At least it's Friday

5:15 am - I am awakened by the sound of the kids bedroom door slamming.

Ugh. Silas is awake. (He's the only one that slams the door and he only does it when he wakes up during the night. Go figure)

From the hallway he starts yelling "Mommy, where are you?" I'm here... in my bed. Like normal people.

I call out to him several times but he's not listening. I realize that Graham is still in bed beside me. It must be real early. I get out of bed to retrieve the boy.

I set him on my bed and pick up my cell phone.

5:20.

"Uh, Graham... it's almost 5:30." He should have been headed to work already.

I guess that's what happens when you come home from work & nap on the couch all evening and then wake up after the kids are in bed and get on the computer till 11:30.

Graham hopped up and started getting ready to go. Silas fell back asleep on Graham's pillow.

And now I am wide awake.

I lay there for a bit trying desperately to find that oh-so-sweet sleep, but no. It doesn't come.

So I get up and grabbing a mug of hot cocoa I make my way to the living room.

It's 6:15.

Ugh.

Is it naptime yet?

It's late. I walk down the hall to my room. Bedtime, my favorite part of the day. I crawl into bed and sink way down under the covers because it's about 10 degrees colder in my room than in the rest of the house. Graham turns out the lights, I heave a huge sigh because finally I can sleep. Time to renew after a long day. I close my eyes....

And Silas starts to cry.

I groan, wait a minute to see if he's serious and pull myself out of bed to feed him. Then again two hours later, and two hours after that, and two hours after that (if I'm lucky)... until finally it's morning and everyone is up.

This is every night for the past year. I'm exhausted and don't think my husband gets it. 'Cause he sleeps right through it all. He does have to wake up pretty early but he's getting a minimum of 5 hours uninterrupted sleep.

A while back I started to ween Silas and try to train him to self-soothe back to sleep. Then about a month ago he had a check-up and the Dr. was concerned about his weight. He had dropped from the 50th percentile in weight to the 7th %. I felt like not feeding him when he woke up was not an option. When we took him back for a weight check right before Thanksgiving he had actually lost more weight and this REALLY concerned the doctor. She wanted him on Pedia-Sure for extra calories. I hoped this might make him sleep better but no. She sent him to Cooks for a battery of test. Most of the results came back normal in a day or two and Dr. Shaw expressed interest in referring him to a GI specialist and then an endocrinologist (in case it was something the basic tests missed).

My mommy diagnosis: He's been walking for the past 3 months. He eats constantly. His metabolism has to be good and he's burning LOTS of calories. The kid does NOT sit still. He's almost exclusively nursing again so I know he's getting the 'good stuff' but this is DRAINING what little energy I do have.

He has his one year check up tomorrow and we'll discuss it then. I pray I'll be bold to really tell her I don't think anything is wrong... I just want to figure out how to get him to sleep at night.

or how to work in a nap everyday.

Needing a second cup of coffee

And here we are again. I've fallen way behind on updating my blog. Almost three months since my last post. And the reason why... in a picture...



My handsome Si-burger has become an attention hoarder :) I don't seem to mind too much. His first birthday is just a few weeks away. I can't believe it. Look for a gushy post then.

It's finally starting to get cold (sort of). I've decorated my tree, hung the stockings, and for once I'm just about done with shopping and it's not Christmas Eve ;) I LOVE the Holidays. Yesterday I caught a few minutes of a show featuring the town of North Pole, Alaska. There it is Christmas all year, and for a brief moment I thought "Hey, I could live there". But who am I kidding. Even as I type this I am huddled under my covers, hoodie and fuzzy 'stay-at-home' socks on, sipping my pumpkin spice latte. I'd freeze there. A dear childhood friend leaves soon with her family to be missionaries in Poland. Brrrr.

Maybe this is why I don't post every day. I can think of things all the time to blog about but when I actually make time to do it all cohesive thought flees my body and we get the 'Ramble Post'. Sorry about that. I'll try better next time. But for now I leave you. The boy's awake and I'm needing a second cup of coffee.

Playing Catch-up

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. And I was doing so well. Life just seems so busy lately even though I am home a lot more these days. And it's not for lack of blog ideas. Seriously, I think of stuff all day long to blog about, kind of like when you catch yourself thinking in Facebook status updates :P.

We started school a few weeks earlier than I'd originally anticipated at the girls request... which is fine by me. A two week head start definitely couldn't hurt us. This year we are doing all Rod & Staff except for our Princess Class (more about that later) and I really like it. We are doing EVERYTHING which may be adjusted over Christmas break. I think the hardest part is trying to figure out were the girls are. In several subjects I would like to skip ahead, past the stuff they already know but at the same time I'm afraid I'll pass over some key building block they'll need later. So for now everything is review. Which makes for easily bored girls but this will pass... I hope.

Without going into much detail yet Graham and I recently applied with a national missions organization and in the 'waiting to hear' stage... We both seem really drawn to Chicago and have excitedly been perusing tons of sites looking at housing and such... It really is a fantastic city. We'll see.

In other news: Graham has put together (with TONS of help from one amazing Sarah Cox) a Fall Men's Softball team. I think he spends 80% of his time thinking about and planning for this. It will be fun for the kids and I to cheer them on... Maybe I'll post schedule and score stuff here.

Bullet point recap for this past week:
* Silas and Izzie are under the weather - nothing too serious
* Didn't sell near as much as I'd like at JBF but I registered to consign at the Weatherford one so hopefully I can sell the rest.
* My Dad got promoted to Sgt. and will start in his new position next week. All part of the final plan to retirement and no one deserves it more than him!

That's all for now.

Oh Baby!

The older I get the more I realize I don’t know as much as I thought I did. I recently watched The Business of Being Born, a ‘controversial documentary that takes a hard look at America's maternity care system, juxtaposing hospital deliveries against the growing popularity of at-home, natural childbirths’(1) . It really opened my eyes.

The births of each of our four children have been a little different from the previous one and as I’m learning more I’m pretty sure the births of the remaining children God chooses to give us will be different as well. A family friend recently had their tenth child and in sharing the birth story I contemplated sharing each of ours. Then I realized there wasn’t a lot to share.

Our first, Chelsea, was delivered by a Dr. (All our children have been born in a hospital and I had an epidural with each, no complications) I was induced about a week past ‘due date’(2) and then, while in labor they put me on several drugs - I don’t even know what they were. I spent most of labor in a groggy, unaware state and while I remember bits and pieces the experience, as a whole, is a blur. It took about twelve hours from start to finish and about three pushes. Afterwards I was a little discouraged about the ordeal. Even though there were no major problems I still felt like it could be better. So, I opted to switch to a midwife.

Next was Mackenzie. I was scheduled for an induction but the night before she decided to start the process on her own. The midwife was a little scatter-brained which didn’t give me a whole lot of confidence but I’d been through this a mere 10 months before. 8 hours and two pushes later Kenzie arrived with no complications.

Isabelle was delivered by my favorite midwife so far but she too was induced. I was a week past and after being monitored at the midwife’s for awhile they decided to send me over to the hospital. They started the induction and before long I was given an epidural. It wasn’t dispersing correctly through my body so they had me lay on my side. Best thing I’ve ever done. Within 30 minutes I felt pressure and called the midwife back in. While she rolled me over to check things out she realized our little Boo was half-way here. No pushing involved. Not a single push. Labor was about 6 hours if I remember correctly.

Again with Silas I used the same midwife group in the same hospital. I was only four days past my due date but they scheduled an induction for the next morning. Graham and I went home and did some last minute house cleaning. When we were finished I sat down on the couch to rest and started counting contractions. It was around 5 or 5:30. When they were 5 minutes apart we called the midwife, dropped the girls at my mom’s and headed to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 8. I tried to labor as long as I could until it became too painful before having the epidural. This didn’t take too long, mostly because I was stuck on a bed, on my back, and I don’t know any pain management techniques. It slowed labor a little so they put me on a tiny bit of Pitocin to move things along. After awhile I asked to lay on my side and sure enough, same as before, within about 30 minutes I felt pressure, no pushing, and he was here. Slightly less than 6 hours since I started counting contractions.

In light of the new things I’m learning I would like to try a birthing center and no drugs next time. Because of my previous birthing experiences I feel confident that complications are unlikely and if I could educate myself more on the art of labor, I feel like a natural birth would be a much better choice. For everyone. And my husband whole-heartedly agrees. In fact, he said it’s the hospital births that weird him out. While I like the idea of a midwife the ones I’ve used aren’t too different from most doctors. They have no hesitation to use inductions or Pitocin. This is a little disheartening to me but I’m not defeated.

As I grow, both in age and in my relationship with Christ, my views on things are changing. A LOT. I used to say “I would NEVER have my babies at home” and “I could NEVER drive a 15 passenger van”. Now, those are things I HOPE will happen. :)

1.Netflix
2.I’m learning that due dates don’t mean much. God is sovereign and babies will come when they are good and ready.