A letter to my first

My dearest little prince,

I'm sorry for getting frustrated at you when you throw food over your high chair as I am trying to feed you breakfast. I know you want to eat all the grapes. I simply want to keep your diet balanced and healthy, and also prevent you from choking from eating too fast.

I'm sorry for preventing you from helping me clean the kitchen as I wanted to get the job done quickly to move on to other matters. I will slow down, teach you how it should be done, and help you feel more appreciated for the efforts you put in to spending time doing things I'm doing.

I'm sorry for not engaging in your newest trick more than a couple times when you wanted to keep going until it got old. It really was so cool, and you looked so proud every time you did it! Next time you want to try it, we can do it as many times as you want. 

I'm sorry for force feeding you peas. You leave me no choice when you don't eat any other vegetable I put in front of you.

I'm sorry for not driving home fast enough when you want our of your car seat so you can play outside despite the freezing temperatures. I admire your adoration for the outdoors, your curiosity of the world, and for wanting to keep up with me when we take walks to the park. I will try to preoccupy your time spent in the car better by turning off the radio, and singing with you the songs you love.

I'm sorry for not letting you play with the hairspray can with the lid gone missing. It's new to you, and you have seen me use it, and you want to see what the fuss is about. Just know I want to keep your little mouth off of it to keep you from ingesting something harmful to you.

I'm sorry for not letting you run around in the open field of grass outside of the Idaho Expo Center. You had been so patient with your Dad and I as we walked around with you in the stroller inside the Expo, and you wanted to play and run around. You may have not noticed the millions of duck turds in the grass, and watching you trip on the ground worried me about you putting your dirty hands to your mouth and ingesting the nastiness from the ground. We will pick a cleaner park or field soon.

I'm sorry for blocking your way in front of the street you were trying to escape to. You thought it was a game we were playing, and didn't expect my sternness to detour you away from our fun. I was trying to protect you from potential danger from running into the street.

I'm sorry for suctioning your nose and giving you bad tasting medicine. You weren't feeling well, and having something shoved up your nose must not be an added comfort. Not to mention tasting something not on the menu for your palette. Hopefully when you wake up, you will feel better.

I'm sorry for not reading you that book you held up to me crying just before bed time. I was too focused on getting you off to bed as you were cranky, and I was tired. When you wake up, we will read it 5x over. 

I promise to slow down, to play more, to read with you, to teach you, to clothe, bath, and feed you, to play, and to love you eternally. 

Love, Mom

Showers and Flowers

Ah the smell of blossoming spring flowers, fresh mowed grass, and the replenished ground from a recent rain fall must mean that summer is approaching. Which also means the bathing suits that I've been ignoring for over a year are eager to make their comeback. Ruh-roh. Guess all those Christmas cookies weren't such a good idea. Pfft, who am I kidding of course they were!

The girls I work with are all fitnessfinatics, healthy nutritioners, and encourage each other in the process to keep going. So one of them recommended I check out the post-pregnancy plan under bodybuilding and follow the meal plan and work out guide. Especially since it's free online, right? I did. I'm in week 2, but I'm kinda counting it as an extended week 1 since it was Easter and conference and I totally cheated with some bomb diggity yumminess. So far so good. Wish me luck... I guess.
This post is coming to you out of the fullness of love in my heart outpouring for all of the blessings I have. It's easy to overlook the simplest of blessings in your life when you are fixated on looking outward at the work that still needs to be done, has yet to be done, or flat out is being neglected. This month as been a great big smack in the face of, "Oh... Yeah okay I have much to be grateful for." For that fact alone, I am grateful.
Moving on a little bit.... Troy asked me to post for him because he's busy being too cool for me playing with his teething ring. Yep. TEETHING RING. My drool machine has officially made it known that those chompers are comin', and quite possibly sooner than we would like them too... Mostly for my sake and nursing. Nursing and teeth? Nu uh. That's where I put my foot down.

FOUR MONTHS OLD:

Troy enjoys being outside and going on walks or even simple car rides with his window rolled down, taking baths and splashing as hard as he can, standing with assistance, sitting in his bumbo chair (I say that hesitantly because he likes to lean on one side or another and he gets upset that he can't pull himself back up), having tickle fights, reading with mom, playing with his toes, and talking real loud.

This little tot is the best. I'm obviously bias, but in truth we lucked out with him as our first in many ways. One I'm particularly proud of is his sleep. He calls it quits for the day at 7:30pm, we do our nightly routine starting with a bath, and he's asleep no later than 8:30pm. He doesn't wake up until 7:30am. WHAT? Yeah for real though. I've had a lot of people ask me what our secret is... Are you ready? THERE IS NONE. I made the mistake of reading the stupid baby books before Troy was born such as "What to expect when you're expecting" and "Baby Wise." I will say there is a lot of great information to gather from reading those books, however what I took away from it is that I HAVE to start my children on a schedule ASAP otherwise they will never sleep through the night and I am screwed. After he was born, I tried doing the baby wise method. Though it may be necessary for some children to be on those types of schedules, Troy made it clear in the beginning that it did not work. He was fussy all the time, and wouldn't sleep well at all... Family members gave us advice that at his last evening feeding at whatever time it was, that we needed to put him down for the night and just let him wake up on his own. So we started doing that. It helped a ton. We also gave him a nightly routine so that he knew that bed time was approaching. We give him a bath, put on jammies, put him in a his woombie (google it dude you want it), turn off the lights, turn on the box fan for white noise, give him his last feed in a bottle (to make sure he really was full), and lay him down in his crib to fall asleep. Once he started sleeping through the night for 5 hours or more, we would push back his bed time. For example, his night time routine would start at 11. Then he started sleeping through until 6am, so we bumped it back a half hour to 10:30pm. Every time he would sleep through, we pushed back his night routine. If he wasn't ready for an earlier bed time, we would go back to pushing it later. Eventually he would give us signals he was getting tired and ready for bed time, so we followed his lead. We have never had to do cry it out. We have never had any issues with him fighting bed time. Mostly, our kid rocks. I don't know what else to say.

Another thing I'm very proud of is how stinkin' happy he is. He's not one of those kids, (yet), that needs to be with his mom or dad constantly to be happy. He can go to anyone and be chill. Though, he's not quite to that age yet that he has a preference I think... There are days however that he does just want me. I soak those up. They won't last. I just really love him a lot. He's my buddy.

Okay.. so to explain the picture on the left... Super scary right?! No matter what I do, he scoots his little bum to one of the corners of his bed and stuffs his face in the corner. Without the bumper on, he cries and cries because he wants something to snuggle next to. Even when I nurse him or feed him in a bottle, he turns his body towards me and buries his face into me arm. I'm at a loss... 

When the kid is asleep, guess what that means? DATE NIGHT FOR THE RENTS. Never have I ever been more enthused by a red box movie and homemade popcorn. Have y'all watched interstellar? We give it a thumbs up. Go rent it, eat that popcorn, and get a foot rub.

Whoop there it is.............. zzzzz

The Grand Debut

By popular demand, without further ado, here is the birth story of our beautiful son Troy Marble:

Tuesday December 2nd I had a baby appointment at the doctor's office. The week before they had checked me for dilation only to find I had yet to start dilating. She checked me again at this visit to see if I was starting to dilate. I was dilated to a 1, and I've never been more excited about a 1 before! At this point my anxiousness to meet this little wiggle worm in my tummy had grown with such impatience that I was trying everything in my power to get this show on the road.

My office Christmas party was Friday afternoon at a bowling alley. What better way to get your labor started than throwing a heavy ball? Normally I quite despise bowling, (like I literally would rather be stung by a thousand bees), but again I was anxious. So very safely I went bowling praying that maybe my water would break while there. How epic would that be? But I went home with nothing but a sore back.

That evening, Friday December 5th, I was laying in bed and was feeling incredibly nauseated. I had started to feel mild contractions, which I can now say definitely that they were contractions however much I questioned it. At the time I kept thinking, "shoot this isn't so bad. I got this..." Bahahahahaha. Brandon and I started timing the contractions to see how frequent they were. They started irregular and then became 8-10mins apart. We decided to head to the hospital, (I know we jumped the gun). We got to the hospital, they checked me, and to my disappointment they told me my dilation had not changed from my Tuesday appointment. So they sent me home.

I woke up Saturday morning, Troy's due date, with very intense contractions. They kept up at 8mins apart. We went back to the hospital hoping that this time they would admit me seeing as the contractions were strong, and having me double over. They again checked me with no change in dilation. They gave me an ambien to help me fall asleep as I wasn't sleeping at this point, to help rest up for the main event. The ambien lasted only a few hours until I woke up in the worst pain of my life. We waited until the contractions became more frequent before we went back in. We were getting tired of being sent home.

Early Sunday mornin December 7th at 4AM, we went into the hospital. My contractions were at 5mins apart and unbearable. I wasn't sleeping and couldn't handle the pain. I'm kind of a baby. I had only dilated to a 1.5 when the nurse checked me. Luckily my dr happened to be at the hospital and came in to see where I was at as well. She watched my contractions, but didn't feel comfortable inducing me since I was technically dilating. She prescribed me another ambien along with a shot of morphine in hopes my body would relax enough so I could start dilating more. Usually I'm not a fan of strong drugs, but dude was I lovin life with that morphine and would TOTES do it again.

I finally slept a good four hours before I woke up again Sunday afternoon around 1pm. My contractions were even MORE intense and closer together. I feel bad for any neighbors that happened to be home because it was impossible for me to not express very loudly how painful my contractions were. My mom came over to help Brandon get ready, again, and helped time my contractions. We left for the hospital when they were 3mins apart determined not to come back home this time without this baby.

When we got to the hospital the nurse checked me, and alas told me I had dilated to a 3! She had me get into this jacuzzi tub to help keep me relaxed and help me dilate so they could admit me, (they needed to see my cervix changing in order for me to stay). I stayed in the tub for an hour before they brought me back to our room. She checked me again, and I had dilated to a four. FINALLY, I was admitted.

The nurse came back in a little while later, and introduced us to the anesthesiologist who went through with me how the epidural would work. I was super nervous about having a hole in my back, but either that or feel all that hell, (yeah just be cool about it), which was not happening. An hour later he placed my epidural. I was able to relax fully like I hadn't before in a couple days.

Every hour or so the nurse would come in and check me, check contractions, check baby, and have me roll on my side to help the epidural work it's magic with gravity.

2AM December 8th, I started to feel the contractions on my right side which were coming a minute apart. The nurse had me roll on the opposite side in hopes it would flush to the side I was feeling the contractions on. Unfortunately that just made the whole thing wear off. The nurse called in the anesthegiologist again who offered to replace it. There wasn't even a question there... Turns out as he checked it the epidural, or whatever the thingy is called, had come out which we assume was because my nurse didn't have anything underneath me helping me roll on my side so it "wiggled" out. So many curse words. They replaced it along with some magic drug that worked instantly to help with the pain. Wahoo! Brandon asked them what it was they were waiting for, and why they were not starting pitocin. We had been there already for almost 12 hours watching me dilate a centimeter an hour. The nurse told us that if they started pitocin it would cause my uterus to contract even more, and potentially stress out the baby. It was better for both me and baby that we let my body do it's thing. Made sense.

430AM I woke up AGAIN feeling my contractions on my side. My nurse checked me to see how I was dilating, and told me it was finally time to push. I was terrified as I was feeling the contractions, and the baby in me could not handle a "natural" birth. She encouraged me to do some practice pushes just to see if I could handle it. I did, and turns out I could. Once I was on my back pushing, I didn't feel the contractions on my side. So we let the game begin. Brandon and my mom helped encourage me to keep going throughout the whole thing. It was very intimate. The lights were turned off except for one over me watching for Troy. At this point my dr was on her way to deliver him. She made it with 15mins to spare.

535AM Monday morning December 8th, exhausted, the most beautiful cry filled the room as this blue little human fell on my chest stealing my heart. I could hear Brandon crying and ahhing over his new baby boy. My mom was crying over how sweet he was. They took him and weighed him while my dr finished with me. I watched them put my calm little boy on the scale, and then Brandon yelled "HOLY CRAP BABE HE'S 10 POUNDS 5 OUNCES!" I looked at my dr horrified, then shortly after the nurse followed saying, "whoa whoa whoa no he's 8 pounds 10.5 ounces..." When you see the picture you will understand... He didn't see the number on the scale on the far left. He only saw the numbers on the right. They measured him at 22inches long. They cleaned him up and put him right back on my chest. We tried to feed him right away, but we were both too tired to really try that hard. Brandon took Troy and held him for the first time. I watched them together and watched Troy not only steal my heart, but steal my sweet and loving husbands heart as well. With that image in my head, I fell soundly asleep.
I woke up several hours later to my mom ooing and ahhing over Troy while his parents slept. The nurse came back in and helped me nurse him for the first real time. He took to it like he knew the whole time that is what we were doing.

They started testing Troy and doing the whole shabang. He was in the 95th percentile for jaundice. So step two was to feed him frequently to flush it out of his system. They checked him again 12 hours later and he had gone down to the 75th percentile. They gave us the OK to go home with a follow up appointment the next day which turned out he no longer had jaundice. Wahoo!

Since we've had our monkey, here is what we know of our boy Troy...

• He hardly ever cries when he tries to communicate, instead he just grunts
• He definitely knows his mom and his dad, and turns his head in our direction when he hears our voices
• He does NOT like to be swaddled.. He likes to have free range of motion with his arms when he sleeps, and tends to sleep with both his arms out on his sides or above him
• He loves skin on skin time
• He is very aware and alert, and looks around whenever he is awake

So I definitely rushed the end of this post, but my baby is awake and adorable so priorities. Here's some pictures. Prepare to fall in love as we have:

This is the picture that Brandon freaked out about

First family picture taking our boy home

So we originally had a different outfit picked for him to come home in, but our friend Hannah brought us this jersey when she came to meet Troy in the hospital, and needless to say his dad was thrilled

Just got home