Ask Away!

Recently I've gotten some questions in comments and emails- and I've been HORRIBLE about answering them. So if you have asked a question and not gotten an answer- Please re-ask and I will answer all questions in a post soon! Or if you have been wondering something but haven't asked- here's your chance! You can even stay anonymous- sometimes I've wondered something personal about a blogger but haven't felt the courage to ask as 'ME' so if you want to remain anonymous, ask anyway!

Officially a Kindergartner!

How is that possible? My baby is now a kindergartner. It became official last week when he graduated from preschool and I filled out even more paper work to start K in the fall. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't an emotional mess last week. 

We started out by having Swedish school graduation last Sunday. It was my first time going since having Tindra, and it was so much fun showing her off to everyone. Everyone there had been watching my bump grow from week to week, the last two months asking every time when I was due because I'd been preggo's forever! 

I get nostalgic every year at Swedish school graduation. They sing the same graduation and summer songs that I grew up singing every year in Sweden, and the Swedish national anthem still manages to bring tears to my eyes every time I hear (which to be fair is Not very often!) 

There's my little man in the back row in the blue peeking out. He did So good with the songs- I have a little video I took and when I look closely I can see his mouth moving right along the entire time in Swedish. Makes this mamma Proud!

After Swedish graduation came preschool graduation last Thursday. And more tears were shed. I was doing fine until the pastor (his preschool is at a church) started talking about how this was just the beginning. That soon we would be walking them up to Kindergarten, and before we know it we are driving away after dropping them off at college. I started bawling. It was way more than this hormonal mamma could handle. 

I'm just So incredibly proud of him. 9 months ago I dropped him off basically while he was kicking, screaming and crying for me (hardest day of my life possibly) and now? I can't even begin to tell you the change in this little man.

 They have the same 'rooster' hair style! 

Excuse the horrible quality iphone pictures- mamma of the year over here forgot the camera. In my defense getting two fussy children ready, fed and out of the house during witching hour while trying to pump and get myself ready proved to be somewhat challenging on my own. Breast milk was spilled on a grilled cheese. True story. I ate most of it anyway. The non soggy parts. 

So now I have a soon to be Kindergartner and 5 week old home all day. This was our first week with out preschool and all I've got to say thank God it's only a four day week!!

Top Baby Blogs apparently reset, could ya pretty please click below and vote? I've 'met' some awesome readers and bloggers through there and I'd love to stay listed! 

Baby T is now the exact same length/weight as Jasper was when he was born! Only took almost 5 weeks to get there.  

At her check up yesterday she weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and measured at 21 3/4 in long! That's over 2 in she has grown in less than 5 weeks!! Insane isn't it? She's in the 75th percentile for length and 23rd for weight and 85th percentile for head size. We make long skinny babies (from my side) with big heads!! (from Drew's side.) Jasper has always been in those same percentiles (except in the beginning his head was in the 100th percentile!!) so it looks like she has more in common with her big brother than we thought!

Outfit details ( she can take over on outfit posting till I can actually fit into my clothes!)


Onesie:Target
Leg warmers: Babylegs
Headband:Etsy

I bought these baby legs back when I was convinced we were having a boy, but I think they look pretty darn cute on our little girl. 

Already a month

Yesterday! I can't believe you have already been in our life for an entire month. 1/9th of the time I was pregnant with you. But at the same time it's hard to remember what life was like with out you in it. You have all of us (your dad and brother especially) wrapped around your little finger. 

At 1 month you...

are finally on kind of a schedule of eat, wake time then sleep

you want to eat every 2.5-3 hrs a day but at night will go 5-6 hrs!

have given us a few smiles, but we can't wait for the real constant ones

as soon as you are fussy, jasper just has to sing to you and you immediately stop

can be content in the swing, bouncer, or boppy but love being held the most

in the evenings you become kind of fussy between 5-8 PM and rarely sleep during that time, you want to nurse frequently then, be held, rocked, talked to. If you are inconsolable all we have to do is walk outside with you. being outside is your Favorite.

During the day you nurse, but at night your dad will give you a bottle while I pump, and at this point you take 4-5 oz then! So maybe that's how much you get when you nurse as well? Obviously impossible for me to tell.

Bathes are your favorite. During your fussy time every other night I give you a warm bath and instantly you are calmed. You tend to get mad when we take you back out. 

Everywhere I go I have strangers stop and tell me how beautiful you are. Maybe they do this with all babies, I am having an impossible time remembering if this was the case with Jasper. Probably was, but I'll pretend they don't say that to every baby they see because it does make your mamma proud. 

I find myself often staring at you, amazed that we made you. That I grew your tiny toes inside my body. 

You are loved and we are so blessed to have you in our life.

Pictures from our little one month photo shoot

Tindra's Birth part two

Part 1 can be found here
After the iv was in things started moving quickly. Apparently we skipped some steps that they do for a planned c- section because my contractions were so close together at this point and they wanted to get me in quickly. 

The next thing I know Drew's in scrubs and I'm in a wheel chair heading down to the operating room. Once we got in there things happened so fast a lot of it's a blur. I was having a contraction in the wheel chair and they said as soon as this contraction was over I was going to sit down on the table so they could get the spinal in and it would be my last contraction I felt. Which at that point sounded wonderful. 

I think the spinal hurt a little bit, but I mostly remember just how quickly my legs were hot and tingly. I kept asking things like "Is my left leg supposed to be numb already" because I wasn't expecting it to happen instantly like that. 

Within a minute I was numb from the nipple line (their words not mine) and down. I guess they did some tests to make sure I was numb, and I was. 

As soon as I was laying down, they started sticking things on me, and put my arms out to my side, like I was on a cross, and that's when the emotions started. I started having a full on panic attack. I was bawling and having a hard time breathing. Everyone kept asking what was wrong, if I was in pain, etc. I couldn't answer. One because I was crying, and two because I didn't know why I was crying. I think it was a combination of : this is it, I'm about to meet my daughter, and just being down right terrified. And exposed. I felt so exposed there on the table. After a few minutes I was able to calm down and just think about what was about to come.

After they put the sheet up so I couldn't see anything ( Thank GOD for that!) I was able to zone out for a minute and try not to think about what was happening. Then I noticed the Doctor (who by the way was hilarious which my friend warned me about) started talking about opening up a bbq or something and for a second I was offended that he was talking about grilling out- but then I quickly realized by the responses he got and his tone of voice that he was actually speaking in code. I guess they do that so the mom laying on the table doesn't have to hear "hey got her opened up and now getting ready to shove her  intestines aside" which I'm extremely grateful for! After I realized they were talking about ME I quickly tried to shut that out.

Then came the tugging and the pulling. Kelsey was kind enough to answer some c-section questions for me and warned me that I would feel tugging and I'm so glad she did or I would have been even more shocked. Even with a warning I still couldn't believe how much I felt. And how long it took. I'm sure my sense of time is completely off, but I think it was several minutes that they were pulling on her trying to get her out from under my ribs- and I can't possibly describe how weird/gross/disturbing that felt. I almost threw up at this point, even gagged, not from pain or nausea but just from the feeling of them pulling on her. I just kept repeating on god I can feel it, I can feel it over and over again.  And the pressure from when they fully pulled her out is something I will never forget.

I remember saying the words "she's here' moments before they told me she was out. The first thing I remember the doctor saying was "She's got a lot of hair this one!" And then "She's gorgeous mom!"
Then they held her over the sheet for just a minute so I could see her. I will never forget my first look at her smushed cheeks, dark matted hair and perfect pink lips. And then she was gone out of my sight and taken to the side of the room, with Drew by her side.

I was left alone with the anastesiologist and the doctors/nurses stitching me up. And that's when it felt like a ton of bricks had been placed on my chest and I could barely breathe. 

I promise you I'm not drunk in these pictures. This is just what  tired looks like. This mamma is exhausted. T decided that she didn't feel like sleeping from 3-5:30 AM and her brother decided that 6:15 was a good time to wake up for the day. So if you feel like doing the math, that's about 4 hrs of sleep last night. And this girl doesn't do so well on little sleep!

We stopped by Drew's office today today so he could show off baby T to everyone. He was quite the proud walking around with her. And his job is 95% men so it was pretty cute. Afterwards we headed to lunch at Mad Greens for delicious salads- which totally balances out the 3 warm choc. chip cookies I came home and had right? 

It's a good thing she's cute because she literally has screamed every single time I've attempted to put her down today. And she wants to be attached to my boob 24/7 right now. We're attempting the binki for a few minutes to give my nipples (yes I just wrote nipples) a break. Notice the death grip on my hand as if daring me to even try to take the paci out.

My plan to getting my body back to somewhere I'm happy with. Don't worry I won't be starting this till after my 6 week check up! Until then I will be walking 30-45 min. a day at least.

1. Pilates! Three times a week.

2.Thirty Day Shred

3. Eat whatever I want (I am breastfeeding a growing baby girl so I won't do anything that could hurt my milk supply)

4. Drink a lot of water.

5.mama mio boot camp for tummies-- ill be doing this for sure! I was sent this to review and I'm super excited to try it out. Can't wait to get started!

That's all I've got. Anyone have any tips for losing weight, toning up in a healthy way while breastfeeding?

I can't believe I'm getting ready to show these online.. but here they are, belly 2 weeks and 2 days post c section.

And here a week later at just over 3 weeks. Not much or any difference. Boo.

Hopefully the next time I do an update I won't still look 4 months pregnant! 

Home ALone. Finally

Yesterday we had out first day alone just the three of us (Tindra, Jasper and I) after over 2 full weeks of visitors. At first I had been dreading this day, I was super nervous, but 2 days in to my MIL's visit I was more than ready! 

It was very helpful obviously having visitors (my mom especially) but in some ways it made things more difficult. With Jasper. We couldn't get on any sort of routine, he got used to someone entertaining him basically every second and I was just ready for it to be us.

I'm pleased to say we all survived the day! Even more than survived- we did great. Minus the 5 oz of freshly pumped milk that I spilled on the kitchen floor, which I definitely shed a tear or two over. Not only did everyone get dressed and fed (okay some of us got fed about a dozen times..I'm talking about YOU T) but I managed to do a load of laundry, a long walk and even a trip to the park. Oh don't worry the house still looks like a disaster- but baby steps people!! 

Let's hope it continues as smoothly as yesterday and the first half of today has gone, because the last few weeks haven't always been such smooth sailing! 

Absentee blogger!

That's me! Hopefully things slow down next week after my mil leaves. My mom was here all last week and in laws this weeks and next week it will just be us! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to that. Though that does mean I'll actually have to start cooking/cleaning/doing laundry. But I'm still ready for our little family of four to get settled and start working on our new 'normal'. Can't wait to be able to catch up on my blog reading!

Two weeks already!

Baby T had her two week appointment (2 days early) and she was back up to her birth weight already! The pediatrician (who I love!) said they like them to be up to her birth weight by 2 weeks and even 2 days early she was past it by an ounce! 

She has also already grown 3/4 of an inch and 1/2 inch around her head! Mamma's milk is working pretty well I guess! 

At 2 weeks she wants to eat anywhere from every 1.5 to 4 hrs. She will even go a 4.5-5 hr stretch from about midnight to 5! It's impossible to figure out what sort of schedule she is on or when she will want to eat next since she is all over the place. And when she does eat she will nurse anywhere from 20-40 minutes so at this point it feels like all I'm doing right now is nursing or getting ready to nurse. Luckily my mom has been here for this whole week which has been a huge help with Jasper. Drew's family comes on Monday when she leaves, and I've got to admit I'm a little worried about how it's going to be with just the three of us home. Hopefully by then she will be on a tiny bit more of a consistent schedule and maybe not eating quite as frequently? One can hope.

Sorry this is all over the place- my brain hasn't quite figured out how to function yet on such little sleep!

11 things about my 11 day old

1. You snort like a little piggy when you are hungry and can't get latched fast enough.

2.You grunt in your sleep. A lot.

3. You get the hiccups at least 4 times a day. 

4.Getting the hiccups piss you OFF! After a minute or two you scream out in frustration.

5.You are fiercely strong. 

6. You can get yourself out of Any swaddle. It's seriously ridiculous. 

7.You love to suck. Fingers, pacifiers, my hoohahs- you want something in your mouth pretty much at all time. 

8. You are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. 

9. You have the same sweet fauxhawk that mamma had as a baby. It sticks up like that 100% on it's on. 

10. If we are out of the house- it's 100% guaranteed that you will be OUT. The second you are in the stroller/car seat you will not wake for anything. 

11. At 11 days old you have been to H&M, Jason's Deli, A&W, Jasper's preschool, Target, Walmart, Ikea, the park, Jasper's soccer game and probably somewhere else I've forgotten.