Looks Who's Three!

We started out the morning with presents. A couple of books, and mom and dad made a cast for CJ's baby doll to match her green cast. 

Then on to breakfast. Strawberry power o's with strawberries. Can you guess one of CJ's favorite foods? 

It wouldn't be a CJ day without Blokus.

Later we tried on the new church dress and went to the first day of our last year of nursery. 😳 (only one more year?)

CJ saw me scrolling past a recipe on my phone and said, "I want THAT for my birfday dinner!" So I made that. It's chipotle stuffed sweet potatoes and charred broccoli. I think she liked it less than Dad and I did. 

CJ had begged for a bubblegum cake. In a last minute flash of genius, I figured out how to make these gum ball machine cake pops. 

A pretty good birthday for a three year old! 

What Do You Mean, "It's Been a Month"?

My goodness. Are you all feeling ignored? I've been truly horrid at updates of late. Partly because I'm stymied by the picture aspect. I need to add text to some pictures and I just haven't had two minutes to do so and the desire to attempt it occurring in the same part of space and time. Also, husband keeps hogging my laptop. Oh, and I can't justify the time to blog when I'm failing at my primary rolls of mother and wife.

Lucky for you, the cosmos have conspired to align and give me time to jot a few things down today.

1. CJ is in the 90th and 95th percentiles for weight and height. She's never had a drop of formula so, go boobies!

2. Placenta pills have an aftertaste and should only be taken at bed time. It's not that the aftertaste is unpleasant, exactly. It's just that I know that's what it is and I've had enough problems with the thought of taking the stupid things that an aftertaste is kind of a deal breaker. Nobody can deny these puppies work, though. Zero post partum depression, zero issues with milk supply. That's not something I've been able to say before.

3. This was my first week back in the gym. Muscle memory ROCKS. I'm already starting to get the definition back in my shoulders, arms, and butt. The abdominal area is another story entirely. It's complaining rather loudly that it doesn't know how to do very basic things. I tell it to shut up and grow a pair, and it yells back about nerve damage, blah blah. Then I tune it out and MAKE it do a sit up anyway. I NEED my core if I'm ever going to bench press more than 60 pounds.

4. The Boy has figured out how to ride his bike, thank goodness. Now he has something other than TV he loves. Also, now we can put him on bike, the girls in a stroller and roller blades on our feet and get an actual workout as a family. :D He's pretty speedy.

5. An old guy stopped me at Costco to ask if I had my baby strapped on with a curtain. Pretty much made my day. I love how wearing my babies in wraps seems to completely confound a whole subset of the population. Confounding people, in general, makes me giddy.

6. Cloth diapering is AMAZING. Honestly, it seemed rather overwhelming and kinda gross but it's FUN. I get sad on days I don't I get to wash and hang the diapers. Every three days I'm EXTRA happy because I get to make clean diapers!

7. I finished some coordinating skirts for my girls. Without patterns. Or knowing how to sew. When I get them both in the skirts at the same time, I'll take a picture. Can't promise it will make it's way on to the blog, though. You'll just have to take my word for it that they're super cute.

8. Now CJ, who has been eating pretty much since the crack of dawn and JUST gave me a break, is saying she needs more booby time. Growth spurt, anyone?

The Birth of CJ in Pictures, Part 3

Words fail me. I can not express to you how much being able to hold my daughter immediately  meant and continues to mean to me. Having been denied that most fundamental experience with Zsa Zsa for no reason other than policy, keeping CJ with me from her very first moments has been all the more sweet. It is my hope that all mamas having cesareans be allowed to experience birth this way. I feel this, in conjunction with CJ picking her birthday, led to her being a better nursling. 

The Birth of CJ in Pictures, Part 2

WARNING: Some of these pictures are graphic, and most of them are bloody. If you'd like to skip to part 3 with the non-bloody pictures, go here. 

For the story of CJ's Birth go here.

For the first part of the Story in Pictures, go here.

These are still kinda tough for me to view. I'm glad I have them to anchor me in the moment when I start to think it was worse than it was, but it's still pretty hard to see. The whole event was so monumentally life changing, seeing pictorial proof is a tad overwhelming.

The Birth of CJ in Pictures, Part 1

You have no idea how badly I wish I'd done my hair this day. Or worn something NOT pajama-y. And I wish I'd brought my own, flattering hospital gown. 

Ah well. 

This is real life, not a TV episode. 

For the story, go here

The Week After

This blog is meant, in part, to journal for my family. (It's also supposed to be informative, amusing and bombastic in turns but today it's a journal.) So here's what happened after the very dramatic entrance of CJ.

We stayed in the hospital for the better part of a week. My older kids got passed around quite a bit so Husband could work and save his paid time off for when I'd REALLY need help.

The recovery has been wickedly hard. Harder than an surgery I've had. I'm sure the two liters of blood loss didn't help. (Yes, two liters like a 2L soda pop bottle, two liters. It's a lot.)

We were ready to go home by Sunday afternoon, though. CJ had already regained her birth weight, or come awfully close, I can't remember now. That night we went to family dinner like usual, only this time, there were FIVE of us!

When we got home I noticed CJ's eye was pretty swollen. We called the nurse hotline and decided to watch it. At the 3am feed n' diaper change, it had gotten red and was leaking goopy goo.

Monday morning Husband dropped CJ and I at the doctors without an appointment (something they don't really love but what were they going to do?) and then he took the older kids to his sister-in-law's house for the day.
The doctor was pretty concerned, what with her only being 5 days old and all. He gave us a prescription and told us to come back that afternoon to have it looked at again.

So we went to Costco Pharmacy. I should have waited in the car but instead I wandered around the store with my new baby. When we went back to the doctor, he didn't think her eye was enough improved to watch at home over night so he sent us the children's hospital were CJ was admitted to the NICU for monitoring and IV antibiotics. She got two kinds of IV antibiotics and a topical antibiotic every few hours. The fear was that her eye would turn from periorbital cellulitis into orbital cellulitis or meningitis. We spent two days in NICU (which ended up being overkill of epic proportions) before FINALLY coming home.

My mom had arrived while I was annoying the NICU nurses with requests for discharge papers. She stayed a week and it was LOVELY. I laid around and slept and didn't do my hair and the dishes and laundry still got done and my children were clean and fed and played with. My mom is a marvel and we were so blessed to have her here.

Mom wasn't gone TWO DAYS before The Boy decided that he'd get himself into some powered cement. Now I don't know if you know this about powdered cement, but you really shouldn't put it in your eyes. The Boy wasn't aware of this, or even that it WAS powdered cement. He thought it was sand. Not that you should throw sand either, but my kids still haven't learned that lesson. Two showers and lots of screaming later, his eyes still looked horrid so we called poison control. Yeah. They weren't super thrilled with my kid, either.

After much discussion, we loaded The Boy and my nursling into Kate the Van and I drove to Phoenix Children's ER for evaluation. They washed his eyes out yet again, dyed them a funky orange color and diagnosed him with corneal scratches. Just that took over three hours. Yippee. The Boy was NOT thrilled with the process, even though he got an otter pop and a new toy car out of the deal. I just got another trip to Costco Pharmacy. Frankly, I'm super glad the lye in the cement didn't burn or permanently damage his eyes. Scratches on the cornea we can deal with.

That pretty much catches us up to now. I think everyone is healing or healed. It'll take a few months for me to build back my blood and feel 100%.

CJ has gained one pound one ounce and between one and three inches, depending on whose measurements you believe, since her birth.

I've lost probably close to 30 pounds since the birth and that, my friend, is reason enough for celebration. So I'm going to go break out the chocolate peanut butter ice cream and celebrate.