My Boys Waiting and Playing

2 Days have passed since our due date! I know that doesn't sound like a long time, but we are getting anxious to meet our little Cupcake. We have taken advantage of the extra time to do some extra special fun with Johnny as a family.

On Friday we made a full day of fun! We took Johnny to Jump On It, a local place full of bouncy houses and all kinds of fun stuff like that. Aunt Natalie and Uncle Tommy got Johnny some sessions for his birthday. Each session is 1 and a half hours long, which was just a little to long, by the end he was wondering to each place and laying his head on it, but didn't really want to stop playing!


This was his favorite thing to do, this slide was super tall and he could basically do the rung ladder alone!
Really this slide was so steep that by the end he was a little scared, but always wanted to do it again!
I have a lot of pictures of Johnny fall on his face, he would build up speed and then trip right into the bouncy floor, laughing!

After the fun of the bouncing we took Johnny to Friendly's for a special Due Date lunch, my intent was to get him some ice cream....

He picked his lunch out, I would list all the options and he told me what he wanted, his biggest want was the broccoli and he ate so much good food that he was too full for ice cream! Oh and see his adorable big brother shirt, it has "John" all around the circle, we won it on a Facebook give away! Johnny has SIX big brother shirts!

Yesterday we had another labor false alarm and it was disappointing for Momma, so today we planned a special, but small picnic at the on post park...

The park is huge, there are actually three parks in one, each one made for different age groups. This park is within walking distance of our house, but we drove, Momma swollen ankles can only handle so much.

Aren't they cute? Shawn has been amazing with Johnny this week end, right there in everything he does playing with him side by side! He is an amazing Daddy!!! This morning he spend 2 hours this morning right on the floor playing dinosaurs and dragons so Mommy could take a nap!

While my boys ran around the playgrounds Momma enjoyed her own little rest spot! Chocolates, knitting and some wonderful shade. It was really hot on the playground, but in Mommy's shade it was perfect!
Every few minutes Johnny had to run back and check on Mommy, I love the way he runs!

After some sandwiches, chips, and fruit we had a little dessert of Mommy's chocolates, and then Johnny gave messy kisses.

He got Daddy with a messy chocolate kiss right on his nose!

Look at those cheeks! and those EYES! I just always wonder how he got so beautiful!

These guys have been wonderful, the last two days have been very frustrating as Mommy over analyzes every pain waiting to go into labor. Johnny has been sweet and helpful and Daddy has been taking great care of Mommy! I actually feel pretty good today, thanks to my boys! Oh and here they are pretending to be dinosaurs and eating Mommy's shirt.

40 Weeks, We Love you, but GET OUT!

5 Weeks Pregnant and I was so excited to be pregnant that I was already wearing maternity cloths!

40 Weeks and ready to be done being pregnant! (ps none of these cloth are maternity)

The last 40 weeks, the last 10 months, have been amazing and difficult. We are very lucky and blessed to have had our second completely uncomplicated pregnancy and to be headed towards a natural birth! But this pregnancy has been harder on Momma then she thought it would, I could complain and be cranky all day but I know deep in my heart I would do it all over again and a million times more to have our Lily in our arms. The love and connection between parent and child are invaluable and worth more then just a few months of morning sickness. I feel like I am getting away with something by getting her and having it have been so easy :)

Right now I can think of nothing but getting her out, but I know the moment I no longer her safe in my belly I am going to miss her, even while she is in my arms, and the day she is born we start to prepare her to leave us, from breathing on her own to eating on her own and everything that comes after. That is what being a parent is, teaching your greatest gift and most precious treasure to leave you and trust that they will have a positive effect on the world around them.

We went to our last midwife appointment yesterday! Momma is 2 cm and 50% effaced. Which just means that we are progressing, but slowely and no one can predict when she will acually make her appearance. The midwife, Jasmin, says that Lily is at least 8 pounds! We no longer can have appointments, from here anything has us going into Labor and Delivery at the hospital. We have tests set up for Friday the 4th when I will be one full week late. We have to make sure the placenta doesn't go bad, and start hurting Lily. At 2 weeks late I will no longer be able to refuse induction or if they find anything wrong next week I will have to be induced. I am no longer making predictions on when she will be born, but I have been having contractions a lot in the past week and they are getting more frequent and more intense, but they always go away and are never consistent. We are getting there, all we can do is clean, knit and wait for something to start!

Not Tonight

It looks like everything was for not. I am not in labor...after 6 hours of contractions coming and going there is no dilation...so no baby tonight. I am very frustrated and tired. The midwife (Lynn) gave me a muscle relaxer to help me sleep. She tells me she thinks it will be in the next few days, but that means very little to me any more, since the nurse earlier today was sure it was going to be tonight. I am still having contractions, but now I am just annoyed by them since they aren't helping me to dilate. Johnny is at Grams and Pops so hopefully I can just get some really good sleep and not be so disappointed and angry with myself in the morning. I have already been through this and have been near 3 other women as they went through this and still I have no idea, my mind just goes blank! I worked everyone up from here to Chicago and there is nothing going on! We are 4 days from the due date...so soon is a relative term, we will have her "soon."

Labor?

We aren't positive at this point...however it looks like we could be starting this process!

At 4 pm this afternoon when I went to the potty I noticed that I was bleeding...not much, but when you are pregnant any bleeding is enough. After paging the midwife and having me frantically trying to tell her about the blood and having the phone cutting out she told us to go ahead up to labor and delivery to be checked out...the big concern was that I hadn't felt Lily move since the bleeding started. In the car me and Shawn gently talked about what could be wrong and what could be going on, but quickly realized thinking about worst case thinking was not helping us, so we made jokes and talked about anything but.

Aunt Natalie meet us at the hospital to take Johnny home and let him play with Sammi and Ginger. Grams and Pops where in PA visiting Grandpap Steve and Grandma Joyce and hopped in the car at the first call that we where headed into labor and delivery.

Very quickly after getting checked in to triage the nurse was very unconcerned and found Lily's heart beat right away! She was fine and my bleeding was stopping!!! It really was never bleeding, but my "bloody show." Which is a brownish blood discharge meaning that my cervix is softening and it is completly normal. I started to cry. I was so happy that nothing was wrong, but at the same time bloody show does not mean you are in labor, just that "labor could start soon." We sat connected to the monitors for 40 mins or so and Lily was very active and we saw that I was having some contractions, small and not consistent, but still they where there. I was let go from the hospital and told to come back when I felt ready to be checked again...the nurse was very confident that I would be back and in labor tonight! I SURE HOPE SO!!! My mom said she had this with each one of us and with in 8 hours she had a baby in her arms!

Since I was let go Shawn and I went to Chilis for some spicy food and then walked around Target to get things going. Contractions are coming more often and getting intense. The timing is still inconsistent, but they are getting worse. Still not painful and I can easily talk through each one, or even ignore them completely. I feel 80% sure that I am in labor, but at any point it could just all stop and it could still be a week before we have her. But for now I am keeping moving, walking, and rocking trying to get the contractions to come on more! Johnny will be staying tonight with Grams and Pops and Shawn and I will be headed home to clean up and keep moving. We will hopefully be updating as this goes on, or when it stops.

Greener Life and Knit Wool Diaper Covers

After Johnny was born I went a little "green" crazy! I spent a lot of money on all the "green" cleaning products and anything that claimed to be organic. As Johnny got older and we got pregnant again it just wasn't reasonable for us to spent extra money on that kind of stuff. But recently, with Lily's arrival coming up fast I have a renewed sense of saving the Earth and giving healthy pure starts for my children. I discovered the greenest and cheapest way of cleaning the house! By making our own cleaning products out of cheap and dollar store ingredients!!! I found this http://www.eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_solutions.htm
It lays out each ingredient and how you can use it and gives receipts for other cleaning solutions. I discovered Borax and Washing Soda which are the main ingredient in most store bought cleaning products. My homemade dish washer detergent is just half Borax and half Washing Soda, showing me that companies stick all kinds of mostly unnecessary things in the stuff we buy. Our dishes no longer smell or taste like our cleaning product and there is no film ever left behind...nothing I have bought has worked as well!

Borax and Washing Soda where scary to me at first, I wasn't sure where I was going to find them or how much they where going to cost. Borax, which is marketed as a all natural laundry booster, I found in Walmart on a bottom shelf for just $3 for 76 oz!!! and Washing Soda I found at a local grocery store for just $3! I bought everything else at the dollar store, including some reusable plastic containers to put our homemade products in. Here are some more things I made

Laundry Detergent
2 cups (2 bars) grated Ivory soap (3 bars for $1 from the dollar store)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
use 2 tablespoons per load!
I love this because it is cloth diaper and sensitive baby skin approved!! There is no real sent added to it, but if I feel the need I can add some essential oils for a natural sent. There are many different ways to make laundry detergent, this website gives ten, I used #4.
http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/

Disinfectant:
2 teaspoons borax
4 tablespoons vinegar
3 cups hot water
and put into a non-aerosol spray bottle that I kept from something else
For the table or kids stuff I use Clorox Anywhere Hard Surface Daily Sanitizing Spray.

All-Purpose Cleaner:

1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup baking soda (or 2 teaspoons borax) into
1/2 gallon (2 liters) water.
Store and keep. Use for removal of water deposit stains on shower stall panels, bathroom chrome fixtures, windows, bathroom mirrors, etc.

Cleaning our linoleum floors
1 Cup Vinegar
a few drops of baby oil
1 Gallon of Warm Water
when floor is extra iky add 1/4 cup Borax

I also now have a spray bottle of vinegar which combined with baking soda and a scrub brush is a great bathroom cleaner (when it isn't too bad.)

Making our home more natural and Earth friendly we stopped buying disposable water bottles, I bought some plastic reusable bottles (from the dollar store!) that we refill from our water cooler. We recycle anything possible, use reusable grocery bags and just try to be careful about what we toss out. These are just little things that I get frustrated with myself for not having started years ago.

Johnny was in cloth diapers for over a year until his big butt just wouldn't fit them any more. With Lily I hope to do the same and maybe even make it last longer. I wanted to get her into the cloth diapers as soon as possible, since it is easier when they are not mobile. And being extra frugal I knit some wool diaper wraps. For one $5 skein of wool yarn (with coupon $2.50) I can make almost 3 newborn sized covers (as opposed to commercial diaper covers or soakers which are upwards of $20 a piece.) Wool is naturally antibacterial which means you only have to wash them once every 2 weeks they won't grow stuff or smell, also wool is naturally waterproof, thanks to a chemical called lanolin! However these diapers are not washing machine or dryer safe and you must be careful with them when they are really wet or they can loose their shape. For the prewashing and the washing later I found a great website that explained a simple process.

Rinse covers in cold water and then gently squeeze out the excess water not letting any partof the diaper hang loose. Then Fill a bucket or sink with warmish water. In a seperate cup put some lanolin (breastfeeding cream) a few drops of baby shampoo and hot water until lanolin has dissolved. Then dump the cup mixture into the sink without agitating the water too much. I let the diapers soak in there for 15 min (because they had never been washed) again without agitating the diapers or water. Drain the water and fill the sink with cold water to rinse the covers. Roll the covers in a towel to squeeze out the extra water and lay flat to dry for 48 hours or until they are bone dry. Wool has a tendency to "felt." When wet wool agitates to much it can become one solid piece of material, which is why you want a little agitation but not too much.

Aunt Chel also made Lily some cloth wipes and with the use of a wipy warmer, and some home made wipy solution including baby oil and/or shampoo, water, and tea tree oil we will only need to buy disposable wipes for the diaper bag!

Lily's 5 newborn sized diaper covers. I will put a prefold diaper and/or a doubler under these and use the snappis to hold it all on her.

I just love these colors, this is all set up for Mommy to make the next size up diaper covers!

Just a disclaimer that I have just started all of this and my info is coming from many websites and my own mind, I made no guarantee that haven't messed this up some how :) Mostly I just wanted Lily and Johnny of the future to understand and see what I was doing if they ever wanted to do it too.

First Trip to the ER

Yes, you read the title right...at 26 months Johnny had his first trip to the emergency room!


Though this wasn't a serious trip it was still an ordeal, our poor monkey had to watch his morning shows in a hospital bed.

Shortly after waking up Johnny was washing his hands in the upstairs bathroom while standing on his little stool, not 8 inches off the ground. Some how he lost his balance and went down, hitting his chin on the counter on his way. Immediatly he started crying out and we noticed the blood on his hands and his face. We really couldn't calm him down but we could glance at what was injured. There where wounds on the inside and outside of his bottom lip, we weren't sure, but it appeared that he had bit through his lip! The bleeding stopped but he still seemed to be in pain and the lip was swollen and tender, so 8 am we headed off to the emergency room. The entire thing took just over two hours but wasn't anything special. Everyone there loved his shoes and his dinosaurs, he was angry that he couldn't eat and didn't want anyone touching or messing with his mouth. But didn't throw any fits or anything horrible like that.

He did not bit through his lip, but instead bit the inside with his bottom teeth and the outside with his top teeth. The physicians assistant used dermabound and glued the one centimeter cut on the outside closed, but said that the inside wasn't too bad and would heal on its own just fine. The only instructions we got where to not let him eat anything that hurts and to not let him pick the dermabound off, simple enough! So far strawberries hurt him! Poor baby, but I am really proud of how well he did with the entire thing and that he stayed perfectly dry the entire morning!
We stopped by to see Grams and Pops and play for a little while! Johnny was as excited and happy as ever, however he seems extra careful, not wanting to walking up or down stairs without a hand...who can blame him!

Strawberry Picking

Last week during a visit to Grams and Pops house Papa suggested we take the kids to pick some strawberries. It was the first day of the strawberry picking so there where TONS of bring red, super sweet berries and we all had a great time!

It took Johnny just a quick second to realize what was on the vines and that he was allowed to take them off and eat them!

But Ella knew just what she was doing and she was looking for strange strawberries.

Isn't she so big and adorable?

We had to keep telling the kids not to pick the green ones, only the red ones, but they where really good.

We ended up walking out with 15 pounds of strawberries!

There is nothing yummier then a sweet warm strawberry right of the vine...really none of us could stop eating them!

I have some of my best memories with Gramma Nancy picking strawberries in Ohio. She always loved them. My mom tells a story about when she was born my Grandfather bought her some strawberries as a treat and my aunts and uncles wanted them, but weren't allowed. When I was a kid and we would pick strawberries with Gramma she would take them home, cut them up and sprinkle sugar on them making a yummy strawberry sugar goo that I have never been able to recreate the way she did. I would like to think she would have loved taking her great grand kids to pick strawberries!

Gramma Nancy cutting strawberries with Uncle Tommy when he was kid.

On a potty side note I was so proud of Johnny at the strawberry field because he asked to go potty and I told him to just go in his waterproof cloth training pants since I wasn't even sure if there was a potty out there. But he kept asking over and over again and wouldn't let it go! So I ran him to the porta potty and he pooped in the potty and only a little in his undies! Even though he had a rough week end with accidents yesterday he did not have a single accident or leak and for the first time ever he ended the day in the same pair of underwear that he started the day in!