Day in the life

So I haven't updated my blog in well...almost a year. One reason is because we didn't have a computer, just an iPad and I absolutely hate typing on an iPad but another reason is that I am busy with my two little munchkins. Life is not necessarily slower these days but a little more controllable. Baby K is in a pretty decent routine, he (usually) naps for an hour and a half in the morning and then two hours in the afternoon which usually allows me to get some stuff down, which is good because when he is awake - nothing gets done. He was my angel baby, so quiet and content and just perfect. And while he's certainly not a bad baby now, he's just nowhere near as quiet and content. All he does is move. Constantly. Up and down. He finds one thing, destroys it and then moves on to the next. I had forgotten how crazy this stage was. How loud this stage was! Baby K is so happy until you take something away from him or you stop him from doing what he wants to be doing and then oh man, he could shatter windows! Z is three now (how did that happen!) and I find myself just loving this age. He is independent but still a little boy. He loves to read, play with lego and playmobile and loves his brother. He finally has a good vocabulary where I can understand most of what he is saying and have full conversations with him. I just love this age.
Something I've noticed lately on blogs is moms doing "A Day in My Life" which I think is kind of a fun read and shows how crazy the life of a stay at home mom can be! I apologize in advance for the lengthy posts but my days are pretty full!
So here is a day in my life:

5:45 a.m. Baby K wakes up, Hubby and I argue over whose turn it is to feed him, this time it's mine so I crawl out of bed, get a bottle ready, feed him and pray he goes back to sleep - success!
6:20 a.m. Z is up. We have a Gro Clock which turns into a sun when it's time to get up and while it works beautifully, I'm pretty sure Z sits in bed and stares at it waiting for it to turn since he always runs into our room at exactly 6:20 which is what it is currently set for, oh well, better than 5:30!
6:30 a.m. Set up the playmobile knights for Z to play with while I have my morning coffee. This has been his new obsession, we got them about two weeks ago and he plays with them every spare moment.
7:00 a.m. Breakfast for Z - toast, watermelon and yogurt. Baby K wakes up. Bum change, change him out of pajamas and downstairs we go. Baby K decides he is starving so breakfast for him as well. I get to use my new yummy pouches! Baby K refuses to let me spoon feed him which really limits me because he won't eat oatmeal, yogurt, applesauce.... I feel like breakfast is always toast for him so I bought a 6 pack of reusable pouches from yummy pouches and put some greek yogurt in it for him - success! He happily slurped out the whole thing of yogurt! He will happily eat finger foods so he had cheerios and watermelon as well.
7:30 a.m. Run a load of laundry. The whole family has been sick so clean sheets are a must! I have to take the cloth diapers out that I did the night before and put them on the drying rack...hopefully I will get the folded today but if not, well that is why I have 30 cloth diapers! I can go several days without folding them and still be okay!

8:00 a.m. Hubby is off to work, the boys love saying goodbye and waving at the window. I pour my second cup of coffee while Z is back playing with the knights and Baby K has discovered my Tupperware drawer.
8:30 a.m. Clean up breakfast dishes, make the kids beds with the spare set of sheets
9:00 a.m. Baby K goes down for a nap (I trip on the knights which are set up on the stairs - due to a baby gate, Z feels this is the safest place for his knights from K), he lets out a loud squack going down (he has skipped morning nap the last two days) making me think this is a lost cause but surprisingly enough by the time I get to the basement he is quiet!

9:15 a.m. Switch the bedding over, get Z settled in the basement with some toys while I work out for twenty minutes
9:45 a.m. Breakfast for me - Peanut Butter Banana Green Smoothie. Snack for Z (seriously this kid is a bottomless pit) - bowl of blueberries, two cookie crackers (thankfully my kid thinks that is what a cookie is) and a sippy cup of my smoothie.

Recipe:

 1 cup spinach, 2 cubes frozen yogurt (you could also just put in a couple tablespoons of plain yogurt but I love it when it's frozen because it just makes the smoothie a little thicker), one banana, 2 tbsp natural peanut butter, 1 cup milk

10:00 a.m. I let Z watch a cartoon while I take a shower...have to get back in because I realized I didn't shave my legs and it's going to be hot today!
10:30 a.m. Z is playing with a sticker book so I am quickly making a couple fruit/veggie blends for Baby K to eat out of his new yummy pouch! Kale, Apple, Banana is my first try - hopefully Baby K likes it! I used to buy the pouches from Baby Gourmet which are fantastic but at $1.25 (on sale!)/pouch, it's a little pricey but he loved the Kale, Apple, Banana one they had so I'm hoping to replicate it!
10:40 a.m. Baby K wakes up..I'm in the middle of steaming Kale so I quickly grab him and give him a bottle in his high chair (first time doing that and he actually managed to do it himself!) and try to finish cooking. I manage to make 6 pouches of Kale, Avocado, Banana and Apple. However, due to the fact that I had an 11 month old either attached to my leg or hip, my kitchen got a little disastrous.

11:15 a.m. Realize I told my mom I would be at her house (half hour away) before noon. Oops! Quickly pack a bag, change Baby K, and try to remember everything I would need for an afternoon out of the house. Correction, pack 2 bags!
11:35 a.m. Out the door! Only 5 minutes late.
12:00-8:00 p.m. Grandma Grandpa's house. Several hours of trying to keep the kids quiet while my niece tried to sleep, did some gardening (my parents live on an acreage so we planted a garden there), hung out with my brother and sister in law who were visiting, and lots of chasing the kids around the house. Z took a nap but Baby K didn't fall asleep until 4 so I only let him sleep an hour.
8:00 p.m. Baby K fell asleep in the car, transfer him to bed. Z wants to play knights with daddy for a bit, since he took a 2 1/2 hour nap at G&G's house, I let him.
8:30 p.m. Z to bed
8:45 p.m. Z comes downstairs and I send him back to bed and I start on the dishes. To all the mom's who empty the dishwasher first thing in the morning and keep the kitchen clean all day. Wow and Kudos. I give up all day and then tackle a giant mess in the evening. But it's kinda my quiet time. I turn on Star Trek Voyager and just do the dishes and enjoy the peace.
9:30 p.m. Put up my extra booster seat since I have an extra kid in the house tomorrow and get my coffee maker ready for tomorrow.
9:35 p.m. Watch an episode of Torchwood with the hubby and then bedtime for me!

Catch Up of October Photo Challenge

I actually did take a picture every day in October, but didn't get around to blogging them - welcome to life with two kids! But here is a glimpse of our life

Birth Story

I love hearing birth stories. I think it's so interesting how it seems like every woman and every pregnancy has a completely different birth story. In some ways, Baby K's birth story isn't that different from Z's but it's also completely different. I have an irritable uterus so I get contractions pretty much constantly starting from my third trimester on. Which makes it extremely difficult to tell whether or not I'm in labour. As such, I went to the hospital an embarrassing number of times during my pregnancy with Baby K. I went several times with Z as well but I definitely beat that number with Baby K. I think it was 5 times at least. However, the big difference was that with Z, I went three times leading up to his birth (Friday morning, Friday night and Saturday and he was born on Saturday) while with Baby K, I went twice in July, once in August and then twice in September (the 2nd time being when I was finally in labour). But in the end, that just doesn't matter. Thursday, September 20 seemed like any other day. Unlike with Z, I wasn't in labour all night, waking up feeling like this must be it. I went to the Ladies Morning Out group that I joined at our church and I was having contractions during the session, but that doesn't really make me panic or think I'm in labour - that's just my norm. They were more painful, I was having a hard time concentrating on the lesson, but they weren't super close, only like 10-15 minutes apart. That's the other thing that was really different, with Z, my contractions started at 3-5 mins apart so I was expecting that as well. I was even joking about the contractions with some of the ladies at the bible study that day and I went home thinking it would still be awhile. It was only 2 days before my due date (coincidently, I had Z two days early) so I was starting to pay more attention to my contractions but I was so sure I would be late since I had felt like I had been pregnant forever. I got home and put Z down for his nap and hubby came home for lunch. He even asked me at lunch if I thought he should stay home but I said no, I didn't want him to miss any work for a false alarm and I was determined that I will only go in when I'm sure. I called my sister when he left and we chatted and I still was having contractions but they were still 10ish minutes apart and I didn't feel like they were super regular so I told her I wasn't going to go in. But as soon as I hung up with her, they started getting closer together and were getting more intense as well. I decided to call hubby and get his opinion, he thought we should go in so he came home from work and I called my parents to have them pick up Z.
We got to the hospital around 4:30 p.m. and checked in, a process I'm VERY familiar with. I got to the assessment room and the nurse checked me and decided that I was not in labour. A fact that made me want to cry. But then she said that I had a labour feel to me and she thought I was going to go very soon so instead of sending me home, she wanted me to go for an hour long walk to see if that would kick me into high gear. So we walked to the mall, got some food in case I was in labour and wouldn't be allowed to eat and then walked back to the hospital. I couldn't tell if I was having more contractions or what because the steady walking was making me cramp so consistently that I couldn't tell what was contractions and what was just cramps so I had no idea what was happening. I got back to the assessment room and the nurse said I was still 3 cm dilated and I would probably be going home but she had to check with the doctor, I didn't recognize the name but she said it would be awhile because he was in surgery. I was starting to have really painful contractions at that point and about 3 minutes apart so I was not happy with that news. Right when I was having a really painful contraction, my doctor came in which made me so happy because she knows my history and I just really like her. Apparently she had just started her shift and heard I was there so she came to see me. She checked me and said I was 3 cm so I thought for sure I was going home since the nurse had basically discharged me already. Then she asked what type of pain medication I was planning during labour so I said epidural but I thought she was just asking but then she turned to the nurse and said lets arrange that for her. Hubby and I just looked at her in confusion and I asked if that meant I was in labour. She said that I was close to a 4 (which is when they admit you) and with how painful my contractions were, she wasn't going to send me home. Hallelujah! So they got me set up in a delivery room and started an IV. I thought they had started me on Oxytocin because my contractions got so intense after that but apparently it was just fluids. I had to wait a bit for the epidural but oh man, it was worth the wait. It was about 7 p.m. by the time I got admitted to a delivery room. At about 8:30 p.m. I was just at 4 cm and not progressing so they decided to break my water. That took a bit of work but eventually she was able to. I felt like things were going really slowly, they checked me at 10:45 and I was at 5 cm. But after that, it started to get really painful. I had an epidural but the contractions were getting super intense and I felt like they were just constant. I told the nurse how much it hurt and she ordered me a top up of my epidural but unfortunately we ended up not having time for that. She checked me at 11:00 and I was almost 6 cm and then it just went from there. My epidural wasn't able to keep up with how fast I was progressing, every time she checked I was further along and feeling the need to push. At 11:20 I was 10 cm and ready to push and with just 2 intense pushes, my beautiful little boy was born at 11:25 p.m. on Thursday, September 20 weighing 7 lbs 15 oz.
I was able to hold him immediately, something I was not able to do with Z and we were able to start nursing in the delivery room. He had a great latch and nursed for twenty minutes before we needed to move to the recovery room. I was feeling great and Baby K just seemed so quiet and content. We nursed again and then he fell asleep in my arms. I wasn't able to sleep but I was on such a high, that I didn't feel tired at all. I sent hubby home and just waited for morning. My doctor came in and said I was doing great and asked if I wanted to go home that day or if I wanted to spend a night. Remembering how poorly both Z and I slept in the hospital, I said I would go home as soon as possible. She discharged me and I just had to wait for baby K to be seen by the paediatrician and at 9 a.m. I was sitting at home.
Life is good.

October photo challenge

Day 2: Z decided he needed some reading materials with his afternoon snack

Day 3: Lemon loaf!

Day 4: Mike surprised me with this beautiful Sapphire ring which is the new baby's birthstone

October goal

I don't usually jump on bandwagons but I love the idea of taking a picture daily during October and sharing it. I think it will encourage me to take more pictures and to blog more.
Yesterday we took the boys to Starbucks so I could get a pumpkin spice latte and because Z was being so whiny and we thought a walk would do him good. However we got caught in this crazy windstorm which scared him and he got dust in his eyes so he wasn't overly thrilled but after hiding out in Superstore for half an hour, it calmed down and we were treated to a beautiful fall day. I love the colors and the leaves and just the crispness of the air.

New Arrival!

I've been a little behind on my blogging. I keep thinking of these hilarious moments or projects or heartbreaks that I want to blog but then life just keeps happening. But the "Big Event" finally happened. Hubby and I can welcome a new member to our family. Baby K was born on September 20 at 11:35 p.m. weighing 7 lbs 15 oz. He is absolutely beautiful.

We are so blessed. Z is a wonderful big brother, he runs around asking for Baby and is always willing to bring us blankets, soothers, diapers, whatever we need. He is very interested in diaper changes and the idea that diapers are for babies actually seems to be helping the potty training process!
It's hard to believe that we are a family of four now. Its hard to believe that I have two beautiful sons. It's hard to believe how blessed I am but I need to remind myself of that. I know that the sleepless nights are hard and that the countless diaper changes (and now lets add soiled undies to the list!) are frustrating and the crying and whining can be beyond irritating but in the end it's so worth it.

Grieving the loss of an only child

This is my last couple of  days/weeks with Z being my only child. With him being my life and getting 100% of my attention. Of him crying and me immediately being able to get him. Of my lap always being open for him. I'm so excited to add another child into our home. I think siblings are such a blessing, I have three of them and wouldn't trade them for anything but I also am grieving the loss of my only child. I'm so excited to have another baby, to get to snuggle the cute little newborn, to watch excitedly for first smiles and roll-overs and giggles. But I'm also sad that it does mean that Z will struggle with splitting my time, he'll struggle with jealousy and not understanding why mommy can't just come running when he calls anymore. I hate the idea of my precious baby struggling but I also know I can't avoid it. I know in the long run, he'll love his baby brother or sister and I know he'll be thankful hubby and I gave him the gift of a siblings but it's hard. I pray that God gives me the patience and energy to still devote my time to him as well, I pray that God gives him the patience (as much patience as a two year old can have) to wait while I deal with his sibling and I really pray that Z will love and cherish his little brother/sister. I look forward to seeing him in the role of a big brother. I think he'll love helping me out, he just loves to bring me things or to put things away for me. I think he'll be really curious by this new addition, he already is so fascinated by babies when we see them.
I'm so thankful that hubby can take 6 weeks off when baby comes (which will hopefully be VERY soon!!!), I'm hoping that will help Z with the transition. The first six weeks tends to be a time when baby is very attached to the mom and dad can't do as much so I'm hoping we can use that time to allow Z to have some very important Daddy-time.