As I sit here watching Noah recreate the movie Cars on our dining room table, I start thinking about how exciting it is going to be with a little infant here with us. I continue to have mixed feelings about the arrival of Ezra. Sometimes I am ready for her to be here now, and other times I think... another three months isn't that far away and EVERYTHING is going to change once she's here.
I am beginning the scary journey of mentally preparing for labor again! I got the old Bradley Method book out, and I am reading about the lovely pleasures of my baby moving her way down and making her presentation into the world. "The pain is good" they keep reminding me... "It just means she is closer and closer to being here!" I completely trust and believe this process is true. If not, I wouldn't have made it through Noah's labor!
This time around is VERY different! For one, I know exactly what it is going to feel like! So I can't just pretend that maybe, miraculously it will be entirely pain-free like I hoped for with Noah. Secondly, chances are that it is going to be faster than Noah's birth. SWEET! However, discussing this with a woman that is going on her third all natural delivery, I can't help but worry now since I see that even after having two, she still stresses about the labor.
I have started the process of pondering all of this in the middle of the night when I can't sleep... not so good. BUT I am starting to think about it again, and preparing myself for it. No use in waiting for labor and hope it goes well. Labor takes a lot of mental preparation! So I read about First Stage Labor yesterday... and I CAN do it. I will use my relaxation techniques and keep myself under control. Ben is an amazing coach, and now that we both know what it is going to be like, we can make improvements to our birth plan and it will be SO sweet when she does arrive.
Here is our little Noah right after his birth... there is nothing sweeter in life!
Next post... my fears on having a hospital birth after the home birth.
I know it is only 9:00 a.m. right now, but I am writing about my Monday morning from 12:00 a.m. on so it has already been quite a bit of time!
Ben and I have been watching bits and pieces of Evita in bed with our laptop occasionally, and that is what we did last night until about 9:30 before I was out. I don't know if it is normal to have scary dreams during pregnancy, but that is exactly what it has been for me. At least 3 times a week, I wake up with a racing heart terrified about what I was dreaming about. It ranges with a lot of things from Ezra and complications to last night's example about my brother and me losing teeth!
Unfortunately or fortunately maybe, I always wake up from these dreams, and it is so hard to get back to sleep because all these new issues come into play... like "oh! yes I have to pee as well" or "baby, I can't fall asleep if you are going crazy in there!" My biggest issue is that when I do have to pee, I need to check the time because if it is within a couple hours of Ben having to get up for the day. If I wake him up by going, and he can't get back to sleep right away... I get Mr. Grouch! Now, in his defense, he tells me I should absolutely go if I need to and not hold it just because of him, but he tells me that once he's had his full nights sleep and some tea/coffee in the morning. What would he be saying at 3 in the morning huh??
So, I woke up to a messy head of hair, ready for some coffee! Thankfully Noah slept in an extra hour and I am very thankful for that!
I am excited to start my week! I start bible study and exercising again! I will leave everyone with Noah pretended to sleep. Have a great week everyone!
We had a wonderful holiday season this year! Ben was blessed to get two weeks off from work, so we really took advantage of spending that time together. We had a lot of friends in town for Christmas and the New Year, so we also spent some quality time with them.
We missed our family in Oregon though... we hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year! Thank you all for the cards and gifts! Noah loves his truck Grandma and Grandpa. He especially likes that he can make it move all by himself! He really enjoys watching it make its way across the hardwood floor.
We didn't realize how many of our friends live out of town until just recently! It was great to see all of you, to catch up a bit, and to show you how much our little Noah is growing up.
Christmas day was great! We have spent the last two of our Christmases living with my parents. (Not that I regret that mom and dad!) But since this was Noah's third Christmas, it was the first time we got to spend it as a family! It was amazing! Noah was thoroughly excited for the first time, and we really enjoyed spending that time with him. Between gifts from his Oregon family, Colorado Springs family, and mom and dad, this kid wasn't bored for days!
More big news... we got to celebrate our other family coming 'home' to CO. Tom and Rachel have been our BFF's for... 6 years now! WOW! We have watched each other get married, have kids, change jobs, and grow. We love 'em. The kids play really well together, and it has been really fun to watch them interact. Welcome home friends!
Our New Year was great too! We had dinner with said BFF's, Ben and I took Noah to spend the night with Grandma and Papa, Ben and I went to the Sherlock Holmes movie, and watched the ball drop in our jammies while drinking sparkling cider. I must say, usually our New Year's parties flop, so this year we didn't want to do anything big... just hang out.
Updates on the family:
Ben enjoyed his time off work! He greatly enjoyed having friends in town over the past few weeks. He is still a web-developer for House Party, and we are very grateful for that. He is still working away at MB, and to be honest... not quite sure how all that is going. You'll have to ask him. :) He has been reading like crazy, and his big gift this year was the Kindle. We'll see how quickly I lose time with him once that gets here!
Noah is doing great. He is growing so fast, I can hardly keep up. I am dearly holding on to his baby phase, but he is running away from it fast! He is testing me ALL the time, but I just have to keep telling myself that it will pass, and I am so thankful that he is healthy and 'normal'. Right now we are working on his new clock puzzle. Learning the shapes for each number, and familiarizing him with recognizing those numbers when he sees them.
I am doing good too. Right now, I am associated with this little baby growing inside, and that's okay with me. I had a partial placenta previa at my 20 week ultrasound that could have been dangerous, so I spent that last 4 weeks a little stressed. Right after Christmas, I had another ultrasound to see if it corrected itself, and praise the Lord, it did! I am healthy, she is healthy, and I will most likely have the natural delivery I wanted! She is growing fast now. She weighs over a pound, and I am feeling kicks now! This pregnancy has been a stressful one, but God has truly blessed us with a healthy baby and healthy mommy. We can't wait for our little Ezra Raye.
As for ME me... I am doing good. I am trying to spend as much time as I can with my Noah. I am going to miss this one on one time I have with him now. I am trying to eat healthy, take my vitamins, exercise, and get rest along with cleaning the house, doing laundry, entertaining Noah, and giving myself some personal quiet time! Life is busy, but good!
Happy New Year everyone!
I'll go ahead and say I enjoy reading teenage fantasy books. This originally started about 5 years ago when Ben introduced me to Harry Potter. The second movie was about to come out, and he wanted to see it. I honestly thought Harry Potter was a kids movie, and that I wouldn't really enjoy it. Well, before we went to see The Chamber of Secrets, we rented The Sorcerer's Stone. My heart was changed! I loved being brought back into childhood. I loved how the movie made you believe you could light a fire with the flick of a wand, or food would just show up right in front of your face. The story line was good, and I instantly cared about Harry.
After the first two movies were released, I decided to go back and read the books. The fifth book was about to come out as I began that journey, and it was just as wonderful to read the books. I was the big fan then... I wanted to get there opening night for the movie, and wait in line for two hours, then see it again the next day... and buy the DVD when it came out, and watch all of them when I stayed home sick. Then, it was my turn to do some convincing. We had multiple friends that had never seen any of the HP movies... so I coordinated multiple HP marathons! I have to say, those friends did find themselves enjoying HP too. I was in line two hours early for The Half Blood Prince a few months ago, and I intend to do so for the remaining films.
The next series that I got into was The Twilight Saga. Now other than being total fantasies... these two series have nothing in common. Harry is about the constant battle of defeating You Know You, and Twilight is a love story. A very powerful love story! I'm finding it hard to be as crazy about Twilight as I was about HP... here's why.
After I read the series once, I read it again and again! Those books draw us (women particularly) in. A totally selfless, gorgeous man that would fight for you, and would die if you weren't with him...WOW! I fell into the mania, and I was in line for Twilight opening night! However, I was a tad disappointed when they portrayed perfect Edward as not being totally perfect like he should be. Overall, if you like the books, you are forced to enjoy the movie even if the acting was disappointing and it looked totally cheesy. That is why for New Moon the 12:00a.m. showings grossed $26 million in over 3500 sold out shows nation wide. If there are fans of Stephanie's amazingly desirable books... then those fans will support it no matter what!
I am really excited to see New Moon! But as the hype of it coming out has been crazy, I began thinking about a weird feeling of sadness that has overcome me about the series. To start... I am a little embarrassed that I like it. I mean come on, I am a married woman with children! So I didn't want to be with the "silly" girls waiting in line freaking out about how Taylor Lautner's and Robert Pattinson's bare chests are going to make them go crazy. I didn't want to be jam packed in the theater, listening to the giggles, and ooohs and ahhhs every time he did something romantic. I just didn't want to associate myself as one of the millions of girls who is crazy about these 'men'. That is honestly what it is about. Like I said earlier, it is a love story. That is why it is so desirable for women. I love romance movies! I know I will love New Moon even if the acting is sub par again, and if there are cheesy effects. I'm a romantic.
The worst part for me is the little girls that will get their hopes up that if maybe someday... they could just meet Robert or Taylor, they (the boys) will for sure fall in love with them! It brings back many memories of teenie bopper days when I swore that if I could only meet Justin Timberlake, he would marry me. I kid you not, I was 100% serious about marrying that guy! I entered sweepstakes, called radio ads, and did everything I possibly could (at 13) to meet him. Well, it never happened! I read an article about Robert, he was saying when he was signing autographs at the premiere, some girl begged him saying, "What do I have to do to get your attention?!" He said, (jokingly) "Take off your clothes." AND SHE DID IT! She got kicked out of the premiere, and I guarantee you it still didn't get his attention. He probably has no idea what she looks like. 13 year old girls screaming "Robert is my life!"
I know that if I had a 13 year old girl, I don't think I would let her read the books. The problem is, when you put something like that into a movie... all her hopes of Edward turned into Robert. And she will forever be disappointed when no man will ever meet that standard for her. She is too young to even fathom that her future won't/can't consist of Robert Pattinson. I know they are feeling it, because I started to question my husband. I began to set a standard that was ridiculous and I needed to take a giant step out of the fantasy and back into reality where my husband meets expectations for an amazing husband and then some. And it isn't just Robert or Taylor, but any movie that portrays a love story. This stuff is bad for women!
Like I said, now that I have gone through this craziness, I feel better about watching a romance movie, and knowing it is fake. I can separate myself from the fiction, and get back to reality. I hope the mania calms down, but there are still two movies to go, and I know it will be crazy. I just need to keep these thoughts in mind, and hope mom's tell their daughters it is fake, and for the mom's to remember it is too!
Sorry for the long post!
Yesterday started off just like every other day. We got up, ate breakfast, bathroom time for Noah, got dressed, and Noah and I got to go to church for my weekly bible study. As the day went on, everything changed!
We haven't had Noah in the church nursery for months because he would get sick almost every time we had him in there. Yesterday was his second week in there, and I was really worried he was going to react like he did the first week. (The first week, after only being in there a short time, he began to cry and cried on and off the entire time!) So I told his teacher that I would check in on him more often just in case he did it again. He was fine for the first hour, but when I peeked in at that point, he was crying. The teacher saw me at the window and told me not to worry about getting him, so I went to class. When I picked him up, he was playing just fine. She told me that right when I saw him was the only time he cried and it was for a short time. I was so thankful he adjusted that quickly to it again. He obviously needs more time away from mommy! :)
Noah and I enjoyed lunch at the church afterward, came home, and I put him down for a nap. I ran to the store and was back about an hour into his nap. He usually sleeps for 3 hours, so I was preparing it to be a while before he was up again.
All of a sudden, Ben heard him saying "Ouch, ouch!" He started coughing a couple days ago, so I thought his cough was bothering him. I went in with some medicine with antihistamine to hopefully help him sleep. He pointed to his back saying "Ouch mommy! Back hurts" He had a tight fitting shirt on, so I thought maybe that was hurting him when it twisted as he slept. So I took the shirt off and told him to lay down. About 15 minutes after that, he started crying which turned into wailing.
I went to check on him, and he was still pointing to his back and complaining that it hurt. He was pointing right to his kidney area, so it really worried me. I stood him up and he was toppling over because of pain. He began touching his stomach, and just couldn't get in a comfortable position. Noah has never had stomach or gas problems, so to see him in that amount of pain was so difficult for me to even think of diagnosing. I called the doctor and since we couldn't get him comfortable and he was sore on his back, she told me to bring him in right away.
On the way to the doctor, Noah seemed to calm down in the car. I thought maybe it was just a stomach ache, but once we got to the doctor, he showed signs of sensitivity still. By the time the doctor came in, he was feeling fine. She checked his urine anyway, to make sure nothing serious was wrong. (Everything came back negative thankfully!) She did say that Strep symptoms are usually cough, sore throat, and stomach pains. So even though she didn't test him for it, she saw a pustule on the back of his throat, and thought this was the issue.
It's so frustrating that he ended up sick right after we introduced him to the nursery again, but I am prepared to deal with it because I am really excited about being apart of the bible study, and I know it is really important for Noah to interact with other kids.
After two hours at the doctor, Walgreens had an hour and a half wait time for prescriptions... so after that huge wait, we get home for dinner at about 7. We get Noah fed, and into the tub because he was playing with dirty toys at the doctor, and I also thought it might make him feel better. Well, I had a lot to do, so while he was in the tub, I was taking care of things here and there. Backing up a tad, before I put him in the tub, I told him to go poopie on the toilet because he hadn't gone yet that afternoon. He said he didn't need to go, so I put him in the bath, only to hear him say "Mommy, I poopied!" Sure enough, we had some floaters in the bath. That was a first!
Is it crazy that I made it two and a half years before any crazy situations happened to me? Is it normal to dump on you all in one day? Aww, the beauty of children. So precious and so challenging at the same time.
We just got back from a wonderful trip to Oregon. I updated our Flickr page with some photos.
It was full of family time which was the point of the trip, so it was perfect! Noah enjoyed seeing everyone, and it is exciting to see that he is old enough now to remember his family out in Oregon.
Now that we're back though, I have loads of laundry, grocery shopping to do, and house cleaning... I guess we're back to the real world. Always kind of sad.
Here is an adorable video of Noah playing with Grandma's train.
