Melanie ~ look at me with starry eyes...

Here I go.. Dreamwidth.

All our diapers are shipped. Today was just regular orders. From Wednesday to Thursday, I worked 104 hours and 55 minutes. I'm slightly nervous my boss will have a breakdown when she sees my hours, my coworker asked me to tally her hours since she was feeling really tired, and she worked 35 hours in the same week. I really just went from when I woke up till I finally went to bed, I'm TWO weeks behind on Sons Of Anarchy!! :P However, I did print and tally 9000 order, and each order I have to go through and remove the tax, gift certificates, read notes, email customers, etc. I just never stopped. I felt like I was buzzing the whole time. I was pretty tired this morning, I'm taking this afternoon off before I tally the last 1000 orders. We ended up just getting me to stop so I could be on the floor packing orders, and my boss put a strike through each order that wasn't tallied, so I could do it after. I think if we do big things like this, we should tally the orders after! This was a good learning experience. Maybe now my cough/sore throat will go away.

Time to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Plan my menu. Find a good price on turkey. I want to have most my food prepped on Wednesday so it's done before my inlaws even arrive. That worked well last year. I need some more vegan recipes for my brother in law and his girlfriend. Last year I did brussel sprouts in bacon and she wanted some so bad, I'll make her some minus the bacon, although I think she secretly wanted the bacon.

I lost 3 receipts somehow, totalling over $100, for my boss. She says it's fine, I can just look at my bank statement, but I'm so annoyed.

Paxton watched Star Wars for the first time this week and that's all he wants to watch now. Today he had some issues listening at work, so he lost TV and didn't care till he realized that meant no Star Wars. He apologized and we worked out a deal that he could clean his bedroom and watch it. I've never seen his room so spotless, I was honestly surprised when he called me in to see.

My kids are a bit of a mess, emotionally, they need some mama time over the next 4 days till we go back to work.

It's been a busy week! Lots of TMI in this post. :)

Saturday morning I went to the hospital and Dr. Gonzalez said he was going to induce me, but no epidural, which was nice. Well, I kind of wanted to do the epidural but I figured if I could do it without, even better. Funny how things changed this birth. My blood pressure was still high, but not the super dangerous high, so I started my unnatural child birth. I went into this knowing that it was not going to be what I ever wanted for myself, but fully grateful that I was still able to try for a vbac. Contractions started and I went all day with them. My friend Lilly, who is a doula, phoned and said she got her sister to watch the kids (since she was babysitting Paxton for me) and that she was coming in to spend the day. While she was there she crocheted the most adorable skirt for the baby. She reminded me to keep my face non-pinched, to breath through contractions, etc. Around 7pm, Dr. Gonzalez turned off my pitocin and we decided to try this ballooning method. He had never done it with a vbac, but when he went and read studies, he said he could find no reason it was dangerous for a vbac.

Holy hell painful. They stick a tube up through to the other side of my cervix and pumped that with 70ccs of saline. Usually it's supposed to be 80, but I couldn't handle more. Outside of the cervix, they fill another balloon with anther 80ccs, but I could only handle 60 there I think. Basically what it does is force your cervix to dilate by pushing it from either side. Hello pain. Makes you feel like you have to pee, but you can't most the time.

In the meantime, my doula went home to be with her kids, since we weren't having the baby that night, and Tim was at home with Paxton and Reagan for a bit. I started to get stressed out by the pain of the ballooning, my nurse suggested I call Tim and get him back, he was leaving just as I called. My doula also surprised us and told us that her backup doula asked to come and sit with me. She was such a sweetheart, she looked 20 but was 37 like me and was pregnant with #10 baby!! She just sat with me and kept me calm, talked me through contractions, Tim arrived and they both just sat with me in the dark, keeping me quiet and calm. She left around 10, and Tim left not long after.

The ballooning threw me into awful cramping and contractions. My OB sent an order for vicodin and a sleeping pill, but I find the nurses like to cut back the medications and they told me I could only have one or the other. Actually one nurse said that and the other disagreed, but I think she thought I needed both. I picked the painkiller, and got no sleep.

In the morning I was so upset, Dr. G said it could come out at 7 but the nurse said 7:30, I was so upset. I phoned Tim and told him I couldn't vbac anymore, I couldn't handle another day of pain like that, since I was now on 2 nights of zero sleep. He told me that this is what I wanted so bad and he wanted me to at least try. Once the balloons came out I was a new person, I showered, Tim helped dry me off and my nurse actually french braided my hair for me. How loving and sweet is that? She said she hadn't done a french braid for years.

Dr. G came in and by that time I was again focused on my vbac and ready to go. I'll stop now cause I'm heading to LLL this morning, will finish the rest in a few hours!

( a month of meals )

It's so nice having dairy back..

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Home Alone! It'll always be my favourite Christmas movie. Next is The Santa Clause.

There are moments that I hope I can hold onto forever. This morning Paxton fell asleep on my lap, and I just wished I could remember how that felt, forever. I sure love this little baby.

My goodness! I had two very emotional, tired teething babies today. I took them to bed a little earlier than normal, they were both asleep in about 7 minutes and they slept for an hour and a half. So nice. They were in much better moods once they woke up. We did the usual, sang songs, read books, played with toys. The more time they spend together, the more they scrap. It's kind of funny and I don't intervene unless they are starting to really get at each other. They are learning about taking toys from each other and both of them are quite good at taking their toys back from the other. Ridley kept trying to feed Paxton cheerios and fed him her sippy cup. Paxton is on pacifier duty and constantly tries to put it in her mouth, after she spits it out. Paxton likes to play in the dishwasher but when Ridley tries, he closes the door with a "nohnohnohnoh". When Paxton nurses, Ridley needs a snuggle and when Ridley has her bottle, Paxton really wants nuh nuhs. It's busy, but fun.

Our garbage saga continues. Today I fished out a .. toy fish, a sheep, and a full container of cocoa. I think his Kleen Kanteen water bottle and his toothbrush both met a terrible garbage fate. Annoying, but I wanted to buy him a Sigg bottle for Christmas, so now I have a good reason to.

Dinner was pork tenderloin seasoned with herbs, which I roasted with onions and apples. Mashed potatoes made with earth balance and hazelnut milk, and roasted cauliflower with seasonings. Paxton devoured it. His little belly looked funny, he was so full of food.

In the bath, he was copying me saying "splash splash" and "quack quack". They weren't proper words, but he was trying.

Tim has so much on his plate right now. Work, two classes, and now he has something big he has to study for at work, and a compliance exam or something this week. I feel for him. Good thing he has the brains in this duo.

Tomorrow is a day off. I don't have to do anything. I'd like to go out in the yard and pick up more branches from the trees we cut down. Paxton would like to play in the yard, I'm sure.

One week and I'll be in Canada!

Bo is here, cutting down two trees in our back yard. I thought about cancelling and just putting the tree money (that I had put aside in savings) against the clutch on the car, but these trees just aren't safe. One is an awesome shade tree, but someone planted it a foot from the foundation. Not smart. It's huge. The other is a pine that someone cut all the branches off of, that is tall and likely to fall on our house one day. Better to just spend the money on the trees now, than have to deal with a tree falling on our house later.

Paxton is thrilled with the tree cutting. During lunch he sat there copying the chainsaw noise, and ever since he's been outside on the back porch watching.

The tree cutting:



watching dada mow from the living room window:



(He has such patience, he stood there the entire time, watching Tim)

I was feeling a bit bummed last night because Amy had a girl's night and didn't invite me (or rather, invited me but then didn't answer any of my inquiries of details), I ended up calling my best friend who was also having a girl's night. She was excited and told me that they had just been talking about how it still didn't feel right to have girls nights without me. I love her. She knows how to make me feel better. We chatted for a while, and then I went downstairs and watched Tim play Fear, I didn't want to lay in bed just thinking about how I felt. Eventually I went to bed, and of course, Paxton woke up 10 minutes later. He woke up a few times, eventually I just brought him into bed with us. Tim says Paxton kicks him out of bed, literally. He grunts and complains and kicks at his dad till he leaves. I think he's just used to it being me and him in the bed and now that he's bigger, he doesn't like sharing with daddy too, but it's not his bed!!

I let Tim sleep in till 9:30, and then woke him and traded. I went back to bed and napped for a couple hours. That's all our day has really been so far. I think this afternoon we are going to go buy Reagan a winter coat. So far Lands End coats have been good for us, they are good quality and fit well and keep her warm, but they aren't what Reagan wants this year. She wants a dress up type coat, like pea coat. That's well and good, but we want something she can play in the snow with and ride her bike with, something that is useful, not just stylish. I think we'll probably end up buying her a Lands End coat to keep here, and a fancier one for school, since she doesn't play outside at her mom's house much and once it gets cool the school doesn't let the kids outside for recess. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a good coat that suits all our needs wants.

Thought I'd post a few recent pictures of Paxton. I'm terrible at posting pictures here now, it used to be where I put them, but now facebook fills that need.

Paxton the dragon:



Paxton in daddy's boxers.. he put these on himself and wore them around the house all evening.