This guy!

Ok, I guess I could post on Facebook or something but i must document the hilarity. 

Andrew is eating lunch and asking for more "garbage sauce" which is code for BBQ sauce. It's absolutely hilarious. 

Michael's favorite is that he loves brushing his teeth with "pooth-taste". 

Honorable mention is that he says our friend ann-Marie's name like "yes siree"

Also adorable 

Christmas= miss-mas

Miranda= dir-randa

2015 holy shit

This year. Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. 

Seriously. Insane. 

I swear Michael and I decided to find a list of stressful life events and pick a handful. End of December last year was when M was officially done at MS, then pregnancy, then new job, then car accident, then home buying and then remodeling and then moving.  All on top of the demanding toddler that lives with us who we've been busting ass to keep sane (as is possible for a two year old), feeling secure and loved.  

it is actually too much to process for me right now. I'm not sure we've officially come out of it unscathed. We are tired and still have so much work to do. Plus I feel fat and ugly and generally gross. 

But the reward of hanging with our little M is pretty fantastic. We are starting to feel like this house is a home and somewhere we can grow. Andrew is flourishing. We are so lucky and as much as 2015 tested us, can we begrudge anything? 

January 2015

February 

(Absolutely picked this picture to see my old body...what do they say? I wish I was a fat as the first time I thought I was fat)

March- best trip ever!

April

May

Sleep away camp first trimester- kinda brutal. Makes me sympathize further with the girl in my cheer squad who was secretly pregnant. Cheer camp must've sucked!

June- early summer was awesome. 

July

August. I love two! He is NUTS but it is such talkative, creative, loving and smart nuttiness. I just love it. 

September

We bought a house. The home buying and selling process and remodeling pushed M and me really hard. So many decisions that needed to be made with not enough data. 

October

Pumpkins improved everything. 

November 

Felt full of stress and packing and being very pregnant. 

December - where to even begin?

Good problem to have

Whoa!

One of the many thoughts I'm having this Christmas night is how lucky we are to have so many people who love our babies. Andrew got SO much for Christmas. We didn't get him anything and Santa brought three toys. But he hauled a nearly full car of exciting new things to play with. Plus we left a bunch of presents under the tree at home. 

It's a little overwhelming. Having so many people think about your kids is really amazing. I assume the Christmas high of intense over indulgence (chocolate and gifts basically every few hours for nearly three days) will wear off for him but for me the thought that we have so much and so many will last longer than the 8! tubs of play dough the little goofball received. 

The same way that the gifts I've given my niblings over the years are only tokens that reflect how much I'm rooting for them in life, the gifts and love my kids got this season do the same thing for me as the parent. I'm so glad they have people who care about them. 

So even though I totally think we should implement a single gift policy and I'm really really leery of raising an entitled asshole (especially living in Bellevue now) I am so happy and grateful this Christmas to have so much love surrounding us. 

A birth comparison

** Disclaimer: if my navel gazing about giving birth is boring or an overshare please just look at cute baby pics. I've been writing this whenever it comes to

Mind for the past four weeks but I figured I'd publish as a record. **

It is so interesting how similar yet how different my two delivery experiences were.

Michael's thought I was nuts this whole pregnancy because I was really excited to experience giving birth again. Likely thanks to nature's wisdom my memory of Andrew's birth are all sanded down to gentle edges- I remember the pain and how incapacitated and incoherent it made me but it doesn't seem too bad. Michael however has a clearer memory and thought I was insane. 

BabyM's birth went down the exact same route as Andrews yet it was the complete opposite experience. 

Induction: Foley catheter to start off both but with Andrew I went home and got used to the idea of starting labor. With M I went directly down to L&D- didn't pass go, it was game on right away. 

Pre-contraction toast!

Labor: I loved my ob with A but we learned that he is a little bit of a pitocin pusher which may have been why with A I felt like I was constantly contracting  and never able to even try to do all the labor crap we practiced (ex. Breathing).   With M I was able to work through contractions and knowing I had a break made it manageable. 

Here we go

Water rupture 

A was disgusting! And stressful since meconium in the water requires them to have nicu reps there for delivery and general rush to get baby out. M's was clear and put me at ease (until thatprocess  kicked up the intensity of contractions.). 

Epidural

This is where I had a better experience with A than with M. Because I was able to work through contractions with M I contemplated not bothering with the epi. Then I came to my senses. But with A I was in so much pain and the epi was deep enough that I was SO happy once it was on board. With M it was so light that I could still move pretty well (good) but my legs felt like they were falling asleep and so itchy (bad). I could also feel contractions (good and bad). I was really uncomfortable with the epi. I had a serious emotional shift as I was nearly complete and started sobbing uncontrollably. It was bizarre and intense. 

Immediately following transitional losing of my shit and immediately before pushing

Pushing

With A I pushed for-ev-er. With M they had me labor down for a little while and then during the practice push they rushed to get the doctor. Doc came and two pushes later I had a slimy blue creature on my chest. 

Aftermath

Andrew's birth felt like a production. My mom was in the room, my sisters were in the waiting room. The doctor and nurse plus a crew from the nicu. When he was born I barely saw him before he was wrapped up and taken off to nicu with Michael by his side. So after I was stitched up and cleaned up I was alone with no baby. It was sad. I vividly remember the nurse giving me a dry turkey sandwich and half heartedly joking with my sister that I was having a hallucination and there was no baby at all. Of course they came back only a few hours later and I got to inspect my little cone headed love bug and make incredulous faces to Michael in relation to the amazing thing that'd just happened. 

With Miranda it was so peaceful. My mom had taken Andrew to her house and Michael

and I were alone. There was only the nurses and Doctor and the doctor was only there for a few minutes. Baby came straight onto my chest -slimy and naked. And we were left alone for a while. Even the cell phone coverage kept us in our own little bubble since we couldn't place calls or texts very easily. It was a neat experience. 

With both of these guys I still look at them and marvel that these  entire people  were once in me and that I was once  small enough to be contained in my mom and so on like some kind of nesting doll through time. Pretty amazing. 

Week in review

As I type it is basically one week to the minute from when I was having a baby. 

Happy one week baby Miranda. 

In the time since we picked up the first home M ever bought. Where I started my family and the only home A's ever had. And moved to Bellevue. 

Whoa. To say it has been a lot is understatement. The rushing hormones and sleep deprivation have me too choked up for words right now. Except to say how fucking lucky I am. I have so much. Including friends and family who've pitched in to make this happen when we were on the edge of sanity. And lucky and proud to have M for a husband. The home buying/ remodeling process has not been easy on us but the way he's held things together and kept our wheels spinning for the past week is a reminder of how damn lucky I am to be on his team. 

Ok. Must sleep. Please enjoy this onslaught of baby pics. 

Slimy and new 

We interrupt these baby pics with Andrews first Oreo experience. 

We are pooped!

Moving out

Ugh. You what the problem with moving is? You have to live while doing it. 

Very inconvenient. 

We have all of our essentials packed 

Just kidding. We need him right up until moving day (in 12 days!)

We are making progress but it's so hard to see what has been done and what is left through the mess and chaos of boxes and life. 

We've donated tons, trashed a sad amount and buy-nothing's our little hearts out. Yet there is still more crap. 

Michael probably has it worse than I do since he's lived here twice as long as me. (And I say with love is a little more likely to hang onto stuff than me). 

So we are plugging away at it. 

The weekend was good regardless. 

Thursday was nice. Andrew was the luckiest person at the gathering and basically everyone there was a relative or close friend to him. 

I made no- knead challah which wa sore try but had some texture problems. 

Friday was packing and cleaning and taking a few things to the new house!!!!

And pillow mountains. 

My younger sister came and spent the night and the next morning she and I watched mockingjay part 2. It was only ok but I'm happy to have seen it and together (thanks M!). 

We also have had a great potty weekend. Which resulted in letting Andrew pick out 21 pairs of character undies in celebration. 

He's living the dream. He could go weeks without laundry...if he weren't pigpen. 

He's been hilarious and slightly ridiculous since. He wants a new pair each time he goes potty. I know the feeling of being excited about wearing new stuff. 

Our neighbors have started turning on christmas lights so we've taken a few short (FREEZING) walks to see them. 

There has been lots of play dough action. 

Emily's masterpiece

Today we have been doing laundry and packing. We bought a BOB on Craigslist and an oven from Sears. 

All of this has been in the context of being nearly 37 weeks pregnant and sick with some ridiculous cold. 

Good but exhausting. I'm guessing that'll be the theme of the next few weeks and months. 

Parenting downside

You always get stuck pulling 3rd shift at the fun factory trying to get the lines clean again. 

Stretched

Because I’m keeping it real (if I cared enough to learn how to find/make/insert GIFs I’d totally be putting in Murray from Clueless right here. But I don’t- if that isn’t what you thought of when I wrote that, go watch Clueless now) I am feeling stretched.

Physically and mentally.

 

The physical is livable, and mostly because I know it is temporary and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. And most of the time I have been feeling pretty good, just marveling at how big this baby’s movements are.  

 

The mental is draining me. I feel like Michael and I have been swimming hard but there is just too much of a current. And that’s pretty defeating. In behavioral biology a testing method for rats is to put them into water- they will swim for a very long time if they have their wits about them. If they are depressed they stop swimming and sink. I keep having sinking rat moments. Evenings that I feel relatively awake and relatively comfortable and KNOW I should be pushing hard to accomplish shit but instead sink deep into the couch. Work days where I might use a 15 minute incubation to write reports or something that I now spend shuffling papers and wait. Lunch time when I know I should be on the phone to daycares or movers or {insert professional here} or going for my walk but instead head deep into the amazon looking at things for the baby or the house that I’m too freaked out to buy for lack of space/desire to have more crap to deal with/fear that this house stuff and my maternity leave and the general $ suck of children makes it out of budget.

 

Then there is the crap I want to be doing. I want to be gearing up for a fun Thanksgiving. Trying recipes with M, griping about how much we bring to the gathering while truthfully loving an occasion to go for it- I haven’t mentioned to M yet that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving has a big study planned and I’ll need to be here for sure. Decorating our house for Christmas and the subsequent joy that would come for Andrew. Settling his life down as much as possible before it gets shaken up with moving and sibling invasion. Holiday adventures with my boys.

But instead I am a sinking rat. 

And when I'm not I have screwed myself so royally that I have to bust butt to even catch up. 

 

And again, I understand that all of this work is to get to some really great places. But there are just miles to go before we get there and it is draining. 

I will pat us on the back for the one place we do put a significant and worth while amount of energy. 

This guy is fun, chatty and awesome and we are soaking up as much A time as we can get. 

We've played lots of Lego 

Hit up the kiddie museum a few times 

And tonight we made rainbow waffles (well pale green, blue or purple waffles). 

So we haven't gone off the deep end entirely...just closer than we might like.