Baby Yawns, Bachelorette, Swimming, Mood Swings, Massages and Minivans

I miss my Friday Five! It's kinda become my way of including lots of random thoughts into one catchall post. It's not Friday, but here is some miscellany for the week.

How cute are baby yawns?!?

It's no secret that I love The Bachelor/Bachelorette. I know it's heavily produced and far from the "reality" it claims to be, but I can't help myself. Especially this season I wonder if the contestants/participants/whatever feel really stupid when they watch the show after all is said and done. I mean, seriously, this Ashley chick is coming across as completely pathetic (and bipolar). She's probably a really nice girl or whatever, but ugh. And the guys are just as lame. Boring season. Moving on.

We've been taking Avery swimming quite a bit lately because my parents' neighbors (our church's former associate pastor and his family) are moving to Kansas (which I'm still bummed about!) and generously offered for us to use their pool whenever we wanted this summer until their house sells. Avery was pretty timid in the water at first, but now she begs to put on her Elmo "fwimsoup" and go kick in the water.

There have been some crazy mood swings in our house lately, and surprisingly enough, they're not even coming from me. Avery is totally Jekyll and Hyde these days. Well, minus the whole murder thing (except that she is murdering my sanity). She can be screaming her pretty little head off one minute, and then she'll be so sweet and happy the next. It's hard to pinpoint the reason since it's most likely just a combination of being almost two, having a new baby in the house, and being totally thrown out of her routine last week with VBS taking over our lives. Anyway, God is definitely teaching us patience and understanding, and hopefully this is all just a stage. Right??

Speaking of VBS, it's complete for 2011, and I'd definitely call it a success. I'll post more on that later, but for now I'll just say that I already feel tons better now that I've had a couple of days to just rest.

Another reason I feel like I've rejoined humanity is that I had an awesome massage today! My cousin Amy is a massage therapist, and Matt was so sweet to text her last night to see if she could fit me into her schedule today. I'm so thankful that she did, and I'm already looking forward to her coming over on Wednesday to hang out with us.

So tomorrow we're going to check out some minivans. What has my life come to?!? We've discovered that our little Scion xB will not fit two car seats and a front seat passenger comfortably. (Comfortably meaning without my legs touching the dash.) I always swore I'd never drive a minivan. Never say never.

I've whined about this a lot the last week or so, but our house looks like a nightmare right now. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect it to look perfect, but it's hard for us to relax or enjoy time together when there's chaos surrounding us. But now that I'm starting to feel semi-normal again, I'm hoping to get the house back in working order (while still taking time to snuggle and play with my kids). Plus, Tiff and her family are coming in town on Thursday, so there's some added motivation!

Okay, I'm off to vacuum. Wish me luck!

Wordless Wednesday: Newborn

Photos Courtesy of Allison Jean Photo

I'm still here.

We're just, well, overwhelmed. Hence the blog silence.

VBS is in full swing. We've had way more kids than we ever anticipated, so things have been crazy. Tonight went much smoother than Monday, so that's good.

There is clean laundry hanging out all over our living room. At least it's folded.

Avery has been thrown so far off of her routine that I'm not sure she'll ever get back to her normal self. I can't even get mad about her tantrums because I'd be acting the same way if I were her age.

I haven't checked my Google Reader in so long that I'm afraid to now because I'm sure the amount of unread posts is unmanageable.

I still haven't written thank you notes for baby gifts. I'm thankful, really I am. Just please give me another week before I can express it in a card. :)

I really want to sew. I'd also love to fully recover from, you know, having a baby. While I'm wishing for things, sleep would be nice.

Matt went to the grocery store today since we hadn't been in almost two weeks. Not eating fast food for lunch was a highlight of my week.

It's hot. As much as I love Texas, summers here kind of suck.

No caffeine today = major headache. Guess I should start cutting back...

I missed Avery's 23 month update post, and now that it's halfway through the month, I'm just going to wait until her two year old post. I was planning on stopping the monthly posts when she turned two anyway. Maybe I'll just make it every 6 months?

Speaking of turning TWO, I have got to plan Avery's birthday celebration. It's only like two weeks away.

Only a few more days and we can rest. I'm so thankful for my family and friends and all the people who have helped me stay sane while trying to launch VBS. You know who you are.

Okay, no more complaining tonight. I will now make a valiant attempt to sleep.

Week One.

Here are a few snapshots of our first week at home with our newest addition.

We stayed two nights at the hospital, and we had the best nurses. Our first nurse (night shift on Tuesday) was Deborah, then Wednesday we had Brianne (who we had met while walking laps the day before and she specifically scheduled herself to be our nurse), and Deborah was our nurse again on Wednesday night. The Thursday nurse wasn't as cool, but since we were discharged in the morning it didn't really matter.

Avery's gift from Landon. She's on a little Tinkerbell kick lately.

Kendra and Allison brought Avery to the hospital to see us on Wednesday, but she made us so sad when they needed to leave! She kept crying, "Mommy, come with us! Daddy, come with us!" Needless to say, I cried too.

Matt's impression of Landon's sleepy face

Matt actually went home around midnight on Wednesday night to stay with Avery since my mom needed to go back to work on Thursday. He took Avery to a friend's house (thanks, Whitney!) on Thursday morning and came back to the hospital in time for us to be discharged.

The hospital stay got a little boring (I'm so glad we didn't have to stay as long as we did with Avery), but we got lots of good snuggle time with Landon, and we really appreciated having visitors.

Muncle Vernon!

Kendra

Kari

Beverly is actually a nurse at our hospital, but she wasn't working while we were there, so she stopped by to visit anyway. :)

Chelsie (Stephanie stopped by later, but I forgot to snap a picture!)

Avery's done pretty well with the transition to being an older sibling as opposed to an only child. She loves to hold Landon (we have the pictures to prove it!), and she's always trying to get in the middle of the action (even helping with diaper changes). She even wants to read her "big sister book" before every nap and bedtime. She's definitely had more meltdowns than normal since we've been home, but I can't say I blame her. We've really made an effort to make sure she gets lots of individual attention, but things are still, well, different. I think with some more time (and lots of patience and understanding on our part!), she'll be just fine.

We've been so blessed by sweet friends who have brought us some fantastic dinners. Our church's Helps Ministry provides three meals for a family after a baby is born, and one of our neighbors brought over a delicious chicken pot pie when we got home on Thursday. I even have a few freezer meals that I made last month, so I'm extremely thankful to not have to cook right now. I'm doing good to just get a shower. And I'm not even getting those every day. Yes, I just admitted that.

I have the best husband in the world. Matt is a huge help around the house; he's worked really hard to help keep the kitchen clean, he changes his fair share of diapers (without complaining), and he's taken the initiative to get every meal ready so I don't have to. I'm SO thankful for him!

We've had some good visits with family and friends since we've been home.

Aunt Allison

Grandma

Nene and Pop Pop

Brittany and Uncle Nick

Amy

Breastfeeding is going so much better than it did with Avery. This was something I was pretty worried about because we just really can't afford to buy formula right now. Oh yeah, plus "breast is best" and all that jazz. I just remember being so overwhelmed and frustrated with every (forever long and painful) feeding when Avery was a baby, that it's been a pleasant shift that Landon seems to be a much better nurser. Maybe we'll make it longer than three months this time.

(Don't worry, I don't have any breastfeeding pictures for ya.)

Matt and I are sleeping about as well as can be expected. Landon is a sleeper, that's for sure. He's so chill and really only cries when he's hungry. He'll go for a 4-5 hour stretch between feedings at night, so that's been a decent chunk of sleep for me.

Things have been a little overwhelming this week while we try to adjust to our newest family member because Matt has had to be at tech training at school since Monday and I've been working at the church the last couple of days trying to get ready for VBS (which starts on Monday). As long as we can survive until VBS is over next week, I think we'll be golden for the rest of the summer. Until then, we'll try to enjoy the chaos, knowing that it's only temporary and babies grow up way too fast.

Landon's Birth Story

I've been trying to write this all week (starting at the hospital), not because I think you necessarily want to read all of the fun details about Landon's arrival, but because I am finding that I cannot remember anything anymore and that is a problem. So this is for me. :) 

I mentioned in my last pregnancy post that I was going to be induced on Tuesday, May 31, which was only one day past Landon's due date. Even though I chose that date, I was really second-guessing the decision once it looked like I wasn't actually going to go into labor on my own.

(Back story, I was induced at 41w2d with Avery, and it was not a pleasant experience. I was in labor for 19 hours, pushed for 2, had two epidurals, threw up a lot, was thisclose to having an emergency c-section but my doctor is awesome, had major tearing, and couldn't hold my baby right away because the NICU nurses took her because her heart rate was crazy low. She ended up being just fine, but it definitely wasn't the birth experience we were expecting.)

Back to Landon. My mom came and stayed at our house on Monday night (she was keeping Avery on Tuesday) since we had to leave so early, and we made it out the door to be at the hospital by 6:00 am. They took us back right away, and I filled out paperwork while they got me hooked up to the little contraction monitor thing and set up my IV (eek). I was already contracting quite a bit on my own, but they weren't as regular as they needed to be, and I was already dilated to 4 cm. I asked if, instead of starting the Pitocin right away, Dr. D could just break my water and see if that would help get things going. He was down, so after he broke my water at 8:30 (which, by the way, might be the grossest experience ever), Matt and I started walking laps around the postpartum wing. For the record, we made 14 laps and made friends with the postpartum nurses (which definitely came in handy!). We went back to the room to watch some Big Bang Theory and nap a little bit, but by 11:00 am there wasn't enough progress, so they started Pitocin at 11:15.

I got my epidural at noon. I'm not even ashamed. It was awesome.

I progressed pretty slowly, considering how dilated I was when we got there, so around 2ish Dr. D wanted to see if Landon was in occiput posterior (OP) position (aka "sunny side up") since that can make labor take much longer. (Avery was OP also.) Sure enough, he was. My (amazing) nurses decided to try to move me into different positions to try to get him to move on his own, but somewhere in the process, Landon got moved into a position that he did not like because his heart rate just plummeted. All of a sudden, I had an oxygen mask on, Landon had an internal fetal monitor, and the nurses and Dr. D looked really concerned. I overheard one of the nurses make mention about getting an OR ready just in case. After a scary few minutes that felt more like hours, we heard Landon's heart rate pick back up, and we breathed a sigh of relief. They turned off the Pitocin for awhile and kept me on oxygen to give Landon some time to recover.

I was super nauseous through the second half of labor (pretty sure it was because I was starving) and was finally able to throw up right before it was time to push. Aaahhhh. Lovely, right?

Anyway, after 25 minutes of pushing, I heard Dr. D chuckle as he said, "Well I was a little off; that's a big boy!" Landon was placed on my chest at 7:24 pm, and the scale proved that he was, in fact, a big boy at 10 lb 6 oz (as opposed to the 7.5 lb that Dr. D estimated)!

Landon got cleaned up and I got some food (Sonic burger and fries...mmm).

And Landon finally got to meet his big sister (who is just smitten with this little boy).

Landon's first hours of life were also spent with Grandma and Grandaddy, Uncle Aaron, Aunt Chelsea, and Aunt Allison (Uncle Nick was camping in Minnesota but assures Landon that he'll make it up to him).

We just love this precious baby boy and are so thankful for our family of four.

He's Here!

I'll post the birth story and all the other fun stuff later (along with more pictures!), but for now...

...meet Landon! All 10 lbs 6 oz and 21 inches of him! (Yikes.)

We're so in love with this little boy. To be continued...