Cross that off the list...

When we found out we would be leaving our little college town, we made a list of things we should do here before we moved. With the exception of Alan graduating and eating at Cafe Rio a hundred more times, we crossed the last thing off our list. We finally ate at J Dawgs today. I don't know how we made it our whole 5 or so years living here without going there once, but somehow we managed.

I had a beef dog and Alan had a polish dog, both with the special sauce. It was pretty good for a glorified hot dog stand. Better than a regular hot dog, for sure.

Even Elsie liked it. She had several bites of both of our dogs and actually swallowed it. That's saying a lot.

Sadly, Alice didn't get any. Maybe someday, Alice...

Today's post

It's late and I just remembered I haven't posted anything today. We spent the afternoon working on Alan's creativity project and it kind of took over everything. It's turning out pretty cool. Not how we originally planned for it to be, but still pretty neat. I'll blog about it more when it's finished.

Alice laughs

Alice had her first laughs today. She first laughed at Alan when he was getting her dressed. He was tickling her and telling her she wasn't as chubby as she used to be, and she looked up at him with the biggest grin and let out a big giggle. Then later at the store she was laughing up a storm watching from the snugly as Alan bobbed up and down to get the groceries from the cart and put them on the check out stand. No videos of it yet, she doesn't quite perform on cue like Elsie does. We'll catch it one of these days.

Two months

Two months old today! We celebrated by going out walking with Katie and Olivia. It was a big deal; we haven't gone in over two weeks. Alice is getting bigger and stronger. She can hold her head up and pushes on things with her legs to stand up. So far her favorite things are getting her hair washed/brushed, watching Elsie run around from her swing, and trying to shove her entire fist in her mouth. She doesn't like getting her nails cut, Elsie laying on top of her, or pooping.

Much to my surprise, Alice has started sleeping through the night. And I mean ALL night, like 7pm to 7am, not the "sleeping through the night means a 5 hour stretch of uninterrupted sleep" like the books talk about. She started sleeping this way on her own with no training from us a few nights after I came home from the hospital. I have no idea what I did to deserve such a good sleeper, but I'm very grateful. I'm fully aware that this will only last until the next growth spurt, but we're happy for it now.

Mmmm, blanket...

Sometimes change can be good

Today we went from this...

...To this!

It doesn't fit quite as well in our current apartment, but it will fit beautifully in our new place in Wisconsin. It also has a middle leaf and two more chairs that aren't show in the pictures. Hooray for a new table and chairs!

Moving on

It's probably a mix of a lot of things (post baby hormones, weaning off the surgery drugs, and I think I'm on my period), but sometimes I get so sad that we're finally leaving this phase of our lives. For Alan's creativity project this semester, we're kind of doing a recap of our married lives in college. We're still not quite sure how the finished project will be, but we're looking back on all the different places we've lived in the last 3+ years.

Our first home together

When Alan and I got married, we still had a lot of school ahead of us. We knew that we were going to be poor, struggling college students for a while, and that was ok. Together, we have worked as a high school tech guy, an alarm reprogrammer, a salesman, a lifeguard, a research assistant, and a stay at home mom. Alan has changed his major and planned out several different career paths before we stumbled into his current job offer almost by accident.

Our apartment in Arlington, VA

I have been really spoiled these last two semesters. Alan didn't have that many classes left, so he only had to take 12 credit hours each semester (12.5 this semester; he wanted to take a bowling class). He has been able to be home with me, Elsie, and now Alice a lot this past year. Getting a real job means back to him being gone all day. But it also means no homework in the evenings. Everything has it's ups and downs I guess.

Our apartment in Kent, OH

We grew a lot through all of our moves. We were able to spend a summer in the Washington D.C. area, a summer in the Cleveland Ohio area, and six weeks in Virgina Beach. It is hard and stressful to pack and move across the country. We found out first hand just how fun it is to drive a tiny Suzuki Swift, stuffed the the brim with all our stuff, across the plains of Nebraska with no cruise control and no AC. I don't know if I can ever think good thoughts about that state again.

Our apartment in Virgina Beach, VA

Despite how sick of it I am sometimes, I'm going to miss our little college town. I will miss walking around on campus with the girls in a stroller and seeing at least a couple other moms with kids out for a walk (we walked around Kent State with Elsie in her stroller and got the funniest looks...). I'll miss the mountains and always knowing what direction I'm heading. I'll miss Cafe Rio. I will miss walking around our malls that have stores entirely devoted to church ties. I'll miss overhearing people talk about visiting teaching and hearing stories of people using their temple recommend as a valid form of ID. I'll miss being so close to the temple.

The sidewalk in front of our current apartment

Most of all I think I'm going to miss Alan's family. His parents have always been just a half hour away. I have loved getting to know my in-laws over the years and seeing them fall in love with each of my girls. I loved knowing that they were so close and we could call on them if we needed them. I loved celebrating holidays and birthdays together. We've been able to go to his younger brothers' school concerts and games. Both sets of his grandparents live just twenty minutes down the road and we've had many dinners and family gatherings with them. We've been able to live just down the street from his older brother Craig and his wife for a while, and now his younger brother Kyle and his wife.

It's hard to say goodbye. But I know that this move, this job, is the right thing for our family at this time. Change is hard, but it doesn't have to be bad. And even though we'll be leaving behind a lot of things and a lot of wonderful people, we will still be together as a family, just me, Alan, Elsie, and Alice.

It's Jimmer Time

BYU is in the sweet sixteen. Elsie likes watching them play. Everytime she sees basketball on TV she yells "Go Cougars! Jimmer! Touchdown!"

Change is in the air

I turned on the air conditioning in our car today. It was glorious.

Not so much a Daddy's girl anymore...

Elsie has always been a Daddy's girl. Her first official word was 'Dada'. 'Mama' was fourth, after 'jacket' and 'thank you'. Daddy was always her preference of choice when she had to pick between us.

Not so much anymore. Weather it's due to my recent absence or if it was just time for a change, I don't know. 'Mommy put me to bed.' 'Mommy kiss it better.' 'Mommy help, please.' 'Mommy get my milk, please.' 'Elsie sit down in Mommy's lap.' 'Mommy rock again.' Today she wanted her kitty that was sitting by Alan. Elsie asked for it, so Alan tried to hand it to her. She very firmly told him that Mommy need to get her kitty. Alan had to hand it to me so I could hand it to her.

So starts the Time of the Mommy...

On my own

My wonderful parents, who took off work and drove 12+ hours to come and take care of my girls, left this afternoon. We are so grateful that they were able to come. We sat in the hospital before my surgery trying to figure out how we were going to be able to handle taking care of the two girls while still letting me heal and Alan still going to class/work. Alan's mom had already stepped in to take the girls, but she was going out of state for a family wedding. As we were scrambling around trying to figure things out, my parents called and said that they were getting in the car tomorrow morning and driving out to us.

Thanks again Mom and Dad.

They were full time kid wranglers all week long. I was able to sleep and rest without worrying about them and Alan was able to go to class/work without worrying about me. They made meals and helped me find things I could eat. They took Elsie to the park to play and ride her bike. They made sure I got out of the house and walking around at least once a day. They let Alan and I get out alone to walk around in the evenings together. They really were life savers.

Alice's favorite place to sleep was with Grandpa

We're still easing back into regular life this week. My best buddy has agreed to let Elsie play at her house all week while Alan is in class to give my insides a little more time to heal before I have both Alice and Elsie climbing all over me while I'm home alone. It's a great relief to know that I'll only have Alice with me when I won't have Alan's help.

Here's to life moving forward!

Sometimes it's the little things

No matter how awful I felt in the hospital, I was always very grateful to have shaved legs and painted toenails.

Gallbladder diet

If I could have chosen the doctor to perform my surgery, I wouldn't have chosen the one they assigned my case to in the ER. Well, I take that back. I'm sure he performed the surgery wonderfully. But he wasn't the greatest at patient/doctor relationships. Before the surgery I was too nervous and freaked out to say a whole lot, and afterwards I was too drugged up to ask the questions I needed to ask. He talked fast and kind of mumbled and told me everything was in my discharge papers. I asked about what I should eat and all he said was "No fat".

Most of my information had to come from my own research. Despite what he said, my discharge papers didn't include a whole lot. From what I've found out, everybody reacts differently. Some have found they don't have to make any changes, while others have foods that send them to the porcelain throne. But most sources say I need a week or two, maybe up to a month, with little to no fat in my diet to give my liver time to learn how to process food without the gallbladder. After that, it's just up to my body with what it can handle.

I know I'm driving Alan crazy with trying to find things to eat. I can feel myself obsessing with what has fat, and what kind of fat, and how much fat, and then not eating anything for fear of it having fat. I'm so scared of eating the wrong thing and then having my body reject it in a rather violent way.

I know I'm stressing out about this way too much. I need to just relax and listen to my body. There will have to be some trial and error, and some of it might end badly, and I need to accept that. I can play it safe for a few weeks, and then I need to slowly introduce a few things at a time and see how I handle it. I just need to get over myself.

Besides, I find it hard to believe that I can last too terribly long without trying chocolate...

Anyone have any ideas of what I can eat?

Mommy Owies

Elsie is pretty good about being gentle with me and tells me all the time "Mommy owies belly". Alice still kicks my incisions when I feed or burp her, but she doesn't know any better. Elsie picks up on way more then I give her credit for. I didn't realize how much my being in the hospital really affected her. When they came to visit me Wednesday morning, my nurse came in to take my vitals. Elsie was chatting away like normal, but when the nurse started messing with my IV and put a blood pressure cuff on my arm, Elsie looked at her and started bawling. She started crying "No Mommy owies! No Mommy owies!". I guess she was afraid the nurse was going to hurt me more. We tried to calm her down and she had to hold my hand while the nurse recorded my vitals.

I'm still on a lot of pain pills and I'm sleeping a lot. I've tried to space out the time that I take the meds, but it still might be too soon to wean off them. Every time they wear off it feels like I've been hit with a truck. My stomach and the incisions hurt, and surprisingly, my throat hurts a lot. It's probably from all the tubes they shoved down in while I was being cut open. They also retrieved the loose stones the next day through a scope they put down my throat. I'm not recovering as fast as I would like to be. But I also know that if I don't take my time and take it easy, it's going to take that much longer to feel better. At least I'm at home now and I can rest in my own bed. At least I can be around my girls. I'm trying to count my blessings.

Phantom pain

As silly as it sounds, I am so grateful for my Droid incredible smart phone. I don't know what I would have done without it these last few days in the hospital. It was my only link to the outside world. I was able to sit and use the internet to look up all the things that were done to me when the hospital staff didn't explain it well enough. I was able to look at pictures of Alice to help me get through all of my pumping sessions. I could surf the web to pass the time through all those long hours. I could call and talk to Alan or my mom or anyone else. I received support via text message. And, I could blog.

I don't even know if anyone besides my mom even reads this, but it has been a great outlet for me. I've been able to feel connected to the world beyond the walls of the hospital. It's help me work through my thoughts about what has happened. With all the medicines I've had pumping through my veins, my head has been in such a fog that typing things out has been my only real way of thinking clearly. I've been have sort of drug-induced lucid dreams where I have a hard time telling what is real or if things really happened. Writing things down (or typing, I guess) has helped me separate what's really happened and what I only thought happened.

I've heard about people losing a limb or other body part but still feeling pain in the phantom limb or thing they lost. I'm not feeling anything like that, but ever since I left the hospital I still feel things that aren't there anymore. I keep shaking my wrist to move the hospital bracelet that I already took off. I keep straightening my arm to accommodate the IV that they already took out. I keep rubbing my nose to fix the oxygen that I'm not wearing. It is a really weird sensation. I hope it fades away quickly.

In my own bed

The hospital finally discharged me this afternoon. I was able to spend the evening at home and now I get to sleep in my own bed. I'm so happy to be sleeping next to my husband and to have my babies in the next room. It's very comforting.

Going home

I had more labs drawn this morning and both surgery teams stopped by to talk to me. My blood work looks good, my counts are up, bilirubin is down, and liver functions are looking good. The surgeons agreed that as long as I don't throw up breakfast or lunch I should be ok to leave this afternoon.

I'm ready to get back to my husband and my kids. I'm really glad my parents will be there to take care of them and do all the heavy lifting, but I want to be around them. It's very comforting to know that I can go home and my only responsibilities are to rest and feed Alice.

I've been pumping and pumping and pumping, but I know my milk supply has decreased. A big part of it is probably due to the fact that they starved me for two days. I wasn't allowed anything, not even water, until after the second procedure was finished yesterday. All they gave me was a few little swabs that I could dip into water to wet my mouth a little. After they got the remaining stones out I was allowed clear liquids, and this morning they let me have a little bit of yogurt. I just need to get back to Alice and let her nurse as much as she wants so I can build my supply back up. I feel bad knowing she has had to have some formula the past few days, but I also know that she has been fed with the same love and attention that I would have given her had I been able to nurse her.

I'm ready for this ordeal to be over with.

Motherhood outsourced

That's how I'm feeling right now. I'm stuck here in this hospital bed because they won't let me go home, and so I've had to let someone else mother my children. And it's hard to do that.

I have a wonderful mother in law who has stepped in the last two days to take care of my girls. I have my awesome parents who spent all day driving to be here to help out with the kids. I have my amazing husband who knows our kids backwards and forwards and can give them everything they need. I'm surrounded by loving people who are willing to drop everything to help out so I can rest and heal.

So why do I feel so obsolete?

I miss my babies

Nursing moms should not have to leave their six week old babies. I've never been away from Alice this long and it's killing me. I know she's being taken care of by people who love her, but it's not me. She's been eating what little I had pumped before and some formula, but Alan said it was a little bit of a struggle to get her to take it. I need my baby with me. I need to be feeding my baby. They gave me a pump here to keep up my supply, but it's not the same, especially when everything I pump gets dumped down the sink. The anesthesiologist told me that the official stance is that I would need to pump and dump for 24 hours, but then he also told me that anything he gave to me he would give to a baby born 24 weeks premature. So it was really up to me what I wanted to do and how soon I could feed my baby. Jeanine brought the girls over before bed time and I decided to give it a try and nurse Alice. I needed to have that close intimate time with her. She was really happy to have it too.

I just got out of my second procedure this morning. Yesterday I had the big surgery where they took the gall bladder out. This morning they had to put me under again and go in with a scope to remove the stones that were stuck in the bile duct. So I should be done with all of the big procedures. Now we just need to go home, but I don't know if they'll let me today. I'm tired, I'm sore, and I have four cuts across my stomach. The surgeon from yesterday came in this morning. He told me that it was good that I had it taken out yesterday because based on the liver function tests I would have been really sick if I had waited even one more day.

I miss my girls. I miss Alan. I miss my apartment. I want to go home.

Not how I planned on spending my Monday...

About an hour or so after going to bed I woke up with some pretty bad chest pain. Despite popping a few pain meds, it kept getting worse. By 3am I was in agony. I woke up Alice to try and nurse her a little bit while Alan called his brother to have him and his wife stay with the girls. We headed to the ER, and after some high dose pain meds and an ultrasound, they told me I need to have my gallbladder removed immediately.

Emergency surgery was definitely not on my to do list today. I sent Alan home to get Alice so I could nurse her again before they put me under. We're just sitting here waiting for the surgeon to talk to us and waiting to be admitted to the regular hospital (as opposed to the ER). I'm scared. I'm worried how this will effect my milk supply and nursing Alice. I'm nervous about the recovery.

Alan gave me a blessing and now I have a content sleeping Alice snuggled up with me. It won't be fun, but I'm confident everything will be alright.

Almost short sleeve weather

Elsie has gotten too used to wearing long sleeved shirts. Now whenever she wears just a tee shirt, she pulls on the sleeves and says "Mommy help, Mommy fix". I have to explain to her that the sleeves are short and can't be pulled down.

Alice loves Elsie

The magic number

Alice is six weeks old today. What is it about six weeks that everything is supposed to be better? When I was pregnant everything I heard or read about talked about the magic six weeks. By six weeks, breastfeeding would be going smoothly. By six weeks, baby should be smiling. By six weeks, we can resume *ahem* other relations. By six weeks, baby should have settled into somewhat of a daily routine. Never mind 5 weeks 6 days, six weeks is where the magic happens.

We played Hide and Seek with Elsie tonight. It was rather hilarious. Alan would run and hide while I counted with her. When she found him, she would yell "Elsie's turn" then run to hide in the same spot. If Alan would take too long finding her, or ask "Where did Elsie go?", she would pop out and say "Here she is!".

Our workouts have been going pretty well. On good days we manage to get them in while Elsie is napping. On every other day Elsie has to workout with us. On cardio days she runs around in circles getting in the way of our kicks or leg lifts, knocks us off balance, or climbs on our backs when we're on the floor. Push ups are hard enough without adding another 25lbs... On weight training days she "works out" with her water sippy and mimics our grunts and groans. Oh well, at least we're doing something.

Alice is doing really well at night. I normally put her down about an hour or so before Alan gets Elsie ready for bed, so she's usually asleep when Elsie goes to bed. They've done really well being in the same room together. I was really worried about them waking each other up all night, but I think we've only had that happen once or twice. Most of the time Alice wakes up around 2 and goes back down in her crib until 5:30 or 6 when she gets up to eat again. We have a harder time getting her to go back to her crib then, so she usually ends up in our bed until Elsie wakes us up around 7 or 7:30 (8 on a good day).

Not the evening I was hoping for...

Dinner was over and we were all sitting on the couch ready to enjoy a little family time. Alice starts wailing and Elsie drops the book she's carrying on her foot, starts crying, and throws up all over Alan's lap. Somehow I then found myself holding a screaming infant while trying to comfort my toddler who was throwing up in the bathtub. Sigh...

Alice smiles

Baby Blues

Some days I feel a lot like this...

I had a pretty intense few days of baby blues that I'm still trying to get over. Thursday was the worst... I felt like crying all the time, I did cry a lot, no energy, lethargic, and just an overall sense of weariness. It was probably the worst day I've had so far. I'm sure Alan was wondering who replaced his wife with this sobbing, crazy mess. No matter what I did I just couldn't pull myself out of it. It was a relief to finally go to bed and try again the next day.

Since Thursday, I've been trying to figure out the things that I can change or do everyday to make the baby blues pass. Here are the things I've come up with so far...

-Get out of the house. Go to the store, walk around campus, go to the playground, anything to get out. It helps that the weather is getting warmer, but we've still had some snow days were it is really hard to go anywhere, and those are the days I feel it the most.

-Get some physical exercise. Katie and I are pretty good about going out for walks, but there are still days that we can't get together. Alan and I have been finding time for our daily workouts and those seem to help.

-Put the scale away. We've been working out, I've been eating better, I feel better, and I even pulled out a smaller pair of jeans today, but the numbers are not moving. I was getting so fixated on the numbers and letting them dictate how I saw myself. I finally had to put the scale in a hard to access place and go back to my old way of measuring - how well my clothes fit.

-Keep the house organized. It makes a world of difference to have a clean living room. I fight a daily uphill battle with this one. Elsie can undo any work I do twice as fast as I can do it. But I've found that if I can limit the toys she's playing with and have a rule that toys/blocks/crayons need to be picked up before getting the next toy/block/whatever out, it is sometimes manageable.

-Have something in mind for dinner. I have recently redone how I plan out dinners, and it has been wonderful. No more getting to 5 o'clock with hungry bellies and then standing around in the kitchen arguing about what to eat. When there is a plan in place, if all else fails I can at least direct Alan to the kitchen with a recipe in hand and ingredients in the cupboards.

-Have a sounding board. Alan got to hear my sobbing tale of woe Thursday night. Half of it wasn't intelligible, and the other half was so trivial it shouldn't really matter. But it mattered to me on that no good rotten day, and Alan was there to listen to it and tell me it was going to be alright. I need those people like Alan and Katie to tell me when I'm going a little crazy and help me back onto the path of saneness.

I'm sure I will have a few more days like Thursday until my hormones finally even out. But when they come, it's nice to know that I at least have a battle plan for how to deal with them.

Oh Toodles!

Some days I owe my sanity to the Micky Mouse Clubhouse. It's the only show Elsie will sit and watch. Afterwards she runs around saying "Oh Toodles!" and asking for Mouskatools. Kinda cute. It's on every morning at 10am and Alan found a few episodes for our computer for those times when I really need them. I can also get her to eat just about anything while she's watching it too. I just put whatever I want her to eat in a little baggie and give it to her while she sitting on the couch. It works pretty well.

Alan and I have started a new workout regime. All we done so far is the pretest and two days worth of workouts and man, am I feeling it. I guess that means it's working, right? It's hard finding enough time to get in the full videos that we're working with, but we're making do. We finally came to the understanding that we are not the best morning people, so it works better to workout in the afternoons, even though that means getting all sweaty and gross in the middle of the day. It's really hard, but it feels good... kind of. :-)

(Pictures taken from my phone, so they're a little blurry)