Play Date Fun!

We are so very blessed to have such amazing friends. What's also amazing is all of our kids are within a few years of each other. Most of my friends are also stay at home mommies or only work part time which works out great for play dates. Let's be honest play dates for the kids are really for the Moms. No not really they are for the kids to socialize and learn from each other, but I can't lie if I said the Moms don't benefit as well. We have so much fun watching our kids play together and having adult conversations with each other! We laugh and share stories our husbands probably would be embarrassed about if they knew we told each other. We vent about various things, share serious things, bounce ideas off each other, pray together, and learn from each other.

I always mean to take pictures from our play dates to have memories later of when all of the kids were little, but most of the time I forget my camera or just plain get caught up yacking that I just forget. On our last play date I actually remembered to take pictures! It also helped that it was at my house and the camera was in my sight! Here are a few pictures from that day:

 Playing in the pool!

 

Claire's friend Avery. I love the pure joy on her face!

 Claire and Christian contemplating stealing their Mommy's drinks.

 Wagon ride in the back yard.

 Score! We stole their lemonade!

 Discussing how yummy the drinks are.

 You got any more friend?

It's the Small Things

My daughter teaches me so much about life. Lately it has been about enjoying the little moments in life. She get's so excited over the smallest things. She doesn't want big expensive things. She can have fun with a $1 shovel and a pail of water. Too often we all get caught up in wanting bigger and better things. A bigger house, a better paying job, more of this or that. We have all heard it before, but all the money in the world cannot buy you happiness. Of course there is nothing wrong with trying to better yourself or your family just remember not to let it consume you. Take joy in the small moments, don't stress over a little extra housework or being a few minutes late. (I know I am always late and I really do try to be on time). The other day I was cooking dinner or doing something in the kitchen. While I'm cooking I let Claire play out back. I open the blinds so I can watch her and leave the backdoor cracked open so she can come in and out. She was out playing in her sandbox and running through the yard with Cooper. Next thing I know Cooper comes inside. Poor guy is getting old and doesn't like the heat for long. A few seconds later here comes Claire. I hear her "I'm up to something giggle". I was busy and not paying a lot of attention to what she was up to. Then I hear her break out into uncontrollable laughter. That of course caught my attention. What had she done? She carried a fist full of sand into the living room and fairy dusted the poor dog. (When I was in kindergarten I got in trouble for fairy dusting the boys, more on that some other time) I couldn't help but laugh. She was so proud of herself and the dog looked so sad.  In that moment I could get mad for having to re vacuum the living room or enjoy seeing the look of utter joy and satisfaction on my daughter's face. I chose the latter. Although we did have a firm conversation later about keeping sand outside.

Little girl is my little fish or "ish" as she calls them. She loves the water. Her water table has seriously been the best toy investment we have bought her. The other day we were outside playing and I look up and she decided to turn the water table into a pool.

She was so proud of herself for climbing in there. She had a blast splashing everywhere. I decided that maybe she needs a swimming pool. Last year I bought her a blow up pool that holds like 3 inches of water. It is still in good shape and even has a canopy over it, but I get so tired of blowing that thing up. It slowly looses air and by a day later it's time to blow it up again. She didn't need anything fancy so we went and got her a traditional plastic pool. We splurged haha and got her one with a slide. The kid loves slides and Eric thought she would like the slide. We greatly underestimated just how much she would like it. She LOVES it. Eric put it out back tonight and I had no intentions of letting her in it tonight. The sun had gone down and it was close to dinner time. Well, her infectious excitement watching Eric set it up spoke to my heart. I put the hose in it and filled it up and let her hop in with clothes and all. She giggled and splashed. Poor thing was freezing, but she didn't care.We had to plead with her to come inside to eat. Take lessons from your children. They know how to have a blast doing things we might overlook.

Jesus Loves Me

Time gets away from me so quickly and I realize how long it has been since I've blogged. I decided instead of waiting until I had something really interesting to talk about I needed to start writing short entries about day to day life too.  Little girl turned 18 months on the 16th of March. Part of me feels like she has been with us forever and part of me can't believe how fast the last year and a half has flown by. Her doctor doesn't do 18 month check ups so I attempted to do her stats myself. She is clocking in at a whopping 21 pounds and around 32 inches. For some reason ever since she was a little baby I always sing her "Claire Elizabeth song" (one that I made up) and Jesus Loves Me before every nap and before bedtime. We rock and sing. The made up Claire Elizabeth song can always calm her down. Ever since she was tiny if she was fussy I would sing her song and she would relax in my arms. I didn't realize how much she loves singing Jesus Loves Me until recently though. I'll be halfway through the Claire Elizabeth song and she will start saying "Jesus" and "Bible". Now when I sing Jesus Loves Me she has to sing too. Most of her singing isn't understandable besides the occasional Jesus and Bible she throws in there, but it is the most precious beautiful singing voice I have ever heard. Every night the singing gets louder and louder and when Eric puts her to bed he started singing it too (don't let him know I told you that) and she sings with both of us. So loud you can hear her accross the house. I know I'm partial, but man that little girl is awesome!

Here are some of the pics taken to document her 18 month birthday :-)

Mercy

Those of you who know me well know that I am generally a happy/positive person. I don't like to dwell on sad/unhappy things. Of course this does not mean I don't get down at times because we all do. I really do make an effort though to always count my blessings and remember we serve a merciful God. Over the past 3.5 weeks I have spent a lot of time talking to God and He has given me the peace that only He can give. That's not to say I'm still not asking why or no longer sad about everything that happened, but I am thankful to at least feel se peace with it all. God has shown his mercy countless ways throughout my life and this time has not been any different. He was merciful in that I had no reason at all to ever suspect I was pregnant. Therefore I had not had time to become excited and we didn't already tell anyone. I think already knowing and considering the baby a part of the family would have made it harder to have peace about the situation. Not that the baby isn't a part of our family because it always will be, but hopefully you know what I mean. God was also merciful in that Claire is too young to remember anything that happened. My hospital stay was the only nights I have ever been away from her. I am thankful that was harder on me than it was her. God also showed and is still showing his mercy through our friends and family who have gone above and beyond to help care for my little family. I also think I an calmer now. Well, I've had to slow down to recover, but I'm learning not to stress as much over the small things. That sometimes Claire just wants Momma to sit on the floor and play instead of folding clothes and it's ok. I think too that God is opening my heart to love another child. I have been conflicted about having more children for awhile and now having lost one especially thinking of it as Claire's brother/sister makes me want to give her the joy of having a sibling. Just some of what's been on my mind. I also thought I wod share a picture of us from this morning. I can never get a decent picture of the 2 of us and I finally did!

Why?

I'm not sure where to begin. Things have been beyond crazy and still unbelievable. What happened last Friday many of you know. I am hoping that by writing it out maybe it will be therapeutic.  I can hope right? (This is written over several days, hopefully it isn't too choppy and makes some sense. I apologize it is so long).

Thursday night around 1:00 a.m.(actually early Friday morning) I woke up to terrible pain in my right ovary (what felt like my ovary at least). I assumed it was a cyst rupturing. Back up a little over 2 weeks prior I had similar pains on a Saturday night. Probably more than you ever wanted to know, but I'm trying to be open here, but I've had quite a few hormone imbalance issues since Claire has been born and therefore have had a lot of bleeding issues (I told you TMI). Accompanying the pain that Saturday night was also some bleeding, but I also had been on what I assumed was my period. That Monday morning I called the doctor. Unfortunately my wonderful OB/GYN moved at the first of the year and so we had been setting up meetings with new doctors to narrow down who we were comfortable with. We only had the opportunity to meet with one doctor at this point and therefore she was the only one with my records (we did like her) so I called her office first thing Monday. They set me up with an ultrasound Wednesday to rule out anything serious. Long story short ultrasound was fine and said it was probably a cyst rupturing. (I have PCOS so cysts are not completely uncommon, but cysts that rupture are not usually a PCOS norm) and put me on birth control to help balance my hormones and stop the excessive bleeding which had been going on for 2 weeks straight at this point. The birth control helped within a few days everything seemed normal. The bleeding went away and I had a solid week of normal. Thursday morning I woke up to bleeding again so I called and talked to the nurse who said I must need a higher dose pill and she was calling in something for me to start when I finished the current pill pack. Thursday afternoon is actually when the pain started again. I was babysitting and had just put the 2 girls down for a nap when similar pain to what I had felt before started. I took Tylenol and curled up on the couch. To be on the safe side I called and talked to the nurse again who assured me it was just another cyst. I hate being the girl who constantly is calling, but I wanted to be sure. Fast forward to middle of the night Thursday (early Friday) and the pain I felt over 2 weeks ago and even earlier that day was no comparison to this. I am assuming it must just be another cyst that's what the nurse said right?The pain was so bad my entire right leg went numb. I woke Eric up in tears. He got me some Tylenol and I ran I hot bath. The bath helped me manage the pain so I sat there as long as I could. I stayed awake in terrible pain until 5:00 a.m. Eric debated taking me to the ER several times but I insisted it was just a cyst and I didn't want to wake Claire up over nothing. Around 5:00 the pain eased up so Eric got dressed and went to work. To be safe Eric called the doctor around 6:00 (who answered the phone herself, I was impressed). She said since the ultrasound was normal 2.5 weeks ago that if the pain was back the ER would be better equipped to run further testing and to go there. The last thing I wanted to do was spend my Friday in the ER, spend useless money when it would just be a cyst plus Eric had to go into work and couldn't get away until after 9 and I was babysitting until 1. The pain was manageable at this point so I figured the cyst ruptured and I was on the mend. Not so lucky though. By 8:15 the pain was back with a vengeance I called Eric to see if he could leave work any sooner to help me with the 2 girls while I tried to overcome the pain. Unfortunately he had no way to leave until 9. I tried to push on, but the pain only intensified. More TMI to come, sorry. By this point I'm crawling and crying the pain is so bad I can't walk. The 2 little ones are following me (crawling with them is a fun game) oh to be little again. I make it to the bathroom to pee. When I sit down stuff is running out of me and I haven't started peeing yet. That's when I got scared. I knew it wasn't good and I had to go in. Problem is Eric can't get off for another 30 min and is an hour away. I called Eric back and he started calling friends who might be home to come over and sit with me and the girls until he could make it. Claire knows something was wrong with Mommy and started crying and throwing a fit. Poor baby. All I could do is try and love on her. Her friend that I was babysitting was such a sweet heart quietly playing next to me. Thankfully my dear friend Emily was home. She came over within 20 min. In the meantime I knew there was no way I could wait for Eric. I started calling people who might could take me to the ER. Thank God it was Friday and most of my friends who work are off on Friday. Jackie was home and lives about 2 miles away she said she would be over shortly. She made it to me first. In hindsight my poor friends really didn't understand much of what I was trying to tell them I don't think. I was crying and hard to understand and I know I wasn't making much sense. Only a handful of friends even knew I had been having issues (I really don't like to be the center of attention). I was so close to calling an ambulance things got so bad. I laid on the floor praying not to pass out until someone was with the babies. Only by the grace of God my pain eased enough for Jackie to take me on the 30 min trip to the hospital and me not faint.

 At the ER I'm pretty sure I repeated my symptoms about 20xs before the doctor came in. No one seemed to grasp the amount of pain I was in and to me it felt like everyone was going in slow motion. I got asked a thousand times if I could be pregnant. Each time my answer was absolutely not. I had been bleeding for weeks and on the pill (and Eric had been out of town for work haha). The young ER doc comes in and again asked me to repeat my symptoms and starts to mash on my belly asking me if it hurt. Ha he almost got punched it hurt so bad. His mashing set the pain in overdrive again and I beg him for some pain relief. He said he would order some morphine (finally). Poor guy seemed nice enough and fresh out of school and starts telling me about abdominal pain and the male reproductive system. Really? He almost got kicked in his male reproductive system. Then proceeds to explain the female reproductive system and he would order and ultrasound first. In the meantime the financial person shows up before the morphine. Seriously? Finally little dude with the morphine comes in and I politely tell financial person to move it or loose it. Wow morphine makes you feel so strange, but it did ease the pain tons to a dull ache. A short while later the ultrasound person comes and takes me to the ultrasound room. I've hot quite a few ultrasounds before, but this one was especially uncomfortable. The lady was nice and kept asking me when was my last period and how many weeks I was. I said once again "I'm not pregnant". None of this ever clicked with me. I had been bleeding heavy for weeks and on birth control. Honestly the last thing I would have ever guessed was I was pregnant. I just assumed she didn't pay attention to my chart since everyone kept making me repeat the same questions/answers. A little while after the ultrasound the nurse comes in and starts telling me to take my jewelry off they were about to come get me. I said "what's going on"? She said "didn't the doctor come in and tell you"? I said "NO, tell me what is going on"!!! Finally after some convincing and the nurse telling me the doctor should really be the one to tell me. She finally said I had an ectopic pregnancy and the doctor would be in shortly to take me to surgery. I was floored. I immediately burst into tears. Poor Eric is sitting in the ER horribly confused. He had enough sense to console his crying wife. Then the doctor comes in and says it's very important to get me to the the OR ASAP. Eric finally says "you mean she is pregnant"? It never crossed my mind he wouldn't know what that meant, but why should he? Already have been pregnant this was an early fear of my when I was pregnant with Claire. I knew what it meant. The doctor got Eric up to speed and then things started happening quickly. The doctor telling the staff to find an OR NOW! People rushing in and out having me sign paperwork with large medical terms that I only had time to research after the fact. Eric disappeared and I'm frantically asking for my husband as they are wheeling me off. They tell me his is speeding up the process by handling some other paperwork. Finally he comes into pre op in time to hug and kiss me as they give my my "margarita" as the nurses are calling it. As I'm being wheeled into the operating room Pastor David and Christi stop just in time in the hall to pray with us. The next thing I remember is waking up in terrible pain. I keep telling the nurse in recovery nothing is helping. She finally tells me they have given me all the pain meds they can and they are taking me to my room. I look at her like she has lost her mind because the pain is no where under control. She explains that getting me off the stretcher into a more "comfy" hospital bed will help the pain. I'm pretty sure something sarcastic came out of my mouth. How in the world would a bed help this pain? Nevertheless they take me to my room where Eric is waiting and my Mom has made it. Oh yeah I text Mom on the way to the ER and she immediately asks if she should come (she lives 3 hours away). I tell her no, that I'm sure it's nothing and if it is something then I'll tell her to come. Thankfully my Mom knows me well enough to know that it was serious if I was going to the ER and couldn't wait for Eric to get home. So she left her house as soon as I text her. They make me switch beds which sucked immensely. I couldn't stop thinking that I was going to pass out from the pain. I make it to the so called "comfy" bed and the nurse shows up with more pain meds. Hallelujah! The rest of the evening is a blur. I remember not being able to keep my eyes open which was frustrating me. I remember trying to carry on conversations and then completely forgetting what I was talking about mid story. Finally I think I gave up and went to sleep. I woke up a little later feeling more coherent, but still groggy. Thankfully Eric's sister Megan lives in Huntsville and was able to come in and help with Claire along with several good friends who took turns feeding her and playing with her. Thanks to them Claire was oblivious to everything and had a blast playing with her friends. From the second I heard what was wrong with me all I wanted was to see my Claire Bear. Somehow holding her would make it hurt less. Finally later that evening I got to see my baby. I felt bad because holding my eyes open was still a challenge.

 After everyone left I had to deal with my emotions. I remember at some point telling my Mom that I knew the little baby was with Jesus and what could be better then being in Jesus arms? That's what I keep having to remember every time the sadness creeps up. A good friend told me that the baby has a purpose we just don't know what it is yet or we may never know. I know we serve a mighty God and everything he allows to happen for his Glory. Someone else told me it's ok to grieve and to ask God why? I almost forgot that I should ask God why. That it's ok to ask God to show me why. After having to do some fertility treatment to conceive Claire I had hopes that conceiving a second one wouldn't be as hard. After Claire's first birthday passed we decided we were not ready to "try" for a second one, but wanted to "not prevent, but not try". Unfortunately after several months we realized that that wasn't going to happen. My body was just too whacked out and I had to have medicated cycles. The only thing I can figure happened was I got pregnant before I got on the birth control and the bleeding I thought was my period was actually related to the pregnancy. A lot of my "why" question to God has been "why was I so close to getting what I prayed for"? A
"surprise" pregnancy, unmedicated, no planning or timing involved, due about a month after Claire's 2nd birthday (my ideal timeline), another fall baby (which I loved having). I know God is not out to harm us and he may or may not answer my "why" questions, but I do know He loves us.

I have been home recovering a little over a week now. In case you are interested the baby was in my right tube. The doctor tried to save the tube, but she said it wouldn't stop bleeding so she removed a portion of it. It is now non functioning. She is very positive and tells me not to worry, that if we want we can have lots of babies. Before we do decide to have another child I will have to do the HSG dye test to make sure the other tube isn't blocked. We will have to do the same things we did to get pregnant with Claire and the second I get a positive test I will have to have an ultrasound to ensure it is not ectopic again. Stressful to think about, but fortunately not a hopeless situation. I'm just so scared to lose another one. This little baby was not only my child, but Claire's little brother or sister. That makes me sad to think about too. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family and church family. Both of our Moms have been here helping since I cannot lift Claire for a few weeks. Our church family has been fattening us up bringing fantastic meals. And Claire has been in Heaven playing with all her grandparents, aunts, and friends. Thanks so much to everyone who has been praying for us. Please keep the prayers coming.

90% and the love of shoes

90% potty trained. That's where we are and I think will be for awhile. She has done fantastic with it. Far better than I hoped. At home just the 3 of us she is 100%. She only times we have "uh-ohs" as the calls them is usually in the car. In her defense she is back there hollering and signing to go potty there just isn't always a place to pull over and go. I think with her young age the bladder muscle control just isn't developed enough yet. Plus telling her wait 5 minutes is pointless to a little girl with no sense of time. So she will occasionally have an accident in the car. She will yell and say "uh oh Momma" and then fuss a little. She hates having accidents. The only other times accidents come out are when she is not at home and someone else is caring for her. Although that is getting better as she is learning to better communicate what she needs. The only issue is when she is around people who are not around her everyday she can tend to be sneaky and say she has to go potty when she really just wants to walk around or play in the sink. Just a word of warning to my friends :-) She is even doing good at night. Its 50%/50% if she wakes up dry. Some mornings she does and others she doesn't. I'm not worried about night training for a while though. She gets mad at night when the diaper goes and and fusses and yanks at it. The only other issue is keeping pants on her during the day. She insists to take them off when she potties and then doesn't put them back on. I also think before I can say she is 100% trained she is going to have to be able to somewhat pull up and down her own pants. We are getting there, but I think it will be a while before she can really do it. She does like her reading material though. She can be mad at me about this when she is older.

My little goofy girl has a shoe obsession like her Mommy. All day long she is pilfering through her closet trying on every pair of shoes she has. Too big and too small doesn't matter to her. She is so proud of herself that she can usually get them on by herself now. I can't blame the girl. It's in her blood. I will never forget my first coed party in Jr. High. You know the one where girls and boys are not so icky to each other anymore? It was a party for the 7th grade cheerleaders and football players out in the country where there was lots of things to do on the hosts' property. I was so excited! The boy I had a huge crush on was going to be there. Of course I had to do my hair and what little make up I was allowed, perfectly. I planned my outfit all week and of course had to wear stylish (for the time) shoes. Nothing too fancy just some jeans and a nice top with my hot shoes. They were little sandals with about an inch heel on them. I thought I was hot stuff with a heel on (even though looking back they were way to clunky to be called a heel).  On the drive there I could hardly contain myself. I get out smiling at all my friends and notice I think I over did it. I wanted to hop back in the car and have Mom drive me home as fast as possible. Too bad Mom left quickly thinking I would be embarrassed if she hung around too long. Sure everyone was in jeans so that was ok. My top wasn't overly fancy so that could slide too. But my shoes! Every girl there had on tennis shoes. (I guess they figured it was quicker to chase the boys in comfy shoes) and most girls had on a t-shirt. No one there had make up on. Now I didn't look like a drag queen, Dad would never have let me leave the house to my first boy/girl party looking like I "painted my face on" as he would say. However I did have some lip gloss, blush, mascara and hint of eye shadow. And to make matters worse I had curled and styled and sprayed my hair into perfect placement (or so I thought) and every other girl there had in a simple pony tail or just straightened with a head band. Not to mentioned I of course accessorized. I had cute earrings on and a necklace and probably a bracelet. I was the only one accessorized other than some with some cute studs in their ears. Ooops. I learned from that experience to always check with my friends to see what they are wearing and how their general appearance will be. Looking back I didn't stick out hardly if any from my friends. Of course to a 13 year old girl it was nearly the end of the world.  I have a feeling my sweet little girl is sadly on the same path as her mother. She loves to get my lipstick and pretend she is applying it. Also likes to get my brush set and "do her makeup". Playing dress up, getting her purses and clomping in shoes to the door waving by at me is one of her favorite games.

Adventures in Potty Training

So I do realize that being almost 16 months makes Claire on the young end of the potty training spectrum. I do not have high expectations now, but we are trying it. For about 6 months now we put Claire on the potty before bath time quite often she will go. She is very interested in the potty. Loves to put her seat on and off of it and occasionally try and sneak a toy or 2 in there.  She is very comfortable in the bathroom, probably because she obviously sees Mommy go.  Maybe it is a hazard of me being home with her everyday and being a paranoid 1st time Mom who didn't let her out of my sight for the first few months of her life, lol. Right before Thanksgiving I did the 3 day potty training and it actually worked very well. That's not to say I didn't clean up a lot of pee, but like they say by day 3 there is a marked improvement. Then as luck would have it she got an ear infection and pottying like a big girl went out the window. I thought about resuming it when the ear infection passed, but then traveling so much with Christmas I decided to wait. This past week we have been working on it again. I feel like I live in my small 2nd bathroom lately. I am doing to whole pee and get a M&M thing, well she is pretty sure just for sitting on the potty requires an M&M. Several times now I have been in another area of the house only to discover she made it to the bathroom, but peed on the floor :-\. The other day I was folding laundry and noticed she didn't follow me like she normally does. I poked my head out to hear muffled screams. The little turkey somehow shut herself in her bedroom and obviously can't reach the door knob to let herself out. I quickly rescued her only to discover she literally scared the poop out of herself. Poop was every where and she had stepped in it. Eww. Yesterday morning I was so proud of her. I was cooking breakfast and she comes running in the kitchen, yelled "momma" and ran to the bathroom. I put her on the toilet and she immediately peed! Yay! If only she will keep that up. I hate that she always has to come get me to potty. I realize that she may not always be able to hold it to find me so today I did what I initially said I didn't want to do and bought a training potty that sits on the floor. She was immediately excited about it. For one she got to help open the box and ever since Christmas opening boxes means something good is inside. I let her sit on it and play with it. After about 15 minutes of nothing I walked to the other room. Again I hear her yelling. Oh crap, now what did she do? I found her sitting on top of the big potty (lid down) and thought she had just gotten stuck and needed help to get off. Oh no that wasn't it. She got confused and thought she still needed to sit on the big potty to pee. She peed all over the toilet lid cover. I still gave her and M&M because technically she had the right idea. Since then she has actually peed in the training potty several times. I have learned letting her run around with no drawers on works best. When I put training panties on her she seems to have more accidents. Maybe she still associates that with a diaper? Who knows. So for now when we are home her tiny hiney is hanging out!