Awkward moments and important lessons

So in case you weren't aware I get the pleasure of being involved in almost every embarrassing social moment known to man. I often ask people about their lives and realize I am bringing up some sper painful memory or feeling, its great. Everyone loves to be around me. So on November 30th we had a ward Christmas party, I know right? Anyway I saw my friend Stephanie and I went up to wish her a happy birthday. She was talking to  Amber who was due to have a baby girl right around Thanksgiving. She didn't look pregnant anymore so I assumed she had the baby, having heard no news on the event. I went up said hi wished Stephanie and happy birthday and then proceeded to ask Amber how she was doing. She said not well so I said I am sorry and tried to ask her about the delivery and the little baby and in response I am not getting much more than a few words. Finally she cooly says I dont want to talk about it and walks away. Flabbergasted I realized that maybe I was being to personal in asking how the delivery went and what didn't go well. After Amber walked away Stephanie turned to me and said, "You know her baby didn't make it." So then I felt awful. Realizing this horrible mistake I had made and yet not knowing how to fix it. Do I go up and apologize and make it feel all the more real or do I hope she is just very forgiving and figures I didn't know. I assumed the second one since I was to embarrassed and ashamed to go speak with her again.
The next day I am on campus going to the Christmas concert and I ran into my friend before the show I looked at her we said hello and I said so how many days until you get married(I knew it was sometime this month). She looked at me and said "well...." I instantly knew the engagement had been broken off and once again felt like the scum of the earth. I apologized told her this was my curse in life to be this person that unsheathes painful news and as I told her my story from the previous night she apologized and said I am so sorry for you. She had to leave and we parted ways on an awkward, Lizzy you suck at being social, kind of note.
As awkward as these experiences were they taught me a great lesson. The last few days these women have been in my thoughts and prayers a lot. I cannot even imagine the pain and suffering they are gong through right now and then it hit me. The Atonement helps us through experiences like these. Life is hard and we go through painful experiences whether emotional or physical. But if we turn to our Savior  and let him in, He can heal us and help us find joy. I am so grateful for the Atonement and its healing power. I am grateful that we are given hard and sometimes painful lesson so that we can become better. I still have a ton to learn so I realize I will probably have a lot more pain in my life but I look forward to it realizing it is for my good.

Thanksgiving

So we went to Denver for Thanks giving. On Wednesday morning Little Jon and I flew out. Jonathan was going to fly out thanksgiving morning. I got a call at like 530 am Thanksgiving morning and it is Jonathan, he can't get over the Teton pass, he is 1/4 mile from the top and the car just wont go forward anymore. Unfortunately there were no other flights leaving that day. SO Jonathan spent Thanksgiving with his parents an Little Jon and I spent it with mine. Lame but whatever. For the last several days I had this pain in my back on my right side and Thanksgiving night it was getting pretty bad, and i also had a fever and chills and was sick to my stomach so we went to the hospital. They checked me out and after many hours they thought that I might maybe had a kidney infection. So they gave me pills and sent me on my way. The next morning I felt even worse so I went back into the hospital where they kept me all day doing tests and flushing me with antibiotics. I had also starting contracting so we were thinking baby might be coming(Jonathan is still in WY at this time btw) So he flies in that morning and my dad brings him straight to the hospital where we hung out and watch movies while I go through chills and sweating bullets back and forth. Anyway they finally get me feeling better and I didn't have a baby which was good, though I kinda got excited. We spent the rest of the weekend together with my family but I was still pretty sick so  I barely ate anything over all of thanksgiving and I didn't even get to do any good shopping cause I felt so yucky. I felt like a huge party pooper cause the whole family was there and wanting to do fun things but I couldn't go. Oh well, family loves you anyway, right? Little Jon was so excited to come home and be able to crawl around because there wasn't someone trying to hold him every minute of the day.

Halloween and crafty-ness

So originally Little Jon was going to be an ewok for Halloween. The costume is simple enough. You get a teddy bear costume, drape a brown shirt over it and give the kid a spear and ta da! You have an ewok. On Saturday we were getting ready to go to a little street trick or treat thing as we started getting Little Jon ready I told Jonathan he was in charge of making a spear for Little Jon we couldn't find a rock for the spear head and Jonathan said paper was too lame. We also realized that our child would probably never hold said spear anyway so we opted out. When we bought Little Jon's costume several weeks ago they were out of teddy bears so we got a lion and figured it would work out well. We put the lion part on and realized it was way to small. In fact we had to cut a slit in the head piece just to get it on him. Were any of the snaps done? Maybe the ones by his ankles. So after pitting him in a too small costume we began trying to put the brown shirt over him... It didn't work, he threw a fit so Little Jon went as a lion for Halloween and I think he turned out extremely cute.

I have also been trying to be more crafty lately since I acquired my own sewing machine for $20 it is super old and in fantastic condition. I couldn't be happier. So while my mom was here she showed me how to make a pillow cover and I am very pleased with how it turned out.

I have also recently become a pack rat. I want to be crafty so bad but I don't have an established pile of junk craft stuff like button and fabric because A) I am poor and B) I haven't lived long enough to acquire said stash. So now I save anything and everything that could potentially make any kind of craft. So after having over 100 baby jars saved I finally came up with an idea of how to use them. I painted them Halloween characters and placed them all over the house. I really like how they turned out. They are all painted except the mummy which has gauze on it. The light ones look especially cool at night when we light tea lights inside of them.

Excuse the out of order ness of my pictures I am doing this from my phone and I'm not sure I am even doing it right.

Brags and Laughs and Plums

      So Little Jon may be the most chill of any baby I know, he is currently cutting 4 teeth and is acting no different than normal, I love my baby. He makes my life so easy, which in turn makes me terrified for this next one because it just isn't fair to get 2 super chill kids.
     Ok I had to get that my baby rocks out of my system. So Little Jon has learned how to pull himself up and stand which is forcing us to slowly baby proof our house, which is always exciting.  Little Jon can also stand by himself unsupported... if he doesn't realize he is doing it. It is quite funny to watch his face as he stands there and then realize he is not holding onto anything. The instant terror is fantastic, yeah I'm a great mom. I also love when he can't figure out how to sit down. So he will be standing crying and I try to show him how to sit and help him and then he cries more and looks at me like "Mom, I didn't want to sit down!"
     Little Jon has also learned how to shut his door recently. We keep all the doors in our house shut so he cant get into our bedroom the bathroom etc but we leave his door open so he can play in his room all he wants, even though most of his toys are in the living room. Anyway he has gotten in the habit of crawling into his room and whether on purpose or not he shuts the door. When he first started this he was just playing with the door and liked to shut it but very soon afterward we heard him hitting the door and crying since obviously he cant open his door. I would go open the door to try and help him but he was so fascinated with the opening door that he would keep shutting it therefore starting an open shut game, its pretty cute.
     Now that Little Jon has matured and knows the art of closing doors he crawls into his room sits, looks at me and smiles, and then shuts his door. He then begins to squeal and play with whatever he can find in his room which is actually quite baby safe, lucky us. My son is only 9 months old and he is already playing on his own in his room happy, it is nice but kinda sad because I can't jsut watch him play. Soon he gets bored though and I get to be the hero that saves him from the closed door and it makes it all better.
   
     So we have a plum tree in our front yard actually it is on the other side of the sidewalk, like right next to the curb, but still our property and therefore still our tree, make sense? So when we first moved in several neighbors came by to let us know that this tree had been a community plum tree that people just come by and take plums and that is how it has been for many years. So even if we wanted to make it our private tree it is virtually impossible because of the previous conditioning of the neighborhood. I didn't think that would be a problem I mean what am I going to do with an entire tree of plums. So this morning our doorbells rings and as I open the door and 40-50 year old hispanic man starts talking to me in spanish, I love being able to speak only one language...not. Anyway so I have no idea what he is saying but I figure out that he wants some plums so I say go ahead you may have some plums your welcome etc. P.s. I am not sure these plums are totally ripe yet but whatever, his choice. Anyway so I go about my day being happy and feeling good about my generosity when I look out my window like 10 minutes later and the guy is still there picking my plums, he has a grocery sack full of them, at least 20 maybe 30 plums he has in his bag. So now I have a dilemma I am trying to be a good person and say you know maybe he needs the plums maybe he has no other food, maybe he is going to sell them so he has money to feed his family but on the other hand you just took a whole grocery bag full of my plums you jerk what if I was going to use those and man you are just so inconsiderate etc. I just went out to check my plum tree because as I was writing this I was getting more and more paranoid that There were no more plums on my tree and he had in fact taken them all, I've never had a fruit tree by the way so I have no idea how much fruit they actually bare, and I have to say I have been sufficiently humbled. I went to look at the tree and I saw plenty of plums left and now I feel like scum for being so selfish. So if anyone wants some plums.... I have some.

Too Much Time

So I realize this isn't a new problem for me but it is a little different. I have too much time. Jonathan and I decided to get more disciplined so now I wake up at 5 am every morning and by about 11 I have cleaned the house or done some chores and I am totally ready for the day and Little Jon is sleeping. I feel really accomplished so I am not depressed just bored. I finished reading my book series and I guess I could read another but I wanted to know if anyone else had any fun ideas or games that they do when they are bored. I am getting to the point where I am saving chores for other days so that I have something to do. Like "I can't clean up the craft room today because I already organized the pantry and threw out the food we wont eat or has gone bad." I think it is kind of funny and also ridiculous. I realize that in like 5 years I would kill to have this life back but I have realized that as hard as it is to be really busy it is just as hard to have nothing to do. So really I think one of the tests of life is to be happy where you are and with your situation because you will never be in that same exact situation again.
On a side note Little Jon got sick really bad last night with a fever. He was so miserable but Jonathan just came home from work and held him all night long doing whatever it took to make him feel better. It was super sweet to watch. He was so loving and gentle, it warmed my heart.

Summertime

Summertime is a hard time at the Baird house. Jonathan and I are really big fans of the cold, in fact we find heat pretty much unbearable. Call me a wimp but anything over 85 and I am just done. So we often get bored during the summer because we love being outside but it is too hot to justify being out there. We are trying to find different free hobbies that we can do together because recently our answer to "what do you want to do tonight" is often, "I guess just watch another movie." We are in a rut lol If anyone has any good ideas of free or extremely cheap hobbies to do together we are more then open to them. This also proves to be a problem with me and getting work done. I have some jobs that need to be one but they are in the office which is all windows and therefore very hot or in the garage which is just as hot if not worse and so I have to do them early in the morning or after Jonathan gets home from work which is our be together time. I don't know maybe I just need to say suck it up, and I won't be offended if anyone really does say that to me.

Baby Proofing

So now that my son is quite mobile, I have need to start thinking about baby proofing our house and keeping it a little cleaner, since now anything on the floor ends up in his mouth. Little Jon also has a new favorite pastime, pulling out our carpet. he crawls right to the edge from the dinning room to the kitchen which goes from carpet to wood and he rips out all the carpet on the edge and eats it. This usually causes him to choke, which is always exciting. And I now find little chunks of carpet everywhere to the point where it seems impossible to pick all of them up. Oh well, we were planning on replacing that carpet with wood floor anyway, right?

Random Little Updates

1. Little Jon is fairly mobile. He can inch-worm his way across the floor it is really cute. I would post a video but I am not totally sure how to do it. He is so cute. His 2 bottom teeth are almost all the way up. I love going to get my son out of his crib in the mornings. It makes me feel so good to walk in there and have him look at me and get this huge grin on his face. It makes my day!
2. The mouse died! I got so fed up with it that I offered to buy my husband a gun if he would get rid of it without putting holes in my wall. Finally, it got caught in a trap, yay! I was so ecstatic to be rid of that mouse.
3. A couple days later, I saw another mouse running around my house. Words cannot describe my fuming hatred towards mice.
4. I got a piano for my birthday/christmas present for the next like 6 years. It is used but beautiful and old. We are the second owners of it, ever. It was bought in the late 30's and this lady has had it in her house the whole time but now she has moved to an apartment and needs a smaller piano. Once again I would post a picture but I am not sure how If someone wants to enlighten me I would be oh so happy.

Baird Reunion

This past weekend was the Rey Baird reunion, it was Jonathan's Grandma and all of her descendants. We drove down to Provo Saturday morning and joined right in with the family. Now what you have to understand is that Jonathan has 18 Aunts and Uncles and all of them have children so this was quite the crowd. The Baird's can also be somewhat, ok really, intimidating. Have you ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding? That is the Baird family minus the Greek and the fat and the wedding. But seriously I didn't think those families actually existed... until I got married. Now the movie is so much funnier to me because on the other hand you have my family which not in its extended state is very similar to the grooms family in the movie. Anyway I was so excited to meet all of these people and get to know my extended family on the other side. I decided that I was going to try really hard to get all the aunts, uncles and spouses names down. Forget the other generations I will work on them later. I did it! I was so proud of myself. (Forgive my spelling there are like 10 different ways to spell every name in the English language, sorry if I get it wrong) These are the observations of an outsider...
First you have Jim and Char Christensen, Char just studied abroad in Paris, France and they have a brood of 6
Second you have Elaine and Brian Partridge, they have a brood of 6 one of which is named Ben whom I met at the family reunion and is studying to be a physical therapist. They also have an Amy, who wasn't there and I can't wait to meet because she is so fantastic.
Third you have Russ and Margie Baird. I married into this family so I won't bore you with all the details I know about them ;)
Fourth, Ron and Janelle Baird, they have a brood of 6, and they have an Ethan and he wore shorts and cowboy boots to the reunion on Saturday, I made sure to make fun of him
Fifth, Becky and Monty Burkholder, Becky reminds me a lot of Ron in facial structure. They have some children and Monty is a go getter at getting food served, especially homemade ice cream
Sixth, Doug and Laurel, they have one son Thomas. Doug is a Physicist and is almost a replica of my father-in-law
Seventh, Sarah and Hyram Johnson. They have 3 children Coleman, Wyatt and Kate. They live in Driggs and we scarred their oldest when we hit a dear while he was in the car.
Eighth, Dan and Julie Baird, Dan is my new favorite uncle, like he told me at my wedding. He is a dentist and they have fantastic kids and an especially adorable daughter named Eliza. I like them a lot, Julie especially seems to like Little Jon
Nineth, Jeff and Janette Fisher. They just had a baby a few weeks ago and he is precious and very little like 7 lbs little. Now to most that sounds like a pretty average baby but remember mine was virtually 11 lbs. Anyway Janette is like the world's best pianist, at least from the stories I have been told
And Finally but very best is Rikki and Matt Vilburn. They have a drop dead gorgeous little girl named Emily and she is about 3, I think. Rikki is every one's favorite aunt. It is a self given title but acknowledged and believed I think by everyone. She is like 5 feet tall and super spunky and I love her. She and I became fast friends and I couldn't be happier, she is fantastic.

Overall the Baird clan is made up of fantastic people, all of them wonderful in their own way. I am so
happy to have married into such a wonderful family, where love and laughter abound.

Now for the activities, now remember I am a newbie so none of these traditions mean anything to me but apparently they are a big deal. We got there Saturday afternoon and It was rainy so we couldn't do the grandchildren birthday party at the water park, which Grandma used to rent out the entire thing for this party but now they wont let her, and I think it has been closed so now it is at the Veteran's pool. Anyway instead we went roller blade/skate-ing which was fun. My husband apparently was a super blader with Ben when they were younger. It was fun to see a side of him that I never have before. And he is really good, I looked really dumb but that is ok. The Russ Baird kids all jumped in with much enthusiasm and I was impressed with how many times they fell down and just jumped right up. Then we went and had dinner and talked and had the grandchild birthday gift exchange. You get a name of a cousin in your similar age range and it has to be from the dollar store. I had no idea you could get so many cool things at the dollar store. There was supposed to be a movie in Grandma's backyard which is another tradition but it was too late so we all just left. Sunday morning we all got ready and went to our various church meeting, a lot of the aunts and uncles are locals so they went to their own wards. Jonathan spent our time visiting important families from his Provo days, especially the Rowberry's. Joe Rowberry is a man to which I am very grateful for all his support to my husband in his youth, it was also pretty much the funniest thing to watch him play with Little Jon he became the biggest goof I  have ever seen. Then we had family dinner, we started trying to say good bye... and we left several hours later. After dinner was homemade ice cream and it was delicious. Then we left. The reunion goes through Monday but we have work.

My son over the reunion had a total of 4 hours of nap time? AKA not nearly enough. So today Monday it is currently about 6 pm. My son has been awake for  a total of maybe 3 hours. He is also detoxing from a week and a half of pure spoiling from family, which makes him really fun;) It is ok he is learning quickly and it hasn't been too bad yet. I am excited to be home for a while and get life back to normal.

A Week in Denver

So a couple weeks ago Little Jon and I went to visit my parents for a week. Jonathan would've come if it weren't for that blasted work! We had a ton of fun. Grandma and Grampa were so cute and spoiled my son in a way that only grandparents can, which is fine... until I came home. Whilst in Denver Little Jon popped out 2 teeth, right on the bottom. Overall it wasn't as bad of an experience as I was expecting. It was super fun but oh my was it good to be back and in the arms of my hubby.

Updates

So often I look at my bogs that I follow and I think Gosh why dont people update more.. then I realize I am such a hippo crate. This is me trying to be better. SOme of our recent happenings are that we finished our bathroom... mostly. It is functional and we are soooo happy, there are still other things to be fixed but they can wait. Pictures will come... once I figure out iPhoto. But in big news I am expecting again! Yay! We are so excited. I am due the end od December which will put our two little munch gins 1year apart. We aren't finding out the gender until the baby is born. I am feeling great! This pregnancy physically has been much easier than my last but emotionally more difficult but I think that is because I am in a more difficult part of my life right now. I am still trying to adjust to being a stay at home mom so I have all of those fun feelings multiplied by pregnancy it makes them really fun. I think it is funny how quickly I forget what pregnancy is like. I love being pregnant and it is fun for me to get the old symptoms back, like crying at almost any commercial.  Anyway thats our life and we like it!

Tiling

It is finally done my friends. Many of you dont know that when my husband and I bought this house we were given a budet so we could fix it up. The house it great, but the bathrooms are tiny and gross. So we decided to redo the hall bathroom. To save money we decided to do it all ourselves and seeing as my husband is a super handy man and home depot has a lot of how to videos we figured we were smart enough to do this on our own... and we were ;) Unfortunately this has taken much more time than either one of us wanted it to. You see we started ripping it out like the day after we moved in so we have been in a 1 bathroom house for the whole time we have lived here so for about 2 1/2 months or so. Unfortunately that means when family comes to visit which is very often by the way they have to walk through our bedroom to the bathroom which is so small you have to leave to change your mind. Anyway we started tiling and Jonathan was doing great. The problem is it was very discouraging so I kept encouraging Jonathan to get more and more work done and he got more and more discouraged. FInally after about 3/4 of the bathroom was done I offered to help...oops. Anyway we found the project was much easier when done in pairs so it didn't feel like anyone got banished to the bathroom. Today though I decided we were going to finish it so wen family comes up in like a week it would be done, or at least functional. Betsy came over and helped (because Jonathan had to work and Betsy is just a saint anyway) and we started around noon and we just finished with clean up and all at 9 pm. I am so grateful Little Jon took a very long nap today. I am so glad it is done, we got to the point where we were like does this fit? There is a little gap, oh well just put the darn thing in. I am happy with how it looks and that is all that matters. I am so proud of Betsy and I and I am also very exhausted. To get the full effect I will wait to post pictures until all the fixtures are in as well.

I need a hobby

No really I do. Being a stay at home mom with one young child was supposed to make me instantly busy. Apparently babies like to sleep a lot so I spend a lot of my day doing... nothing. You see when there are things to be done but just a few I tell myself I will do them later, and then I don't. It is also not helpful that I tell myself I will do it later cause I will have time to do nothing for 5 hours and still get done the 2-3 things I need to that day. And the sad truth is that I often have time for both. Sometimes I think there are to many hours in a day, call me crazy I know. This is my predicament. I feel like I have nothing to do, I could clean my house but at most that takes me 1.5 hours. Then what? The only friends I have are still in school and as much as I like to go see them, I don't want to be the kid that graduated and couldn't move on, you know? I decided I would start scrapbooking after Little Jon was born as a hobby and I have all of my stuff organized in my craft room, except I dont have a table. I could pull it all out and put it in the kitchen table but that just seems stupid and like a ton of work. And the kitchen table probably still has breakfast on it. The other problem is that when Jonathan comes home from work he wants to relax and when someone else is here I am motivated to work, it doesn't work out well.  I feel like I am just watching my life slip away as I spend hours doing nothing. How do I make my life busy again with out spending money?

Pains

       So sorry I haven't updated in a long time, I have so much to say and share but I will update that later.... hopefully :) So about 2 weeks ago I went in for a routine check up with Little Jon only for the doctor to tell me that my son looked "scary" as in underweight scary. He weighed in at 11 lbs 13 oz at 4 months old, oh yeah and he was born weighing 10 lbs 11 oz, I guess he was right. So I had 2 weeks to get him up in weight, I went from nursing him 20 minutes every 3 hours to 40 minutes every 1.5 hours. After a few days of gorging himself (which ps made me feel like a great mom to see how much my son was starving) we calmed down a little but he was still eating about 20 minutes every 2 hours. We went back 2 weeks later and with all the extra feeding my son weighed in at.... 11 lbs 5 oz, that’s right he had lost more weight. At this point the doctor tells me to go to the hospital today, now. Oh and I should plan to stay overnight my doctor says. I walk home bawling my eyes out, not sure how this is happening but apparently I am starving my baby and now he needs emergency care. And as a side not this whole time my baby has never been fussy or grumpy except for the 2 brief moments of sickness, which could’ve attributed to the weight loss but who knows, he has always been mellow and wonderful. The only way I can console myself is to keep repeated he was acting so happy how could I have possibly known he was starving. 

       We get to the hospital and they want to put an IV in Little Jon however since my son is so dehydrated and his skin is so baggy they are unable to find a vein, oh yeah they tried 8 times to find one by the way. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold your son down while he screams in agony as needles are repeatedly pushed into his body? I am crying now just thinking about it. (Oh and Jonathan is at work now so I am there all alone). Also, did you know they can try to take blood from the veins IN YOUR HEAD! Yeah they tried on Little Jon, I didn’t watch in stead I buried my head in his knees and cried. The problem was they needed blood to run some tests so finally they got the ok to stop poking him except in his heel, which they must have done 3 times right in a row because I have seen a baby heel prick before and it never bled like it did this time. Over and over again I wanted to scream at them to stop but I couldn’t do it, instead again I cried. At times it was so hard I had to leave and just let the nurses hold him down because I couldn’t watch which then also made me feel like a bad mom because I couldn’t stay to support and help my dear sweet boy. 

       After the whole ordeal with the needles one of the nurses tries to talk to me and ask me about the back story of his feeding and begins to lecture me about how "I’m not going to correct your mothering skills but..." which once again makes me feel great. All alone, I am a horrible mom with a starving baby. They finally get me up to my room and everything slowly gets better and I calm down. Which is why I didn’t have either mother come down and help me, because they worst was over and I figured I was ok, and I was. Jonathan gets off of work and comes to join me they have put Little Jon on formula because he needs to gain weight fast. I pretty much assume that nursing my son is over because well even when I have pumped and fed it to him he has struggled trying to nurse after that, how in the world is he going to cope with trying to nurse after straight formula and bottle for 24+ hours? That night the nurse comes in and says they couldn’t get enough blood for one of the tests so they will have to prick him again, inside I scream not even wanting to think about how this time is going to be but fortunately they are going to wait until tomorrow morning when he is more hydrated. In the morning they take the blood via heel prick again and it isn’t that bad for which I am so grateful. I talk to the doctor, the nurse, the dietician and the lactation specialist and long story short I don’t produce enough milk anymore. I only produce about 4 oz every 6 hours, yeah definitely not enough. So basically Little Jon is on a formula only diet and if I want to breast-feed I can supplement with it but really h just needs to be on formula, I tried nursing him once and he actually kind of did but I already fed him formula like ordered so it lasted like oh 3 minutes. I decided to nurse my baby on a "as mommy needs basis" thus far I haven’t nursed him again, though I might go try after I finish this post. They weighed Little Jon after about 24 hours of formula feeding and he gained 10 oz, all in one day I was so proud, but also a little hurt. I was upset that I could no longer provide for my son what he needed. My mother-in-law has always talked about how hard it would be to be a pioneer mother and have your baby die because you weren’t nourished enough to provide milk for your baby and they starve to death, I think I kind of get what she is saying now, and yeah it would suck. 

       As to why I no longer produce enough milk well we have no idea. It is probably nothing I did just mother nature, so that made me feel at least a little bit better. We were released from the hospital and we went home. Now I have been lucky enough to never feel engorged or in pain if I miss a feeding or 2, I have just been super blessed that way, maybe it is because my breasts are so freakishly huge now that they could never possibly get completely full but whatever. Anyway so I told the lactation specialist I have never been in pain so she didn’t give me anything to help my milk dry up. I haven’t fed my son in 3 days. It hurts, and they are so heavy. Running today was a painful experience in a new way. It isn’t really bad just when I put almost any kind of pressure on them. I tried to hand express some milk today in the shower barely anything came out, but they are still as hard as rocks. If it gets worse I will go to a doctor but for now it is just a new pain. Being a parent brings such a new understanding to the pains of life. I know it is helping me become a better stronger person but it is also really hard, especially those protective mother pains, oh well maybe some day it will get easier but I doubt it.

Sweet moments

Tonight after the CES fireside Jonathan Little Jon and I went for a drive. We are driving the truck so we are all in the front with Little Jon in between Jonathan and I. As we are driving Jonathan put his hand next to Little Jon's head and Little Jon began to snuggle with it. I put my hand on top of Jonathan's and then LittleJon pushed his hand out so that he was holding mine. It was a very sweet moment with us all snuggling and holding hands together. As we continued to drive Little Jon would not stop staring at us. He would take turns gazing at each of our faces for at least five minutes at a time. He has gotten so good at focusing. We would turn off all the lights in the car and Little Jon would start to cry we had to drive with all the lights on inside the truck for him to be happy, it was quite comical. The light was so bright so that it was keeping Little Jon awake. We finally found some tape and put a glove over the light so that it was not so bright. It worked like a charm and Little Jon was content. I have never seen Little Jon be so fussy in the dark before, it was so interesting to see how much he wanted to have the light on so that he could stare into our faces. It was a very tender moment.

Thoughts of a first-time mom

Now that I have had a child of my own I look at life differently, especially the creation of it. I see every menstrual cycle now as a life that could have been. I'm not saying that I wish all of them had been lives but now going through a cycle is an entirely different experience. I realize that it is something beautiful and sacred, whereas before it was something obnoxious and inconvenient.

I find myself wanting more and more to just spend every day cuddling with my son. It makes it really hard to get anything done around the house. I also realize though, that I will not always have this time to cuddle with my children. As I grow older and have more children they will need my attention also and so unfortunately I will not have the opportunity to cuddle with them as much as I do with Little Jon. I have decided that that is part of the blessing/curse of being the firstborn. Maybe I am wrong after all I have only had one child but it seems that firstborn children get more attention from mom then any of the other children will at such a young age. In return though, the firstborn also gets to go through the grueling experience of parents trying to figure out how to be parents. They get to experience all of their first time parent's mistakes.
Always wanting to cuddle with my son makes me realize how lucky I am. I get to stay home and have that opportunity, if I choose, to cuddle with my son all day long however, my husband has to go to work and school. Staying home with your children all day can be hard but I think that we as women get the better end of the deal. I would much rather be able to stay home and hang out with my children all day long, even during the hard days and the frustrating ones too, then have to be away from them all day long knowing that if I'm lucky I might be able to spend an hour or two with them once I get home. Thank you to all the fathers who don't complain and still love their children just as much as we do.


The other day Jonathan and I were discussing the difference between loving your spouse and loving your child. Loving your spouse is something you seek after, it's something you strive for and work towards. Every day you try to increase that love with your spouse. Loving your child on the other hand cannot be helped. There seems to be no decision involved in whether you love your child or not. It is instantaneous and uncontrollable. A child has a way of weaving its way into your heart so quickly and so deeply that it is so hard to imagine ever letting go even though eventually you know you will have to. Last week I asked my parents what they thought the hardest part about being a parent was and immediately my father answered saying "letting go. " I think that I am just beginning to understand what he meant. I am so grateful for all of the parents in the world. Being a parent is a hard job, you spend the first 18 years of your child's life loving nurturing and caring for them without so much as a thank you or an understanding of what it takes to do the job. Then, if you are lucky, your child will reach the point in their lives where they can finally see life from your shoes and understand how much hard work you put into raising you and how much they truly love you. It is a very humbling moment as a child to realize how much you were given, and how little you gave back. So thank you to my parents and to parents everywhere for all that you've done for us. We may not tell you, in fact we may not even realize, but we are eternally in your debt. Thank you.

Baby blessing

Little Jon was given a name and a blessing this past Sunday, I can't even begin to explain how beautiful it was and how strong the spirit was. I didn't hear most of the blessing but I could feel the spirit so strongly that I could not withhold tears. There was another baby blessed before Little Jon and even during that blessing I was emotional. As Jonathan was blessing Little Jon I could see his potential. I saw him getting married in the temple and I felt so proud of him, it was overwhelming. I love that little boy so much. I can't explain what I was thinking, only what I felt. This is by far one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had. As Jonathan came and sat by me he was racked with sobs. It was so powerful for me to see him that way. As I looked down at my son the congregation started singing him number 139 "in fasting we approach thee." It literally sounded like a chorus of angels. It was so beautiful. I remember thinking this must be what Heavenly Mother feels like when she looks at us. That was such a powerful and comforting thought. This whole experience was so strong it was exhausting. I felt like if I were to close my eyes I would have passed out right then. I imagine this is somewhat what Alma the younger felt after he saw the angel. I am so grateful for this Gospel and for the priesthood. I am grateful for all the family that was able to come out, it was so nice to see all of them. I love my husband at my son and I hope to never forget this day.

Simple pleasures

I have found that when I try to do something sweet for another person it often has an unintended effect on my life that sometimes ends pretty humorously. My husband left his lunch at home today so I wanted to take it to him at school. I had started making bread and decided that I had time to leave the house take Jonathan's lunch and get back in time to finish the bread because it was supposed to raise for 15 minutes anyway. I got back home and the bread was supposed to rise for another three minutes but this is what I saw when I walked in the door. No that is not a loaf of bread sitting on top of my Bosch mixer the dough has in fact raised so much that it has popped out of the top. I have decided that it is these little mishaps that make life fun. I know that my days are considerably happier when I can laugh at myself several times a day.

Our Little Man

So Little Jon freaks out if he gets hot, but never even squeaks if he is cold. We have a car seat cover to keep little Jon warm but it is like a sleeping bag that looks like the inside of a Taun Taun, you know from Star Wars. The problem is I bring him inside and leave him in his car seat forgetting how hot he gets, so he starts screaming and when I take him out his back is covered in sweat. Poor little guy.

I think Little Jon has nightmares too. He will totally asleep, wake up and cry for 2 seconds and go straight back to sleep. Like right now he is trying to go to sleep but he keeps waking up, crying and gong right back to sleep. Sometimes it is just to hard for him to give up the fight and fall asleep. He also struggles because he has not quite acquired full control over his limbs, so often his arms will twitch and wake him up over and over again.

In other news, Little Jon can now roll over from tummy to back, we haven't accomplished the reverse (that darn shoulder just gets in the way). Anyway so I often forget that my son can roll over so I leave him in a room and come back and he has moved, it always takes me a minute to figure out how this happens. Recently I had Little Jon on a blanket in the living room, I had left to go do something and Jonathan was working on homework in the living room. I started to hear Little Jon cry so I went to take care of him so Jonathan could focus. When I went into the room he was gone! It took me about 10 seconds to find him.... under the couch. It took me a while to stop laughing.

Hot feet

So I wanted to surprise my husband and take him on a date, we ended up going and having a bonfire. A little while later my feet got cold so I put them in front of the fire. Soon they started to warm up and I was getting happy, that was until my feet became very hot. I also noticed the smell of burning rubber..... Yes I was burning the bottom of my boots. Needless to say I ran to the truck and took them off. They were a good pair I am sad to see them go.

Great Grandma Clines

Shortly after new years we went to Star Valley to see the family and we went to see Great Grandma Clines, here are some of the pictures we took of her and Little Jon. And then a couple cute ones of Ammon.

I'm too young to be a grandparent

So I was having a great day loving my little boy and holding him while I ignored all of my daily activities such as laundry, dishes etc. I was completely in love with my son and it's days like this that make me think the baby blues are history forever. As I was just gazing at my little boy I imagined that I was looking at Little Jon's first son. I imagine that that experience would make me think back to these days I have now holding my son. I wonder if all grandparents look at their grandchildren and remember their own children at that state. It was a very cool experience. It made me grateful for the ability I have to sit around at home and just hold my baby for hours on end. I know that once I have another child it will not be the same, and that even now everyday I will not want to hold my baby for hours on end, so I am trying to appreciate the time I have. Everyone says enjoy every moment, and I am trying to because I can already tell that the time will go by too fast and before I know it I will be a grandparent, looking at my grandson and trying to remember what it was like to hold Little Jon in my arms and take naps with him and to just cover him with my kisses. I know this time will end but I hope that it never leave my memory. Thank you grandparents for all the hard work, the kisses and the time you sacrificed for us. We dearly appreciate it and it helps us try to figure out how to raise our children in some sort of correct/similar fashion.

Visitors!

We have had many people come visit us since Little Jon was born (unfortunatly these are out of order, I am still trying to figure out how this blog thing works!)

My Mom came and helped us out after Little Jon was born.

The Baird family came out a week after Little Jon was born.

And this is both sets of grandparents and my brother Steven in the hospital with us. Sorry we don't have a picture of Grandpa Baird.

Life as we know it

Well, I feel the need to back track and record a little of my life, specifically the day that Little Jon was born.

*To us this is a miracle story but to others it may be considered a horror story so please consider before you read*

On December 13th I went in to get my water broken because I was 10 days overdue. We were originally scheduled to go in at 10 but the hospital called and said we currently have 6 women here in labor so you have to come in later. So around 2 we went in and our midwife broke my water which let me just say is one of the weirdest feelings in the world. The weirdest part was that it wasn't just a one time thing, you continue to leak for several hours. Now Jonathan and I had planned an all natural delivery, we figured that having my water broken was pretty non-intrusive. So we labored in the hospital for a good 9 hours when I turned to Jonathan and said "You know, I think I want an epidural." We discussed it for a little while, because after all it was contrary to what we had planned for our whole pregnancy. I really just felt like I wanted to get an epidural and that I needed to do it. We got the epidural which is a weird sensation, at one point it felt like someone had hit my funny bone but inside my body, then we waited. My contractions began to slow down and so my midwife came in and said you know you aren't really progressing so we need to give you some Pitocin. They shot that in and then the baby's heart rate went berserk. He couldn't handle the stress that the pitocin was causing so they took me off of it. The midwife came in and said here's the deal the epidural caused you to stop progressing and the pitocin is to hard on the baby, now we need to get him out because we broke your water; you need to have a c-section. We had to agree it was the only thing to do. We were a little disappointed because we wondered if my choice to get an epidural had caused all of this. Because we didn't stick to our plan we were subject to what we like to call cascading interventions.

They started to prep me for the c section. Now they totally pumped up my pain meds because I was going to be awake for the procedure. It was funny because they kept asking me to move but I couldn't. So they laid me on the table and strapped my arms out, as if I were on a cross. They had my arms strapped down to the table with 2 straps on each arm. It was kind of intimidating. The reason they did that was so that I wouldn't touch anything that was sterile, on purpose or not. They also put a big sheet in front of my face so I couldn't see what was going on. The sheet was like 3 inches from my face which made me feel slightly claustrophobic. They said ok we are going to get started and I said wait where is Jonathan you cant start without him here, I really got nervous. They said he was coming but I was still slightly afraid they would start without him. He came in like 30 seconds later and sat next to me, behind the curtain and he held my hand. They got started and the numbing medicine was working well, mostly. Shortly after they started I said you know I can feel something, I'm in some pain. Yep I can feel it on my right side. The anesthesiologist kept saying ok we will give you something in a minute, and I kept thinking give me something now! I didn't realize that they didn't want to give me anything until Little Jon was out because it would go straight to him which would've been no good. As they began to do the procedure I noticed that Jonathan was squeezing my hand harder than I was squeezing his. He was really nervous that I could feel what was going on. At one point I turned to him and said hunny your hurting my hand please stop sqeazing my IV. They asked Jonathan if he wanted to see them take the baby out so he watched that. As they too the baby out I heard loud gasps and then wow this is a big baby! All of the sudden the doctor, midwife and nurses were all talking about how massive our baby was. In my latest appointment the told me they thought my baby would be around 8 lbs. Little Jon came out at a whopping 10 lbs 11 oz 21.5 inches long at 4:26 AM. The thing was that I had so much fluid in me that compared to the room he had to move around they didn't think he would be so big. The doctor kept joking about the midwife not being able to lift our son over the sheet so I could see him (although she was able to). After that I don't remember a lot because as soon as Little Jon was out they pumped me full of drugs. I fought really hard to stay awake and talk to the doctors while they stitched me up but Jonathan says I never said anything.

They rolled me down the hall to a room and I saw Jonathan I asked him for a drink of water because I thought I was going to die of dehydration ( I hadn't eaten or drank anything for several hours because I was going to have the operation). Jonathan was on his way out when he stopped and said I have a better surprise for you. That is when they brought me Little Jon. I remember holding him and just being completely flabbergasted. This was my son. The thing that was inside my belly for 9 months was finally here and this is what it looked, smelled and felt like. It was weird. I still to this day occasionally look down at Little Jon and go wow I'm a mom, weird. They wheeled me down to the room I would be staying in for the rest of our hospital time and as they turned into the room there was a nurse following us with a baby in her arms and I thought she was coming in the room with us and that was when I had this thought, Oh no I had twins and they didn't tell me! The nurse continued on into another room which relived me, not because I didn't want twins but because I only had one of everything at home.

The rest of the stay in the hospital was as normal and we went home 36 hours ish later. My son has seemed so big to me until these last few weeks when I look at him and I go you know you really are little, even if you are big for a baby.

Looking back on the whole situation I am so glad that it went the way that it did. The doctors told me it is a good thing you had a c-section because my bone structure wouldn't allow the baby to come through the birth canal he was just so big. It was at this moment that Jonathan and I were very grateful for modern medicine. If I would've had my baby 100 years ago we both would've died. I think it was inspiration that led me to get the epidural when I did because if I hadn't of gotten one Little Jon would've spent a lot of time crashing his head against a hole that would never be big enough and the whole thing would've seemed like even more of an emergency because they would've had to give me the epidural and prep me for the c-section all at once and it would've felt very urgent.

Something that surprised me was how strong the baby blues can be. I thought after I had the baby things would be more normal. I think the emotions are a lot harder to handle after you deliver than during the pregnancy, at least they are for me. I think it is the responsibility you immediately feel for this little baby. I do love my son but man some days the blues hit and I wonder if I will ever be an adequate mom, or if I will ever be able to get him to stop crying. I feel bad for my poor husband, because sometimes I break down and become a useless wreck. On the other hand, being a mom is awesome and a lot of fun. I think it is going through the hard times that makes it so wonderful. I am so grateful for my son and the woman he is forcing me to become and for my husband and the patience he has with me. I couldn't be more blessed.