To think, it was 6 years ago...

*above is one of my favorite pictures of him at roughly age 2
Zachary turned 6 years old yesterday. Its amazing. For some reason, this birthday truly seems to mark the end of his babyhood. He looked older when he woke up this morning and I was sad. I love that kid so much and it feels like each and everyday we just get closer to the time when he will leave us. Birthdays remind me to savor every moment while I have it. I made sure to take at least a few moments yesterday to recall the exact happenings of his birth......

It was a Sunday. I was nearly 2 weeks overdue in the dead of summer and about 2 seconds from reaching full blown pregnancy psychosis. I had already been out of work for 3 weeks waiting for this baby to come. I was quite tired of standing a foot from our window AC unit and staring at the stucco and lead paint ridden walls of our apartment. Sure enough, the moment I thought I would die an old pregnant woman, I began to have contractions. It continued through the night and because I was young and dumb and hadn't taken my birthing classes, I was in somewhat of a panic. Starting off 36 hours of labor with no sleep probably was the first of many dumb parenting mistakes I would make.
And so the story goes on and on through 3 days worth of contractions. My favorite moment had to be on day 2, rounding on 48 hours of straight labor in which I was not permitted to even have water, my young spouse walks in the delivery room eating Chick-fil-A and sucking down an icy coke. But then again, that moment was a close second to the moment a nurse walked in the room, checking some monitor that tracked my contractions, and exclaimed, "Holy crap! You have had SEVERAL contractions that literally lasted 5 minutes and then went directly into another one! You must be in a lot of pain!" To which I moaned, "yeah." through what was then the matted and ratted mess of my hair that was covering my tear -stained bloated face.
As the hours and days...and possibly years, wore on in that delivery room Zach and I noticed that one particular monitor kept beeping an alarm that we would have thought indicated something serious, yet somehow the various doctors we had over those days never seemed too worried. So, we carried on with the huffing, puffing, crying, and insanity until the time finally came that I could have an epidural and they could break my water. I honestly thought at that time the pain couldn't get worse, but it certainly did! I started to literally lose it at that point, and that darn alarm just would NOT stop beeping. I told my husband to get someone to pay attention to that thing before I injured someone. One nurse finally came in and said, "I have been trying to tell them this thing keeps going off and that you need a doctor to look at your heart, but they wont listen! Let me go get Dr So and So!"
Dr. So and So finally showed up, put some electrodes on my chest and determined that he thought my heart was just beating fast and to proceed. Okay. They then decided it was time to push, and if pushing when your heart is already vexed sounds like a dumb idea, you are right! After about 45 minutes that alarm got a lot louder and faster and that was when everyone panicked. As it turns out my heart rate was above 180bpm and Zachary's was well over 200. Doctors and nurses began running around barking orders, using the word "stat" just like they do on TV, and shoving all sorts of contracts in my husband's face to agree to surgery. In the end, they had RIP my uterus open to actually extract the child and forever changed the way I would have babies from that moment on. After that it was all a blur of blood, internal organs, and enough drugs to kill an elephant, but my baby boy was born at 7 lbs even. His apgar score was appalling, but he improved rapidly once he was out. I remember holding him for the first time and realizing very quickly that this parenting thing was not going to be what I had expected at all.
The whole event was quite an introduction to parenthood. But it prepared us. We anticipated a birth like you see on TV, and instead ended up with one of those stories you tell over and over just to see people's faces of shock and awe for fun(and heck, when I am feeling really squirly I like telling that story to my enemies over a dinner of raw oysters and liver). What I know now is that parenting is just that, a wild and unexpected ride with the good, the bad, and the ugly. There is a lot of humor, surprise, disappointment, happiness, and most of all love, and a miraculously unconditional one at that.

Nothing new!

*photo courtesy of my dad
Zachary came home from his beach trip with my dad on Sunday. Apparently his favorite restaurant was celebrating Christmas in July, complete with Santa Claus on a jet ski. I was happy to hear Zachary sat on his lap for the first time ever! My dad reported that the whole trip was great and Zachary behaved like a gentleman the entire time. Its always nice to hear your children are "trained" thoroughly enough to do as they should even when you are miles and miles away from them!
Other than that its pretty dull around here. Last week was my birthday so on Saturday we left Aunt Dawn with Lu while we caught the new Harry Potter movie. It was a very nice break!

Thats better.

Lucy is doing much better as of the last two days. It figured that about the time I had resigned to the fact we were going to have to go back in again, that she improved. Her appointment with the allergist is now scheduled for August 5th as planned, in order to reevaluate where we are at and determine if another food challenge is in order.

I drove Zachary out to my parents' house yesterday. They are taking the little guy down to the beach for the whole weekend! He was SO excited to have his Pop Pop all to himself.

Usually, my parents' house is a major trigger for Lucy especially when her meds are not working. But Lucy surprisingly did great. She passed out on the way home and woke up about a half hour later, saying "Mom, I don't feel good." I was fully prepared to be up ALL night long, but she didn't make a peep until late this morning! Of course, I hardly slept because I was paranoid she was crying all night. I kept waking up and straining to hear her cries...but they weren't there! What a lovely change of pace!

Procrastinating

I have been procrastinating on taking Lucy to the allergist. I thought she was on the up and up but last night she was up with her belly and her mood today is pretty bad. She's chugging down water, lollipops and formula in an attempt to self soothe- which is working out in her favor since over the last few months her formula intake has been fairly poor. I was hoping to hold out on her appointment since we were due to go back in August to repeat all of her testing and decide if its in Lucy's best interest to trial another food in September. If we need to go in now and trial a new medication then this may delay any possible food trials until shes back at a healthy baseline.

Yesterday we had a play date with another Eos kiddo and her siblings. It was nice to sit down with another mom and just talk about stuff while the kids played nicely. I feel really lucky to live so close to another mom with a kiddo like Lucy.

We went to visit some rocks...

We took the kids on a hike to the King and Queen seat up at the state park today. The kids love love love to hike and we had been meaning to go up and see this rock formation for quite some time now. It was beautiful! I cant believe such an amazing place is just a few minutes up the street from us! The kids truly loved it. Lu is still bouncing back from her flare up this weekend and only hiked a small bit, riding the rest of the way on Daddy's shoulders. When we got back she was exhausted so she ended up taking a 4 hour nap. Hopefully she will be running at full steam soon!

*and did you notice that is TWO pics of both children together looking at the camera and actually smiling??? What good luck! I am so glad we made a special stop for batteries!!! LOL

Home again!

We are back. What a nice weekend. The weather was perfect- not too hot but not too cool, and not terribly humid. We lounged on the beach practically the whole weekend.
Lu unfortunately had a flareup on Saturday night. Her lips broke out so bad, they were bleeding everywhere and she was refusing to eat. Her mouth probably hurt too bad. She was up several times that night and last night crying that her belly hurt. I think she has run her course with this medication and dosage. It forever seems like whenever we find something that helps her, its only a matter of time before her body figures out how to trump it. Her mouth is still broken out today, but looks better. I think a trip to the allergist soon is inevitable.

*and I still never got batteries for my camera, so for once there are no pictures to share AT ALL! Usually Big Zach complains that I am playing paparazzi, but this weekend he actually complained that I wasn't there to photograph the makeshift swimming pool the kids made on the beach or snap a shot or two of the kids on their very first ferris wheel ride!

We're outta here!

We are off to the beach again this weekend! See ya on Monday!

Alone time

As a stay at home mom, I truly appreciate any alone time that I can scrounge up. You would think I could at least shower or even go to the bathroom alone, but that is not so- my children must tail me within 6 inches at ALL times. As a matter of fact, I have seriously contemplated selling our 1800 sq ft home to downgrade to a 200 sq ft shanty down by the river since we obviously don't need so much space with my children mere inches from me at all hours of the day.

Jogging has become my 3-4 time a week escape. The 25 minutes of RUNNING until exhaustion all by myself can be pure bliss after a long day in the Mommy Hood. Big Zach gets a solid 25 minutes of one on two Daddy/kids time, and I get some peace. Its a wonderful thing.

I went jogging this evening and it became apparent that these 25 minute sessions have not been enough to teach my husband that silence is NOT a good thing when you are with children. Anytime there is silence in this house, you should be suspicious. Silence means that someone is either up to no good, has left unexpectedly without permission, or God forbid is unconscious. I came up through our back yard and found Lucy out in the sandbox, ALONE. Sliding glass door wide open and no one around. I guess she decided to get a little of her own alone time. I called up to Big Zach and asked if he realized our baby was outside- he said "She was quiet so I just assumed she was playing." Um, no. Playing is the opposite of quiet, my love. Either way, he put himself in the corner alongside Lu(who knows its not okay to go outside without an adult). Lesson learned.

The air conditioning got fixed today, and just in the nick of time. It was 83 in here and apparently that is Lu's absolute limit. She had a serious case of the "Big D" this morning and her skin was in full swing. She was irritable and clingy, which led to her wanting me to hold her all day- not fun when its hot as heck. The AC was fixed by lunch and Lu took a super long 3.5 hour nap. Yay! She seems to be feeling much much better now.

July 4th

We spent the evening at Bill and Joy's this year. The kids had a great time playing with the slip n slide Pop bought them and running around the bonfire with sparklers (a 2 yr old and a sparkler unsafe you say? nah!) Daddy put on his, now annual, firework display which pretty much makes his year. By the end of the evening Pop got to keep his eyebrows even after lighting the bonfire, the kids had nearly every blade of grass in the yard glued to their wet bodies after the slip n slide, Mommy's belly was full of marshmallows, and Daddy had a permanent smile glued to his face after playing "pyrotechnic" for 20 minutes! Everyone also slept until after 9 am this morning! Yay!

*my camera died so I have only a few pics and the majority of the ones I do have are blurry! This camera gives little warning that the batteries are low so it will take blurry pics and then give you about a 5 minute warning its done. Argh! I loaded it with batteries just the last time I used it so I thought I would be covered for sure!

Who wears short shorts?

Coming home from Target today Zachary looked out the window and started laughing hysterically and shouting "Oh my GOSH! That woman is wearing her underwear!!! What is she thinking!?! Shes crazy or something!" I looked over and didn't see a crazy lady wearing granny panties and curlers, but instead it was a teenager wearing those booty sweat shorts that are so trendy these days. They were so short they indeed looked like underwear. Zachary was "appalled" I guess at her lack of modesty. Haha!

So, our air conditioner is broken. Its all around not good for Lu. Her skin is giving her a fit and her attitude problem is giving me one. It really wouldn't be that bad if we could open most of our windows and if they weren't more like magnifying glasses with the sun because they are the cheapest windows ever made- so at the moment our house is just baking all day long. The repair man isn't due to arrive until Tuesday and I am counting down!