It's Finally a Swing Set

For our son's fifth birthday we purchased a swing set for our backyard. When it shipped I was really pregnant and it was weeks before the little guy's birthday so my husband and I decided to wait until it was closer time to pick it up from the store and to build it. We were also afraid I might not be as much help because of the huge belly, and we planned to have a little birthday party with family, maybe we could talk them into helping. As you've hopefully read from earlier posts, I went into labor early so my husband had to pick it up from the store while I was in the hospital. A little over a week later we had the birthday party and no one was really interested in helping my husband set it up.

Okay, looks like its up to him and I to build it; he would work on it after work and as soon as I could help I did. It was kind of slow at first with a new baby, a five-year-old, and all the regular house work. We quickly found out that the company, Backyard Discovery, hadn't shipped all the parts, so that delayed us a couple of days. (However, the company was exceptional about sending us the parts at no cost.)

Finished product with our son ready to slide. 

We took a weekend day to get the majority of it built and finished up the following two days. I know that it sounds like a ton of time to build but if we could have had two days without interruptions or possibly even one we would have had it built. Something we both learned - we actually really enjoyed working and building together.

Movie Date

Our son has been an only child for almost five years so we knew that we'd have at least a little struggle for attention when the baby arrived. My husband and I talked often about this before the new baby and have continued to talk about it now but while I was pregnant I thought every month I would try to have a Momma and Son Date. A date for just the two of us when we would do something fun and special. Today we went on our date and saw the movie Monsters University at the theater. And being that it was a fun date we ate an entire large bucket of popcorn and M&M's. Hey it was a special day so I didn't want to think about needing to lose the baby weight.

Anyway, we had a fabulous time, we both laughed at the movie and during the fraternity party we danced in our seats. Yes, my son thought I was silly and have no doubt that I'll end up embarrassing him when he gets older but for now - he thinks I'm funny. I'm satisfied with that :).  I have to say I have always loved Disney movies, bright, colorful, and just done extremely well.

If you haven't seen the movie I would encourage you to go - and I need to tell my favorite part. (Not the exact words but the overall message)
Johnny Worthington tells Mike: When you lose tomorrow (in the Scare Games) no one will ever remember you.
Mike responds: When you lose tomorrow everyone will remember.

Loved my day!

Night Lights

The new baby is just three weeks old and when I get up in the middle of the night to nurse I have a huge problem trying to see in the dark with a mini night light. I obviously don't want to turn on lights in the baby's room because I want her to fall back to sleep and the hall light is exceptionally bright, not to mention my husband is a light sleeper. So what I generally do is turn on the bathroom light to get enough of a glow into the baby's room but when changing a dirty diaper, well it's not enough light to really see.

I was going to try to find a lamp with a dimmer as per my dad's advice but then I saw this portable fun light - a GloMate from Mobi. I wanted to purchase but it's on back order and I'm curious if anyone has one and what they think of it?

Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

Be a Calm and Happy Momma

I have a habit of tearing out pages in magazines of things I like or want to remember, I don't want the whole magazine just a page or portion so it gets ripped out. The problem then becomes...which magazine did I read that in. Anyway, recently I read a small list of 10 Ways to Be a Calm (and Happy) Mom by Valerie Reiss that I want to share with everyone.

1. DANCE 

for five minutes a day - with your baby, alone, just because. It's fun for Mama and will remind your wee one of happy times in the womb. 

2. Drink Plenty of WATER

hydration balances mood and pretty much every system in your body.

3. LAUGH!

find something hilarious about today, which shouldn't be difficult with your funny little one around. 

4. Sleep when your baby sleeps

cliche and hard to do - but true.

5. Be GRATEFUL

every day, name three things you're thankful for; it's an instant joy boost. 

6. Ask for support

call a trusted friend, visit a welcoming message board - and receive. Also give support - check in with someone to see how she's doing; you'll both benefit. 

7. Eat GREENS

fresh veggies make everything better. You can also mash them up in a blender when your baby is ready for food - she may love them too!

8. MOVE

preferably outside. Even if you're exhausted, go for a walk. Fresh air is essential to sanity. And when it rains: Pop in a yoga or fitness DVD, or gently stretch. 

9. Write

when you can, take notes. Try the one-sentence journal or a six-word memoir. 

10. Create

Make something each day, even if it's just a doodle. It will help you feel like you. 

~BONUS~

Be kind to yourself

You're doing your best. After that: have faith, let go, trust!

Itty Bitty

Most pregnant women don't expect they'll sleep soundly through the night but when you wake up with contractions you really know sleep isn't much of an option.

(Don't worry, I won't go into all the details of labor or my c-sections.)

I woke up at 3am with the start of contractions, but I didn't think that much of them - six or seven minutes apart and only lasting about 10 seconds. This same thing happened with my son and that doctor at that hospital sent me home. I returned three days later to have my first c-section. So I wasn't calling the hospital and I was not going to call the coal mine to track down my husband, have hime come home, wake up our four-year-old  to go to the hospital only to be sent back home. Nope, not wasting all that time, I'll wait until 8am when the doctor's office answers phones to see what they recommend I do. I did think, I'll try to just rest as much as I can and at 5:30am I gave up. I got up, showered, washed and dried laundry, did a few remaining dishes, and packed my hospital bag. I of course had to stop whenever a contraction came which now started to last longer and get stronger. My son woke up and was very helpful - he counted how long the contractions lasted...my my 20 seconds was his 40 seconds . He really enjoyed counting. 

At 8am I called the office, yes instructions were to go to the hospital, they'd be expecting me and if I could find anyone to bring me sooner than my husband could I was to do that and have him meet me. We live about an hour from the hospital with the expected Pittsburgh traffic and almost two hours from other family so unless I drove myself (which probably wasn't the best option) I was waiting for my husband.

Alright - time to call the coal mine:
Coal Miner: Hello
Me: Hi, my name is ~so and so~ and my husband is ~so and so~. I'm not sure which section he's in tonight but would you be able to track him down and ask him to come home. I'm kinda in labor and they want me to go to the hospital.
Coal Miner: Absolutely, we'll track him down and get him out.
Me: Ok, thank you very much.
CLICK

In about five minutes my phone rang - husband calling from underground - he didn't sound calm at all! He told me the guy that answered my call said I sounded calm but he was excited which in turn created some excitement (don't want to use the word panic) with my husband. He said he'd be home as soon as he could, like 45 minutes. Okay, now we wait, get the house in order, pack fun things for our little boy, let the dog out, call my mom to see if she can meet us at the hospital to watch the little guy.

And 45 minutes later my husband almost took out the bushes at the end of our driveway. I later found out most of the neighborhood figured I was in labor based solely on his driving. No he wasn't panicked . 

Once we arrived at the hospital it was only about 40 minutes from walking in the door until I was prepped and everyone was ready to bring out our wonderful baby girl.

New House, Pregnancy, and Now...New Baby

With everything that has been going on I haven't blogged is a while, which is silly because I've actually had a good bit of things to write about and now as I sit down to actually post, where do I begin?

We had moved into our new home and just as we started getting a little more comfortable my husband and I found out we needed our whole electrical system upgraded because of safety issues, the toilet upstairs (that the painters broke) was more of a major project, and the air conditioner needed serviced...twice because they previous owner hadn't used it in years and the first part was j-u-n-k.

The electricians came to upgrade our system and the only issue we ran into besides getting it updated was they unknowingly pinched a wire inside the electrical box and soon after they left, 75% of the power went out in the upstairs part of the house. Thankfully, they were able to come back the next day. Please know that I'm not complaining about the electricians because I would and will recommend them to anyone. My issue is with the previous owner not seeing the huge safety issue of having a bad electrical system.

Now as far as the painters - I'm completely complaining about them. They broke the toilet - the master bathroom one in our new house! However, I have no way of proving it so it just needed fixed. (Side note - they did a good job with the paint.) Anyway, I asked my dad to help - he's good at this sort of stuff and my husband had already replaced many parts and nothing seemed to work. My dad helped us fix the plumbing underneath the kitchen sink and then moved to the bathroom. Like anyone working on plumbing issues, we shut off the water around 1pm and took apart valves only to find out the pipe had at one time froze and swelled. After two  trips to the local Lowe's, about six hours of working on it, and no water, it was time to call a plumber who thankfully came to our house at 9pm to fix it. Details of this are mind-numbing so we'll skip that, on the the air conditioning.

At nine months pregnant and an 80 degree house, I finally broke and said we have to try the air conditioning and hope it works, prior to getting it serviced. And when I saw the thermostat say 75 degrees I said I think it's going to keep working but my husband thought it would be best to continue with the service appointment. Just in case. A week later a technician came to look at it, turned out that he fixed a part that would soon short out, good call on the husband's part because I would have cancelled. Only problem he replaced the part with a part that was j-u-n-k so he eventually had to come back out and replace the same part again because we were without ac for three days over three of the hottest days in May.

The same day the technician came the first time was the same day my son had a play-date at the house. Two four-year-olds for about six hours at nine months pregnant...yes, I was exhausted at the end of the day!!! They both had so much fun and I would do it over again if given the opportunity but wow, completely and utterly spent. Now this play-date was on a Wednesday and my husband was on a midnight shift at work. He was up for the beginning of the playing but obviously had to go to bed. Also, when I found out I was pregnant I picked a day I thought I'd go into labor if the scheduled c-section didn't happen first. Anyway, I picked the play-date day. No luck!

That night, or should I say three hours into the early morning the next day, Thursday, labor started.