The Midnight To-do List

Here I am awake at midnight cooking me up some mac and cheese. I decided that I wanted to make bread tonight because my buttermilk was quickly approaching its expiration date, but of course by the time I got to it, it was already 10:30 at night. I am super tired, but for some reason I always think of all the things I need to do right before I go to bed. I am sure that most normal people think of bedtime as the part of the day when they clear there mind from all the worries of the world and go to bed. However for me it is the opposite. I get home and I am exhausted. My feet hurt, my bodies tired, and I feel extremely sleep deprived. So what do I do?...walk in the door do the dishes, clean the stove, make bread, and then start cooking some mac and cheese. 

Earlier this week Levi woke up at nine, which is earlier then his normal awake time, and it took every ounce of energy I had to pull myself out of bed and get him. I stumbled into the living room and put his new little people barn (this is his new favorite toy, he is obsessed with it!) on the floor for him to play with. Then I stumble over to the couch. As soon as I sit down I look at Levi, and he looks at me with the saddest eyes, that second I knew what was going to come next. He puckers the lip and starts crying. Levi has the sweetest most innocent sad face I have ever seen, and I cannot help but feel emotional when he starts to cry. He just looks at me with this look of abandonment and I can tell that he is thinking, “How dare you ditch me and move to the couch and just leave me here on the floor.” He then starts to reach for me and throws his hands in the air to pick him up. I knew that I did not have the strength to bend over and pick him up. My body was just not fully awake. So I lie down next to him and start to play farm. Levi seems to be satisfied as long as I am lying next to him, so I think ok he is happy so it is ok to just rest my eyes a little…... Next thing I know I wake up and Levi is on the other side of the room wrapped up in Christmas lights as happy as a little boy can be and Penny is just sitting there cheering him on. He is just laughing and talking and just in the best mood ever. I then jump up in a panic, pick him up and then tried to figure out how long I had been asleep. I really have no idea how much time passed, but what I do know is that I need to be much more careful now that Levi is becoming more mobile. What can I say, no mom of the year awards being handed out here.

On top of me staying up way past Levi’s bed time, Levi has also decided that he has gotten too big for naps. He has not napped for the past two days! He use to have like three naps a day and then all of a sudden that changed to 0. I do not think that he understands that his nap time is not just for him, but it is also for mommy. It’s really OUR nap time, and even if he has already outgrown it I haven’t. So I am hoping he will decide that he isn’t to grown up for nap time.

Levi is also getting his top two teeth. At first I was super excited about this, but now I am realizing the burden of nursing a child with top teeth. I do not think that he has quite figured out how to nurse with all of his new teeth, and let’s just say that this is leaving me with lots of sores.

Changing the subject Morgan and I got our Christmas tree up, and decorated! (Another one of my midnight projects.) I am very excited about this because I love our Christmas tree! Levi and Penny have both been treating it more like a toy rather than a decoration. I left Penny inside tonight and came home to a shattered bulb all over the floor. I wonder how many bulbs she is going to have to break before she figures out that they are not balls. Every second I turn around I find Levi over at the Christmas tree playing with the lights and reaching for the bulbs. Even though the tree causes lots of challenges and creates new obstacles I still love it.

Last I just want to mention some of Levis newest achievements:

• ·         He is getting more efficient at crawling
• ·         He is talking tons!
• ·         He can eat blueberries that are cut in half
• ·         He has tried mangos…and loves them (must not have got the mango allergy from his aunt Wendy)
• ·         He can play with toys! He will sit up and play with his little people barn for hours
• ·         He can suck on the applesauce pouch snacks. He can suck one of those dry in seconds
• ·         He takes a bottle!

He just went to the Dr and He:

Weighs: 14.15 (1^st percentile)

Height: 27.5 (40^th percentile)

Head Circumference: 18 (73^rd percentile)

Well it is now 1:00 am so I am going to go put away the left over mac and cheese, and hopefully go to bed. That is assuming I do not think of anything else I need to do first!

Can’t Sleep…Again!

I seem to find myself wide awake in the middle of the night all too often. I have been awake for almost two hours now and I cannot seem to get any sleep. So I might as well take advantage of this opportunity and catch up on my blog! Let me just start by saying, “holy cow I cannot believe that November is half way over!” Time seems to be flying, and I have no idea where it is in such a hurry to

get to.

Thanksgiving is the week after next, and I am so excited! We have some of our closest friends coming over to have dinner with us. We are going to smoke a turkey on our Traeger, and I know that it is going to be amazing! I have practiced making grandma’s famous rolls, and they turned out awesome. I have a few adjustments I still need to per-fect, but I have full confidence that I will get it down. This is going to be my first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner and I am really looking forward to it. I feel like such a grown up! I will miss being with family, but I am really grateful to have such awesome friends to share the holidays with, I could not imagine settling in to Texas without them.

Levi is starting to crawl….kind of. It’s more of a forward scoot and roll. He is able to get to any destination he seeks, and lately he seems to be attracted to my scrapbooking stuff. It does not matter where on the floor I set him he always seems to end up with both his hands in my scrapbooking bins. He must be excited to get into scrapbooking. He likes to play with Penny more and more every day. Every time Penny walks by he grabs her fur and smiles. He also spends a great deal of time talking to her. He must have a lot to say. Penny is starting to really warm up to him too. Whenever Morgan and I walk in to the door we are always greeted by lots of jumps and kisses from Penny, she is always just so excited to see us. Well lately she is having that same reaction with Levi. As soon as we walk in and I set Levi down, I cannot get her to stop kissing Levis head. I am sure that many of you find that disgusting, but he will have a stronger immune system for it. I am also running into the problem of keeping Penny’s toys separate from Levi’s toys. It would be easier if Penny was not constantly bring Levi her toys and dropping them on his lap. This will be a fun puzzle to solve. Levis favorite activities still consist of watching me vacuum and wash the dishes. It does not matter how tired and fussy he is as soon as the vacuum or sink turns on he goes silent. This leaves me with a pending excuse to always be cleaning.

Best Friends!

I have also been doing a lot of baking. I think it is safe for me to say that I have mastered buttermilk bread! I am going to try to get into the habit of making my own bread instead of buying it at the store. It just tastes so much better when you make it yourself. Morgan is very excited for this decision. Every time he comes home to anything homemade he just gets so excited. It makes me feel good and appreciated. This keeps me excited to cook things that he likes. I am really enjoying having the extra time to cook and bake.

I have to take a moment to get on my soapbox to complain about all the stores that are opening on Thursday for black Friday. I hate that I am going to have to choose between going shopping which I love to do, especially on black Friday, and sitting at the table and enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. I just hate that stores are opening earlier and earlier every year. It is sucking the fun out of black Friday. It is not enjoyable when you cannot even get a couple hours of sleep before leaving for a long stretch of shopping. I am just starting to realize that my black Friday days may be coming to an end if they do not stop this selfishness.

Last, me and Morgan have been talking about the possibility of adding the second addition to our family sometime soon. I am over whelmed by the idea of having two kids, but I really want to have them all close together. I can’t decide if I want to wait for Levi to be 25 months when the next baby is born, or 18 months. I just don’t want to completely over whelm myself, but I think the closer I can get them in age then the easier it will be in the long run. I will keep you updated with that if there is any news to share.

Well I am going to go have a piece of homemade toast with a heaping glass of chocolate milk, and then maybe I can sleep.

Sweet dreams!

This is my new favorite pic of Levi

Keeping Busy

Last time I posted I was talking about Levis weight so I thought I would start with an update. He is still in the second percentile, however he is growing consistently. He has moved up to the 28^th percentile on height, and is head is in the 70^th percentile (probably due to his big brain!). I was super concerned with how small he was, so I decided to call my mom and ask her about how I grew. She said when I was born I was a HUGE baby! I was 9 pounds 9 ounces, I was at the top of all of the charts, I was the biggest baby in the family, but once I came out I just stopped growing. Doctors want babies to double their birth weight by the time they are six months and triple it by the time they are a year. I however barley doubled my birth weight by the time I turned one. I dropped off of all the doctors charts; I was way lower than the first percent tile, and it stayed that way for a long long time.  It wasn’t till I was in middle school that I finally started to barley creep onto the charts again, my mom got so excited that she called the whole family to tell them that I was back on the charts! Its crazy that I was the biggest baby in the family, and now I am by far the smallest.

The doctor’s charts are good to help keep babies on track, but they shouldn’t dictate your piece of mind. Every baby is going to grow different, and there are hundreds of factors that are going to play into the way children grow. I have decided that Levi is growing the way he is supposed to and I am going to stop stressing about it. I am just going to trust that he is growing the way that is perfect for him. It makes sense that he is small, especially when you look at his mom and dad.

In addition to his growing Levi is advancing in many ways on a daily basis. My favorite thing he started to do is he reaches for me. When I go to pick him up he will throw up his arms for me to get him. It is so sweet! He also rolls all over. I have to watch him every second to make sure he is not getting into any mischief. I will leave him on one side of the living room, and before I know it he has rolled all the way across the floor. Penny has loved playing with Levi to. She is constantly bringing him balls and toys. She will bring all of her toys to Levi and drop them right on top of him, and then of course Levi will pick them up and attempt to put them in his mouth. I know gross! So I am always supervising the two of them in order to make sure that they are swapping germs minimally. They say that babies that grow up around dogs have a stronger immune system, I am starting to realize why! lol! Levi also loves to laugh and smile. That is my most favorite, I am glad that I have such a smiley baby, it helps to keep me in a good mood. I mean how can you not be happy seeing that smile all day long!

I am glad that it is finally November because that means that Christmas is next month, and I love Christmas! There are so many things that I love about Christmas, but the thing I am most looking forward to right now is all the Christmas movies I am going to start watching. I want to have a huge Christmas movieathon and watch everything from Elf to It’s a Wonderful life! I have already told Morgan that I want to get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, but he is concerned that the tree would dry out before Christmas. I don’t care if it gets kind of dry, I just want to enjoy for as long as I can. I have already ordered Levis ornament off Lenox, it’s a cute blue elephant that it says his name and the year. I can hardly wait for it to get here! I don’t know why but I can just feel it in my bones that this is going to be a truly special Christmas! Morgan’s whole family is going to be coming and staying with us for ten days! So I am really looking forward to that. I love company, and I especially love seeing our family! I am excited for the start of the Holiday season!

 This is Levi right when he got out of bed! He loves the mornings!

 Penny and Levi are going to be life time friends!

Visiting Daddy at work! 

Cutest Batman on the planet! 

My boys! They are the loves of my life!

He is so cute in a baseball hat!

Calories and Breastfeeding

This has been a hard post for me to write because I have not known how to express how I feel without offending anyone. My whole life I have always been small and skinny. In fact I have always been so small and skinny it was always really hard to find any pants that fit. The pants that fit around the waist were to short, and the ones that were long enough were too big around the waist. This was so frustrating to me, but I was condemned to silence. If I dare bring up this problem people would just get annoyed and rolled their eyes, and they would say things like “I wish I had your problem”

It’s socially accepted to talk about how you’re too fat or how you need to lose weight; but don’t you dare even bring up the topic of needing to gain weight. For years, I have hid my frustrations of being so small, but I am done keeping it to myself. Being small is not as easy as it sounds, and it comes with its own type of struggles. Lately I have been facing a really big obstacle and it is centered on my weight and breastfeeding. Since Levi has been born I have dropped to be 7 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight, and this can get dangerous.

I have always produced plenty of milk, and Levi has always seemed to get enough milk,; but he has always been slow to gain weight. At his last doctor’s appointment I realized that although I made plenty of milk, it was really thin, and it did not have enough nutrients to provide him with what he needed. In addition to him not getting enough nutrients I always realized that I was not getting enough nutrients. I have been feeling very tried and weak, and often times when I stand up I would get a little light headed and dizzy. Levi’s doctor suggested that I try to supplement some formula, but it has been really important to me to strictly breastfeed. Therefore I realized I was going to have to make some major dietary changes.

I love to eat, but I do not love to eat a lot. I am not a big morning eater at all. In fact I hate eating in the morning. It makes me feel sick to eat before noon. I also do not love sweet things or desserts. I love to eat dinner, and to snack all day. I will eat up unto the time I go to bed. I will have two big meals after five. My eating schedule kinda goes like this: eat a light lunch at twelve, snack all afternoon, eat a big dinner at 6:00 and then another big meal at like ten right before bed. I eat fairly healthy, but I am definitely far from being a health nut. I would say I average about 1500 calories a day….maybe even a little less than that.

One thing about breast feeding is your body burns 500 calories a day just making milk. Also if you’re not eating foods with high levels of nutrients, then your body will suck all of your own personal stores and give it to the baby. For example, if I do not consume enough calcium then my body will take my personal calcium directly out of my bones and give it to the baby.

I decided to make it my personal goal to try to double the amount of food I eat, meaning I would eat approximately 3000 calories a day. Many people hear this and think….Sweet just each a bunch of chips, chocolate, and cake, but unfortunately it does not work like that. I have to eat 3000 calories worth of foods that are high in nutrients and that are healthy.

This has been a real challenge for me because pretty much my stomach always hurts from being full, I have to make sure I always have healthy nutritious snacks on hand; I have to plan more meals, do more shopping, and spend more money. In addition to the physical obstacles I have faced I also have had trouble emotionally because I have felt guilty for starving my baby, and not being able to provide him with what he needs.

I just want to take a moment to hop on my soap box and say; this kind of diet is just as much work if not more work then somebody who is trying to lose weight. Gaining weight is hard too. I have to also plan healthy meals just like someone who is on a diet to lose weight, I have to deal with the uncomfortable feeling of always being over full, rather than hungry, and I am constantly focused on counting calories and shoveling more food into my mouth.

I will take Levi back to the Doctor next week and I will get to see if he has gained enough weight. I am hoping that I eating more will be enough to help him gain the weight he needs to grow to be a healthy strong little boy. I love him so much! I will post an update after his appointment next week.

Here are the stats from Levi’s Apt:

Height: 25 and half inches (16^th percentile)

Weight: 13lbs 13 oz (2^nd Percentile)

Texas Life

So moving to Texas has been an exciting adjustment for me. The first thing people think of when they hear the word Texas is heat and humidity. Every time I ever mentioned that I was planning on moving to Texas people always took that as an invitation to tell me about all of the negative things they had ever heard about Texas. Let me also elaborate on the size of Texas…it is huge! So while yes Houston may be intensely humid that does not mean the whole state is.

I am not going to lie and say it has not been hot hear, because it has. However the humidity has not been largely noticeable. From what I understand that hottest month of the year is August, and I have survived that month, and from here on out the weather is supposed to just keep getting better. For the record I will take any amount of heat if it means I avoid snow and freezing temperatures!

In addition to the weather I received many warnings concerning the bugs in Texas. Let me also say the bugs in Dallas are no worse than any of the bugs in Utah or Southern CA.

Now that we have discussed all of the negative things about Texas let me tell you some of the highlights. I have seven malls within ten minutes of my house. Talk about shopping opportunities! We have more restaurants per ca-pita here then they do in New York City, and did I mention that the food is amazing! And the best part so far is they have some of the nicest people. I love southern hospitality!

I was worried about making the adjustment of living in a new place without much family around, however I have made some of my best friends out here already; It has been fun to build such strong relationships. Before when I was in Utah I knew that any friends I made would have to be temporary in the sense that I knew we would be moving away after graduation. This made it hard because I got really close to several different people, and then I had to leave them all and move 20 hours away. However, since I have been in Texas I have not stopped getting to know people. Everyone is so sweet and friendly. I feel like I have already made some lifelong friends out here. It has been a hard adjustment to get use to Morgan going to work, and me staying home with Levi, however I am really grateful for my friends who have been helping me through it.

On my Birthday 2 of my friends came over and took me to get pedicures and to go out to the mall! I have never really had friends come and take me out on my birthday before so this was such a special treat. While we were out doing that Morgan made a beautiful dinner! He smoked ribs all day, and he even made an ice cream cake! I was very impressed. We had a very special time hanging out with our friends.

Well that is all I have time for right now because Levi will be waking up any minute, but I will keep you updated with all of our future happenings!

 Penny Sees a squirrel in the backyard, and she is hypnotized!

 Levis new friend Jax!

Daddy loves to give Levi his baths! 

 Levi at a restaurant way passed his bed time! This is his first time in a restaurant high chair!

 My birthday cake!

Seeing the Deloitte office where Morgan will be working!

Levi’s Birth Story

I am trying to decide exactly where I want to start my birth story. I was a pretty inconsistent blogger through the bulk of my pregnancy (and by inconsistent I mean only posting once) and so I am going to do a brief summary of being pregnant before jumping into my birth story.

I have heard many people tell me that they “love to be pregnant” or “they love their pregnant bodies” I however was not one of those people! Being pregnant was a lot of hard work and most of all exhausting. My first trimester was not too horrible. I did get extremely nauseous in in the morning, especially if I worked outside in the heat; however I did not throw up at all so that was a blessing. The second trimester went by pretty fast, but the third trimester was where I grew a whole new appreciation for pregnant people. My body was so sore. I could not bend over what so ever, and I mean not at all. Poor Morgan had to pick up everything I dropped on the floor, pick up all of Penny’s poop, and he even shaved my legs….I was one lucky girl to have him throughout the pregnancy.

My due date technically would have been March 14^th if you were doing the mathematical calculation, but based on ultrasound it was changed to March 21^st.  So I was thinking that Levi would for sure come early. I could not see any possible way he could come any later than March 21^st but boy was I wrong.

 I also took a Hypnobabies class and decided to do an all-natural home child birth. I know most people think this sounds crazy, but I have the biggest phobia of needles, and I would rather take on any amount of pain if it means no epidural and IV. I could wright a whole post just on natural child birth, but I do not want to get into that, nor do I want to bore you with those details.

I started to have contractions at the beginning of March, but these were not your normal contractions. When I would have a contraction I could feel my stomach get really tight with pressure and then it would relax and loosen. This would be the way that most contractions feel, but the only difference was I felt no pain what so ever. These contractions went on for over a month, and the whole time here I am thinking that Levi is going to be born any day now, but he just wasn’t coming. When I got to my due date my midwife tried rubbing different oils on my belly, but that just was not starting labor either. Every time my midwife checked me I was not even dilated to 1cm.

The contractions continued for about another week, when we decided to try to induce labor naturally by the consumption of castor oil. Let me start by saying castor oil is the most disgusting thing to ever touch my mouth. I took it at about four o clock, and nothing was happening. In fact I felt completely normal. I went and took a nap, and still nothing was happening. That night Morgan has a dinner with other students that were being hired to work for Deloitte We decided to go, since nothing was progressing with my labor. For those of you who are not aware castor oil causes people to have lots of bowel movements, and the theory is by having bowel movements if causes your body to dilate. So we are getting to the end of dinner when I began to have regular bowel movements, and my contractions were all within three minutes apart, and again I remind you I feel no pain from any of these contractions.

 I get home and call my midwife, and tell her my progress. She tells me to get some sleep, and to caller her back when the contractions hurt badly enough that I have to breathe through them. At about 10:00 p.m. Morgan calls my midwife back and tells her I can now feel a slight amount of pain, however in the progression of this 30 second call the pain got 10x more intense and I told him to tell her to come over ASAP. She was there at 11:00 and I had already dilated to a three and my contractions were 3 minutes apart. I was lying on my bed, and I remember just trying to focus on keeping my body relaxed. I learned in my hypnobabies class that the more you can relax your body, the faster it can progress though labor. My midwife got the tub of warm water ready so that I could labor in the tub, she had this set up within an hour of her arrival, and then she came to check my progression again and I had dilated to a six!  Once I was in the tub the contractions were getting more intense. I was lucky to have 5 midwives/doulas there to apply pressure in different places. I would have never guessed that applying pressure could relieve so much of the pain. I had one midwife on each leg, one pushing on my hips, Morgan holding my head, and my mom holding my hand. I was very blessed to have so many people helping me through out my labor. they would coach me through the contractions and remind me to relax. I am the kind of personality that does really well with positive encouragement. I just thrive off of people cheering me on. I am really lucky to have so many people in my life who believe me, and encouraged me all the way to the end. I was going to need all of the encouragement I could get because once I got in the tub The contractions basically never stopped; it was like an hour of straight contractions. It would get really bad and then it would loosen a little bit and then it would get really bad again. I remember just saying that I wanted a two minute brake. I remember thinking that you usually have at least a minute of relief in between contractions, but not me. I threw up at some point during this hour, and I remember being very concerned that I was going to poop in the water, but I never did. Hahaha I know that is grouse but I want to remember all these details. After being in the tub for an hour, I got to the point where I was just like I cannot do this anymore and that is when my midwife checked me again and said it was time to push.

I got out of the water and pushed for like thirty minutes, and then Levi was born at 3:30 in the morning. My whole labor from start to finish was only 4.5 hours. (This is starting at the time I could feel any pressure/pain/discomfort)

At this point in time I thought the worst was over, I had survived child birth; but boy was I wrong. Personally I think the most painful part of the whole experience came 2 days later when I was awoken at like 4:00 a.m. because my milk came in. I remember wakening up my mom, and she helped me go and stand in the warm shower to try to relive some of the pressure, but this was not helping. I was so engorged I did not even know how so much milk could fit in such a small space. This is probably too much information, but I feel it is important. Nobody ever talks about the milk coming in, and this is an entire experience in its own. I had constant milk dripping out of me. I know they make pads that you can use to line your bra with to absorb the milk, but these pads would only last me about three minutes before I was leaking through. Every night when I went to sleep I took one of the giant Egyptian cotton beach towels and I folded it into quarters and then I would wake up and it would be completely soaked with milk. I remember Morgan waking up one night and asking me if I had just pulled it out of the washer because of how wet it was. I went to the doctor to have a check up, and he said I was one of the top ten most engorged he had ever seen. This made me feel good because I felt more justified for all the pain I was feeling. I could write a whole post just about my breastfeeding experience but I will leave it at that for now.

Overall Everything went perfectly, I was really proud of myself for having Levi all natural. So many people told me that I would not be able to do it, and they said things like “you’re going to be begging for the epidural” so to all of those people who questioned me and did not believe in me I just want to say “I did it! And you were wrong!”

Morgan and I are now living in Dallas, and I am no longer working so I therefore have a lot more time on my hands. I am excited to become a regular blogger, so look forward to more future posts from me!