Charlie’s Birth Story

8 weeks ago today. I remember sharing Lolas birth story and getting so many amazing responses. Her birth was SO traumatic and left a really scary spot in my brain knowing I was going to do it again. We went in on September 20th at 5am, scheduled for a csection to start at 7am. I was a lot calmer than I thought I would be. The IV went in, we waited around, we met our nurses and anesthesiologist, we were assured we would get skin to skin time in the operating room this time, and 7am rolled around. They asked me to get up and walk into the OR. This was it. But was it? I started panicking, I remember telling Chuck we should just go home, and that I didn’t think I could do it. They all promised me I could and that I had already done it with a lot more trauma. So I walked in quietly knowing that if I kept my mouth shut and focused I would be fine. When I get really nervous, I get super quiet and I need to just not talk so I can stay focused. It’s like if I open my mouth, I’ll lose it. So all was fine, I kept calm, got my spinal and laid down. They had to tilt me backwards to move the spinal up and I remember feeling pure terror thinking that the spinal would go too high again just like Lola’s delivery. I was practically upside down for what felt like forever but maybe only 10 minutes. I got an instant migraine and told them my head was killing me. I was risen back up and they let Chuck come in. I was so ready to start, meet my son, and get out of that OR! A few minutes had gone by and they asked us both what we thought he was going to weigh, I responded with 8lbs 12oz, and Chuck was so nervous he just said “yeah I’ll go with that too!”  I felt an insane amount of pressure, and let out the worst scream I’ve ever let out, but with no noise because they pushed so hard they took all my air out of my lungs! At this point I thought there was a nurse sitting on me and my ribs were broken for sure, they pushed hard on me again, and I heard the faintest cry!! I asked if he was okay, and I heard my doctor say “drape!” And they pulled the drape down for a split second and put Charlie right in my face! The first look at MY SON, finally! He was born at 8:16am! I guarantee I’ve never cried so hard in my life. I was sobbing with so much joy that I couldn’t breathe. They brought him around and showed me again and my first words were “HE’S BLONDE!” I had no idea we were capable of making a sweet little blonde boy, but man I was happy. They wiped him off and weighed him and about 5 nurses and Chuck all turned to me with so much excitement shouting “8lbs 12oz!!!!!” 

I was ready to try skin to skin and felt a huge waive of nausea come over me and told the anesthesiologist I was going to throw up. I REALLY started throwing up. Which I have never done laying flat with my guts ripped open! I was honestly thinking “please don’t let me lose any of my organs!” But the anesthesiologist was so calming, was holding a cold wash cloth on my face and rubbing my head and brushing my hair back. He was truly amazing. He kept telling me “not much longer” and assuring me everything was going perfectly. I heard him ask the doctor if he could turn the Petocin down because I was so sick. And it seemed like as soon as he did I felt so much better. I honestly don’t know how much time went by but I remember thanking God over and over and over when they told me we were done. I had made it, and my son was perfect. They wheeled me into recovery and I started shaking uncontrollably. I remember the same thing happening with Lola, and they told me it was normal but I knew I had to wait to hold him. I was trying so hard to just calm down and finally I held him for the first time. He nursed perfectly and my life was instantly changed. We keep saying we’re done having kids, and maybe we are. But I’m forever grateful to have that moment of my doctor showing him to me and the feeling of PURE joy. Not the kind of joy you have on a vacation, or winning a game, or even watching your kid learn something new. Joy like, I know this is my purpose, this is what I’m here for. 

Friday Favorites

I've been following a lot of blogs and a couple of them do a Friday Favorites post, and I've found a lot of great items through them. So I thought I'd use my day off to make a little list for those of you following along, whether its for the baby advice, baby fashion, or just to listen to me rant. God bless you.

Here we go.

Lets start with a couple things Lola has been loving lately, other than the easy idea of just being outside. Girl would live outside if I'd let her. She has been LOVING her Gloworm lately. Her grandpa got it for her for her first Christmas and she really has taken to it lately. She falls asleep listening to the lullaby, and wakes up hugging her every morning. It melts and breaks my heart that she is so in love with two specific toys and they're both toys her grandpa who passed away last October got her. Is it a coincidence? I don't know. But its something special. When I went to link it here, I found out it's been discontinued, so it feels even more special now. 

We've also recently turned her car seat around in both of our cars and she is l-o-v-i-n-g it. Just watches out the window and loves car rides now. She didn't exactly hate car rides backwards before, but it was hit or miss. This mama is loving being able to see her so easily and tickle her chubby thighs whenever she wants.
 

 
These 360 cups are probably the greatest sippy cup invention in history. They do not leak at all. And I'll admit the first one we got I stared at it for a few minutes trying to figure out how they work, handed it to Lola and she just drank right out of it. So some days, I'm not as smart as my 18 month old. I chucked all our old sippy cups with no hesitation and bought 6 more of these babies.

 

Other things we're loving right now, our matching Hanna Andersson jammies. Just the softest most comfy pajama's ever. And I'll buy anything to match my "looks exactly like daddy" daughter.  These lemon ones for women are the cutest, and on sale. Lastly, for Lola, I'm having a hard time deciding on which water table to get for her to play with outside. She loves anything involving water. Bath time, washing her hands, running through the hose, so I know she will really take to a water table this summer. Any suggestions?

 
I can't get enough of these cardigans for spring. They're perfect to throw on over a tee or tank when it's chilly in the morning still, and they're not too heavy so you can wear them all day when it warms up. And duh, on sale.  

Lastly, I've finally gotten into a routine of taking care of myself (i.e. washing my face and brushing my teeth every night) it only took my 30 years guys! I'm obsessed with these face masks from Sephora, and my new Sonicare tooth brush. I mean seriously, who is still brushing their teeth with a manual tooth brush? This thing is the shit. I use the face masks on Sunday nights, which has become my favorite night of the week with my new routine of clean bed sheets, a face mask, and popcorn. I've used all of the face masks available so far, but I think my favorite is the green tea. Speaking of beauty products though, have you heard of LipSense? I didn't either until recently, and it's totally worth every penny. Doesn't smudge, or come off on anything. I find myself wanting to go places where it's appropriate to wear fun lipstick. Hit up my girl (@foreverlastingbeauty) on Instagram and order yours. 

 
 
Thats all I've got for today. We've got our annual Maple Festival this weekend in town and we've only been looking forward to it for 364 days now...
Have a great weekend everyone.

 

Easter 2017

Well Easter (and April) has come and gone. I can't believe it how fast spring is moving already. I don't get nearly enough time to post on my blog any more and it makes me so sad. I hope to at least start posting once a week soon.

Chuck had Friday thru Sunday off from work, which hasn't happened since Christmas for him. He works every week, 6 days a week. It was incredible to have him home and get a ton of things done around the house. It was absolutely gorgeous weather for Easter weekend. We finally took down our 5 million christmas lights outside and cleaned up our 6 million sticks in the yard. 

This was Lola's second Easter, but she was at an age this year where she could partake in some fun Easter activities. On Saturday, we went to our small towns Easter egg hunt. It lasted all of 3 seconds, and she got all of 2 toys, but it was still a fun event and I'm glad we did it. Lola has always been a people watcher. This is why she is so great going out to eat with us. She just watches everyone around her. We joke and say shes "judging" everyone, but she is just totally amused with what other people are doing. This didn't make for a great Easter egg hunter, since she was so involved with what 30+ kids were doing running around the muddy grass picking up a bunch of rubbish. But I think she still enjoyed herself. Or maybe just petting all the dogs.

 Lola woke up Sunday morning with the sun shining and ready for her Easter basket. I was so excited to create this basket this year with items I knew she'd love. Isn't that bunny the cutest thing you've ever seen? It's from Homegoods, and I had a hard time not buying 15 of them. I found the yard utensils and the  flower pot with paints at the dollar spot at Target. The cute gold crown is from H&M. This Bunny Roo, I Love You book which is so adorable for Easter. I'm such a sucker for gorgeous kids books. And her favorite part of the basket, Little Cosmetics Pretend Makeup Set. If you follow me on insta-stories, you see Lola doing her make up with me all the time. She absolutely loves to sit up on the counter and "do" her make up. Which ultimately has ended in all my make up being smashed, and all of my brushes being ruined. So this gift set was perfect. She has already done her own and mommy and daddys make up several times since Sunday.

Lola's Jammies from last year (similar here)

We hosted Easter Sunday at our house. It was our first holiday to host with both our families coming. We have a pretty small house, but having nice weather made it a little better so we could be outside. There were 15 adults and 7 kids in our house for dinner. And enough food for 50 people. We had an easter egg hunt of our own, which my nephew dominated in running through the flower beds like a machine.

Lola's Easter Dress / Hunter Boots / Lola's Eyelet Slip Ons

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter with their families, and are enjoying the amazing spring weather all around.  

18 Months

Well, in the fastest 18 months ever, this girl happened. I want to remember every little thing about her. I want to write down the hilarious things she says

 and does and never forget what an incredible thing it is to be her mom at every age. 

 

Age: 18 months

 

Stats: She is weighing in at a whopping 30 lbs. at her 15 month check up she was in the 98 percentile for weight. And she has grown 2.5" since her first birthday, putting her in the 94 percentile for height! She is a baby model.

Favorite Food: There pretty much isn't anything she won't eat. Some weeks she goes through phases of not eating a single blueberry, and then the next week will eat an entire package in two days. Every morning I ask her what she wants for breakfast and every morning she replies "waffles." But we rotate waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs, and yogurt mostly. She loves loves loves yogurt covered raisins and applesauce. Will open the pantry every single evening and grab a bag of cheetos. And will take down a bowl of spaghetti in 5 seconds flat. Girlfriend is a great eater. 

 

Words:  Her vocabulary has drastically changed since turning one. She will try to say any word you ask her to. Words and phrases most used throughout each day, "dog dog" "nana" "Lou Lou" "dog dog go!" "Bubbles" "diapy" "mingo night night"  and of course "mama" and "dada"

 

Favorite Activities: being outside for sure is her favorite thing ever. Chasing the chickens around saying "ba ba ba." Running through a million bubbles. Rocking her babies night night. Having snacks. Music. She always wants music on and dances all day long! Playing with Louie

Favorite Things: Books. Louie our chihuahua. Crayons. Glow Worm. And her favorite flamingo that she snuggles with.

Least Favorite Things: Diaper changes, putting on clothes, taking off clothes, and anytime mom walks out of the room.

Signature Moves:  putting her hands up in the air while dancing, putting her hands together and scrunching her nose and saying "pweeese" when she wants something. Getting diapers out when she needs a diaper changed. Sitting on the counter and doing her make up with mom, she will put "blush" on and then look in the mirror and smile at her pretty make up. Shaking her booty and pointing to my phone to ask for music. Stuffing her flamingos head under her chin to cozy in and fall asleep. And dropping everything she's doing to run up to the tv when she hears the Gilmore Girls theme song. 

Lola has ALWAYS loved her routine. I'm working on a post to describe a little bit about our daily schedule.

The last few weeks she has had a hard time being away from me. Thankfully she doesn't really need to be often. But it's been a little hard for mom and dad to get anything done around the house. The term "toddler" tornado is legit. She will destroy a room in 2 minutes, but she is a great helper at putting things away. She loves to do things like empty the dish washer, and load laundry into the washer. Though she wouldn't mind if we never turned on the vacuum ever again. 

She's 100% a people watcher. When we go shopping or out to eat she is just taking everything all in observing everything. I like to think she gets that from her Papa, because I always remember him being like that when I was younger. Actually, he's still like that at 66. She's such a Nana's girl. She wants to call Nana and be held by Nana all day long. I mean, so do I, so I don't blame her. 

This age is so much fun. She really seems to be developing a personality of her own and becoming a little person. I hope I never forget her sweet little voice, her booty shaking, and her hilarious giggle. 

 
 
 

 
 

 

Lola's Bilateral Myringotomy

I'm sure you're asking, "what is this header?" But I felt like making this subject header rather fancy. First I want to start off by saying thank you so much to all that reached out to us to ease our minds before, during, and after Lola's surgery. She did AWESOME, and I'm so glad we did it and it's over. I wanted to wait to write this post until we had taken her for her follow up and to see if the surgery had actually worked.

So we had to be there at 6:30am, and we live about 40 minutes from the hospital we were having it done at. So I tried to just scoop her up in her pajamas and put her in the car, but she woke up while in the garage like "why the heck are we in the garage?" And she was up.

Prepping her for surgery was so much easier than I thought. We were the first surgery scheduled, and she didn't need an IV, so they had their Child Life Services Department come over to her room and just let her play with tons of toys and bubbles until they were ready. It was great. They let one of us go back with her in the blue scrub space suit, and I probably should've sent Chuck, because of course I cried watching her be put to sleep, but seriously I was a nervous wreck. She didn't even cry one tear the entire time she was being wheeled to the OR, and switching beds, and laying down, and them putting the sticky monitors on her and everything. They put the mask on her, and she barely even got one single cry out before she was asleep. They walked me out, and the doctor said he would be coming to get us within 15 minutes.

Twenty five minutes goes by, and Chuck can tell I'm about to flip out. I get really really quiet when I'm seriously nervous. Like I shut down and can't talk to anybody, and don't want anyone talking to me. He has only witnessed this once, while they were prepping me for my c-section. So he could tell I was terrified. The TV screen still had said she was "in procedure" so I was starting to cry at this point, thinking "he said 15 minutes!"

 And then the doctor came out as soon as I started to cry and walked us back to recovery. Lola was definitely upset, and a  little dismantled from the anesthesia, but with a little water and about 15 minutes, she was almost completely back to normal. We left the hospital about 45 minutes later and she was completely back to normal by then!

So we had our follow up last night and the ENT said he had never seen her ears look so great. And I will tell you that we immediately noticed a difference in her. She has always been a very happy/playful girl, even suffering through all of those ear infections, and by Saturday morning she was a complete maniac. She is SO busy now, and laughs hysterically all the time. I honestly don't think she has cried a single tear since then. I still can't believe it.

So if you're on the fence about getting tubes in your babies ears, or they're struggling with infection but not to the tube part yet, I say just do it. It has been incredible already.

Ear Infections

On September 30th, just 3 days before Lola's first birthday, she came down with a cold and ultimately a double ear infection. She hadn't been sick since May. All summer we had no runny nose, no cough, no doctors appointments, and no medicine. 

Today is January 24th, and we're on our 53rd day of antibiotics since then. Yes, I'm counting. We tried a round of Amoxicillin, 4 rounds of Augmentin, and now a round of Cefdinir. Lola is so used to getting medicine, she literally gives it to herself now, and loves it. If you say "lets get your medicine" she looks excited, and will open her mouth. It may sound cute, considering the first couple rounds we gave her, you had to hold her down. But to me, it sucks giving her this much medicine.
We would go to the pediatrician, she would say she's got an ear infection, consult an ENT. We would go to the ENT, and he would say "ears look good." She might be okay for a week, or 2 weeks. Then back to the pediatrician, and ENT, and so on. But now, I'm over it. We are finally getting tubes in her ears on Friday. I didn't want it to come to this, but I can't keep putting medicine into her. I chalked all her colds and ear infections up to being in day care and winter, but enough is enough. I'm more than terrified to have her put to sleep, because I've been put to sleep so many times and I absolutely hate it. But I know, at least I hope, this means no more medicine!

The ENT doing the tubes removed my tonsils and a huge abscess in my throat when I was younger. I feel a little bit better about that. 

Long story short, and I don't do this very often, but I'm asking for positive thoughts and prayers for Friday morning, and for the rest of winter so that our sweet girl can just go about her day and play with her toys like a little toddler should. And to wish mommy luck not to have a nervous breakdown in the waiting room. Thankfully daddy (the strong one) will be with us the whole time.

Three Month Hiatus

Since I took a blogging hiatus (read: have been so busy I can't see straight) I thought I'd do one big round up of our fall, winter, and new year, so we can get back into blogging again. I've got A LOT of girlfriends pregnant with their first babies right now, and I'm way too excited for each of them. Hoping to keep this thing going as I organize a few things over here. I've got major goals for 2017 and can't wait to share the fun with you.

Lola's First Birthday. It was Pumpkins and Roses everywhere!
 We were operating under very sad circumstances, as we had just lost Chuck's dad that morning. But we had a crew of friends and family to help us! We are forever grateful to all of you for lifting us up on a day we really needed it.
Lola was fighting a cold (and a nap) that day, but still had fun putting cake into our mouths instead of her own. It truly was a beautiful day, and we know Chuck's dad was with us!

  
Halloween. Lola went as a witch to school that day, and we got to trick or treat in our home town up onto the square. She was the cutest little Dorothy ever and LOVED walking up to each house and taking more than one piece of candy each time! We had a little Halloween Brunch at our house with my girlfriends and their babies. Lola was the only girl this time and it was too cute.

Thanksgiving was a little chaotic as we have two places to eat dinner, 2 hours apart. But we watched the parade, feasted like kings, and enjoyed the company of both our families!

Christmas was wonderful with Lola this year. She's getting to the point of understanding that toys are hers. And she finally can play with all her older cousins! Our nephew had to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the hospital this year with HSP (google it, none of us even had a clue what it was) We felt so terrible for him and our brother and sister in law. But we still managed to have the family together as much as possible. Lola got her first helmet, which made daddy SO proud as he has been totally impatient in wanting to take her snowboarding. And her first sled that she had no idea what was happening.

New Years Eve we spent at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and it was total sensory overload for Lola. She walked around in total awe. It was so cute. And then we hosted New Years Day dinner and celebrating my dads birthday at our house. Which was another red flag why we need a bigger house! 10 adults and 6 kids. Everyone always ends up in Lola's room because it's huge, and all the kids are wild throwing balls and toys everywhere. Thats what you get with two one year olds, 2 three year olds, an 8 and a 10 year old. Total chaos, yet so fun and heart warming to know they're all a part of us!

Thanks to all of you sticking around here, reading my posts. I truly appreciate it and hope to blog as much as possible, make everyone laugh, maybe inspire a few.