A Comeback

I haven't been writing much on my blog in a couple years, partly because I've been writing some posts for becominglovely.com and partly because of some unfortunate responses to my writing that made me feel extremely self conscious about my words. But as I was looking back at previous posts the other day to see if Cooper had had as much trouble napping as Ruby has been having (the answer was yes) I realized that my blog is just for me anyway, and it was nice to read about what life was like at that particular point in time because I had already completely forgotten. So I am going to attempt to blog a little more regularly so that when I'm older and hopefully drinking a Diet Coke in some peaceful sunshine somewhere I can remember what my crazy/exhausting/funny days were like as a mother with young children.

As I was selecting a quote from this months chosen conference talk for our ward newsletter I came across this quote about the way we interact with social media-
"We portray an incomplete life- sometimes in a self aggrandizing or fake way. We share this life and then consume the almost exclusively fake lives of our social media friends. How could it not make you feel worse to spend so much time pretending to be happier than you are and the rest of the time seeing how much happier others seem to be than you?"
-Elder Quentin L. Cook "Choose Wisely" (If you're curious about the rest of the talk.)

It brought an immediate smile to my face. Just a few days ago I had mentioned to Josh what a hard time I was having trying to take care of a newborn while also giving Cooper the attention that he deserves. I cried as I told him I felt like all Cooper did was watch tv while I tried to get Ruby to sleep and I felt horribly guilty. Josh tried to comfort me by saying that all moms with multiple children and a newborn felt that way and I scoffed and said no, it's definitely just me. It then turned into a conversation about when we view others through social media we see only what that person has carefully crafted and selected for us to see. In effect we have all become our own public relations specialist and no wonder our reality appears inferior when put under comparison. This quote made me feel that it was acceptable, and maybe even preferential for me to be authentic on social media. More importantly it encouraged me to stop feeling judged about presenting my reality exactly as it is which is why I had been ignoring my blog for so long.

Anyway after that long winded introduction, let's talk about poop!

Not really, all is currently good on the poop front. Our household produces it in mass quantities.

We are currently trying to power through the final stretch of newborn-ness. Ruby is 9 weeks old and we have almost made it to the glorious 12. Things have already gotten so much better. She sleeps a 7 or 8 hour stretch at night. She smiles and laughs at you now, which I know motherhood is all about selfless sacrifice, but it sure is nice after a month of screaming to be greeted with a smile! Cooper has gotten over his initial three weeks of hating baby sister and hating mommy and hating everyone and has gone back to his cute, wild self and is now obsessed with baby sister. Seriously, he loves her and my heart explodes whenever I see him interact with her. The other day I was doing dishes and they were on the living room rug and Cooper kept going over to Ruby's bouncy seat and smiling at her and playing with her while no one else was watching and I almost died from sweetness overload.  I'm sure there will be lots of fights down the road when she gets big enough to mess with his toys but for now I am really enjoying their relationship.

This is Cooper going in for a kiss.

Cooper has become more independent the last 9 weeks. Something I thought wouldn't happen for years. He has now gone to nursery by himself for a whole month. I know everyone else's kids did that like a year ago but Cooper is my sensitive, timid boy and I didn't want to push him before he was ready. But now he goes to nursery, he gave up his bottle, and he plays by himself at the park! Part of me, the crazy part, is a little sad that he is growing up and wants him to need me for forever.

Cooper is still struggling with speech. The only words he says consistently are no and uh oh. This kid says no all day long and he usually makes it into a little jobberish song, "no ma no ma no ma no." I constantly have dreams that I find a special phone or some sort of device that lets me talk to Cooper and we have sweet little conversations where he tells me he's sorry it's so hard for him to talk. My poor sweet bud. His speech therapist said we can take him back in at 3 years old if he still hasn't added words (he can make all the sounds but he doesn't put them into words) so I'm sure we'll be back in speech therapy in August. One thing about his speech struggle is that Josh and I are glued to everything he says. When he throws a huge fit about something and screams, "NO!" Josh and I just sit there and smile at each other because we're so happy he's using a word. If he ever does decide to speak and I'm not enrolling him in mime school, I will listen in rapt adoration to every mundane thing he says. It always makes me sad when well-meaning people try to console me about his speech by telling me I'm "lucky" because their child never stops talking. I LOVE listening to children. And my greatest wish right now is to learn what's going through my buddy's head at any given moment. Hopefully one day Cooper will talk to me in real life and not just on a dream phone.

So right now I'm working on how to run errands by myself with the kids as Cooper is not used to walking beside me and holding hands and it turns out it is hard to chase him down the road while lugging a 30 pound car seat (ahem yesterday at the park.) I don't think Cooper would sit in a double stroller so I don't dare buy one just to have him refuse to sit in it (What's that? You know how to make your kids do something they don't want to do? I sure don't.) And I don't really understand the whole sit and stand stroller concept. Is there a mechanism that confines the stander? Or is that for children who aren't flight risks? For now, we spend a little more time inside than we used to. I'm glad it's winter we've been inside missing, instead of the summertime like when Cooper was born in August.

And I'm trying to figure out how to get Ruby down for a nap without struggling with her for hours first. You'd think having a newborn before would have made me somewhat less clueless about newborns this time around. I remember being constantly stressed out about Cooper's naps, I just relaxed about them not too long ago and now I'm stressed about Ruby's instead! Naps are life changing. They can make your day extremely wonderful or extremely horrible. One day the quality of my day won't depend on whether or not someone else has napped and it's going to be an odd sensation.*

*I seem to not comprehend that I'm not always going to be in the young children life stage. One day it was my turn to host our monthly mom's night out, we get together without our kids, eat food and discuss an article. My friend brought grapes and was asking me for something to put them in while I was distracted and talking to someone else. Without thinking I went and got the cutting board and a sharp knife and handed them to her to start cutting the grapes in half. She just stared at me and then I realized oh, I guess we're all adults here and don't need our grapes cut in half. It never occurred to me that not everyone halved all their grapes for a toddler.

And I'm trying to get back in shape after nine months of my baby forcing me to eat tater tots every night as a midnight snack. She made me do it guys. So that's super fun. :) :) :) Actually the exercise IS super fun for me, I am currently up to running 2.5 miles in just three weeks. But the dieting is totally horrible.

And I'm trying to figure out how to not have to give Cooper a bath in the baby bathtub every time I give Ruby one... (If I say no, he just strips his clothes off by himself and gets in anyway.)

So those are all my small, adorable conundrums at the moment in my new role as a mom with childREN. I still can't believe I have two kids! They are so exhausting and so cute and I love them to pieces.

Ruby on her two month birthday.

Cooper is obsessed with the concept of Easter baskets. Whenever Ruby cries he brings her her Easter basket because he thinks it will cheer her up. Sweet big brother.

Ruby's Birth

The False Alarm:
You know how some people are so excited about their birthdays that they start announcing their upcoming birthday weeks in advance? I guess that's Miss Ruby. She was so excited for her birthday that she wanted to start getting us excited and making sure that we were prepared for her birthday a couple weeks ahead of time. Just to keep us on our toes.

At 37 weeks I spent all weekend in excruciating back pain, then on Sunday in addition to the back pain I started having painful, regular contractions. It felt like labor but we weren't expecting Ruby to come early so I waited to see if it would stop. Josh brought me dinner in bed and when I didn't want to eat he told me I had to call the doctor. (It's really sad that me refusing food is Josh's number one warning sign.) So we went to the hospital expecting them to tell me it was just a false alarm but instead they hooked me up to a non stress test and found my contractions were coming every three minutes and rushed out to call the doctor to come perform the birth. (At which point I looked at Josh and burst into tears because my mom wasn't coming for two weeks, we didn't even have our camera, and Cooper was currently bouncing a birthing ball around the room.) We were not ready.

However shortly after that the doctor called to tell me that I actually had a severe kidney infection that was causing me to go into labor and once it started to get treated my labor would stop. So I wasn't giving birth that moment which was such a big relief that I didn't even care why! I did have to stay in the hospital for at least 3 days though while they treated my kidney infection so we decided Josh would take Cooper home, put him to sleep (it was almost 9 pm at this point) and have our neighbor who's about a mile away come sit at our house for about a half hour while Josh brought me my things and went to pick up his cell phone he left at work over the weekend.

Then came the second drama of the night! In between Josh coming back home from the hospital after he brought me my things and my sweet neighbor leaving to go back to her home there was a giant landslide that blocked the entire road in between our house and hers. So she had to drive back up the river about 8 miles, east 20 miles to the next town over, and get on the freeway back to Aberdeen to come home. I felt/still feel HORRIBLE soul-crushing guilt over this. It took her an hour and a half for a ten minute drive at like 9:30 at night all for my stupid overnight bag! My poor poor neighbor who was just being sweet and kind!

So that's when the flooding began. I was at the hospital still having my contractions monitored and my progress checked and Josh was literally stuck at home with no way out to get to the hospital if I had given birth! So that was stressful! But thankfully everything worked out fine, my kidney infection was treated (Um can we talk about kidneys for a second? Holy crap! I can't decide which was more painful that or my unmedicated back labor with Cooper. They were definitely close. I literally spent the first 24 hours in the hospital either crying or vomiting from the pain. Apparently kidneys are not to be underestimated.) and my labor was stopped, and the flooding stopped as well and the roads were cleared so Josh and Cooper were able to visit me the rest of the time I was in the hospital. So that was Miss Ruby's dramatic false alarm.

The Birth:
Now for the actual birth. Ruby was a scheduled c section for January 20th at 5 a.m. We picked up my mom from the airport the day before so we left her asleep with Cooper at home and went to the hospital to have our baby. We got all prepped for surgery which was a much more casual and leisurely thing this time around since it wasn't an emergency and a lot of the things that didn't bother me at all with Cooper because I was distracted with labor like the iv and the catheter were much more uncomfortable and unpleasant this time. The whole time I kept thinking about how one time my grandpa hooked his catheter to his belt and went to the store when he was supposed to be home on bed rest. People like that should probably be the ones having babies, not wimpy me!

Eventually it was time for the surgery and they rolled me back to the operating room and then made me walk into the room and hop up on the operating table myself which I thought was a little weird. It's an odd disconcerting feeling to go willingly sit on the table that they're going to cut you open on. Josh had to wait outside while I got my spinal shot so I left my little smurf in his blue paper clothes watching me through the window while I went to go through what would be one of the worst experiences of my life. It took around an hour from the time they started my spinal block to the time they eventually put me under general anesthesia for my surgery. The anesthesiologist went in three separate times during which I just sat there frozen trying to be a good patient while I cried big black mascara tears all over my legs and said out loud it's going to be ok it's going to be ok to myself over and over again. The only thing that got me through it was I could see Josh's little blue head staring at me through the faraway window. He wouldn't take his eyes off me and I knew that he knew something was wrong even though no one had told him anything yet. He told me later he knew because he could hear me crying out in pain each time they tried to place the needle.

Not to get into the details too much, after a lot of attempts, multiple adjustments, lots of pain tests, and the beginning of my incision, it was determined the anethestetic was not going to work. My doctor said they were going to have to put me under general anesthesia. I think they had to hurry because he had made the start of the cut and hurry they did. In the course of about 30 seconds they told me I was going under, kicked Josh out, put a mask on me, and someone was pushing on my throat so hard I felt like I was being choked to death and that was the last thing I remember...

I really don't remember anything for about six hours after surgery. I don't remember seeing Ruby or Josh or anyone telling me about Ruby was but somehow even with my anxious personality I remember feeling very assured that Ruby was fine and it was ok for me to rest. So I slept most of the day, I even slept through most of Cooper and Ruby's first meeting. I opened my eyes long enough to take about five pictures and that was it.

Ruby Josephine Beach however came out of the surgery without a hitch! She had no problems and was healthy as could be! She was born at 8:30 a.m. weighing exactly 7 pounds and 19.5 inches long. I am so grateful that she's here and healthy and perfect!

The Recovery:
The next day things took another turn when I woke up with a spinal headache. I'd never heard of one before but apparently it's a side effect of having a spinal block where your spinal fluid keeps leaking and gives you a debilitating headache whenever you're upright. But the really bad news is that the only way to treat it is to go back in and do a procedure that's basically like getting the spinal block all over again. And when my doctor told me that I probably had to have another spinal done I burst into tears. It sounds like I'm being super dramatic and ridiculous but it was honestly a really traumatizing, painful, scary, horrible experience that I was determined to never repeat and I just couldn't handle the thought of going back to do it again the very next day. But on the other hand the headache made it physically impossible for me to sit or stand. So the doctor gave me the option of resting for a day while drinking lots of fluids and caffeine and wearing an abdominal binder to see if that would help before they sent in the anesthesiologist. He made it sound like none of those would help enough and that I'd pretty much have to do the procedure but he would humor me for a day. And oh boy did I worry and cry and pray that whole day... And guess what. My spinal headache went away even though the odds were really slim! After that recovery didn't seem so bad, at least I didn't have to endure spinal torture again.

We also found out on Wednesday that Cooper's cold he woke up with the day before Ruby was born, was actually bronchitis. We were so careful in the weeks leading up to Ruby's birth not to get sick. I kept Cooper home all week long but he still somehow got sick anyway. So upon taking Ruby home we were going to have to keep her and Cooper completely separated for five days. Another unplanned experience. Luckily my mom was here to take care of Cooper while we took care of Ruby sequestered in our bedroom. We were so lucky to have my mom here with us to help us through this experience, we definitely would not have managed without her. I owe her a lot, starting with 27 years ago when she went through childbirth for me. It is no small sacrifice that parents make for their children to be born. Ruby girl, I love you. And I'm pretty sure you owe me one. ;)

2014

It's always hard for me to remember what we've done in the past year. Maybe it's because we move around a lot or maybe it's because I always think in school years from August-September instead of calendar years. But I'm going to try and be better about keeping track of our family adventures for my children's sake. So here goes my sad attempt.

In 2014 we spent the entire year in the same house! It's sort of a miracle, we spent two Christmases here! We love our yellow house.

We visited Utah in January for "Christmas." Josh got to come with us this time so that was extra special! Definitely a lovely change to have help for the plane ride!

We went to Seattle for fun one day in February and took Cooper to the aquarium.

We found out we were pregnant right after Mother's Day.

We all went for the first time to the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma in May. It is a gorgeous zoo. Cooper wasn't too enthused by the animals though.

We went to Utah for the Gowans family reunion in June.

We went to Portland with our cousins in August.

We celebrated our 5th anniversary in August. Our last two anniversaries away from family have been pretty low-key. I guess that's what happens when grandparents aren't around to take your child for the weekend! I don't even remember what we did, poor Josh! But I am super grateful to have spent five years with my sweet Joshua.

We celebrated Cooper's 2nd birthday in August with a fun party with his friends.

We found out we were having a girl in September. The ultrasound tech just casually said, "you're having a girl" in the middle of a sentence about something else. At first I wasn't sure what she was talking about and Josh and I just sat there. It was a very anticlimactic announcement. Plus Cooper was super restless and trying to go stiff as a board while Josh was trying to hold him. Haha. But then once the news sunk in we were really excited, and really surprised! We both thought for sure we were having a boy.

Cooper had a very successful Halloween as Thomas the Train. We only took him to about six houses, because it's kind of embarrassing collecting candy for a 2 year old when it's obvious his pregnant mother is going to wind up eating it, but he loved getting candy from people and putting it in his bucket!! He wound up being a lot more excited about it then we thought he would be. It's so fun to experience holidays with little kids.

We went to Utah in November where Cooper got his first hair cut and discovered a love for jungle jims.

We had Thanksgiving at a casino in Ocean Shores which had all you can eat king crab legs. Josh and I gave Cooper the iPhone and a granola bar and then ignored him while we ate crab for two hours. It was awesome.

This picture made us late for our reservation. Something Josh will never forget!

And we had a wonderful Christmas in our yellow house.

It was a quiet year. I was busy gestating and Josh was busy working on his MPA (only one more semester to go!!!!) Cooper and I spent our days at book babies and music makers and at the park. And we spent our weekends at the children's museum, wandering Olympia, at the beach, and hiking around.

Happy New Years! We loved our 2014 and the sweet, little not-quite-toddler we got to spend it with! 

But I do hate it when people only share the highlights so let me also share our worst moment of 2014. It is not hard to decide! In November on our trip to Utah Cooper came down with an AWFUL stomach flu. It was a really bad one. It had been going for about a week when we were due to fly home and he hadn't thrown up in 4 days so we decided to take the risk and fly home, we made it through the plane ride and airport with no vomit (thank goodness) but as soon as Josh picked us up and we got all strapped into the car to drive our 2 hour drive home from the airport, Cooper barfed alllllll over the backseat, me, himself, his car seat, some of our luggage, I mean it was everywhere. And it was barfed up milk which is the worst. AH! Aside from the disgusting mess it was to ride home covered in milk vomit, I was just so sad for my sweet sick buddy. And I didn't know why he had started throwing up again and I was convinced he was going to be sick for forever and I was emotionally drained from a whole week already of stomach flu on vacation and didn't think I could handle another one. I think I cried all night! I HATE seeing my poor kid sick, it absolutely breaks my heart. So that was our worst moment of 2014. I'm very happy that Cooper is healthy most of the time!

Christmas 2014

This Christmas with Cooper was wonderful of course. The last two years we've visited family right before or right after the holidays because of the lowered ticket prices which is fun but a little sad on actual Christmas Day. But it is so sweet to see our mailbox fill up with gifts my family sends to Cooper. He is always well thought of and loved even though we're far away and that is so special.

Cooper loved our Christmas tree, the first thing he would do every morning was run to the tree, plug in the lights, and give it a hug. He also loved our stockings, he loved to point to each one and have me label them "Dada" "Mama" "Cooper" "Baby Sister."

We painted Christmas ornaments with our friends in Utah at Color Me Mine.

Lyla is a little more enthusiastic about taking pictures than Cooper!

We went to our ward Christmas party that Cooper had a blast at, leading all the Christmas
songs and cheering for the kids doing the nativity.

We also took him to a light show in town set to music and videos and Cooper just loved it. It was so fun to watch him dance around and be so entertained by Christmas lights! (We didn't get any pictures of that.)

Most of the season we were all really sick and I had pneumonia so we didn't do as many Christmas things as we would have liked. We didn't take Cooper to see Santa either but I think it was probably his preference, I really don't think he would have enjoyed it.

For Christmas Cooper got a new train set, a basketball hoop, a t ball set, a Thomas pillow pet, a potato head, two Olivia books, a Thomas book, a Thomas hat, a Thomas DVD, a Tonka trunk, and some other little things. Between us and our families Cooper got really spoiled!

(These pictures are of a sad phone quality but our camera batteries died after the second picture we took, of course.)

Christmas Eve in his new garbage truck pajamas.

Christmas Day opening his Olivia books.

Riding his poor Tonka Trunk.

We have a video of him seeing his new train set for the first time, it starts out with him so excited and playing happily and then ends with him getting frustrated at his trains and kicking his tracks over. Hahaha, wonderful Christmas memories.

Baby sister got a baby monitor and a sound machine, that's what you get when you spend Christmas in utero! I got a beautiful gold necklace from Josh with a C and a R on it. And Josh got a date with me. Lucky!

We ate our Christmas dinner and our Christmas cookies that my grandparents always remember to mail me and facetimed both of our families and that was it! Josh and I are so thankful to have our sweet Cooper to play Santa for. He gets so excited and is so fun to spoil! I love love love having young kids at Christmas time, surely these are the best Christmases of life!

Nursery #2

So Miss Thing's nursery is almost done. Which is good since there is only six very short weeks until she makes her arrival. Ah! How come second pregnancies fly by so fast? It's terrifying! I'm convinced we won't be ready! But then again that could be my crazy nesting overdrive talking.

We also did some work to Cooper's toddler room---

We painted a dresser for him so baby girl could have his changing table.

Before:

 After:

And we finally got some cuter curtains to cover the world's biggest window.

Baby girl's room: 

I embroidered a couple woodland-y things for her.

Don't you love her rug?! I know I sure do! I got it for a handsome penny too which makes me love it even more.

Her walls might get painted which would make it look a lot nicer. Oh white walls...

I love her little fox mobile and fox sheets.

She needs some more stuff on her shelf but it's pretty tricky to buy cute little things in small towns.

So there it is. At least she has a place to sleep! When we got her room all set up Cooper walked in and took a look around (we used to have some of his toys in this room) and I told him this was going to be baby sister's room, and he walked around and thought about it for a while and then finally said, "Otay." So she has Cooper's blessing to use this room which is good. Speaking of my cute Cooper, every time we ask him where baby sister is he lifts up his shirt and points to his tummy. Haha! He has the part about the baby being in a tummy down but I guess he's a little confused on exactly whose tummy she's in. Poor buddy, I hope he's not all freaked out by all the books we've read and talks we've had and is walking around thinking how he's going to get this baby out of his belly. Alright that's all for now! Time to take one of my last ever daily naps!