No time for sleep

Some people sleep before their first night back on night shift. I've been off for a few days. Not me. Nope. I usually end up staring at the wall from about noon until 3 and then maybe I end up dozing for an hour before waking to get ready. The first night back is rough. Always.

We are headed in to Easter weekend. I've had some big craft plans but no time to pull them off
Thank goodness the Easter shopping is done. However.... I've been dying to make the kids some cute Easter themed pajamas. I have this wonderful toy - my embroidery machine. It beckons to me. It keeps me from The things I should be doing (sleep). So I spent a few hours working on these.  I think it was time well spent.

Happy Easter!!

In a deep mood

I'm in a deep mood tonight.  I've been thinking about friendship. You really never know who your true friends are until your relationship has been put to the test.  I've suffered some terrible losses in my life. I'm sure most of us have.  Unfortunately pain and suffering are part of living in this world.

 A dear friend whom I've never met in real life had a terrible loss a few months ago. Terrible. The worst. And I, although I haven't experienced the same level of loss , try my best to identify. To find the correct words. The words that really will never make any of it better. Ever. Never ever ever. I never wanted to be a fair weather friend. Being a true friend is messy. It means being there for the good and the bad. It means rather than standing on the sidelines, getting down and dirty in the mud. It means being able to empathize. Not sympathize. Sympathy is for cowards. Sympathy makes us feel better about ourselves without having to share another persons pain. Empathy is feeling that knife twist when your friend is hurting and being present in the moment in any way possible. When my dad died I was lucky enough to have a friend to come and be with me. To just listen. And let me cry. Because nothing will ever be truly OK. There is nothing to say.  It's all about being present and trying your best to let your friend grieve and to be there as a shoulder to lean on. A true friend is there for the unpleasant. I am willing to be there. Are you?
Dear friend. You know who you are. And I will never speak your name or your private business but I just needed to let you know that no matter what.... You have true friends who are not just standing idly by watching you and saying "gosh I hope she's ok". No. We hurt with you. Your pain is our pain. Your Joy is our joy. And we would give anything to be right there for hugs and support day or night.
Much love.
Christa

I would rather just sit here

It's Wednesday and I'm tired. The sun is trying to peak around the clouds and the most marvelous thing is that it is not raining. I can see the backyard from my recliner. It is in dire straights. It needs a weeding, some mulch and perhaps a mowing. But oh man. Do I actually think I will take advantage of the lack of rain and do my chores? I'm considering it. But it requires me to get up and dressed, shoes on. Find the garden tools. Deal with bugs and mud. I've also done the Jillian ripped in 30 video multiple times this week and my muscles are angry. The kids are running circles around me this morning. Destroying my house. And I could either nap during their naptime or work on the yard. It's a tough one.

Maybe I need to just flip a coin. Possibly I just need to suck it up because once it's done I know I'll feel accomplished.

Cadence - 3rd Birthday and a little Doc McStuffins

My Cadence turned 3 years old on March 8th.

I really can't believe how fast the time has passed. She is my crazy wild child. Her screams could make your ears bleed. She has a fiery temper. However she also has the most adorable dimples. Her smile will melt you into a puddle of goo instantly. Oh that child and her charms. She is now following Ethan around the house and copying everything he says and does. All day long I hear him say "Stop copying me!" Oh she loves him so.  She also loves to dance and sing. Her favorite cartoon lately is Doc McStuffins. She will gleefully listen to your legs, tummy, arm, chest, heck any object with her stethescope.  She sings "Time for your KETCHUP" :) And I don't dare correct her. It's so adorable.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! You are my amazing miracle and I love you so much! 

Comfort and sleep... the joys of memory foam

Question: How does one know when one is over the hill? (yup I'm writing in 3rd person, ain't I fancy?)

Answer: When one writes an entire post about memory foam mattress toppers.

If you have not yet discovered the bliss of sleeping on a cloud of heaven you may not have a memory foam mattress topper. I however now know the joys of such a wonderful nights sleep. OH MY HEAVEN.  My poor children. They have to rip me out of bed in the morning now because I am so comfortable. I may not even budge if Mt. Rainier erupted. *sigh*

Gel infused memory foam bliss. They should just call it BLISS. This is not my bed by the way. Mine is not that pretty. But it is extremely comfortable! 

Are you jealous yet? You should be! :) Just call me a happy camper. Now can someone make my husband stop snoring? THAT my friends would solve all my problems.

Talent Show - Mackenzy and her friends

I'm hoping this video will upload here. My sweet Mackenzy had a talent show tonight and she did great. I'm so proud of my brave girl! I hope this works.

Early mornings

I have not blogged in FOREVER. I guess that goes with the territory when you have 4 kids. Blogging becomes a luxury. Tonight I fell asleep with Liam on the couch at 10 pm. Worn out most of the day I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. And now here I am awake since 3 am (it is now 4:30 am). And here I sit in a chair nursing my little man. It's funny how being awake and having quiet makes you think. So I figured since I don't have a 2 yr old tugging on my arm asking for a "cuppy" or a "viiiimin" (vitamin) and a 4 yr old bouncing all over the place I can sit here while I nurse and reflect and record my thoughts. Who knew! Moms of 4 kids have their own thoughts that do not include the tv schedule for Disney Junior. Haha. Well....

What was I saying?

Oh yes. The quiet. The soft woosh woosh of the dishwasher and gentle snores of little Liam as he dozes here in my arms are so peaceful. His little eyelashes flutter against his soft squishy baby cheeks. His yummy baby smell co-mingles with the heady smell of the rain from last night. Heaven. This must be what heaven is like. Peace. Soft babies. What else do we need really?

(I just got interrupted by Mack who came down stairs to see why I am up)

I know someday when I can sleep all night uninterrupted I will miss this. These early morning wake up nursing sessions. So I am working on not focusing on my tired body and more on how lucky I am to have a sweet healthy baby who loves to be close to me all night. (And all day). I know someday he won't want to be snuggled up against my chest. So drink it in. And enjoy the early morning hours rather than mourn your sleep. This time will pass so quickly. My very last baby is now almost 7 months old. Blink and its gone.

Liam Cliff - welcome to our family

It's mid February - actually Valentines day. So today seems like a good day to tell Liam's birth story :) 

The morning of Jan 21st we went in for an OB checkup at 39 weeks and 4 days. Still 2 cm but he was able to stretch it to 3 so he stripped my membranes and sent us out out to walk the mall for 4 hours. Immediately after that I was cramping and spotting a bit. My contractions were ranging from every 3-5 minutes apart and hurting pretty bad in my lower back and into my legs. In fact at times I had to stop walking because I felt like my legs were going to buckle. 4 agonizing hours of walking and trying not to look like I was in pain at the mall, we went back and he checked me. Still at 3 cm. He stripped it again and holy moly the cramping was bad! Sent us out to get dinner and come back to L&D at 7 pm to see if any progress or if he could break my water and get things going. We decided to drive up to see my 2 good friends and sit around their condo. I was pretty much over the walking at this point. So I stood and sort of rocked back and forth while trying to make conversation with them. At this point these contractions were hurting a lot and I was feeling a lot of pressure. It was getting more and more difficult to talk through them. We went back to L&D at 7 pm and got set up on the monitor. Still contracting about every 3 minutes. Cervix was 4 cm at this point! After getting the IV set up and my epidural - my blood pressure dropped to 68/40 so I earned a shot of ephedrine in my arm. fun! Once that all stabilized my OB came in and broke my water at about 10:15 pm. Baby dropped at that point to 0 station. I could really tell he had dropped because I was having insane pressure even with my epi - wrapping all the way to my back. The OB decided to step out and watch the monitors for a bit and see if I made any progress. My nurse went on break and Mike stepped out to go use the restroom. 

At about 12 midnight just minutes after Mike disappeared a whole bunch of nurses came rushing in because the babies HR was in a prolonged decel into the 80-90's. They turned me side to side, tried oxygen, fluids, put on an internal heart monitor on the baby. It would briefly come up to the 120's then drop again. Something was up. I was rechecked and my cervix was only 5 cm. So my doctor started talking about a run to the operating room. :( At that point I was so discouraged. This was EXACTLY what happened with Ethan. As soon as I hit 5 cm the baby was in distress. They shaved and prepped me for a c/s. No sooner had they done that the heart rate recovered back to the 130's and stayed up. As long as I was on my side it seemed to stay stable. So about 30 minutes after the decel started they cleared out and left just me and my nurse and Mike. Mike had walked back in during the middle of the chaos where both me and my OB yelled "where the hell where you?!" and my OB threw him some scrubs to change. Shew! After that I started getting the shakes really bad. Nausea and shakes. I KNEW I was in transition.

The great thing about my epidural was that I could still move my legs and also I felt TONS of pressure. With every contraction I could feel the head move lower and I could feel tons of pressure down there. At about 1:15 I started feeling like I needed to bear down so I told my nurse. She had my OB come back and check and I was complete! they brought in the delivery table and my OB sat down on the foot of the bed to do a "practice" push. I gave one big push and felt the head pop out. Then my OB was saying "wait, stop!" and fumbling for his gloves lol. He hadn't even uncovered the delivery table yet. Right away the OB was saying "Look at this cord!" I forgot to even check to see if we had a boy or a girl! I looked down and saw a big knot in the umbilical cord. Crazy! Then they handed him to me and I saw for myself - baby BOY!!!! So worth the wait!! I held him for a few minutes and they took him to the table to suction his lungs because he had meconium in the amniotic fluid when they broke my bag.

Liam Cliff was born Jan 22, 2013 at 1:33 am weighing 7 lbs 9 oz and 20 1/4 inches long. His head was 14 inches around. Apgars were 8 and 9. Perfect little man. :) Yay VBAC!

weekly shopping list

Shopping List

Happy Leap Day!

Or happy leap year? Hmmmm. Not sure how to celebrate this extra day of the year. I just realized that I haven't uploaded a picture for February. So perhaps my Project 12 is gonna flop? Nah!!! I WILL get a picture tomorrow. I will!!!!

The end of February marks the beginning of an emotional month. March. On March 8th my baby girl will be one. ONE! ONE YEAR OLD. I just can't believe a year has flown by so fast. Really really fast. I am so blessed. She is a healthy, bouncy, screachy, smiley, clapping, standing, crawling, vibrant one year old. almost.

 I still can't believe how scary her birth was and how uncertain those first days were. I really didn't know if we would get to this place. Where she is so wonderful and healthy.

BLESSED.  *tears*

 I still have 8 more days of my baby before she gets advanced to toddler-hood. Or rather waddler-hood... since she isn't quite toddling yet. More like cruising holding onto the furniture. And plopping onto her diapered bottom. God I love that little girl. She rocks my world.

So happy end of February and beginning of March!