Mama Michie's Musings

Wordless Wednesday – Sibling Love

Michaela — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:30:05 +0000

We are soooooo blessed! Abby is doing great and Noah is perfect in his role as big brother. He loves his little sister so much and showers her with kisses all day long!

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, you can go to any of the following:
A Daily Dose of Toni, 7 Clown Circus, Go Graham Go.

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Please welcome Abigail!

Michaela — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:24:40 +0000

It all started last night… though I didn’t know it then. I went to class as usual and one of my other classmates commented that I looked like I was carrying lower… I thought she was crazy because it sure didn’t look like it to me, but whatever! Little girl was active during class… turning and kicking… she just wouldn’t stop moving. I had a few Braxton Hick’s, but I’d been having those for months, so I wasn’t very concerned. I even joked that she was going to be evicted in two weeks because that’s when Spring Break begins.

I drove home (stopping by Wendy’s first… hey, I girl has to eat!) and Ray and I watched the movie 9 (it’s different, but I really liked it!). I had a few crampy contractions before bed, but very far apart. Once again, nothing to be very concerned about. I woke up at 2:30 and 4:30 am because of random contractions (and because I had to pee). Noah woke around 5:30, had his bottle and then we went downstairs to start our day.

Around 6:30am the crampy contractions started pick up… as in they were coming every 5 minutes. I just turned 36 weeks, so I thought maybe it could be false labor. I had a big glass of water and laid on my left side, while Noah happily played with play-doh. Ray still isn’t feeling well, so he called in sick to relax and get better. He came downstairs shortly after 7 and found me hunched over the table, trying to put the play-doh away and feed Noah breakfast. 2 or 3 contractions later, he was upstairs in the shower and I was on the phone with the answering service at my Dr’s office… she called me back within 3 minutes! I told her what was going on and she said just to go into the office. That was at 7:45 am.

Knowing that an internal would be done and not wanting t o be dirty for that, I naturally showered first… 2 more contractions. Shower done, I got dressed and found pants for Noah to wear. I was about to go downstairs to get my pants when another contraction hit. They were coming closer together. I called out to Ray and told him to screw the doctors office, we were heading straight to the hospital. I think that’s when it finally hit both of us that she was coming today!! I called the doctors office and told them the change of plans (the receptionist actually had the nerve to put me on hold and check w/ the doctor and then come back to tell me that my plans were ok… um thanks, but I would have gone with my plans anyway!). I called my mom and let her know the change in plans (exact words during a contraction… Come straight to the hospital! end of conversation)

Meanwhile, Ray was running around trying to figure out what else needed to be done and get Noah ready to leave. Figuring that we still had time, we were not prepared with anything. No bag for me or baby, no bag for Noah… nothing. I was just telling Ray to just grab whatever and yes we should just take my car, because Noah’s carseat was in it, when it hit… the push contraction! At this point I thought to myself… “Oh holy F@**!!” She’s coming and she’s coming now!! The contractions were about 1 minute apart and I wanted to push. I leaned up against the bottom two stairs and braced myself with all might might against the urge. At the first chance, I told Ray to call 911 – there was no way that we could drive the 12 miles in suburban Chicago morning rush-hour traffic and deliver the baby at the hospital. He asked me if I was sure… I said yes and 911 was called at 8:30am

From what I gather, the operator neither had children nor assisted in a phone birth, because he/she kept telling Ray things “rub her back, make sure she’s comfortable and you can give her ice”… he knew that from Noah’s birth and was already doing that. Within minutes we heard the ambulance… all I could think was “thank God!” Ray and I both thought that he would have to deliver her in the hallway and he was thisclose to Googling the instructions! I was in the middle of another pleasant push contraction when the EMT came in and asked if he could help me up. I snapped something like “I’m having a contraction now… you’ll have to wait” and got up and onto the stretcher when it was done. They rolled me out (no socks or shoes on… I hadn’t even gotten that far) and got me in… another contraction and my lower half was bared… I helped get my pants and undies off… they were too slow! I’m glad I did, because no sooner had the EMT put them to the side, when my water broke with a huge splash that not only got the bed, blankets and floor wet, but also soaked my bare feet. That’s when the decision was made that we would not be going to “my” hospital, but rather the closest one! It was 8:45 am.

I had my first (and hopefully last) ambulance ride… and Ray and Noah were in hot pursuit behind them! Luckily, I had a nice little breather in contractions after the water broke, but they started up again with a vengeance right before we got to the hospital. Up to the 3rd floor… into the room… checked by the nurses and in walks the doctor. She checks me, grabs the stirrups and lets me have a go at it the next time. The first push got out Abby’s head and the second pushed out the rest of her. Thank goodness Ray and Noah had come in a few minutes earlier because I was at the hospital a total of 8 minutes before Abby was born!

So… despite all of the drama I got my wish… I was able to labor at home, I had a drug free birth and no episiotomy (though I did have a minor tear not worth stitching). Abigail was born at 9:14 am on 3/05/2010 weighing in at 6lb 1 oz (same as Noah!) and 19 1/2 inches long. It went so fast that we have no pictures from the delivery room… in fact it wasn’t even a real delivery room! We are both doing great and I feel fantastic… so much so that I would have loved nothing more than to be given the chance to go home again today. Instead I have to wait until Sunday, since they don’t know if I had Group B strep or not (I never had my first internal!).

I am going to try to keep posting regularly… I have 2 reviews that I want to post and a few more coming… but I hope you understand if in the next week or two, I end up making myself a little scarce. It will take some time to adjust to our new life! (I promise to post new pictures soon though!)

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Foto Friday – The Fly

Michaela — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:01:13 +0000

Sooooo…. Monday was a fairly warm day here in the chilly Midwest… wait for it… it the temp got into the mid/high 30’s!!! I know what you’re going to ask… did we put on our shorts and go out? Well, yes and no… yes we went outside, but no the shorts were left where they have been these past oh I don’t know how many months (not that I would fit into any of them anyway).

So as Noah and I were coming back from going to the mailbox, it occurred to me that I could let him play in the snow on the side of the house since the sun was shining there. As were were walking past our little flower bed, I happened to look down and see something dark on the snow. Upon closer inspection I saw this…

I thought maybe it was dead, so I nudged it… it was alive!!! Naturally I had to test out the macro on my camera again so I took another picture…

Disgusting isn’t it? I love how much detail I can get from my little camera though! It’s great!

What caught your eye this week that you snapped a picture of? If you’d like a quick Friday post, then why not link up your favorite (or unusual) picture from this week!

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Wordless Wednesday – Carwash

Michaela — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:30:17 +0000

A few weeks ago we took Noah with us to the carwash. He’s been there before, but this was the first time that he really was aware of what was going on. I don’t know if he was so sure that he was safe in the car!! What do you think?

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, you can go to any of the following:
A Daily Dose of Toni, 7 Clown Circus, Go Graham Go.

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Tell it Tuesday – It’s March!

Michaela — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:57:29 +0000

For some reason this past week has felt like it was busy, but boring at the same time. I had my 34/35 week ob appt last Tuesday. Like I wrote before, everything is still moving along smoothly and we’ll start doing the internal exams next week at my 36 week appointment.
Speaking of the baby… I can’t think about how much work it will be having her and Noah at the same time. Every time I start to think about it, I get freaked out and nervous about the whole thing. So I’ve just resolved not to think (that really isn’t too hard for me lately!) and I guess I’ll deal with the stress once it’s here.
I have had pregnancy brain for the past 35 weeks. Normally it’s not too much of a problem… sure it makes me feel stupid at times, but it usually passes with in a few minutes. Lately though… wow! I think you would call it pregnancy brain funk! I can not concentrate at all. My brain just wanders and most of the time it’s like I’m in some sort of daze. We were at Sam’s Club on Saturday and I was pushing Noah in the cart. I stopped to look at some food that Ray had pointed out and wasn’t paying attention to Noah until I heard a crash… apparently I had parked our cart next to another that was overflowing with stuff, including a tray of blueberries. Noah is a blueberry fanatic and he reached over to try and grab the tray and knocked it down, scattering blueberries all over the floor. The owner of the cart was no where to be found either. Talk about embarrassing!
I’m really enjoying the sunny weather we’ve been having lately! I’m looking forward to spring, when I can bundle the kids up, put baby girl in the sling and push Noah on his tricycle and go to the park. I’m so sick of being in the house!!
Storytime has started again… I have mixed feelings about this session. I signed Noah up for the birth to 3 year age group thinking it would be a good group to be in even after the baby is born… the thing is that I can’t stand the teacher. She doesn’t seem to understand that young children (most in the class are under 2) do not have a very long attention span. She does activities that requires them to sit in place for 20 of the 25 minutes there. She doesn’t want the kids to move around… it’s completely different from the last class (with a different teacher) that we were in. I think we’ll go to the last 3 classes in this session and then take a break for a few months… it works out great anyway…. I’ll hopefully have the baby when this session ends. Which means I would have had to take a break for a few weeks anyway… by the time we’d be ready to go again it should be warm enough to go to the park… which we will be doing daily. It’s just a little disappointing, because we both really enjoyed storytime with the other teacher. Oh well.

Alright… I need to continue with my morning. I’ve got some more studying to do today. I would like to take my first Sociology exam today or tomorrow, depending on how Ray feels… he’s getting sick again… I’m behind in that class. Somehow this semester is moving much faster than expected and I’ve got to catch up! I know that part of my problem is that I get so nervous before exams, but I just have to go in and take it.

I hope you all had a good weekend and have a great day! If you have a minute, why not go and check out the Rainbow Brite giveaway.Similar Posts:

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Rainbow Brite is back! (Giveaway)

Michaela — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:14:21 +0000

I’ve been noticing that some of the toys that I grew up with are making a comeback (or maybe they never actually left??) Rainbow Brite is one of them… but she’s not the Rainbow Brite of the 1980’s, noooo… she’s got a new, updated look.

I loved Rainbow Brite as a child and I hope that my daughter will too… well, once she’s born and old enough to know who Rainbow Brite is! MomSelect and Hallmark recently sent me a CD for the new Rainbow Brite. The CD not only introduces kids to Rainbow Brite and her friends Moonglow and Tickled Pink, but there are also games, coloring pictures and a little movie for kids to watch (as well as much more). If that’s not enough, there are also four mini episodes to watch on www.rainbowbrite.com.

As if it’s not cool enough that Rainbow Brite is back and online, you can also find the new doll collection at Target and Toys R’ US!

Giveaway

Here is your chance to win 1 of 5 Rainbow Brite CD’s! To enter just leave me a comment letting me know what your favorite toy was growing up. That’s all it takes to enter, but this step is mandatory! This giveaway will end on Sunday, March 15th at 11:59 PM CST.

For additional chances to enter you can :

Follow me via Google Friend Connect
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Sign up for my email updates (you must verify the subscription in the follow-up email)
Follow me on Twitter (@MamaMichie) and tweet about this giveaway, including a link to this post (you must do both to get this entry). Please leave the URL to your tweet in the comments. You can do this once a day for an extra entry a day… just let me know with a comment each time. To make the tweeting easier, you can just use the Retweet button at the end of this post.
Become a Facebook Fan
Blog about this giveaway (including a link to this post) then come back and leave a comment with a link to your post. (3 entries – leave a separate comment for each entry)
Snag my blog button and put it on your site.

Just copy and paste the following code into your blog.

Please make sure that you leave me a separate comment for each entry – also as long as you fill out your information in the secure form, you do not need to list your email again in your comment.

I will be using random.org to pick the winner. The winner will have 48 hours to get back to me otherwise a new winner will be chosen. Good luck!!

Fine Print

{I was sent the products mentioned above to review for free from the team over at MomSelect. I was given no other compensation. The review is written based on my opinion. To see my full disclosure policy, please go here}

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Not a very Foto Friday

Michaela — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:03:10 +0000

I’m skipping Foto Friday today. Most of the day today was spent following a half naked Noah trying to make sure that he doesn’t pee on the carpet… I was not about to document that with photo’s and get all of the pervs on here… though I do have to say he has the sweetest most adorable little tushie!

Ahhh to have a butt that small again… (cue the birds singing as I daydream…..)… anyway… We had a few accidents and a few hits in the potty, so I’m calling today a semi success. I just need to figure out how to get him to stop peeing into his hand now, since it is always down there as soon as the diaper comes off! Boys!

Ray and I went and bought Noah some big boy undies tonight (14 of them to be exact). I didn’t think that they made them that small, but they do! We’ll see how he does in them… I have a feeling I will be washing all 14 pair quite often for the first few days of trying to potty train here at home.

I had my second Psych quiz yesterday and got a 100%. I wasn’t really in the mood to go to class but did anyway. We’ll have 5 quizzes in class and the teacher is dropping the one with the lowest score, so I don’t want to miss a quiz now in case I’ll have to miss one once little girl is born. We had an exam in that class two weeks ago… I didn’t feel like I had done so well on it but still ended up scraping by with a “B”. As it turns out, the class average was a “D”, so he curved it and thanks to that I ended up with an “A” on it… YAY!! =)

I had my 34/35 week Dr’s appointment on Tuesday. Everything is going well… I gained a pound in the past 2 weeks and my blood pressure was great. Baby girl is still measuring large… and to add to it as the Dr was listening to the heartbeat, baby girl stretched and stuck her butt up and the doctor made a comment along the lines of “Wow, she really is taking up a lot of room in there!” Yes, thank you doc, you don’t need to remind me that birthing this baby will be quite different than my first!! I’m a little freaked out about the whole thing and I really need to watch that birthing DVD again! It was nice to hear though that out of all of her patients that day, ours was the only visit where everything went smoothly.

I’ve started trying to convince my body and baby girl that she can come out and join us any time after March 18th at 9pm… mainly for 2 reasons… 1) that’s when spring break starts and it will give me 2 weeks to get used to everything and healed up before my next class (yes I am a dork like that) and 2) I’ve reached the point where although I love being pregnant and I love feeling her in me… mentally I’m done with it. I may not have the swollen feet like I did with Noah (a perk of being pregnant in the winter as opposed to a very hot Chicago summer), but there are so many things that I need help with now that it’s becoming a bit of a pain (added to the back pain and sciatic nerve pain I already have!). I realize though that it’s still too early, so she has 3 weeks, which is good, since I have my first internal in 1 1/2 weeks!

Today is my niece E’s second birthday! Happy birthday cutie!! Sorry I couldn’t make it down this weekend, but I’ll see you next weekend hopefully!

So that was my very random, very tiredly written non Foto Friday… I”ll be back to the usual next week and I hope that you’ll be able to join me and link up some of your photos too!Similar Posts:

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Wordless Wednesday – Snow cup

Michaela — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:20:55 +0000

It started snowing… again… yesterday and I got some snow from the back porch for Noah to play with. He had a blast with his little snow cup!

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, you can go to any of the following:
A Daily Dose of Toni, 7 Clown Circus, Go Graham Go.

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Potty Training

Michaela — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:28:37 +0000

(This picture was taken in September 2009)

It’s come to that time… we are attempting to potty train Noah. I would love it if he was out of diapers by the time the baby is born. I hate to think of having to change 2 dirty butts! So I’ve given him… and myself… a goal… to have the box of diapers that I bought last week at Sam’s Club be his last box of daytime diapers. I realize that he is nowhere close to being dry at night yet, so I won’t even push for that for now.Pick and choose your battles, right?

He’s not unfamiliar with the potty. I started putting him on it shortly after his birthday last year (just to see what he would do and to get him used to it) and he really took to it, doing both businesses on it within a matter of days. We did this for a few weeks and then… I don’t know what happened… did school get in the way or did we stop attempting because it was a hit or miss situation since he couldn’t tell us when he had to go… I don’t know, but we stopped putting him on there. So… when I started putting him on the potty again recently, it was no surprise to me that he didn’t use it and would just sit there. Not even 1 drop of pee would come out of him, let alone anything else.

Now we’ve got some real work ahead of us!

Yesterday was a partial success – he did do some business on it, but I think it had more to do with the fact that he was in the middle of working on getting that something out when I put him on there. =) (Hey a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!) Naturally we made a big deal out of it and he got a prize for being such a big boy. I’m hoping that today is a success too and that he uses it again.

Here’s where I need your help though… I could use any and all advice that you have for potty training! What things worked for you? I realize that Noah may be a bit younger than other boys that are potty training, but I’m really hoping that we can do this!

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Foto Friday – Noah’s Best Friend

Michaela — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 02:33:30 +0000

Meet George…

he’s never far from this little boy!

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