Big Events
Missouri Dental Association Give-Away!
Aug 2nd
Okay, so I don’t have to be the parent of 4-year old or a 12-year old to know that unless you use that funky bubble-gum tooth paste (which I’m not even sure does anything good), no child goes willingly to the sink of terror to do the horrible deed of brushing! Still, it must be done. After all, dental cavities are the most common disease of kids ages 5 to 17 and are completely preventable. Sometimes it must be done with the child on the floor, pinned down by one parent while the other brushes (can’t say that I’ve seen parents do this- but I did it to my little brother when I babysat- we were really close).
At any rate, kids and adults alike need to practice oral hygiene if they don’t want to have cavities, fillings, painful dental procedures, and dentures some day too soon. Brushing is also particularly important if you have braces- my mom told me a story when I got braces that scared me to death (and its a true story). I was told I was the poster child for taking care of my braces. The story goes like this. A girl once had braces and didn’t brush them. She didn’t floss them. She did intake tons of sugars and soda. When they took her braces out, her teeth had rotted under them and came out in chunks. She had to get the rest of her teeth pulled and got dentures. LEARN FROM THAT.
Oral hygiene isn’t just cleaning, but also preventive maintenance. Like wearing a mouth guard in sports, not chewing, not drunk driving or getting into fights, and other activities that beg to have your teeth knocked out. Scientists are saying that there may be a link between gum disease and heart disease. Remember- maintenance costs nothing, fixing procedures cost A LOT. And we all know that insurance isn’t exactly the most helpful thing in the world sometimes (thank you, Obama).
I’m no expert, but if you want more information on Oral Hygiene, you can visit www.yourmouthistalking.org
The Missouri Dental Association is allowing me to do a Give-Away for them to go along with this blog. Here is the PRIZE:
A Year’s Worth of Toothbrushes for each member of the household (They call it year supply because toothbrushes should be changed every 3 months. They say for each member of the house meaning if there are no children under 24 months we will not provide the parents’ brush for baby teeth)
This CAN include (based upon your house-hold members)
4 GUM Parents’ Brush (6-24 months)
4 GUM Crayola Timer Light (Kids)
4 GUM Micro Tip toothbrush (Adults)
And a package of Eez Thru Angled Flossers (75 count)
What you must do to win the giveaway: I would like people to email me their stories on what they did to either get their children to brush their teeth, or how they forced their children into it, or how their parents handled the same situations with them. I am looking for informative (helpful to other parents in this stage of parenting), and funny stories. I will chose the most creative and if that person would like, I will post their story on one of my blogs as well. That is up to the person though. I will start taking submissions now (please do not submit more than one story- if you do, I will only use your first submission) and I will stop taking submissions September 1st. When you email me, please be sure to send contact information too!
Good-by Nursing- I will miss you, Hello Pumping and Welcome Sleep!
Aug 2nd
Levi’s most exciting and latest development (since I last blogged): giggling! He talks and giggles so much it is beautiful! He actually has giggled in his sleep a few times! Emails I get through baby companies (about his weekly developments) say that he should be reaching for objects now, but he seems content just to observe. But I know he isn’t just blankly staring, I see that brain working and thinking when he’s looking at things!
I may have mentioned before in a previous blog, that Tim and I must sleep in the living room during the summer. Our AC does not circulate back to the bedroom very well. Thankfully, it circulates well enough for Levi to sleep back there with out getting over heated because we just booted him back there. He was in the living room next to us and for a while was getting up every 1-2 hours. I felt bad about it later, but I was getting really impatient with him for interrupting my sleep so often. When I moved him into the bedroom, and he slept 6 hours straight, I realized that before I was getting up to feed him when he would just stir a lot and would have put himself back to bed had I let him. I was kind of frustrated with myself upon that discovery- both for the lack of sleep I caused myself (even thought I couldn’t ignore his movements if I tried) and for wrongly being annoyed with Levi. He is such a cute, innocent (for now) baby! But, at least now Levi goes to bed at about 10 pm (after his bath- which I feed him a small amount of rice cereal in- and then a feeding), and doesn’t wake up until about 4:30 am and then again between 6-8 am! Pretty good, I think.
Sadly, I am not nursing Levi anymore. I have an electric breast pump, so I can still give him my breast milk, but I am no longer nursing. I have been gummed several times during nursing in the last two weeks and if that boy had teeth, I’d be missing some parts of my breast. Yesterday was when I finally put him on bottles only. It kind of hurt me to do it because I already am missing that special bonding between my baby and me. I have thought about going back to nursing nearly every time I have given him a bottle, but then he starts chewing on the rubber nipple of the bottle and I think, “That would have been me.” I hate this, but if I want to have anything to nurse my next baby with, I think it is necessary.
Its been a busy week! I went to Purcell to get new tires, a transmission fluid change, and an oil change (there for an hour and a half and Levi was an angel). I did banking and shopping, wrapping gifts, shopping again, cleaning, visiting my brother and his new wife in their new apartment (I will tell you about that wedding later), and other things that I now don’t even remember. Saturday we celebrated my hubby’s birthday with my parents. They grilled out, I made an ice-cream cake with oreo crust, and we played games after. It was a lot of fun just hanging out with our family. We stayed the night, since all of my siblings were and stayed up late. I tried to order a special tea for Tim through Hy-Vee, but they haven’t called me back so I don’t think that plan is coming through. Or if it does, by the time it does, it will be a month after his actual birthday. Who knows… maybe I’ll have to save that for Christmas? (Hint, hint Tim)
I know its not uncommon for me to go a week with out writing, what with always having so many errands to run, but I just wanted to give for-warning. I plan (key word) to blog a few more times this week and then I will be gone for about a week in which I will not even be on the internet. I am going to see my extended family in Wisconsin and I cannot wait! It has been two years since I have been able to go visit them!!! I am interested to see how Levi does with a 10-hour road trip though… wish me luck and prayers of safety are appreciated!
First Anniversary
Jun 15th
So, its been a while… and I’m going to quit apologizing every time it has been. Why? I’m a mom and have higher commitments now. Commitments that don’t sleep- almost at all during the day. Commitments that remind me frequently they need to eat every half hour, and be burped every time after that… oh well, at least he sleeps most all night. 
I went to the doctor last Thursday. He said I am healed enough to resume normal activities! Which is was music to my ears because Tim and I’s ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY was Sunday, and we decided to go camping for that weekend! The campground we went to, Cross Creek, has a really nice pool and I was excited to go swimming for the first time this summer!
So the week before we left, I made arrangements with my mom to baby sit Levi while we were gone. We would be gone from 5 pm Friday to noon on Sunday. She happily agreed and I went to work pumping. MAN, I HATE hand held pumps. When I finally got the electric breast pump, I had a lot of milking to do. And I pumped 40 ounces in one week! Unfortunately, that only lasted him 24 hours (HE EATS A LOT AND HAS CONTINUAL GROWTH SPURTS). Fortunately, after 24 hours, I was there to feed him. So… now to why our anniversary was cut short…
So we get to the campground around 6:30, set up, argue about setting up, eat, go swimming, do some fishing. Saturday morning, I woke up early and fed the ducks. We spent some time figuring out how to get our charcoals hot enough and make them stay hot enough to cook breakfast and then finally ate. We did a lot that morning. We went swimming, rode bikes, played games, ate ice cream, played mini golf. Around mid afternoon, we were sitting outside. It was BLAZING hot and sunny. Tim was fishing, I was snacking. We decide we’ve had enough of the heat and humidity and want to go swimming. We go in our behemoth-sized tent (we got an 8-person tent for camping trips with our kids) to change. We decide to take a nap instead. We were napping no more ten minutes when my father-in-law came by to say hi. Emerging from the tent, we notice a difference in weather and Tim’s dad just happen to have a weather radio. We turned it on, it predicted 60-70 mph winds and we were in an open area with a giant tent (not staked in either). We decide its best to pack up and go to my Mom and Dad’s house for the night. I no sooner go into the tent and it starts to try to blow over on me!! We literally had to throw everything down and throw it in the cars. We no sooner get the stuff in the cars and it start pouring rain! We got a rain check and will definitely be going back to that campground later in the summer. Yes, its crappy that we got rained and winded out, but we really did have a good time.
So Levi is SIX WEEKS today! I know this is a month and a half, but I think it sounds younger if I say six weeks. He has started smiling (real smiles, not gas!) and drools a lot now! He also “talks” more than what he needs just to communicate. He is such an intelligent baby and so beautiful! I weep at every change and rejoice at every milestone passed! Why do they have to grow up? I need another one. Tim and I decided if we have another boy, we will name him Liam. Still have Alice picked out for a girl. But I REALLY must have a second baby. However, I would like a good two years with Levi before I’m pregnant again.
First Night Home and Salvation From That Night
May 14th
Well, I’m picking up with the first night home (I know, the title didn’t make that obvious). I haven’t a clue when I went to bed that Thursday night, but Levi slept nearly from the time we got home from the hospital (around 6 pm-ish) to about the time we were going to go to bed. I went to bed for about an hour, if that. Then, Levi was up. He was hungry. Then, he needed his diaper changed. Then, he needed to be burped. Then, he was hungry again. Then, he needed to be burped again. Then, he was interested in the lights and wanted to look at everything and be held. Then, he needed his diaper changed. Then, he had more gas. Then, he was hungry again. THEN… you get the picture. I may have got 2-3 hours of sleep, broken up into 20-30 minute increments. Needless to say, I was exhausted and trying not to fall asleep while I was holding him. I didn’t want to miss a second that those beautiful eyes were open looking at me. I knew things could be different when we came home from the hospital, but I wasn’t expecting the first night to be that bad, especially considering Levi slept soundly most of the night while we were at the hospital.
Come Friday morning, Tim had to go back to work. I was still up when the alarm went off at 6 am. Tim left for work, and Levi and I fell asleep. Then, Mom came over at 9:30 am and THANK GOD FOR AMAZING MOTHERS!!! She bought me groceries, made me lunch and packaged the leftovers for the next day, made dinner and put it in the freezer for Tim and I later, did the dishes, AND watched and changed Levi for me so I could take a shower and a nap! Wow, I felt like a human after that and all thanks to her!
Since that pick me up, I’ve been doing great and my Mom continues to come over and help me out! Thankfully, Levi sleeps pretty well at night currently. I don’t expect him to stay on the schedule that he has made for himself, but I am thankful that he has one now!
Labor, Birth, and the Hospital Stay
May 11th
Okay, let me start off by saying that I know I have been gone for a long time. Because I’ve been gone so long, I have a lot to blog about and I don’t want to do a 10 page blog, so I’ll be writing a couple different blogs over the next week to cover whats been going on. Today I’m going to cover the most important subject- the one we’ve all been waiting for!!!
Monday Tim, Mom, and I all went in to the doctor’s office. Unfortunately, some one forgot to call us to let us know plans had changed again. I had an exam- no dilation still and the doctor told me to come in to the hospital at 10 PM to be induced. So, having nothing to do, we all went back to the apartment and napped, ate, and watched TV for the rest of the day. Then we checked into the hospital.
What we didn’t know at that point, is that I was NATURALLY going into labor (I thought it was just Braxton Hicks). Not knowing that, they induced me at midnight. About 12:30 AM on May 4th, I started going into crazy hard and unusual labor. My contractions would shoot up to 127, go back down to 60 and shoot up to 120 again with no more than a 10 second break in between. Once every 10 contractions or so, the contractions would drop down to a 40 for 30 seconds. The nurse told us that my labor was so unusually hard because I was going into natural labor before I was induced. Tim and Mom held my hands and Mom helped me breathe. I DID NOT GO CRAZY (as I think Tim expected me to). Thankfully, I was so concentrated on breathing through the contractions, that I didn’t say much. I just squeezed their hands a lot. I did 8 hours and thirty minutes of this miserably hard labor (I had one shot of Stadol that put me out for about 40 minutes) and I was only dilated to a ONE. At this point I gave in to the epidural. I felt like I was giving in and that I was weak for doing so at first, but after the epidural began to take effect, I realized I was pretty strong for the eight hours I endured hard labor! Getting the epidural was hard for me because my muscles were so stressed I was shaking and my scoliosis made it a little harder on the anesthesiologist. However, things went fine once it was over.
At 11:30 my water broke. I remember saying to my Mom, “I think Levi just kicked something out of me- I felt a little pop.” The nurse told me at that time I was about dilated to a 4. She brought in more antibiotics (I was given several doses through out labor and some of them hurt my arm badly). When she hooked up the antibiotics to the IV, my arm began to burn- the antibiotics were coming through very fast. Seconds later I threw up some grape juice and jello. If you were wondering, it tasted like sour grape candy. Ew, right? Around 2:30-3:00 PM, I was dilated to a 5. The epidural was still working very well and so I continued resting. Tim and Mom had been napping on and off since they’d given me the epidural, too. About 4:00 PM, I still couldn’t feel my contractions at all but I started to feel like I was being stretched. I woke Mom up and told her that I thought Levi was trying to push his head through. We called the nurse, who doubted that I dilated that fast, being just a 5 an hour or so before. However, she checked me and I was at a 10! She went to call the doctor while Mom, Tim, and I prepared ourselves for the pushing.
The doctor came in quickly and we started pushing. Thankfully, I could feel enough of myself to tell where I should concentrate my pushing efforts. However, the doctor was making jokes, and I had to try not to laugh while I was pushing. I only pushed for about 20 minutes and he was here!!! Tim, who like me wanted to see little of the birth part, ending up watching everything and cutting the cord! He got so excited and Mom got emotional from being so over joyed! Tim put on the first diaper, too. The doctor told me I had a very healthy placenta- mom said it was HUGE. I did not want to see it, though. He scored a 9.9 on his APGAR and is in perfect health! He is amazingly strong for a newborn as well! He came out 7 lbs and 10 oz, 21 1/2 inches long! So the birth went very well. I remember seeing his head and thinking, “Wow, it didn’t feel that big coming through!” But don’t worry, I felt the pain later.
There were so many emotions and feelings going through me as they put my baby boy on my chest. Overwhelmed is the best way to describe it. My body was drugged, my muscles were stressed and making me shake, my body and mind were tired, and I had just looked my son in the face for the very first time. I don’t remember everything I thought at once at that point, but my strongest thought was, “This cheesy blue thing is mine?!?!?” I stared at him, trying to see myself some where in that face, but immediately following birth, he looked a little different. I do know this, though: He was then, and still is, absolutely perfect. I can find no imperfection or wrong in his handsome little face and body. I’m not sure if I ever did before, but I certainly do now believe in love at first sight.
Several people came to visit us during the time we were there, and a lot of them were in the room about 20 minutes after I delivered (I looked pretty bad). Levi just stared at everyone for the first three hours he was out! He didn’t even cry to be fed. Everyone noted that he is unusually alert for a newborn and that status hasn’t changed. My Mom and Dad came back the next day with pink tulips and a card, my Father-in-law brought a tool kit for him when he gets older (knowing full well that Tim and I could use those tools right now ), A family friend brought her son by (that I used to babysit) and they brought a little teddy bear, and another friend brought me a “NEW MOM 2010″ shirt- which fits great now that I’m shrinking! Levi behaved for most of our visitors and just maintained the “cute baby” stance. He is surprisingly patient. I am SOOO BLESSED!
The nurses had to take him out of the room a couple times for shots and tests and such, and I would count the minutes he was away. At one point I buzzed the front desk and asked if they were bringing my baby back. Seeing him, you can’t blame me for my impatience. <3 His hospital bassinet was pretty handy and the label on the head of it said “BAD boy” because they first three letters of our last name is BAD. The nurses had fun with that one.
I will continue, in my next blog, with the first night home and such. For now, I just want to say THANK YOU GOD FOR MY HEALTHY SON and THANK YOU MOM AND TIM FOR BEING THERE WITH ME!!! LOVE YOU ALL! <3 Also a BIG THANKS to everyone who was praying for us!
PS- I will put up a picture of Levi on this post soon!