Four Letter Word

It's been a while since I've updated anything here, obviously. And the longer I go without updating the more overwhelming it seems... like there are a million things that I want to "talk" about but they all run together and then I kind of think "eh, that's not even interesting". :)

Our last few weeks can be summed up in one four letter word: sick. And not the kind of sick that the 'cool kids' are using instead of the words neat-o or cool. Man I'm getting old. At any rate, sick, sick, sick.

This past month everyone has had a nasty cold, then Karleigh came down with pneumonia and missed a week of school. On her first day back, Rylan got the flu - on his fifth birthday. The next day Stella got a rash all over the trunk of her body that looks kind of like tiny, red baby acne but isn't. She still has her rash has continued to be cranky, not sleeping well and in fact was up from 1:30 to 3:30 early this morning with a fever. I'm thinking maybe we need a trip to the desert while our house gets bleached down. Either that or I just need to put us all in a bubble for a while.

Thankfully, we did get a day of reprieve where everyone was feeling ok and attitudes were really quite good, to celebrate Rylan's 5th Birthday. Last Saturday we had an airplane birthday party for him. My parents came down to celebrate with us and he had a great time. We went to the local air museum and then came back for cake, presents and his favorite pizza. It was fun and relaxing and a very welcome break to everything else that's been going on.

It's kind of hard to realize how fast five years goes. How much they change and learn and grow. We're really proud of him though and are soaking up what could be the last remaining bit of him really needing us for cuddles and hanging out.

Honesty, Hiccups and Hangups

Honestly.
Since my last post I have started to feel a lot better. Not every day is perfect, of course, but I think like I've made progress and I'm more comfortable with the way I feel about everything. Functioning day to day was the number one thing that I needed to get under control and between Jim picking up a bunch of the slack and rest assured, there was a BUNCH of slack to be picked up considering just taking care of the basics was starting to feel overwhelming and taking my vitamins and supplements, the hiccups are coming fewer and further between.
*Hah! I just re-read that and honestly, it was not the functioning day to day that I needed to get under control. It was the anger and temper and the frustration with myself for feeling so out of control when it came to day to day tasks. Big difference. And how in the world can someone be so indecisive but so upset and certain that the decision that was just made was the wrong one? I don't know, but that's where I was.

In hindsight, I know I experienced some of this when Karleigh was little and interestingly enough, to me at least, right around 4-5 months because I know she was sleeping in the nursery by then. I can recall rocking her in just her lamp lit bedroom and thinking "huh... I wonder what would happen if I just let her roll off my lap and onto the floor..." I never once even came close to considering it and I've never had any thoughts of hurting the kids or myself - just to be very blunt about it so there's no lines to read between - but after that questioning thought, I had the disturbing and very unlikely vision of her rolling off my lap, onto the floor with a thud and then continuing across the room and then up and out the bedroom window and down. Cah-Rae-Zee...
It was the only and the last thought that I recall having like that and it freaked me out. And like I said it wasn't me thinking that I could, would, or should do anything like that but just a very "not me" moment. Five months postpartum with Rylan, the "fit hit the shan", so to speak and I honestly don't remember a whole lot about that time. My dad had a stroke, I started on a hormonal birth control for the first time in my life that totally sucked and messed me up so stress and not being myself would be a total understatement and with everything that was going on there's no way possible that I could begin to divide and pinpoint what was what. At any rate...

I had gotten to the point a couple weeks ago, that if I didn't feel any better by "insert date here" that I would be making a call to my OB or to Stella's ped because she also handles adults - great office by the way. It's a good thing that I did start feeling better though because I don't know if I really would have made the call. Just thinking about calling was overwhelming so tell me how in the world women really do get help? If there isn't someone to say "this isn't abnormal but it's not ok, let's deal with it together" what else is there? The anxiety of just calling. Good grief. Luckily, I do have people who checked in with me and said just that, to a point, I may be paraphrasing to save time. :) It was just very hard to deal with those feelings while knowing that, as far as many people were concerned, I had everything that I wanted so I shouldn't feel this irrational way and I should stop complaining about it.

For now though, things are good. Things are actually getting really close to great again! I'm trying to remove any unnecessary drama, get a decent amount of sleep, be more rational about my thoughts and keep up with my vitamins and such. It is nice to feel like the fog has lifted and I'm really grateful that is seems to have just been a great big hiccup along the way.

Since I'm feeling more me again. Well, I've always been me, but the better more like myself me... I realized that I hadn't hardly gotten past but a few pages in Stella's baby book. That too is one of those little things, that turns into a bigger thing, that's been bugging me. What kind of mom just chooses not to fill out the baby book? Granted. I didn't really like any of them that I came across while shopping so I settled on one that was more girly than gender neutral like I have for Karleigh and Rylan. They have gender neutral baby books because that was one of the first purchases for both of them. I wrote in them from fairly early on but this time I could not bring myself to buy a baby book because, you know, when the baby dies, that's just another thing that you have to make room for in the memory box. But I finally bought one not long before Stella was born and it was going well for the first several pages until I got to the page labeled: Mommy and Daddy are Having a Baby. Really? Are you sure? Can you, little book, guarantee that!? So, I got mad at the baby book. Rational much? I ended up not liking the colors and the butterfly decal on the front annoyed me. It didn't even match.

So, I stopped writing in it.

And that made me mad and sad too. My mom doesn't have a baby book and it may very well be because my grandma had the same issues and couldn't get to a place where she was "ok" filling out a baby book for her. 13 months before my mom was born, my grandma had a stillborn son at 8 months and I'm almost positive she didn't have the support that she needed to deal with it. On the other hand, my dad has The. Best. Baby book. Ever! His mom died when he was a young teen but when he was younger, she wrote everything down. She wasn't anal about using the same perfect back pen every time. She didn't stay between the lines. If he said or did something amusing, she wrote it down. As I recall, she wrote about buying his first pair of cowboy boots in red ball point pen. And she kept the ink foot print for sizing. And the receipt too.

I found a new, slightly less taunting baby book, gathered everything together and started over today. That same page that bothered me before says "A Baby is Due!" in this new book. And why does the wording even matter when she is here already? I don't know, but it does. Sure, there's the hangup of how to fill out the sibling section. Do I? or Don't I? include Eli and Collin. I haven't. I don't want to scare the kids when they think about having their own babies, yet at the same time, I also don't want them to feel alone if, heaven forbid, they do have to deal with some of this.

So, soon I will be heading back to the dining room to continue filling out the information for the first five months of Miss Stella's life. And I will feel good about doing it!

It's not you, it's me

It's why I've been quiet. I kept it 'real' before so I might as well continue...

The thing I feared most about finally having our "rainbow baby" seems to be raising its ugly head. And it's beyond humiliating to admit that after everything we went though to get her here I'm having a very hard time with it... not with her, just with everything else. I seem to have zero coping skills, anger quickly, sleeping is an issue both getting there and getting enough and with there being no other way to put it nicely, I'm generally pissed off most of the time. Just great.

For someone who hasn't been here before I'm feeling quite defeated. I should be happy and drowning in a sea of bliss with an adorable, happy baby in my arms. I have the baby part but the sea feels more like an abyss and then the guilt cycle starts. I know that I have friends* who would give anything to have their Rainbow. And I'm sure that there is already judgment being passed down because the high of the 'baby moon' is over. Feeling this way was acceptable when it was grief. Feeling like this... for no reason, is not. Especially to those around me who think I should just get over it or ride it out or it will pass or quit being a baby and suck it up. Nice. I can't stand to look at myself in the mirror or hear the words that come out of my mouth or the tone of my voice, 90% of the time.

I feel like I'm being dragged in multiple directions... but I'm not really. I certainly don't have much on my plate. I have one job, maybe two... a mom and a wife and I feel like I'm pretty much sucking at both of those right now. Don't get me wrong, the kids are clean and fed and safe. Anyway, I could go on and on I suppose, trying to explain but since I don't understand it, I don't expect anyone else to.

I probably won't be back to post much here until I get through this because honestly, this part of it is not going to make me a better person or teach me any valuable lesson, it just sucks and I really don't feel like remembering much about it. I'll still continue to post on my 365 blog since it doesn't involve much emotion but here, here I can't seem to get away from it.

*Friends, in reality, is quite an exaggerated term. People who I've 'met' online would be more accurate though I consider them friends I have come to realize that the term "friend" is not always reciprocal. I tend to refer to people as "friends" because it takes less time to explain than "this person that posts on the same board as I do... oh, you don't know what an online board is? well, it's this place where..." or "this person that I knew in high school, um, 15 years ago..." or "this person that used to be part of the same playgroup..." so in really looking at it, I don't have many friends. I had a few people who I thought were good friends and most of them freaked and walked out a couple years ago. That was sad. I understand that it's awkward dealing with that kind of stuff over and over again but a real friend would have stuck it out. I also realize that I tend to think of being better friends with people than they actually see me as being. (boo-hoo, poor me right?) Again just keeping the picture clear.

Three-Sixty-Five

I know. I'm so not original. That said, I've jumped on the 365 bandwagon but I've decided to start it on a different blog because I want to be able to keep it all in one place and every time I log into this blog, I still have trouble kicking all of the emotion that lead me to start this blog in the first place.

I've only posted 2 entries so far, so... it's pretty short right now. But it is what it is - a challenge to blog and post a photo every single day (a bit different than the 365 photo challenge where I'm often left wondering "what's the story behind that photo?") and I'm going to try to keep it nice and light. If you have a 365 blog that you'd like me to link to or follow just let me know and if you've been thinking of starting one... what are you waiting for!? With back to school and the approaching fall, I thought this would be a great time of year to get things going again!

See you on the other side!


You can click the button and link up to the new blog and as this post moves down, I'll keep the button in my side bar as well.

C'est la vie!

Hey so that "I can't wait for school to be out so I can enjoy the slow pace of summer" thing, yah that didn't work out exactly like I imagined. Sadly, I didn't take into account that 98% of the time, I would not get a nap out of both big kids - really, I think it was 2% of the time... they all napped at the same time a total of once this summer. C'est la vie!

Or perhaps that's just an excuse for not blogging hardly at all this summer. Pathetic. School starts in less than two weeks for Karleigh. Rylan starts in less than a month.

First things first, Stella hit her 4 month mark almost 2 weeks ago! Simply put - she's awesome. I've been trying, for her monthly photos, to take something different each month while documenting her personality or a milestone. This is her 4 month photo:

She loves her big brother and sister and also loves to support her weight on her legs. It allows her to get upright and see the world. Sitting would be a logical position as well but I have spent the last month joking about how sitting would be so much easier for her if her big ol' noggin didn't constantly tip her over. I didn't realize how right I was about that.

Stella's 4 month stats:
Weight: 15 pounds 7 ounces
Length: 24 1/4 inches
And a head circumference has been steadily increasing and is now off the charts. Big. Ol'. Noggin.

We are officially not at a "let's worry about that" phase but if, at her 6 month appointment, her head is still increasing at such a rapid pace, she will most likely undergo a head ultrasound. Ultrasound first to see if the benefit of exposing her to all the radiation of a CT scan would outweigh the risks. I'm already working overtime to keep my anxiety in check. It would worry me more, however, if she was having issues with reaching her milestones. But she's not. She's rolling over both ways, practicing sitting, smiling, laughing, putting everything that she can grab in her mouth, moving toys from one had to the other, playing with her toes... everything that she should be doing.

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I'm thinking of starting a new challenge for myself... a blog/photo 365 challenge??? I'm just trying to decide if I'm going to do it here or on a second blog that I link back to here. I've noticed that lately, when I blog, I have left so much time in between posts that there are about a million and one things that I want to touch on so it gets very scattered and boring... and that's to ME! I can't imagine the yawn factor for anyone else. Plus, I always prefer blog posts with photos so that may be a good way to work it all in. Left to my own devices, I've found that I've got very little... but that's partly due, I'm sure to other things going on. I sit down to write these days and it tends to flow as freely as mud stuck behind a log jam!

You are My Sunshine...

...of course she isn't my ONLY sunshine but at this moment she's the only one who doesn't pull her shirt over her head or close her eyes when she sees the camera or have a big fat lip from falling out of her bed and onto a big pile of books the other night :) and she was having a particularly cute several minutes after waking up from a great 3 hour nap this afternoon that earned her rock star status in my book!

Time, it is a flyin'!

I should have expected as much with the summer and three kiddos but still, I'm feeling a bit blindsided by how fast this summer is going (even though some of the days have seemed pretty long..). We've started our back-to-school shopping and with a glance around the property, you can tell that, before too long, this summer will be but a memory!

The blogging over the last few weeks has certainly taken a backseat to everything else going on. The short version... the weather has been less than summery, the big kids are missing school, Auntie Lacey is back stateside after 3 years in England (Uncle Mark will be back before we know it!) so she was here for about 2 weeks and life has just been going on and on and it seems that Stella is still changing every single day. It both been crazy and relaxing at the same time.

While Lacey was here, we went to the wildlife refuge, we shopped, we ate out, we shopped, we got coffee, we had a movie night, we shopped, we went to the park and the zoo, we got our hair cut, we shopped... you get the idea. I worked a bit at bringing "me" back along side the mom part of me and it was invaluable to have another opinion besides that of a 6 year old!

I have hardly had a chance to go through my pics and honestly, we spent most of the time visiting and enjoying each other and though we tried to get a few good pics, it seemed rare that everyone was "on" at the same time. Oh well!

The big kids, like I said, are missing school. They are both quite smart (every parent thinks that though) - at 4 1/2 Rylan has figured out how to read which is his big summer accomplishment. But even with this, he's also spending much of his time trying to keep his mind busy. He's not reading enough to where he can just sit with a book and read. I'm looking forward to that time though! You can just see everything clicking away in his little mind which is great. However, at the same time, when he gets bored he gets a bit... um... difficult. Not a trouble maker or a bad kid by any stretch of the imagination just different than what we've been used to with him. He was an easy baby, a mellow toddler for the most part so this phase (that has seemed pretty long) has been kind of draining for me. He's very sweet but is also really experimenting with exerting his independence, voicing his opinions and testing his boundaries and our consistency. That's normal and to be expected but I'm having a very hard time figuring out what his currency is and trust me, I feel like I've tried everything. On the bright side he's not testing us 100% of the time so we do still have fun with him!

Karleigh's very helpful with Stella and Rylan. She likes to feel important, just like everyone, so keeping her helping around the house keeps her happy. Give her a bunch of Clorox wipes, a dust rag and a broom and we're golden. She however is going through a (what we perceive as irrational) fears phase. She doesn't like to be alone, inside or outside. She doesn't like the dark or the sound of the toilet flushing. She's quite the little environmentalist and things that she loved last year, now terrify her. I'm not exaggerating. While Lacey was here, we had a bob cat wander through the field just below the house. She loved seeing it but at the same time, it totally freaked her out. She ended up crying while trying to go to sleep because she couldn't let the thought of the bob cat go. The next day she woke up and was covered in a hive like, blotchy rash. Anxiety induced. We looked up videos of bob cats purring on the internet, talked about how grandma has had several students bring in bob cats for show-and-tell throughout the years, how she's seen them at the zoo before, how they are very shy predators... she woke up the next morning totally fine. However, we're dealing with similar fears again because we have a confirmed black bear on the property as well too. I feel it's important that they know not to be afraid but what to do if they do happen to see the bear while they are outside. I feel to NOT educate them would be negligent, no different than teaching water safety if you live on or are around the water... stranger danger in the city... it's just part of living where we do. Last year she was IN LOVE with the black bears we saw at Glacier and Bear Haven. She would. not. sleep until we put Stella down in their room. Although just the other afternoon, as we were setting things up to move Stella into their room, Karleigh got teary because she was afraid that Stella would stop breathing while she was sleeping in there. *sigh* ...too much for a 6 1/2 year old to be thinking about. So, I need to figure out how to help her work through these fears. I remember being afraid to crawl into bed when it was dark for fear of "something" grabbing my ankles or being afraid to go into the downstairs bedroom of this house in the dark, but that's because one night my grandpa "peek-a-boo'd" right in the window and I totally didn't expect it at all. So, now I've got to try to figure out how to help her work through this anxiety.

Little Miss Stella is just blossoming. I think there's something to the idea that it's more like 4 trimesters... I know, mathematically, that doesn't make sense but the idea is that they really start to show their personalities and get more physically active after the 3 month mark. Yes a few days ago, she moved into the room with Karleigh and as far as she's concerned, that's been a seamless transition. She's still sleeping from 11 or so until around 8am. She's also napping in there and I'm thrilled to say that I'm even able to put her down awake but drowsy and have her sleep!

She's babbling and belly laughing, rolling and taking everything in around her. We got her a jumperoo yesterday and she loves it. I love that it gives me a few more minutes to get a few things done around the house and it doesn't add to the bald spot on the back of her head like playing on the floor does!

I was so funny to see the way she looked at Jim once he got it put together and set her in it. She kept looking at him like "THIS!?! All of this for me???" Cutest thing ever!

All in all, we've done a few fun things around here. We'll be heading up to my parent's house in a few days and then it's back down here for doctors and dentist appointments and getting ready for school to start! It feels like before we know it, I'll be posting Halloween pics!