Baby Benson

Pictures now, story to follow later.

Stats:
7 lbs. 11oz.
20 inches long
May 25, 2011
10:53 AM

Sorry to make you strain your neck on this one.  Forgot to turn it.

Zoe's first Easter egg hunt

It's about throwing up (fair warning!)

So I realized that the last post was a bit of a rant.  Maybe it didn't come across that way, but I remember not being in the best of moods when I was writing it.  That's probably not a good time to be posting things about family life and such.  I recently caught up on some friends' blogs and the challenges they're having with motherhood and with life in general and it totally made me feel like I wasn't alone.

It's only Wednesday and already this week has been a long one.  Our little toaster has finally gotten sick.  She's almost 20 months and this is the first sickness she's had.  Sure, she's had her share of runny noses, but not full on throwing up each meal accompanied with a fever.  It started on Saturday.  When we got her out of bed, I noticed that there was a pool of wet by her pillow.  I thought, "Oh, maybe she was having fun spitting or blowing saliva bubbles while waiting for us to come and get her."  Then we had breakfast.  It wasn't too long after that that breakfast came back up.  We'd had plans to go to a working farm/petting zoo, so we decided to go check that out.  That took us all of 7.3 minutes to do.  There wasn't that much to do there.  We then went over to Sam's to get some groceries.  We have a book that we read to Zoe and on one of the last pages one of the characters is eating some grapes.  Whenever we get to that page, Zoe always makes the sign for grapes, indicating that she wants some.  And I always have to tell her that we don't have any grapes.  At Sam's club that day I decided to get her some grapes so that the next time we read that book and she asked for them, I could cheerily reply, "Oh yes, let's go downstairs and get some grapes."  Zoe could hardly contain herself in the shopping cart and wanted some grapes.  Knowing that she'd given us back her breakfast, I wanted to her to eat.  She chowed down on the grapes and we eventually got back home.  Not too long after, guess what came back?  The grapes.  Oh goodness.  We put her down for a nap and tried to feed her dinner later, but she wasn't all that interested in eating.  And now, a few days and loads of laundry later, I can't remember if she did throw up that night or not.

The following day was Mother's Day (which Ryan totally rocked and made me feel so special!) and we were a little apprehensive about going to church.  We decided that we'd go for at least the first hour and if things were ok, we'd stay for the 2nd and 3rd.  Yes, we go to church for  3 hours.  Zoe was pretty cranky during that first hour so we went home after that.  I decided to go back for the 3rd hour because they were having a special brunch for the moms and ladies in the ward.  On Mother's Days past, we're lucky to get a crumbled cookie or a plant (that I would end up killing), so I knew there was no way I was missing out on a brunch.  Awesome!  Before we ate, there was a little lesson and a lot of the ladies were sharing about the different challenges that we face as moms.  One of those big ones is comparing ourselves to others.  Oh, am I guilty of that.  And it's not like I'm comparing myself to one person in particular.  Oh no, I'm taking the best of what I see in others and creating a whole new person that has only these "best of" qualities and then compare myself to her.  Oh, she makes a home cooked meal every night.  Oh, she sews and makes clothes for her kids.  Oh, her house is so cute and clean and decorated.  Oh, she goes to the gym everyday and looks fabulous and you'd never know that she has 3 kids.  Why do we torture ourselves?  Being a mother in and of itself is hard enough, without all the comparing.  And then not only do we compare ourselves, we compare our kids and think that it reflects on what kind of parenting we do.  A never ending vicious cycle!  I can't say that I will never compare myself to anyone again (although why I'd continue to torture myself is beyond me), but that discussion with those ladies really opened up my eyes to how rewarding and challenging motherhood is.  I love it.  I truly do, but I want to have a sick day once in awhile.

Back to Zoe.  She didn't throw up at all on Sunday or Monday so I thought we were in the clear.  Oh yeah, she did have a fever of 101.3 on Saturday, but that didn't last long and she hasn't had one since.  Tuesday rolls around.  Tuesday morning Zoe scarfed down a bowl of oatmeal in about 4 minutes.  I chalked it up to her being hungry from the previous day (again, she didn't eat much for dinner - she's never been much of an eater) and was more than willing to let her eat more.  About 45 minutes later the soggy Quakers came back up.  Only this time it was tag team action.  We had one barf session, and then about 15 minutes later, it was like a family reunion and all the oats were back together.  Poor little Zoe just stands there and lets it come out and then goes on her merry way.  That's one thing that's so hard for me to understand why she's sick is that if she's not barfing, her demeanor is just like her usual self, for the most part.  She has been a bit more clingy and huggy lately and I gotta admit I kind of like the huggy Zoe.  When she's feeling fine I can hardly get her to give me a hug so it's nice when she does want to snuggle.  She took an early nap on Tuesday and I didn't know what to do with myself.  I tell myself that if I wasn't 39 weeks pregnant that I'd be into some project, but I wonder how truthful that is.  I'm used to her taking her afternoon nap and that's when I'll nap too, but a morning nap from 9-12, I get bored!  I know her little body needs the rest though.  So, she got up eventually and I fed her something for lunch.  Or at least tried to feed her something.  There's only so much you can do to get a toddler to eat.  Now,  had I offered her licorice, jelly beans and ice cream, she totally would have taken it all down, but that's not the kind of stuff I want to give a little sickie.  Whatever I did feed her for lunch came back up and she napped later in the day.  This time I was ready for my nap too.  Ryan got home and we had dinner and I think Zoe just had some cold cereal sans the milk, oh, and some pineapple.  That's right, because later as we were sitting on our back porch enjoying the evening, that came back up too.  At least the pineapple did.  That was an easy clean up job with the hose, thankfully.  It wasn't long before she had a bath and we put her to bed.  Thankfully she has been sleeping through the night.  We've still been having wet diapers too so there is some fluid getting through her.

Ok, so I thought, "Hmmm.... Saturday barf day, Sunday and Monday no barf.  Tuesday barf day, Wednesday and Thursday no barf." If only.... I did finally get smart and put out a huge blanket in our living room (where we've been spending  A LOT of our time lately) and it paid off today.  We're renting and I'm getting tired of cleaning up barf from the carpet.  I kept Zoe to a strict BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) diet today and still it wasn't staying down.  She had waffles for breakfast (the BRAT diet started later) and most of that stayed down.  She ended up throwing up while I was in the shower - no fun! - for her or me!, but I was happy to see that it wasn't her entire meal (it'd been at least 2 hours) and thought that her body had to get some nourishment from the "wa-wa!" (please watch the video on the previous post).  My best friend Alicia came over a little bit later (she brought flowers!  so sweet!) and kept me company and even watched the lil' toaster while I ran to the store.  I've been having some cabin fever lately!  I can't imagine why.  Anyway, she put Zoe down for a nap before I even got home and cleaned up my house too.  What an angel.  We had lunch and then she took off and I took a nap.  After Zoe got up we came downstairs and she started munching on crackers and bananas.  I figured crackers can count as toast since she's not a huge toast fan.  She was drinking her watered down juice like mad too.  I thought things were looking up.  Oh no, things were getting ready to come up.  And come up they did.  I don't care if I get messy in the whole process.  It doesn't bother me.  I just don't want her to get freaked out by what's going on and I know a lot of how she handles the throwing up is reflective of how I respond to it.  I just try to speak warmly to her and reassure her that everything is ok.  She got it all out and then we both got out of our cracker/bananified clothes and got a pile of laundry ready.  I decided to just let her go in her diaper the rest of the evening.  If only I had that same luxury.  I'd been keeping Ryan up to date on our day and so he got home from work as soon as he could.  Poor guy though was feeling achey and yucky himself.  The Nickels are just not the family to envy right now.  I am going to try to get Zoe to a doctor tomorrow.  Trouble is that we're kind of in between insurances right now so I have to go to a walk in clinic tomorrow and my fear is that the doctor is going to just tell me to monitor her and give her fluids.  That's what I've been doing since Saturday.  I would like to figure out what's going on so I'm crossing my fingers 1) that I'll even be able to get in and see the doctor and 2) that s/he will be patient as I tell them my story.  Maybe I should just print this up and let him/her read it.

Wow, that was a long post about throwing up.

In other news, I haven't had the baby yet and I'm grateful.  This would be such a hard thing to go through right now with a newborn.  He can stay in the oven and bake for another week as far as I'm concerned.  As long as he's born healthy, that's all I care about.  I would love for Zoe to be healthy too when we bring him home.  

And for the record, Daddy read Zoe the books with the grapes tonight and she asked for them.  Too bad it's not a GBRAT diet we're following.  She was denied the grapes.  Oh cruel world.

Ready or not

I'm trying to be ready this time.  I am 17, almost 16 days away from Benson's due date.  For me, a due date is just a rough ballpark date of when the baby MIGHT come.  They follow their own time table and will come when they're good and ready.  It makes me laugh when I hear moms proudly talk about how their babies came right on their due date, like the baby knew the due date or something.  When I was pregnant with Zoe, my water broke the night after both a baby shower and a chili cook-off at church.  I was wondering if that might happen with Benson, yet I have survived both activities, this time on different days, and nothing to show, baby wise, except this bowling ball attached to the front of my torso.  Zoe came 10 days early, by the way, and I'm kind of hoping that same thing with Benson.

In my efforts to be "ready" this time, I've done a lot of organizing and planning.  I was wondering earlier today, if I wasn't pregnant, if I'd be as gung-ho to get organized and well planned.  I doubt it.  But I'm glad I'm able to get these things done.  We're winding up our unpacking and there's only about 5-6 boxes left to unpack, but if they go unpacked for a little while longer, I'll be ok with that.

This pregnancy has been a bit easier than my pregnancy with Zoe and I think that has to do with the fact that I'm not whale-ishly pregnant through the heat and CA summers.  I haven't had as bad of swelling, and it's funny that even though I've got a little toddler to chase around and keep from writing on the walls, I feel like I still have a good amount of energy.  At this point, I get a lot of, "Is there anything I can do for you?" questions.  Several things come to mind such as, "Oh yeah, can you clean my shower and do my cooking and get my bills paid?"  But honestly, there are only one or two people that I would honestly ask that of and I think it'd only be family.  I know people are trying to be nice and compassionate, but I don't think anyone really expects to be asked to help like that.  I wish there was a way that I could bank up my sleep so that after Benson does come I could tap into that sleep.  It's funny how with new moms, everyone says, "Oh, you better get sleep while you can because after the baby comes you won't be getting much."  Seriously?  Getting sleep now isn't going to help after the baby comes.  It'll only make you long for more sleep.  

My friends threw me a terrific baby shower last week.  When I was asked what I wanted (we didn't register this time around - what's the point?), I was really at a loss for an answer.  I'm not one to have a themed baby's room nor am I too proud to put my lil' man in a pink bumbo seat (when the time comes).  It really just came down to clothes.  Clothes and diapers for the first month or two.  We do plan on cloth diapering with Benson and I just hope that Zoe is done with her current stash of diapers by the time Benson is big enough to wear them.  We're not even thinking of potty training right now.  I think we've got plenty of other things on our plate(s).

I don't have any fun stories to share on this post... I'm just rambling really.  Ryan continues to enjoy his job and that makes me happy.  I love having a husband that comes home happy.  Zoe is learning things so quickly.  She probably knows 1/3 of the alphabet letters and is definitely in imitation mode.  She's picking up a lot of words and signs and continues to amaze me.

Back to Benson (see, this post isn't even well organized!).  I'm wondering how I'll know when he's ready.  Zoe was pretty easy - my water broke at 2:30 AM.  Granted, she didn't come for another 26 hours, but still, there was no doubting that she was on her way.  My younger sister had a week of contractions before her son came.  I don't want to go through that.  I'm trying to be sensitive to my body and not do too much straining.  I'm hoping that my water will break with him too so that I don't have to wonder and/or pay attention to contractions.  

I've kind of given up on going to the gym.  I've noticed that on the mornings that I walk on the treadmill, my ankles tend to be more swollen in the evening.  And on the days that I don't walk, it doesn't feel like much of a work out.  I think sleeping is more important right now.  It's hard for Ryan though, I think, to be the sole gym goer right now.  Bless his heart, he comes home from the gym at 6 and I'm still in bed.  He sure is an example of diligence to me.

Yeah, so this post is all over the place, thought wise.  It might be awhile before I post again.  I kind of like just doing the pictures and video thing.  I do have some Easter pics and video to get up so you might see some of that soon.  Wish me luck!