Whoops-a-daisy!

So, as per usual I have neglected my blog. That's okay. You don't mind.

Whats new in my life? Well, we recently made the decision (today, in fact) to go ahead and start me back on drugs for my RA. Orencia. This one was chosen as opposed to all the others because it does not need to be taken with MTX, which is dangerous for Evelyn to ingest.

Yes. I said ingest, because she will continue to breastfeed while I am on this medication. We are making this decision against the advice of my rhuematologist, but with the support of Evelyn's pediatrician (Dr.Cox, who deserves her own amazing post). Basically the deal is there is no research on if it is safe, so they reccomend to not, because no one wants to test on babies. And I guess I kind of am.

But for us the possible risks (which may be none) are outweighed by the many many benefits of continuing to breastfeed. Ideally we will continue our breastfeeding relationship until she weans herself (usually happens in humans between 2-6 years old).

Lately I've been struggling with Evelyns birth. But I will post about that later. My baby and daddy are calling!

Baby Led Weaning

Right now I can take the time to post because Evelyn is sitting in her high chair eating. And by eating, I do really mean that. Except right now her version on eating is more about exploring the food with her hands, mouth, face and belly.

Current mess on the high chair? Bananas and yogurt.

She is absolutely loving food. We decided to introduce it in the style known as "baby led weaning" which is just a fancy phrase that means baby gets to decide what happens: what she puts in her mouth, when, how much she swallows, and on and on. We do not put anything into her mouth for her.

Oh no, you think, but how will she get enough food in her to fill her up?? The short answer is: She won't. Breastmilk will be her main source of nutrition until up around 9months, at which point her fine motor and chewing skills will have developed enough to let her eat for nutirition's sake. And even then, "Food before One is Just for Fun!"

There is so much more behind this topic, and if you are really interested, google "Baby Led Weaning" it's okay if they send you to the UK for it. That's sort of where it got popular.

Procrastination

I have, over the last few weeks, sat down to write a new post on here. And then life happens. Evelyn wakes up, or I need to eat, or SHE needs to eat, or the phone rings... you know how it goes.

Currently, Evelyn is sleeping upstairs on our bed. That's not unusual. What IS unusual is that I am downstairs. I'd normally be upstairs with her, reading or doing whatever right beside her. Today I closed the door and turned on the baby monitor and came down here to relax without a baby.

Is it working? No. I am obsessively listening to the baby monitor, and becoming more and more anxious as I sit here away from her. So....

.... I'm going to check on her.

Mom time

Right now I am getting half an hour of what I dub "mom time." This is a half an hour I take after the baby has been fed, after she has had a good long nap, and after or right before she has been changed, and I take I computer up into the bedroom and close the door. The unspoken rule is that the door is not to be opened for at least a half an hour, unless the baby is screaming.

It doesn't always work out. Sometimes she screams. Sometimes dad needs help. But I have discovered that unless I take these half hour breaks I will go crazy. Like, put the baby on the floor by her dad and walk away before I scream.

and even now, while I have been having my half an hour, I have been interrupted twice! Once by the missionaries calling and asking if the Young Men can come deliver a present here, and once by my dad telling me he will be in the paper tomorrow, and to look for the article.

*Sigh*

And now my time is up. I know that Tim would let me stay up here longer... but there's the catch - if I stay up here I am away from him, too. And family time is nearly as important as mommy time.

Time

It used to be that I would look forward to things. I'd be prepped for Halloween by August, for Christmas by November 12th (the first day I felt morally okay with celebrating!), and for my birthday/Tim's birthday/Anniversary by New Years.

But since having Evelyn time seems to have... stopped? I'm not sure what I mean exactly. It's not that I've stopped looking forward to things exactly, but whereas before it was all I focused on, so much to the point of often being disappointed in things once they finally happened, now I feel I am living in the moment better.

Is this what having kids does to you? Help you realize the value of *right now*?

It's also a tad scary how you start to realize that we, first as kids, and then as teens, and now as young adults, have No. Fricking. Clue. about what is going on.

And it saddens me that I know my daughter will not listen when I tell her, "Trust me, such and such is for the best, you'll look back and realize high school was lame, this won't matter in 5 years/6 months/tomorrow." I KNOW she won't listen. Because you don't think anyone gets it.

A very disjointed post. Written with a very snuggly baby against my chest.

Also, a doctors appointment in a few hours where we will find out how my arthritis is doing, and what the plan is for the next 6 months.

Baby wearing

Before I had Buck I had several great ideals. For example: my arthritis would probably be SO bad after I gave birth that there was no way I could carry her around all the time, and it would be spoiling her to do so anyways.

As I write this, I'll share with you the fact that she is peacefully sleeping against my chest, snug and cozy in her Mei Tai. That ideal flew out the window when I saw my daughter and realized how happy she was when she was held and snuggled. And yeah, with my arthritis sometimes my hands get sore and tired. Hence the awesomeness that is the Mei Tai (pronounced "May tie"). It's a baby carrier that has a rectangular piece of material that is padded, which goes against baby's back, and four straps which tie around your waist, and over your shoulders/around your back. It puts baby at the perfect level... right by your heart, and close enough to kiss.

I get some flack from family about wearing her as constantly as I do. And I will admit that it would be nice if she was having this nap on the floor/in bed/on the couch so that I could lay down, or do jumping jacks or whatever. But then I look at how peacefully she is sleeping, and I can smell her, and smooch her, and I sigh and carefully squat down to get the load of diapers out of the top-loading washer.

Re start.. again...

I am trying to start this up. Again. I'm hoping since life has somewhat reached a calm state that I'll be able to do this on a regular basis.

Lots of things have changed since July. Namely, I had the baby :) We named her Evelyn (recently nicknamed "Buck"). And by "we" and I mean that I picked it. Because 12 hours of "labour" followed by a c-section entitles a woman to that right. (but more on the birth story later...)

Another change - I have embraced my inner hippie! We are now a baby-wearing, cloth diapering, family cloth using (only ask if you really want to know), room sharing family. And have lots of plans for Buck's future - baby led weaning, extended breast feeding, extended rear-facing, and much much more. Since having the baby, my inner activist has reared her ugly head, and I have started advocating for things such as keeping our baby boys intact.

One final change, I've gone back to church. The LDS church, if you were curious.

So there we go. You're all caught up.

So close!

I'm just as bad at updating this as I am at updating my written journal. Somehow, I figured I'd have more time to write once I was on maternity leave. But I've noticed a trend with me - when life is busy and crazy I don't journal. End of story.

35 weeks and 1 day along today. I feel big and ready. Ready me, ready house, ready room. But not a ready baby. Which is fine. I think one person in a family with medical concerns is enough. Especially if the next likely is an infant.

But anyways. Her pink room is ready. I have all her clothes washed and put away. All organized and sorted by age/size. And all her bedding is washed and either on the bed, or put away for later use. I did not buy bumpers. I don't think they're safe. But that is my opinion. We won't be using blankets either. Sleep sacks and bags all the way, yo!

I feel like there are still things that need to be done. I'm sitting here, staring around my living room and not seeing anything. Except the car seat. But I can't put that in until the car is here, and not at work with Tim.

35 weeks.... Crazy.

Walkin' in the rain!

I went out for a walk today with the Nanaimo Mom's walking group... and there were 3 of us! I, of course, do not have a baby outside of me yet. But it was nice to chat with other moms and get out of the house... I tend to stay inside and by myself a lot. So it was good.

Tim took my belly picture today - 27 weeks and 1 day - and I look so much bigger than I used to! I can't believe how big I've gotten. Although the scale does not lie in that area.

I have been have the most bizzare feelings lately. It felt like she was having a seizure inside of me! Turns out that those are hiccups! Thank goodness, because it was a bit freaky.

All that walking has tired me out. I am off to nap.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is my first anniversary! But, since Tim works 1-10 today, we decided to celebrate officially tomorrow. So today all we did was get some coffee/hot chocolate and walk down by the waterfront. Plus I also gave Tim his gift - a book about racing cars (as per the first anniversary traditional gift of paper!).

Tomorrow we're going to drive up island somewhere and have a nice dinner out, just the two and half of us! Hopefully Miss.Feets is well behaved, and I can enjoy it all.

Today, I have been cleaning! I got everything on my list finished by 4pm, so I've moved onto the things which were not on my list. I'm prepping the baby's room so that we can put up a first coat of primer tomorrow morning. I've been on Tim to get the room all painted so that I can start my setting up/decorating part of the job.

I am noticing that house cleaning is much more difficult when you are pregnant! I get a sore back quickly, and out of breath, not to mention HUNGRY!

I think that I might have hamburger helper for dinner tonight! And some veggies. And if I didn't have gestational diabetes, I would also make up the cupcakes and cream cheese icing that are sitting in my cupboard. But since I do, I won't. Otherwise I would be very tempted to eat one. Or seven.

5 months down, 4 to go!

Sometimes it's hard to believe that I am over halfway done being pregnant, and sometimes it's easy to remember (like when I look down at my tummy, or a calendar!). I think that I dislike being pregnant. Not the "I have a baby growing in me" part of it. I like that part of it! But the part where my body is the safe haven for this baby.

I realized again how much I dislike that part when I went into the hospital on Tuesday morning with what turned out to be kidney stones. Kidney stones! as if I didn't have enough to worry about? We spent a total of 8 hours in emergency split between two trips. But thankfully I am feeling just fine now.

Tim was worried that it was something wrong with the baby. So it was nice to find out that it was a relatively harmless thing (as painful as it happened to be).

Baby names and baby book

Since we found out that we are having a girl we've been trying to figure out names and such. (Well, that's a lie. I've been picking out names since I was 13). We set up several rules for ourselves based on our mutual experiences in school, work, and life.

Rule #1
The name must be gender specific.
That means no Erin, Ashley, Jordan, or Toni/Tony.

Rule #2
The name must be one that is only spelled traditionally.
That means no Sarah/Sara/Cera, Ashley/Ashleigh/Ashlie, or any name in which you could put a "y" or an "ie" in the place of normal vowels.

Rule #3
The name must be one which when read is obvious of how to pronounce, and which when heard is obvious of how to spell.
This rule does get a bit redundant with the other rules, but it pretty much means if we DID choose Sarah, that is how we would spell it.

Rule #4
The name must be a traditional name.
This one means that we won't choose a trendy name, or a name with an ethnic base other than roughly our own. For example, Tiffany was a trendy name 20 years ago. Now it is not.

and finally...

Rule #5
The name must pass the "waiting room test."
This is a simple test you can do yourself! When you are sitting in a waiting room for something, doctor, dentist, etc, listen to the name that they call out, and see if it would fit for anyone in the room. What it comes down to for us is does the name work for any age? While "Honey" is a cute name for a baby/child, it does not work for a 45 year old woman. While "Agatha" works well with a 65 year old woman, it does not work for anyone much younger.


I know we seem a bit ridiculous, but after all the name choices, and vetoes (I vetoed Emily, he vetoed Lucy - for breaking rule #5) we have come down to our choice....

Evelyn.

"Medical" leave

As of last week I am finished with work. I am on what is considerd medical leave. This encompasses several different things. But we'll be leaving it vague for now.

I haven't been at work since last Wednesday. Which is really only 3 shifts that I've missed. But I miss it. I miss the kids so much. I was in the toy store today shopping for Ben's birthday present (how he managed to sneak by and be five I'll never know) when I saw a toy that I knew one of our little boys would have loved. I miss all the different personalities, and the sweet and pure caring that they gave. I miss the gentle swarm of hands asking to "pet the baby" a.k.a. rub my pregnant tummy.

As for pregnancy? Maybe it's the stress of leaving work suddenly, but I haven't been feeling great this week. Achy, sore, uncomfortable. I keep telling myself that this HAS to be the biggest I'll get. That there isn't any more ROOM for me to grow more. But deep down I know it's a lie.

Don't stop believing

I am on a quest... for the perfect kareokee song to sing for my bride-to-be friend Sarah. It's her bachelorette party this Saturday and she has chosen to hit the pub for some local talents singing and preforming. And since I recently downloaded and watched the entire first season of glee in four days I am reminded of how much fun I used to have singing in choir. Or listening to the Wellington Choir (because, lets face it, they were always the best.)

In other news, I do not like engraved items. How can you possibly ever do anything with it except throw it out? Maybe I am not a fan of the brushed silver picture frame with gem surrounded hearts spelling me and my husbands names. Did my mother in law ever think of that? No. But there it sits on my computer desk... I can see fingerprints on it. Yuck.

the sweeping insensitivity of this still life

I have sensed a change. A deffinite change inside my head. I was at work today, and sometimes when things get a bit crazy for a particular person they will take a mental health bathroom break. Which is understandable. In our feild of work there is something about certain children that make you want to beat the crap out of their parents. (Why oh why anyone can have children with no regulations regarding who drives me crazy!)

So anyways. Today I was feeling like I wanted to take a mental heath bathroom break and I had the thought that instead I should pray. Pray for guidance. Pray for strength. Pray for the knowledge that these children needed something from me to learn good.

I didn't do it. I thought about it. But didn't. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. I still have an issue with the idea of Jesus.

I also realized a change. I heard that someone I knew might be pregnant. Someone who deserved it. Who will be a wonderful mother. And I was happy. Is this because I am on my pregnant path, or because I'm just a better person?

Oh, What a night!

I've been doing some music discovering lately. I had several months where I just listened to my old stale music. But thanks to the very convienient digital radio we get with our cable package I am exposed to new music. Particularily, Paramore and Marina and the Diamonds. Now I do realize Paramore isn't new to me at all. But Marina and the Diamonds certainly are. So there.

I also have rekindled my love for the oldies by downloading some Frankie Vallee and the Four Seasons. We saw a cover group on the honeymoon and both loved it! (www.ohwhatanighttribute.com if you are interested. See them, they are worth it!).

News.. Married life is just the same as non-married life. Except for the fact that I still am amazed that we're actually married. It is truly weird to look at Tim and see a shiny ring on his finger. It's also weird getting used to a new last name. New signature, new initials, new everything! You don't realize how second nature a signature/initial signing is untill you sign the old one when you should sign the new one.

We are currently in the middle of month one of no MTX. Five and a half more months to go :s I've already noticed a difference in my wrists and ankles. I'm hoping this isn't a sign of things to come later on. But the baby at the end of this all will make it better!

Daycare annecdote for the post: NONE! Today was my day off!

Dissapointed?

I know when I check other people's blogs and they haven't updated in 15 days I get a little frustrated. Why aren't they posting? What is going on??

So I appoligise to anyone who was upset by this.

News: I have NOT caught H1N1. Although several children in my daycare have been diagnosed with it. I do currently have some sort of cold that dislikes me. We'll see what happens.

My wedding dress has arrived. As in MY dress! Not a store sample that hundreds of girls have tried on... MY gown! The one Tim will see and be amazed by. Absolutely stunned.

I also have a new week and a half old nephew named Kadyn! Pronouced Kay-den, for those of you who might be confused. He is adorable, which isn't confusing. And I am so completely jealous I would love to take him home. I was teasing Tim that I wouldn't take him, because he is a boy and I want a girl.

"Yeah right." He said scornfully. "If someone came up to you and said, 'This boy baby or NO baby.' You would take him."

"Absolutely." I said. People very rarely give away free babies. Although I used to have daydreams that while I was hanging my arms out the car window a baby would fall from the sky from a plane and they would let me keep it because I saved it from smushing onto the ground. Dreams die hard, hey?

Speaking of dreams... I had three in a row where my oldest younger brother was angry at me. Which is silly, because he's not. None of my brothers are. Although the middle one might be rejecting everyone :s

I have decorted somewhat. I'm not allowed a tree untill December. And I can't do it on my own because the tree is extremely huge and difficult. It is a two person job.

the snowball effect

I already knew how true it was, but it is just plain fact that once things start to roll, they go faster and faster untill they smash into something.

I don't want to smash.

I wish I had someone on the other side to talk to.

mind blown

I was just watching a video clip of a man talking about his role as a father. He was saying that he looked at raising children, and having children, as being entrusted with the responsibility of raising them by God. That they were God's children, and God wanted him to raise them properly...

That hit home. That our kids really aren't our kids, but either God's kids, or our worlds children. Even in a non-religious view of that... you have been given this responsibility to raise these children right. Not for you, not even really for them, but for our society, for mankind as a whole.

I feel very small right now.

worn out

I am so sick of life today. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be friends with it again. Today... no. I've been working full time, with busy weekends. And this weekend is busy again. I hate busy weekends!

Though, last weekend was important and this weekend will be fun.

Last weekend we were in Victoria so Tim could do his PARE (the rcmp physical exam). He did great. 3:42! The cut-off time was over a minute more than that. I'm proud of him... but honestly... the closer his actually being a cop comes, the stranger I feel. *shrug*

Next weekend we're in Port Alberni for a cousin's wedding, and his Grandpa's 80th birthday. His family events make me feel uncomfortable. All I want to do is hide. But we'll have the wedding to talk about, I guess. Haha, except that we're not inviting everyone :s

Wedding news: I bought my veil... 130$ later and I won a gift certificate for the Bride's Closet. Nice. I also found out 2 other people are using my venue. But after me, so it's okay.

I miss Tim. He works late tonight and I need cuddles :(