During the first few days I begged people to know when anything got better. I wanted to know when breast feeding wouldn't hurt, when my mastitis would cure up, when my kid would sleep more and when I wouldn't feel so hassled by life.
My answer is at six weeks. After 1,008 hours is when the groove finally clicked for me. It's week seven. I wanted to make sure I wasn't talking too early about everything falling into place, but it has. I was told that my baby can't make associations before two to three months old. People assured me I would have to walk around and carry a screaming infant for several hours before he calmed down. My biggest worry was that Tucker would cry for no reason.
There's always been a reason.
Clearly, all kids are individuals. Here's the truths that work for Tucker. He has never cried for no reason. It's always been because of discomfort. My baby doesn't like being unhappy, he doesn't thrive on chaos like other hellish newborns. Like his father, Tucker is a complacent baby that wants his needs tended to. He'll only utter an ear-splitting cry once a week, if that. I've only ever heard it right before bedtime.
Here's how I've adapted to control Tucker's chaos.
A friend of mine pointed out that everything I do with Tucker is a pattern. I play a game where I touch parts of Tucker's body and say, "I got your..." ears, hair, knees, feet, hands...I do three body parts. Then to finish I excitedly exclaim, "I got your nooooose!" To which he knows it's time to giggle and throw out his biggest, happiest smile. Another way to make him smile is to make fart noises - which is far easier and less complex to explain to people that want to make him smile.
Even Tucker's days are a pattern. He will wake up from seven to nine. Regardless, I'll feed him, keep him awake for half an hour to an hour, then allow him to fall asleep for his first nap. This repeats for two more naps before the day is through. For weeks five and six, David and I gave Tucker a nightly bath and big feeding before bed. The bath started at 8:30 so he was in bed at 9:00. At week seven he's demanding bath time at 7:00 so he can be in bed at 7:30.
Being in bed was a LOT of trial and error. I would give him a big feeding and place him in a bassinet beside the bed. Tucker would be asleep for a moment, then just switch to drowsy. For half an hour after, he would demand I put the pacifier in his mouth and let him suck on it. The job was tedious...because Tucker couldn't hold the pacifier for more than thirty seconds for the first three weeks of his life. At week four it dropped to twenty five minutes; week five was twenty; then week six dropped to ten.
David had the idea of introducing white noise. I brought in the floor fan and turned it on. The ten minutes after a feeding where I had to keep putting the pacifier in Tucker's mouth dropped to five. In fact, I haven't had to put the binky in his mouth every time. Sometimes I put him in the bassinet and he stays asleep.
So for Tucker - here's what works. White noise and a bassinet for sleep. Play time and naps during the day. Keep them awake as often as possible.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Eleven Days In
I've been asked a bunch of funny questions since giving birth. David asked me if I missed feeling Tucker in my stomach, kicking from time to time. I laughed and said that I didn't miss the internal beating this kid gave me. Even as a fetus, he was mobile and never left me wondering where he was.
Here's how I'm holding up. For the first few days, I sobbed at every little thing. I would walk out of the room, see David....and cry as if I saw the Messiah risen from the dead. The entire first week was me trying to get used to such a sudden change. I had a brand new, incredibly selfish roommate that demanded I live by his hours, feed him according to his desire and cuddle him for long periods of time. It took some adjustment. Now that Tucker and I have had almost a dozen days to get to know each other, he's a good kid. I lucked out.
Tucker will stay awake anywhere from two to four hours at a time. On any given day he's awake seven to eight hours, calmly staring at whatever catches his fancy. He is able to focus on things visually. We had a minute long staring contest where he just tilted his head, baffled at how weird his mommy looked. The biggest bonus of this kid is that he doesn't have to be rocked. If he's awake, he just wants to be beside somebody's warm body and have something in his mouth. He'll lay on his blanket while David plays video games, or share a blanket with me while I try to catch up on sleep. My biggest complaint is that he is a noisy sleeper. He grunts while he poops, which is about half his life. On the plus side, he can nurse while asleep.
I've developed an internal alarm. Every two hours I wake up to feed him, whether or not he's acting hungry. He always drinks for the full amount of time and hardly ever spits up, so I'm convinced I'm doing something right.
My last bit of news is that I developed mastitis last night. Basically, Tucker wasn't draining all my milk during his feedings, so I get to feel like I have the flu for the next few days, while the antibiotics take their sweet time working.
Here's how I'm holding up. For the first few days, I sobbed at every little thing. I would walk out of the room, see David....and cry as if I saw the Messiah risen from the dead. The entire first week was me trying to get used to such a sudden change. I had a brand new, incredibly selfish roommate that demanded I live by his hours, feed him according to his desire and cuddle him for long periods of time. It took some adjustment. Now that Tucker and I have had almost a dozen days to get to know each other, he's a good kid. I lucked out.
Tucker will stay awake anywhere from two to four hours at a time. On any given day he's awake seven to eight hours, calmly staring at whatever catches his fancy. He is able to focus on things visually. We had a minute long staring contest where he just tilted his head, baffled at how weird his mommy looked. The biggest bonus of this kid is that he doesn't have to be rocked. If he's awake, he just wants to be beside somebody's warm body and have something in his mouth. He'll lay on his blanket while David plays video games, or share a blanket with me while I try to catch up on sleep. My biggest complaint is that he is a noisy sleeper. He grunts while he poops, which is about half his life. On the plus side, he can nurse while asleep.
I've developed an internal alarm. Every two hours I wake up to feed him, whether or not he's acting hungry. He always drinks for the full amount of time and hardly ever spits up, so I'm convinced I'm doing something right.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The Birthing Segment
As promised, here are the details on how my labor went.
7:30 I come in, already dilated to a four, and am administered pitocin.
12:05 My water was broken by a crochet hook.
12:12 Contractions started.
1:00 Epidural received.
2:57 Dilated to an eight.
3:24 Fully dilated.
4:23 David Tucker McKay is born at 8 pounds 3 ounces, 21 inches long.
That's the short version. I'm not sparing many details on my account below.
David and I arrived at the hospital at 6:50, just in time for the 7 am shift change. By the time 7:15 rolled around they had me in a room with a lovely hospital gown. They checked, told me I was dilated to a four and promptly told me how lucky I was, since most women that are administered pitocin spend the longest time dilating to a four. Things progress and I talked with David and the nurses, making them laugh and keeping an overall light atmosphere. I felt confident that my healthy baby boy will be born by 7 pm. That was my goal, since I heard being induced can take twelve to eighteen hours.
They strapped some monitors to my stomach so we could measure my contractions and Tucker's heart rate. David and I played with the machine a bit. We saw what a real contraction looked like (a nice, steady incline with a peak then a nice, steady decline) and what me pushing by myself looked like (basically a straight line up then a straight line down). I had to keep readjusting to get comfortable, which kept tugging at the hospital gown. Eventually I just had it removed and gave birth in nothing but a bra.
Then the crochet hook broke my water. The fun stopped pretty promptly. I went into the birth convinced I was tough stuff, and that naturally birthing my child would be a cinch. I didn't even take a birthing class, since I had kidney stones in the past, a shattered collarbone and broken foot - among many other injuries along the road of life. Well, a kidney stone feels like somebody shoving a fiery dagger along your lower-back-hip area. The pain goes down, like I suspected contractions would.
Sadly, contractions encompass your entire body, not just your kidneys. Here's how mine felt. It was like somebody had set my bones on fire. Every time a contraction came, it was like somebody threw a tsunami of gasoline over my already smoldering flesh.
I didn't know what to do with myself. At first I held David's hand. That wasn't enough. Then I looked for something to put in my mouth so I could bite down. A contraction came. Without really thinking about it, I yanked David's arm toward my mouth, to which he promptly yanked away, both amused and repulsed at the idea of having his arm bit off. He then threw a towel at my face and said, "BITE THIS!!" The nurse at the monitors (named Heather) laughed pretty hard.
A few more contractions in I couldn't control myself. I was trembling, clapping my knees together and literally throwing my arms in the air. I had no idea what to do. I turned toward Heather and timidly asked for an epidural. She assured me I was making the right choice for me, but I was going to have to wait an hour and a half, since four other women had ordered an epidural before me and they only had one anesthesiologist on rounds that morning.
Since we had an hour to kill and the pain wasn't getting any better, I asked for a painkiller to be administered through an IV. It wasn't morphine, but it was something like it. That did the trick. At once, my head and body loosened up. It was like I was resting on the softest, solid cloud to ever exist. An hour flew on by and my contractions were now like hushed birds in the distance. I was aware of them, but they were far away. By the time the epidural came, the birds (contractions) had flown closer and were getting a bit harder to tune out.
The anesthesiologist came in the room, looking like a saint at first. Then he started reading. He listed all the potential, disastrous effects an epidural could administer to the body, all with a "you better take this seriously' face. I even considered sending him out of the room and taking my luck with the fiery contractions again. I timidly asked, "How often do these symptoms occur?" He broke a smile, promised "They're few and far between", and had me sign away any chance of me suing him. They put a numbing agent over my back and had me lean forward into Nurse Heather. I got three shots. For the first one, it caused me to involuntarily jump, as if someone had hit my knee just the right way...but in my back. I don't know what the next two were for, but at least one of them worked.
I felt all kinds of comfortable after that. The only part I had a problem with was the complete lack of mobility. The nausea hit and I casually asked for a puke bag. "It worked!" I said. "Thank you!" Then I puked. Nurse Heather laughed at the fact that I was thanking the anesthesiologist for making me puke. I laid back and they left the room, giving David and me some time to talk.
They came back and checked my cervix. When I heard the number eight I was confused and asked to hear the number again. They assured me that I was really that much closer to giving birth. Half an hour later I was fully dilated! We had to wait for my doctor, Margaret Huggins, to finish up another delivery. Twenty minutes passed, then Dr. Huggins came to the room and took a look. "I see hair!" She sang excitedly. "Do you want to know the color?" I said I'd wait until he was born to know. With the help of the monitor, Dr. Huggins and Nurse Heather coached me on when to push, if I couldn't feel the contraction myself. More often than not, I knew when I was having a contraction. I pushed two to four times per contraction, since I wanted my boy out as soon as possible.
Another nurse came to the room and said, "Aubrey, your mom's here." I was baffled, but half jokingly said, "Tell her she can come on in," not thinking that my mom would actually want to see her last born child having a first born son. Boy was I wrong. A few minutes later my mom slipped into the room and quietly sat in a chair on the far side of the room. That was the only time I noticed her for the next hour, since I was a bit preoccupied with birthing.
The top half of Tucker's head was the hardest. I would push an inch out, then half an inch would slip backwards. Nurse Heather and Dr. Huggins kept up the constant chant of "push-push-push-push" per contraction, with lots of praises while I was recovering. "You did so great!" They assured me. I'm pretty sure they said that to everyone, but it still encouraged me. Finally, I felt a warm gush of fluid and saw Nurse Heather towel off some strange creature. I didn't register that it was mine. The next thing I knew, they had put this baby on my stomach! They would have put him on my chest, but my umbilical cord was too short. I had to distract myself, so I didn't panic.
"That's a baby...." I said. Then I looked to Dr. Huggins. "They say the placenta is hard to deliver..." I had started to say, but she held up a pillow case sized sack coated in blood. "Nope!" Dr. Huggins said, smiling. My eyes got the widest as they had ever gone in my life. "I don't want to eat that," I had said, not really even thinking of how offensive that may have been to say. Dr. Huggins and Nurse Heather laughed and got the placenta out of the way. Nurse Heather had clamps on the umbilical cord. "If I have to cut the cord, I charge double," Dr. Huggins said as Nurse Heather put some scissors in David's hand. David was nervous as separated the physical bond between me and our son.
7:30 I come in, already dilated to a four, and am administered pitocin.
12:05 My water was broken by a crochet hook.
12:12 Contractions started.
1:00 Epidural received.
2:57 Dilated to an eight.
3:24 Fully dilated.
4:23 David Tucker McKay is born at 8 pounds 3 ounces, 21 inches long.
That's the short version. I'm not sparing many details on my account below.
David and I arrived at the hospital at 6:50, just in time for the 7 am shift change. By the time 7:15 rolled around they had me in a room with a lovely hospital gown. They checked, told me I was dilated to a four and promptly told me how lucky I was, since most women that are administered pitocin spend the longest time dilating to a four. Things progress and I talked with David and the nurses, making them laugh and keeping an overall light atmosphere. I felt confident that my healthy baby boy will be born by 7 pm. That was my goal, since I heard being induced can take twelve to eighteen hours.
They strapped some monitors to my stomach so we could measure my contractions and Tucker's heart rate. David and I played with the machine a bit. We saw what a real contraction looked like (a nice, steady incline with a peak then a nice, steady decline) and what me pushing by myself looked like (basically a straight line up then a straight line down). I had to keep readjusting to get comfortable, which kept tugging at the hospital gown. Eventually I just had it removed and gave birth in nothing but a bra.
Then the crochet hook broke my water. The fun stopped pretty promptly. I went into the birth convinced I was tough stuff, and that naturally birthing my child would be a cinch. I didn't even take a birthing class, since I had kidney stones in the past, a shattered collarbone and broken foot - among many other injuries along the road of life. Well, a kidney stone feels like somebody shoving a fiery dagger along your lower-back-hip area. The pain goes down, like I suspected contractions would.
Sadly, contractions encompass your entire body, not just your kidneys. Here's how mine felt. It was like somebody had set my bones on fire. Every time a contraction came, it was like somebody threw a tsunami of gasoline over my already smoldering flesh.
I didn't know what to do with myself. At first I held David's hand. That wasn't enough. Then I looked for something to put in my mouth so I could bite down. A contraction came. Without really thinking about it, I yanked David's arm toward my mouth, to which he promptly yanked away, both amused and repulsed at the idea of having his arm bit off. He then threw a towel at my face and said, "BITE THIS!!" The nurse at the monitors (named Heather) laughed pretty hard.
A few more contractions in I couldn't control myself. I was trembling, clapping my knees together and literally throwing my arms in the air. I had no idea what to do. I turned toward Heather and timidly asked for an epidural. She assured me I was making the right choice for me, but I was going to have to wait an hour and a half, since four other women had ordered an epidural before me and they only had one anesthesiologist on rounds that morning.
Since we had an hour to kill and the pain wasn't getting any better, I asked for a painkiller to be administered through an IV. It wasn't morphine, but it was something like it. That did the trick. At once, my head and body loosened up. It was like I was resting on the softest, solid cloud to ever exist. An hour flew on by and my contractions were now like hushed birds in the distance. I was aware of them, but they were far away. By the time the epidural came, the birds (contractions) had flown closer and were getting a bit harder to tune out.
The anesthesiologist came in the room, looking like a saint at first. Then he started reading. He listed all the potential, disastrous effects an epidural could administer to the body, all with a "you better take this seriously' face. I even considered sending him out of the room and taking my luck with the fiery contractions again. I timidly asked, "How often do these symptoms occur?" He broke a smile, promised "They're few and far between", and had me sign away any chance of me suing him. They put a numbing agent over my back and had me lean forward into Nurse Heather. I got three shots. For the first one, it caused me to involuntarily jump, as if someone had hit my knee just the right way...but in my back. I don't know what the next two were for, but at least one of them worked.
I felt all kinds of comfortable after that. The only part I had a problem with was the complete lack of mobility. The nausea hit and I casually asked for a puke bag. "It worked!" I said. "Thank you!" Then I puked. Nurse Heather laughed at the fact that I was thanking the anesthesiologist for making me puke. I laid back and they left the room, giving David and me some time to talk.
They came back and checked my cervix. When I heard the number eight I was confused and asked to hear the number again. They assured me that I was really that much closer to giving birth. Half an hour later I was fully dilated! We had to wait for my doctor, Margaret Huggins, to finish up another delivery. Twenty minutes passed, then Dr. Huggins came to the room and took a look. "I see hair!" She sang excitedly. "Do you want to know the color?" I said I'd wait until he was born to know. With the help of the monitor, Dr. Huggins and Nurse Heather coached me on when to push, if I couldn't feel the contraction myself. More often than not, I knew when I was having a contraction. I pushed two to four times per contraction, since I wanted my boy out as soon as possible.
Another nurse came to the room and said, "Aubrey, your mom's here." I was baffled, but half jokingly said, "Tell her she can come on in," not thinking that my mom would actually want to see her last born child having a first born son. Boy was I wrong. A few minutes later my mom slipped into the room and quietly sat in a chair on the far side of the room. That was the only time I noticed her for the next hour, since I was a bit preoccupied with birthing.
The top half of Tucker's head was the hardest. I would push an inch out, then half an inch would slip backwards. Nurse Heather and Dr. Huggins kept up the constant chant of "push-push-push-push" per contraction, with lots of praises while I was recovering. "You did so great!" They assured me. I'm pretty sure they said that to everyone, but it still encouraged me. Finally, I felt a warm gush of fluid and saw Nurse Heather towel off some strange creature. I didn't register that it was mine. The next thing I knew, they had put this baby on my stomach! They would have put him on my chest, but my umbilical cord was too short. I had to distract myself, so I didn't panic.
"That's a baby...." I said. Then I looked to Dr. Huggins. "They say the placenta is hard to deliver..." I had started to say, but she held up a pillow case sized sack coated in blood. "Nope!" Dr. Huggins said, smiling. My eyes got the widest as they had ever gone in my life. "I don't want to eat that," I had said, not really even thinking of how offensive that may have been to say. Dr. Huggins and Nurse Heather laughed and got the placenta out of the way. Nurse Heather had clamps on the umbilical cord. "If I have to cut the cord, I charge double," Dr. Huggins said as Nurse Heather put some scissors in David's hand. David was nervous as separated the physical bond between me and our son.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
The Stork Visited
We have a kid! His name is not Nickolas. What decided this change? Everyone and their dog is named Nickolas (not to mention half the family on my mom's side). He has dark, gingery hair that matches David's perfectly. Oh, the name? He is called David Tucker McKay. If you care to know the details as to how we reached his name, here it is.
I was laying in bed a few weeks before and snapped abruptly awake. "DAVID??" I smashed his shoulder with my hand to get him to awaken. "How about the name Tucker??" Groggy, he rubbed sleep from his eyes. "Tucker David....that sounds terrible..." He wasn't yet sold. "How about David Tucker McKay? So he has the same initials as you?" David is David Terry McKay. He nodded, promised he'd think about it, then flopped back to sleep.
I was laying in bed a few weeks before and snapped abruptly awake. "DAVID??" I smashed his shoulder with my hand to get him to awaken. "How about the name Tucker??" Groggy, he rubbed sleep from his eyes. "Tucker David....that sounds terrible..." He wasn't yet sold. "How about David Tucker McKay? So he has the same initials as you?" David is David Terry McKay. He nodded, promised he'd think about it, then flopped back to sleep.
We had three contenders. Nickolas David McKay, Quinton David McKay and David Tucker McKay.
I had fully intended on picking the name Tucker, leaving David no say in the matter. As soon as I saw that our first born was a ginger...I knew it was David's right as the father and the provider of the hair color to pick between the three contenders. Both of our mothers agreed that Tucker was a dog's name. Since we're such devout dog lovers, we decided Tucker was the way to go.
Here are some pictures! I'll be making another blog on my experience with pregnancy and delivery. I figured I'd save everyone the headache of an extra long post.
Born 8.3 pounds and 21 inches, bigger than the nurses and my doctor had estimated (they were saying low 7 pounds). Everyone was astonished. Born at 4:23 pm.
That's Tucker's "grump" face. Whenever he's not feeding, it falls back to this.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Engaged Again
January something of 2013, I turned to David and said, "Dude, wanna get married?" It lacked preparation, any level of romance and the general idea that David was the man of the relationship. Our engagement story was one of the top three unromantic ones I'd ever heard, only topped by a certain aunt and uncle's story and my parents' story. Early on in the marriage, I asked David if he would be interested in proposing to me for our sealing, to which he happily agreed.
Knowing my Snickerdoodle, I had to set terms. "It has to be done before Nickolas is born, so you have until March 1st to have a ring on my finger." We chose to do this in September of 2013. By the time February of 2014 came around, I started getting naggy. "Are you ever going to propose?" "My ring is RIGHT THERE!" I would tell him, in the subtlest of ways.
Last night, February 28th, he finally proposed.
We hit our favorite spot in Rexburg to play Zeeke's favorite game - Frisbee. I was so freezing cold that my teeth were chattering and I had to use David as my own personal windbreaker. Finally I said I had enough and we could only do one more throw. David nodded and nervously started playing with something in his inner pocket.
Zeeke came back with his Frisbee and David gave the command "all done", to which the dog promptly dropped his toy and jumped on us enthusiastically, enticing us for more play. David said, "Zeekey, is there something you want to ask the Mommy?" (We have our dog taught that David's the Daddy and I'm the Mommy.) Confused, I looked at his collar to see a new tag. On it, it said, "Will you marry "The Daddy"?
Either my man is a romantic stud or my pregnancy hormones are terribly sharp, but I started crying immediately and started to fling his arms around him, failing to notice he was already on one knee.
"Honey, will you spend Eternity with me? YAY! Did I make you cry???" Were the exact words he said as I hugged him tight. Since it was still freezing cold we shuffled back into the car and loaded the dog up.
"You still never said yes," David pointed out as we drove away.
"You still never said yes," David pointed out as we drove away.
Monday, February 24, 2014
The Baby Shower and Beyond
I arrived two hours before my baby shower to see extravagant decorations. My mother had made a stellar new quilt and hung it on the wall, draped baby onesies on a clothesline across our fireplace, set newborn hats on the mantle, put baby toys on the table, slapped jungle stickers on the water cooler, had caramel and chocolate covered pretzel sticks made, the couches pushed back...and she still had chores for me! So thank you, Mama, for doing all that crazy work.
David informed me that there were two rows of cars stuffed in the round-a-bout across the street from my house and that our own round-a-bout was full to the brim. So thank you to everyone in attendance, both mental and physical.
There wasn't a single gift I was disappointed with. Everyone seemed to have divvied up the list perfectly and selected exactly what we needed. I can happily report that everything is put away and organized in the nursery. I washed all the clothes, organized them into Tucker's dresser and had started to work on the closet. The moment I opened up the doors, I knew it wasn't going to work. For you see...I had another child. David had laid claim to pretty much half the shelves and all the hangers. I asked him to readjust the space, shifting everything to the shelves out of my reach. He started out with several boxes, a sleeping bag, scout shirts, memorabilia from elementary school and more miscellaneous things that I can only describe as junk. Within fifteen minutes, he used his scouting skills to get everything neatly organized on the top two rows of the nursery closet and the top row of the closet in our room. It took me fifteen minutes to just find everything he had! But that's my honey - amazing at organizing and utilizing space. He pointed out that, with eleven siblings, he had little choice but to learn.
Tucker is officially due on March 16, 2014. Dr. Margaret Huggins and I both have the gut feeling to expect him in early March, so we'll see what happens.
David informed me that there were two rows of cars stuffed in the round-a-bout across the street from my house and that our own round-a-bout was full to the brim. So thank you to everyone in attendance, both mental and physical.
There wasn't a single gift I was disappointed with. Everyone seemed to have divvied up the list perfectly and selected exactly what we needed. I can happily report that everything is put away and organized in the nursery. I washed all the clothes, organized them into Tucker's dresser and had started to work on the closet. The moment I opened up the doors, I knew it wasn't going to work. For you see...I had another child. David had laid claim to pretty much half the shelves and all the hangers. I asked him to readjust the space, shifting everything to the shelves out of my reach. He started out with several boxes, a sleeping bag, scout shirts, memorabilia from elementary school and more miscellaneous things that I can only describe as junk. Within fifteen minutes, he used his scouting skills to get everything neatly organized on the top two rows of the nursery closet and the top row of the closet in our room. It took me fifteen minutes to just find everything he had! But that's my honey - amazing at organizing and utilizing space. He pointed out that, with eleven siblings, he had little choice but to learn.
After a solid Sunday's work, David half volunteered to make dinner and we invited Mike Turner over to help us finish the final draft of the nursery. We shifted everything away so that we would have an open corner for a rocking chair (already picked out and on it's way at the owner's leisure). We also have a fan in there for white noise (pretty much so Tucker won't freak out when our ever-so-considerate neighbor sporadically plays his bass).
Photo 1: The cake of David Tucker's baby shower, made by Jordan Bevan. I'm not sure if she's taking customers, but she should!
Photo 2: A swing from my parents. It has a plethora of seat positions (left, right, straight, tilted further back, tilted further forward, and probably still more I haven't discovered). We wouldn't have been able to put it together without Mike Turner's help. It's set next to my normal couch seat in the living room. It has songs and nature sounds. The animal that is in the center is a bear, while it has rotating leaves and bees above it for Tucker to watch, once he's able to see that far.
Photo 3: The women that went to my baby shower wrote down advice for me on the pictures. Rachelle McKay gave me the caterpillar, which is between the pictures and some old Tiki-jungle statues that David had in one of his junk boxes.
Photo 4: I honestly like this option more than getting an actual changing table. I cleared off the top space of my book shelf and put wipes and the diaper caddie from Amber McKay stuffed with diapers from Rachelle McKay. (I apologize to whoever gave me the Winnie the Pooh wipes, I can't remember who got them exactly, but I thank you for them). I also used the cloth diapers/burp cloths from Kira and Kelsie McKay to line the changing pad (again, I cannot remember who gave me the changing pad, so message me on Facebook to yell at me or get some credit where it's due) that is on our filing cabinet. On the left side of my ghetto changing table is an ottoman that presently elevates a box of diapers, but the diapers will be replaced with a diaper Genie! (A gift from Kajsa Hubscher.)
Photo 5: That's the best shot I can get of the entire room. You see the dresser with the frames and advice on the right, along with the diaper changing station. My mom's blanket is in the corner, ready to be hung up after we get the red rocking chair (also from my mom) in there. We have a fan for white noise and you can see the corner of our crib.
Photo 6: A crib from my Baba (my mom's mom. Baba means Grandma in Serbian), who beat everybody else and gave us our very first baby present. It's for that reason that I am alright with her missing my baby shower. On the crib we have the mattress pad that Baba bought for us. On top of that we have some of the fuzziest, warmest sheets I've ever felt - from Katie Stallings. The red blanket on the top is the first blanket I made when I heard I was going to have a baby. It's the right size for him when he's a newborn, and no other time, so I figured I'd use it while it would last. The blanket is fleece and also incredibly soft. Tucker gets to sleep on a cloud once he's home from the hospital.
Photo 7: Lastly, we have the closet. I should have taken a before and after, because David had it STUFFED. On the very left we have a diaper wreath from my only sister in law on my side of the family, Summer LaPray, the green cloth is actually a froggy towel from my cousin in law. Thank you, Brooke Cook! Right beside that is the baby blessing outfit that everyone will be able to see him in come this May or June, given to me by my Mama and Pops. On the very bottom left hand corner, in front of the picture frame, you can see a little orange bag - much like a cloth Sam's Club bag. Inside there I put all of Tucker's toys and books - which are far too numerous to name, despite how small the bag looks. I also have all of the diapers, wipes, blankets, swaddlers and every other gift stuffed comfortably into place. As you can see, that shelf on the left STILL has more room. I'd like to think that watching David pack for our camping trips has helped me organize a little bit better than when we were first married.
I'm pretty sure this blog post includes more details than anyone cares about and I've lost half the initial readers. If you're still skimming along, let me say THANK YOU to all the women that showed up to the baby shower, sent gifts, or even offers advice my way. I'd also like to thank the husbands and boyfriends that cut the checks for these gifts - all of which are priceless to me.
Tucker is officially due on March 16, 2014. Dr. Margaret Huggins and I both have the gut feeling to expect him in early March, so we'll see what happens.
Friday, February 14, 2014
The Best of Friends
My Honey,
I wouldn't want to spend any day with anyone but you. I picked these two songs "Best of Friends" from my favorite kids movie and "You Are My Sunshine" rendition from my favorite adult movie to express my feelings toward you. You're loyal, kind, dedicated - and stuck with me for the long haul.
My Bunny,
We're going to be bringing a child in the world together! Even though I say "it's all your fault" what I mean is, "you made this possible".
My Snicker,
We laugh together and play together. For you and for our children I'm going to leap out of my comfort zone and start spending more time outdoors. I've seen how much it means too you and, until the time when we can get a pasture and I can retrieve Ginger from my dad's house, I'll settle for walking.
My Doodle,
Then only thing I'd change about our marriage is we sing to each other more.
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