Thursday, March 30, 2006

A literal mountain...

of laundry. Seriously. It was piled on top of our tall, cylinder basket halfway up the wall. Another pile on the floor next to it, and yet another full basket downstairs.

How in the world does that happen? There are only 4 of us!! I think we just have been so busy running around that we've changed our clothes a lot. Plus we had several poopy incidents this week, and I changed all of our sheets. Still...that's a LOT of clothes. I don't mind doing laundry, but that was a daunting task. It took me 45 minutes just to sort it all. I have 3 of the 6 HUGE loads done, 3 more staring me in the face today. I'll win -- I'm a woman on a mission now.

Sigh.

I still need to dust, vacuum, clean the bathrooms, do the floors, and clean the oven. When? Not sure. This weekend probably. There just isn't enough time in the day and the weather's been so nice that I haven't wanted us to stay cooped up in here. What's the poem that goes around by Erma Bombeck -- the dishes can wait, I chose to spend time with my kids instead? That's my inspiration.

I think I'm making the right choice -- it just makes coming home to a mess a little difficult. Oh well, it's one or the other!!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Too many people...

Okay, I'm a people person -- I like people. Like being around them, watching them, getting to know them, listening to them, etc.

HOWEVER...

There is a point where too many people make an otherwise enjoyable time not so enjoyable. This was definitely the case at the zoo yesterday. I got there and was like "Holy Crap" as we drove up. We were like the 10th car in line, just to turn into the parking lot. I have a zoo membership and we go at least once a month if not more and I've NEVER seen it like that. I guess it was just spring break families, but I think the fact that it was also over 60 degrees for the first time in a while after some snow got everyone excited to be outside. I do have to say that it was PERFECT weather wise for a trip to the zoo.

So, we finally park at the very far corner of the lowest level of the parking lot, wait like 5-10 min. for the elevator and get up to the gates. The longest I've ever waited in line at the members window was like 3 people. I waited in line for 10 minutes. Mitchell was GREAT. I was so scared he was going to run off and it was just a mess of people. He stood right next to me and held my hand the whole time. (Thank you Lord, for small miracles.)

Of course, I need to point out, this is the environment I chose for my first ever non-store related outing with the two of them by myself. Just my luck!! It was fine but instead of a leisurely stroll through the zoo with our friends, we constantly had to keep yelling at the kids to stay with us, and navigate through more strollers and wagons than I cared to see. The wait in line for tickets to ride the carousel and train was 5 minutes, the wait to ride each of the rides was 10 minutes. Not bad, I know, but it's not Disneyland, it's the Denver Zoo!! It was just crazy.

Luckily, we made it until about 5 minutes before we left without behavior issues and then we just started having a nap-needing mini meltdown. Didn't want to walk, didn't want me to carry him, didn't want to ride in the wagon with Hailey, didn't want to do anything. So, I ended up carrying him and pushing the stroller up this huge hill. Not fun - but hey, a good workout, I guess.

Anyway, I'm glad so many people were able to enjoy the day at the zoo, but I would say I just survived it. Oh, and NO WAY am I going to Disneyland until she's in kindergarten!!

Friday, March 24, 2006

Spring Fever...

I have it!! I'm SOOOOO sick of being cooped up in here. It's been cold and windy and with kids that were already a little sick, especially baby G, I'm not all that excited about having them out in that kind of weather.

Well, it's supposed to be in the 50's and 60's this week and I'm PSYCHED. I just want to get out in the fresh air and sunshine and I know that Mitchell needs it as badly as I do. We're getting a little sick of each other, I think. There are only so many consecutive days you can be locked up inside these four walls staring at each other. The toys are old hat, I'm old hat, he wants to just get out, run, and get dirty. I want to get out and walk. They have built some GREAT parks out in our neighborhood and Mitchell loves to play at them. They're a nice walk away too, which is great for me. Can't wait until we can do it DAILY.

I think that I need to do some spring cleaning, too. My friends from lamaze class with Mitchell all pitched in and got us a gift certificate for housecleaning. We get a 2 hour cleaning session -- I just need to call and schedule it. I think I'll see if they can come sometime next week, preferably when Mitchell is at school. It will be so nice (but weird, I'm guessing) to sit here and watch someone else clean my house!

I'm done with winter -- bring on the spring weather!!

Monday, March 20, 2006

The kids are sick...

Yep, even Georgia. It's so heartbreaking to have a person that teeny tiny be sick. It started out that she was congested last week. I remember expressing a bit of concern to a couple of people about it, but always got the "all newborns are stuffed up" thing. Then she had her 2 week appt on Wednesday -- he didn't seem concerned, but she wasn't too bad at that time. Well, Thursday rolled around and I felt like complete poop.

Wake up Friday morning, Georgia's miserable and so am I. Fight through Friday and looks like everything's fine -- I'm in the bathroom around the corner and hear "cough/splash, cough/splash". I thought "Oh no!!" Sure enough, Mitchell had thrown up twice all over the living room. (After eating his red fruit snacks, btw. We have light grey carpet. Yes -- it was as pretty as it sounds.) There was quite a bit of mucous in it, even though he didn't sound stuffy and hadn't been coughing, I had a feeling it was the same thing as G and I were dealing with.

He woke up Saturday morning -- yep, he's got the crud too. (Personally, I'm suspicious that he had it first and showed up sick the latest, but we'll never know.) This weekend basically just SUCKED because the three of us were just sick. Poor Chris -- hope he doesn't get it. We whipped out the lysol and clorox all weekend and both of our hands are dry as bones from washing them over and over.

Throw the illness on top of a huge temperature drop and a snowstorm and boy howdy! Does it GET more fun than this??? Only when your kids don't sleep - like last night. Mitchell was up from 1 - 3:45. So fun!! NOT. Ugh. We even gave him tylenol which usually makes him conk out, but that didn't help. He was just awake and looking miserable. Oh well. He's up and at 'em this morning and doesn't seem to be feeling too badly, so hopefully that's a good thing. The encouraging thing about him is that his snotties are still clear. Georgia's got all of this green and yellow goo that makes me a bit nervous. Oh well, we called the ped and they said it sounded like we were doing all of the right things -- I'm just ready for her to feel better and breathe easily. Poor thing -- she's too little to be sick. Makes me so sad. :(

Okay -- he's done eating breakfast now. Gotta run -- should be a LOOONNNNGGG day. Oh, and Chris has to stay late tonight -- I don't know who's more upset about that -- him or me. Both, I guess. Oh well, wish me luck with today!!

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Little guy...

My Mitchell is the sweetest boy. I know that he has his moments, and he has a temper (hmmm, where would he have inherited that from???), but his spirit really is so dang sweet.

Today he woke up from his nap when the phone rang -- I have to figure out how to turn the ringer off on our new phone upstairs -- and came downstairs. I could tell he was still really sleepy so I turned on Sesame Street and we just snuggled under a blanket on the sofa together. (Georgia was asleep in the pack n play.) He was laying there and just cupping my face in his hand. Every once in awhile he'd kiss me on the cheek. Then, out of nowhere he turns to me and says "I love you very much, Mommy. You're great." **melt**

Come on! That's the SWEETEST thing and I will just have to remind myself of exactly who he is next time he's trying to smack me during a tantrum! :) He is such a good boy and luckily he's bought into all of our praise and encouragement about being a good boy and making good choices this week. Seems to be motivating him. Tantrums and fits are still here, but not as often and not lasting NEARLY as long. If we leave him alone, he just needs a few minutes to calm down and gather himself. (Plus, save a little face, I'm sure.)

Anyway -- feel like I've only rambled about Georgia, her pregnancy, her arrival, blah blah blah. I really am appreciating the sweet, sweet boy that we have at home. He's a blessing and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be his mommy. I just love him to pieces. He's spending the night at my inlaws tonight and I'm teary right now because I miss him. It's too quiet!

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Hmmmm...

What to say? What to say?

Got a new hairdo -- didn't lose a lot of length, put some layers in. I think it's cute and I got rid of some of that hair -- felt like I had a helmet head. Amazing how good a haircut can feel. Wish I could hire someone to wash my hair for me every day -- why does it feel so much better than when I do it myself??

Oatmeal raisin cookies are yummy. They also make husbands and sons give you hugs and kisses. :)

A hot cup of coffee on a cold day with snow falling is really a nice thing. Especially when you can share it with your husband.

My house will never stay clean. Ever. Just realized this and thought I'd share.

If there is a sport on television, my husband will watch it and find a side to root for. If there are no sporting events on, he will settle for sportscenter that he's already seen before. Twice even.

Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator...even though I've been stalling for over an hour, my laundry still sits there and I still have thank you notes to write. Sigh. Oh well..

Saturday, March 11, 2006

No plans...

It is SOOOO nice to say that we have no plans for today. None. At all. Not one thing.

Sometimes life just gets too crazy and I end up just running around. Whether it's running from here to school, running errands, heck...running up and down the stairs 49 times doing laundry... it just feels good to have a day where I can sit on my bootie and not do a darn thing if I don't want to.

Is there laundry to do? You betcha. Dirty dishes? Definitely. Bathrooms to clean? Of course!

Guess what -- there are also oatmeal cookies to bake, naps to take, books to read, kids to play with, a husband to cuddle with and good music to enjoy. My couch needs me today. Those cookies are DYING for me to whip them up. The backyard finally gobbled up my two guys and their soccer ball.

What a great day -- for doing NOTHING. (We are going to church though.)

Totally on a different topic -- just picked Georgia up out of the swing to put her in the pack n play for the rest of her nap. I absolutely LOVE IT when I pick her up and she gets all froggy with her legs and little but. Ugh. She's gonna grow too fast...soon she won't fit on my chest, under my chin all snuggled up. Too soon I'm going to be holding someone else's newborn saying "My kids were never this little."

Leave it to me to cry about her getting too big when she's the littlest she'll ever be. Sigh. As if I don't have enough to worry about. I think for today -- I'll just decide to cherish her the way she is and give her more snuggles and kisses than she needs.

Off to the oven for some cookies!!!

Thursday, March 09, 2006

I have two children.

That is the strangest thing to say.

"Hi. I'm Tara. I have two children." WHAT?!?! How in the wide world did this happen? Okay, hee hee, I know HOW it happened, I just mean...how did this happen so fast? When did I blink? I feel like it was just yesterday that we were bringing Mitchell home from the hospital and now he's the "Big" brother. Blows my mind.

Chris and I were driving the other day and he said "So, we're a family of four now." I said "I know...it's weird, huh?" It's definitely a good thing and we are of course thrilled that Georgia is here and part of our family...it's just quite strange to have it be a reality.

We have two carseats. We have a highchair and a booster seat. We have a crib and a big boy bed. We have a boy and a girl. We have a swing next to the train table. It's just so bizarre.

I know it will get harder -- I haven't left the house by myself with both of them yet, but so far so good. I did get both of them ready by myself on Tuesday and we were out the door in time for school, so that was good. (I let Chris sleep in -- sort of wanted to do it as a test run.) I think Georgia is falling into a pretty good feeding routine that will work out with us getting out of here on time in the mornings.

I think the most surprising thing about having two kids is how it feels to say that out loud. We are so very blessed...two little cutie pies. What did we ever do without them??? (And what in the world did I do with my TIME???)

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Georgia is here!!!

Okay, so a week and a half later...and I finally remembered that I have a blog! :)

After all of that stuff leading up to her birth, really all it took was someone telling her she COULDN'T be born last weekend, and boom...there she was, insisting on it! Apparently the doctor on call from my ob practice requested no inductions last weekend because she had a big charity function to attend. Well, Saturday afternoon Georgia decided to kick things into gear anyway.

I got a big, huge contraction out of the blue, enough to double me over on the bed and use some breathing to get through it. I told Chris that it was DEFINITELY a real contraction and that I thought this was the day. We kept our eye on the contrax and for the most part they were 8-10 min. apart for the better part of 2 hours. When we called the ob to tell her that, she was hesitant to let us wait for my father in law at the house because she said you just never know how quick these 2nd babies want to come out. It ended up being fine. He arrived like 15 minutes later and we were on our way.

We got to the hospital around 5, and by the time we got checked in, up to the L & D floor, settled in, paperwork filled out, etc. they checked me and I was at 5 cm and totally thinned out. I about did a happy dance!! I told them that my plan was to hang out and walk around as long as I could before getting my epidural because I didn't want to be stuck in bed the whole time. They were fully supportive of that and we were on our way. Unfortunately, it was all back labor again. That pretty much stunk, but you take what is given to you, right? I actually felt good about just breathing through them and doing this little hula hoop swishy circle thing my nurse showed me. My AMAZING coach and hubby did a great job of helping me through them and we had a good laugh at him hula hooping along with me for awhile. They started getting stronger and I had Chris push really hard on my lower back to get me through them for the middle-last part of the time.

Oh, I should add that since my doctor was at the charity function, she had another doctor covering for her. Not a doctor from my practice, but someone entirely different. Never heard of her, never met her, knew nothing about her. I do know that if our doctors trust her, then I have good reason to trust her, so I tried to go with that, even though I was pretty nervous about it. She came to see me and the plan was to get my epidural at 9, then break my water and go from there.

Well, at about 8:30 I got a KILLER contraction and I looked at Chris and said "Okay, this is getting stupid now" and we decided to just go ahead and get the epidural at that point. So, about 15 minutes later we got that going. Ironically, even though I lost the pain, the hour or so after getting my epi was the absolute WORST part of my labor. I got the shakes like CRAZY, my blood pressure dropped a bit and I was TOTALLY nauseated. I just felt really scared...our AWESOME nurse (Danny was his name) told me that it was partially because I'd been in total control of everything for so long and now I didn't have that control. Makes sense, huh? Anyway, we cleared out my family (mom, dad, brother, sister in law) to the waiting room and just tried to concentrate on resting, breathing and calming down. Worked pretty well.

I stalled out at about an 8, but you know, that may have just been Miss Georgia biding her time until my doctor was done with her dinner engagement. She got to the hospital around 10, checked me and had them start pitocin. An hour later and we were good to go. I pushed for about 20 minutes and everything was over. She came out and was good and healthy from the start.

I cried when she cried and just couldn't believe how fast it all went. She weighed 8 lbs, 1 oz and was 20 inches long. She has black hair, just sort of peach fuzzy on top and then quite a bit in the back. She's gorgeous and sweet and we are SOOOO beyond blessed to have her in our family.

I was right...we didn't know we were missing her here until she showed up. It's like she's always been here. Mitchell loves her and Chris and I are completely smitten. It's crazy that you'd choose to return to these sleepless, worrisome nights, but every time we hold her and look at her, there's no question that she was meant to be from the start. She's a little miracle and my heart is full with love and appreciation for the gift of her life with ours.