No words needed.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day 2017 summary: "slept in" (vs getting up at work time), breakfast made for me, church, lunch out, nap, outside play time, grilling, bubble bath, Starbucks. 

It was a great day! Love these little people!

Mother's Day 2015

A summary of Mother's Day: Slept in, church, grilled out for lunch, read outside alone (while kids and Seth did Legos inside), played outside, did some gardening, took a nap, out for dinner, grocery shopped alone (hey, a mom can't get a whole day). The kids and Seth got me a massage and some precious homemade crafts and cards. Love my people and am thankful to be mama to my babies (I can call them babies forever, right?!?!) :)

We're also so thankful to have wonderful mothers and mothers-in-law to celebrate and honor on Mother's Day!

You'll find me in the fetal position...

You know those times where you just want to hug your knees to your chest, while rocking back and forth and sucking your thumb?

If I could type while doing that, I would be.

Addison is super chill and such a sweet baby but stopped sleeping through the night abruptly about six weeks ago, and has been waking up several times a night. And the ONLY way we could get her back to sleep is rocking and/or feeding her. So we are very, very tired.

At our pediatrician's recommendations, we are back to the good 'ol Ferber Method of CIO. Please don't tell me I'm cruel and heartless or you will make me cry. No parent wants to sit and hear their baby cry but I also realize that, like Carter, if we don't do this soon, we will have a[nother] child that wakes up til her first birthday. It sucks, big time. But a few nights of misery for many, many nights of restful sleep for the whole family is what the doctor ordered, so it was time.

We began last night and, as we predicted, she gave us a SERIOUS run for our money. When we Ferberized Carter, the longest he cried was like 22 minutes or something.

Her? TWO. AND. A. HALF. HOURS. Persistent.

We cold-turkeyed her from the bottle, the full swaddle (well, we had her in the sleep sack swaddle, but with the swaddle part wrapped around her chest/torso with her arms out), and rocking in one night, so we anticipated it wouldn't be nice before we even got into bed. She began to fuss at 11 p.m. If you're not familiar with the Ferber Method, it is not just letting them scream and scream until they fall asleep. You go in at increasing intervals, comfort and pat them, and then leave again--without picking them up. For night one, you start with three minutes, then five, then ten, and so on.

She fell asleep briefly many, many times over the two and a half hours, but EVERY TIME, her startle reflex (when does this end?!?!?) would send her arms shooting up into the air and begin the crying again.

At the two and a half hour mark and the point in which my blood pressure/heart rate were higher than I thought imaginable, I simply walked into the room and without saying a word, tucked her arms down in her swaddle and she was out like a light til morning. Hmmm. We're at a loss if we should keep her swaddled or try every night without it in attempt to get her weaned from it. Basically, we have no idea. We'll have to see how tonight goes.

Thankfully, she woke up this morning happy as a lark--albeit a bit hoarse--and was ready for the day!

Anyway, I wanted to write this down so I can look back someday (hopefully like next week...ha!) and be thankful this season is in the past.

[Prayers appreciated.]

[Oh, and coffee.]

If I'm being honest...

* The past few days have been incredibly hard. Both of my children have been slightly miserable and it has been tough.

* I miss sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time.

* I've got spit up in my hair and I'm still not washing it today. :)

* I don't like breastfeeding. It's not convenient and it's not easier than formula (in my opinion). Every outing is a major event. At this point, I'm doing it to save money (and lose weight) and trying my hardest to make it through my maternity leave. It is especially hard because she is SO slow and squirmy and I end up being up for nearly 3 [total] hours during most nights and out-of-commission for a lot of each day. Plus, I'm hardly pumping anything (which I'll need when I go back to work), so I'm taking supplements and pumping all the live long day. HARD.

* My husband has been a GOD-SEND, helping me with the kids and around the house, giving me time to nap, supporting me, and being an awesome dad.

* I miss my husband. Sure, I see him everyday, but I miss him...like need a date night and time alone. We spend pretty much every waking second tending to the kids.

* I still get anxiety when I'm home with both of the kids alone -- I just feel like they always need me at the same time! I know this will pass when Addison is doing more than just eating and sleeping.

* I sometimes crave McCafe Frappes, and can almost block out the screaming baby in the carseat if I'm drinking one. Ha!

* We've been to Target more times than I care to admit in the past 5 weeks.

* I have NO desire to potty train though it's a necessity.

* I sometimes feel like an inadequate mother and wife.

* My house looks like a war-zone more times than not, but it's hard to keep up with a 2-year-old emptying the toy boxes every 20 minutes and nursing the aforementioned slow eater.

* I'm thankful for my iPhone, which has given me something to do during nighttime nursing! There really IS an app for everything -- nothing like doing your devotions at 2 a.m.!

Mother's Day

(sidenote: very pregnant. Not the best picture, but will have to do!)

Holy cow! That was my THIRD Mother's Day already. Super hard to believe. The first one was sort of a blur, though, since we had just come home from the hospital the day before and spent a bit of Mother's Day back there doing bloodwork, etc. for Carter's jaundice.

This year, I wanted to just relax and hang out (and sleep, if we're being honest here). Carter wanted to give his mama lots of time with him because that little rascal got up early...5:13 a.m., to be exact. Seth was wonderful and got up with him to let me sleep in. That lasted til 6:40 a.m. when Carter began a morning meltdown. Oh well, such is motherhood right? :)

Carter presented me with his card and they also got me a super pretty bouquet of flowers, too.

Seth made omelettes for breakfast and we relaxed before we got ready for church. We decided to go out for dinner at suppertime rather than lunch hoping to beat the Mother's Day crowd. So we made a nice lunch and then it was NAPTIME for the whole family. WOO HOOO!!!! Every mother's (or at least those with a toddler and 33 weeks pregnant) dream....ahhh, we settled into bed and fell quickly asleep...

...for one hour. Little stinker again decided sleep was overrated. But again, Seth was awesome and got up with him and took him outside and I slept for another hour. It was glorious. After I woke up, I went outside and we all hung out while Carter and a friend played in the water table, sandbox, and all over the yard. We couldn't have asked for more gorgeous weather!!

We made a trip to Bass Pro (my idea actually!) to purchase our new tent for camping. It's a nice, big, family-sized tent that we'll break in this weekend! NUTS? I think so. But, we really wanted to plan a special last hurrah for Carter before I got ENORMOUS and [more] miserable AND we're staying super close to home (state park is 10 minutes away) because sitting in a car for more than that is equivalent to torture right now (oh the pain!!! Ouch!).

After we purchased our new tent, we went to Red Lobster (one of my absolute favorites!) for dinner, then home to chill, read books with baby love, and put him to bed for some relaxation.

It was a great day and I am so thankful for Seth and my sweet little boy who made me a mama. :)