Whoa- I MADE that!

My baby girl is 8 weeks old today. And every couple of days, still, I step back and think "holy crap- I made that thing!". It sure has been an adventure, and although it has certainly come with its share of frustrations, I love this kid like nothing else in the whole wide world. I am her mama, and no one else is. It feels kind of like when I was first married and felt like I was pulling one over on everyone when introducing myself with my new last name. You're suddenly known as this whole new person, your role in life has completely changed in an instant and it's magical and wonderful and takes some adjusting.

I'm still on the mend, and that's been tough. Whether it's because it really was that bad or simply just unanticipated I'm not sure. Doesn't really matter I guess. But for those having babies for the first time, just be aware it may take a bit to heal all the way. Also, I wasn't expecting my body to be this different. I'm lucky enough to actually be back under my pre-pregnancy weight, but none of my old clothes fit anyway because I'm shaped so differently than I was before, with that whole hip widening business and a body built for feeding a newborn. I've had a few tiny identity crises, but that's probably exhaustion induced.

We laugh a lot, my little family. There's a lot that's funny. Like baby farts. You would think that everything about a new baby would be baby sized- not true. She's beginning to be more expressive and really look at things. She likes trying out her smiles a lot in the mornings, or when her daddy is playing with her. Brinley thinks Landon is the coolest thing ever, and who could blame her? She plays games like Russian Poo-lette (I swear she tries to go potty when her diaper is off) and Whack-a-Mole (I have a mole on my face.... And she has a head that's as good as any mole-whacking mallet at the state fair). She wakes me up at exactly 3am every morning to be fed. I love her fuzzy hair after it dries when it's freshly washed. Clean baby is one of the best smells. She's growing so fast, sometimes she only wears an outfit once or twice before it's too small.

Some days are tough, most days are good. Even on the hard days, she eventually falls asleep, often in my arms, and cradling your sleeping baby might just be one of the most beautiful feelings in the world. I'm tearing up just writing about it. Darn hormones.

Brinley has been in the world eight whole life-altering weeks. As tired as I am and as un-showered as I often look these days, I wouldn't trade it for anything. My baby girl is amazing and beautiful, and I tell her every day. I'm in awe that such a sweet spirit has been entrusted to me. The whole thing is pretty incredible.

Perspective

I have expected to feel like a different person at certain points in my life. When I graduated from high school. When I got married. When I turned whatever age. And it's never happened. I reached the other side of graduation and being married and felt like the same dumb kid trying to figure it out without letting everybody know I was clueless that I always have. At times, I felt a little cheated because of it. Like, "I'm 20-whatever now, I should feel like a grown up!".

And then I had my little girl. And everything changed.

I've experienced a dramatic and very sudden change in perspective, it's amazing. Much of it is hard to put into words, but something in me knew as soon as I gave birth that I was this tiny creature's mama and no one else was. I was going to take care of her, protect her, feed her, be responsible for her in every way. And I am completely in awe of it all. I really do feel like a different person.

I'm watching the Olympics, taking in brilliant displays by people whose goals have been far beyond what I could accomplish. And yet, I'm completely happy about it. I'm ok with my goals being things like taking a shower that day or making it to the grocery store. I put the baby in a stroller and walked a mile with the dogs yesterday and I was really proud of myself. Gradually as I figure out more and more how to care for a baby I plan to raise the bar a bit as far as my goals and dreams are concerned, but for now, I'm totally happy with my dream being a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of chocolate milk, and having the baby asleep long enough for me to enjoy it.

Life is pretty wonderful.

Brinley's birth day

Time for a birth story. I figure I need to start here before diving in to all the funny things that come with sudden new parenthood.

It started on Thursday night, July 5th, when I went in for a routine non-stress test. A this point I was five days overdue and scheduled to be induced the coming Monday if baby hadn't come before then. When the nurse called the doctor with the results from my test to get me discharged, she came back and asked if, since the maternity ward was currently empty, we wanted to go ahead and induce right then.

I panicked a little and asked if I could take an hour or so to take a shower. And call my mom. She laughed and said that would be fine. So we had what I call a "surprise induction", which I kind of liked. It was still a surprise but we had time to go out to dinner and collect some things from the house. We checked in looking like we were at the hospital for a slumber party.

I got all checked in settled into the room we had chosen between 9-9:30pm, and began the process slowly over the next few hours. My parents arrived about midnight and left around 1am. I was wondering how much encouragement my body would need since I had been having fairly steady contractions since 4th of July but nothing I felt like I needed to time and rush to the hospital about. Turns out a gentle nudge was all I needed because between 2-2:30am I started to have monster contractions. I did opt for pain medication and had about three hours of hard labor (pain like nothing I'd ever experienced- you mommas who go natural, I am completely in awe of you). I didn't think the first stuff they gave me helped at all but my husband told me that before I had it contractions had made me cry, so it must have been at least a teeny bit better. My memory of that three hours is thankfully a bit hazy, but I do remember my hero Mark arriving. Mark was the anesthesiologist on call who gave me something magical called an epidural. I became a different person after that.

They checked my cervix at about 6am and I was about 5 1/2 dilated. Hubby and I took a nap. They checked me again about an hour later and I was at 10. Apparently Landon called my parents because suddenly my mom was there, and it was go time. I could feel when my body wanted to push but no pain. Landon said I was chatty. I pushed for about an hour and Brinley Adele was born officially at 9:01am.

The process was quick but recovery has been long. I don't want to dive too deep into the gory details but the doctor had to spend a good amount of time fixing me back up and looked concerned while doing it. It'll be a while before I feel fully healed. But my baby girl is absolutely beautiful, strong, and healthy, and I am so very, very blessed to have her.

And I'm not pregnant any more.

Many adventures to report and yet to come. Stay tuned.


Baby stats: 7 lbs, 14 oz
20 inches long

Good intentions

There are certain things that, although they are said in a loving tone with all the best intention in the world, I simply don't want to hear as a pregnant woman. I don't mean to offend if you have been the sayer of such things, but this is my blog and I can cry if I want to. Which I probably will, if that dang Pampers commercial comes on again.

"Sleep while you can!"

I do. A lot. And it doesn't seem to make any difference. I'm tired all the time. Exhausted. Also, it's getting harder and harder to get decent rest because of the leg cramps and the acid reflux and the need for five pillows to maybe get halfway comfortable. Also, getting kicked from the inside anytime I lay down tends to mess with things too. But I'm sure trying.

(usually following a preggo complaint) "Already? It's too early to be feeling that way!"

I wish there was somewhere I could check in so I know when I have to right to complain about something, whether it's discomfort or impatience.

"If you think it's hard now, just wait til you have the baby!"

This is like the least encouraging comment ever. I'm already exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed, and uncomfortable. I know motherhood is going to be challenging, but I'm eight months into the biggest challenge I've ever experienced and now is not the time I want to be thinking about how horribly difficult the next 18 years will be if the last eight months were a relative walk in the park. Even if it is.

"I just LOVED being pregnant- it's such a miracle."

If you are a woman who has loved being pregnant, I am genuinely happy for you. A wee bit jealous, but happy. It took me a really long time to overcome the guilt I felt for not loving being pregnant. I tried really hard. But in the end I decided that how I felt about my pregnancy is not how I feel about my baby and that's good enough for me.

"It goes by so fast! Enjoy every moment!"

Every. Moment. Every moment? Here's a little summarized version of my pregnancy so far, which further explains my last response and why I have most certainly not enjoyed every moment. I spent most of the first five months so nauseous I pretty much wanted to die. Before I was given a miracle drug to stop the constant vomiting I lost ten pounds in a week and visited the emergency room twice. I was not enjoying every moment. Managed to get the puking under control after that with the aforementioned medical intervention but still felt really horrible. The couple months after that I had virtually every pregnancy discomfort which I won't go into. And then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Hooray for me.

Here's the optimism part of this post! It certainly hasn't been all bad. Pregnancy is not without its perks, and I have enjoyed some things about it. People are very helpful, and I haven't had to lift anything heavy in a while. I'm a walking conversation piece. Strangers pay me compliments. I don't have to worry about sucking it in when a picture is taken. And nesting is the best thing to happen to my house since ever.

I just have to get through one more month of no creepy belly touching and I'll be good to go.

Baby class

Husband and I started childbirth classes tonight. It was super exciting. That's a lie.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I got there grumpy because we had a hard time finding the place and ended up 15 minutes late (makes us look like awesome parents-to-be, no?). The first thing we did was each fill out our expectations for birth and compare answers, like we've never held a conversation before. Like I said, I was grumpy. Then it moved on to some pretty informative stuff, and then we finished by watching what seemed like an hour-long video on how and why to properly use a car seat.

I felt bad, because I was the one all excited to go and I'm supposed to enjoy learning about all this stuff and bonding with the other mommies-to-be and all that but I just wasn't that into it. Husband was in a good mood because they had free soda. I guess that's something.

Garbage day

My entire day was derailed by a bag of trash getting stuck in the can. How does anyone survive pregnancy hormones?

A letter for Baby

Dear unborn child,

Your parents are pretty good people, and we love each other very much. But there are a few things you should know.

Your daddy rides a skateboard and still thinks farts are funny. He occasionally falls over when putting on his pants in the morning. Your mama would rather watch tv than clean the house and particularly detests doing the dishes. Also, I don't really cook. The lawn is shaggy. There are chew marks on the coffee table from the dogs. I guess what I'm trying to say is we're not exactly "grown up" material.

I'm hoping that I have everything figured out by the time you realize this but in the interest of full disclosure, I just wanted to write and say that we have no idea what we're doing. Probably because we've never done this before. I still feel like a dumb kid about to take on a huge responsibility that I'm terribly unqualified for. Your daddy tells me I'll do great. He's good like that.

I have a lot of apprehension leading up to your birth because I want to do the very best by you, because you deserve my best. I'll give you all I have, and some days that might not be very much but I'll sure be trying. Please be kind. We're only human.

Your daddy and I love you very much, and even though I'm trying to block out how terrifying it will be to bring you into the world, we're very excited to meet you and have you officially join our funny little family. We laugh a lot. We work together well. I'm so happy you've been chosen to come with us through this adventure. See you soon.

Love,
Mum

Things I say

Things I say to my dogs that I will also probably say to my children:

-play nice
-don't eat things off the floor
-stay where I can see you
-no wrestling on the furniture
-if you're going to play in the mud, you're going to get a bath later
-you've been fed, you just went potty, and we went to the park today.... Please stop whining

Things I say to my dogs that I hope I don't have to say to my children:

-leave the dead seagull alone
-stay out of the garbage
-the vacuum is not trying to get you
-stop licking the windows
-don't pee on that

Glamor in real life- the rest of the story

My last post was a happy, happy note about my wonderful couple of days away from my stinky dogs and my dirty dishes. But real life, amusing and "glamorous" as ever, still managed to find me. Halfway through the first day, I realized I had forgotten my other pair of shoes, so all I had to wear were my Nike flip flops (reminds me of the time I went to go run a half marathon and forgot my running shoes. True story.) I wasn't sure what my other options would have been anyway, though, because my feet have suddenly decided to gain half a size and render most of my vast collection of shoes unwearable. The first night we went to fancy dinner, I went in my Nike flip flops. Super classy. We walked into this place and I instantly felt like I wasn'anchor enough to eat there, which I would have felt even without the shoe situation. This restaurant was pretty hip. And I'm, well, me. With pregger feet in pink Nike flip flops. Thankfully, as soon as the food came I forgot how uncool I was because I'm pretty sure I had the best thing I've ever eaten in my life. Score one for Courtney. Apologies to all my vegetarian friends. The next day I was determined to purchase shoes that were cute and accommodated my new half-size-bigger feet. I had very specific requirements, and happily, I found the perfect pair. Score two for Courtney. I had a cute outfit picked out and felt much better going into fancy dinner the second night. We ate at the same restaurant we went to the day we got engaged. After dinner, the following conversation took place: Me: "Hey! You need to take my picture!" Confused husband: "Um, ok...... Why?" Me: "Because people have been asking for a preggo pic of me and I finally look cute! My hair and make up are even done- now is the time!!" I felt so good about them I posted them on Facebook. Where hopefully someone somewhere will believe that I look that put together all the time and it's effortless. Yeah. Right.

Glamor in real life

Most of this glamor talk is largely tongue in cheek. But for the last two days, I've gotten to shop, stay at a nice hotel, and eat some pretty fancy meals. Life is going to get crazy, and stressful, and all kinds of other things when baby comes. When that happens (and it's getting pretty close now), it will be nice to look back and have a time in recent history where my husband and I got to have a mini vacation. Happy (belated) anniversary, honey.

Sharing is caring

I am SO happy to have my husband back. But there is a transition that happens and I kind of forget about that part every time he goes and comes back. It takes a bit to transition into him being gone too. You really have to get in the for-the-next-little-while-I'm-responsible-for-everything mode. I don't really want to think about that right now. Back to the point, there's a transition when he comes home. And it makes me feel a little selfish, because it has to do largely with sharing. Apparently not my strong suit. I'll go a month or two (or three) largely doing my own thing. Other than my work schedule, I come and go as I please. I don't have to share the car. I buy only the groceries that I will eat without needing to plan around someone else's meals. Now all of a sudden I have to share the couch and I might be watching something on tv that I didn't pick. And I might have to share my beloved snacks. I wouldn't say these things bother me, just that I notice them. Because even with him home, there are days (like today) where he still has to be gone, and all these little things are so utterly unimportant it's kind of ridiculous.

Happy anniversary

I was determined that today would not be a good day. How could it be? I have a pile of dirty dishes, a stack of dirty laundry, muddy pawprints on a floor that was cleaned yesterday, plus work, and my husband has been away for a month and a half. And today is our three year anniversary.

And then the sun came out. And the positive side of things seemed to come out with it. I got to spend the morning on a beautiful beach, just me and my dogs. My day went by quickly because I stayed busy. My husband will still love me even if there's laundry to do. And he gets home tomorrow, and everything will be better after that. Even on rainy days.

A morning in an empty lot

In the which I throw a rock in the garbage. I had no choice.

It was too gray out this morning to venture very far from the house, so I took the pups up the block to an empty lot to run around for a bit before I went to work. They actually kind of fetched the ball, which of course they never do when we go to the dog park, so they were getting the exercise they needed and I wasn't getting rained on. A pretty good start to the day, everybody happy.

At some point, Dog #2 dashed off after the ball only to flip out over something on the ground I couldn't identify from 100 feet away. I couldn't identify it from 10 feet either. He wouldn't stop barking at whatever it was so I waddled on over best I could, stood over him, and it still took me a minute. I already worry about the brain power of my sweet, adorable Dog #2, but it still surprised me when I realized he was scared of a rock. What appeared to me to be an ordinary, potato sized rock in the middle of the field was somehow a menace to society that Dog #2 determined must be dealt with severely and immediately. And he would accomplish this through intimidation. Which meant lots of barking. Sigh.

So yes, before I went on with my totally glamorous day working as a retail cashier (and on senior discount Tuesday, no less), I got to throw a rock in the trash while my dog barked at it. Because I'm awesome like that.

Adventures with doggies in the nighttime

I have two boxer dogs that I love dearly. One is about a year and half old, the other about year. So they're basically giant puppies. And they provide many, many examples of my totally glamorous life.

About two weeks ago (naturally around midnight because what better time to have an adventure with doggies in the nighttime?), I was letting my dogs out for their final potty of the night when I heard their "I'm hunting something" bark. Fairly similar to their "I've cornered a small dog, you should come get him now" bark, but still distinctive. I pulled on my boots as quickly as I could and headed out to see what the ruckus was all about, because that's exactly what I wanted to do seven months pregnant at midnight. Dog #1 was still barking but Dog #2 apparently had more luck, because he was carrying a possum around in his mouth. Somehow my yelling was correctly interpreted and possum was dropped, left in the yard, and I verbally herded my boys back in the house. Don't be jealous, not everyone gets the opportunity to run around super pregnant in the middle of the night in jammies and rubber boots to yell at their dogs to drop a giant rodent. I hoped possum was only playing dead and not actually dead, and would be gone by the next morning. I was lucky.

My husband misses all the fun stuff.

New blog!

Life is best approached with a sense of humor.

I decided to start fresh with a new blog because it was time for change. I'm at a new place in my life and the idea of dragging my old blog along with me didn't seem right. It was so moody. I don't want to be moody. Plus I recently got a new haircut, so I'm kind of into new right now.

The theme was an easy choice. Life is hard. And so often, especially recently (maybe I'm just getting better at it, in which case, good for me!), I've just had to step back, shake my head, and laugh at myself. Real life has you do and say things you never imagined. Funny things. And if life has been this funny with me, a husband, and two dogs, parenthood is going to be a riot.