Thankful

I wanted to blog this yesterday, but I was so tired last night when I got home I went to bed!!!

Yesterday, Dave took out our nephews Hayden and Porter to go salmon fishing. They weren't having much luck at one area, so they went to another (very muddy) area. As they were going down, Dave realized he had his polarized prescription sunglasses in the truck, so he quickly ran back up to trade them out. After a while, they got home, and Dave realized he couldn't find his glasses anywhere. He cleaned out the entire truck and still could not find them. We said a prayer, and Dave asked Heavenly Father to have Lacy help us find his glasses.

We drove out to the area that Dave went fishing and he looked on the ground for about 10 minutes and no luck. We got out of there, disappointed we didn't find his glasses, and Lacy said, "There are your glasses, Dad!" and she pointed over in Dave's general direction. "Honey, these aren't the glasses I was looking for." "No, Dad, up there!" Oh, the visor! Dave checked, and sure enough there were the glasses! We couldn't believe it! Heavenly Father allowed our 3 year old to find Dave's glasses. We gave a prayer of thanks and went off to dinner.

At my mom's house, Rose said "play" to Kurt's girlfriend Jackie. Then later, one of the girls was crying (Marilyn? Regan? Not Lacy is all I know) and Rose walked out of the living room and said, "She's crying." !!!!!!!!! Her first sentence! That I know of anyway.

My sister Leslie was negotiating on the phone yesterday for a house. In the middle of all this, my friend Emily gives me a call, saying that they're heading in to the hospital soon to have a baby. She was almost 41 weeks, so she was relieved to finally be in labor. I needed to take her daughter Wynnie for the night. After about 15 minutes, we packed up the kids and met them at the hospital. She was very clearly in labor, probably transition. We got Wynnie and left, put three kids to bed, and got a phone call around 9:20, letting us know she had the baby! She was checked when she got there and was 7 cm already, so she decided to go without an epidural. At 8:54, Esme made her way into the world weighing 8 lb on the nose and was 21 inches long. I haven't talked to Emily yet, but mother and baby apparently are just fine. I'll probably take the kids to the hospital sometime today, see if I can drop of Wynnie if someone else is there. I'm very excited for Emily, and for Leslie who made a deal on her new house! YEA!!!

Sick Kids

Both girls are sick. It started late Saturday night (I blogged about it earlier this week) and it's still going on. I'm just glad I didn't take the girls to storytime today! Lacy projectile vomited in the kitchen last night at dinner, and tonight Rose projectile vomited on me, the floor, and herself, requiring an immediate and unpleasant cleanup, including a bathtub sentence of 10 minutes while I cleaned up the living room. Unfortunately Dave was not home as he is working swing shift this week, so I was all by my lonesome cleaning up her mess.

I am just glad I had ice cream on hand. Tonight, I definitely deserved it. I found a half eaten banana (from today, I swear!) and made myself a banana split.

With all this vomit talk, I need to post something pleasant. So here are the girls' fall pictures. I already posted them on the Abersold family blog, so my dear readers who also read that blog will have seen these already.

This next one look familiar? Yes, I replaced last year's cute fall photo with this new and improved cute fall photo. I need to photoshop those peple out of the background and then I think this one will go on the wall.

Sweet! I, like, totally know what happens in the Bible.

Go figure

For the past couple of weeks, I have been subbing in Relief Society as the pianist. Today was supposed to be my last day. Well, I did an okay job the last two weeks so I decided this week I was going to get my rear in gear and practice, practice, practice! So Sunday, I picked out three hymns that went along with the upcoming week's lesson, and played those hymns every single day this week. I also prepared myself for the hymns I would lead in Sacrament Meeting.

Last night, we woke up to a puking Lacy at 12:45 am. Which wouldn't have been a big deal had Dave not been scheduled to work Sunday, so he couldn't stay home with the girls. Lacy woke up twice more puking, and Rose ended up getting sick the next day. Dave got it, too. The thing that made me feel the worst about it was that I visited my girlfriend Emily yesterday. She is due with her fourth baby on Saturday. I really, really, really hope she doesn't get sick, and that her kids don't get sick, right before her baby is going to come! I can't imagine trying to labor while sick. Yuck.

But I do have good news! My sister Leslie and her family are going to move up from Arizona! I'm so excited to have them in town again! Lacy is very excited to get to play with Regan and Turner all the time. This will be so fun! Anyway, Dix got the job offer Friday, returned this morning, they'll be packing all week long, loading the U-Haul and truck on Saturday, leaving first thing Sunday morning. They will drive from Phoenix to St. George the first day, St. George to probably Orem the second day, and the third day they will either drive straight through or they will make a stop off in Idaho somewhere. They will arrive Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, either really early in the morning or in the afternoon, depending on if they can drive a 14 hour stretch with a 2 month old, engorgement, 5 crazy kids, and only two drivers (and two vehicles that need to be driven!). They are renting the largest U-Haul truck, the largest U-Haul trailer, which will be towed behind the U-Haul truck. Then they will have their Suburban, and they will get a tow dolly to tow their truck (which will also be loaded with stuff). I seriously don't know how they will be able to swing driving from Orem to Olympia in one day. That is hardcore driving, when you're talking about that many kids including a toddler and a very young nursing infant. My Rose couldn't even handle 10 hours when she was 14 months! Good luck to them! Please keep them in your prayers this week and next week, they have a lot going on.

Well, she's weaned.

After 39 months of nursing, Lacy is officially weaned. I got a lot of help from my great husband through this process, which started around her third birthday. That was when we started our bedtime routines, which included nursing for 5 minutes right before bed. Once Dave got put on the swing shift and wasn't there for bedtime anymore, I changed it to 5 minutes before she brushed her teeth, on the couch. Then, a couple of weeks later, Dave was back on the day shift and was home at bedtime. He started reading her the bedtime stories and tucking her in, and we haven't nursed in about a week now. I thought I would miss nursing more than this, but I guess since I had so much time with her, it is easier to let go. I loved our nursing relationship and am glad that we went for more than three years. It is much, much longer than average, at least in the US. But nursing her as long as I did, I feel comfortable knowing that I provided her with as much protection as I possibly could. I wanted to post a few pictures memorializing our nursing relationship, but for some reason my scanner isn't working (my first picture of us nursing is on film, not digital), so I'm going to have to wait on some of them.

I do know that by providing this for my daughters, they will grow up thinking of nursing as the normal way to feed a baby, and hopefully they will nurse their own children. Hopefully, by the time they are mothers, the world will be more accepting of breastfeeding mothers and doctors will understand more about it. It seems like lately there are studies that have come out that for some reason are trying to prove that breastfeeding isn't all it's cracked up to be. In the last couple of months, I've seen studies and/or articles that have come out disputing the diabetes/obesity link, increased IQ, asthma/allergies, and more (I'll try to link the rest of the articles when I find them). But IMO there are problems with all the studies that I have seen, or the news reports are taking one tiny portion of the study out of context. For example the asthma thing-- they didn't compare exclusively BF for 6 months infants with infants who were exclusively fed formula, supplemented with formula, or fed early solids (Dave has asthma, and so did his mom, and though he was exclusively breastfed, he was fed solids at 2 months old which has been shown to increase risk of allergies/asthma). But there have been positive studies, as well-- including a study that shows breastfeeding does not cause saggy breasts!

OK, I'm off to find some pictures of Miss Lacy-bug nursing, and I'll post them when I find them. There is a Blogger maintenance tonight at 11 so I'm posting now and I'll add the pictures when Blogger is back up again.

But as a teaser... here is a picture of a brand new Lacy right after our first nursing session (the other pictures of us actually nursing taken from this camera are completely blurry). TTFN!

Nightweaning bites.

Rose has some cavities. And I'm sure it is "baby bottle rot" type cavities. She doesn't take a bottle, but she does nurse to sleep. And studies have shown that breastmilk does not cause cavities, for some reason my little munchkins get the cavities right in the typical spot for bottle rot. I suppose it could be from all the wet kisses we give those girls! So here is the plan: baby #3 will not get kissed.

OK, maybe that won't fly. But here's what I'm doing for my Rosey-Roo: Tonight, Rose got about 10 minutes nursey time and then she was rocked to sleep, after I wiped her teeth with a cloth. Usually she just nurses to sleep. Unfortunately, she woke up about a half hour later and was inconsolable, except by breast. So after about 10 minutes of torturous cries, all the while rocking my sweet screaming Roo in my arms, I gave in and nursed her to sleep. This time, it took a half hour to get her to settle down and fall asleep.

Last night, I remember Rose waking up 6 times. My kids are terrible sleepers, if you can't tell! Anyway, I was able to successfully get her back to sleep without nursing three times, but she woke up about a half hour after that each time.

I guess I need to take some babysteps here. I think I will focus on getting her to fall asleep without nursing, and every other wakeful period I will attempt to get her back to sleep without nursing. In a couple of weeks I want to focus on not nursing her back to sleep until it is after midnight, and then (to preserve what little bit of sleep I may be able to get!) I will allow her to nurse back to sleep.

I keep telling myself that this phase will be over soon. But it's so hard! I would like to have another baby in the near future, but I have to have my Roo sleeping better at night before I start trying for another one. So I guess we'll have an 18 year spacing between Rose and the next child. *sigh*

I'm calling the dentist on Monday. I am horrified at the state of her teeth. Lacy's were bad, but Rose's are much worse, and at a younger age. I have no idea why. I brush her teeth every day, despite kicking and screaming throughout, and I give her fluoride, xylitol, and I've even started brushing her teeth1-2 times more per day. Darn my kids' oral fixation that cannot be satisfied with anything but the real deal!