It's Christmas Time!

On Sunday night we were able to decorate our Christmas tree! I for one was extremely excited about our tree this year because it was the boys' first tree! I know, hard to imagine that even though this is Gabriel's third Christmas and it's his first tree. See when Gabriel was first born we lived in a tiny apartment and had no room for anything! Our dining room, living room, and my office (I used to work from home) was all shoved into a tiny living room and there wasn't much space to even lay down. Scratch that, there wasn't room to lay down. We also weren't sure if we were going to have to move around Christmas time that year so decorating and having a Christmas tree didn't happen, much to my dismay. We did however make a Christmas tree out of paper and hung it on the wall so we could put Gabriel's present under something.

It was fun and we will probably do it again this year and let Gabriel decorate it and hang it up somewhere.

Gabriel's second Christmas we lived at my parents and yes they did have a tree but it wasn't ours. They let us help decorate it and all but, I mean, it wasn't ours... you know what I mean? I hope so.

Anyway, so this year it's our first Christmas tree as a family! I was bummed that we couldn't get a real one at first. Our apartment building won't allow real ones so we had to buy a fake one. I have never had a fake one before, my whole childhood we always had a real tree, so when Josh came home with a boxed tree I didn't really know what to expect. When he put it together my words were 'it's so ugly' and then Josh explained to me that you actually have to fan out all the branches and what not to make it look like a real tree... oh.

So after we fanned out all the branches and curved them upwards like the little pamphlet said it actually looked pretty good!

So on Sunday after supper we made hot chocolate and popcorn, put on some Christmas music and started to decorate our tree! Gabriel had so much fun! He loved putting the bulbs on and especially the angels, he LOVES angels!

We let Gabriel hang the ornaments wherever he wanted to which ended up with a very interesting tree in the end!

All, and I mean ALL the bulbs were cluttered in one little spot at the bottom of the tree along with the angels and snowflakes! It was about the cutest thing ever! He wasn't even hanging them on the tree anymore, he was hanging them on the string of lights because he was running out of room. I loved it!

Even Eli got in on the decorating, sort of :)

We had so much fun decorating!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Matching PJ's

When I found out that I was going to have two boys one of my first thoughts was 'Yay, I get to dress them up in matching clothes and take cute pictures!' I didn't have matching clothes for the boys right away but finally, after 5 months I was able to put the boys in matching clothes! I would have had to wait much longer since these PJ's for Eli are 6-9 months, but he's a tall boy and has been in 6-9 month clothes since about 4.5 months.

The other night I put the PJ's on both boys and tried to get a cute picture. They were both very tired so they were not about to smile for me but I was able to at least get one where neither one of them were crying :)

Oh how I love those boys!

Missed Moments

I had a dream once. I had a dream of exactly how child birth was going to go. I knew that it wasn't going to be easy, I knew that it was going to be painful and hard and long. When I was pregnant with Gabriel I did tons of research on what was the best thing for mother and baby during labor. I prepared myself the best way that I could. I knew that it was going to be tough but I wanted to do it without pain meds because it was healthier for me and my son. I knew that after I gave birth I would get to hold my son for the first time and I was so excited to nurse him right away and just see his face and hear his first cry. There was so much I was looking forward too even though I knew there was this really hard process to go through. I was going to meet my baby on the other side of labor and I was going to be the first one to hold him besides the doctor. My arms literally ached to hold my baby weeks and weeks before I was due.

Gabriel decided to grace up with his presence 5 days early. I woke up in the middle of the night with contractions and even though they weren't bad at all and I probably could have slept between them, I was so excited there was no way I was falling back asleep! I waited an hour to wake up my husband and while he tried to go back to sleep (I told him too) I kept picturing how the day was going to go. I was beyond nervous. I was scared of how bad things were going to hurt and how long it was going to take. But I was excited! I was going to get to hold my baby that day!

We left for the hospital early in the morning around 7-8AM. At the hospital we waited for my doctor to show up and I walked around trying to get things moving more. I was so excited and happy that I think if anybody saw me they would have ever guessed I was in labor. When my doctor finally showed up and check me I was pretty much half way there (4-5CM). She broke my water which I hadn't planned on but I decided to go with the flow.

Contractions came on hard and fast after that. I was having contractions every 2 minutes and they were painful. I was one of those unlucky people who had back labor. Back labor isn't very pleasant as anyone who has had it can tell you. It is worse then normal labor and pain radiates up and down your back and into your legs kind of thing. I was dealing with it and I kept thinking about my baby that I was going to get to hold soon. I was for sure that things were going fast but I soon found out that I wasn't going as fast as I had thought. I was moving 1 CM an hour and when I got to 9CM I stopped dilating.

I didn't expect things to start going down hill. I never guessed in a million years that I wouldn't be able to birth my first baby. But all the sudden my sons heart rate started going all over the place. I will never forget where I passed out only to come too and have 10 people in the room rushing around putting oxygen on my face, IV's in my arms and the alarm going off that was keeping track of my sons heart telling us that he was not ok. My doctor and nurse were trying to push me over to get my in a different position to get the pressure off of my sons head in hopes his heart rate would go back up. It worked, the alarm slowly became silent and everyone in the room sighed a huge sigh of relief. More contractions came and my sons heart rate never came back to normal. He was getting worse and worse and I had been at 9CM for 3 hours and contractions were right on top of each other for over 5 hours. He needed to come out and he was stuck and in distress.

I was rushed down to the surgery room and they wouldn't let my husband come in with my right away. The room was freezing cold and huge and white. It had a table in the middle of it waiting for me with all sorts of tools and monitors around it. I was still having contractions without pain meds and my husband wasn't there and I was petrified. This was the one thing that I had not even considered would happen to me, I was in no way prepared mentally. A nurse came and held my hand and got really close to my face while they stuck the needles in my back to numb me up. She kept whispering that it would be ok and I was doing a great job. Honestly part of me wanted to punch her and part of me wanted to never let go of her hand. I had to lay down and they strapped my arms out to the side Jesus style and finally my husband was allowed in. He got to sit next to my head and hold my strapped down hand. I had tears running down my face and was on the verge of freaking out. The c-section started and I found out about a whole bunch of things that I didn't know. I never knew that you can feel everything. You feel every tug and pull, them moving stuff around inside of you, you just don't feel the pain. It was disgusting. It was scary. I tried humming to distract myself but it didn't work very well.

Then my baby was born. In the last way I had ever imagined possible my little baby boy was born! I tried straining my neck to just get a glimpse of him but all I saw was a big blue sheet in front of my face. I heard him going into the hands of a few different nurses and them saying how cute he was but I never got to see. I laid there strapped down and waited and waited for them to bring me my son. They finally came over and showed him to me. My arms still ached to hold him but I could not. I got to see him for maybe in all 2 minutes if even that before they took him away for the next two hours. I told my husband to go with our son and I waited while they stitched me up and took me to the recovery room. I waited while they spent over an hour making sure all my vitals were good and then finally, finally I got to see my baby boy! I was so excited to just hold him but I couldn't sit up so they just laid him next to me and my aching arms still had to wait.

I spent 5 days in the hospital before we got to go home and had all sorts of things happen to me that I never even dreamed of. I was excited to have my beautiful baby boy but part of me was left, I don't know what the right word is, maybe troubled, disappointed maybe. I had this dream of child birth, I was prepared for anything and everything to happen and to deal with it and the one thing that I never even considered is what happened to me. I never got to be the first one to hold my baby. I never got to see him take his first breathe or see his first cry. I never got to nurse him right away like I wanted to. I missed out on all those special little moments that everyone else had.

It took me awhile to deal with it honestly. There were many nights I held him and cried. I felt like I let him down in a way and had let myself down. I felt like such a failure. Thousands of women birth their babies every day and I couldn't do it. It was heart breaking for me, after all, a woman is made it have babies, to give birth, and I as a woman failed to do that. I got over things eventually, I knew and accepted that it was the best thing at the time considering the circumstances. I still missed what I never had but I accepted it. Tears were shed here and there but I had Gabriel and that is what mattered.

When I got pregnant with my second I was determined that things were not going to be the same. I did even more research and decided that if I needed pain meds I would take them. I thought maybe it would help me relax and get that baby out:) I had dreams again of being able to hold my baby when he would first come out, all the dreams came back that I had the first time and I was even more excited because it was not going to happen to me twice, I was sure of it!

Labor came. I was annoyed when we got to the hospital because they were making me go on the monitor right away and soon I was annoyed that they weren't letting me off of it. I kept asking the nurse to take it off because I wanted to walk around to help with the pain and I wanted to get in the bath. She kept saying that because I had a previous c-section that I needed to be on it for just a little bit and then they could take it off. So I waited and waited. The nurse kept coming in, checking the paper, scowl at it and walk away. I got an epidural, it honestly wasn't super great, I didn't like it personally but I can see why people do. I soon found out that my nurses scowl from looking at my sons heart beat on the paper was because he wasn't doing very good. He wasn't responding to my contractions like a normal baby would and they were doing a huge number on his heart every time I had one. The time had come for another c-section. My son needed to get out and it wasn't going to be the way I wanted it to be. Again.

I was more prepared the second time. I was nervous and scared because I remembered very well what it was like the first time. They took me down to the big, cold, white surgery room I hated so much and my husband had to leave me again for a little while. This time I had no sweet nurse to hold my hand, they all just looked at me with the scrub hands in the air waiting to slice me open. I got strapped down again and my husband was allowed in. Then they started their surgery and I started to freak out.

I know, I should have been prepared, but unless you have had a c-section you don't know what it feels like to have them pulling and tugging on the inside of you, to be cut open when you are wide awake. When I heard them say 'scalpel please... ok starting to cut... get something to wipe this blood up with...' I started to freak. I could hear them talking about what they were doing and tears were running down my face. I don't know how loud I called for Josh but I needed him. I told him he better start singing to me so I couldn't hear them. He sang 'twinkle twinkle little star' and 'you are my sunshine' over and over again because he couldn't think of anything else to sing and the pain meds guy above my head gave my husband a tissue to wipe my tears.

My baby was born and I knew I couldn't see him so I closed my eyes and tried picturing what they were doing with him and what he looked like. They finally came over and showed him to me. He was so beautiful! I felt the ache to hold him but couldn't do anything about it. I went to the recovery room and asked for my baby a good 50 times but they never brought him to me like they did with Gabriel. I asked and asked and they never came. I didn't see him until they brought me to my room and then I finally got to hold him 2-3 hours after he was born.

I don't regret having to do what I did to make sure my sons were ok. I do miss the fact that I never got to spend their first few hours of life with them and I miss that I didn't get to experience all the things normal mom's do. You know as a mom how you want to see your child's first everything? You want to see their first smile, their first roll over, their first step and their first taste of food? It's like that, except so much more of a stronger feeling, you want to see your child's first breathe, their first cry. You want to be the first one to hold them and the first one to kiss them. I think every mom wants that and some of us just don't get it because we had to make our own little sacrifices along the way. Sure, I still think about the moments I missed with my boys, and yes, sometimes the ache for what I missed is very strong and there are tears shed. I don't know if I would be normal if I didn't have those feelings. I missed something very special and I won't ever get to relive my two sons births and be able to have those moments. It is right of me to miss it.

I will keep trying normal deliveries with any future children that I have, I still have my dreams that I had 3 years ago when I was pregnant with Gabriel.

Sometimes when I talk to other Mom's about labor and they find out I had c-sections they immediately write me off. Like I don't know what labor is like. Like I chose some easy way out so I didn't have to go through pain. They act like they don't want to hear anything that I have to say but they will listen to anyone else in the room who had a child, as long as it was the natural way. I went through labor. A harder labor then a lot of women go through when I had Gabriel, I simply never got to push and have my son the natural way. It kind of hurts when women brush me off the way they do, when they turn their noses at me like I'm not as worthy as they are or I'm weak or something. Most will never know my story, and that's ok, they can think whatever they want about me. I know it. I did what was best for my kids. And even though I wasn't there for the first few hours of their lives, I will be there for the rest!

With Gabriel...

With Elizek...

Bakin'

Sometimes as a Mother you are very proud of your children. Like when your son gives a little girl a hug that he has never met before because she is crying. Or when he helps cleaning up even without asking him. Or when he poops on the potty for the first time or when they roll over for the first time. When they are polite and when they give others their toys and share even though you can tell that they would rather play with the toy themselves. There are lots of times as a Mom that you are extremely proud of your children.

There are also times as a Mom that you are proud of yourself. Sadly these moments are fewer and far between then you being proud of your children. I think society makes us believe that we are never perfect enough as parents so even the smallest accomplishments we never feel proud of because in our mind we're thinking 'I still could have done a little bit more or did it a little bit better'. As a Mom I've learned that sometimes we just have to give ourselves a break and be proud of the little things we accomplish, even if other people think we are crazy for being proud of something so simple. Like being proud that you made it out of the door by 10AM with two kids. Or being proud that you did not go insane sitting on a kiddy stool all day long while your son sits on the toilet trying to learn to pee. You can be proud that you made it through the grocery store in one piece without any major meltdowns. You can be proud that you made it through labor without pain meds, or made it through labor at all for that matter even with pain meds. Heck, be proud that you carried a baby for nine months and didn't go insane while pregnant (even if maybe you did go insane, you came out on the other side OK) :)

I have been going to a Mom's Group every Tuesday for the last few weeks. This last Tuesday was our last session for the fall which I was rather sad about. I have come to know a lady there who has mentioned to me on a few occasions that she thinks it's awesome that I like to bake and cook with my kids. See in our household Gabriel, and even on occasion Eli, love to help in the kitchen. Eli likes to sit in his bumbo seat and watch the whole process and Gabriel loves loves LOVES to help and watch (and eat!).

His treat today was celery with peanut butter. I was trying to counter act the cookie dough he sneaked with something healthy:)

I've never thought that it was something to be proud of, it's just something that we do and enjoy doing together.

Today I was making cookies with Gabriel and I was thinking about all the extra effort it took to have Gabriel help. I mean really. Baking with kids takes a lot of patients. They want to help with absolutely everything and it creates a mess. A BIG mess at that. I could whip together dinners and baked goods in half the amount of time if I didn't have Gabriel helping me. If Gabriel didn't help me then I wouldn't have to plan on chopping up extra carrots and peppers and broccoli because he is going to eat half of it. I wouldn't have to pick out egg shells from cracking eggs in a bowl because I let him help. I wouldn't have flour all over my flour because he wanted to help dump it in the bowl. And clean up would be so much less work because there wouldn't be much to clean up. But I know that my kids love to help in the kitchen and it gives them immense joy so to me it's all worth it and in return gives me immense joy as well. So today I decided that I should be proud of myself for cooking and baking with my kids.

And the result?

It is oh so sweet! 

Potty Training

My computer finally isn't dead, we got a new computer cord for it so I was finally able to upload some pictures and update a few things. I have a few things to share with you but the most challenging and new thing around our home is potty training. Potty. Training. Is. Hard. Yep, very hard.

I was going to start potty training last week but then decided against it. I knew that Gabriel is showing all the signs of being ready, but I also knew that potty training was going to be challenging and didn't know if I was up for it quite yet. But two days ago we were sitting at the kitchen table and Gabriel all the sudden said 'potty' and so I sat him on the toilet and he peed! I was so excited! I thought maybe it wasn't going to be as hard as I assumed. The day went on and he peed on the potty 3 times that morning with 1 accident. AMAZING! And then, *sigh, nap time came and he woke up and changed his mind about peeing on the potty and went every single time in his underwear. I was a little bummed but I knew that kids had accidents so we kept at it for the evening and cleaned up a lot of accidents, never once peeing on the potty.

The next morning came along and I thought it was going to be a good day and he was drinking lots of liquids so I was excited about the potty training that day. He peed in his underwear about 20 times that morning (or so it seemed). I was reallllly wishing we had hard wood floors at that point! After nap time he was put in a diaper because I didn't want to clean up any more accidents for the day. Also during nap time he had taken off all his clothes, including diaper and peed all over his bed and then sat in it. He has gotten in trouble for this a few times already and I was rather mad when I discovered him laying in his pee when he knows fully well not to take off his diaper. Heck, I even remind him every time I put him to bed not to take off his diaper, but he did... again. I had made up my mind that we were going to wait to potty train because, well, just because. I was rather sick of cleaning up pee to be honest.

Then I was laying in bed last night and thought 'if I give up then these last two days were for nothing... we'll see how morning goes'. This morning came along and I put him in a diaper and waited until he peed. From that point on he was in underwear and I made him sit on the toilet every 30-45 minutes until he peed. No waiting 5 minutes then taking him off only to find him peeing his pants 2 minutes later, oh noooo, we were not going through that again. I was going to sit there until he peed. Thankfully he peed almost every time without having to sit there for forever and if he didn't we would take 10-15 minutes and then come back. The only accident of the morning was when he pooped. And now my bottom hurts from sitting on a kiddy size stool all morning long. Even Eli had his lunch with Mama on that stool. Anyway. It. Is. Hard.

We're not giving up quite yet. We are going to try this for a little bit longer. I really do believe he is ready but if we find that he's not then, well, I guess I'm learning a lot for next time. But, hopefully there wont be a next time, hopefully this is the time and we get through this. If you have any advice I all ears :)