Thursday's Thirteen Things: Let's Play Catch Up!

1. So aside from a post in January and a post in December, it has been, what? 4 years since I last posted on this blog. Time for some catch up!

2. We had 1 cat back in 2013...well...now we have 4! Crazy right? Jak is still my snuggle buddy at night, though there was an adjustment period after the tiny human came to live in his house. He did appreciate all the tiny human furniture that we bought him, though!

Jak (on the left) teaching Helix about the finer qualities of the furniture for the tiny human.

3. Binx we got in August of 2014 when we were ready to add another pet to our lives. He was just the addition that we needed! He loved our girlie pretty quickly. He brought the playful kitten out in Jak. He knocked down all the pictures off the walls of our bedroom at night...yeah...he's more of a daytime snuggler. He's talkative and sweet and social and full of personality! Just what we needed!



4. Helix was a rescue...his mom was hit by a car when he was only 4 weeks old. He was (consciously...I was aware of what I was doing) my new baby substitute. He is the softest, fluffiest kitten I have ever met. He's feisty as hell. He prefers his humans to all others. He is especially wary of the small humans. He and Jak now share duties for snuggling at night, though Helix will snuggle during the day, too. He also tries to look like Jak, but the smug of 10 years will be hard to master in such a short time.

5. Luna told Robert she was coming home with him from a call, and so she did. The owners of the house said she was a stray they couldn't take in. She followed him around and even sat on his shoulder while he fixed a furnace. Then she hopped in his van and was ready to go. Girlie and I had just read Christmas Kitten for the first time that very day, so we were willing to take in another. Luna is super social. She loves to play, loves to snuggle...um, she did not say anything about it being ok to pick her up, FYI! She actually has been snuggling our girlie at night lately. It's super sweet!




6. We are at full occupancy! This is our mantra when people tell us about animals in need. I repeat: we are at full occupancy!



7. We are homeschooling through the Waldorf tradition. Earthschooling is the curriculum that we use, and we love it! Stories, nature walks, paintings! It's fabulous! It has really reinvigorated my creativity. There are parent crafts each month. I enjoy needle felting characters for the stories we tell. I think being around children and being in the Waldorf mindset is just the thing to spark my creativity, just as it did when I was teaching. It's so fulfilling!



8. We have made some amazing friends through our journey as parents. At first, being a stay at home mom felt very isolating, but I started going to la leche league meetings and meeting moms there. From there, we've made homeschooling connections that totally enrich our lives. We've made good friends at gymnastics...I mean, having a kid is the secret to making friends as an adult! LOL! And they are socializing and making wonderful friendships too! It's awesome!

9. As I posted earlier this week, I am a Beachbody Coach as well as a homeschooling mom. I'm enjoying having something that is my own and separate from mothering, though she works out with me, and tells me to post my food in my challenge groups...so, it's all intertwined, as it should be.



10. So I finally figured out health and fitness! It was a struggle since I got pregnant. I was super worried about the strain on my heart. I was trying it all, and it just wasn't working. Challenge groups, PiYo, Shakeology, and the amazing community that I'm part of now seemed to help it click! It was amazing! My friends and family have been super supportive, and that has been amazing too! I can't describe how far I've come internally. All I can do is show progress pictures or tell you I can do more with each new workout than I could ever do before...and it still doesn't compare to the internal shift!



11. It feels good to be blogging again. I started this as a way of expressing myself, being creative, maybe even just finding my place in this world. I'm still doing all of those things, and it feels good to talk about all of it again. :)

12. I LOVE being a mother! I mean, I obviously loved it 4 years ago, when she was under one and the cutest baby I have ever seen! (Mother bias! It's allowed!) Now, I just know it is what I am meant to do. I love teaching her. I love learning from her. I love watching her learn and grow and interact with this world. She's amazing! I am so grateful to have her in my life!

13. I am IN LOVE with my amazing husband. He works hard so that I can stay home and homeschool. He supports my business. He knows how important my health and creativity are to me, and he encourages it. He reminds me to stop and rest and have fun, too! We have been hanging out and watching the show, the Arrow, on Netflix after girlie goes to bed. We have so much fun doing that. Date nights, texting through the day (seriously just deleted over a gig and half of messages between the two of us because my phone storage was full! How crazy is that?), enjoying our amazing little girl, playing board games, you name it, I love spending time with him. I'm so grateful to have him in my life!

Thursday's Thirteen Things: Girlie's Birth

1. The contractions started around 11pm on February 27, 2012. Thanks to our Bradley Method Childbirth Classes, we knew to try to get some sleep before the real labor began.
2. With help from our doula and doula-in-training and techniques from those Bradley Classes, I made it through the first stage of labor comfortably at home.
3. We drove to the hospital around 4pm when the contractions were consistent and before rush hour hit.

4. The anesthesiologist came in right as I hit the transition between first and second stage and as I was starting to feel the self doubt that goes along with that stage. Fortunately, I had a fabulous doula and coach and I was able to hold strong. Besides, I moved into second stage before I was really able to decide anything.
5. The actual birth was definitely a lot of work, and it took me a little while of figuring out how to push effectively with the contractions. I remember a lot of emotions during that time: fear, self-doubt, determination, etc.
6. Our beautiful baby girl was born at 11:21pm on February 28, 2012. She was only 39 minutes from being a Leap Day baby. I'm glad she didn't wait, because I was definitely ready to be done with being in labor.
7. Her birth was all natural, thankfully. I hemorrhaged afterwards and they were able to use the petocin to stop the bleeding.
8. I was able to hold her right away, but it definitely wasn't long enough. They had to take her because she had fluid in her lungs and I had some tearing the doctors had to stitch up. Fortunately, Robert was able to hold her for a while through my rough patch.

9. She went to the nursery so they could watch for signs of infection, and I went to the ante-partum section of the maternity ward so they could keep an eye on my blood loss.
10. I cried myself to sleep that night. I wanted my baby more than anything else. It didn't feel fair that I did all that damn work just to have her taken from me. All I wanted was to hold my baby!
11. I did get to where I could walk and go see her the next day in the NICU. I was even able to breastfeed her a little. It was still hard not to be able to be with her all the time.

12. The absolute hardest thing I have ever done in all of my life was leave my baby at the hospital after I was released. She had to stay a full 7 days so they could administer the full course of antibiotics they started after signs of pneumonia. Fortunately, she was healthy and made it through all of that ok. I still feel so terribly sad and miserable every time I think of her in that hospital all by her self with all those tubes and monitors. In fact, this is the first I've really written about her birth, including in journals and stuff, because it is just so damn hard to think about. I'm glad I have her sitting right here beside me.
13. Despite the difficulty we faced after her birth, it is still the best thing I have ever done. I have a sense of confidence I have never felt before. I gave birth to a child naturally. Me, the one with the congenital heart defect. I gave birth to a beautiful, happy, sweet baby girl whom I cherish. I am woman! I am mother! Hear me roar!

home from the hospital

her first night home

the sunrise on her first morning at home

Thursday's Thirteen Things: The Ole Bloggety Blog

1. This idea comes from a concept called Tuesday Twelve that my sister-in-law posts on her blog.
2. I plan to use Thursday's Thirteen Things to help me keep my blog posts organized and concise.
3. Thursday's Thirteen Things will contain thirteen points about one topic.
4. I have backdated the last few blog posts to avoid confusion, since I was blogging about Jak's birthday and Girlie's monthly birthdays.
5. I have at least seven posts drafted over the last year that I think will be publish worthy using the concept of Thursday's Thirteen Things.
6. I hope to avoid back dating blog posts in the future. I also recognize that I'm not perfect and backdating may happen despite my best efforts.
7. I had lots of ideas about posting on our moving in the house and making it our home. Then, I was pregnant and the moving in came to a grinding halt. I was too hormonal and too embarrassed at the state of the house to post anything about the house at that point.
8. I'm still embarrassed about the state of the house but plan to post anyway. It's all about keeping it real and hopefully finding kindred spirits among those other moms and homemakers who have AD/HD, are right brained thinkers, are INFPs, or just struggle with maintaining an immaculate home while living life.
9. Since I have identified this blog as a family newsletter and journal, I'd like to post more on the day to day life of being a parent and other journal like topics.
10. It's hard to find time to sit down at the computer to write blog posts with a baby.
11. I'm glad there's an iPhone app for that.
12. Basically, I'm hoping to blog more often and in raw, honest format.
13.  Thirteen Things is a lot.