I'm a Hallo-Weiner!

Tonight was our ward's Trunk Or Treat party. We had lots of fun. I was originally intending on having both girls dressed as fairy princesses, but in the end Lacy wanted to be Little... I mean BIG Red Riding Hood. Dave went as the woodsman/hunter and I went as a frazzled mom who was just glad to have the kids dressed, much less in costume!

The girls together:














Rose hamming it up at the cakewalk:














Lacy fishing for prizes:














Lacy made out like a bandit:

























And Rose spent her time quietly eating everything she could get her sticky little paws on:

























We had a GRATE time. We left just after 8, and when we got home we allowed the girls 15 minutes of free candy eating time, had spiritual time and went to bed, and everyone was in bed asleep by 9, which isn't too bad considering. I think we're going to skip trick or treating tomorrow and just go to bed. We got plenty of candy tonight, that's for sure!

Happy Halloween!

Another entry for the baby book

Rose learned how to spit. Yes, I know that spitting is something that most babies are very good at. Of course Rose has spit in the past. But this week she learned how to really gather up the phlegm and hock a loogie. She does it all. the. time. It is so gross! She just spits wherever she feels like spitting. On the floor? Great! Her sister's lap? Even better! Oh life with a one year old is fun.

I also have her in panties now. She's only had two accidents in the last two days, both of which were at the end of the day, during dinner prep hour. I kind of expect her to do that then. The more remarkable thing about it is, she (and all the rest of us) has been sick.

We all got it yesterday, except Dave who got it this afternoon. The girls didn't really show symptoms until this morning. I ended up letting Lacy watch TV all day long in our bed. I think she still has an elevated temperature but nothing big-- maybe 100 or 101 tops. Dave is very upset about being sick as he gets no sick leave. I sent him off tonight (for school) with some daytime cold/flu medicine and hopefully that got him through it. He can take some Airborne when he gets home. It feels like a 24 hour bug, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll be better and Dave can suffer through one day of work. The only thing that stinks is that this is a really sweaty illness. Hopefully this is the only one we get this winter.

My kids are cute, and some rants about overly managed birthing

I love my kids. I love that randomly in the middle of other activities Lacy will say, "Mom, I love you." I love that she plays so well with her sister, and is so protective of her. She is so smart, too (humor me here if these are typical for a 39 month girl, and smile and nod). She can spell her name (sort of, sometimes she says L-A-Y-S instead of L-A-C-Y, and occasionally she starts naming off random letters). She knows her birthday. She knows all the colors in the rainbow, can count to 20, recognizes numbers on paper at least through 6 and counts items well, through 5. She knows many of her letters and always gets the ABC song right, and some of her older friends do not. She can draw recognizable people now if instructed, and can break eggs without causing too much damage (when we're cooking of course).

Rose is also a joy. She says a lot of words and uses many signs now, though the sign for "eat" means a lot of things, as does "all done." She can say Lacy, now, though it comes out more like "eee-see." She is also very proficient with the word "hot" and says it all the time! Probably because I say it all the time to her! She likes to help me cook, you see. Today she went to nursery for about a half hour and she DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE I LEFT. She is SOOOOOO ready! Only 4 more Sundays to endure before she is nursery aged! YEA!!!!

And the birth rant. OK, I am a huge advocate of normal birth. I don't put much trust into the birthing industry in general, though I do trust my midwife (she is a licensed midwife but not a nurse midwife). I do generally trust the medical community, after all my life was saved by a great Uriologist (shout out to Dr. Ellen!). But birth is not a disease. Generally speaking, it should not be managed by surgeons. While I don't dismiss the need for surgery in childbirth (it is very necessary and lifesaving, and I know many, many mothers and babies have been saved by this surgery, including my own husband), I feel it is overused. Currently the rate of cesarean rate is about 30%. The World Health Organizations says that once the rate goes above 15%, it is costing more lives than it is saving. *Disclaimer-- I do support full choice in birth for ALL women, whether it be elective primary cesarean with a tummy tuck or unassisted homebirth in the forest. Mostly I want women to know their options and to be fully informed of all their birth choices, not just the ones their birth attendant gives them with risks glossed over.

OK, there is one situation in particular that I want to address. A woman in Relief Society today excitedly announced the birth of her newest granddaughter, born Wednesday. Baby was stubborn and didn't want to come out (mother was 41 or 42 weeks I think) so they induced the mother at 6 AM. Mother stalled out at 8 cm in the early afternoon. After several hours of being at 8 cm with no cervical changes, the doctor gave her a time of 6PM that she needed give birth by, otherwise she would need a cesarean. OK, to me that seems so suspicious. 6 PM? So he can get home in time for dinner? There is nothing wrong with stalling out at 8 cm, especially for a mom who had previously given birth vaginally, as this mother had at least two other times. I personally stalled out myself for about 4 or 5 hours, in transition the entire time, with no drugs I might add (not that this makes me special in any way shape or form, it's merely a fact to point out how horribly painful this 4 hours was-- I was actually asking for drugs at the end but didn't get them which I am glad for since I've had a bad epidural experience with my kidney surgery in 1997). Nobody said a single word about surgery to me, not once. And I certainly would have been open to it at one point in my labor! It's the 6PM thing that really bugs me. If mother and baby are fine, just not progressing, why have a c-section? Sometimes labor just stalls for no apparent reason and starts back up again after some time. I've always heard 24 hours after your water is broken (which I personally think shouldn't be a hard and fast rule in every situation), and this was only 12 hours, and I'm not even sure her water was broken at the beginning of the induction anyway. The good part of the story is that mother did give birth vaginally at about 10 minutes after 6. YEA!

Another woman in my ward had a grandbaby born this week, too. This one WAS by cesarean and a necessary one at that. Baby was transverse, which makes it impossible to birth vaginally. Mother had a bicornuate uterus (same problem my mother-in-law had) and baby wasn't able to get enough room to turn vertex. In the end, it turns out there probably WAS enough room to turn vertex, but because he was so frequently transverse there was a high risk of cord prolapse. So he was a c-section. While I guess technically because he was born vertex (albeit by cesarean) he could have been born vagnially, he did like to move to that transverse position a lot, and the risk of a prolapsed cord is too high to justify waiting until the onset of labor to decide whether to try for vaginal or not. It seems like many women begin labor with their first with spontaneous rupture of the membranes, so this would have been irresponsible on the physician's part not to recommend a cesarean in this case. And thankfully, this mother got a low transverse scar, which means her risk of uterine rupture is less than half of one percent (0.4%) in future labors, the majority of which are not fatal (3 out of 10,000 perinatal deaths, same perinatal death rate as planned repeat cesarean), so if she chooses to try for a VBAC (assuming her labor is unaugmented which increases the rupture risk, especialy if cytotec is used) her risk of rupture is about equal or lower than the risks of side effects from a cesarean.

OK, that's enough birth talk for now. Can you tell I'm obsessed? I really want to have another baby but I know now is not the right time. I want Rose to be closer to 3 when we have another baby. Which means only 6 months until we can discuss taking out my IUD! I know, TMI. For now, I'll live vicariously through my friend Emily, for whom I am throwing a baby shower on November 1st. It should be fun! We're filling her freezer with all sorts of goodies.

Cute Kid Stuff

This morning I took Rose potty and she peed. She stood up, looked at what she had produced, and said, "Peeeeeee! Peeeeeee!" in a very loud and high pitched voice. And later, Lacy was climbing the piano and I told her, "Get down!" Rose started repeating me: "Ge dow! Ge dow!" She's really going through a language explosion. She knows probably a dozen signs (maybe not quite but it's close) and she's learning new words every day.

And we only have 5 more Sundays with Rose in class with me at church! She goes to nursery in 6 weeks!!!!! I can't wait!

Last night tucking Lacy into bed, I asked her who she wanted with her to cuddle (as in a doll or bear). She asked for her baby Bella. I gave her a doll and she said, "That doll's naked. That's not Bella!" I tried giving it to her again, when she informed me that Bella is actually a pair of Dave's black socks. This totally reminded me of Little House in the Big Woods where Laura Ingalls has a corn cob as her doll!

Lacy's baby in her tummy is also named Bella, who is a purple baby. Her friend Wynnie's baby is a green baby. And when Bella comes out of her tummy, she will nurse her squishy boobies that are full of juice. I love 3 year olds! They're so fun!

Today is anti-procrastination day so I need to get busy!

Testimony Builder

I just started fasting again after a 4 year hiatus due to pregnancy and nursing. Well, obviously I'm still nursing, but now that Rose is 16 months old she's not needing as much out of me as she has needed previously. So this last fast Sunday I decided to really fast and pray about Dave's work situation. He's not particularly happy doing what he's doing but he wants to keep me home with the girls, so he keeps plugging along. Except that recently, he's been in kind of a slump. He was working a flagging job recently, which pays significantly less than asbestos abatement. We were barely creeping by on what he was bringing home, and we had seriously considered going to the bishopric for help. Fortunately, we paid our tithing and were able to barely squeak by for two months like this. Dave's weekly paychecks for the past two months were never over $600, and considering our mortgage is over $1200 and we have several other bills to pay besides, it was really tight. Somehow we got through. So that has helped me with my testimony about tithing.

And fasting... I really and truly fasted this month. I never have before. Sure, I've gone through the motions, but fasting is something that is difficult to understand for yourself, and it takes a while to develop a true understanding of it. I decided I would do it and pay the fast offering and everything (something I've never done before). I could only make it to 3 o'clock before I had to brake my fast and eat something. But considering I had a light dinner the night before at Women's Conference, I think I did pretty good. Well, the very next day Dave was approached with TWO new job opportunities (one of them we may still pursue) and yesterday Dave was talking with a guy about another opportunity that may come in the future that sounds really awesome. Dave right now is basically turning toxic waste into harmless recycled building materials, which will be a huge help in overcrowded countries that need to rebuild buildings (for example Japan). Dave would be installing the equipment all around the world for a very lucrative salary. I don't foresee it happening in the very near future, but if Dave plays his cards right I may soon be moving in to the yurt of my dreams!

So I have been spiritually fed recently and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm holding my own testimony-wise. We have been doing a lot more to stay close to Heavenly Father and it is showing. Some things that we've been doing include spiritual time every single day with the kids (we haven't missed a day since we started in June!) which entails reading scriptures (usually 5 verses or so), singing a hymn, and saying a family prayer. Family Home Evening is now a regular weekly occurrence. We've been paying a full tithe all year long, which is another difficult thing for me. Since July I've been including personal prayer in Lacy's bedtime routine. Personally, I've been diligent with reading the scriptures. I know I need to get better with my own personal prayers. Babysteps! We're hoping to be able to get to the temple once a month from now on, now that the kids are bigger. We've put forth the effort and we have been blessed. I am now a stay at home mom. Dave has opportunities set before him. Of course we still have a long way to go. But now I'm definitely feeling the hand of the Lord in my life.

Cheese, signs, and weaning

Rose is saying so many words lately! Today we were taking some pictures and Rose kept saying, "Cheese!" with the biggest cheesy grin on her face each time we took a picture. What a cutie! She also says "hot" "Lacy" "Ama" "Mama" "Dada" and a lot of other words that I can't think of at the moment. Probably in the area of 30-50 words already!

She is also doing great learning sign language. She knows "eat" and "finished" and we're working on "more" and "toilet," and maybe we'll do "drink" as well. And maybe "nurse" too, but she is pretty clear about that without having to sign it to me!

Lacy is officially weaning. Dave started a new shift with a new company this week. It's swing shift so I am in charge of bedtime by myself each and every night from here on out. So it's tough to put two kids to bed who both nurse. I rewrote Lacy's bedtime routine so that nursing is #3 on the list (before it was #6) and it is in the living room, not in bed. After nursing, she brushes her teeth, reads 2 stories, says her prayers, and gets tucked in bed with or without music (her choice, but lately she wants to listen to the rain instead). I'm hoping before she starts Sunbeams she's totally weaned. I'll probably write a new bedtime routine poster in a couple months to exclude nursing from it completely and take it from there. Hopefully it all goes well! We also have "How Weaning Happens" on hold from the library.

I forgot to blog that my parents got their mission call! Woo hoo! Frankfurt, Germany, leaving January 7th. Also, it is very possible that my sister will be moving up here next month around Thanksgiving. She's going through a bankruptcy and home foreclosure right now and her hubby has a great opportunity up here with a company he used to work for. He has a face-to-face interview early next month so I'll keep you posted! It's got to be stressful thinking about a big move across the country with 6 little ones including a frequently-nursing colicky newborn! Yikes!

Dave is doing well at his new job. I have a lot to say about this but my baby is being quite the monkey nursing right now so I'll get back to this topic later. It has solidified my testimony on fasting and prayer though

Carolyn and Monkey OUT!