Hip Hip Hooray!

Places Lived

California: 22 3/4 years 
(June 1978-June 1996 - 18 years, December 2000-September 2005 - 4 3/4 years)

I lived in California for exactly 18 years, leaving for college in Utah on my 18th birthday.  Then, add on an additional 4 and 3/4 years after I'd graduated from college and Jed and I were married. 


Utah: 4 1/2 years
(June 1996-December 2000)

Four years at BYU and a semester student teaching.


Kansas: One month shy of 4 years.
(September 2005-August 2009)


Virginia: 3 years and counting
(August 2009-present)


It's a bit crazy to me that we've almost lived in Virginia as long as we lived in Kansas.  And it's even crazier that we've been gone from California for so long.  Eventually, the years I've lived outside of California will surpass the years I lived in California, and that's crazy.

Week 1 - Sleeping

As if recovery wasn't bad enough on it's own...

I tend to recover well from giving birth (we'll just ignore Princess Sparkley's journey into this world because it took 18+ hours making the recovery much slower).  With all three boys, the labor has been relatively quick, and I think with Mystery Baby, I was only pushing for a few minutes, not to mention an epidural that mostly worked.  But it's SO annoying to finally be done with being pregnant and not being able to sleep on my belly, but I can't because I don't want to cut off my milk supply.  Not to mention the soreness of that entire region.  So while recovering-from-birth-wise, I actually feel pretty good, I have all sorts of other complaints.

 

What stinks about recovery:

• Being in the hospital for all of Friday, Saturday and half of Sunday... sitting and sleeping uncomfortably in a hospital bed, plus the soreness of muscles from poorly managing my contraction pain.  My bum didn't hurt from giving birth, it hurt from having to sit and sleep so uncomfortably.
• Breastfeeding is never easy for me, so of course I'm already trying to alleviate pain and ward off infections.  Meaning I still can't sleep on my stomach, meaning I'm still sleeping uncomfortably.  On top of the fact that I'm getting little sleep.
• Today, my head feels like it is going to explode.  I just looked up postpartum headaches and apparently they are super common.  But the medicine I'm allowed to take is not nearly as powerful as I would like it to be.  Maybe I could check back in and get some Vicadin, or whatever they were offering me at the hospital.
• I have a cough.  I started getting a cough a few days before Mystery Baby was born.  It's still here meaning I'm constantly coughing and waking him up.  Or I'm coughing and clutching my uterus so I don't damage it. Or I'm trying to suppress my giant coughing attacks so I don't lose any stitches. 
• Being so sleepy.
• Mystery Baby sleeps best curled up on my chest, meaning even when he's asleep, I'm trapped (like right now) sitting on the couch with a sleeping baby perched on my chest.

 

Sorry to complain, mostly it's the headaches... and the breastfeeding that is doing me in.  Mystery Baby is super sweet and I just have to remind myself that I'm never in love with the first few months of having a baby.  I'm more of a baby person, not a newborn person.  They are cute and tiny and I like to see them all squished up, but I like them much better from about 4 or 6 months on.

Introducing...

Mystery Baby

8/17/2012

4:48AM

7 lbs. 14.6 oz.

21 1/4 inches

28 years

I just had to do some calculating and in doing so realized that Jed and I have now known each other 28 years.  He moved to California the summer of 1984 and there we met.  Granted, we didn't really get to know each other for another eight years.  But still, even knowing each other for 20 years is crazy impressive.  Plus, the 20th anniversary of the first time we held hands will be this November.  Nuts.  This makes us sound much older than we are!

Tough Week

Last night Jed was complaining to me about how horrible his week is going to be.

1.  He has to watch a baby be born.

2.  He has to cut the umbilical cord which creeps him out.

3.  He has to be present for a circumcision (he already learned the lesson of not watching this one).

My response, "Yeah, YOUR week is going to be real rough."  It's not like I have to give birth or anything.

Then I had a laughing fit remembering a hike we took at Thomas Stone National Historic Site.  Little Guy was in the hiking backpack on Jed's back.  Jed ended up falling into a small creek almost up to his waist.  When he climbed up the other side of the creek, Little Guy was exclaiming how his boots *almost* got wet to Jed, who was wet from his upper thigh, down to his toes. 

Happy Golden Birthday!

Princess Sparkley turned 10 today!

Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

Do you notice her newly pierced ears?

40 weeks

Still no baby.

Bike Trailer... for a DOG!?!

Croozer Mini Dog Bike Trailer / Stroller Chassis at REI.com

I saw this and thought, "Surely the word 'dog' is just a cutesy name for this bike trailer and it isn't actually meant for dogs."  I was wrong.

Baby Blanket

I finally finished the blanket for Mystery Baby.  I bought this monkey fabric a few years ago when I had a bunch of friends having babies.  I assumed one of them would have a boy.  They all had girls.  So it's been sitting in my fabric box, waiting for an occasion to get used.  Last week I found the brown fabric and over the weekend I cut the strips and sewed them together.  Then Princess Sparkley and I went to the laundry mat down the road and washed and dried it so it wouldn't mess up our washer and dryer with all the loose strings.  

front, or rag side

back

I don't remember which lovey won my poll, I think only three of you voted anyway, but I went with the monkey since I ended up using this monkey fabric I had.  So, mystery baby will have a monkey theme going, at least in two aspects of his life.  I'm not sure I really want it to evolve into even more.  My brother had a bedroom filled with monkey stuffed animals and monkey posters until probably he left for college.


6 days until my due date.