Learning On The Job

Nobody can really prepare you for being a mom. They try, and I appreciate all the advice and tips, but some things you have to learn on the job. Being a mom is one of them.

Things I have learned since we have been blessed with such a perfect baby:

-Babies go through insane amount of diapers in the first bit. INSANE.

-Dinners being brought to you the first week post-baby are lifesavers.

-Episiotomies suck. Period. Not sure which pain was worse, childbirth or healing from the episiotomy.

-I love this lil man.

-There are so many types of soothers and so many differing opinions on when or even whether or not to give your kid a soother (we caved after 2 weeks and he still nurses fine)

-Nursing hurts- Brock is a trooper and does his best but man it hurt. I would have to spend 10 minutes each time talking myself into it before latching him. Thank goodness it's great now.

-White noise really helps calm a fussy baby.

-I can do surprisingly well on 5 hrs sleep: I don't mind waking up as long as he goes back to sleep after. It's when he won't go back to bed after nursing that I lose my marbles; it's only happened alot three nights and they were dark nights.

-I don't nap well during the day so the whole "sleep when he sleeps" is no help.

-Shawn naps really well anytime.

-There are soooo many reasons a baby can be crying.

-Babies grow sooo fast! How is Brock 12 lbs already?

-Shawn and I adjusted really well to having a baby.

-Muslin blankets are a MUST in summer.
-If you choose not to circumcise your baby, don't attempt to pull back the foreskin. It doesn't retract and won't for years. Who knew?

-Heat rash happens. And it's not whooping cough. (I say this because I was bawling one day thinking he had the onset of whooping cough. Lil paranoid. His 'fever' was from the heat and he got heat rash)

-Google is a mom`s best friend.

-Swings are a close second. LOVE my swing.

-Volunteering in an orphange was a bit help to me. After having 15 screaming and crying kids, having ONE screaming or crying kid is sooo much easier. Unless it`s the middle of the night and he won`t go back to bed. Marbles lost.

-Baby faces have sooo much expression.

-Buy clothes on kijiji. They grow so fast that it`s pointless to spend $15 on an outfit he will wear once.

-A bassinet is a must. Can`t imagine having him in a crib right away. Maybe the next one.

-Time goes by so fast.

-`Happiest Baby on the Block` is a great book.

-Nursing pillows: fantastic.

-Paranoia increases once your baby is born.
-Nothing better than having your baby fall asleep on your chest while laying down... Heaven.

-I absolutely, completely am so happy to be a mom and just love my lil family so much.

-Utilize your family and friends. Having someone come visit for two hours and hold Brock so I could shower or clean or just lay down and rest my back have been life-savers.

-New babies are extremely portable! If they have been fed, changed, etc. they are quite content to follow you whereever you wanna go.

-Everybody loves babies. If you wanna make friends from strangers. Have a baby.

-Breastfeeding burns A LOT of calories. Thanks for burning all my fudgicle calories!

-I am one of those moms that think their kid is the cutest, smartest, best, sweetest, etc baby ever (because he is) and will be taking thousands of photos to prove it.

See why I think Brock is the cutest thing ever

I still have A LOT to learn and am so thankful they start out so basic. But I think we are doing pretty good and honestly I am just so smitten with Brock that it makes it worth it to be perpetually sleep deprived. Love him. Love Shawn. Love my family and friends.

I am so blessed.

Brock's Baby Blessing

Despite some stress planning the blessing/ getting the families together and the threat of rain, Brock's baby blessing went so lovely. Having to juggle many different schedules we decided to hold it July 1st at 5 p.m, instead of at church, so we could accomodate the most people coming and we ended up having quite a few people over.

We were just thrilled to have so many friends and family make time in their busy lives to come. We had family come from Arizona, Washington, Oregon and B.C. and we were just so greatful and excited to see them all. The whole thing turned out near perfect and we couldn't have pulled it off without the help from the women on both sides of the family. Thanks to all our family and friends who ended up being able to make it!
xoxo

The whole crew...
I love having a backyard that's plenty big enough to have a crew this big roam around.
We just loved having Shawn's family up and my family visit. Tamara, my sister, drove up
from Portland for less then 24 hrs just to be there!

Family shot!

The lil man of the hour!
What a gassy lil man he is too, Shawn said that the whole
time Brock was getting blessed he was letting out one toot
after another... Ha ha

Beautiful Baby Brock

First off, let me explain the lack of posts lately.
a) having a newborn
b) computer dying 3 days before Brock was born, can't upload pictures on an iPad and typing is much too much effort on one
c) family visits and vacations
If it was just one, maybe I could have soldiered on but all three combined are kinda the perfect storm to prevent blogging.

But my mum has lent me her computer for a bit so I am back and soooo behind!

Let's start with the fun stuff. When I was 40 weeks pregnant a co-worker forwarded me a casting call for newborns. Shauna McColl Photography was wanting newborns 10 days or less to be models and in return she would do a free photoshoot and luck had it that Brock was born in the perfect time frame and Brock got his first experience of a photo shoot (I already have family pictures booked for October). Shauna was sooooo amazing with Brock, you could just tell that she had extensive experience with babies and she just loooooves them. Brock was a lil turkey during the 4 hr shoot and decided that this was the four hours he would fight to stay awake despite sleeping the majority of other times but thanks to Shauna's patience and talent we got some adorable pictures!

One of my favs. So sweet and precious...
She tried to have him have both hands on his stomach but our lil boy likes
sleeping with his hand on his face and he wouldn't put it down.
After 40 minutes, she gave up and I love the result.

I just love this one! We found this old school Tonka truck at a garage sale
and I just loved the idea of this photo and luckily Shauna agreed and it
turned out sooooo awesome. LOVE.

I love this photo just because it shows his lil personality
when he wakes up he raises his arms up and stretches, every
time! It's adorable!

In the end, I just love them and can't wait to put some up on our walls!

We have a cute lil guy and what can I say? I am sooo in love with him and a lil obsessed with him and all his lil quirks.

And thanks so much Shauna!

Game Changer

I was so sure that I would go until Friday June 15th that when I woke up in the early morning June 13th with sporadic contractions, I was convinced they were Braxton Hicks. I got up at 4 am, had a bath to help with the contractions and then went back to bed after only having two the whole hour I was in there. Shawn didn't really want to go to work but I was convince this was nothing so I sent him on his way and I tried to go back to bed.

Oops.

By 6:30 am I started to suspect that this might be labor.

By 8 am I was pretty sure this was labor, but maybe just the beginning. I was having contractions every 3-8 minutes while trying to pack a hospital bag (did pretty good for not really paying attention due to contractions) so I had my sister-in-law drive me halfway to meet my

9:30 am I was at the hospital still not 100% sure I was in legit full  labor, so I told Shawn not to leave work until I knew. I just knew that I did not want to miss getting an epidural so I wanted to get checked out just in case. My doctor then showed up, checked me, said I was 4 cm dilated and then "POP"! He decided he might as well break my water since he was down there to get the ball rolling.

All righty then... time to call Shawn.

The whole next 5 hrs when by smoothly. I got an epidural right away, and Shawn and I just hung out till I was ready to push. May I just mention how much I loooove epidurals? Just like that the pain is gone and you are able to relax and wait to push. It did end up wearing off a bit but man it was still great.

Feeling great thanks to Mr. Epidural

The problem came when after 2 hrs of pushing, I hadn't felt the baby move at all. Turns out the lil turkey had his head tilted a great way to make it harder to get him out. I kept asking my nurse if he had moved much and she kept saying "a lil bit" with the expression on her face that let you know that he really hadn't moved that much at all. At 2.5 hrs my doctor offered to use forceps but they made me nervous so I opted for oxytocin instead but by 3 hrs I was so beat I was begging for the forceps. Dr Davey showed up 10 minutes later, did some magic with the forceps and after blacking out for a lil bit from the pain we had a beautiful bouncing baby boy with the BIGGEST hands and feet you've ever. The first two things I thought was: "Good he's breathing", "how many fingers and toes does he have, his hands are HUGE!". He was sooooo swollen at first, poor lil guy went through just as much as I did but bless Dr. Davey's heart, Brock did not have a mark on his face two hours later from the forceps.

3.25 hrs and one forcep delivery later, Brock's head still looked mighty fine

Big baby with a big head- 37 cm

Proud new daddy; he admitted later once Brock's swelling came down
that he thought he was funny looking at first!

I look rough, feel rough but man this kid is cute!

Grandma was chomping at the bit to meet him..

Yep, no restful visit for Aunt Chelsey!
She was working when we came to her floor...
She did the checks and initial baby bath.

My step-dad checking out his new grand-son

Grandparents take 2

Heston checking out his new cousin

First (rough) family photo

Dr. Davey: wouldn't trust any other Dr. to take forceps to my baby's head..

Random Bits

So today I am 40 weeks and 3 days pregnant. No baby yet and Shawn is not pleased. I just tell him that the fact that he's late proves that he Is half my kid. It's a lifelong curse, I am always late! Plus i told this poor kid to please, oh please, dont come early that he may just be playing it safe by hanging out in there a few more days. I can wait. Late last night I started having my first Braxton Hicks and they were very mild, just uncomfortable so maybe that's my body finally getting ready for the first time because until now I was so set against him coming until we were in our house. Chandra stopped by this morning with some raspberry leaf tea saying it helps prepare you for labor and can get it kicked off, well, you should have seen Shawn when he came home. It was like a kid on Christmas morning, he brewed me a cup as soon as I would let him and literally stared and harassed me the whole time until I drank it all. I was seriously about to smack him but his excitement is so cute I just not-so-quietly drank my nasty tea. Raspberry leaf tea SOUNDS good but apparently it's all leaf and no raspberry cause man it's nasty and no taste of raspberry at all. But I am really not a tea person so I may be biased. Before Chandra's visit I was quietly enjoying my breakfast on the living room couch when BAM! something was thrown against our big living room window. Startled the begeebers out of my until I saw feathers flying. Yep, a bird komakozied himself straight into our window. The poor lil robin was beyond saving and I felt so bad. When Chandra stopped by she pointed out an old bundle of feathers. Apparently this was not the first time a bird made that mistake. Well bets are being excepted when I will pop. My money is on Friday! Dunno why but it just seems like a good day to me! Whenever he comes we are gonna be so happy to meet him, especially his dad. Xoxo

Officially Moved In

Well, it's official.

The boxes that are gonna be unpacked are unpacked. The rest of them are piled in the corner to be carried downstairs tomorrow.

Today was the first FULL day we spent in Taber. We did have a dinner date but we postponed it till tomorrow so we could enjoy our first full day as legit citizens of Taber only 9 months after we bought the house, 7 months after going to church in Taber and 1 day before my due date. Whew. Chelsey isn't quite sure what to do with all the space in her house and fridge now.

But we are finally in our house. It was a great day today.

Much to Shawn's and Chandra's chagrin, no baby came today but not to lack of trying on Shawn's part. He even took me out for spicy chinese food to try and get the ball rolling. No dice.

But after dinner we just had a good evening walk down at the Taber campsite. It's lovely really. The river curves right by the lil coulees and there's a couple trails to kill some time walking around with.

So we hunted for frogs. Perhaps our newborn baby would want one as a pet

Climbed up the coulees

Then Shawn found a fun hobby for the evening

Throwing rocks at the deer down below to scare them off

He said he couldn't wait to have a couple boys to bring them up here and 

throw rocks with them haha

Previously mentioned deer... Wasn't quite so smart, or wasn't 

too scared of flying rocks

A legit smile on Shawn's face for a picture!

A rarity indeed

Just gotta catch him when he's in the middle of scaring deer

by throwing rocks. 

Shawn finding a piece of Arizona here in southern Alberta.

Wee lil cactus. 

I think I am gonna really like Taber.

At Least I Saved Money?

I figured before the baby comes I should get my hair cut and I thought I might as well save some money since I just get trims so I went to the Lethbridge Hair School.

Bad move.

On the upside: I did save money, my haircut cost only $8

On the downside: When I asked for MAX an inch off with long soft layers I got 4 inches off with choppy layers, bad choppy layers. It looks unbalanced and BAD and that's after the instructor came and tried to fix it too.

It's not a big deal, my hair grows fast and I am sure my hair will be in a ponytail a lot the next month but still it's always sad to see your hair get butchered and you try and intervene and it just gets worse... Eep. 

On the other upside: at least a lot of my dead ends were eliminated during the sacrifice of my hair length. 

Last time I went to the hair school I came out satisfied but not so much yesterday, but what was I really expecting? They are students, can't blame her too much. She's only half through her schooling. Gotta learn somehow.  

Funny thing is, I was mortified until I saw Shawn and he didn't notice a difference haha

Gotta love guys: me freaking out and he sees no change until I pointed it out but if he can't tell then it can't be so bad since he's the guy I'm trying to look good for. Or maybe it's proof that guys can be very unobservant(: