Eva .5

Eva.  Although i've told people over the past week we've had an estranged relationship. thats not true now.  true, you've been waking up more at night.  crying louder.  even longer.  but how can you be mad at somebody so beautiful!  today you just laughed and were so perfect all previous resentments faded.  you watched me bake cookies just chewing on a spoon.  funny.  you like spoons as long as they don't have baby food on them.  then you can't stand them.  i love holding you on my lap.  its so funny to see those adorably chunky legs be so flexible.  your favorite toy happens to also be your most accessible--your toes.  the way you laugh when you hold them cracks me up!  oh eva you laugh so hard too!  i love it when you get to giggling because we all can't contain ourselves.  daddy and jackson get you giggling the hardest.  poor jackson.  he always wants to hold you.  sometimes i feel like friends and neighbors hold you more than him though because i always seem to say "jackson you can hold her anytime but they're just visiting."  when i was pregnant i had a hard time getting excited about a girl but i tell you now i cant get enough pink.  not to make sure people call you a girl but just because prettiness suits you.  my favorite is putting you in the dresses rachel and i wore as babies.  while it took some courage and more than a few attempts, i now love putting your hair into a tiny pigtail with a tiny bow.  everyday i like getting you dressed.  even when its hand-me-down clothes you seem to make everything look better.  you are so funny.  when i lay you on your back you hold your head up as long as you can.  you finally fall but then try to sit up again.  its like your holding a crunch.  the boys always wanted to be lain down on their backs but you prefer your tummy.  you've starting pulling up on your knees and bouncing, lunging forward ever so slightly but steadily.  im a little bummed.  i love the crawling age but i also love the sitting stuck in one spot phase.  its funny.  you're close to crawling and yet you have never rolled from your back to your front.  you're like a beetle stuck on your back.  when you accidentally rolled to your back today sam came running down the hall saying "help viva rolled over!"  he could see your helplessness.  everybody loves how easy it is to get you to smile.  and when you smile back everybody feels better.  there is something about getting positive feedback from a baby that just makes you feel like a better person.  like if there is a true judge of character, its a baby, and she seems to think i'm ok.  i just love to think that my daughter can bring that kind of peace and assurance to others.  a self confidence and even awareness of God's love.  i certainly feel God's love around you.  He gave me YOU! he must LOVE me.  When i hold you sometimes you push your cheeks on mine and i can hardly move because i just dont want the moment to ever end.  i love you!.

Sam at 2.5

Oh Sam.  I just chopped your hair and i miss your long too cool locks.  You're suddenly so big.  so so big.  You want so much to be with/like Jackson.  its funny how many pictures i've taken and you're looking at hitm so you can do what he's doing.  When you're getting in trouble you're cheerful and agreeable.  When you're being playful you get this intense mean growling face with a pursed mouth and a throaty growl.  You roar when you're mad at somebody (just following the example Jackson set for you.)  You gravitate towards balls--like you did from the beginning.  Today, you begged me to throw the baseball to you to tryi to hit but i didn't do it because i was talking to a neighbor.  now i feel bad.  then you picked up jacksons beseball glove and tried to get me to throw to you.  i did a little but then you put the ball on the tee and tried to hit it and even tried to catch it with the glove--yes, still off of a tee.  I believe originating from your love of sports, you only want to wear 2 pair of athletic shorts--everyday.  I'll put you to bed for a nap in one outfit and almost daily you'll wake up in one of those two pair of shorts.  If you find them in the laundry pile you will immediately change into them.  I'm nervous about what will happen in the winter!  This morning it was 40 outside but you insisted on your shorts.  I won though and put you in jeans, jeans that kept falling off because you're 2.5 but 2T jeans are still too big.  skinny short boy.  i suppose it was my fault when you ran out of the house without pants today.  now that jackson is in school you miss him.  i feel sorry for you when you come in wearing your penguin backpack asking to go to school with jackson.  i want you to sleep in but when i come in to wake up jackson you jump out of bed.  "i wan sirul.  i wan shtawbewwy chotit milt"  you cute boy that cant say his "k" sounds but says them all with a t.  jatton. tootie.   we have had some good times though with a little bit of extra one on one time.  i like saying yes when you ask to go to the playground even though i know you'll want to swing the whole time.  friday, jackson was out of school and we decided to go to as many parks as we could in one day.  we went downtown and went first to the sunsphere and you're still talking about it.  so innocent.  one day when my answer is "we'll go back some day" it will sound like a no but when you're 2 that's a yes and you cheer and give an arm pump and an enthusiastic "yes! we goin to sunsphere some day!"  its different being a second child.  you're more territorial than jackson was.  when you have something and somebody tries to take it you stand your ground and will quite stubborn.  until you win.  and then you give it to them.  you really are loving.  when i leave to take jackson to school you run out the door saying bye mom!  love you!  love you!  tiss! hug!   you very affectionately call eva viva and we all love it.  now i call her viva as much as eva.  jackson refused to sleep without kiki but you have always been more flexible with gleeglee.  in fact, you're just more flexible all around.  you have your opinions but you'll go along with insistence.  you must say every prayer.  if somebody else prays.  it must be your turn next.  sacrament meeting is our time too.  we always sit together.  you play with my face, my jewelry, my hair.  we hug and play as quietly as possible but you always laugh too loud when we play rock-a-bye.  its probably my favorite part of church.  there are few things that make me as happy as bonding with you there.  you are so special.  happy. friendly, kind. goofy, funny, little, messy (you spilled the "shtawbewwy chotit milt" on the couch this week), helpful, excited. perfect.

i just heard jackson say "i have a giant privacy" in a sing song kinda na na na na boo boo way.  i didn't look i just told him we don't talk like that...but then i looked.

he had stuck the light saber in between his legs.  i hope he didn't see me laughing.  i'd hate for that to be a new thing.

today jackson asked me what the word ugly meant.  

we were driving and he asked me.  out of the blue.  i asked him where he heard it and he said it was just a word he knew.  did you hear it today?  no.  what made you think of it.  its just a word i know.

it makes me sad.  i mean, i have no idea what made him think of it.  maybe it was random.  maybe somebody called him ugly.  thats the thing about letting your kids out of your sight, they could get hurt, and keep it to themselves.  

i suppose i could be overreacting.

if you don't write it down you will forget.  as much as you think that is so funny i'll never forget it.  you do.

so nursing with kids is awkward.  for me now.  for jackson when he's older and hears the things he says.

after eva quit nursing i kept leaking jackson said "so milk really does come out of there!"

when i sat down to nurse he said "i'm thirsty too" and got up and walked to the kitchen

also, i took jackson in for his kindergarten check up.  it was horrible.  jackson has previously taken shots really well but this time it was horrible.  like veins on his forehead horrible.  i would have said previously that  jackson was prone to getting angry but after seeing how mad he really can get at the dr.s office now i know how much he holds in.  the nurse told him he'd have 4 shots and just a little finger prick.  he asked what a finger prick was and she said just a little prick to test your blood.  i think when she did it he was shocked that she would do   such a thing.  he looked at me like "can you believe this woman!?"  when the blood came up he asked what it was and she told him blood. "OWWWW"  she then picked up her little vile and with each blood droplet that was sucked into the tube he said "ow and ow and ow and ow".  not in like a yelling voice but a very angry speaking voice.  both me and the nurse were trying to comfort him but couldn't help but laughing at his reaction.  so funny.

i had a bad day

i lost control. i got mad. i got annoyed. irritated. emotional.

i was guilt-ridden all day but yet i couldn't manage to break free of the cycle of anger. i said one honest prayer and it was that eva would stop crying and i could have a break. it took me all day even to get to that point (5:30). amazingly, she stopped and the boys played quiet enough for me to assume they'd gone outside or had seriously hurt themselves. even after this prayer was answered, i went right back to where i was the minute jackson asked me to play with him.

i dont know why.

i went on pinterest looking for some sort of inspiration to help me over the hump after the boys were in bed. it didn't help. then i went on lds.org and clicked on happiness in family life and was overcome by the feelings of love and the impact of spiritual teachings on my heart. i know these teachings to be true. i should study the family proclamation harder and seek counsel from scriptures. i know what i need to do now. i just need to implement it. pray early. seek for the spirit. when i'm frustrated, pray with the kids for help and patience and strength. i need to be calm.

eva's birth story

i tried to just write everything i could remember because i don't know what i'll be trying to remember in 25 years when i'm talking to a pregnant eva about when she was born. maybe thats dumb but i thought about that a lot when i was typing. its not well written. its just a narrative of what i thought of though.

I get so big and pregnant. This pregnancy was no different--lots of people asking if I was having twins or closer than I really was to delivering. Back in maybe october or november I was in a class at the gym and these ladies were so amazed that i was there exercising and I was so strong. After a couple of weeks of them being really impressed they asked me when I was due, when i told them march you could see the look on their face of shock and surprise. I was suddenly not so cool.

With this pregnancy I feel like I got every sickness that went through knoxville. I threw up more from different stomach flus than with pregnancy nausea. One of these bugs at the beginning of the third trimester brought on really strong contractions that really scared me. Another time I had to run to the bathroom in food city only to barely make it to the bathroom (and not the toilet.) I was so embarrassed I cried as I told the worker what I had done. When I got to the car and was going to call brent to tell him my traumatic experience he called me to tell me he had nearly passed out at work and his office had called an ambulance.

At the end of this pregnancy I was in lots of pain with my hips and lower back. I know its normal but when its happening...its the worst thing in the world. I might have been a bit dramatic about it. brent never complained but maybe thats because i never stopped.

I really like the idea of going in to labor on my own. Its just been so fun in the past. This time though I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore. I didn't want to have to wake the kids and deal with them in the middle of the night. I thought I just got lucky with sam--going into labor early in the morning, having my epidural all day, and having a baby by 3:00. These are the reasons I decided to be induced on 3/15 (Thursday) the day before my due date 3/16.

My mom came up on 3/13. We went out to dinner and were going to spend Wednesday cleaning and I'd go to the hospital early Thursday morning. Instead I got my first contraction wednesday morning at 1:30am. Now at the end of this pregnancy I was having lots of contractions. Because that didn't happen with the boys, every time I thought "this is it!" only to be disappointed that they didn't become regular. I just assumed it was the same thing. I felt dumb constantly thinking I was in labor and it not being the case. Brent woke up to some noisy dogs in the neighborhood a little after 2. I told him I was having painful contractions and he said "NO!" and then went back to sleep. I went downstairs where it was cooler and tried to sleep. By this point I started timing them and they were 15 minutes apart. They were really painful but Dr. Schroeder had told me to go in to the hospital when they were 5 minutes apart. When I went upstairs a couple hours later my mom was awake (actually she was indexing at like 4 in the morning!!). The two of us timed my contractions for anther few hours but they weren't getting closer together. I was really frustrated because they were so painful. I really wanted to get an epidural but was confused as to what I should do. At around 7 or so I told brent to get ready and I wanted to go. I wasn't really persistent with him though because I didn't want to get to the hospital and be turned away because I wasn't far enough along.

We finally got to the hospital at 8:30. I remember walking in with a contraction. I remember people looking at me giving me their supportive wow-she's-in-labor looks but i was so embarrassed. I was still afraid that it was nothing and that I just had a low tolerance for pain. That's why I was thrilled when they checked me in triage and i was 6cm!! I wasn't crazy! I could have come in earlier. I immediately wished I had. I asked several times as politely as I could when i could get my epidural. Things seemed so much slower to happen than when I went in with Sam. They poked me 3 times trying to get an iv. then the machine was turned on slow. My nurse told me once the iv was in it would be 30 minutes before i could get my iv. It turned into over an hour though because the anesthesiologist was busy. I told brent I wanted to be ignored during contractions but towards the end when they were getting worse i wanted him to hold my hand. the dr. came in around 10:30 to start my epidural and i was finally relaxed and feeling good about 11:15. When Dr. Schroeder checked me I was 8cm and he told me we'd push in 30 minutes.

Eva came at 12:05 after about 3 pushes. They put her in my arms really quickly and it was perfect. i could tell she was bigger than the boys who were both 8 lbs 12 oz. She was 9 lbs 3 oz. Nursing in the hospital was a breeze. The 2nd night there was rough though because they asked us to change rooms and then gave us these two bumbling nurses. One walked in at 1:00 to do my vitals and turned on the lights and was talking loudly, spilling my drink. We were more than ticked at that point. Now though, it seems so long ago and less of a big deal.

The boys loved her from the start. Jackson cried when he first saw me because I was shaking so much and still hooked up to ivs. i felt bad that i didn't even have the strength to comfort him. Sam always says "i wanna hold it." jackson tells me he'll watch her whenever i walk out of the room.