As much as I'm not enjoying pictures of myself right now, I'm glad we documented our "twin pregnancies". I think I'm going to envy my sister's height for the rest of my life. And her skinny genes. The kiddos had a blast.
Lilly turned two even though I'm in denial about her growing up.
She is so funny. I love the little personality that is emerging. She is mischevious, goofy and so loving! I am so blessed to be her mommy.
September also brought me a full time kiddo to watch. The extra income is fabulous but having an extra kid is crazy! He was 2 1/2 when I started watching him. He's exactly 7 months older than Lilly. He is what my sis-in-law and I like to call "dumb smart". He can count, is potty trained and knows a lot of words. However, he has a hard time answering simple questions, even if they are of the yes/no variety. It is quite comical at times, but mostly just frustrating. He will start whining and when I ask what is wrong, he just stares at me. When I change tactics and ask if he's hungry, he still just stares. It's kind of ridiculous. There are days I'm not sure the extra income is worth it.
October was pretty uneventful. We took the kiddos trick-or-treating and I hoped to send myself into labor but it didn't happen. They got lots of candy, had a great time, and we still managed to get home and get them to bed at a decent hour since it was on a school night. We're getting a lot better with the schedule though I was finding it pretty difficult at this point to wake up at 6am to get Maddy off to school and stay awake since my charge gets dropped off at 7am. Ugh! No sleep for prego mama.
November arrived and so did a couple babies!!! Starting the first weekend of November, I could not sleep unless I was nearly completely upright. I couldn't sleep on my side because my hips were hurting so badly and I couldn't sleep on my back since rolling onto my side to get out of bed caused my pubic bone to pop and me to scream. I began sleeping on the couch, in the corner, upright. I practically begged my doc to induce me and she said we would the day after my due date if we made it that far. At my appointment 9 days before my due date my mom went with me because I couldn't stop crying...I was miserable. I was dilated to a 4 and 50% effaced so she went ahead and stripped my membranes and said she'd be surprised if she didn't see me later that night or the following day. She told me to go home and walk, walk, walk. So I did. Four miles. My hips were DYING! I'd had some really good and regular contractions the first 3 miles, but they petered out and I gave up after mile 4 shortly before my body would have given up on me. There were no more contractions that evening or the following day and I was hacked off to say the least. I found my peace and just decided I would focus on being induced the day after my due date. Babies 2 and 3 were a day late after all. That Monday, 3 days post appointment and 1 week until due date, my sister was being induced because she was miserable. Jealous doesn't begin to describe it. I talked to my MIL who was flying in to town Thursday and I was telling her how ready we were to see her and that I was just planning on having a baby the following Tuesday and we planned to go baby shopping that weekend. 45 minutes later I was changing my socks planning to go to the store and my water broke! I began laughing uncontrolably because it's the strangest feeling ever and I was beyond happy to get to have my baby! I called the hubby to have him come home from work, then my mom who was not amused (she was stressed enough having my sister in labor across the country). My mom picked our oldest up from school and we all met up at the hospital. I was at a 5 when we got to the hospital so they went ahead and gave me my epidural. When my doc got there, she was getting ready to go into a meeting and told me when she got out, they would start me on pitocin and break my water? Apparently I had a second bag of water and it's pretty common. Who knew? Fast forward and the highlights include: my epidural wore off right as it was time to push (awesome), my neice was born, 38 minutes later my Hayden was born! 8lbs., 3oz. 20in. long, a big head and a GIANT set of shoulders.
As crazy as it sounds, I didn't think transitioning to 4 kids would be difficult. I felt like making the switch to 3 was easy and now I had 1 in school. WRONG! The hubby did make a good point though...since baby 3 had a birth defect, it's not like I had time or energy to pay attention. Plus, I was still on an anti-depressant that had me feeling numb.
December seemed to fly by. We had so much fun visiting family and friends in Utah and the day after Christmas I got to meet Hayden's "twin cousin", my new neice!
Our time went by way too fast, but all the kids had so much fun together! I'm so thankful we got so much good family time over Christmas break.
January brought my *gulp* 30th birthday. It wasn't so bad, but I do need to start making fitness a priority and get my weight off that I've been carrying around since my pregnancy with Lilly. I need to take advantage of my current metabolism as it's only downhill from here. I also have been having some scares with my vision. 9 days after my birthday I noticed a blurry patch in my peripheral vision in only my left eye. After 3 days of denial, which fixes most things, I called annd made an eye appointment for the following Tuesday. Over the weekend my vision worsened and turned into a whole bunch of blurry polka dots throughout my field of vision. When trying to read, it seemed like the words were floating and waving like the surface of the water on a breezy day. I was told that my scans showed maculas that looked like they belonged to a 65 year old. YIKES! I had a cellular level scan last week and should find out what they showed in 2 days. My vision has improved a good bit but it's far from perfect. The blurry spots are still there, but they're not as big or severe. I've been eating a diet heavy in spinach, broccoli and berries as well as taking lutein and bilberry supplements. I'm praying hard that it's good news. We had another milestone this month...Daegan is FULLY potty trained!!! At long last! When we returned from vacation, we had a weekend then the hubby was in Kansas City at a boat show for a solid week. While he was gone, Daegan decided the potty was a good place for #2! I guess I just needed to lay off and let him figure it out for himself. Life is SOOOOO much better now!
February is always a big deal at our house. Maddy will be 6 on Valentine's Day and Daegan will turn 4 two weeks later. They're getting really excited. We're having Hayden baptized next Sunday and having a combo birthday party later in the day. This will probably be the last year we can do that before Maddy wants to do a party with her friends. She mentioned it this year but it's not a huge deal just yet. Should be fun!
Here's hoping I make another update before another 6 months has passed!
