Post #2 today-

A bit more awake.  I still haven't found my stoppers, but then again I haven't done much of anything yet today.  I have plans to start working on getting my bedroom organized since it's a disaster zone right now and I trip over everything in the middle of the night trying to move to feed the baby.  BUT- in my head I have lots of plans for lots of things now that I've got this baby out of me.

Our Summer Projects:

• The Outdoors: 
• Open up the bottom of the deck.  (It's currently a mosquito breeding ground.)
• Powerwash EVERYTHING.
• Get a new patio table (the one we have is tiny tiny.  Need a longer one.)
• Empty the front beds and put new stuff in there.
• Upstairs: 
• Paint Mike's office.  (It's painted chocolate chip mint green right now... it needs to be a manly color.  Or at least not -that- color.)
• Paint our bedroom.
• Get new bedroom furniture.  
• Downstairs: 
• Work on Madison's room.  
• Get new fridge.
• Redo dining room wall (Take pics down, spackle, repaint, put up a mirror)
• Get new living room furniture.
• Basement
• Get ORGANIZED.  (Madison's toys are everywhere.  It pains me to even go down there and look at it at the moment.)

That's the majority if the things I plan on accomplishing in the next... 2-3 months.  ... that's a lot of stuff.  I had a pretty stagnant few months though of doing little to nothing, so now I'm determined to be comfortable.  And- my hubby doesn't know, but I plan on starting the painting in my bedroom sometime this weekend.  ... and maybe even getting our new bed.  Our bed now is on the uneven side... metal base.  And when you walk, every once in awhile when you're not looking your leg will SLAM into the metal bar that sticks out from the bed and you get a big bruise.  Good stuff.  Good stuff.  Our mattress also dips down into the center, so Mike and I can't lie on the edges of the bed because we just roll down.  Hah.

Anyway.  If anything this list is more for me to remember what I wanted to accomplish since I'm sure I'll forget something down the line.  

Lily is doing alright.  She's got a clogged tear duct, but we got eyedrops for it.  It was getting infected, but the eyedrops are helping.  Her belly button was getting infected too, but the doctor fixed that up too.  She had a real bath today and did very well.

Madison's bored out of her skull today.  The weather isn't good at all, so we're just sitting here watching a movie.  It'll be even better when the one thing we do do today is go to the dentist.  She's not going to be appreciating the teeth cleaning.

And me... I'm a girl with lots of hopes and dreams, too tired to stand up from her sofa.  I've got a dream- I've got a dream- just to get my room so neat and clean~ !

... I'll do it later.

Frustration.

Despite the fact that it's 8am and I have myself and two children ready to leave the house, life is still frustrating for me at the moment.  I go into my kitchen, open my cabinets... and NOTHING is where it's supposed to be.  I love my husband and love the fact he was so helpful while I was in pain and did the laundry and the dishes.  It's just awful when nothing is in the right spot.

We got avent bottles for the baby.  They have little round stoppers that go up in the nipple to prevent them from leaking.  Six bottles.  Two we haven't used yet.  You use the bottle, the stopper is in there already.  Four washed bottles.  ONE STOPPER LEFT.  Three stoppers?  Gone.  Just gone.  Not in the dishwasher.  Not in the cabinets.  Not in the drawers.  Where.  Are.  My.  Stoppers?  I mean, yeah I can understand one being gone.  But 3/4 gone?  How does that happen?  Granted, I can buy new stoppers, but the damn stoppers are 3/$6.  The baby is two weeks old.  In two weeks we've somehow lost three stoppers.  And I mean, I put the stoppers in the sink with the bottles.  Where do they go?

And now it just occured to me during my rant about bottle stoppers that in my mass pile of laundry, I must attempt to find Madison a matching pair of socks.  I thought I was doing so well this morning...

Things I forgot about...

So, I'm feeding the baby and all of the sudden I glance at her belly button.  Her stump is gone!  ... it looks weird.  I mean, of course we cleaned it the best we could without pulling it off, but it's still got dried blood and what not around it when it comes off.  So- what do I do?  I get so dizzy that I can't even think of breast feeding her anymore (the idea of the initial latch was too painful at the moment).  I had to do a bottle.  I don't remember getting dizzy when I saw Madison's.  Maybe I'm just having an off day.  Maybe I need some protein.  A carnation instant breakfast drink is in my near future.

So, today is Easter and my amazing sister's birthday.  I am looking forward to doing my hair, putting on makeup, looking like a real girl again to go out to her house to have a little party.  I've actually lost over 25 pounds so far, so it feels fantastic to have most of my clothing be big on me.  That's a lot for just over a week.  At the beginning of my pregnancy when I was throwing up, I somehow gained 15 pounds.  My doctor said it was water weight from hormones that would just shed off after I had the baby.  Well, it's shedding and I'm not feeling slim yet, but I'm feeling MUCH better in my own skin.

I'm very upset that I didn't wake up this morning with Madison to watch her look for eggs.  The baby was up about... every 45 minutes last night to eat.  Mike let me sleep.  I guess I should be thankful since come Wednesday I won't really be able to sleep in anymore.  I was looking forward to taking Madison to school on Tuesday, but I think I might take advantage of being able to sleep in one last day and bring her on Wednesday.  Mike goes back to work.  I have no idea how I'll handle life with two children without him here, but I'm sure I'll manage.

Anyway- enough procrastination.  I have to get ready, make deviled eggs, bake brownies... and I've got 2 1/2 hours to do it all.  I'm sure I'll finish, but I haven't been all that productive since before Lily was born, haha.

My girls are perfect- others not so much.

Madison had her first session back at OT in the past two weeks and she was so excited to see Miss Alyssa.  Mike took her for the first time so he finally got to see the kinds of activities they work on with her and got some good pointers about what we can do at home to help her.  I usually get pointers too, but a lot of the time we end up talking about things like houses, engagements and babies, haha.  I guess girltalk takes over a lot of the time.  I'm going to be sad though when we don't go there anymore.  I was getting annoyed at the end of my pregnancy going there every week, but now that I'm not waddling I'd be much more tolerant.

Lily went to the doctor's today too.  The bad news is, she has a clogged tear duct.  The remedy for this is massaging it for 30 seconds a day and wiping some gook off of her eye every once in awhile.  The good news is that her jaundice is going away and I can continue to breast feed her!  This is good since it seems today breast feeding went much better and she's not ripping me apart anymore.

It seems that ever since Lily was born, and the more time I spend with her, Madison seems gigantic.  Mike was saying it's time for her to go out and get a job.  I'm of the mindset that she should at least be able to learn how to read first.  But really, her whole form is just so solid compared to the baby's.  Something like the way she feels in my arms has changed in the past week.  It's kind of bizarre.

I decided to invest in some new nursing tanks today.  I'm a fan of the nursing tank over the nursing bra mainly because when I lift my shirt up to breastfeed, I'm not exposing my stomach.  The tank has panels in it that let me whip one out and start to feed with little to no hassle.  The only annoying part about this is that like a sportsbra, the nursing tank has little ability to seperate the breasts so I always have one uniboob.  I bought two regular nursing bras though for outfits that require a certain look.

Anyway- on a different note... I'm going to rant for a little bit here.  I recently (this morning) dealt with a crazy person.  Do I love babies?  Of course I do.  Do I want to hug and kiss and love strangers babies just because they're so damn cute?  Of course.  Don't we all?  Now... since I've had major surgery, I've hardly had any visitors at my house that aren't related by blood like my mother, sister & crew, Mike's parents.  It was hard enough to get out of bed, let alone make myself look presentable to entertain company.  My closest friends that I talk to on a daily basis have only seen me once, let alone people that I was friends with for a few months back in freshman year of college.  Now, the girl was nice enough, but unfortunately for her she got in touch with me during a time in my life where I wasn't really open to making new friends.  I was eight months pregnant, nine months pregnant, tired, cranky, running around after a three year old, nesting like a madwoman, hormonal as hell.  I didn't want to go out or really do much entertaining in my house.  When someone you don't know that well comes over, you tend to feel you need to do more for them.  If my closest friends see me without a bra, I don't care.  I know them well enough to feel confident that they don't care if my breasts are down to my belly button.  Would she have cared?  Maybe not.  But it's also about feeling good about yourself and not wanting people to see you in a certain way.  In addition to this, she started facebook stalking me, calling me out if something I said slightly contradicted something I told her, friending my friends, friending their friends, asking my friends that she never had met to call her to chat on the phone in the middle of the night.  I tried hard to keep an open mind, hoping that maybe she was just anxious to make new friends and not crazy, invited her over a few times all of which she happened to be busy for.  Well, back to being home from the hospital.  She keeps asking me if I want company.  During the day, honestly... no.  I don't want company.  I'm half asleep, I'm a mess, I'm recovering from a major surgery which feels worst in the morning after being still all night and drugs wearing off.  Today she goes, "Want to hang out?"  I tell her that I need to bring both girls to doctor appointments (Madison had to go to OT, Lily to her pediatrician).  She answers me with a drama bomb, "I get it you don't want to be friends."  Normally I'd try and be nice and argue that that wasn't the case, that things are crazy right now, I had a particularly busy day scheduled, but I had a baby on my boob so I just told her I wasn't going to argue. I had major surgery a week ago, I have a new baby at home, I'm sorry that I didn't try harder to not hurt her feelings?  She continues to tell me I'm white trash, I live in a barn, I'm a c*** and I should piss off and lose her number.  Well, for how terrible I am she sure did go through great lengths to try and hang out with me.  I said good luck dealing with her crazy.  I mean, not once did she ever really say "congratulations on the new baby."  I posted a picture up on facebook and she says "I want to come over."  I get it, you want to come over.  I'll invite you over when I'm ready for company.  I really don't feel like exposing people I haven't really been great friends with in the past 8 years to my messy living room filled with laundry I have yet to fold, my boobs hanging out all the time, etc.  Am I being a bitch here?  I don't think I am.  I do feel bad though that it feels like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.  I admittedly had been annoyed with her over the little things, but today just proved that I wasn't wrong.  I tend to try and see the better in people and ignore the stuff that points to "CRAZY," in the end bring me much drama and heartache.  Even now after being called a white trash c*** I still feel bad that she was under the impression that I didn't want to be friends at all.  I mean, you can ask people.  I kept saying  I felt terrible that I hadn't put time aside to build on the friendship yet- I just wasn't in a time of my life to want to work at it, especially with all of the little things that flashed the warning sign.  I don't know why I'm writing this rant about it though.  This is just one of those things you keep thinking about for days if you don't talk about it.  I forgot how therapeutic blogging could be.

Well- there's a beetle in my house that needs to be let out of my house so Madison comes out from hiding under blankets scared of it.  I also need to figure out what to do about the ladybugs in my house.  I've been finding baby ladybugs all over the place.  They're going to grow up and infest my house.  Ladybugs are great and pretty on branches outside, but invading my home, dying all over my stuff?  No thanks.

1am.

I should be sleeping, but with all of the things added to my day, I like to take this time where both of my children sleep soundly to do something for myself.  Read webcomics, check my facebook and have a conversation with my husband that doesn't include the words, "my nipples are falling off" or "ooh she pooped again."  I have a huge pile of laundry and a pile of hangers next to me that looks like it might come alive and eat us whole, but I think I'll get to it tomorrow.

Lily's jaundice isn't really going away.  I've been worried, but we're going back to the doctor tomorrow to see what to do about it.  The fact that she was awake a lot more today was very uplifting.  Mike set up her little floor gym thing and she stared at the mobile on it like it was the coolest thing in the world when the lights and music were going.  She's been feeding well (for her, not so much for me- hah) and pooping... a lot.  I think she's getting better.  I may ask to get the blood tests done anyway though just to get a solid answer on how to proceed.  

I was reading another blog today about how someone's 2 year old was speaking so wonderfully in full sentences that were amazing beyond belief.  And in spanish no less when I'm sure the child can speak english too.  It really  makes me wonder what it's like to have a "normal" child who hits all of their developmental benchmarks at the appropriate time.  The struggle we've gone through with Madison to get her on the right track with her speech and her sensory issues has been a rollercoaster.  And we see improvement with her, but she's still not quite there yet.  I know how she struggles from living with it myself.  I just hope all of the extra help we get her actually helps and she has a much better experience with her education than I had growing up.   It also makes me wonder how Lily is going to turn out, if she'll be in the same boat.  She's lucky her father didn't have these problems.  She has a chance.  It makes me feel terrible for Madison, like I messed her up.  She's a little mini-me.  I suppose though I couldn't help who I was, and she can't help who she is.  We'll just do the best we can.

Ugh, just had a coughing fit and my incision is killing me now.  I've been feeling fine for the most part, even walked around babies r us for a bit today, but in the car on the way home I did something as simple as sneezing and was reminded that I had major surgery under a week ago.  There are pros and cons to c-sections, but I'm not sure what I would have rather done.  I must say though, as much as I hurt now, Lily does have a beautifully shaped perfect little head.  Her pediatrician raves about it, haha. Unfortunately though, I'm not moving from this sofa until my advil kicks in and I can walk.  ... which makes me want to write more, but I don't really have much else to say on this fine evening.  

And baby makes four.

Here the four of us in the hospital.  And now we're home!

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we have more than one child now.  I mean, it's an easy concept.  There was one, now there are two.  It's just different.  I like it!

I keep trying to talk to Madison more.  I keep finding myself asking her, "Are you ok?"  "Do you like your sister?"  I'm afraid that eventually she's going to tell me something like, "Mom, you're neglecting me." or, "You like the baby more than you like me."  Both statements aren't true, but I do have to spend lots of time with the baby to feed her and whatnot.  Part of the reason I didn't want to breastfeed this time around, but I am anyway.  I can buy lots of toys with the money we'd save, hah.  It would be nice to split up that responsibility though.

Right now the baby is all Jaundice-y.  Apparently the baby doesn't like my blood type, so she's actually resisting my milk.  I'm still breast feeding, but we're also supplementing with formula too.  I suppose we'll find out on Monday where we go from here after we take her to the doctor's.

It's late- she was just fed and is now cleaned up and in her cradle.  I'm off to bed.  Best thing to do when she'll be waking me up in... 2-3 hours.  Ugh.

My last Dr. Appointment

So while I wait in the doctor's office I think, "Yes! My last appointment before I pop out a baby!" last night though, Mike goes, "This is the last Thursday you'll be pregnant ever." Then the baby started to kick as did my hormones and I got all upset. I can see why women have lots of babies. There I was, STILL pregnant (and trust me this pregnancy has been awful) and I already wanted to have yet another baby. I understand fully that this sounds crazy. This is why I sit and look at birth control pamphlets while writing this blog entry.

I've been in a nesting stage for... Weeks. Too damn tired to actually do the work though. I think doing my basement sucked the life out of me for the rest of the pregnancy. Doing what I can here and there. Mike's last day of work is today for over 2 weeks. We'll see how much cleaning he gets done though with Madison going "DADDY DADDY DADDY!!!"

Mmmm... Not much else to say. Madison is doing really well recently. I worry that in the end she's not going to want the baby around, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

*Notes added upon getting home-

I should note that this picture I linked here is a picture of Madison on April Fool's Day. They had to wear silly clothes to school, and so this is what she picked out. I have a feeling that this is what she'll be wearing to school next week when I'm not home to dress her in the morning. I'm going to have to pick out outfits in advance...