With Anna only being a week old, we decided not to make our annual trek up to my Aunt Beckie’s for Thanksgiving (one of my favorite times of the year). We were disappointed not to be part of the big, family celebration, but we ended up having a nice, quiet Thanksgiving of our own. Cracker Barrel served us a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with no preparations or dishes to do!
After the initial chaos of bringing Anna home, we quickly adjusted to our new family of four. That first week we had Anna home may just be the best week I’ve ever had. It was as if time stood still.
Justin took that entire week off (it was the week of Thanksgiving, as well). We had nowhere to go, nobody to see, no schedules to worry about, no cooking or shopping to do because so many people were taking care of us. We had nothing to do except be together as a family. In the midst of my sleep deprived haze, I was able to fully appreciate the bonding that took place over those few days – bonding between mother and daughters, sister and sister, father and daughters, husband and wife. I don’t know how to describe it except that “we just were.” It was us and only us, almost as if we were in a cocoon. Sadly, the reality of life eventually took over. Justin had to go back to work and the hustel and bustle began again, but it seemed a bit easier somehow. I think that week really strengthed our family and made us whole, again, after a busy year where external worries and commitments often got in the way. It was a good lesson for me of the importance of taking time off to reflect and just be with the ones you love. I pray we can find ways to do that more often.
As easy as Anna’s birth was, managing to get her home was a completely different story. We informed the nurses that we wanted to leave after lunch on Sunday. We had our bags packed, baby ready and by 3pm we were STILL waiting for the doctor to check her out. As it turns out, they were worried about her bilirubin levels because she was starting to look jaundiced. 80% of premature babies develop jaundice because the liver isn’t quite ready to break it down. After hours of waiting, they informed us that Anna would have to go home with a “bili bed” and stay on it at all times except for eating and diaper changes. 
After more waiting for the bili bed to arrive and even more waiting for the stupid wheel chair that I didn’t need, we were finally on our way home close to 6pm. Anna was so small, the car seat simply swallowed her.
I was looking forward to a nice, quiet welcome home. When we brought Audrey home, we introduced her to the animals, gave her
a tour of the house and fussed over her like only first-time parents can do (all embarrassingly on video tape, of course). With Anna, we came home to chaos and my high strung postpartum hormones in over drive. My mom was home with Audrey and two of my sisters had gone to pick up my cousin from college for Thanksgiving vacation. As chance would have it, we all arrived at our house at the same time, including my cousin’s young puppy.
Imagine the scene… our dog going crazy because there’s another dog in the house, a completely frazzled, exhausted mom (me) bringing her premature, jaundiced baby home after 5 stressful hours of waiting in the hospital, not knowing if they were going to let us take her home with us, a two-year-old taking a late nap after being totally out of her schedule for 3 days, a stressed-out dad trying to put hook up a bili bed that looks like a straightjacket for his 2-day-old little girl. It was a disaster. I couldn’t take it. Audrey woke up with all the racket going on and she was so tired that she couldn’t stop crying. Anna started crying because she was hungry. I had to feed her, but Audrey wouldn’t let me put her down. Jack was going crazy over this other dog and I felt like I had a party going on in my house. Then, to top it off, the drawer had broken on the changing table, so I couldn’t get anything out that I needed and I when I put Anna in that stupid bili bed, I just lost it completely. Poor Justin probably thought his life was over 🙂 Thankfully, my mom, sisters and cousin realized that we needed to be alone to figure all this out and they quickly excused themselves from the chaos.
I slept on the floor in Anna’s room that night because I couldn’t leave her all alone in that awful looking thing. Intellectually, I knew it was good for her, but it just seemed so awful to have her confined to it and not being able to snuggle with her was a killer. I must confess that I made her “feedings” last longer than necessary just so I could hold her for a few more precious minutes. Thankfully, when the nurse came the next day to take her blood, the bilirubin levels had gone down and they came to take away that silly bed. Through it all, Anna was the sweetest, most laid back baby I’ve ever seen (and still is to this day). She slept in that contraption and never fussed at all. If she had a motto, it would definitely be “go with the flow.” Her high strung mother is forever thankful!
Well, according to my due date (December 17th), I should be right in the middle of the uncomfortable anticipation of pregnancy week 40 right now. Instead, I’ve been blessed to have little Anna Marie in my arms for 3 1/2 weeks. Yep, Anna made her entrance 4 weeks early on November 17th at 6:39pm. Talk about a surprise! Since Audrey was delivered right on time, I wasn’t even thinking about being early, much less THAT early! I thought I had 4 more weeks to knock off the hundred things on my get-done-before-Anna-arrives list. You can guess how many of those have been accomplished.
I was feeling great in week 36 of my pregnancy. Having alot of braxton hicks contraction and some of what I thought might be real contractions, but nothing regular.
I had my first internal exam on Tuesday, the 14th and I was already 2-3 cm dilated, but with this being my 2nd pregnancy I knew that really didn’t mean alot. In fact, I was ready to travel up to my Aunt Beckie’s for Thanksgiving (against the doctors advice) because I was feeling so good. On Thursday, I noticed that I seemed to be leaking a tiny bit of fluid. For those of you who haven’t been pregnant, understand that late in pregnancy this isn’t out of the ordinary. In fact, Justin always teased me every time I sneezed because I just never knew what might happen 🙂 So, I was a little hesitant to call the doctor thinking that I was probably just peeing my pants or something equally embarrassing. Imagine my surprise on Friday morning when they told me to go ahead and go to the hospital to have it checked out.
I flew around the house getting a bag together for me and one for Audrey just in case this turned out to be something after all. After dropping Audrey off at Angie’s and making my way to the hospital to meet Justin, I still was telling myself that I’d be home within a few hours. Justin and I joked at the hospital that this was a false alarm and after 2 negative tests for amniotic fluid, we were making plans on where we were going to eat lunch. Then the 3rd test came back – positive! The nurse said, “you’re going to have this baby by dinner time.” Yikes! It was a small leak, but they were worried about infection, so they decided to go ahead and induce me.
It was the strangest feeling sitting in that hospital bed. Since we really weren’t prepared, Justin took off for several hours while the pitocin was doing it’s thing to get my contractions going. I had a lot of time to be by myself and marvel that this little one inside of me would soon be in my arms. It never did feel real until it actually happened. The entire experience was very surreal. Even when they had the neonatologist come in to prepare me for the potential problems of delivering a premature baby, I had a quiet confidence that all would be ok. My doctor was even out of town in Jamaica! I quickly progressed from 4 centimeters (which is what I was when I arrived at the hospital) and when the contractions started getting really strong they broke my water and I received my wonderful epidural (TOTALLY worth the $1200 it cost my insurance company)!
I pushed a handful of times and our lovely Anna was here. I’m convinced it was the easiest birth in the history of man (haha). I didn’t need any of those nasty stitches…didn’t tear at all…and best of all, I had NO PAIN what-so-ever after the birth or any time since. It really was amazing. Anna was 6 pounds and 18.5 inches long. Her lungs were wonderful and except for being jaundiced, she was absolutely perfect in every way. I still get teary-eyed just thinking about it.
Justin was once again the proudest daddy in the world, holding another precious little girl and Audrey was more than adorable the first time she saw her little sister. She just held Anna’s hand, lovingly stroking it in an almost absent-minded way. She put her lips to Anna’s head and rubbed them on her hair just the way I do. Justin and I both had tears in our eyes as the knowledge that the two of them would always have each other began to take hold.
The next two days were a mixture of happy chaos, with visitors coming all day on Saturday, and blissful bonding between mother and daughter in the quiet moments spent alone. The experience of having a second child was so much more peaceful and natural for me without the anxiety that comes with being a first-time mom. I trust my instincts this time around and know that however difficult it becomes…no matter how inadequate I feel, Justin and I can do this together with the help of family and friends. My girls are the best things I’ve ever done and I thank God every day for giving me them to love.
I just have to start out by saying that I have the best husband in the world! I’ve been avoiding thinking about my 30th birthday, which hasn’t been too difficult considering how crazy busy we’ve been lately. To celebrate the big milestone of being 3 decades old, Justin took me Hannibal, MO, famous home of Samuel Clemmons, AKA Mark Twain, and also the setting for the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It was just an overnight trip, but we packed in a lot of interesting sites including a trolley ride around Hannibal, riverboat dinner cruise, totally romantic night at a secret location Bed & Breakfast, hike up to a light tower, tour of Mark Twain Cave & the infamous Lover’s Leap.
I was really impressed with the rich history of Hannibal. It was fun to see the actual houses and landmarks that Mark Twain used in his dearly beloved stories from my childhood. I wish I would have reread them before going, but I think I’ll read them again, now! Anyway, I was thoroughly grateful for the trip and the time Justin and I got to spend alone together. “It was so thoughtful of him to put that together,” I thought. Then we got home and the real surprise was out of the bag.
Justin, in cahoots with my family & friends, had planned a surprise party for me. I walked in the door all anxious to see Audrey after being away from her for 24 hours and was taken aback to see about 20 people, including my dearly loved Aunt Judie and Uncle Bill all the way from northern Illinois. Audrey proudly exclaimed, “Mommy’s party!” My mom created a beautiful scrapbook of pictures for me and Nora designed a precious shadow box with pictures of our most recent trip to Arcadia, MI. My Aunt Judie showcased her creative talents with a Pixy Mom purse scrapbook that is just too cool to describe – I’ll have to take pictures – for me to display photos of Audrey and Anna. Sarah got me NEW maternity clothes and I was spoiled with lots of other gifts from family & friends. What a day!
I can only hope and pray that the next 30 years will be filled with as much love and joy as the first 30. I truly am blessed to love and be loved by so many extraordinary people!
One of the main attractions at our annual church fair was a 22 foot inflatable slide.
After doing the rounds of small-child-friendly-games, we asked Audrey if she wanted to go down the slide. The first 2 times she went up with Aunt Nora and Aunt Alicia, but after that she was up to the task herself. She was by far the youngest one climbing up the 20-some steps to get to the top and each time she came down, there was just a twinge of fear on her face. Not enough to stop her from immediately saying, “again,” though!
A few weeks ago, my parents spent the weekend with us. In addition to the usual house cleaning they do while they are here and keeping Audrey occupied so we can actually get house projects done (BLESS THEIR HEARTS), they actually STEAM CLEANED our carpets! To give you an idea of how little I like taking care of carpet, over 80% of our house, including the entire basement is now laminant flooring (the looks-like-hardwood, but is soooo much less expensive and easier to maintain) type of flooring.
After we got Jack, our sheltie, it wasn’t too long before I could no longer stand the constantly dirty/ladden with pet hair look of the carpet in our main traffic areas, so we replaced everything but the bedrooms with laminant. While the bedrooms don’t get as much foot traffic, they do tend to get their share of pet puke and other random stains that never quite seem to come out with standard cleaners.
To make a long story short, I was ECSTATIC to come home from a morning of working at church to see my beautiful, steam cleaned carpets! Yeah, that lasted all of about 48 hours. 2 days later, Justin and I were awakened by the all too familiar sound of Jack hacking up his infamous yellow bile puke RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY THOUROUGHLY CLEANED BEDROOM FLOOR. As if that wasn’t enough, the next night, Mocha felt the need to christen the newly cleaned carpet in Audrey’s room with a lovely red hairball. If you don’t have the picture, 2 of our 3 pets have a habitual vomiting problem, which at times is enough for us to discuss shipping them off to pet boarding school if there was such a thing. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t purposely move TOWARD the 20% of our house covered in carpet when getting sick instead of using the so-easy-to-clean laminant flooring that I so adore.
I just chalk this lesson up to another of God’s ways of reminding me that there are more important things in life than perfect appearances. At the end of the day, I’d much rather have a happy household than a spotless carpet. HOWEVER, if anyone has ever trained an animal to puke in a bucket, please let me know. It would certainly make our lives a little easier:)
Labor Day has never been at the top of my list in terms of memorable holidays. It’s nice having the day off, but to me it’s always been more about the end of white shoe season, closing of pools, saying bye-bye to summer, and yet another excuse to BBQ/drink beer, than celebrating the contributions of American workers.
This year, we were blessed with super beautiful weather and a 3-day weekend with which to spoil our darling 2-year old. We took advantage of Saturday and headed out to the St. Louis Zoo. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Audrey was thrilled with the monkeys eating lettuce & carrots, not so thrilled with slithering snakes and a bit dismayed that the sea lions didn’t talk to her like they did the last time we visited the zoo. The most frequently-heard phrase of the day was “see more animals.”
On Sunday I had the bright idea of taking Audrey to see her first movie at a movie theatre. A quick glance at the showings was a bit disappointing. The only “kid” movie was Barnyard. Audrey is a big fan Old McDonald, so we thought we’d give it a try. $20 for tickets and $15 for snacks later, we found out that Audrey’s attention span isn’t quite ready for the big screen after all. She enjoyed the previews & the first, oh, 10 minutes of the movie. Then it was more fun to walk back and forth in our aisle and dance like a chicken than watch the movie. It took 2 trips to the bathroom to play in the automatic faucets (a very cool toy to a 2-year-old) and one trip out the lobby to run around to make it through the end of the movie. Maybe we’ll wait a year to try again. It must have made some impact, though, because she’s been requesting to go back every day since.
On Monday, we headed over to Ted & Angie’s for a backyard BBQ, complete with roasting hotdogs and s’mores over the fire pit and feeding ourselves to the mosquitoes. It was a great weekend. Lots of fun, no work, and a dirty house to prove it…THAT’s a Labor Day weekend to remember!
Audrey’s singing debut: A lovely rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
We celebrated Audrey’s 2nd birthday with over 30 family members & friends (including Aunt Amy all the way from Pheonix)! When I originally took her to the party store to pick out a theme, it was a close decision between Strawberry Shortcake, Elmo & Winnie the Pooh. Elmo won that day, so an Elmo celebration it was! Audrey talked about her Elmo party for weeks leading up to the big day even though I’m positive she had no clue what it really meant. One thing she did know was that there was going to be an Elmo cake! She wasn’t disappointed!
Just having returned from our vacation in Michigan (I know, I know, I haven’t written a post about that yet, either) I was feeling the crunch to get things ready, so my parents came over a day early to help out. We had water games planned for the kids, snacky foods and lots of Elmo decorations to create a festive atmosphere. With so many family members & friends attending, it was a great day. Audrey was a fantastic little host. She was a bit overwhelmed with 30 people staring at her, singing Happy Birthday, but she recovered nicely and blew out the candles in the very first attempt! Tammy made the yummy Elmo cake and it’s still a favorite Audrey subject almost a month later!
Audrey really got into the gift opening this year. Of course, she immediately wanted to open each toy and had to be prodded to keep opening the other presents. She dutifully thanked each giver with a hug & kiss after each gift was opened with a sweet little “day do!” A crisis was narrowly avoided when Aunt Sarah had to make the big Elmo gift bag go away because Audrey was afraid a Big Elmo was hiding in the bag and was going to come out and get her!
After the gift giving celebration, the kids ventured out to the back yard for water games, sprinklers & the pool. For an August afternoon, the weather was actually very nice, especially in the shade. Audrey was her typical shy self, preferring to stand back a little and watch more than actually participating as much as some of the other kids…she gets this from me. As you can see from the pictures, the kids had a blast and that’s what counts, after all!
It’s hard to believe that our baby is really 2 years old. She’s growing up right before our eyes. Her birthday may have been filled with food, fun & gifts, but most of all it was filled with lots of love from many. Who could ask for more?
