First Day of School!

Lizzy Jo went to her first day of preschool today!  I can't believe this adorable baby

has already turned into this adorable girl.

Here are a few pictures of dropping her off:

 

She went right in and got started on a project without looking back

...but then she remembered that she loves me and came back for a hug and kiss!

And here she is at the end of the day.

Charly couldn't resist getting in on the action and getting a sticker.

She was pretty happy when I picked her up, but she said that she was sad and nervous during class (Actually at first she said she felt guilty!  It's hard to identify those negative emotions sometimes.).  I asked her if she cried when I dropped her off and she said, "Well, I had some water fill up my eyes, and I made some squeaky noises by my cubby by the door.  Then I stopped making squeaky noises, but there was still water on my cheek right here [pointing]. But then it was okay."  The rest of today was a bit emotional and I can tell it's going to take some time to adjust.

A quick update about her in general.  She is a creative girl.  She loves to color, draw, sing, dance, craft (cut, tape, glue, create!), write stories (with lots of help, but she frequently writes down several words by herself), and play imaginatively.  Here is a video of her singing and spelling, singing about our family.

Joey's Baby Blessing

This cute boy was blessed in church today.

It was a beautiful occasion for us as a family to reflect on the wonderful little soul that has come to our home.  Ever since he was born, Joey has instantly been loved by his sisters.  And they feel his love for them too.  Lizzy started saying almost immediately after he was born, "He loves me!"  Actually, she usually says "He loves me the best!"

Charly frequently asks to hold Joey.  She also loves getting right in his face (as you can see) and talking to him.  She thinks that he should answer back sometimes!  When Joey started smiling a couple of weeks ago, whenever he saw Charly he would break out in a huge grin!

These girls have all kinds of nicknames for this cute boy.  Jo-Bums, Jo-Jo, Jo-Bupst, Dean-Deans, and Jo-Pete.

He loves it when people talk to him.  He will calm down and smile when someone talks or coos to him.  And he answers back (Follow the link to see a video of him when he was two months old)!  I think he's more of a talker than my girls were at this age (admittedly, it is hard to remember how much they cooed at this age).  And here are some pictures from when he turned two months old.  Here's our cutie!

The Birth Story of Joey AKA Roo AKA Buster AKA Baby Joey

This is the story of the intense 2.5-hour labor of our third child and first boy, Joey!

[***This post may very well contain TMI! But birth is a messy experience and I wanted to be real about it.  Read at your own risk!]

Last Friday was a day for crossing things off of my "Get Ready for Joey" to do list.  First I went for a walk with the girls in the stroller.  I hadn't been very active at the end of my pregnancy because I was too lazy to get up early to exercise myself and it was usually too hot to do a lot of walking later in the day with the girls.  But I hurried them out the door early and we walked to the nearby golf course and saw some geese at the water hazard.

Then I cleaned my room, organized all of the baby gear in Joey's room, and moved our recliner in there.  I also did laundry, gave Lizzy Jo a make over (hair, nails, make up!), and read a bunch of books to the girls (This summer Lizzy is way into our summer reading program).  I just felt like I wanted to give them as much of myself as possible during our last days as a family of four.  To end the day, I downloaded my contraction timer app!

I thought that last preparation was perfectly timed (hehe) because I woke up to contractions early Saturday morning, around 3 a.m.  At first I tried to sleep through them, thinking that they would eventually go away.  I had told my mom that I'd know the day of delivery was approaching when I had my usual few days of early morning contractions (I had several days of this with Charly before the real deal).  So I wanted my contractions to earn my attention!  After 1.5 hours of contractions, I started timing them on the app.  They were really irregular in length and frequency, and intense enough to keep me mostly awake but not really painful.  After 1.5 hours of timing them, I put my phone away and just slept through them.  Each contraction would still wake me up, but then I'd go right back to sleep.  Finally, around 7 a.m. I got up and let Dave know that I thought I was really in labor, as they hadn't gone away in 4 hours.  I repacked the hospital bag, putting in my usual toothbrush and contact case and taking out the spare ones that had already been packed. But moving around while repacking was all it took to make what were really Braxton Hicks contractions just melt away.  And repacking was a big mistake because when I got these items out of my bag to get ready for bed Saturday night, I didn't replace the spare ones.  This is only important because I would never have the time to swap these items again.

So Saturday was another "Get Ready for Joey" day.  I looked over my birth plan, bought some supplies I would need postpartum, worked on finalizing my labor music playlists, and just enjoyed my girls.  That evening I went to a church meeting that talked a lot about family and how to teach your children about Christ.  I felt inspired by it, and determined that I would create some new traditions for our family to help me teach my children, including our soon-to-be third child.  I include this as part of the story because although I haven't taken the time to follow through on this inspiration because of the event of the following day, I want to remember it as part of my preparation for our son.  I read my scriptures that night before going to bed early.  I slept so well!

Sunday morning, I woke up around 6:30 a.m.  I was a little disappointed that I hadn't had a repeat of my usual early morning contractions.  Dave and I snoozed in bed, with no hint from my body as to what was just about to happen.  Dave had an early church meeting starting at 7 a.m., so about 6:45 he started getting ready and I got up to go in the girls' room since I heard Charly talking in there.  I asked her if she wanted me to snuggle with her in her bed for a few minutes and she said yes.  We snuggled and then decided to head to the kitchen for breakfast.  Lizzy was awake but not ready to get out of bed.  I had an odd contraction here and there through all this, but they weren't really much to notice and I don't think I even mentioned them to Dave.  He left the house a little after 7.

Meanwhile I had started making myself some grits, and I was trying to convince Charly to have some too.  She refused to choose anything to eat (she's not much of a breakfast eater, although she loves grits).  I decided to just make some grits for me.  Lizzy Jo came out and asked for cereal.  I got some for her.  My contractions started coming on stronger and more frequently.  Around 7:20 a.m. I decided to start timing my contractions.  They were 40-80 seconds long and were coming pretty much exactly every two minutes.  After 5 contractions like this, I texted Dave at the meeting to let him know that I might need him to come home early.  Charly had finally claimed my grits for herself and I had lost my appetite so I never ate breakfast.

Less than 10 minutes after texting Dave that he might need to come home early, my contractions were demanding all of my attention to deal with them.  I'd lean on the counter in the kitchen and breathe, unable to respond to the girls in any meaningful way.  And I wasn't able to do much for them between contractions because of the frequency.  I called Dave and told him to come home.  After that, I turned on a TV show for the girls and headed to my bedroom.  I wanted counter pressure on my knees, so I headed to our bed to kneel on it during contractions.  After each contraction I tried to get things together for the hospital and get myself dressed.  But, again, I wouldn't make much progress before another one hit.

Dave arrived home at 8 a.m. and I got in the shower to labor in the water for a while.  At this point we had to address part of our preparations that had gone awry.  Dave's parents live in Mesquite and we had planned on them watching our girls when it came time to go to the hospital.  However, their family was visited with the flu this weekend!  We had been hoping that the bug would pass before I went into labor, but since that wasn't the case, we had to decide if we were going to ask them to watch the girls still or if we should call someone else.  We decided that it was better to safeguard against those yucky germs and find someone else.  However, it was the weekend right after school got out and we knew that a lot of our friends were out of town.  Also, some of our best friends had family in town because their kids were speaking in church.  So Dave called a bunch more people to see if they could watch the girls on such short notice.  Between calls he was getting stuff into the car.  After a few calls he found someone who said we could bring them by on our way to the hospital.  This seemed doable when he arranged it at 8:23, 20 minutes after getting into the shower.  While laboring in the shower, I knelt on a shower chair for counter pressure on my knees.  During the peak of the contraction I would ease up off of my knees and hold myself up with just my arms so that I could totally relax my belly and pelvis.  But I hated doing it!  I just wanted that pressure on my knees.  Counter pressure on my knees how I have handled labor with all of my babies.  In the shower, with each contraction I would breathe slowly in and then say "Ooooooooopeeeeeeeeen" in a low tone as I was breathing out.  I also used the mantra, "My baby and I are working together."  Sometimes I said it to Joey: "You are working and I'm working."

I had asked Dave to turn up the temperature on the water heater so that I could shower as long as I needed.  Laboring in water had really helped me during my labors with Lizzy and Charly.  I had labored in water for 1.5 hours with Charly and several hours with Lizzy.  But only 10 minutes after arranging for the babysitter, I was daunted by the thought of eventually getting out, getting dressed, and driving to the hospital, let alone getting the girls ready.  My contractions were just so intense.  We only live 5 minutes from the hospital, so I realized that if THAT was feeling daunting, things must be farther along than I thought.  When I recognized this feeling, I told Dave I didn't think we'd have time to get the girls ready so that we could drop them off.  We needed to go!  That brought on another 10 minutes of trying to find a babysitter who could come to us!  As soon as Dave found someone who could (at 8:33 a.m.), I got out and Dave helped me dress.  Then we headed out to the garage, although I didn't want to sit down in the car until right before the babysitter arrived.  Dave went inside to tell the girls that a babysitter was coming over and I knelt on the garage floor during contractions!

When he came back I told him, "WE NEED TO GO NOW!"  We got in the car and waited on the street until the babysitter drove up.  We didn't even stay to talk to her as she got out of her car.  It was 8:50. We called the labor and delivery unit on our way to the hospital to let them know we were coming and to call my doctor.  But they didn't answer.  I didn't worry, though.  5 minutes later we parked in front of the emergency entrance (because it was the weekend) and Dave brought me a wheelchair.  I answered a few questions to check in, then a nurse came and wheeled me upstairs while Dave finished the rest of the intake questions and parked the car.  At 9:00 I was in my labor and delivery room and moved onto the bed.  The nurse got a monitoring strip around me and got the Hep-lock in.  Then she checked me and I was already dilated to 7 cm!  Before this point, I had been verbally very confident that we needed to go to the hospital, but there had been a teeny, tiny doubt in my mind that I was really progressing this fast.  I was worried that I had just not been handling the labor as well as I had with my earlier pregnancies.  Basically, I was afraid of being told that I was a big baby!  So I was glad that I was making progress.

The nurse mentioned that she hadn't been able to get a hold of my doctor, and this was a worry to me.  I really didn't think that I was going as fast as I really was, but I also wanted to see the reassuring face of my doctor and feel like "the plan" was being followed.  Dave arrived up to the room by 9:10.  He saw that I was sitting up at the head of the bed.  The back of the bed was raised pretty high, so I was sitting, but with my legs straight out in front of my with no way to get counter pressure.  I was also in so much pain that I couldn't move myself.  So he immediately offered to help me move to the foot of the bed where I could sit with my legs down and have him push on my knees.  He also reminded me to relax my face, hands, and legs.  "They're not doing anything today, they can relax."  He is such a good coach!  During the contractions in the car and in the hospital, I had started feeling major pressure and my moans were starting to get the "pushy" sound to them, like my body was pushing on its own.  More than once, after a contraction, I asked Dave and the nurse, "Why is this happening so fast?"  The nurse said, "Because your baby wants to be born!"  After Dave arrived, I had 4-5 contractions.  Then the next contraction was a really strong contraction, and my water broke and squirted all over Dave!  It relieved the pressure that I had been feeling and Dave, the nurse, and I laughed for a second over the shock of it.  But then I thought, "Oh crap, here we go!"  Charly had been born within 15-20 minutes after my doctor broke my water with her.

At this point I asked to get up and use the bathroom after the next contraction.  I was afraid that my bladder would be full and act as a cushion to the baby, as it had done with my labor with Charly.  I wanted to get what I thought was an inevitable awful bathroom break out of the way so that my baby could continue to move down.  However, the nurse wisely said that it was just the baby pressing on my bladder that I could feel.  She didn't want me to have the baby in the bathroom!  And looking back, she was totally right.  I hadn't had a single thing to drink that morning, and I'd visited the bathroom SEVERAL times during my early labor as my body was trying to get rid of everything!  During this time I expressed my fear that Dr. Ofori wouldn't make it to the birth.  But the nurse (who really was great) said not to worry about it, she had delivered plenty of babies and knew what to do.  [I yelled at her at some point during the labor.  She was having a hard time getting any kind of reading on the fetal monitor because Joey was so low and she was adjusting it during a contraction.  I screamed at her to stop!  But she was totally cool with it and took the monitor off soon after that.  She really was a great nurse.]

Soon after this, Dr. Ofori arrived!  They had been able to contact him, and fortunately anywhere in Mesquite is about 10 minutes away from just about anywhere else.  He started prepping for the delivery, then said he wanted to check me after the next contraction.  I HATE lying down during labor!  But I lay down, and he announced that I was complete!  I had gone from 7 cm to 10 cm in 25 minutes.  And it was time to push!  I had been moaning through contractions for quite a while.  I tried to keep my tones low so that I could stay in control, but it was so hard!  Each time I realized that I was getting higher and wailing, I would immediately say "Loooooow" in a low tone.  But as I was almost ready to push and then when I started pushing, I really can only describe my voice as screaming.  I felt totally out of control.  I screamed through a contraction and really only pushed a little bit because I wasn't able to focus.  Dr. Ofori said that I needed to harness that energy instead of releasing it as sound.  They never told me to hold my breath or counted for me.  But during the next contraction I held my breath for about half of it, pushing as hard as I could.  I felt the ring of fire, but instead of a ring of fire it felt like a line of fire extending from my butt to my urethra!  I started to scream part way through that contraction.  Then the doctor and the nurse said that I had to move back down to the end of the bed.  I had been crawling backwards on the bed without realizing it!  This behavior really doesn't reflect well on me as someone who had practiced natural birthing techniques and had delivered Charly in a much calmer manner.

I moved back down the bed and pushed through a third contraction.  This contraction went on and on and on.  I pushed and pushed, with everyone telling me that his head was almost out, almost there, almost there, then it was out!  One more push during this same long contraction, and he was here!  Joey was born at 9:34 a.m.  His umbilical cord was wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet, which really impressed my doctor!  He mentioned it a couple of times.  After they took it off his wrist, they handed him to me for skin-to-skin, where he stayed for more than an hour.  He was pretty quiet, not crying but making little grunt noises.  After a few minutes of snuggling, I breastfed him and he latched like a champ!  He's been a great nurser and sleeper so far (He's got all the difficult stuff down pat!), and we love him with all our hearts!

Thoughts on Time

**Note**I began this post last November, and I’m completing it now.  And, it's kind of boring, with a lot of talking about ME, so feel free to skip it.

For about the last year, I've been feeling like I need some way to express my individual identity.  It is so easy to constantly label myself and my actions in the context of my relationships with others, since all day long I am taking care of my girls, cleaning up after them, and teaching them all the things they need to know.  And that is NOT a bad thing!  Today (Nov. 3, 2015) I found a lot of satisfaction when Charly grabbed her applesauce spoon out of my hand (not that unusual) and then actually used it to eat all of what was left in the bowl (This is a first!  Normally she sticks her fingers in instead of the spoon.).  And I loved it when Lizzy Jo asked if we could have a dance party, turned on the demo music on our keyboard (with a little help from me), and then involved all of us in the dancing.

However, I know that the times I struggle most with my parenting role are the times when I am wishing for more time for myself and I feel like I can't get it.  I've been slowly making changes to address this problem, and I've had a few thoughts about it.  I read a book earlier this year, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think.  The author, Laura Vanderkam, made me think a lot about how I choose to spend my time.  It is an amazing book, with lots of examples of how people prioritize what is really important to them.  I think one of the most important messages of the book is that we all have the same amount of time, and if you choose to spend your time on what's important to you (not what you think everyone else thinks is important), you'll find a lot more satisfaction in what you're doing.

So, applying that idea to my situation, I first had to honestly acknowledge that my choices about how I spend my time are my choices.  Sometimes I feel trapped by being a mother. Ouch! Does that square with my happy feelings about my children that I already wrote about?  Yes, it does.  I'm mostly happy as a stay-at-home mom, but there are always going to be frustrations and things that I can't control.  These have lead me to feel trapped, and they will until I acknowledge that I chose to have these beautiful children, I chose to be a stay-at-home mom, and I continue to choose it each day that I am a stay-at-home mom.  I could get a full-time job and put my kids in daycare.  I'd still have to deal with the many frustrating aspects of parenthood. That is not what I have chosen to do, so it's important that I focus on the positive parts of what I have chosen, or decide to change if my priorities change.

Second, I had to appreciate the time I have each week.  I have a lot, whether I choose to spend it on myself, my children, my husband, my church attendance and service, my work, or wasting time on Facebook and TV.  I don't need more time.  What I do need to do is decide what is most important (and why, so that later I remember why I prioritized it) and then minimize, ignore, or pawn off to another person everything else.

Part of implementing this idea is deciding on the time of day that I do things, so I can fit in the things that are most important.  Starting in April 2015, I had been getting up and running with a friend at 5:30am several mornings a week.  Running is important to me.  It’s satisfying, it’s challenging, and it gives me some much needed exercise.  But later in the year an opportunity came up to tutor two Russian children online, from 5-7am.  I decided to change my focus at that time of the day, since that was the only time that I could tutor these kids, I wanted to get some different work experience, and the weather was cooler (this was in October 2015) so I could run during the day with the girls.

And when our tutoring sessions ended a few months later, I realized that I liked working earlier in the day.  I could get a lot of work done before the girls woke up so they weren’t bored while I was working, I began the day productively so I felt accomplished and like I had purpose, and I could still get my running in.  I have been working very part-time scoring the TOEIC English test online since before Lizzy Jo was born, but always during the day.  So from January to April of this year, I decided that I would score the TOEIC from 5:30-9:30am as many days as they would schedule me.  It was a great arrangement, allowing me to work about half the shift while the girls were still asleep.  The girls were happier because I wasn’t working a whole shift while trying to keep them entertained.  And I was happier that I was earning more regular money, since ETS seemed to schedule me more frequently for that shift than for later shifts.  This one change in my thinking about what was important and when to get it done made a huge difference in my life.

Now, as I'm finishing up this post months later, I realize that I haven't been applying these thoughts to my current situation.  More details to come in a later post, but I have a new job coming up in the fall, I'm not scoring at ETS anymore, and I've felt a little directionless and dissatisfied this summer.  So finishing this post has prompted me to think again about what things are important to me right now and what specific time can/should I devote to accomplishing them.

Open This Little Book = Library Gold!

When we go to the library, we play with games and legos.  We go to story time.  We pick up books, movies, or CDs we've reserved.  But honestly, I'm a bit lazy about requesting books for the girls.  So we usually spend a good portion of the time letting the girls choose books too.

Charly just grabs a bunch off the shelves and shoves them at me.  I really think she puts no thought into what she chooses, which is probably to be expected from a 1.5-year-old.  And to the casual observer it might appear that Lizzy Jo employs the same method.  But her choices usually include a healthy stack of Christmas books (yes, even yesterday, at the beginning of July), and she went through a similar phase with truck books.  And since her only criteria for choosing a book is the topic, we've gone home with some real doozies.  Little Blue Truck, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way, Red Truck...I'm just waiting for her to find Little Blue Truck's Christmas.  Yuck!

But we recently struck library gold.  Dave and I try to get a few quality books to check out at the same time so that we don't go crazy reading all of the books Lizzy Jo has chosen.  Here's the gem that I found this week:

This is such a cute little book!  It's like a literary nesting doll.  Lizzy Jo has asked me to read this book five times since we checked it out yesterday.  And I've asked her to read it to me too!  Every time we read through it she exclaims, "The pages are getting smaller!!!"

It does get a little confusing, reading a book about animals that read books about animals reading books...you get the picture.  But it's just so fun and the illustrations are really endearing.  Every time we read it, I just want to start it again.  If your library has it, you should check it out!

Pool Mishaps

This afternoon we went swimming at Bo's (Dave's boss's) house.  His family has an amazing pool that they let us come swim in.  The edge of the pool is made of rock and Charly (ever the climber) wanted to climb up the 1.5 feet of rock to the divider between the pool and the hot tub.  I was next to her and not really encouraging her because she climbs and falls so often.  But the rock is chunky and has lots of places for hands and feet, and she got herself up a few inches.  She slipped and fell into the water, uninjured.  But she turned to me and in a voice with a little worry she said, "Did you scared, Mama?"  I said, "No, were you scared, Charly?"  "Yeah."

I love her little voice and the way she says things.  She frequently turns her statements into questions, like, "Is it too hot?" when she touches the ground outside and she KNOWS it's too hot.  She will also say "You're poopy" for "I'm poopy", so I think she was actually telling me that she was scared instead of asking me if I was.

The funky way her hair dried after swimming.

The second mishap at the pool was when Lizzy was diving for her pool rings.  She was getting tired and Dave started diving for the rings that she threw.  After he'd retrieved all of the rings from the deep end at the same time, he was looking for a harder challenge.  He told Lizzy Jo to throw her finger ring.  It was a heart-shaped ring that she had started wearing every day since she wanted to be like me with my wedding ring.  She looked confused and hesitant, so Dave said, "Don't worry, I will dive and get it for you."  That was all it took to convince her.  Literally, she took it off and threw it in a flash, and neither Dave nor I saw where she threw it.  We both looked all over that pool, inside and out, but the ring was never recovered.

This blow was too much for her, and we had some tears as we left.  But we bought four Frozen rings from Walmart on the way home.  Lizzy gave one to Charly right away, "The star one 'cause Charly really likes stars," she said.  Then she was trying on all the other ones.  Dave suggested that I hold on to the extra rings in case she lost the one she put on.  "No, because if I lose one, I will just put on another one.  And if I lose another one, I will just put on another one.  And if I lose another one, I will have Charly's!"

Lizzy with her new ring.

Life, by Merry, Dave, Lizzy Jo, and Charly

Here are some of the everyday happenings in our family these days:

*Every morning Lizzy Jo comes sleepily into our bedroom and asks for a pull-up change.  She is pretty accident-free during the day but still sleeps with a pull-up at night.  I love her cute, sleepy greetings.  Sometimes she climbs in bed with us for a while, if it's especially early, although we try to get her to go back to sleep in her own bed on those mornings.

*Charly wakes up and usually stays content in her crib, sucking on her "baba" (our family word for the pacifier).  We usually hear her talking or singing to herself, so when we get up to change Lizzy Jo and get her breakfast, we go in to get Charly too.  She always wakes up with her frizzy hair on the back of her head all worked up and crazy!  This spot never goes away, just lies a little flatter and smoother after it's been brushed.

*Dave rides his bike to and from work almost every day (even when the high gets up to 120!).  He's still working on divorces, child custody, some criminal defense, and a lot of civil litigation.  He's recently been trying to convince me that we should buy him a motorcycle!  When he gets home at night, the girls run to him and scream "Daddy!"  They love it when he can come with us to the pool or splash pad.

*Speaking of which, we go to the pool and splash pad a LOT in the summer.  The girls are little water babies and love every minute we spend there.  Lizzy can do a little floating and likes to swim under water from the wall to me, or dive down to get rings on the bottom.  She can't swim on top of the water yet, but I think that will come by the end of the summer, or next summer.  She had one week of swim lesson already, and she'll have another week of lessons next week.

*Some of our other favorite summer activities are going to the park as early as we can, going to the library for story time or to play with toys, getting an ice cream cone after grocery shopping trips, and going to my exercise group where Lizzy can play with other kids while I exercise (although we haven't gone in over a month because of sickness and travel).

*Starting last summer, I've been a REALLY regular runner, and I run most days (although, again, the last little bit I haven't run as much).  I'm attempting to run 1000 kilometers (621 miles) during 2016, which requires running about 12 miles/week.  Before the summer heat, I ran with the girls in the jogging stroller pretty often.  They were both getting pretty used to it, but now that it's so hot, I usually run in the mornings or evenings without them.  I think that it will be an adjustment for them again in the fall, to get used to sitting in the stroller for runs.

*A lot of our time right now is spent sitting in the air conditioned house.  We play, makes snacks, read books.  And I'm afraid that we do watch more TV than at other times of the year, since we can't get out as much as we'd like.

*We live pretty close to St. George, and every 1-2 weeks we go play at the St. George Children's Museum.  The girls love playing in the mini post office or grocery store, and riding the carousel outside.  We make it an all-day trip and bring our swimsuits for the splash pad they have there.

I'll come back and add pictures to this post if I remember.  Better to post now without pictures than to have never posted!

Lizzy Say What!?

So it's officially summer here in Mesquite. Lizzy still insists on going for a daily walk; she is apparently impervious to heat. Anyway, I took her out at about 10:00 AM and it was already about 98 degrees outside. Needless to say it was a short walk. Afterwards I was opening the garage and the stroller was inadvertently, faced into the sun.  I heard Lizzy say:

L: Dad, you're turning me into toast.
Dave: Huh?
L: I'm toast.
Dave: Oh, is it because it's toasty outside? (something I frequently say)
L: Yeah, Dad.  I'm toast now.

Some other Lizzy Jo-isms include:

L: I'm feeling nervous about going to the babysitter today.  I think I should stay home.
Dave: Why are you feeling nervous?
L: There are boys at her house.  I don't like them.
Dave: Why not?
L: Because they are boys.

(after Merry had yelled at her)
Merry: Should I have a time out?
L: Yeah.
Dave: How long should I set the timer for?
L: Two weeks.

Instead of asking "Are you okay?", Lizzy just says, "Okay?"

When Merry was sweeping the floor after a glass shattered, she kept telling Lizzy Jo to stay out of the kitchen.

L: I'll be careful.
Merry: No, please stay out of the kitchen.
L: I'll be careful in the kitchen.
Merry: No, I'm still sweeping.
L: But all the big pieces are sweep, so I can go in.
Merry: No, there are still small pieces that can hurt you.
Merry: (A few minutes later.) Okay, Lizzy, you can come in the kitchen now.
L: I can?  Mmmmm, no.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the girls from the last few months.

Charly as a newborn

She was really annoyed at being woken up!

But easily fell asleep again

I love this tiny smile!

This Christmas picture is SO Lizzy, so funny and crazy.

 Charly looks like she's offering to fight in this one

 Playing in the leaves at Grandma's house

Charly was enjoying a good book

 And a good carrot!

Charly is getting to be pretty mobile.  As I've uploaded these pictures and typed the small amount of text, she's moved from right by me to the edge of the rug (we're right in front of the TV, on the rug you can see in carrot picture right above this paragraph), turned herself in the opposite direction, and rolled a few times.  She mainly accomplishes her movement through scooting and rolling.  We've tried to get her on her knees to crawl a few times, but she doesn't seem interested.

But, boy, is she ever interested in real people food!  She ate some of my bologna sandwich just before we sat down at the computer, and if I drink water in front of her, she demands to be given the last few drops, most of the time not patient enough to wait for me to finish the rest of the glass.

Lizzy Jo is my playmate and companion.  Today we made a list of things that each of us wanted to do (Lizzy: put on makeup, splash pad, sing songs, read books, activity book, play kitchen, play dough--Mama: exercise, get groceries, read books, Lizzy does independent play, dishes, sing songs, puzzle), put it on the fridge, and then took turns doing things on each list.  We've done most of the items, and I think we're going to give the Activity List a permanent place on our fridge, it's worked so well!

Saturday's Child Works Hard for its Living

Charlotte Denise Gravett was born on Saturday, October 4th.  Here is her birth story.

Starting around the middle of September my doctor noticed that my uterus was measuring smaller than it should be.  It had stayed the same size for 3 weeks in a row and it made my doctor concerned that Charly wasn't growing properly.  He had me hook up to a fetal monitor and lay down for 20 minutes to see how she was doing.  She was doing great, with good heart acceleration during contractions.  And he was pleased that I was having contractions!  We decided to just have a couple of appointments to monitor Charly during the week and see how she was doing at the next appointment.  She always did great during these monitoring sessions, moving plenty of times and getting her heart rate up when I had contractions.

Dr. Ofori was still concerned that she wasn't growing, though, because the measurement wasn't increasing.  He said that he didn't think he would let me go past 39 weeks because there was no point keeping her in past that if she wasn't getting the benefit of added growth.  She would grow after she was born and started nursing, and her lungs and organs would be developed enough.  So we started to expect that I would be induced by the end of September.  To complicate matters, my doctor went on vacation for the last week of September, so I had to do one fetal monitoring session with a doctor in St. George, and if I had gone into labor before then I would have had to deliver in St. George.  But I didn't go into labor, Dr. Ofori came back, and--surprise!!--Dr. Ofori was so pleased with how well she was doing (and that she had grown a little bit), that he decided not to induce me after all.

By this time, I was so ready to be done being pregnant that I was not at all pleased with this news.  I'd told my mom about his plans to induce me, so on October 1st she drove to Mesquite, leaving home before my appointment.  When I called her with the news, she decided to just come anyway and see if she could help me go into labor.  I'd been having some pretty strong regular contractions during the night for several nights, all of them coming around 3 or 3:30, so she was pretty sure that I would go into labor soon.

As a funny side note, the first time I woke up with these contractions, I was so sure that I was going into labor, and that I would have the baby that day.  I had read several birth stories that talked about going into labor at night, and they all mentioned staying in bed for as long as possible and getting all the rest you could.  So I stayed in bed, but I started timing contractions.  They stayed strong for a long time, but they were very sporadic, not predictable at all.  Every night, they would eventually stop.  So disappointing!

We did a lot of walking (although I'd already been walking a lot with Lizzy Jo before her arrival), and I did some squats at the park while Mom played with Lizzy Jo.  But mostly we had fun, talked, and my mom let me rest while she took care of Lizzy.  I knew from my labor with Lizzy Jo that I wanted to be well rested going into labor.

On Saturday morning I woke up at 3:50 with contractions again.  Again, I tried to rest through them, not even bothering to time them at first because I'd been disappointed so many times.  Finally around 5:00 I started timing them, and they were getting pretty regular.  Dave was sleeping on the couch (he frequently does that because he wakes up in the night and will get back to sleep better if he changes locations), so without worrying about waking him, I got up and started moving around in the bedroom getting things together and just seeing if the movement would make the contractions stop.  The contractions felt less painful when I wasn't lying down, but they stayed pretty regular.  I became pretty sure that this was the real deal.  I tried sleeping again for a while, but they were strong enough that I couldn't sleep.  I just laid there and rested.

Around 7, I got up and went out to the couch to let Dave know what was going on.  He asked me what I wanted to do.  I decided that I wanted to go for a walk to see if more exertion would stop the contractions.  I knew that if they didn't stop, walking would help move Charly down and I was okay with that.  We peeked into my mom's room and let her know we were leaving and to listen for when Lizzy Jo woke up.  We started walking our usual route around the neighborhood, but decided to leave off one of the loops in case we wanted to get home faster than usual.  It was a good thing too, because the walking intensified my contractions.  We'd walked about 10 minutes when I had a contraction that I had to lean on Dave to get through.  At that point we decided to head home and stay a little closer.

We ate breakfast, got Lizzy Jo up, and I sat on a birthing ball to help the contractions move Charly down.  My mom wanted to make a Christmas stocking for her while she was here, so she helped me look through her Christmas fabric and choose what I liked.  Lizzy wanted me to hold her a little while, and I did hold her through a few contractions, but I was starting to get more uncomfortable and decided that I wanted to get into the tub.

We had a walk-in tub in our guest bathroom (we've since removed it to replace it with a regular tub) that I used for laboring.  It was so nice to kneel in the tub and lean on the seat, letting the warm water soothe my belly while squatting and still remaining mostly vertical.  I used a tub at the hospital to labor in with Lizzy Jo, but I didn't really know how to use it that well.  I stayed in a mostly reclined position, and while it was soothing, I think that my labor may have been shorter if I'd walked around instead of using it.

I was in the tub for at least 1.5 hours.  Lizzy Jo came in to say hi to me once, but mostly I was alone during this time.  Dave was playing with Lizzy to keep her from bothering me and to keep her from really noticing or becoming anxious about my labor.  My mom worked on the Christmas stocking!  And I listened to my Hypnobirthing CDs and relaxed.  I can't remember now why I decided to get out of the tub.  I think that my mom had come in to check on me and just saw how things were progressing, and suggested that I might find it easier to go to the hospital now and labor more there, rather than laboring at home and then having to face the more difficult labor while in the car.

I got out of the tub, and couldn't get myself dressed!  I would just be getting ready to get clothes on when I'd have a contraction and have to sit down through it.  My mom came back to check on me, and she had to help me dress.  I thought she would have told Dave what was going on, but he later told me that he was surprised to find me getting ready to go to the hospital and my mom dressing me!

We got into the car, drove ALL the way to the hospital (Haha!  It's less than 5 minutes away from our house.), and realized that I'd forgotten my purse, which had my ID in it.  We drove home again, got it, and drove back to the hospital.  I'd told Dave on our way there the first time that I would just walk into the hospital.  But when we got there the second time, he said he'd go get a wheelchair, and I didn't fight him on it.  I was definitely feeling the pain.

Because it was Saturday, we checked in through the emergency room entrance, then Dave wheeled me up to the 2nd floor to the maternity wing.  The nurses were great getting me comfortable and settled in.  They said to just do whatever we wanted, and they meant it!  I was laboring at the hospital from around 11:30 to 3:30, and they only came in to check on me a couple of times.  They never did any fetal monitoring, and only checked my progress once or twice.

Dr. Ofori came in to see how things were going, and just said, "Okay, you're doing great.  I think we're going to see the baby soon."  Because I'd labored for 12 hours at the hospital with Lizzy Jo (because we went so soon after labor started), I didn't think he could be right.  But when he checked me a little while later, he said that I was nearly complete, and asked if I would like him to break my water so that I could dilate that last bit.  I said yes, and it was awful to lie down for him to do it (I'd labored the entire time sitting on the edge of the bed), but it wasn't too much longer before my contractions started to change.  Really, I didn't feel like my contractions changed, but I felt like I was reacting to them differently.  I was having a harder time remaining calm through them, and my groans through contractions were more like unsteady wails.  The nurse came in and said, "She sounds pushy!"  She asked me if I felt like I had to push, but I really didn't.  Soon after that, the doctor asked if I'd gone to the bathroom since I'd arrived at the hospital, and when I said no he said that my bladder was acting as a cushion that was keeping her head from descending the last bit.  I got up and peed, and then the rubber really hit the road!  I was in pain, and I felt like it really couldn't be as close as they kept saying.  I still didn't feel the need to push, but they asked me to push during the next contraction while Dr Ofori held back a lip of cervix that was still in the way.  I pushed through the next contraction, and Charly was born!

She weighed 6 lbs 8 oz (3 oz more than Lizzy Jo had weighed), and was 20 inches (same height), so I've often wondered about the fuss over her not growing!  Yes, I make small babies, but she was slightly bigger than Lizzy.

One more thing to note: When Lizzy Jo came into my recovery room to see her sister for the first time, she squealed, "Hold it!!"  She has never lost her enthusiasm for her sister.  During the first few months she did try to push her off my lap a couple of times, and she bit her arm once for no reason that she was able to explain to me.  But other than those instances, she has appeared totally devoted to her sister, at times calling her "My Dear", "My Baby", and talking to her in baby talk and a loving voice.  She loves to get right up into her face to say hi and give her hugs, which Charly has recently started to complain about.  She's getting strong enough to push her sister away sometimes!  Some pictures of the girls tomorrow.

Hello Grandma and Grammy!!

Lizzy Jo wants to write a note to her Grammy and Grandma, who read this blog.  Here is what she says:

I love you!  Hi, Grammy!  Hi Grandma!  I love you!  I miss you!

2014

Dave wrote a big update for us more than 6 months ago, but we never published it.  And even though it is a 6-month-old update and I wanted to write a more current one, I thought it would be best to just publish it.  Then if I got around to a recent update, there would be TWO new blog posts.  Wow!

2014 was a big year for us.

In January, we found out I was pregnant!

In February, I decided to kick my butt into gear and finish my thesis!

In March and April, I went to Arizona twice for a couple weeks at a time so my mom could help me take care of Lizzy Jo while I wrote my thesis.

In May, we found out we were going to have another girl!  We also put in an offer for a house in Mesquite, and it was accepted!

In June, I defended my thesis, revised it some more (I think I revised that thing about 100 times!), and finally submitted it.  We also closed on our new house, painted, moved into it, and cleaned up the old apartment, all while all of us were sick.  This was only possible with the help of some really good friends, family, and ward members.

In July, we got settled into the new house and use the pool a lot.

In August, I graduated!  Also, we traveled to cool Flagstaff, and used the pool a lot when we were home.

In September, we prepared for the baby to come and used the pool a lot (it's hot here in Mesquite, can you tell?)

In October, Charlotte Denise Gravett was born!!  This gets its own post some day soon (But don't count on it really soon, because if you're reading this, that would be hoping for THREE new blog posts.)

In November, we had our Gravett family come visit us for Thanksgiving, our first big gathering in our new home.  It was so much fun.

In December, we went to St. George to spend Christmas with our Packard family.  We all stayed in some condos there, with almost every member of the family in attendance.  We were only missing my neice and great niece, my nephew, and my brother Matt.  Such fun!

We're Having a Baby!

Hi everybody out there in the interwebs. It is so good to see (metaphorically at least) you's guys again. As our most faithful readers know, we have not posted in approximately several months. You may think that this was because either 1) nothing interesting has happened in our lives or 2) we're simply too lazy to post on our blog and update our friends. If you thought either of those things you are completely wrong. In fact, it turns out that the name "lifebymerryanddave" is a registered trademark of a multinational conglomerate headquartered in Djibouti but with significant business operations in the United States. Our blog was shut down pursuant to court order while we duked it out with the company over its name. However, that issue is now cleared up and I'm sure you will see regular posts on the issues that matter most to us.

So, what's been going on? We're pregnant!!! That's right, we're participating in an experimental procedure whereby each parent carries half of the fetus and then they get glued together at delivery. Okay, actually Merry's the pregnant one, but she assures me I had something to do with it at some point. We're having a girl on or about October 7, 2014. I've asked Merry to hold off until October 31 so we could have two holiday babies (Lizzy Jo was born on New Year's Day); she says she'll try her hardest.

Lizzy Jo is doing her very best to grow up into a little girl. We've done our best to stop this perplexing development but it seems like every day she has learned some new word or has climbed into some new place she's not supposed to be. Next thing we know she'll have run off with some boy who ride a big wheel and is already wearing pull-ups. Lizzy Jo also absolutely loves the new house; her favorite thing to do is to run down the hallway stomping her feet on the tile.

Oh yes, we're moving. Ten minutes down the road to a house here in Mesquite. This means we're probably gonna be here for a while. In fact, if we stay here until we retire, we won't have to move to a retirement community because we'll already be there. Merry would like to get back into teaching now that she's got her Master's Degree; she's hoping to find a spot either here at the local community college, up at Dixie State, or at UNLV. We'll keep you posted.

That's right y'all. Merry finally completed her thesis and will be graduating in August.  Woot! Woot! It was a lot of hard work (and just a little bit of procrastination) but she got it done and we're all super proud of her.

Anyway, that's all the news here in Mesquite, where all the women are old, the men are...old as well, and the children are all non-existent.

Neighborly Consideration

We live at the very back of our condo complex.  And because they are condos, most of the units are either unoccupied several months of the year (because the owners are snow birds), or are occupied by the aged owners.  This combination means that it's a very quiet place to live.

However, there are rental units (obviously, since we live in one), and they don't always attract the highest quality of tenants.  There have been rumors of tenants in other buildings running drug houses and things like that.  But I've always felt like our complex was a safe place.  Apparently others do not, as the following story demonstrates.

In mid-October Dave, Lizzy Jo, and I made a whirlwind trip to Arizona to see my parents.  We left Friday at 3:30pm, and got back at 1:15am on Sunday.  We would have stayed longer, but I had to be back at church so I could conduct our church choir.  And we couldn't leave earlier because Dave had to be in court to represent a client on Friday.

Needless to say, all of us were tired and the car was a mess!  10 hours of driving in less than 34 hours is a lot. I decided to go out early Sunday morning to pick up all the water bottles, trash, and various items that were strewn about the front and back seats.  There were also some baby clothes, the hiking backpack, and our ipod.  I decided to shove everything into the hiking backpack since that would make it easier to bring everything in in one trip.

As I made my way from the driver's side to the passengers side to start picking up stuff over there, I noticed a lady walking her dog.  Every retired person in Mesquite owns a small lap dog!  It's like it's written into the HOA rules and regulations.  So I thought nothing of it.  But as I leaned in to grab the next bunch of trash, I heard her ask me, "Can I help you with anything?"

Me: "Oh no that's fine.  I've got it."  I expected her to keep walking her dog, but she just stood there, so I went on: "I'm just cleaning out the car after a quick trip this weekend."  Still no movement.  "We left Friday after my husband was done in court, and got back late last night, so the car is really a mess."

Her: "Does your husband go to court often?"

Me: "Yes, he does! Do you know him?"  I thought that she knew Dave through work and was just figuring out that I was his wife.

Her: "Oh.  No."  She turned away, and I think she started to reach for her cell phone in her pocket.

Me: "I mean, yes he's an attorney.  He goes to court a lot because he's an attorney."  I had just put all the pieces together.

Her: "Oh!  Well, I just thought I'd ask.  There are criminals all around us here!"

She thought that I was breaking into the car and stealing stuff, so she approached me. Then she thought I was admitting to my husband being a criminal! I'm willing to bet that she would have called the police if I hadn't set the record straight!

Busy Bees!

Dave, Lizzy Jo, and I have been busy bees lately.  There has been a lot of travel this summer to get out of the heat.  We recently bought a hiking backpack because we've been hiking a lot and the Baby Björn just wasn't cutting it anymore (Lizzy Jo is getting heavy!).  And I am working full-time at my TOEIC Speaking scoring job at ETS during the month of September, due to an influx of test-takers for the Fall.

In addition, Lizzy Jo is really getting into yoga.  Here she is showing me a few poses:

 "frog" pose

"butterfly" pose

"bear" pose

"hungry-bear" pose

"rock-climber" pose

And, in honor of her first time attending a BYU football game last weekend,
the "take-a-knee" pose.

Theological Musings on Transcendental Transformations

The Sunday School lesson at church this week was on marriage and inevitably the statement was made that no marriage is perfect, to which one old codger replied, "Yeah 'cause if it was we'd already be beamed up to heaven."  I turned to Merry and said, "Honey that's why I swear so much because if I didn't I'd be beamed up to heaven and you'd be alone." 

To which Merry responded, "Why don't you give not swearing a try and if you start floating up to heaven I'll let you start swearing again."

So anyway, Lizzy Jo is continuing to explore her world and recently she has discovered the piano and loves it.

As you can see, she is a natural.  Anyway, today we were working on dinner and washing dishes, not paying attention to Lizzy Jo, who was closely occupied chewing on my wallet. Somewhere, out of the blue we heard, as if floating down from heaven, the voices of an angelic choir singing in a perfect triad.  We both jumped, and I said, "Dear, I told you this would happen if I stopped swearing, it was good to know you," but then we both realized Lizzy Jo had started playing the keyboard and had managed by coincidence to play a major chord.  Oh well, the swearing is still off I guess.

Lizzy Jo's also taking after her old man and playing the drums too.

Teeth!!

Last month Lizzy Jo got her first two teeth, her two front bottom ones.  And yesterday she got her third, on the top and right of center.  I can't get a picture of that one, but here are the bottom ones in all their glory (what pictures she would let me take):

 

 As you can see, I was holding her mouth open to see her teeth.  She is so stingy about showing them!

And here she is with the camera lense cap, which is what I was bribing her with to keep her still.

 

I love this face!