't had rhubarb in forever and it reminds me of home), josh happened to notice that a small bag of already-picked apples was selling for $4 a bag. exactly the same size as our $10 bag. still, we figured, you can't really put a dollar sign on an experience like that. it was priceless.

oh yeah, and that holding hands moment that i had pictured in my mind? it happened :)

live, from hollywood!

2010-11-02T14:09:00.001-07:00

last night i had a very vivid dream. i dreamed that bristol palin injured herself and was no longer able to compete in "dancing with the stars" the producers somehow managed to find little ol' me and asked me to compete in her place. they told me that they were looking for someone with no previous dance or performance experience, with conservative values and not on the super thin side. i fit the bill perfectly. i practiced the argentine tango every single day for hours on end. don't ask me who was home taking care of my boys; my dream conveniently left those details out. when the time came for me to perform in front of a live audience and millions of tv viewers, the thing that instantly popped into my mind was not that i was about to earn thousands of dollars. it was not that i was going to get my 15 minutes (or more) of fame. the thing that thrilled me the very most was that i was going to have something to blog about. i could hardly wait to get back home and write out a post asking all of you, my blog readers, to vote for me.

and that, my dear followers, pretty much sums up the sad state of my blog these days. nothing of blog-worthiness seems to be happening in my life, which is why i haven't posted for so long. but don't fret.....as soon as DWTS calls me up, you'll be the first to know ;)

things we've been enjoying lately

2010-10-24T21:05:00.001-07:00

clouds and rain. love the stuff. especially when it rains for about 3 days or so, and then the sun breaks out a little bit, and then it rains a little bit more.... its just the perfect way to enjoy rain and it makes it truly feel like fall down here.

apple cinnamon scented candles by glade. this is the only scented candle that doesn't give me a headache every time i burn it. i only burn it for 30 minutes at a time, mind you, but i've used it for a few years now right around fall/christmas time, so the scent immediately brings to mind christmasy things.

childhood stories and songs. i remember listening to these big old records when i was a kid. my mom would put the record on the turntable and i'd lay on the floor on my tummy next to the speaker with the record cover in front of me. back then, many of the kid's lp's had a bit of a book inside the cover, showing pictures to go along with the songs. a few years ago my parents got all of their lp's burned onto cd's and when my dad visited, he brought a few for tristan along with the old covers. it makes me nostalgic to see tristan intently listening to the story of "antshillvania" while following along with the pictures in the cover. samuel's favorite is "bullfrogs and butterflies" because it is all music and he can dance along with it.

chile picante flavored corn nuts. i got over the nutella addiction only to be taken in by this one. they are sooooooooo good!

warm, snuggly snugabye jammies. i bought a blue pair of 18 month ones for tristan when they were marked down on clearance years ago, but i remember getting them home and trying them on him and realizing that they were way too small for his chubby little body! i kept them anyhow, reasoning that perhaps one day we'd have another boy to wear them. they now fit samuel perfectly. my favorite feature is that i can choose to have his feet exposed, or fold the bottoms of his pants down so that his feet are covered, depending on how cold it is at night.

homemade apple butter. my dear friend j'lene gave us a jar last year and i've been keeping it in the fridge, savoring it slowly. i used to just spread it on my toast, but i've found that if i mix it into samuel's plain yogurt, i can control the sweetness and he just loves it. i also spread it onto graham crackers for the boys for a treat once in awhile. i'm still hoping that this year we'll be able to make it into julian to pick our own apples and i'll get to make some apple butter of my own.

reading books to my boys. nothing beats snuggling together on the couch with my two little men and a pile of fresh-from-the-library books. samuel's attention span isn't long enough for more than a few pages, but once he hops down to play on his own, tristan and i read book after book together. some of our latest favorites have been: "don't forget i love you" by miriam moss, "emmett's pig" by mary stolz and "dogger" by shirley hughes.

my husband. the longer i'm with him, the more i realize how blessed i am to have him in my life and i hope that he is someone i never ever take for granted. our weeknights have become filled with so many things lately, so its always nice to know that the weekend evenings are pretty much reserved for just him and me. and oh, how i have enjoyed that time with my best friend. God sure knew what He was doing when He brought the two of us together.

...what are you enjoying these days?

avoiding my newest addiction

2010-10-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

it all started innocently enough. i was folding laundry while watching "ten dollar dinners" one afternoon and taking mental notes on how to stretch my grocery budget. i'm sure the meal looked delicious and i'm sure that i had in mind to try the recipe, but i tell you....the moment she began describing the dessert she was about to make, i sort of tuned out the meal portion of the program. now, if you remember, i am not a baker. i have perhaps 3 dessert recipes that i can bake properly and that is it. still, melissa made this specific dessert look really really easy. 5 ingredients; that was it!

the next day, while doing a few groceries, i found myself inexplicably drawn to the peanut butter and jam aisle where the nutella jars sit. i have never before bought nutella. i remember my little sister eating it for breakfast on her bread, which i always found quite strange. i have nothing against the stuff, i just never really had a hankering for it. until that day. i saw the jar and immediately recalled the recipe and my mouth started to water. so i bought it. then i went and bought a block of cream cheese as well. and then i went home and made the petite nutella pochettes. (fancy name, huh?) i made some with nutella inside and some with my mom's strawberry jam inside. and once they had come out of the oven and i had sprinkled powdered sugar liberally over each one, i took a bite. and it was good.

after that first bite, i knew i was in trouble. you see, not only is there a block of cream cheese in the pastry, there is also an entire cup of butter in there. yet even that knowledge didn't keep me from devouring 2 still-warm pochettes while standing at the sink. and it didn't keep me from making a nice big cup of coffee later in the day and enjoying 2 more pochettes along with it. that evening, as i lay in bed with an icky tummy (nearly always a result from eating too much fat during the day) i realized that there was only one thing to do to keep myself from gaining every single blessed pound back that i had just lost: share the wealth.

i brought all that was left of the petite pochettes to a family outing the next day and josh's family told me that they enjoyed them. really, i think they were all just stunned and perhaps a bit skeptical that i had managed to bake something edible other than muffins and apple crisp. i was happy that they were gone and out of the house and i vowed not to bake anything that delicious for a long time. i thought that my craving had been satisfied, that the temptation had been removed and that i should be able to just carry on in my healthful eating ways until last night, when i was seized with the realization that there was still a jar of nutella sitting in my cupboard. my mouth started watering all over again and i felt powerless over my legs as they walked me into the kitchen, where i grabbed a spoon, dug into the nutella jar and savored that hazelnut/chocolately goodness as it melted in my mouth.

could anyone use half a jar of nutella? i promise i didn't double-dip and i have a need to share the wealth like you wouldn't believe.

things & stuff (cause i couldn't come up with a better title)

2010-10-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

my dad drove down from canada and visited us for 5 days before driving back home yesterday morning. he's never come down on his own before (its always been him and my mom), so he got to experience the love and devotion of my 2 boys in concentrated form. samuel was his shadow the entire time...anytime grandad would sit down, samuel would stand there in front of him with his hands clasped to his chest, just waiting to be invited onto grandad's lap. (and of course he was always invited onto grandad's lap, irresistable as he is). tristan was keen on helping grandad with stuff, like fixing the door to our shed and patching up the hole in the wheel of my double stroller. tristan even brought out his pretend tool kit to help out and i have a feeling he was more of a hindrance than a help, but of course grandad never let him know it.

the day my dad left also happened to be the day that thanksgiving is celebrated in canada. i had grand plans of cooking a turkey breast and making mashed potatoes and all that stuff, but the day was pretty hot and i didn't feel like turning the oven on, so i half heartedly took some ground turkey out of the freezer instead, not even knowing what i was going to make with it. when josh got home from work, he announced that he was going to fix the whole "what to make for canadian thanksgiving dinner" problem by picking up some carne asada burritos which really did the trick. in fact, i'm thinking that perhaps we should start a tradition.

i am extremely pleased that the mums i planted back in summer are actually going to bloom again and in FALL nonetheless!! the little buds were just starting to show bits of yellow this morning when i took the picture (pardon the dandelion weed in the foreground; normally those sorts of things don't dare to grow near my flowers, but we've had a bit of rain and things just got out of control). after 6 years of living here, i've finally come to the correct conclusion that it really doesn't matter when you plant things around here. forget planting bulbs in fall....they'll just pop up a month or two later. instead, plant them in february so that they'll be up in april like they're supposed to do. and seeding flowers in spring is not really necessary. i've been allowing some of my blooms to go to seed instead of dead-heading them all and once the seeds are ready, i just plant them right away and, voila! brand new flowers at any month of the year. when i take care of them right, my flower gardens last year after year instead of dying every winter like they do back home. of course, they're never as lush as my mom's rain-blessed flowers, but that's okay.

tristan had his 3 year old physical yesterday (only 9 months late) and not only is he still in the 100th percentile for both his height and weight, but his eyes tested as 20/20 and his hearing is apparently perfect. which i'm a little relieved about since he has been asking "what?" A LOT lately and i was beginning to get a little worried that he wasn't hearing us well. apparently its his listening skills, not his hearing that needs to be improved upon. his latest thing is building forts and hideouts out of blankets, cushions, or even in the hall closet. he's also had the strangest obsession with pants, often bursting into tears if i tell him he has to wear shorts today since it is so warm out. his first question for me every morning is, "mom, can i wear pants and a pants-shirt today?" (pants-shirt is what he calls a long-sleeved shirt) and i know that he will crumble into despair if i say "no." its really quite exasperating.

samuel is our little explorer. his independence knows no bounds....he would wander off and get himself completely lost and not care one bit about it if we let him. our backyard is fenced, so we allow him to go in and out as he chooses and this makes him completely and utterly happy. one of us still has to keep an eye on him, though since he will often come in chewing away on a mouthful of dirt. he is one tough cookie, scraping his knees from falls and not shedding a single tear, or getting bullied by his older brother and just calmly walking away. he is getting all 4 of his eye teeth in at the same time, so nights have been wretched again, but after these 4 he's done with his teeth until its time for the 2 year old molars. he is also, as of a week ago, completely weaned now. he had held onto that just before bedtime feed for a long time and when it became apparent that he was no longer terribly interested, i just let it go and he didn't even seem to notice. i only breastfed tristan until he was 12 months old, so 16 months in my books was a long time! as much as i enjoyed it, there is something nice about having my entire body back to myself again.

i'm climbing aboard the weight loss train once again after a 5 month plateau. this time i refuse to diet. instead i'm slowly educating myself and changing the way that i eat one food at a time. i'm going about it slowly because i want to be able to enjoy the way i eat and make it a lifestyle change instead of a quick-fix. i've tried lots of new recipes and i'm constantly tweaking my old stand-by recipes to make them healthier and more filling at the same time. i've just discovered the miracle of roasted vegetables (i've always just steamed them) and i think my mouth must've dropped open when my husband willingly took a bite of roasted asparagus with garlic, chewed it and said, "that's pretty good stuff!" quinoa was always something that scared me a little, but i love it now and i've also been incorporating different kinds of beans into lots of our meals. (black beans smashed with a bit of olive oil and garlic make a great filler for bison burgers and actually makes the meal cheaper because the meat goes further). the slow changes mean that the numbers on the scale are also going down ever so slowly, but they are pounds that i know are gone for good as i rid my life of processed junk bit by bit and replace it with the foods God intended for us to eat.

and now, (mostly because i want some great ideas, but also because lots of comments make me happy) my question for you is: what is one healthy trick you'd like to share? whether its a food replaced with something healthier, or a brand new food that you've grown to love, please leave a comment and let me know.

....can you believe that spellcheck didn't recognize "quinoa" as a word?

its beginning to look a little like autumn

2010-09-30T20:20:00.000-07:00

this is what tristan and i created together last thursday, on the first day of autumn. we had run out of construction paper and i was wracking my brain, trying to think of how to re-use paper without the chain looking ugly, when it hit me. i had a bunch of old magazines laying around that i was going to donate to the thrift store. there was one from thanksgiving 2009 in the stack, so tristan helped me pick out the pages that looked the most fall/thanksgiving-ish and we set to work cutting strips. well, i cut the strips and tristan got lots and lots of little pieces of tape ready on the side of the table. it still seems odd to me that thanksgiving is so late in the year here, which means that the chain turned out pretty darn long. and, in hindsight, we should have picked pages that didn't have any writing on the opposite side, but we both thought the end result looked quite nice. now, if only tristan's baby brother would stop pulling the chain down and towing it around the house every 5 minutes....

oh, samuel. i really don't know why i expect him to be so similar to his brother in some ways when i know very well that he is the exact opposite of his brother in pretty much every way. like i've said before, we never really baby-proofed with tristan. we just taught him the meaning of the word "no" and we followed up repeated offences with a quick as lightening slap to the hand and that did the trick perfectly. samuel hears the "no", knows what it means and remembers the consequence. you can see him weighing the pros and cons of what he is about to do and then, 9 times out of 10, he goes ahead and disobeys anyway. usually the repeated offence is eating dirt or grass or large mouthfuls of sand. if you've ever changed the dirty diaper of a sand-eating baby, you know exactly why i holler "NO EATING!" at the top of my lungs every time he goes for another handful.

so, along with the thanksgiving-countdown-chain making last thursday i also took out our few autumnish decorative items and had tristan help me set them around the house. a framed picture of our family, a small pumpkin that says "give thanks" and a large candle in a lidded jar painted with leaves and acorns looked quite nice on a low table in one corner of the kitchen. this low table, however, put the decorative items right in samuel's line of sight. stubbornly thinking that i could most certainly teach him not to touch without having to remove the items to a higher shelf, i set to work as soon as he awoke from his nap that day, pointing to the table and saying "no touching" over and over while he pointed and oohed and ahhed and pointed again, then held both of his hands behind his back and walked away. "well, well!" i thought to myself, "it looks like we may not have to have a baby gate around the entire christmas tree this year after all!" oh, was i wrong.

samuel is quite stealthy in his disobedience. like any smart young child, he waited until mommy was out of the room before he very thoroughly inspected the small ceramic pumpkin. i came into the room to find the leaves of it in his mouth. he jumped when i said, "samuel!" which just proved that he knew he was guilty. he sweetly held the slobbery pumpkin up to me and let his dimples and eyelashes do the talking. i took him back over to the table and went through the whole "no touching" routine once more. once more, he seemed to understand perfectly. all was well with the table items for the next few days until monday, when i found him walking around the living room with the framed picture under his little arm. this time i was much more firm and gave his hand a little slap. he didn't cry, but sort of pouted and went to his toy box to play. then, moments later while i was removing clean laundry from the clothes dryer, i hear the sound of something shattering in the kitchen. i rushed in to see a wide-eyed open-mouthed little boy holding the remnants of a ceramic acorn with the rest of the lid smashed all around him.

i was pretty angry about it. but once i had everything cleaned up i realized that i really should just be angry with myself. i don't think its normal for a 16 month old to resist the strong temptation of forbidden goodies displayed at eye level. tristan's behavior wasn't the norm; samuel's is. i see this now and am prepared to baby proof the christmas tree in a couple of month's time and put my pretty little pumpkin on a higher shelf. still, i'd love to know how to baby proof a sand-filled playground. more than that, i'd love to know why he can't seem to eat enough sand to satisfy him, yet he loves to throw his real food down onto the ground after only eating a couple of bites. but i guess that would be a whole other blog post...

rock a bye baby

2010-09-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

i have a deep, dark confession to make: i rock my baby to sleep.

(i am now wincing as i imagine a mass of glaring moms shaking their fingers at me saying, "you don't want to get into that habit!! you don't know what you are in for!!)

i have come to the conclusion just this evening that the bigger issue is not that i rock my baby to sleep. the bigger issue is that, when i do, i allow the mass of glaring moms that live in my head to torment me and make me feel guilty about it.

before having kids, i really didn't have a clue....but really, did any of us moms have a clue before having kids? i figured that when the baby was hungry, you'd feed him and when the baby was tired you'd put him to sleep. the rest of the time would be filled with smiles and giggles and writing down each and every precious milestone in a perfectly decorated, handmade scrapbook. i knew nothing of routines or schedules, nor did i have any idea what the words "cry it out" or "attachment parenting" meant. in the first few weeks of tristan's life, i had hurriedly read through "secrets of the babywhisperer", "babywise", "healthy sleep habits, happy child", and watched and re-watched the "happiest baby on the block" dvd in an attempt to keep the dear baby from crying all the live-long day. i put out pleas for advice on this very blog and was inundated with such varied responses that i didn't even know where to start. people often just said, "follow your gut" or "do what works for you", but in the confusion of so many different points of view, i didn't even know what my gut was telling me anymore.

in the end, i used a variety of methods gleaned from the babywhisperer point of view which advocates teaching your baby to sleep independently, but to help them along and not to allow them to cry them self to sleep. these methods worked wonderfully for tristan once i implemented them and was consistent about it, but we still had plenty of sleep troubles along the way. i remember a phase where he would only fall asleep if i lay my hand on his back; the moment i would take it away, he would stand up in his crib and howl. then there was the very long phase when i was first pregnant with samuel where tristan refused to sleep in his crib and would only go to sleep if i made a bed on the floor and lay next to him until he was asleep. eventually we moved him to his big boy bed where i again would lay next to him and i remember so clearly laying there with tears in my eyes wondering how in the world i was going to manage doing that with a newborn in the house.

samuel has been a better sleeper than his big brother for the most part, but he still isn't truly easy. at 15 months old he rarely sleeps through the night and i am certain that his pacifier addiction has everything to do with that. still, he usually falls asleep on his own quite easily, but every now and then he goes through a phase, just like tristan did, where he needs a little extra reassurance before he can drift off. and so, on those nights when he just will not fall asleep on his own, i rock him to sleep. and yes, i feel very guilty about it.

i think the problem is that i've read too many books. they all talk about these awful habits that your babies can get into and how they can end up using you and hold you captive in their room when they really should be learning how to fall asleep on their own. but tonight i was wondering.....what did moms do before there were all of these books to read? what did moms do when they were unaware of the large separation between the parents who allow their babies to cry it out and those who co-sleep with their children? you know, i think what moms did back then was: they followed their gut. and it was likely much easier to follow their gut when they didn't have a ton of advice and admonishment clouding their thinking, don't you think?

my own personal mommy gut tells me that when my baby is crying, i need to go to him. that's just how i am ....i have a very low tolerance for loud noises (just ask my husband, it drives him crazy), plus i tried the cry-it-out thing with tristan and feel forever scarred by the experience. my own personal mommy gut also tells me not to bring the baby into my own bed when he cries because i know that i would never be able to get a good night's sleep like that. my own personal mommy gut does tell me, however, that cuddling with my normally active little toddler and rocking him to sleep is something that i love to do. i love watching his long-lashed eyelids getting droopier and droopier, his persistent sucks on the paci growing more and more lazy until soon he is snoring little baby snores and drooling out of the corner of his mouth. i love holding him close and praying over him, thanking God for blessing me so abundantly. i love the peace i feel when i lay him in his crib, knowing that he is fast asleep and that i can go ahead and enjoy the rest of the evening with my husband without hearing his little cries through the monitor.

i have made my confession and i am banishing those glaring moms from my mind. and, i have to tell you, writing it all out right now just felt really good and so freeing. so, thanks for listening :)

my girl

2010-09-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

you will find the reason behind this post sitting in the front row, 2nd from the right. that is RW and today, she is turning 30.

cute as a button with that bowl haircut, don't you think? well, she may look cute, but as a fellow kindergartner that year (top row, right side), i can remember only 2 things about her. 1. she often had a kiwi in her lunchbox which was a fruit i was not yet accustomed to, and so it fascinated me. 2. she was naughty sometimes and told the teacher "no" on occasion, which my brown-nosed little self would never dream of doing. we weren't friends when we were 5. neither were we friends when we were 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12.

i think it was the year we both turned 13 that we somehow became friends for real. i don't remember too much about the specifics, but i do remember birthday parties and sleepovers, having a great big crush on her older brother and plucking our eyebrows to within an inch of their lives. we somehow thought it was cool to apply a fake brown mole to our upper lip a la cindy crawford. we devoured the pages of seventeen magazine and spent hours on the phone with one another, often using the third line to call another friend. we talked about boys a lot. (a lot, a lot.) we took the bus to the mall and purchased trendy clothes with babysitting money. we received our first kisses and begged one another to share every detail. we got into fights and refused to speak, then made up with tears and vows of a never ending friendship. funny to think that those vows seemed to stick.

throughout high school we began to drift apart a little, not as fiercely loyal as we once had been to one another. still, i was there when she had a needle inserted through the top of her belly button and later, she held my hand as i had a needle inserted through the middle of my tongue. we graduated, both unsure as to what we wanted to do with our lives, then suddenly she was being swept off her feet by some dude and then she was engaged and i sort of felt left behind.

being a married woman didn't knock her off the face of the planet like it did to many of my other friends. we still had heart to hearts and girls nights and partied hard, which once (that i remember) ended with her holding my hair while i vomited in the bathroom. i made some ridiculously stupid choices that could have resulted in consequences much more severe than what actually happened, and yet through it all she stood by me, was there for me, and always had my back.

new years day 2002 sticks out in my mind because we had a life changing conversation. i don't remember exactly how or why, but we both decided that we were going to begin turning our lives back towards God. we had each been raised in Christian homes, but had allowed our faith to fall by the wayside in exchange for temporary fun. we were both weary of the world's version of happiness and we knew that true joy and hope can only come from a relationship with Jesus. and so we took little baby steps together. we held each other accountable. when one of us fell, the other helped to pick her up and we soon found that as we grew in our faith, we were growing incredibly closer to one another in our friendship.

we started a women's bible study group and attended church and i was there when she shared her testimony in front of a bazillion people and was baptized. she was there when i made the decision to put business school on hold and pursue my dream of traveling to europe combined with learning more about my God, and when i came back home during christmas break, breathless with excitement, she took one look at me and she knew. she took one look at my pictures and she said, "so... you and this josh dude....."

she took me engagement ring shopping and promised to memorize my favorite styles just in case he asked. and then, once the date was set and the plans were made, i remember her sitting down on my bed in my little blue bedroom and crying. i cried with her. it felt like right at the peak of our friendship, i was leaving her.

she flew down to san diego with her 4 month old son and was there for me on that beach while i pledged my love and commitment to the man of my dreams. then, 6 weeks later she got all dolled up and stood by me as my matron of honor at Our Wedding Part 2: the fancy version.

over the years we've come to realize that distance can never separate true friends. we see each other perhaps once a year and talk on the phone much more frequently than that, but it feels as if each time we talk, we just pick up right from where we left off. there is no need for small talk or chit chat in our conversations; if i ask the question, "how are you?" she knows immediately that i expect her to tell me exactly how she is, and she will tell. our youngest children were born only months apart and it was an incredible gift to experience pregnancy and childbirth and those infant days with a friend who was going through it right alongside me.

RW, you are the most fiercely loyal, compassionate, loving and devoted friend a girl could ask for. thank you for being there for me on so many different levels. i love you, my friend.

oh, and happy birthday!

spontaneous prayer, tristan style

2010-09-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

we recently got over a very long, very difficult month where josh basically didn't have any work. we've had months like that before and they are always very faith building to say the least. anyhow, in the middle of that month, tristan and i visited our local health food store to buy the most amazingly delicious "healthified" ranch salad dressing ever created. i was thrilled when i discovered a brand to replace josh's old standby that he not only tolerates, but actually enjoys. josh won't touch a salad without ranch on it, so its pretty important at our house. anyhow we passed the popchips and tristan pretty much started drooling all over himself and asked me if we could please buy some chips. i just laid it all out for him and explained simply that daddy hadn't been working very much, so he wasn't making very much money, so it was important for us to only spend money on the things that make us big and strong and not on things that are just treats. he seemed happy with this explanation and i was thankful that he didn't ask me if daddy's salad dressing makes us big and strong.

a couple of weeks ago we were back in the store to pick up some locally grown oranges (there's nothing sweeter than oranges from this little town!) and this time tristan asked me, "daddy has been going to work more, right mommy?" i figured out right away where this little conversation was going, but i just said, "yes, he has!" and tristan asked, "mommy, do we have money today to buy me some chips?" chips were not on my grocery list that day, but i just had to say, "of course, tristan go ahead and pick out a bag of chips." before he even began to move in the direction of the chip display, he closed his little eyes, folded his hands to his chest and right there in the middle of the store, he prayed out loud, "Jesus? thank you for that daddy has been working so hard and thank you for that we have money now and can buy me some CHIPS! in Jesus name, amen." and then he picked out his favorite flavor and carried them to the checkout as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. part of me wanted to laugh and another part of me wanted to cry a little bit, because isn't that just the way it should be?

i know for myself that i tend to put my prayer time on a shelf and only go to it when i have the time and silence to best pour my heart out to God. wouldn't He so much more appreciate our spontaneous prayers, shared with him right at the moment when our heart is swelling with the emotion of what we are praying for? when a friend is hurting and we tell them, "i'll be praying for you" why not pray for them, with them at that very moment?

since that prayer for the chips, tristan has uttered other spontaneous prayers now and then, once for a friend who had just fallen off the monkey bars at the park, but mostly for things he is happy about. i love his childish faith and all that God is teaching me through my own children.

"From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise..." ~Psalm 8:2

a night away

2010-09-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

last weekend was THE weekend where josh and i got to escape over night. by the time we had everyone in the car on the way to plunk the boys off at sis and rob's house, i was seriously wondering whether it was going to be worth all of the preparation just to be alone for one night. that baby, sheesh. even though he's not so much of a baby anymore, he still requires a ton of gear. like a pack n play, a baby gate for the stairs, a booster seat for the table amongst a bazillion other smaller things like sippy cups and amoxicillin and diapers and you know. just a lot of stuff. of course i forgot the baby monitor at home and had a smallish sized heart attack when i realized it, but i got over it when sis informed me that they'd have samuel sleep in their room anyhow so they wouldn't need one.

i got dressed up for the wedding at sis and rob's house, kissed the kids goodbye and hurried the heck out of there. once we were heading north on the 15, i was super relaxed and not worried about the kids one bit, probably because i had done enough worrying ahead of time to cover for that day. i was the Map Girl and josh was the driver and we were both happy. the first picture was taken to chronicle my happiness and this second picture was taken to chronicle josh's happiness and the sudden appearance of my double chin. seriously, its all in the the angle of your jaw, people. i'm only posting that second picture because i think my husband looks impossibly hot, otherwise into the virtual recycle bin it would go.

we saw 2 cars on fire during our mini road trip which was interesting. we also saw lots and lots of this:

which is just what we have a ton of around here. brown hills. lovely.

once we needed to jet on over to the 210 i started taking my Map Girl responsibilites very seriously. i got us through several freeway changes and it looked like we were golden right up until the very last exit which we took a moment too soon and found ourselves heading straight into the dodger's stadium which is where neither of us wished to go. josh did some fancy back-tracking and we made it into pasadena and found the wedding location with plenty of time to spare.

it was gorgeous. the sun was getting lower and lower as the ceremony began, but it was still nice and warm out. we knew nobody there besides one of the groomsmen, the groom and one other guest who attended bible school with us in england. josh is not a fan of weddings. like, at all. but i love them. and look! i took a picture of my super cute super cheap shoes just so i could show you.

the flower girl and ring bearer were ADORABLE and made my heart twist for my boys just for a split second. halfway down the aisle, the little girl turned around and when she didn't see her mommy, she started wailing her eyes out. the little boy sort of looked at her with a frown on his face and attempted to hold her hand and continue down the aisle, but she wouldn't stop crying until her mom came and scooped her up. it totally made me think of how that is what often happens in marriage. the wife gets herself all riled up over something rather small, the husband doesn't get it at all, but quietly tries to take his wife's hand and help her see reason in the situation, and then the wife gets all over dramatic about it and flips out. (not that that has ever happened in my marriage or anything)

the ceremony was short and sweet and then we had cocktails and hours-dourves while the chairs for the reception were being set out. i loved the woodsy theme of the wedding and particularly liked their idea for a guest book. each guest pressed their fingertip into green ink and stamped their fingerprint onto a painting of a tree, then signed their name over their fingerprint "leaf". oh, and the dessert table! those fun little treats tasted just as good as they looked.

the dinner was delicious and became even more enjoyable for me when i got a text from sis in the middle of it telling me that samuel was "snoring like a bear." perfect. then the toasts were made and the dancing began and i got a quick snap of josh with his buddies thad and josh, who were all pretty much inseperable 8 years ago at capernwray hall before we took off with thad and headed to the hotel.

thad had to catch an early flight the next morning, but we all stayed up chatting for awhile before heading to bed (josh and i got the bed in the separate bedroom while thad was kind enough to take the pull out couch). the next thing i knew it was 7:30 in the morning, which is sleeping in for me, so i was stoked. we had planned on spending the morning in hollywood before heading home, but after indulging in a relaxing breakfast downstairs, we both decided just to head home since josh wasn't feeling so great and hadn't slept well.

we took the 5 home and i waved to disneyland as we passed and then to the ocean as drove alonside it. we ended up arriving home an hour before our children got there and josh had to keep telling me to stop pacing. the boys (of course) had a blast with their aunt and uncle and cousins. i honestly don't think that either of them missed us for even a moment and that's the way i'd hoped it would be.

we spent the rest of the day hanging out with the whole family including jim and margo, our cousins visiting from scotland. the boys got good and dirty at gran & grandpa's house and we had them home, fed, bathed and in bed by 5:30pm and ourselves in bed and snoring by 8:30pm. which is just the way i like it :)

stop the clock, please

2010-08-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

the passage of time has always intrigued me. ever since i was a young girl, it seemed that i was always counting down days until something, looking forward to the next event or season. during a particularly boring french class in high school, i remember calculating exactly how many days until i would graduate (eight hundred and something, i think it was). i've always gotten a little thrill out of turning the page on the calendar to a fresh new month and seeing evidence of seasons changing outdoors. i adore autumn, but one year as a child i was so ready for winter that i climbed the cherry tree in my parent's backyard and shook those branches so hard, wanting all of the leaves to fall off so that it would just snow already! after josh and i were engaged, my mom gave me a pretty glass jar full of chocolate dusted almonds, one to eat every day until our wedding.

and now, it seems, i've passed this trait of trying to speed up time to my eldest. he's been into asking a million questions lately and is in love with the idea of the four seasons. he has walked up to a complete stranger and told them, "winter is my favorite." you have no idea how much he longs for winter to come. every morning he asks me, "what it is outside today, mommy?" and i've been giving him the same response every morning: "its summer outside today, honey." and he sort of pouts a little, but when i remind him that fall is just around the corner, he perks up a bit. he has actually woken up from a bad dream crying and saying, "i want it to be winter now!" the first day of autumn is september 23rd and i've decided that he and i will have a little "fall party" together where i'll have him help me put out the harvest decorations and i'll make hot apple cider or something. even though it will probably still be 100 degrees outside. i haven't been able to break the news to him that we won't actually get snow at our house, but i'm planning on driving until we do see some snow when it arrives a bit further east.

the thing is, as much as i love having time fly by and seeing changes and watching my kids grow before my eyes, lately i've been wishing i had a pause button handy. my two boys are at just the greatest stages right now, both individually and together. tristan is a learning machine and i had no idea how much i'd love to teach him all that he wants to know. he is obsessed with snakes right now and i think that we have every book about snakes from all the county libraries in our living room right now. he knows more about sharks than i do and is now able to recite the days of the week... we are working on the months of the year next. the idea of homeschooling is becoming more and more appealing as i see how eager of a student he'd be.

samuel is just a ham. we had an hour long wait at an urgent care clinic this afternoon because he has another ear infection and once the baby motrin kicked in, he was entertaining every single person in that waiting room. he loves to clap, point, wave, "talk" on the phone (or anything remotely resembling a phone), dance until he falls down in a heap and wrestle with his big brother. he is such a little toughie, which is good because tristan isn't always the most gentle with him, but he adores tristan nonetheless. he would follow that boy into the bathroom if tristan would let him, but of course he doesn't let him, so samuel patiently waits outside the door like an obedient puppy until tristan emerges and samuel squeals with delight. "sam-yule! wets play togever!" tristan will holler and they will do just that, racing all around the house with giggles and shouts and shrieks.

i never knew watching my children play together could be this heartwarming, and i'm hopeful that it will last and that their bond will grow even stronger through the passage of time. still, i don't think that any future stage will ever compare to the cuteness that i get to witness on a daily basis. those boys.....they get me all gooey inside, bless their little hearts.

pretty

2010-08-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

two evenings ago, josh and i were expecting a guest at our house. because guest visits are not terribly common and also because i have 2 little whirlwinds of boys, the house was quite out of sorts and needed to be straightened up. i spent the few spare moments in my day cleaning fingerprints off of the glass doors, dusting the top of furniture that hadn't seen a dust rag in far too long and polishing the bathroom faucet to a high shine. when everything was sparkling clean, i looked around me and gave a deep sigh as i realized that even though my house looked tidy enough, it was missing something. it didn't look pretty.

i'm the kind of girl who can't bear to open the pages of home decorating magazines because i instantly feel overwhelmed with what my house lacks. when looking at other people's facebook albums or blog posts, i often stare at the background of their photos, noticing how cute and decorative their homes look and wondering what i could do to make my home look a little more put together and cute and homey and...pretty.

so, i decided to add a bit of color around my home without spending a penny. i used flowers from my backyard and whatever kind of containers i could find (in one instance, a salt shaker) and went about adding splashes of bright, happy color to every room.

our guest called later to cancel her visit and for a moment i felt as if i had put all of this effort in for nothing. but as i was washing dishes that evening, i kept glancing up at my windowsill where a humble bouquet of geraniums and bachelor buttons smiled brightly at me and i realized that a little bit of pretty shouldn't be spared until there is someone else to notice it. natural beauty was given to us for our enjoyment, to remind us of our Creator and from now on i intend to enjoy it fully, even if i am the only one who does.

(not) in style

2010-08-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

in a few weeks, josh and i will be going on our first overnight getaway EVER since having kids. wow. i just re-read that sentence and am sort of stunned that it is true. don't get me wrong, we've had nights alone before when tristan has spent the night elsewhere, but we've never had a chance to get away from the house overnight together in at least 4 years. (and the night we spent in the hospital before i gave birth to samuel doesn't count.) a good friend of josh's that we both know from capernwray is getting married up in LA and, though we could enjoy the wedding, then drive the 2 hours home to save money, we have decided that we deserve a night away and we're just going to take a deep breath and do it even though we really can't afford it.

sis and rob will take care of the boys (and i'm a bit nervous over leaving samuel overnight because he isn't exactly weaned yet, but everyone assures me he will do just fine and even though i know they're probably right, i can't help but worry about it because worrying is just something i feel like i have to do which is ridiculous, i know, but i figure if i get all my worry out now, then i'll have none left for that evening, right? and if i do find that i still have some leftover worry in my pocket, i'll just have another glass of wine and slow dance with my husband.) anyhow. so, sis and rob will take care of the boys which is completely awesome of them and it is also perfect because they live halfway between us and LA. i am nearly giddy with excitement when i think of going to this wedding. apart from the amazing looking venue, i'm mostly stoked that i get to eat a dinner that i didn't prepare without having to cut up baby bite sized pieces for samuel and get up from the table several times to retrieve forgotten condiments. and of course i'm excited about the alone time with my husband. that just goes without saying.

what i'm not terribly excited about is figuring out what to wear. this couple is a good 5 years younger than us, so i am assuming that the majority of guests present will also be equally young and fashionable and ridiculously good looking. this intimidates me somewhat. i'm the girl who has clothing hanging in my closet that is so un-trendy and blah-looking that it would be difficult to decipher which decade it was purchased in. i used to be fashionable, of course, back in the day before i was married with kids. i remember being so proud to own this very cool greenish sort of sweater (that i paid over $100 for without batting an eye) because courteney cox wears the exact same sweater in a certain friends episode and i bought it before that episode ever aired. yeah, i was that cool. i would buy magazines just to narrow down my choices for what sort of footwear i should purchase that season. now? please don't ask me what's in style. all i know is that i think the current trends are downright ugly. my mom and i visited my favorite store when i was in BC in april and the moment i walked in the door i felt so very old because i didn't get any of the clothes. they were very slouchy and shapeless and sad looking and everything confused me. and that's when i realized that i had become one of those moms i used to look at when i was in high school....you know, the ones with the back-combed hair and fluffy bangs with their shirt tucked into their mom jeans....we used to say they were "stuck in the 80's". well i now know that i am stuck in the 2000's. because that decade was the last place i remember having any fashion sense at all.

so, back to the wedding. as i was saying, my closet is such a mish-mash of non stylish clothing (some of which still may have "maternity" written on the tag) that i have absolutely no clue what to wear to this wedding. the only dress that fits me right now is the one i wore as a bridesmaid 3 months ago and i really would prefer not to be mistaken as a member of the bridal party at this upcoming wedding. i have a brown skirt with an awful pattern on it that i got on clearance at kmart about 3 years ago and a long black broomstick type skirt that my mom in law gave to me because she no longer wanted it. those are not even remote options. is it any wonder that i've begun to pray that stacey and clinton will miraculously appear before my eyes and whisk me away to new york for a week? until they do appear, (i believe in miracles) you may find me furtively searching the racks at our local thrift store, or raiding friends' closets uninvited. a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. and i gotta find me a dress!

Teriyaki Turkey Salad

2010-08-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

you know that you're feeling truly uninspired when its been over a week since you last blogged and all you can come up with is a recipe post. ah well, at least its something, right?

this recipe is something i sort of made up one day when i had a bunch of random ingredients and wanted to make a quick lunch for myself. a lettuce wrap recipe that i make often inspired me, but i find a salad so much easier to eat than lettuce wraps, though not quite as fun.

i'm not going to write a detailed ingredients list.....its cooking for crying out loud. i say use what you can and throw in some new stuff and come up with your own delicious invention.

here's what i did: i browned half a pound of ground turkey in a skillet (whenever i can afford it, i get the all white meat ground turkey cuz its way healthier than just the random ground turkey) and while that was cooking, i grated a carrot and chopped up a stalk of celery into tiny bits and added that to the turkey. if i had had a green onion on hand, i would have added that, but my husband doesn't allow onions in the house, so i made do with some onion powder and dried chives. next i added some diced red bell pepper (though any color would do) and then rummaged around in my fridge, discovering some leftover brown rice, so i added about a cup of that too. once it was all nice and warm and steamy, i drizzled some thick teriyaki sauce on top along with soy sauce (i recommend using the lower sodium options for both of these sauces) and mixed it all in. then i spooned a nice big helping of my turkey mixture on top of mixed greens (i think i used romaine and baby spinach that day, though iceberg has such a great crunch to it). for funsies and mostly because i was about to take a picture of it, i sprinkled some dry asian noodles and sesame seeds on top. voila! a super easy and pretty healthy meal for the whole family.

moms of many and moms of few

2010-07-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

today was a day much like any other. the boys were up bright and early, breakfasts were eaten, clothes were put on, josh was calling around to see if he could find any work for next week (work has, frighteningly been very scarce again lately), a walk was taken and so was a nap. lunch was served, dishes were washed, books were read, balls were thrown and a visit to the library happened. after the library visit and before dinner was started, i collapsed on my bed with the sound of tristan's persistent questions and demands in one ear and samuel's whines and frustrations in my other ear. just before josh whisked them away into the backyard so that i could get dinner on, i gave him a hug and whispered jokingly, "i think we have too many kids."

the real, dirt-bottomed makeup-less and naked honest truth is that sometimes i almost do feel like i have too many kids. WHAT? but you only have 2 kids! i know! i ONLY have 2 kids. and one time, a very very long time ago i agreed to have 3 kids. and now whenever i happen to think of that agreement i feel as if i need a brown paper bag to breathe into.

it is not as if i would happily give one of my children up; please don't take my ramblings that way. and it is not as if i'm not thankful that God saw fit to bless us with 2 healthy babies; every single day when i pray for them, i thank the Lord that he gifted us with such miracles. its just that i think that 2 kids is about right. and i also think that 3 kids may just push me over the edge.

i have plenty of friends and acquaintances who have 3 or 4 or more children. my own mother, in fact had 4 children of her own. and so many times in the past i have compared myself to them, wondering what in the world is so wrong with me that i just can't seem to be okay with having that many kids. sometimes i think that perhaps all of their children are angel babies who sleep a whole lot and are happy the rest of the time. then i think that perhaps they just don't care as much as i do about leftover food crusted onto the kitchen floor and fingerprints on the windows and frog legs being ingested. but i would always seem to find "moms of many" who wouldn't fit into the mold i thought they should fit into; moms who were neat freaks like me, or moms who had a couple of difficult sleepers and yet they still willingly wanted to have even more children. and that not only baffled me, it made me feel a bit guilty for not feeling the same way. you see, josh has always wanted 3 children and he still does. as much as he adores his sons, he would love to have a daughter. (of course, we both know that just because we have 2 boys already doesn't mean that we would for sure have a girl next time. you really don't need to point that out.)

earlier this week i was blog hopping and i saw something very interesting linking a mother's ability to cope in the chaos with the fact that she is either an introvert or an extrovert. if you think about it, extroverts gain energy when they are around people. introverts, on the other hand, gain energy only when they are alone. for me, as an introvert, i not only need to be alone to feel energized; i also need to have absolute and complete silence all around me. that just does not happen around here very often which is why i think i feel like a great mom until around 1:00 when the baby is napping and i need my space, but tristan is all over me to play with him. i lose my patience so easily in the early afternoon and once the baby wakes up i am literally counting down the hours until bedtime, just wanting some peace and quiet!

when i let that train of thought sink in, i felt a little bit freer all of a sudden. there is a reason why i come home from noisy play dates feeling spent and exhausted. there is a reason why i sometimes bribe my oldest to play all by himself for 30 minutes so mommy can simply not think about anything. and there is a reason why the thought of having just one more child makes me instantly break out into a cold sweat. the "me" time that i so desperately crave isn't a purely selfish desire. it is also a need that i really can't afford to ignore and that i shouldn't feel so guilty indulging in. i am an introvert. i need my quiet space in order to feel like a happy human. and no, realizing this has not brought josh and i any closer to an agreement in how many children we'd like to end up with, but for now we are more than happy with what we have.

(...but my friend leah's advice to "call it a day and have josh get permanently fixed?" sounds like absolutely grand advice to me!)

the post without a name

2010-07-23T20:43:00.001-07:00

josh is out playing poker this evening, so once the boys were in bed and i had finished the dishes i told myself rather sternly not to just collapse on the couch with the remote control in my hand, nor to sit in front of the computer attempting to "catch up" on blog reading (which, by the way, i never find myself able to do), but rather to do something a little bit nicer for myself. and i could think of nothing nicer at that moment then to go out into the backyard and weed my flower bed. it was just lovely. i sat on a tiny child's plastic chair and got a lot weeded before the sun went down (i tell you, having the summer sun set before 8:00 pm is something i just love about living here) and then i came inside with muddy hands and feet. i stepped into the bathtub to quickly hose my feet off and as i was doing so, was horrified by the state of my heels. i probably haven't had a pedicure in about a year, and i certainly haven't been diligent in using a pumice stone, so my heels looked extremely disgusting and cracked and dirty and i was suddenly really embarrassed of them, even though nobody else was looking at them at that very moment. so i filled the bathtub up with enough steaming hot water to cover my feet and added a few drops of lavender essential oil, then sat on the edge of the tub with my feet submerged and a fresh-from-the-library-book open in my lap.

the book is called "the last time i saw you" by elizabeth berg. it is a novel about a 40th high school reunion and normally the subject matter wouldn't appeal to me, but i've made it a point to read every one of elizabeth berg's books and i have liked them all very much. well, all except for one called "talk before sleep" which was about a couple in the middle of a divorce and i found it rather depressing. anyhow, i finished the first chapter before scrubbing my heels to death, and as i scrubbed i thought about the character in the chapter i had just read and how i don't think i like her very much. and then i wondered if elizabeth berg was anything like that first character. because i don't know about you, but if i ever wrote a novel i don't know how i would be able to do it without writing somewhat autobiographically. the thought that one of my favorite authors may be a person that i wouldn't like very much in real life disturbed me enough so that once i was done scrubbing my heels and drying them off, i opened the back cover to reveal the latest photo of the author. and when i saw her smiling at me, she looked almost familiar somehow.

i have seen plenty of photos of elizabeth berg on the backs of book jackets before, but something about the tilt of her head and the squint of her eyes made it seem as if i had met her before. it was only after i had applied lotion to my now smooth feet, and slipped on a pair of soft as a cloud socks that i logged onto blogger and my profile came across the screen and then i figured it out:

(i will, by the way, consider myself very lucky if i look even remotely like her when i am in my 50's.)

now it is 9:00 and already i feel sleep calling to me. when i look over at my bed, i yawn unintentionally. that is what happens when both of your boys find 6:00 in the morning the perfect time to wake up. not that i mind anymore. i used to mind a whole lot, if you can remember my posts agonizing over the fact that nothing we tried would help tristan sleep past 5:30 am. once i came to accept the fact that he is an early bird and there is nothing we can do to change that, things got a lot easier. (oh yeah, and once he became old enough to stay downstairs on his own with a banana and a sippy cup of milk and "curious george" on the tv, things got even easier). samuel has just fallen into the pattern of waking around the same time as tristan because we put them both to bed early. most days they are in bed at 6:30 in the evening. its really the best thing ever. when i hear other moms talk about how their kids sleep in till 10:00 in the morning it sounds wonderful at first, but then i realize that those kids probably don't go to bed until 9:00 or 10:00 at night and my envy stops right there. having 3 hours of childless time with my husband every single night is just heavenly and worth getting up at 6:00 am for.

now, this post is long enough, right? any longer and people may scroll down and decide not to even begin reading such a lengthy post. the thing is, this post doesn't really have a specific subject. so what do i title it? seriously, ending and titling my posts are the 2 things i despise the most about blogging.

so, bye.