The Absentee Blogger

I know, I know, I really have been slacking here, still. For a while, my excuse has been that I also keep a journal in addition to this blog, so updating the blog hasn't had to be a top priority. Except, confession time: since Leo's birth, I haven't been doing so well in that journal.

'Cause here's the thing: this whole newborn and toddler adjustment has been hard! I mean, I knew it would be a rough transition, but I didn't anticipate how difficult some things would be. (For instance, I really didn't anticipate how hard it would be for me to hear Leo cry. Rich's cries as an infant didn't bother me--in fact, I remember thinking they were cute. So hearing him cry never stressed me out. But with Leo, anytime he cries, I have to check myself to refrain from getting stressed.)

Now, to be fair, some things have gone a lot better than I ever dreamed they would. Like Rich's adjustment to having a new baby around all the time. Rich LOVES it. He wants to be involved with everything Leo's doing. And he always offers to share whatever he's doing with Leo--whether that's snacks or food or anything. It's been a lot of fun for me to watch Rich love on his little brother. (Especially when Rich gives Leo kisses.)

But I know. You guys are really here for pictures.

So check this out: The top picture is Rich when he was a couple months old. The bottom picture is Leo, yesterday. Turns out they look more alike than I initially thought.

And we've managed to have a few precious moments amidst the hard stuff:

And did I mention that Rich just wants to be doing whatever Leo is doing? (He even cries when Leo cries . . . yay?)

Anyway. As hard as things have been, I know they will get easier, eventually. And I know that at some point I'll get some sleep again. In the meantime, Tyler has really been amazingly helpful and supportive. I do not know how I could handle all of this without him.

Until next time, whenever that may be . . . ;)

Leo's Labor and Delivery

With Rich, labor came on suddenly. 

I say suddenly because I mean that being in labor was unexpected. I wasn't due for another month. I didn't know what to expect, and I certainly didn't actually know that I was in labor.

With Leo, I felt like a ticking time bomb, but I didn't know when the bomb was going to go off. No one had shown me the timer. Each week passed by, and nothing (really) was happening. I was becoming increasingly dilated and effaced, but really, nothing was actually happening. 

And yet, like my labor with Rich, I didn't know that I was in labor. At least, my body wasn't giving me the typical labor signs I was looking for (regular contractions, back labor, inability to speak through a contraction, etc.). I simply woke up two Sundays ago, knowing (with no real reason to know) that I was in labor and we should go to the hospital. And despite this sure feeling I was having about being in labor, I kept second-guessing myself and my judgment. I wondered if I was making an extra trip to the hospital, thought sure they would send me home and tell me to come back later. I repeatedly told Tyler that I felt stupid--even when we were in the elevator in the hospital, heading up to Labor and Delivery.

Tyler reassured me, several times, that even if they did send me home, it was no big deal. At least we would know what was going on. 

The only thing that was happening to me, was that I had a few Braxton Hicks contractions that felt so tight, they made me pause for a few moments. So, I was feeling like labor was imminent, but not yet at hand.

When I walked into L&D, the nurses greeted me kindly, and showed me to what they called their triage room, where they would check me out and see what really was going on. They hooked me up to a machine that would measure the strength and frequency of my contractions.

Well, once again, the nurses (and I) were in for a bit of a surprise. Turns out, I was already dilated to 8 cm!

So, off to the delivery (and recovery) room we went, where the nurses started me on some fluids and antibiotics, and my epidural got hooked up. (The nurses also continued to monitor the strength and frequency of my contractions.)

Once everything was set up, we had a little bit of waiting to do. The nurses (and the OB) wanted me to finish transitioning (is that what it's called?)--basically get to 10 cm--then they would break my water and allow things to move along.

Once the epidural was in, I felt really good. And very very tired. (Side effect of the epidural is sleepiness.)

So I tried taking a nap. But I was just too excited that I was about to have a baby to sleep. I was so hyped up. (But I posed like I was sleeping, so I could show that I at least gave getting some rest a try.)

Now, I don't remember perfectly the order of how things happened after that. Everything moved fairly quickly. One of the nurses, Amanda, came in to check how I was progressing. She asked me to give a "test push," then told me very quickly, "Okay, stop," and called in the OB (Doctor Olmstead) to break my water. Apparently, that test push had been in danger of becoming a real push--Leo's head was right there. Our boy was ready to come out. 

Doctor Olmstead broke my water. Apparently, there was a bit blood and meconium in the water, so they called in a special nurse to be on hand to look after Leo in case he was having trouble breathing after he was born. (They were worried that he might have aspirated some of the blood and meconium.)

As I started pushing, I could see that Dr. Olmstead was just a little concerned. Leo's cord was wrapped around his neck, and each contraction was making his heart rate drop pretty low. So rather than wait for my body to contract naturally, Dr. Olmstead just asked me to keep pushing and push Leo right on out. So, I did. I think I pushed for about 5 minutes. And then there he was.

Good thing he was small, or that would have been a lot harder. :) 

Leo Benjamin Heasley was born at 12:16 PM. He cried upon exiting the birth canal. (Great sign. Meant his lungs weren't blocked.) 

The nurses laid him on my chest, where he coughed and sputtered and cried for about an hour.

I would say we fell in love with him instantly, but the truth is that we were already in love with little Leo before he came.

Who couldn't love this little guy?

One of the things that I loved about this hospital was that the room I gave birth in was also the room I recovered in, so Leo and I could be together during our whole stay at the hospital. There were no nurseries we had to go to to visit or retrieve our son from. 

Another thing the hospital staff did well was coordinate our care. I remember when we had Rich, it seemed like we were constantly being bombarded by nursing staff doing different things--we never had more than an hour (if even that!) to ourselves. But at this hospital, the care was coordinated well enough that we were only disturbed once every few hours. So, there was more time to rest (even though a hospital really is not a place to rest) and bond and learn about our new baby.

And Richie? Rich seems to love "Baby." Although, he has been a little snugglier and needier since Leo was born. But truth be told--it's nice that Rich wants to cuddle up with me a little more. He's such an independent little soul. 

Anyway. We're so excited to get to know our little Leo. We can already see subtle differences between his little personality and Rich's personality. It'll be so fun to see what kind of a little boy Leo is going to grow into.

And on another (somewhat related) note: 

Happy birthday to my Rich-boy! I think that's why I decided to sit down and finally record my memories of Leo's birth--I've been reliving Rich's birth story in my mind all weekend long. 

I am so grateful for my boys!

So things are getting crazy around here . . .

what with about half or so of our apartment packed up in boxes as we prepare to move to Oregon. (I cannot even begin to express how excited we are for this move. Logan has been wonderful, truly. But we are ready for our next adventure.)

But even with all the craziness around here, we still find time for fun.

How can you NOT have fun with a little personality like Richie running around?

(Uh, be prepared. I'm about to flood you with pictures and a couple videos. If you hate looking at pictures of my adorable son, this is your stopping point.)

Richie was sick over Easter weekend, but he still managed to tear apart/find fun ways to play with his Easter basket. (Like throwing the paper grass on Daddy.)

He's recently developed a great love for "seeeel."

We try to get outside when Utah isn't forgetting that winter is over now.

Rich loves to explore everything!

But because it has been surprisingly cold (and snowy, even!!), we've had to play inside a lot lately.

But no worries, Rich can keep busy. (I'm not sure this kid knows how to be bored. He's always finding something to do.)

Did I mention that this boy loves to be outside? (Even on cold Sunday afternoons?)

(I love the look on Tyler's face in this last photo.)

And like I said, Rich has such a fun personality. Anyone up for some after-dinner dancing?

(Note: in both videos that follow, we may have been encouraging Rich's silly behavior, but I assure you all that he is the one who came up with and started the antics first. We only encouraged them to capture them on video. And because Rich was clearly having a good time.)

Anyway, that pretty much sums up our last couple of weeks.

Tyler takes the next actuarial exam on Saturday. Then we move two weeks from today!

Oh, Hey

I'm sure that some of you may have noticed that I haven't really been on here much lately. (Ok, ever.)

But I've been pretty sick these last few weeks. Nauseous. Throwing up. And just generally having a rough go of things.

Good thing I've had this cutie to keep me company.

Tyler thinks I need to be more specific.

Happy 2013!

Bedtime is a Precious Gift

I've often felt very very grateful that Rich is such a good sleeper. He always has been--which has definitely made my life easier.

And I'm definitely glad that we have a routine that helps Rich wind down and realize, "Ok, my day is over. It's time to sleep."

But today, I was grateful for Rich's bedtime for a whole new reason. Well, new to me, at least.

Today was not Rich's day. He's teething (3 molars at once!), he fell a couple different times (once banging and scratching his head), he might have a black eye (we hit a bump while he was in his stroller), and he got tripped over right before bed (which I think was more of an over reaction than an actual painful experience--he was pretty tired at this point), and he shut his fingers in his dresser drawer (also more than once today).

So tonight, as we put Rich down for bed, I was just grateful that he survived the day. And that with all the bumps and bruises he acquired today, nothing was so serious as to send us to the hospital. (I seriously live in fear of that day. Sometimes it feels like it's only a matter of time until I have to rush him to the ER.)

Hopefully tomorrow will be a much happier day for Rich.

(In case it isn't, I have the ingredients to make Rich some Rice Krispie treats, which he loves.)

There were some good times today too. While Tyler studied, Rich and I went to the park. Rich LOVES getting to crawl around everywhere and explore everything. And I'm sure that once he gets the hang of walking, he's going to love running all over that park.

A Close Call

Last night, I finally got Tyler to watch the first episode of Sherlock with me. And as I was getting ready for the day, I thought about one scene in particular--Sherlock was commenting that the state of the murdered woman's wedding indicated the health of her marriage. Because her wedding ring was dirty, he deduced that her marriage was an unhappy one.

So, because I have a happy marriage, I decided to give my ring a good cleaning. After all, it always looks so sparkly afterward. (I do clean it frequently, by the way. It's not like my ring was dirty. I just thought of how pretty it always looks after a little polishing up, and went for it.)

But, horror of horrors, as I was cleaning my ring, it slipped out of my fingers, and seemingly in slow motion hit the counter and bounced into the heating duct on the floor of our bathroom. (Why, Utah? Why are there grates on your floors? This doesn't happen in Texas. Right, Texans? At least, I never noticed this until I moved to Utah.)

Now, because of the strange placement of air ducts in our apartment, I have a few of the vents strategically closed to prevent the upstairs from becoming too stuffy and the downstairs from being too cold.

Luckily, our bathroom air duct is one of my strategically closed vents. So although my ring fell into the air duct, the vents were closed, and there it lay--on the closed vents, beneath the grate covering the air duct.

So I motioned Tyler over, almost panicking, and not sure what to do. At this point, I was sure that I was about to lose my wedding ring forever. I couldn't remember if our bathroom vents open and close easily (some of our vents are super stiff, others open and close with a brush of our fingers), and I knew that if I wasn't careful, I could accidentally open up those vents, and my ring could tumble into oblivion.

I started searching for a paperclip, thinking that if I hooked my ring just right, I could pull it  up through the grate safely. As I was ransacking our dresser for a paperclip, Tyler (the wise) suggested I grab some tweezers.

After a moment's pause, I realized that this was indeed a genius idea, absolutely superior to my paperclip thoughts. Especially because there were some tweezers basically sitting in front of my face.

Together, we went back into the bathroom, and Tyler stabilized the vents while I rescued my wedding ring, Operation-style.

I put my ring back on and just sat there, practically shaking and near tears. Tyler, in his attempt to be comforting, said, "It's ok. We're still married." I responded with something to the effect of, "Yeah, but I almost lost my ring!"

And Tyler, again trying for comfort, said, "You would have found something else that you liked."

He was absolutely, 100% serious! I could not believe what I was hearing, so I tried to clarify. And indeed, his thought was that if my ring had been gone forever, we would have just replaced it with something else.

I just--I mean, how do you explain an (irrational??) attachment to an object? I was speechless. And then I rebelled. No way. This ring is an antique. It's one-of-a-kind. Irreplaceable. I actually might have died if we had lost my ring. I would, at the very least, never fully recover.

I'm not totally crazy, right? Is this a woman thing? Or is this just a me thing? (This is where you guys respond and tell me what your wedding rings mean to you. And make me feel better about how attached I am to this object that I can't take with me into the next life--but might try to smuggle in with me anyway. I'm only mostly kidding about that last part.)

It's probably two or three hours since almost losing my ring, and I still feel a little in shock at the horror that almost befell us (me).

But all's well that ends well.

And I'm never opening that air duct again.

Welcome to Parenthood

Sometimes, even when you are doing everything right, you still manage to do something wrong.

Today, for example, I took this kiddo with me to Wal-Mart to pick up a few groceries:

He was such a good sport. (I think he enjoys looking around at all of the different things Wal-Mart has to offer. AND he likes it when I put things in the cart he can play with.)

But by the time I finished my shopping and got Rich in the car, it was clear to me that he was ready for a nap. He was rubbing his eyes and he just looked so tired. So like a good mom, I took him straight home and put him down for a nap.

And seriously, he was down and out in two seconds flat. Poor guy.

While Richie slept, I got some things done: laundry, scripture study, planning dinner for tomorrow, catching up with my dad, getting in touch with Tyler so I could plan when to start dinner, etc.

And I was feeling good! Being productive, making the most of my stay-at-home-mom-ness.

Did you notice what I didn't mention? Remember how Rich and I went to Wal-Mart and got groceries? I didn't. As soon as we got home, I totally spaced it and left those groceries in our 90+ degree trunk for over an hour.

In fact, I didn't remember until I was out with Rich on a walk, getting ready to meet up with Tyler. And all I could say was, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh." I couldn't believe that I had just totally and completely forgotten about the groceries.

All I could think about was the frozen berries that I had decided to splurge on at Wal-Mart that were probably ruined. (They were. Totally thawed. But guess what, guys. I'm a risk-taker. I re-froze them, and I will eat them. Absolutely, yes I will. Even though the packaging warns against re-freezing. I'll let you know if I die.)

Luckily, most of what I had gotten at Wal-Mart didn't need to be kept cold. I mean, it could have been much much worse. Really, the only thing I'm calling a loss is our milk. (I'm not a crazy risk-taker, you guys. I don't even drink milk if it's been left out on the counter for an hour, so I definitely won't be drinking milk that's been abandoned in a hot trunk.)

And Tyler was so good about it all. His response was, "Well, we all do dumb stuff. It's done and over with. No problem."

But even so, I still felt like a fool.

I would say "all's well that ends well," but I still have those berries to get through first.

Wish me luck?

Friday the 13th

I should have known when I woke up this morning that today was an ill-fated day.

I mean, I knew that today was April the 13th, and I knew that today was a Friday, but I didn't not really put it together that today was Friday the 13th. That kind of stuff doesn't usually faze me at all. In fact, I don't really do anything with superstitions.

But alas, you live and learn.

As I was saying. Today started off oddly. I woke up this morning around 8 AM listening for the sounds of my son stirring in his crib. But I couldn't hear anything. Which was when I realized that he hadn't made a sound all night long. That I had indeed gotten seven hours straight of sleep.

Naturally, I bolted from my bed to Rich's room to check on him. I was sure that some accident had befallen him. Usually, he wakes up at least a few times during the night needing his binky or needing to be re-swaddled. But not last night. He slept totally through the night.

But, Rich was fine. Just like he always is after my mini-panic attacks.

The day progressed as usual. Feeding, pumping, getting ready for the day, chatting on the phone, running an errand, feeding pumping, etc. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary. Nothing Friday the 13th-ish. (Was it the calm before the storm?)

At our house, Friday night means date night. And although Tyler and I don't really do anything very exciting for date nights, we do always look forward to them. They are the one night a week where I know Tyler can just chill out and not worry about any homework. In other words, on Friday nights, Tyler is all mine. Well, mine and Rich's.

Anyway. I decided that it would be nice to use one of our Olive Garden gift certificates and eat a little bit fancier than usual tonight. So not long after Tyler got home from school, I sent him out to pick up our date night fare. He left around 5 PM or so to drive to Olive Garden (and stop off at Cold Stone for dessert--again, thank you gift cards!).

When he hadn't returned by 5:30, I started getting worried. By 5:45, I was practically panicking. I tried calling him, but his phone kept going straight to voicemail. In my head there were two thoughts--one, he's on the phone and is ignoring my call (but this didn't seem very likely: Tyler always takes my calls) or two, Tyler's had some horrible accident and his phone was destroyed.

Although I knew that he was probably fine, by 5 till (5:50) I began imagining what terrible things might have happened. Like, Tyler's in a hostage situation at Olive Garden and the robber/gunman destroyed Tyler's phone when I tried to call him or that Tyler has been in a horrible car accident in which Tyler and his phone were thrown from the car and the phone was smashed to bits and Tyler was dead and no one knows to call me and I should maybe start calling the hospital or the police to find out if anything terrible has happened.

Tyler finally answered his phone at 6:00. Letting me know that I was both right and wrong about all of my fears.
1) Yes he was ignoring my phone call. (what?) In his defense he was on the phone with the insurance company because
2) He had been in a car wreck. But it wasn't his fault. He'd been rear-ended by a guy and the bumper of our car was trashed.
But thankfully, 3) Tyler was not injured, and neither was the other driver. Although both cars were damaged.
And 4), since Tyler wasn't at fault, they had already contacted the other guy's insurance to get the claim process started.


Okay. So maybe it wasn't that bad. Things could have been a million times worse. (My worst fear is Tyler going out to run an errand for me and dying in some terrible car accident. Hence my over-reacting from earlier.) But we were very lucky and blessed. And somehow, this will turn into some sort of blessing. Because trials always do. I'll let you know when I know what it is.

I am very very grateful that Tyler came home safely. And that the damage to the car seems to be only affecting the bumper. And that Richie wasn't in the car when the accident happened. (Nor was his car seat.)

Sidenotes:

I had some kind of funny thoughts going through my head as I half-contemplated calling the police. I imagined my phone conversation with the dispatcher going something like this:

     "Hi, Officer? I'm calling to report a missing person. I'm worried about my husband. He's been gone for a while and I can't get a hold of him, which is so unlike him. I'm worried that something has happened to him."
     "Okay, Miss. How long has your husband been missing?"
    "Well, I sent him out to grab dinner about an hour ago. He should have been home already."
    And then the dispatcher or officer or whoever I was speaking to would kindly tell me that I was being silly, and I would insist there was a problem, meanwhile, Tyler would be off bleeding to death somewhere.

I also almost called Tyler's parents to find out if they had talked to him recently and knew what was going on. (Which, it turns out, would have actually been pretty effective. Tyler called Dennis, his step-dad, as soon as the accident happened.)

Anyway. We're all alright.

And also, dinner and ice cream were both delicious. (Thank you to my mom and to McKenna for the respective gift cards which paid for our date night tonight.) Although, had I decided to make something instead, this whole fiasco might have been avoided. But, in the eternal words of Mitch Baylor, "If it wasn't this . . . it'd be something else."