Oh how we've grown!

Today both kids had a check up. Miss Cayley for her one year, and Jordan for his one month. Jordan has grown an inch and is now ten pounds! Miss Cayley is just over twenty four pounds and thirty one inches tall! She is still in the ninety and ninety-fifth percentile, while Jordan is just reaching the fiftieth.

Well Miss Cayley... One year down only 17 more to go!

Today we celebrated Miss Cayleys birthday. Just as she came into this world at 8:08 am a year ago today, she woke up demanding her father wake up shortly after 8 am this morning.

We have been through so much this past year and Cayley has changed our lives like only a child can. She has made our love reach places within us that both Man Child and I doubted existed anymore. We have been through high fevers and crawling, teething and a prune juice diaper blowout. She has had supermarket meltdowns that have both embarrassed me and have given me joy from seeing so much of my stubbornness shine through her. She never fails to leave a trail of Cheerios from one end of my house to another. Her laughing, new found love for high fives, and wet kisses are what get us through each day. We have so, so much to be grateful for because of Miss Cayley. We celebrate her progress, growth and good health, thankful that we are so lucky.

Here are some pictures and video from today.

Morning!
What?!? It is my birthday and you STILL have not wrapped my presents?
Well... What are you waiting for?

Hey ya'll! Its my BIRTHDAY!

Ha! Do you really expect me to take a nap?

Thank you Sassy Auntie Rebecca for the party dress! The compliments are starting to make be blush.




Hmmm... What is this?

Mmmm... This is good!

Duck!

Sugar!

So uh, whose cleaning me up?

Wow! I always wanted one of these!

My first baby doll!

Kisses for my doll! I made out like a bandit! I got alot of awesome noisy stuff!

Grandpa's hoping I become a "Dolph-FAN!"


The aftermath...

So, Miss Cayley, this past year has been a blast. I love you. Happy Birthday.

He's gaining weight!

Jordan has finally reached and surpassed his birth weight. Yesterday at the doctors office he weighed 8 pounds! Thank goodness. I was really starting to worry about the little monkey. He is so small to begin with, and with him losing so much weight in the hospital... I am still amazed how different his body is compared to Miss Cayley as a newborn. She was such a butterball...

I think Jordan peed on me, my couch and himself for the twentieth time today. He's already peed on every surface that I've changed him on, you'd think I'd have learned by now! He even peed in his eye and mouth. Poor baby. : )

We went to the mall today to get out of the house for a bit. Man Childs vacation is coming to an end, and he has been wanting to go to the mall for a while now... Miss Cayley was well behaved and walked most of the mall pushing her little brother around in the stroller. I really do need to get a double stroller soon though. Jordan slept through most of the trip, only asking to be nursed once (much to my surprise).

Tomorrow I am going to get my staples removed, but as that is good news, I am sure that part of my incision is infected, so off to Wound Care I will go again... Yay...

My jeans fit now with out the girdle, but other than that, nothing much else to report this week...

I feel ridiculously thin in my girdle...

So here we are, a whole week after Jordan was born. Things around here are hectic on a moment to moment basis and I thank my lucky stars that Man Child is home to help me around the house and with Miss Cayley. My little girl is not adjusting as well as I hoped she would to having a baby brother. It breaks my heart to see her crawling around crying because that is the only way she can express herself. She is pulling hair (mine since I am the only one with any long enough to pull), throwing tantrums, hitting... She does try to kiss her baby brother on occasion, but more often than not she tries to yank his blanket off of him or hit him anywhere that she can reach. I am starting to feel really worried about being home on my own next week and that alone does nothing to help me battle the baby blues I think I am experiencing.

So I pulled and tugged and fought my way into a girdle to day and felt fabulous when my $7.00 Target jeans buttoned snug as a glove. Not tight, not loose... Just right. Yeah, I know that since I was wearing a girdle my jean conquering does not really count (not to mention that they are one size bigger than my pre pregnancy jeans so shhhhh...) but jeez... Not having a human being in my body is feeling pretty good right now. You hear that uterus? Do me a favor and take a couple of years off! Omg, and my boob is huge! Yeah, you read that right. My ONE boob is ginormous. I guess there is no hope for the little one short of a [single] breast enhancement, lol.

Jordan is doing fabulously with his nursing and is steadily gaining back the weight that he lost in the time we were in the hospital(close to a pound! :( ) Oh and have I mentioned that I only lost Jordan's weight during my hospital stay? WTF is that? Just over 7 lbs! That just ain't right. He is so tiny compared to Cayley at her birth. I swear his head is half the size hers was. And he is sooooo skinny! Of course my doctor thinks I am crazy because Jordan's birth weight of 7lbs, 13 oz is "normal" and Miss Cayley's 9 lb birth weight was not...

So now I will just ramble on a bit because the video I am trying to upload is taking forever!

Ummm... I guess I could go check on the kids... brb.

I think Jordan sensed my boob walk into the room, because now he is requesting to be fed. Hopefully the video will be uploaded when I get back out here.

Ok, screw the video for now, I'll leave some pics...

1 am Monday morning...

I can't believe it has been so long since I've posted a blog! It seems like ever since I have stopped working, I just can't find the time... Quite ironic really... :)

Well, where do I start?

I officially stopped working on 6/30 but hadn't stepped a foot in the office since 6/23. I guess there was a small part of me that hoped I would miss working, not that I myself understand why, but really, I haven't! I mean, I'm not saying that I have been sleeping in and lounging around in my pajamas while Miss Cayley runs around half clothed (ok, so I'm lying about the pajamas and Miss Cayley does run around the house in her diaper...) but I am finding that being a SAHM is so demanding! I really never thought that it wouldn't be, but I feel like I expect more from myself now. Like I have to be on top of everything all the time since I am home a lot more than I used to be.

Well, let me introduce you to my little monster named Cayley...

Like that crying face? I am struggling to figure out just why my child has this face as often as she does. And I am trying to find the balance of entertaining a ten month old, getting dinner done, and keeping the laundry to a minimum of a small mountain. How can I not ignore the laundry and let the rice on the stove burn when my baby wants me to play with her? I understand that it is quite possible that I am trying to make up for lost time before NBS arrives. I want to hold her and kiss her and make her giggle as much as I can before she no longer has ALL of my attention.

Cayley really is a trip. She makes me laugh all the time. For example, the other day Man Child and I were talking and all of a sudden my vacuum takes a tumble. And there goes Cayley scurrying off in the other direction like someone lite a fire under her behind. Then she looks back at us and it looked like she actually sized us up and when Man Child asked her "what did you do?" she started crying like she was in trouble. It was so funny! Or the other day I went to Sears to pick up her 9 month portraits and low and behold there was a clearance sale that I couldn't pass up. Cayley is quickly outgrowing her 12 month old clothes and her new cloth diapers add a certain amount of bulkiness to her backside, so this sale came at the exact right moment! Anyway... I went a little crazy picking out all these cute little outfits and went over to sit in the bed department to add up the cost and figure out what we were actually going to take home with us. Well, I came down to these two outfits and couldn't decide on the jumper or the dress, so I asked Miss Cayley her opinion. She took one outfits hanger and put it in her mouth. Then she took the hanger to the other outfit and put it in her mouth. Then from her spot in my lap, turned around and gave me a kiss on my cheek. So, yeah, I went about seven dollars over budget because of that kiss, and I suspect that this child is only going to get more and more expensive, but wow. I can not explain the way I felt in that moment other than to say that I am kinda proud/scared that my daughter has mastered the art of manipulation at such an early age. It is totally to be expected when it comes to Man Child, but for me to be won over by a single kiss on the cheek... This kid has talent...

I recently had to reinstall the operating system on my computer, so I do not have many photos to share at this time, but here are a few...

Here are the outfits that we got at Sears for about 57.00!

14.99 for these sneakers at Sears!

Hey Mom, I'm down here!

Come on slow poke! We've got places to be!

Making cake! Ok, well, enjoying the fruits of my moms labor anyway...


Man... She took the bowl... If I wasn't so tired I would throw a fit...

Mom says I need to start earning my keep so I figured I'd tackle that pile of laundry... (go figure... it is mostly my Daddys stuff...)

Just catching a minute of Yo Gabba Gabba...



Well, I'll have to upload my other pictures for a later post.

NBS is doing fabulously. We have set a date for his arrival and it is a week from tomorrow unless he decides to show himself earlier! Also, yesterday Man Child threw me a curve ball... He says "Hey, what do you think of the name Jonathan?" "Uhhh... Well, I don't hate it, why?", I responded... And then he says, "Do you like it better than Jordan?" COME ON NOW MAN CHILD!?!?!?! Seriously? Ugh! I guess someone is not as set on Jordan as he thought he was...

Man Child is still the same as always... He surprises me every once in a while with a kind word, or with a kiss as he passes me in the kitchen, and that is all I can really ask for. We (meaning he) seem to be keeping the communication flowing and that is helping us a great deal. I think what I appreciate the most is the support he has shown in the past few months about making the decision to stay home and to cloth diaper. He's come home from work and has helped me clean up the aftermath of Cayleys wrath... He has eaten my experimental dinners... He's called me to tell me that I don't have to worry about dinner, that he is bringing my favorite dish home from his job. Married life is good at the moment...

It is late (1:36 am) and I have so much more I want to write about, but I really must put myself to bed. Cayley will be up in a few hours expecting me to be as bright eyed and bushy tailed as she... I know I can't fake that type of enthusiasm with less than five hours of sleep, so... I'm off. Hopefully her and I will hit the beach in the morning so Man Child can catch up on his sleep with out having to hear Cayley beating on the door calling for her Dada...

Sometimes he surprises me.

On Tuesday we saw NBS! Man Child came with me and met "my" ultrasound tech Randi. She is so awesome. Anyway, NBS is measuring perfectly and is estimated to weight 5 lbs, 9 oz. He of course did not want to cooperate enough to give is a good face shot, or a gender shot for that matter, but we did see him practice breathing and Man Child got to see him moving around. He is still breech and now that I am over 34 weeks I am starting to get concerned about his position. I have visited the spinbaby website and plan on using some of their tips to try to get this baby turned around. I will also try for a Version if I have to. I have to go to the Peri-natalogist weekly now for growth scans due to my GD. The Doctor did tell me however that the baby is right on track and that my sugars are damn near perfect... Oh well. I get to see NBS every week until he decided to come out, so I am really not complaining.

This morning I received a text from Man Child that says " Mami, te amo. Perdoname por todo". Okay... So I text him back, "I love you too. What did you do? I am not mad at you..?" He calls me about fifteen minutes later and asks me if I understood his message. I told him yeah, but why did he send it? He tells me that he is sorry for everything. He knows that he has been bitchy because of the stress he has from work and his family and when he unloads it on me it is unfair. He knows that he should be helping out more but even as he watches me clean, cook, take care of Cayley, work a full time job, carry around this massive belly, when the stress hits him he can not move. He feels drunk and has no energy. He then told me that he is very lucky to have me. That he is thankful that I support him and put up with his shit. That he will try harder to channel his stress elsewhere. (I can only hope...)

This text and conversation comes at a great time because last night I was at my wits end with him. I hate how he tells me that our room is cluttered, but it is all his shit that is everywhere! Or when I finally have enough of THAT complaint so I put things away and now he can't find anything because it is not where he put it. I spent my night last night cooking dinner, unloading our old dressers, loading the new ones, feed Cayley, gave her bath, put her to bed, washed the bottles, did laundry, and organized our room. What did he do? He moved the furniture, ate dinner, talked to his friend for a few minutes, and then fell asleep on the couch. When I was finally done it was almost 12 am, he decides to go to bed. Well, now that I can relax, I want to watch a bit of TV until I fall asleep. No, the frikken tv was too loud for him. *sigh* How can I not resent him at this point?

I know stress effects everyone differently, but I am getting really frustrated with the stress excuse. I can be pretty damn understanding and supportive, but I am tired. And I am sore. And I am hot. What would happen if I went to sleep and left everything that needs to be done to Man Child? I would wake up to the same shit plus new shit. I have already learned that. So when he tells me that I need to relax, I agree with him out loud, but inside I am cursing him because as much as I want to relax, I know relaxing now will give me more work for later. All because he has stress. *exasperated sigh and an eye roll* Imagine if he was pregnant too...

Ok, that is enough complaining out of me.

Cayley is doing great. She is such a nut and is doing new things left and right. Last night she climbed out of her bath seat. By herself. Crap! (yes, I was there, I am just sad because ever since we got that bath seat from Sassy Auntie Afton bath time has been 100% easier! Now we are back to a wiggly slip sliding Cayley!)