How did Jamie know I so religiously read her blog? So she tagged me and I’ll play.
Go to your picture file on your PC.
Pull up the 4th folder.
Pull up the 4th photo.
Tell us about it.
BUT, I will tell you that I did this honestly, and it’s not exactly a facebook profile pic.
This is me, maybe 6 months pregnant, giving myself a shot of heparin. I guess Stu wanted to document it? I had to have the shot every twelve hours through the entire pregnancy until 6 weeks postpardum, due to a weird blood clot. This is the exact reason they wouldn’t give me my epidural. Grrrrrr.
It’s been a busy 2 weeks, folks. My parents came in 2 weekends ago for Blake’s birthday party and we had a fantastic time. It’s so rare to have them here at our house, so we really cherished it. On Wednesday, we flew back to Texas with them to meet up with Stuart’s parents and head to Nac to celebrate Blake’s birthday with them. It proved to be a bit too much excitement for our sweet boy. The flight was hard. Blake used to sleep on the plane, and now he doesn’t want to it still. So in addition to being un-napped, we are trying to entertain a toddler on a crowded plane. As we are getting close to Houston and starting to count down the minutes til we can get this baby and my mother (who is not feeling well, either) off the plane, the pilot makes an unfortunate announcement. Due to some bad weather in Houston we are going to be in a holding pattern for about an hour and a half. Holy Cow. Time can move so slowly depending on your circumstances. Once we land, we run into a series of more unfortunate events that I will not elaborate on (you’re welcome mom ). We got to Nac around 11pm with a baby who hasn’t slept in God knows how long. For those who don’t have kids, it’s an interesting note that the more exhausted a baby is, the worse he sleeps. There is some weird “sleep begets sleep” thing that I don’t understand going on here. So Blake proceeds to cry all night, whether he’s sleeping or awake. It took until about Friday to recover from that trip. Even so, during the whole trip he was more obstinate with me than he has ever been before, refusing to eat what I gave him or sleep when I wanted him to. We came back on Sunday, where of course our plane has problems as well. Something to do with the navigational system. Needless to say, it’s a bad sign when they start showing the movie on the plane before you’ve even taken off. This used to be a minor inconvenience. But with a baby, being a stuck on a plane is very helpless and scary, it’s like have a ticking time bomb strapped to your chest. We finally got home, after 11 hours of traveling, and I never thought I would be so happy to see Maryland. We have such amazing friends here. Kelli picked us up at the airport and had brought us a homemade dinner and a gallon of milk! How did she know?! What a blessing. It was just what we needed. I feel like by today, my baby has finally returned to normal. I missed him.
We are so torn and stressed because this is the hardest it has ever been to make the trip to Texas. We want to go back, we want Blake to grow up around his grandparents, we want to have lots and lots more kids and don’t know how we would ever get them back and forth without a private jet. I think some people just resign themselves to not getting to be close to their long distance families. We, without meaning to, have tried to do that too, but then we have a trip like this and realize that we just can’t. I am devasted that my vision of life with kids is so different in reality. I thought they would grow up around all of their cousins and grandparents, aunts and uncles. If we stay here, then those people will just be the people who send birthday cards. And then there is the flip side, the people we do have. By not being around our families, Stu and I have seen how God can provide for those needs by placing people in our lives who treat us like family. As suprising as it is to hear myself say, leaving here will be a difficult decision too. There are people here we would miss desperately. Not to mention the fact that I don’t know how we could get back anyways.
Before we bought the house, I felt such a peace about being here. I truly believed that God was telling me to chill. But now I am very unsettled again. Pray for us.
I’m neglecting the ‘ol blog. Blake’s birthday brought with it alot of excitement and nostalgia. So on your next birthday, be sure and wish your moma happy one, because she remembers it much better than you do! My parents came in from Texas and we have been having so much fun. Tomorrow we fly to Texas to be with Stu’s parents in the pressbox at the SFA game. Blake’s first live football! Should be fun to watch, and his Big Daddy (that’s right) can’t wait to show him off. So I am busy trying to pack everything we need for Blake in one suitcase. Good times.
Anyways, I have lots to write about, but I guess you will just have to stay tuned. Plus, we are going to the airport which give me lots to discuss. In the meantime, here’s a couple pics from the party. Stu and my dad made a fire for the kids to roast marshmallows (and for us to stay warm!). And I tried to teach Blake about candle blowing. He just wanted the cake.
To conclude the TTLY series, it was at this exact moment one year ago that Stu took this, the first, video of Blake. He weighed 8lb 11oz. He had the biggest mouth I’ve ever seen when he screamed. And still, to this day when he smiles, he opens that mouth up huge. It’s the greatest, most fantastic smile. And he hands out those smiles and laughs generously all day long.
Thanks for humoring me, it has made me so nostalgic to see all of these videos again. I’m shocked that a year has passed. I didn’t know so much joy could be bundled up in one year.
I love you more than you will ever know Baby Boy, Happy Birthday!!
This is what a person can turn into after almost 4 hours of trying to push a baby out and no painkillers. If you think I’m bragging, I am. I totally earned that right, even though none of this was on purpose. It was a terrifying night, and talking about it this morning, we both still shuddered. My husband was a rock star, I never could have survived that ordeal without him. My sister also had a leg, which was no small feat. Those 2 sweated with me the whole time. I know for a fact that they both experienced a good deal of post-traumatic stress (besides that they were both very sore physically too). This experience affected those with me even more than it did me. Mom and Daina were moral support for Stu, and I am so so so grateful they were there for us.
Now, Stu talks about the Seinfeld episode where he sees this girl in different lighting and she goes from being really pretty to super scary. He said that’s how fast I changed too. We finally got Blake out, he tended to the baby for awhile, and when he turned around to check on me, I had blown up to 3 times the normal size of my body. My vision was shot (even if I could have opened my eyes all the way), and I was STARVING. I ate so much. Breakfast was great there. I was just so happy it was over.
This is the last video we took because we didn’t know that things were about to get ugly. So so so so ugly. I believe it was about 2 hours from this video that I was in full force petocin-supplemented labor, and the anesthesiologist informed us that she “wasn’t comfortable” giving me an epidural because of the fact that I had been on heparin during the pregnancy. We later found out (after meeting with the hematologist) that that was all bunk. So, hip-hip-hooray for unnecessary mind-numbing pain!!
More waiting. I saved you a couple videos of us discussing contractions. Blahblahblah. This one is funny because we thought the epidural would be here soon and we would get to…wait for it…SLEEP! hahahahaha! whew. funny. I was actually asking Daina to bring my pillow and blanket. Silly silly parents to be.
Stu and I got nostalgic this morning. This day last year, I went into labor with this big ‘ol hunk that is trying to eat leaves off my patio right now. Mom and Daina had gotten in the night before, and little did we know how grateful we would be to have them! Stu and I thought we wanted this private experience together, but it turns out that if they don’t let you have the epidural, but they do let you have the petocin, you need ALL the leg-holding and moral support you can get!!! I think we took 3 or 4 videos before we had him, so I’ll post them all. Bear with me, this is almost over. They aren’t really all that fascinating; it’s just fun to marvel at our complete naivety. We totally thought this was no big deal, I would get the epidural when I wanted it and everything would be fine. I guess ignorance is bliss. Don’t worry, there aren’t any scary videos. Once things got scary we were WAY too busy to think about the camera. Unless you consider the post birth video of me is scary, which it is. That’s for tomorrow.
This day I made Daina go for a (long) walk with me, trying to force Blake out. I didn’t realize that by about noon, my water had already started to “break” (sometimes this is confusing to women who have already been trickling for months-sorry). After our walk, we decided to go for a pedicure. It was leaving the salon that I had the real breakage. The “oh no I have to run back in and get a towel” kind of breakage. We went straight to the hospital from there, and I was very sad we did, cause then they wouldn’t let me go home. I wanted to labor at home for awhile. I was delusional at this point and thought that that was some sort of key to my success. Well let me tell you, once your water breaks, they strap you down, so if you want to get anything done first, hurry!
If I’m going to get cut off by a car while I’m driving around with my kid, I would prefer to not be then taunted by the big green “Choose Civility in Howard County” bumper sticker. There is this huge campaign going on here basically reminding people to be nice (don’t even get me started on how weird it is that we need to be reminded by bumper stickers). The idea is fine, great in fact. But, typical PC suburbanites that we are, we all want to put the bumper sticker on our cars so everyone knows that, “hey look how great I am, you should think about choosing civility too”. Ok, news flash people: Putting the sticker on your car doesn’t make you a nice person. I have been so offended on the road by the green sticker people, I’m starting to wonder if I’m misunderstanding the movement. Since I moved here almost 7 years ago, my biggest beef has always been that the people here seem so unhappy and rude (especially when they can remain anonymous-like in the car). And now everyone’s eating up this “new idea”, apparently without understanding what it means.
So, for those of you who love love love the trendy green sticker, but haven’t bothered to figure out what it means, here’s a statement from the website:
Choose Civility is an ongoing community-wide initiative, led by Howard County Library, to position Howard County as a model of civility (whew-miles to go before we sleep, eh?). The project intends to enhance respect, empathy, consideration and tolerance in Howard County.
Oy, Columbia.
Incidentally, it’s important to note that I am not claiming to be Super Nice Nancy Fancy Pants or anything myself. But you can bet you will not find a sticker on my car branding me a hypocrite.
I don’t know where to get a baby boy’s hair cut. I know, it’s shocking, me being MOTY and all. He has alot of hair, and we get alot of “compliments” on it. I put that in quotes because sometimes I’m not sure. It is quite shiny and lustrous, but when it gets too long and the cow-lick takes over it looks like a bad Donald Trump do. You know how people say things like, “Wow, so much hair for a baby!”. And they sound truly shocked. I know, I used to say it too. When what I meant was, “Please, for the baby’s sake, get your kid a haircut!”. Now, it’s also important to note that I am not all sentimental about the cutting of the hair. I don’t think it’s right when little boys walk around with curly hair flipping everywhere, or baby mullets, because their moms have on rose-colored glasses and don’t want to admit that it’s time. Those poor kids look like silly, like poorly dressed girls. So because I feel that way, Blake got his first haircut at 10 months, as soon as it started flipping out. But it grows really fast!! He’s needed one about every 4 weeks since then! I was taking him to the lady who does my hair. She did a fantastic job, but they charge $20! A little ridiculous, I thought. But look how cute his first haircut turned out:
I went back one more time after this one, but this time (today) I decided to go to a good ‘ol fashioned barber that a friend recommended. I mean, how hard can it be, right? This is what he got:
He asked me if this was ok and I almost said, “Yes, in 1950!”. I calmly said it was fine and paid them man. BTW, it was $12, but since the shop (apparently still operating in 1950) doesn’t take credit cards and I had to pull cash at an ATM with a $3 fee, this haircut still cost me $15! Hello! I would have said something, but I really don’t think he would have known what to do. The only equipment I saw anywhere was a ginormous pair of scissors. But, hey, I saved $5!! Who cares that if my kid set foot on a playground he might get beat up. Ok, I’m exaggerating. And I know it grows fast, but his 1st birthday is this week. All those pictures! Was this really the week to save 5 bucks?! Can anyone help me? I’m thinking about trying to trim it up how I learned to do my own bangs (kind of cutting into them to stagger the length), so his bangs won’t be mistaken for a straight-edge. But that just sounds like another disaster. Poor kid could end up with a hair-cut like his daddy’s. I’m glad he’s not old enough to care.
). We got to Nac around 11pm with a baby who hasn’t slept in God knows how long. For those who don’t have kids, it’s an interesting note that the more exhausted a baby is, the worse he sleeps. There is some weird “sleep begets sleep” thing that I don’t understand going on here. So Blake proceeds to cry all night, whether he’s sleeping or awake. It took until about Friday to recover from that trip. Even so, during the whole trip he was more obstinate with me than he has ever been before, refusing to eat what I gave him or sleep when I wanted him to. We came back on Sunday, where of course our plane has problems as well. Something to do with the navigational system. Needless to say, it’s a bad sign when they start showing the movie on the plane before you’ve even taken off. This used to be a minor inconvenience. But with a baby, being a stuck on a plane is very helpless and scary, it’s like have a ticking time bomb strapped to your chest. We finally got home, after 11 hours of traveling, and I never thought I would be so happy to see Maryland. We have such amazing friends here. Kelli picked us up at the airport and had brought us a homemade dinner and a gallon of milk! How did she know?! What a blessing. It was just what we needed. I feel like by today, my baby has finally returned to normal. I missed him. 
