Slightly Appreciated Hot Mess

Some think SAHM stands for "stay at home mom". No way. I say it is Slightly Appreciated Hot Mess.

Recently there have been quite a few instances where I have been made to feel like crap about staying at home with my kiddos. I have a big problem with this.

I breastfeed and I can't imagine having to go to a job and pump all the time. So, I'm not going to.

I enjoy getting up in the morning with my son and eating breakfast with him.

I love laying him down at nap time and they way he takes his thumb out of his mouth just to say "Love You"

I love when he wakes up from his mouth that he screams into the vent in his room "Mommy, Dadee (Davey,our dog)" and he is so excited when we go upstairs to get him.

I love eating lunch with him.

I love cloth diapering my daughter. I'm sure no baby sitter would want to wash out poop by hand at least 12 times a day.

I love watching The Lion King and Sesame Street.

I love getting to see every smile that my daughter makes.

I love wrestling with my son.

I love being able to make a good meal for my family at night and enjoying it with them.

I also love temper tantrums, poop spilling out of diapers, cleaning up a messy house a million times a day, and being puked on.

It's really not anyone's business why I stay home. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

I enjoy my children and I'm not saying that Mom's who work don't. I'm just choosing not to be one for at least a year or so. So please, don't judge me because I stay at home.

Like a train wreck...

Dieting sucks.

And I am no good at it.

I get this idea in my head that if I just eat bad every once in while then it's ok. It's not. And then once in a while turns into once or twice a day. Ugh.

It's honestly like I'm watching someone else do this to their body. Not me. Of course not.

So, from now on I will be writing down every single thing I eat. That should make me not want to eat it. Explaining bad decisions to yourself tends to be a pretty difficult thing.

On a lighter note:

We took little miss Eden to the neurologist last Friday and they think she's fine! Awesome actually! We go back in September when she'll be 6 months old to double check but that's it! I am so excited and relieved!

Terrible what?!

We are going through a new phase with Landen. I have heard some people refer to this as the "Terrible Two's".
But this can't be happening to my child. I mean, he's only 19 months. Right??

WRONG!!

Temper tantrums every half hour, at least.
Throwing things for no apparent reason.
Not staying in his bed at night.
The occasional bite even!!

I am lost. My sweet little man only shows up for a couple hours a day.

                                         
                                              He kept getting out of bed so I finally decided to just leave him alone.
                                                      This is how I found him an hour later...

Meal times get really ugly.

I even have to take the cover off the high chair most of the time to keep it somewhat clean. 

He thinks he always has to feed himself now. Psh.

This was just adorable...

Fruit snacks stuck to those big ol' thighs

And lets not forget tantrums over me holding the camera. He thinks that's his too...

Bye Bye Baby Fat

As I mentioned in a previous post, I gained 50 pounds during my last pregnancy...disgusting, I know. Since having her I have dropped 35 of those pounds but I still have a long way to go. I would like to at least lose 30 more pounds. I am so tired of being tired and sluggish all the time. So, I have decided to try something new.

A plant-based diet.

Scary??

Terrifying.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love food. Not just food, unhealthy food. If you fry it, I'll eat it. But, I have to get healthy. If not just for myself, for my kids and husband. Todd's 10 year reunion is in 1 month. So for the next month I will be busting my butt attempting to drop some weight!

I need support people. A workout buddy, something. Help me.

Just another day in the Britton house...

I have a very disturbing story.

Warning: This is not for those with a weak stomach.

When I got Eden up last Friday I went to change her diaper and noticed her cord had fallen off! I was so excited! But, I couldn't find it anywhere in her sleeper or her Halo sleep sack. But, she was screaming and hungry and I didn't think too much about it. I took my first trip out with the two of them, with the help of my Grandma (thank God), to the doctor. We found out Eden has thrush from an antibiotic I had been taking for an ear infection but other than that was thriving! And Landen is, as Dr. Sharma put it, a "perfect" 18 month old who is very smart and social. That felt good. Anyway, we came home, took a nap and when we got up I noticed it looked like Landen was chewing on something. He's on this kick where he thinks it's cool when he acts like he's chewing gum though so I continued what I was doing. A few minutes later I looked back at him and I realized he really was chewing on something. I freaked out and did the fish hook mommy swipe in his mouth. What did I find???

The cord. The freaking cord. And he was ticked that I took it out of his mouth. This triggered a horrible 10 minute tantrum consisting of him throwing himself down and banging his head off the floor.

This is just what days are like in my house. Beware.

But look at how sweet that face is : )

Eden is here!

Well, she is finally here! Eden Elizabeth Britton came into the world on March 24th at 9:34pm. She weighed in at 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20 in long.

Now, let me just tell you how stubborn this little girl was...

I'll start by explaining how miserable I was during the last few months of pregnancy. I was suffering from symphysis pubis dysfunction and wanted to cry every single day. It was exhausting just to attempt to put on my underwear everyday. It would take me about 5 minutes just to roll over in bed and Todd had to help me out of bed almost every time I got up. Not to mention the MASSIVE amount of weight I gained...50 pounds to be exact. Which makes me want to cry just thinking about. Anyway, I began to see a chiropractor in the last few weeks of pregnancy and that seemed to bring some relief.

 My doctor was Dr. Madura who was so sweet and amazing and decided to take a vacation a couple weeks before my due date. When she told me she was going on vacation I honestly knew that would be when I went into labor. So, she said she would strip my membranes a few days before she would be on leave to see if that would make me go a little early. I made my appointment to have them stripped and on my way up there they called and said she had an emergency c-section and wouldn't be able to see me and asked if I could see the midwife. Of course, I said yes. I live an hour away and had Landen with me, I was not turning around and going home. Well, the midwife wouldn't strip the membranes. 

That next Sunday Todd and I took a trip to Fort Wayne for our nieces 6th birthday party and I should have known that was a bad idea. I was such a grouch. Swollen, hungry, miserable. We got into a huge fight while pulling into the Target parking lot because I thought he was going to hit another car (he wasn't even close but shhh don't tell him that). Landen peed through his diaper, soaking his super adorable outfit he was wearing. I sent Todd in by himself to get Gracie's birthday present (bad idea) and he was supposed to get her an outfit for her American Girl Doll. We drive on over to the party and I get the bag to put her gift in and I realize he bought her a tutu for a little girl...not a doll. Of course, that ticked me off. Then we got into a screaming match in the car in front of their house and when we walked inside, realized they had all been looking out at us fighting. Lovely. Then we ate and sat down and I felt much better and wasn't so grumpy. A couple hours later Todd decided to take Landen outside to play so I grabbed him to put his shoes on and I noticed a couple hive looking bumps on his face. I told Todd and he acted like I was nuts and took him outside anyway. When he brought him back inside he had hives all over his face and one of his eyes was super swollen and red. I made Todd make a trip to the store for some benadryl and gave him a dose. It helped.You would have thought maybe it would have knocked him out on the way home but noooooo. We finally left because Todd wanted to make it home in time to watch the Purdue game (totally didn't happen) and I was so relieved to be on our way. I passed out on the way and woke up outside of Delphi feeling really dizzy and nauseas. I barely remember the ride from Delphi on except for pulling over at some point to dry heave. When we got home Todd made me eat a PB&J and I started feeling better. I checked my blood pressure and it was 140/ 100. I knew I was going to the doctor the next morning so I decided I'd just talk to them then. Let's just say it was a very stressful day for me.

The next morning I got up and took a shower and ate and was feeling pretty good. My Mom came and took me to my appointment and my aunt came to my house to watch Landen. I had a chiropractor appointment first so we went there and then headed to the doctor. I got weighed and I had gained 4 lbs in a week. I knew something was up because I really hadn't been eating that much. When they took me back to the room the nurse asked how I'd been feeling and I told her about my stressful day the day before and how I had gotten dizzy and had a high bp reading. So she checked my blood pressure and it was 146/100. She had me get on the table and lay on my left side and got the nurse practitioner who came in and checked my bp again and it was still high. She checked my cervix and I was still dialated to 1 1/2. They checked my urine and it tested positive for protein so they made me go over to the hospital. They monitored me all day and my bp went down and stayed down so they sent me home on bed rest and made me collect my urine for 24 hrs. The next day my Mom came over and helped me with Landen and cooked me lunch and then we took my pee up to the lab. When we came back I wasn't feeling the greatest. I laid down and started having a lot of pain in my right upper quadrant. I called the doctor because it got really bad. She said she wanted me to come up to the hospital because it could be my blood pressure again. Todd and I headed up there and I felt terrible the whole ride. I wanted to kill him the whole time for only driving 55...something he never does!! When we got there I was really dizzy and felt short of breath so they had me get on my left side and then they took my blood pressure and it was good! They then decided maybe it could be something with my liver since I had problems with it last year after my gall bladder surgery. They ordered an ultrasound and that showed nothing! They decided to keep me over night to check my pancreas which turned out to be fine. The doctor came in the next morning and told me she thought it was a fractured rib from her kicking me and had the nurse wrap me with an ace bandage and it really helped a lot. My Mom came up and sat with me during the day and I started contracting! Regular contractions that were like every 6 minutes apart! The nurse came in and checked me and I had dialated to 2 1/2! I was so excited! She called the on call doctor and she said to monitor me for another hour and see what happens. I kept contracting and she checked me an hour later and I had dialated to 3 1/2! I called Todd and told him because I was convinced they would keep me and just start pitocin or something to speed me up and the nurse seemed to think she would too. HA!! Not even close...the doctor told her that since this was my second baby I would be going way faster if I was really in labor. So she sent me home. I was pissed. On the way home I started feeling really bad again. Dizzy and all that jazz and was still contracting. I got home and my aunt took Landen because I figured we'd be going back up to the hospital shortly. I took a nap and when I woke up Todd still wasn't home and I was super irritated with him. When he got home I told him to grab me a Kleenex and he said "Why don't you ask?"...that sent me into a 2 hour long melt down. I cried and cried. Poor, poor Todd. No wonder he doesn't want anymore children. It's not the kids he minds, it's the pregnancies...Anyway, I took a shower and went to sleep and at about 3 am I woke up because I had felt  a pop down there. I stuck my hand down there and thought it felt wet so I woke Todd up and told him to feel because I thought my water broke. His response?? "Nah, you're just sweaty" I was so tired I rolled over and went to sleep. I woke up at about 6:30 and stood up to go to the bathroom and when I did I could definitely feel myself leaking. I turned on the bathroom light and my underwear were soaked. I yelled at Todd and told him my water broke and he jumped up and freaked out. I called my Mom and then called the doctor who told me to come up to the hospital. I took a shower and ate since I wasn't contracting anymore. On the ride up to the hospital I started to feel the contractions. They felt much stronger than they had the day before and it was all in my pubic bone area. It was bad. I got there and they decided to do some swab test to see if my water had broke and it came back negative!! I almost had a panic attack! I knew my water had broke! My underwear were completely soaked! The doctor said I needed to walk for an hour and then they'd check me and see what was up. So Todd and I wore the carpet out in that hallway. I vowed if they sent me home again I would have my baby in the bath tub at home because I was not coming back. At this point I was 4 cm dialated. When they came back in to check me I had to pee and when I wiped I asked if maybe she wanted to swab all the fluid I was wiping. So she did and it came back positive as amniotic fluid. She called the doctor and he said it could be a false positive since I was bleeding also. Ugh. Why in the heck were they so focused on if my water broke?? My water never broke with Landen! They had to break it when I was 8cm with him! The doctor decided I needed to walk for another hour and be checked again. We started truckin' down the hallway again and I ran into a friend from high school who was going in for a scheduled c-section for her little girl! After that my contractions became excruciating! It was so much pressure in my pelvis and I felt the urge to push with every one. When she came back in to check me I was 5cm and so she had to dr come in to see me. He examined me and said that he thought I was in labor (duh) and they'd start pitocin to speed things up but they had to wait until I could have my own nurse to myself. Apparently they were packed. Remember how I said I wanted to go all natural? Yeah, that didn't happen. I was in so much pain and it was a completely different pain than I had with Landen. I thought this was gonna kill me. So I decided to have the epidural. A nurse anesthetist came in to do it and she had kind of a strong personality. She had me scoot back and didn't even tell me she was going to give me the numbing shot, just stabbed it in my back and then didn't wait or check to see if it numbed me before inserting the epidural needle in. I felt everything. I didn't feel the epidural needle at all with Landen and he did it during a contraction. Apparently this lady was in too big of a hurry. After it was over I sat up and felt a tightness in my chest and it almost felt like my lungs were wet or something. They felt heavy. I told her, she looked at me like I was a lunatic and told me I was "fine" and to lay on my back. As soon as I laid down I started coughing hysterically and couldn't catch my breath. My blood pressure went way up and I couldn't breath. They put oxygen on me and a million people started running in and out of the room. My Mom and Todd were in the hallway freaking out because they didn't know what was going on, they just heard the nurses saying they had to get Dr. Schaffer in the room now. After a while the coughing slowed down and I felt like I could breath again but for a while I was freaking out. All I could think was, "I knew I shouldn't have gotten the epidural". They never figured out why I had that reaction but I continued to feel a tightness in my chest. And when they checked me after the epidural they discovered a bunch of fluid on my bed! They waited about another hour before they started pitocin. I felt really awesome though and wasn't in pain at all. I continued to slowly dialate for the next 6 hours and they checked me and discovered another bag of water. Apparently her head kept moving down and closing the hole in my bag of water which was why the first test came back negative as amniotic fluid! So, my water had to break 3 times before she was born! The doctor came in and broke the bag of water and I was 9 cm. The nurse checked me a short time later and I was fully dialated but they had to wait for the nicu team to come in the room because she had a bowel movement already. So, we waited. When they finally got in there they had me push and she came out in less than 5 minutes. It was super fast. Like not even 3 pushes, fast. When she came out she was very bruised and had a seeping eye but other than that was healthy! She has been a breastfeeding champion! She latched on right away and has pretty much been attached to my boobs ever since! I am amazed at how in love I can be with two children. The whole time I was pregnant I honestly wondered how I could love another person as much as I love Landen. But, it just came natural. Just the same as it did when I had Landen. Landen so far has been an awesome big brother and loves his little sister!

Worst Mom Award Friday...

I am so ashamed to let anyone know this. But, none of us are perfect...so here goes...

This morning I woke up and felt like crap. Rolled out of bed, head throbbing, and went and got Landen out of his bed.
He surprised me with the world's nastiest poop. I am not exaggerating.
We went into the kitchen where I filled his sippy cup with milk and gave it to him. We don't let him in the kitchen often because there are lots of problems in the kitchen. He likes to eat dog food. Which, wouldn't really bother me if he didn't choke on it every time. Anyway, it's just easier to put the gate up and not let him in there but today I did.
I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off because I am totally OCD and I think he needs to have food in his stomach the moment he wakes up in the morning. Even though he was perfectly content with playing with magnets on the fridge  I was trying to make his yogurt and oatmeal up at record time. I wasn't paying attention that his cup was leaking. And by leaking, I really mean POURING out EVERYWHERE.

So, I slipped in a puddle and twisted my ankle.

But, that's not the bad part.

A word flew from my mouth. A word so bad, I am far too embarrassed to put on here will spare you from reading!! I am sure you can think of it on your own. It is the bad word of all bad words.

And my son looked at me with his sweet little face and repeated it.

I am horrified.

I am supposed to be a good role model. Not someone who teaches my son to curse! How in the world will I ever yell at him for using fowl language when I myself do?!?! This has been on my mind all morning. I could just cry about it. It's not cute that he said it. It is not funny. It is really, really sad.

So, that's it for me. No more curse words will be escaping my mouth. None. Not when he's in the other room, outside with his dad, asleep...not at all.

I think it will make me feel better anyway.