a recycled post with a new picture

[can you tell what's going on here?]

I have become more and more the super relaxed parent. I have honed in on what I think matters and what is important, and largely leave the rest alone.

Which is partly why I had a good chuckle at myself when I came across these words I wrote two years ago. I only had two boys then, and had only been staying home with them for well under a year. Oh, what a lifetime ago!

It's not that I don't stand by every last word that I wrote two years ago on this exact day, it's just that I don't even know if the "me" of today would take the time to write out such a piece. But that's part of the fun and beauty of this blog -- I get to see myself and my family evolve, grow, change, and arrive.

So, here it is... the post of two years ago to the day... enjoy! :)

FIVE INGREDIENTS TO HAPPY

Sometimes...

...he takes my breathe away. And I realize he's 19 months old, already. And I want to freeze him perfectly in this moment with a picture that captures his boyish wonder, half baby/half child, all adorably mine.

I love every last little peach fuzz on your kissable forehead, Noli-bean. Don't grow up too fast, okay?

it's pretty simple

[I love being a Mom, and I adore this picture!]


We walked Jack to preschool today (Warren is off for teacher in service day) in the cool morning weather and even stopped to play at the playground on the way back. Warren loved showing Nolan "his" playground and Nolan loved filling the pockets on his windbreaker up with gravel. The same gravel that just spilled all over his bed when I put him down for nap. :)

[One of the first communications received from Bryan on his Daytona 500 trip]


Gambling + NASCAR = one happy Daddy. He is not a fussy, complicated guy :) Last I heard, he and his Dad were participating in a poker tournament today and watching races later this evening.

[Subway is our favorite restaurant]


I guess we're not fussy, complicated people either :) Which is great since we have a super low key weekend planned. Jack is going to Pueblo tomorrow, Warren has a classmate's birthday party at the local bowling alley, and we are hitting up a bounce house on Monday with a neighbor/classmate on President's Day.

Nice and simple.

feathering my nest

The weather outside is... delightful! And we have certainly been out there our fair share enjoying it.

However, lately I have been so into my home and filling it with things I love and have wanted for some time.

We bought our amazing, huge table from Restoration Hardware before we even closed on this house a few years ago. It seats 8 normally and 10 with the extension leaf in. (Read: I have been taking prenatal vitamins since I was in college waiting for the right sucker to come along and give me enough babies to fill up such a grand table {wink!})

But it has been difficult, if not impossible, to find the right chairs for it. So, we've limped along using mismatched chairs, some from another 4 seater table we have and the rest from thrift stores or whatever.

Not anymore...

{Pottery Barn "Aaron" chairs}


We found these on Craigs list last weekend, a perfect set of 10 Pottery Barn chairs that I love. So worth the wait! Most importantly, we got an amazing deal on them because there is no way we could have bought them new.

Next up, new pans that my hubby gifted me with for Valentine's Day yesterday. We got a nice set of stainless steel pans from my Mom for our wedding, but they are not non-stick and we have a lot of little scrambled egg lovers in this house. I have ended up buying a few tephlon pans over the years and they all get so scratched and compromised, and I think the coating has to be coming off in our food since it flakes off in the dishwasher. I am so excited for the pans Bryan chose, good job, babe! He went out and did his own research and arrived at these:

{the Green Earth Pans by Ozeri}


They get awesome reviews and can be purchased at Amazon for significantly less than other stores in the mall or whatever. They are made of high density ceramic and I must say I am loving the lime green color. Fun splash of color in the morning for making eggs! :) Now I can have the non-stick without the worry.

Ahhh, yes, I do love my little nest! Now this Mama bird is heading outside!

We're Going Out!

Alternately titled, "hello pretty purple patent leather heels, haven't seen you in a while."



Happy Love Day to My Love!

there's something about a preschool party.

The whole scene is so darn cute.

And yet you still manage to hone in on your own child, catching their excited smile.

Watch them decorate a cookie,

make a Valentine craft,

and play a quick Cupid's arrow game.

If you're lucky, destruct-O-toddler sleeps through the most of it. On the circle carpet wrapped in your red trench coat, of course.

Jack had so much fun shuffling about stuffing his Valentine's cards into all of his classmates' bags, watching anxiously as his own bag filled up with little treats.

It was about as much adorableness as should be allowed in one room at any one time. And made me realize that his preschool party days are numbered now with Kindergarten right around the corner.

self portrait

::me, today::

One thing is for sure about hardship -- it makes you look at yourself.

I have learned a lot about myself in the past week. Here is what I glean:

In the face of uncertainty, my first instinct is to nurture the heck out of my family (whether they like it or not!). I haven't cooked so many things from scratch in... a while.

Cleaning my house is therapeutic to me. Okay, maybe I already knew that, but now I REALLY know it.

I have spent hundreds of dollars worth of therapy chatting it all out with my friends and family via email, text, quick and long phone calls, and even my blog. It is therapeutic for me to put words to my thoughts and emotions. Kind of like making a to do list. Just having all of it down in black and white makes it more manageable, even though it is still a lot to work through.

I am not perfect. Far from. My fuse has been shorter too. I have snapped at my husband and kids this week. Part of me doesn't want them to feel the burden of this and feel the need to treat me different or special, but then I do feel angry when I am faced with the usual irritants that prove too much to handle in addition to "this."

I am strong. Maybe stronger than I thought. I guess I haven't really had much hardship before. I have worked hard and struggled sure, but not had too many disappointments, honestly. I am impressed with my own ability to cope, which makes me love this reflection in this dirty computer monitor just a tiny bit more.

Daily Cycles

It happens many times throughout the day. The places that were just moments ago full, loud, messy, and ripe with voices and laughter. Then turn still, silent, wiped clean... and ready for the next go round.

Cutie Pie

{Nolan's first professional haircut}

Doesn't he look so much older? I can't stop touching his little head and kissing those smooshy cheeks!

I am feeling so much better today. I woke up with zero pregnancy symptoms. I am full of energy and not a bit of nausea. It happened so suddenly and completely that it surprised me, but it helps to cope with reality. I am currently in the throws of a cleaning frenzy, which I know is probably a mute point since Warren is having a friend over after school and surely all will be undone.

I can't say enough how happy I am for my friends and family, who have all reached out to me in their own ways to offer to help or just lend their ears to my sorrowful ramblings. There is no embarrassment or hush-hush attitudes. Just love and support. I am so grateful!

Looking forward to this weekend, the weather forecast is finally predicting higher temps and I am ready to get outside.

Jack has his preschool Valentine's Party tomorrow, so Nolan and I will be attending that... sure to make for some cute pictures :)

resillient

With almost each hour that passes, I am able to make more sense of what is happening. My mind sometimes stretches out into the future and I can see where this experience might make me a more understanding person to my (at least) 3 future daughter in laws and maybe my own daughter someday, should any of them ever have a loss or any fertility issues.

I won't have the mindset of "oh, that never happened to me."

I can see how once we are "there" and our family is complete, I will think of this loss as part of the journey that was required to get "there."

Sure, I still catch myself playing the what if/maybe game. It goes like this:

"What if this baby was a girl and I am simply not able to carry girls?"

"Maybe I didn't decrease my caffeine intake enough... didn't I read somewhere that increases likelihood of miscarriage?"

"Maybe nursing Nolan even just a little, while trying to grow a new life was too much for my body."

"What if this happens again?"

"Maybe I am too old now. These eggs have been with me for 31 years now, maybe they are all defective."

Fortunately, my logical side takes over and I know that there was most likely a glitch simply in the way our genetic material came together. It was predestined from the moment of conception. Plain and simple.

When I cry now, it is because I remember just a handful of days ago how excited I still was for this baby. Excited to hold a little newborn again soon, for Nolan to have a sibling close in age and in school, for our family to be complete.

So, for now I remain somewhere in between. Not quite able to see this as a stepping stone in our path to our future destination, but also not quite in the initial shock and sadness phase. All the while acknowledging all the strange emotions and thoughts that come with this experience.

I feel stupid for having even being so excited at getting a positive pregnancy test after trying to conceive since Nolan was 10 months old.

I feel guilty for even dragging friends and family through this with me. I am not a private person. The people I call my friends might be victim of my oversharing. Would it be better to keep this all to myself?

I feel afraid that maybe the Universe is saying "you've got all you can handle/need", when I want another child so badly.

I feel anxious already to lose this weight that I have gained before even trying to get pregnant again. And then this leads to more feelings of guilt...

It is easy to get caught up in a vicious cycle of negative emotions when you suffer a miscarriage. I am all the more of an empathetic person now, that's for sure.

I am so thankful for my support system and for my husband who so confidently said last night "it's not if, but when we have our final baby."

Angel Wings

I don't want to leave anyone in suspense that is checking here for an update. This will be brief and to the point.

This baby has passed. And I have actually mostly come to terms and peace with the situation, knowing that there was something wrong with the baby and it is best to not grow any more attached or give birth to a child and then lose it. Things could be worse.

What is hard now is that I still feel very pregnant as the hormones from the placenta are still being produced and circulating in my blood stream. It seems cruel of nature to do this. And now I just have to wait it out until my body finally realizes what has transpired and discards whats left. It is unpleasant, this whole thing. And I know there is more unpleasantness to come. I pray that it happens soon, so that I can fully begin to heal and move on.

I am so glad I opted to go into the doctor today instead of waiting, as I was growing more agitated and hopeful by the day, which was not probably a healthy, productive path.

I have come to know so much (so much more than I ever wanted to) about miscarriage and all my fellow circle of Moms who have experienced it. What I take away is that these losses are a natural part of the process of reproduction. I have been so lucky to not have encountered anything like this previously and chances are I won't have the same misfortune again.

In my mind, this baby now has little Angel Wings. And hopefully now that my mind knows, my body will soon acknowledge.

What do you do...

...with way too much anxious, nervous, dreadful energy?

Pull yourself out of bed bright and early, make the most delicious homemade buttermilk chocolate chip waffles for your family, peel an orange and devour, pack lunches and head to Little Monkey Bizness -- well that's what I did so far today.





It was the perfect distraction, and I completely forgot my woes for at least an hour. The big boys got frozen yogurt with Daddy afterwards, and then we ran around Sears Grand for a little bit, just to get every last bit of energy out of these boys.

It worked, Nolan crashed and took a long nap when we got home. I was able to lay on the couch for a little while and try to cope with the waves of nausea that I've been having all afternoon.

Admittedly, it is hard for me to see this situation with the baby clearly. I am full of hormones and way too emotional to make sense of everything.

But call me crazy, I am feeling a bit optimistic today. I feel very very pregnant. I have not had any spotting whatsoever, not even a single time this entire pregnancy. Maybe I ovulated really late in my cycle -- Nolan was nursing still quite a bit in December and truthfully still does even now on average once per day latch on and suckle for a bit. Could that have thrown the ovulation date off?

Also, the ultrasound last week showed a much larger, more developed fetus than the one prior. Part of me just doesn't give a shit what they say the CRL was last week versus this week. The baby looked much bigger to me. The tech was having a really hard time getting the heart rate even though we could see it flickering like crazy on the screen. She even had me walk across the hall with nothing but a large paper towel wrapped around my waist to go to the other, supposedly more high tech machine in another room. She even had her peer join us in the room to help her try to get a better angle to measure the heartbeat. Sorry to be graphic, but they were twisting and angling the wand inside of me so much that it was uncomfortable, and thinking about it might actually be the reason I had some weird abdominal pain subsequently.

We would all hear the galloping hear beat for a split second or two, and then it would go away. It looked like the baby was flipping over and making it hard to measure. Finally, the peer of my original tech just said, "well, I would just have to guess that that is the heart rate" as she pointed to a section of the recording. "This part?", the original lady said. "No, I would start here and stop there and get the bpm from that section."

Whatever rate they got from that portion was so low that my doctor has predicted imminent miscarriage. My point for the above rambling is that it was inconclusive in my opinion. The heart rate by all accounts could not be measured and what the two techs did was make a best guess at capturing a portion of ultrasound recording to get a rate from. From what I have read you need about 15 seconds of heartbeat recording to get an accurate rate from. I know with 100% certainty that there were never 15 seconds of available measurement of heartbeat during my ultrasound.

Who knows what this baby's heartbeat was. All I really know is that there was one. I could see it in my baby's tiny chest. And I feel like this baby is fighting and growing, and I owe him/her at least a shred of hope and encouragement.

So, yes, I hate this holding pattern more than anything. But my eyes are a litte less swollen than yesterday and I am feeling okay for the moment.

#4

No matter what happens, this baby that I have been incubating and loving for over 2 months will always be our fourth. This is a place to share our life as it unfolds, so it wouldn't be right to leave this out.

I was hoping to have great news yesterday. But things are not looking great for this baby right now.

I went in for a second ultrasound yesterday to check again, since the baby measured smaller last week than he/she should based on my last cycle. I was very optimistic that things would have caught up or at least shown the proper amount of growth in between ultrasound scans. Not so.

Our #4 is still too small and not enough growth in a weeks' worth of time, and although there is a visible heartbeat on the ultrasound, it is too faint or slow to be measured. These factors brought about my doctor telling me "I'm sorry" and changing my perspective forever in that moment.

We have had the most textbook, easy pregnancies prior to this - not even the tiniest of complications or anything. That is partly why this is such a shock. So, while the outcome has yet to fully unfold, I have to be realistic and acknowledge all the odds that are against this little one. The words "expect the worst" keep ringing in my ears coming from my much trusted doctor. He did not want to give me hope, and said this never ends well.

I have yet another ultrasound next week. Doctor said there should be no heartbeat, visible or otherwise, at this scan and that will be the final indication that this pregnancy has ended. I cried so many tears yesterday that my eyes were swollen nearly shut this morning.

But I got up and decided to make the most of the day - going on a family grocery trip and making a huge pot of chicken and dumplings from scratch. Great comfort food as snow is falling and the dull ache in my abdomen hardly compares to the ache I feel in my heart. I feel like the pregnancy sypmtoms are lessening a bit and I can't deny the strange dull ache I feel in my womb. Are these the signs the miscarriage is coming soon?

So glad for a very logical conversation with Bryan this morning, where we went through the possible scenarios of what could happen and how we will react. That put me somewhat at ease, especially when the end result of the conversation was that we will try again if this baby isn't meant to be. We will try for #5, but never forget this fourth baby and all of our excitement for welcoming, naming, and cherishing him/her.

A few new things.

While I was laying in bed half asleep last night, I could swear Bryan was downstairs tinkering on something in the dining room. I was mildly curious as to what he was doing, but not enough so to leave the warmth of our bed to go investigate.


Then I found pictures like this on my camera this morning, and it all makes sense. Our PC is now housed in a much smaller computer shell that actually fits in the cabinet we have for it. Nice!

Other new things:


Here's the Murphy Bed! It just looks like a fancy cabinet when its closed and only comes out about 15'' from the wall. Our awesome queen mattress fits in it perfectly and there is actually more room in the office when it is down than I would have thought. So glad to have a guest room back!


This thing is insane (the vacuum, not the kid!), and gets so much dirt and dust and dog hair that I am just shocked each time I use it. Finally, the dust is diminished in the house and I even notice the return air vents are staying clean longer. Can't recommend this LG Kompressor enough. It is wild, and has to have different suction levels because believe it or not the highest setting is sometimes just too much suction, like on area rugs etc. Love!

I cleaned out our fridge and pantry this morning and am having a bit of a moment here. Feeling a major overhaul of food standards coming our way. Husband is on board and now I just need to make it a priority and make it happen. There will be NO artificial colors in foods entering our house!! Among other things...

Surely, we eat pretty well now as it is with lots of produce and mostly not processed crap. I do much better with breakfast and lunch, it is dinner where I am currently failing. Hitting the road to eat out way too much! I want to do better for these boys - they deserve it!

It was a whopping 12 degrees when I took Warren and Jack to school this morning. They were so happy to go to school though and see their friends and get back to normal.

Check back tomorrow, I might just have something fun to share!

Just poppin' in!

Look at this little stud muffin walking to the park with a handful of tortilla chips:


I get to see his mischeiveous grin about 300 times per day. I am so lucky!


Jack is always ready to pause for a split second for a picture:


The above pictures were taken before this ridiculous cold snap ensued. We are on day 5 of being mostly home, with school canceled for the past 2 days. It is quite the little adventure here.

Have you heard...



...of the No Sprinkle Left Behind Act?


Nolan will be happy to tell you about it when he's not stuffing his face with cookie.

What else... ?
Murphy Bed is in! Looks great.
Warren had his first of many orthopedic/orthodontic appointments on Monday. Let the games begin February 25th.
Starting to think life was better pre-Wii. Going to have to implement some rules around it as the "newness" is definitely not wearing off!
So glad the temperature is rising and tomorrow school is back on. We have way too much energy here and not enough ways to burn it off inside!