These two kids

I have to blog on my phone these days, we just sold our computer. And honestly, I'd probably be too lazy to go sit at it and type when I can chill in bed while the kids nap. Blogging on my phone sucks though because I can't add pictures. How boring. And the mobile site for blogger is crappy and it's hard to scroll through and edit what I've written. So I don't. There used to be a blogger app for iPhones but apparently they deleted it. 

ANYWAYS, having two kids is hard. Everyone reading this that has more than one kid is like, duh. 🙄 People told me it would be, but I thought to myself that Quinn was a really good girl and she usually listens and this baby won't be as hard as she was because I know what I'm doing more this time. Well, no. Quinn is still a good girl but she gets sassy when we don't pay attention to her. Those first few weeks I felt like a horrible mom because I was sending her to her room like 20 times a day because she wouldn't be quiet while I was trying to get Jameson to sleep. I had to get him to sleep or else he would get over tired and then I would be even more tired and grumpy the next day from getting up a million times in the night. Not a million but like three. And Quinn kept waking up at 6:00 am. He kept cat napping during the day so it felt like I'd spend my whole day rocking him to sleep and getting mad at Quinn for waking him up. 

He sleeps better now and takes longer naps. And Quinn is learning to be a little quieter. The "sound sleeper" app is a huge help. It plays the blow dryer sound which puts him to sleep pretty quickly. And blocks out noise from Quinn that might startle him. As soon as he starts to yawn after he eats I swaddle him and start rocking him in the rocking chair. He stays awake but relaxed for 10-20 minutes and then he drifts off to sleep. He occasionally surprises me with a few 4 hour stretches of sleep at night. He was consistently waking up around 4:30 in the morning and then getting really restless but we put room darkening curtains up two nights ago and that has helped. He doesn't cry a whole lot, but he does make a lot of noise in his sleep. He grunts and squeaks. I don't even know how he makes the sounds he does. Sometimes he sound like what I imagine a baby seahorse might sound like. Actually, I am pretty sure seahorse don't make noise but that's what I think of. 

When he was two weeks old, I was feeding him one day and Quinn decided to poop her pants at the same time. 

Another day, he pooped while I was changing his diaper and it shot all over the changing table. I asked Quinn to bring me a plastic grocery bag from the kitchen. I didn't know if she knew where they were, but sometimes she surprises us. She brought me a big liner for the kitchen garbage. Then Jameson peed all over the wall. I told her to take the big bag back and get me a small one from the kitchen. She leaves and then I hear her grunting and struggling before she comes back in the room carrying the very full kitchen garbage can! I just laughed. Then she knocked it over. I laughed again and we got everything cleaned up with no permanent damage done to the carpet. 

Quinn really likes her baby brother. She calls him "jamis" lol. Or "baby brother" or "little man." Yesterday she tried to put her toys in his mouth. I told her not to put things in his face so she puts her toys around him. She tries to pick him up which is terrifying so I can't leave them alone together. One of both of them is always in the bathroom with me while I shower. 

Quinn is very girly. Her favorite colors are pink and purple. Her favorite outfit is her red Minnie Mouse shirt and a purple skirt. Color blocking is in, right? She has purple crocs that she loves and is always quick to tell strangers that she has purple shoes. Her toenails are purple and she gets sad when the paint chips off. The first time I painted toenails she didn't want to wear socks for like a month when before, she had always insisted on wearing them to bed because we had just bought her some new ones. She wraps random things around her like towels and blankets and says that she is a princess. I didn't even know she knew what a princess was. She's obsessed with Mickey Mouse. We have a picture of the Seattle temple hanging in our family room. Quinn looked at it the other day and pointed at the angel Moroni at the top and said "he can't get down... He needs a mouse-ka-tool." When things aren't working right or she needs help she tells us she needs a mouse-ka-tool. She loves bows and flowers. She likes to play in her pool in the backyard. I put her little toddler slide into the pool and she jumps off of it and lands on her butt in the water. 

She appears to have gotten her dad's sense of direction. She knew we were at the doctor's office from the parking lot after only having been there one time. When we drive by it in the highway she tells us that that's the doctor. She saw a receipt from the hospital with the hospital logo on the top and she told me it was from the doctor. She also knows Walmart receipts are from Walmart. And that we are at Walmart. She loves McDonald's. She always asks for fries and chicken nuggets and water. I don't get her pop because I don't want that spilled in the car. And because I love that she loves water. She loves dinosaur chicken nuggets from Costco and so do I. I ate them for lunch today and they were delicious. I want to eat them every day but I don't. 

She sees me working out and she tries to copy me and it's adorable and hilarious. She was doing burpees the other day and she said "this is fun!" She said the same thing when I was showing her how to stretch afterwards. Maybe we need to get out more😁 We definitely need to get out more, we never really go anywhere other than the doctor's office. In a few weeks I'm thinking that I'll get a gym membership it Kennewick. It's over 45 minutes away, but I'm thinking I'll go 2 times a week and then work out at home the other days. Then I can get back into shape and also get to know the staff there and hopefully get hired to teach again by the fall. Quinn will love going to the kids klub again. I hope. I loved taking her to the kids klub in Pocatello because I knew everyone there and I trusted them. It seems like a long way to drive for a workout but what else are we going to do? We get pretty bored being here all the time and it will be nice for all of us to get out of the house. I can't wait to go to a GGX class again. Maybe that seems weird to some if you but it's something that I love and I've discovered that I really miss it. A lot. 

So here's to finding a new normal and learning some more patience. It will probably get harder with every kid. I really didn't think being a mom was hard when I only had Quinn except for the first few months and then again when I potty trained her. That sucked. That's another blog post though. 

Jameson's Birth Story

Warning: I use words like cervix, plug, poop, and pee. Don't read this if you don't want to know about those things!

This pregnancy was similar to my last one, my blood pressure started to creep up around 35-36 weeks. It had been kind of high the whole time, around 130s/70s. At the end it was closer to 140s/80s. Not super high, but even a small increase like that can be a symptom of preeclampsia. At 37 weeks they checked my urine for protein and there was a trace amount, which is normal but it still freaked me out a little. My doctor told me to go check my blood pressure at a pharmacy and see if I just had anxiety at the doctors office. I had told him that thinking about having a baby was stressing me out. He also wanted me to get an ultrasound to check on the size of the baby, he said if my baby was too big I might not be able to attempt a vaginal birth. 🙄 I almost didn't get the ultrasound because they are notorious for being bad at predicting baby's actual size. Then I thought about the fact that my doctor would be doing extra work during my delivery watching for a rupture and if an ultrasound would make him feel better than I should do it. I just didn't want a supposedly big baby to be a reason not to attempt a normal delivery. 

Anyways, I went to Walmart a few days later and mg blood pressure was like 153/97. Over the next few days I really started to stress. I was having headaches and I felt like my eyes were pulsing, which are symptoms of preeclampsia. My labor with Quinn was induced because of high blood pressure after I refused to take beta-blockers, so I thought that my blood pressure was damaging my baby somehow. Or that I was having organ failure somewhere in my body and that we both might die. The doctor had checked me for dilation at my last appointment and I wasn't dilated at all, my cervix was high and not very soft. I was convinced that I would just have to schedule another c-section. I was ok with it, because I felt more in control of the situation this time and ultimately I just wanted my baby to get here safely. I called the nurse and told her about my headaches and she told me to go into labor & delivery and have them just check my blood pressure. We got there and they took it a few times while they had me hooked up to the monitors to listen to the baby. It was high when I first got there but then went back down to 130s/80s. They called my doctor and he had them do a blood test to check my platelets and make sure my liver was functioning normally, just in case. They also checked my urine again. There was no protein and my liver was fine. 

I had my ultrasound at 38 weeks and they told me my baby was 8 lbs. And that his head was measuring two weeks bigger than normal. I asked Kelly to come with me to my next appointment because I thought that my doctor would want to discuss a c section since my blood pressure was high and I might have a big baby. If you've had a c-section, then inductions are more risky. So unless I was dilated and soft, he wouldn't induce me. At that appointment he told me that it doesn't hurt me or the baby to have high blood pressure for a few weeks, as long as that's all that it is. And since I'd had those tests done and my organs were functioning fine we knew I didn't have preeclampsia. And I was dilated to a 2 at this apt so my hopes for a normal delivery were back! He told me if I had those symptoms again to come in though because they are textbook for preeclampsia. I was pretty surprised since the only reason I was induced last time was because I had high blood pressure. 

If you want to read about that horrible experience, Quinn's birth story is on this blog. I was induced at 39 weeks and I was dilated 0 cm, my cervix was high and hard. ACOG says that inducing under those conditions increases the risk for a c-section, and I had a c-section. The doctor who did my c-section told me I had a small pelvis, and that I had a 13% chance of having a successful vbac. Not sure where that number came from. On top of being a crappy candidate for an induction, Quinn was positioned posterior. I have since read that 40% of posterior babies get stuck. I believed that the induction and bad positioning were what had lead to my c-section, not a small pelvis. 

Anyways, after my apt I was super crampy, which is normal after you've had a cervical check. I was kind of excited though. I stayed really crampy for two days and the next morning I lost what I thought was part of my plug. I had lots of Braxton-hicks contractions over the next week. I was hopeful for my next check up that I'd be dilated further. I had an apt scheduled for May 11th. On May 10th, around 10:15 I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. As I was walking back to my bed I felt something come out. I thought I had lost more of my plug but I didn't have my glasses on so I went and grabbed them and then went back to the bathroom. My underwear was soaked, my water had broke. But I wasn't sure if it was a break or just a small leak. I sat on the toilet and called my doula and more water came out. She said that the baby might be plugging the hole stopping more water from coming out, or it might just be a leak. Since I wasn't having any strong contractions she told me to just put a pad on and try to get some sleep. So I put on a pad and I soaked it within seconds. My water was definitely broke. I texted my mom and told her what was going on. She asked if I wanted her to come and I told her to just try and sleep and that I'd call her when labor started. But then I got nervous because I was cramping and sometimes people don't feel really strong contractions and then
all of a sudden their baby is coming out so I told her to come. I lay back down in bed and tried to fall       asleep and let Kelly keep sleeping. But then I kept thinking about how we lived 45 minutes from the

hospital and what if this baby came out in the car. Or what if I had a uterine rupture in the car and then we died. So I woke Kelly up around midnight and told him that my water broke. He said "really?!" I said "yeah" and he goes "ok... Where did it happen?" We had just been talking about my water breaking that night before we went to bed and how it would be gross if it broke on the couch or something. I told him it happened in the bathroom and that it didn't even get on the floor. 

So we got up and grabbed some stuff to take with us. He put Quinn in the car and we took off. The car was out of gas so we had to stop. I was timing my contractions but they weren't regular. At first they were 9 mi Utes apart, then 5, 3, 4. They were pretty strong but not bad. He dropped me off at the front doors and I walked in and told them my water had broke but that I really needed to pee. They wouldn't let me because they were afraid I would have the baby in the bathroom. That did not happen. 

They put me in a wheelchair and took me to my room. I went to the bathroom and while I was in there I had a really hard contraction and I freaked out and called my doula and asked her to come right away. I had told her before that I would let her try and sleep until things picked up. They got me hooked up to everything and while I was sitting in the bed my contractions stopped but I was still really nervous and I was glad Melanie (my doula) was there. She put a heat pad on my back to help me relax. I was dilated to a 4 which is technically active labor but nothing was really happening. We went for a few walks, they had a thing I could hang around my neck that would pick up his heart rate and send it back to the computer. They assured me throughout the whole labor that they were constantly watching him to make sure there hadn't been a rupture. I sat on the birthing ball, got into a deep squat a few times, still things weren't picking up. Around 4:00 a.m. I took a little nap. I was tired from being up all night. I kind of hoped that I was just one of those lucky people that didn't feel their contractions. They checked me and I hadn't dilated at all and baby had moved back up. I was ok with that because it wasn't like I had been laboring hard that whole time.

My doctor came in around 8:00 and said "alright, it's been 10 hours, let's make something happen." They put an internal monitor in me because they thought maybe the other one just wasn't picking up my contractions. My doctor and the nurses and all of us just sat there and watched the monitors for ten minutes and I didn't have any contractions. So we started pitocin. They told me they would increase the amount every 1/2 hour. I was kind of nervous because pitocin increased my risk of rupture from 1% to 2%. But they assured me that they were constantly watching the monitors, and the
 Dr. Smith was even watching in his office. Right away, things picked up. My favorite position for labor was standing up and leaning over the bed. Actually, I really liked sitting on the birthing ball but the baby didn't so I couldn't stay like that. As things picked up, Melanie would push on my back during the contractions. Kelly watched the monitor and told me what the numbers were saying, which I liked because I knew when I had peaked and then that the contraction was ending.

They checked me again around 11:30 or 12 and I was at a 5 and the baby was high. I started crying because my contractions had gotten so much more intense during the last three hours but I'd only dilated 1 cm. I was afraid it would be just like last time and that it wasn't going to work again. Also I was tired. I stood up again for awhile and Melanie and Kelly would push my hips together. If it hadn't been for them doing that, I would have probably asked for an epidural at that point. Counter pressure is so helpful during contractions. Around 1:00 they had me lay down so they could check me again. I was at a 6. So I had dilated 1 cm in the last hour. They said that the baby really liked it when I laid on my side so they wanted me to stay there. Laying on my side hurt so much worse during the contractions. The pain radiated over a much bigger area and I hated it. Melanie told me it was good to lay down for a bit though because it can help the baby get into a better position. She put the heat pack under my hip and she pushed on my back and Kelly pushed on my other hip during the contractions. It still sucked. I wish there would have been two heat packs. I started to shake pretty bad in my hips and legs. They told me it was normal. After probably 30-40 minutes things were really picking up and I was dying. I gave in to the pain and had a hard time breathing through the contractions. I yelled out during some of them. I asked for fentanyl which did nothing. Well, Melanie told me it helped me relax but I was expecting some pain relief. At one point I decided that I cousins breathe through them  anymore and I was crying and yelling and also hyperventilating. They checked me and I was at an 8 and baby was at +1. I didn't care that I was close I asked for an epidural. I felt like my cervix was ripping apart. They told me I had to calm down or they wouldn't be able to give me one. The nurse said that the anesthesiologist was walking down the hall. My next contraction I was pushing. Then I really started to freak out. I did not want to push that baby out. I was terrified. I started hyperventilating again. The doctor came in along with a bunch of other people. They told me to grab my legs and tuck my chin and curl around the baby to push him out. I didn't want to because I felt like he would pop right out. I asked them to turn off the pitocin and they told me that they had. I pushed a few times and I remember the nurse constantly in my face telling me to calm down, she said the baby needed oxygen and he wouldn't get any if I didn't breathe. The doctor pulled out a vacuum and said we would need a little help getting him out because his heart rate was dropping. I finally
calmed down enough to grab my legs and push like I needed to and I felt him coming down. For some reason I felt a little more relaxed and I didn't push with each contraction like I was supposed to. The doctor asked me if I was having one and when I said yes he said I needed to push. Oh. I pushed again and his head was out. I thought that was the worst part but they said that the worst part would be his shoulders coming out. Duh I don't know why I thought that. I pushed his shoulders out and then his body slid out. That was a really weird feeling. The doctor asked Kelly if he wanted to cut the cord and I asked if they could delay it, and they were like uhh not when your baby isn't breathing. I asked if he would be ok and they said yes, no one seemed worried. The nurses took him and a few seconds later I heard him crying. Then I felt the doctor holding a tray up to me and telling me to push out the placenta. I felt like I was going to poop so I didn't want to push because I was afraid I would poop in the tray and I told them that, and they just said that was good and to push. I didn't poop and the placenta came out.

 Then they had to stitch me up because I'd had an episiotomy. I also tore a little on the inside. Getting stitched up was horrible. They numbed me, it's not like I felt the needle going in and out or anything, but everything hurt down there so bad I did not want anyone touching me. I was shaking really bad. Also, why do people say that a shot is going to feel like a pinch? When was the last time someone punched you, did you think it felt like a needle going in your body? Anyways, it seemed like forever that they were stitching me up. They gave me more fentanyl to try and help me relax because I was so tense. They also brought my baby to me thinking that would distract me. I was glad that he was ok but I was still feeling really overwhelmed to pay much attention to him for awhile. Once they were done and they gave some ice to put down there I was much better. He was born at 2:05 pm.

I was really scared to go pee for the first time, because everyone talked about how it stings afterwards. It wasn't that bad. It hurt to move around for the first day but I could do so much more then I could after my c-section. I loved being able to walk, sit up, roll over, and stand up all by myself. The recovery alone made it all worth it. I am also thankful I was able to avoid another c-section.

I loved giving birth at Trios hospital. The nurses were angels. They spent so much time with me did so much. I can't believe the things that they do all in a day's work. I loved my doctor. He was laid back but I trusted him to do the right thing when needed. I never felt worried about our safety while I was in labor. Also, the food was delicious. I'm so thankful that everything turned out the way that it did. 

Don't talk to me, I'm pregnant

I tend to have a lot of irrational feelings during pregnancy, especially during the third trimester. I have a lot in common with my two year old. I often wonder if my hormones are contagious because she seems to be having a lot of emotions lately. I actually don't have a lot of feelings, I have three. I am either really mad, really sad, or content.

People should keep in mind that pregnant women like me don't like to hear certain things. The following are things that people have said to me in real life:

"You must be having be a boy because they suck the beauty out of you."  I knew I looked haggard- my skin was super dry so I had a red beard of dry skin around my mouth. I had bad acne. I was tired and nauseous. I didn't look good. Thank you for pointing it out, stranger. Also, I having a girl. . 

"You must feel like an elephant." A really sweet older man I knew at church said this to me when I was seven months pregnant. I'm sure he thought he was being empathetic but I cried. For some reason I didn't like being compared to a large animal. 

Upon finding out how old I am, "you look older." I used to think it was cool when people said that to me. Like when I was 15. Now I am 24 and don't want to hear that I look older... It wasn't like some little kid said this to me. It was a hairstylist who was older than I am. 

"You still have two months left?! You're pretty big... Unless it's twins, is it twins?" I didn't even respond to this person. Kelly was with me and he was very polite while I was very rude and turned around without saying anything. Later that day someone else told me that I didn't look big enough yet, which I appreciated after being told I looked big enough to have two babies inside me instead of one. But some women might even take offense to those kinds of comments, just don't comment on a woman's size at all to be safe. If you want to say something about her appearance, you can tell her she looks beautiful and leave it at that. 

I know that none of these people were trying to hurt my feelings... except maybe the hairstylist. 

I am really uncomfortable at this point, my ribs feel like they are going to pop off of my spine. The top of my ab muscles are very stretched so I get a nice burning sensation where they are trying to stay attached to my ribs. It's worse if I have to sit for long periods of time so I am really grumpy when I'm at church and I'm sure that everyone in our new ward thinks I'm super mean because I don't want to talk to anyone while I'm there. The kids in our primary class probably hate me. 

I got really mad at Costco a week ago because some old people talked to me about Quinn. I mean, how dare they say nice things about my child? Can't they see that I'm a crazy pregnant person who is in a bad mood after pushing my way through that Costco that is horribly crowded no matter what time of day you go, on any day of the week?  Seriously, what is with the Costco in the tri cities? I hate that place.  You want samples? Forget it. The Costco in Pocatello was never that busy and if you went in the morning, the only other people there were old people buying their mixed nuts. 

Anyways, if you read this post you'll probably never talk to me again. Which is a good idea, seeing as I'll either be super rude to you or just start crying. 

3/3/16

It's been over six months since I last updated the blog. A lot has happened since then. I'm almost seven months pregnant with a baby boy. He is due May 15. This pregnancy has gone really well. It's been easier than last time, I didn't get as sick. I have gained a ton of weight though. I haven't stepped on the scale for a couple of weeks because I'm scared. I think I weigh as much now as I did at the very end with Quinn. Yikes. I've stayed active this whole pregnancy, so I thought I wouldn't put on as much weight. I don't know if it's because I'm having a boy, but I've been super hungry this time. Hopefully now that the baby is bigger I won't be able to stuff my face as much because I won't be able to breathe if I do. Let me just say that staying active makes a huge difference during pregnancy. I had so many aches and pains last time that I didn't experience this time. If I was lazy for a few days I'd start to feel some pain in my hips and back but then if I got up and exercised and stretched it would go away. It's nice to be able to feel strong. Unfortunately, for the last three weeks I've had quite a few brixton-hicks contractions. They say if you have more than four in an hour than you need to call the doctor. I have them every time I roll over, bend over, sit up, stand up, walk. They go away if I lay down. They checked me two weeks ago to make sure I wasn't dilated and I'm not. Not even close. So I've been given the OK to go about life as normal and I can do light exercise. I just walk now. I used to yoga but that gives me a lot of contractions and it's uncomfortable. The doctor said if the contractions ever don't go away when I lay down then that would be an issue and I'd need to go in. Other than that, this baby and I have been healthy. He is a lot bigger than Quinn I think. The ultrasound tech said 68th percentile. Quinn was 18th. I have another ultrasound tomorrow, they saw that there was a slight dilation in the calyces of his kidneys. That's the part that connects to the ureter and then to the bladder. They said it usually goes away on its own so that's what they are checking for tomorrow. Hopefully it has gone away, I researched it and found that sometimes it can cause urine to back up into the kidneys. If it's not gone tomorrow I think they will do another ultrasound on him after he is born.

We now live in Boardman, OR. The only good thing about this town is that it is right on the mighty Columbia River. That picture is of Mt. Hood. Kelly took it one night while we were out walking along the marina. Kelly's job brought us to this town. Never tell your husband where you don't want to live, because you will end up living there. That's what happened to me. I told him I never wanted to live in Oregon, especially eastern Oregon, which is a wasteland, and here we are. 

Obviously, I wasn't brought here against my will, it's just funny how life works out. Before I told him I never wanted to live in Oregon, I told him I never wanted to live in southeast Idaho. After going to school in Rexburg, I was sick of the cold. I was wrong about Idaho though, we loved it there. I miss our old friends and our old life a lot more than I ever thought I would. We have been in Oregon since the middle of December, and I have my doubts about coming to love this place as much as I loved our home in Pocatello, but I know we are where we are supposed to be for now. We will probably live here anywhere from 3-5 years. 

Upon moving here, I'd decided I would give up any hope of teaching group fitness while we lived here. We are about 50 minutes from the closest gym that has Les Mills classes and child care. I felt that it wouldn't be fair to Quinn or our little boy that we will be having, to drive an hour, spend an hour teaching, and then drive an hour home. I remembered how hard it was trying to fit in a workout when Quinn was a newborn, and we only lived one minute away from the gym. I would feed her right before I left, and then by the time I got home she was screaming for food again. She was a super grumpy baby though and I'm really hoping this baby is happier. And that he will take a bottle. I was really sad for the first few weeks after we got here, I missed being a part of the gym. I missed having meetings, and goals to work on, and the people I worked with. I couldn't figure out what to do with myself to make me feel better. Then I just decided that maybe it is worth the sacrifice to drive so far to a gym if it means that I can have something that is mine besides being a stay at home mom. I know that that is the most important job but I also know that my kids need a happy, healthy mom. I filled out an application to Gold's Gym and I drove there to talk to the GGX manager. I was five months pregnant and I told her I obviously wasn't in shape at the moment, but I would be after I had my baby  and that I missed teaching so much. She was super nice and told me that they could use me on their team. I will go back there after I have this baby and talk to her again. I'm hoping to be back to teaching again this fall. I think I can make it work just going there 1-2 days a week. Quinn misses the kids klub and I actually think she'd love getting out of the house. In the meantime, I'll just keep my fingers crossed that this baby won't mind long drives and will take a bottle! Long drives are just part of our life now. 

Quinn and Landon are so cute! This was at Jordan's wedding a few weeks ago. One nice thing about being here is that we get to see our family a lot more. Quinn loves her cousins and asks about them all the time. She calls Landon "wannen" and Logan is "woga." She calls my mom "maga" and my dad is "Pa." She calls Kelly's dad "Pa Scott." She called me "monna" up until about two weeks ago. Now I am "mom." She talks a lot. When she says "love you" it sounds like "wah ner," which is almost exactly the same way she says "water." She can't say her "Ls" or her "Rs." She calls wipes "yops" for some reason. When she says grapes it sounds like "gips." She reverses some of her words. For a long time instead of saying "diaper" she said "perda." A fish is a "shoff" and a cup is a "pook." After she poops she tells me that she "poot." We tried potty training awhile ago but she is still too short to climb on the toilet even with a little step stool. Hopefully she will grow a little bit and then we can get her potty trained in the next month or two. 

Her birthday was a few weeks ago and since then she likes to sing "happy day you!!!!" She loves to sing songs. She knows a few of her letters, colors, and numbers. She knows square, circle, triangle, star, heart, and pentagon. She loves ketchup! When we go out to eat we usually just order her a side of fries with ketchup and she is good to go. Her favorite other favorite foods are yogurt, fruit snacks, and pizza. She asks for yogurt and fruit snacks every single day. If you ask her how old she is she says "toop." She is learning to say prayers and it's the sweetest thing. She is obsessed with mickey mouse. She calls him "chissy mouse." 

 She has ice cream in her armpit. 

She loves fruit snacks so much she even wants to wear them. 

This was her Christmas dress. She loves getting dressed up. She brings me her church shoes all the time and asks to wear them. She really likes to pick her own clothes and I let her most days. Half of the time her clothes match. She always gets matching socks though. 

She has great taste in hats. That was my hat in the 90s. 

We tell her that she is going to have a baby brother all the time. If we ask her where her baby brother is she points to my belly. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what a brother is. 

She cups her hands in front of her, shrugs her shoulders, tips her chin down and looks up at me and says, "I wanna hold you" when she wants me to pick her up. Which I don't do very much anymore because I am weak and because she weighs 29 pounds. I just took the TV remote from her and she yelled at me that I was in trouble. She tells her dad to "GO PLAY!" a lot. And she tells us to go to our rooms. She thinks she is in charge. I don't know why she yells it at us though it's not like we yell at her that she is in trouble. 

I feel bad for not updating my blog before now, because I know I've already forgotten some of the little things that she did. Here's to being better about that! 

16-18 Months

This post won't have any pictures because I am too dumb to figure out why my photo library won't open and I don't want to wait until tonight when Kelly gets home. 

Anyways, Quincy is 18 months old today. And today is the day we have decided to take away her binkies. I am crying inside. I don't want to do it. But I know the longer we wait, the harder it will be. Or the longer we wait, the more it will screw up her teeth. One of those two should be motivation enough for doing it now. For most of her life she's only been allowed to have her binki in her crib. And, she only uses it to fall asleep, once she is asleep she spits it out and doesn't use it again. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that tonight won't be too bad. I'm going to have her help me gather up all of the binkies and then I'm going to explain to her that she doesn't get them anymore. Last night, after I lay her down in her crib I told her that this was her last night, and then there'd be no more binkies. Well, she listens pretty darn good because about 30 minutes after I left her in her crib I heard her still awake and talking to herself. She started to get upset so I went in there and she had thrown all of her binkies out of the crib. I thought to myself that maybe we would start tonight but then after like 10 minutes of me sitting next to her crib trying to get her to calm down and her just rolling around all restless, I gave up and gave the binkies back to her and she went right to sleep. 

She loves to color. She will sit in her high chair with some paper and some crayons and go to town for quite awhile. A few weeks ago I put up one of her first drawings on the fridge. It was just a bunch of colorful scribbles, obvs. It stayed up for a few weeks and then the other day, she walks over to it, pulls it off the fridge and then crumples it up and throws it in the garbage. Uh, guess that wasn't your best work there, Quinn? I'm pretty sure she ate a crayon yesterday. I left her unsupervised. I came back and she was coughing and scraping her tongue with her fingers and there was only a small part of the black crayon left on her tray. ... And no wrapper? She ate the paper too? I found part of the wrapper later on the ground and also another large chunk of black crayon so I think she didn't eat that much of it. Later that night, she was fake crying and I could see into her mouth and there was a piece of black crayon on the back of one of her teeth... yikes. 

Speaking of weird things she has eaten, the other night we went out to Texas Roadhouse. She was really hungry and we had a bit of a wait so we gave her some peanuts, after cracking open the shell and extracting them first, of course. Well, she kept wanting to get the peanuts out of the bucket herself, so I let her. And then a few minutes later I noticed she was chewing on something. I hadn't given her anymore peanuts and neither had Kelly. We look in her hand and there is half of a peanut, as in half of the peanut shell with a whole peanut still inside. Sick. I can't remember for sure, but I tried to Kelly it was fine because I think I ate whole peanuts once when I was younger at one of those church Christmas parties where you sit on Santa's lap and then they give you a bag of peanuts and gross candy and an orange. I know I definitely ate the shells of sunflower seeds when I was little because I wanted to be cool and crack open the seed in my mouth like everybody else but I didn't know how so I'd just eat the whole thing. Anyways, back to the dinner, she later wanted another peanut and she tried to eat the shell again and this time, after chewing for a few minutes, starting coughing and trying to scrape her tongue with her fingers again. I had to swipe her mouth and get all the peanut shells out and we never gave her another peanut again. 

She is talking more and more. Her latest word is "wow." She says "mommy" now instead of just mama. She says "no," "what's that," "who's that," "cheese," "fruit." When she wants something she says "THAT!" The other day, it was raining. I think this was the same day we were trying to go to Texas Roadhouse. We were headed out to the car and Quinn was following us, like she usually does, except she usually walks all the way to the car. This time she stopped on the sidewalk and just stood there, rain pouring down on her, hands above her head to touch the rain, saying over and over again, "what's that?" in her little high pitched voice. 

Kelly: Come here, Quinn

Q: what's that?

Kelly: Come get in the car

Q: what's that? 

Kelly: Come here!

Q: What's that? 

And so it went for awhile before he finally just walked through the rain and got her. 

In our bedroom, we have room darkening curtains that go all the way to the floor. Last week, Q discovered she loves to hide in these. The other night, she kept hiding in them and then popping out and yelling at Kelly, who would pretend to be scared and then she'd laugh her head off. She did this over and over again. We are pretty sure she could have done it all night. Literally. 

She is a little copycat, which constantly has me thinking about setting a good example. Like, when she grows up and gets a smart phone is she just going to stare at it all the time like I do? I sometimes download books on my phone but then I feel bad for staring at it, even though I'm reading, because she can't tell whether i'm reading a book or on social media wasting my life. So I've resolved to go to the library and get real books. Plus the library is free and iPhone books are not. Books are her favorite thing ever I think. She gets really excited if I buy her a new one. She sits and reads to herself quite a bit, and I'd post a picture except for the reason I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Every night we read books before bed, and she wants to just keep reading. I make her stop after three books, because I don't want to read anymore. It's really cute though, I tell her to go pick a book and she goes over to her pile of books (I don't have a bookshelf so yes they are all in a pile), and she carefully decides which one she wants me to read. We bought her a little book about Jesus awhile ago, because I wanted to start teaching her about Him, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. Duh. Get a book about Him. She likes it, of course. She likes all books. 

The whole reason I started talking about her being a copycat is because one day she surprised me and reached up into the bathroom drawer and pulled out a q-tip, stuck it in her ear for a second, and then walked over to the garbage and threw it away. Then she did it again, and again, and again. In the same ear. After like five q-tips I was like, ok, that's enough. I think your ears are clean now. And yes, I know that you're not supposed to clean your ears with q-tips because it will like push more wax in your ear and cause you to go deaf or something, whatevs. I like to clean my ears with a q-tip and I probably will until I go die. Or lose my hearing. Whichever comes first. 

She doesn't limit the things that she sticks in her ears to just q-tips. She also puts bobby pins, hair brushes, chalk, and probably other things that I don't know about in her ear. Don't worry, I tell her not to. I don't know why she does this. 

So, another issue she has, is her anger. Like she gets really mad. She will throw things and scream when she is frustrated. Last night she legit got in a fight with her dump truck. She kicked it and tossed it around and screamed at it for like five minutes straight. I'm not even kidding. I have it on video. I finally stopped her and held her and then she fake cried in my arms for about five minutes. When she fake cries, she just squeezes her eyes shut and makes crying noises and does weird things with her mouth. I think she thinks I think she is really crying. She didn't open her eyes for like five minutes. She just wailed. Drama. 

I know that my fellow moms have all seen those pins on pinterest that are like "50 things to do with your toddler." I've looked at these before, and they are all like, "stack cups and then knock them over." ... boring. I'd rather watch TV and tell her to be quiet. Just kidding. So today, I looked at one of these for some new ideas. One of them said, "let them play with flour." The rest had you needed like weird craft objects like pipe cleaner which I didn't have so I'm like, ok, she can play with flour. I put her in her chair and pour a small amount of flour on a little cookie sheet and bring it over to her. I try to show her that she can trace shapes in it and run it through her fingers and stuff. They said this was good for her sensory development. Well, she hated it. Kept saying, "no, no, no." Ok fine, she doesn't want to develop her senses. The next thing on that website said, "mix flour with water in a plastic bag, they like to squish it" or something like this. So I dump the flour in a sandwich bag and add some water and make this squishy dough. She hates it. "No, no, no." I'm all, "look Quinn, you can squish it!" And she just keeps trying to give it back to me. Ugh. I just noticed some red solo cups in our kitchen, I guess we will try some stacking and knocking over here in a few. 

She just got stuck under the chair I am sitting on because she tried to crawl under it. It is one of those metal folding chairs. She also got stuck in her dresser the other day. Her dresser isn't really a dresser, it's one of those things that has wooden slots for those fabric cubby things. She pulled out one of her cubbies and then crawled into the open space. She crawled in face first and was squatting inside of it, and then she tried to back up and her head kept hitting the top. She tried to sit down but her head kept hitting the top again, so she started crying and I went in there and pulled her feet out from under her so her head wouldn't hit and removed her. 

We took her camping two weeks ago. She loved it. My whole family was there and she loved everybody there. She got super dirty every day. We were camped on a hill and she loved to walk up the hill and then run down, sure to step on all the big rocks that poked up out of the dirt. She hated the lake. Probably because it was cold. I decided one day I had to take her on the jet ski, even though she screamed every time we took her close to the water. So I held her and waded her out to the jet ski while she screamed her head off, and we stuck her on there and she was still screaming. Everyone was like, "I think she hates that" and I was like, "me too." But then I got on there behind her and I started the engine and she immediately stopped crying. I took her for a ride and she loved it. She wasn't smiling, but I think that's because the life jacket sort of squished her face. After that she didn't hate the lake as much.

Right now she is pretty desperate for attention, she is being pretty naughty and getting into stuff she knows she is not supposed to, so I'm gonna wrap this up. She is 25 lbs in case anyone is wondering. She makes me laugh and I love her more every day. She has her purse around her neck right now, and it's things like this that just make me smile. It's hard to understand what's so special about raising a child until you've done it yourself. It is so amazing to watch something so innocent and pure discover her world. I saw a quote the other day that said, "Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?" I think I've been treating it like a spare tire lately and I need to start using it as my steering wheel because I cannot possibly teach her everything she needs to know on my own. And now I have a royal mess to clean up so, until next time! 

14-15 Months

Quincy is 15 months old. She has learned so much so fast. She almost always knows what we are saying to her. I ask her if she's hungry, and she runs over to her high chair. Or, if she is hungry she goes over there and asks to be put in. She knows what it means if I tell her we are going outside, or that she needs a bath, time to brush her teeth, or if I tell her it's time for bed. She always grabs my purse when we are getting ready to leave the house. 

She knows where things go around the house and she loves to help. If she finds garbage on the floor, she will pick it up and go over to the garbage can and try to throw it away (it's bigger than she is). She loves to clean up her toys. This is not something that I taught her or tried to teach her. She just likes to organize things. When she doesn't want to finish her food, she puts the food in the cupholder of the tray in her high chair. If I ignore her for too long, she throws it on the ground. I always find her binkies in weird places, she puts them in drawers throughout the house. She loves to store things in the side of our bed between the frame and the mattress. The other day I could not find one of her shirts anywhere, I was so confused. Then I found it in the side of the bed along with a bunch of her books, socks, and binkies. I have to keep buying more binkies because they disappear. She has a little suitcase that she got for Christmas and she loves pulling it around. She also tries to climb on top of it. She loves climbing, she always tries to climb on top of the dishwasher lid. 

Underneath her is her baby doll and a book. 

She loves her baby, I always ask her where her baby is and she goes and finds her and then talks in a really high pitched voice and hugs her. 

She talks all the time, but not in English. She will look right in my eyes and jabber stuff and I respond to her and she'll walk away. Then she comes back and says the same thing and I just tell her 'ok' and she looks happy and continues playing. She does say a few words. One of her most frequent phrases for awhile was "what's that?" She would point at everything and ask what's that? She also says "mama" and "no." She says "no" at times that don't really make sense. But if she really doesn't want something, she will shake her head back and forth and wave her arms in front of her really fast. 

Yesterday, I was moving laundry and she always watches me. If I dropped a sock, she picked it up and put it in the basket for me. When I was done, she tried to pick up the basket full of clothes. She knows whether certain foods go in the freezer or the fridge. If I have chicken out and I go to put some back in the freezer, she runs over to the freezer door. 

She always eats crumbs out of her high chair. If she's just playing in the kitchen, she will go over to her high chair and reach for crumbs. Or she eats them off the ground. She's actually eating something she found on the ground right now. 

She went through a phase where she was obsessed with books. I got her books for Easter and she was so excited. She would bring over a book to Kelly or I multiple times a day and yell at us until we read it. She knows if we don't read what the page says too, she will stay on the certain page until we read the words. I've tried to make stuff up before because I'd get sick of reading the same thing over and over. I bought those books for her but they were really a gift for myself so I'd have something new to read. I got sick of them pretty fast though. Then just last week she stopped begging me to read books multiple times a day. We still read before bedtime and she likes it. She always tries to turn the pages though before I'm done reading each one. 

She gives kisses by tapping her face to your face. She will wave sometimes. The only time she really waves is to the old people that sit behind us in the bench at church. She waves at them all the time and they wave back at her. 

She loves to wear things around her neck. If it's long enough, it goes around her neck. Kelly's belt, my pajama pants, and other ribbons have all been one of her scarves. She does this basically every day. 

She is starting to get some independence, she doesn't want us to help her do certain things. We were eating out at a restaurant and we kept trying to help her with her kid's cup so she wouldn't tip it over too far and spill it, and she was pretty mad and yanked it back away from us. I am trying to let her learn to use a spoon. I give her applesauce and yogurt and leave her with a spoon. She just like taps it into the food and then licks it off. She gets frustrated after awhile and asks me to help her eat it. I probably should have started letting her try to use a spoon sooner. 

Every day we are thankful that we are her parents. We love her to pieces. 

13 Month Update

I want to keep updating this blog at least once a month, but now that Quinn is one, I need to come up with titles for my posts because I think it'd be annoying if I kept doing what I was doing and named this one "13 months." 

Quincy is so funny. I love playing with her every day. She loves books lately. She will come over to me many times throughout the day carrying a book because she wants me to read it to her. Or she just wants to sit and turn the pages. Sometimes she lets me read it in the order it's supposed to go, but she always tries to turn the pages before I'm done reading each page. Other times she will just flip to a page and she wants me to read what's on it. I end up reading the same pages over and over again. 

It seems she always wants me to be involved in what she is doing. If she's reading she is sitting on my lap most of the time. Today I was laying on the ground on my stomach and she came over with a book and she wanted to be on my lap but I didn't have a lap so she sat on my arm. And then she kept trying to sit on my back but she would tip over and fall off, it was so funny. 

She says the word "no" sometimes. And that's about the only word she says other than "mama." I know she knows what I'm saying sometimes. If I tell her to get in the bath she knows that we are going upstairs. If I tell her we are going outside she walks over to the door. She loves to go outside. She likes to walk up and down the sidewalk in front of our apartment. She likes the slides at the park, but she doesn't know how to get up to the them so I end up just picking her up and putting her on them over and over again until I get tired of it and then I take her somewhere else in the park. 

She is pretty good at communicating what she wants. She points to things and she has her own little words for certain things. I feel like her and I have our own little inside jokes. Sometimes she'll look at me with her lips pursed and she breathes really fast in and out of her nose. And I'll do the same thing back to her. Or I can start and she'll copy me and we both laugh. She dances by shaking her head back and forth to music. 

She used to love blueberries. We would buy a frozen bag of blueberries at Costco just for her and she would eat them every morning with breakfast. Last week she decided she didn't want any more blueberries. I've cut them up and put them in her Kodiak Power Cakes (if you haven't tried these you should get them, they are healthy protein waffle/pancake mix). I think I may try to sneak other fruit in her by putting them in her pancakes because I have a hard time getting her to eat enough fruits and veggies. She'll try any food but she doesn't always like it. 

If you are a guy probably don't read this next part. She has been weaned from nursing for about a month now. I know that just a few months ago I wrote about how sad I would be when she was no longer nursing, and I thought I would be. I thought I would keep doing it through the spring at least. Then the week that she turned one I got a plugged duct, twice. She was only nursing twice a day and I was surprised and annoyed that I got a block. I've had mastitis like four times and suddenly I just decided I was done. I didn't want to nurse anymore. I wrestled with it for a couple of days, I knew how good it was for her and how it helps her immune system. I did want to lose a few more pounds though and I worried that breastfeeding was keeping me from losing the last couple. I have been doing the 12 week challenge at the gym since January. I now weigh 3-4 pounds less than I did when I got pregnant. I think it is possible to lose all the weight when you're breastfeeding I just didn't decide to be disciplined enough to make it happen. There was a little voice in my head that kept telling me I could eat extra calories because I was nursing. Anyways, I cut back from two feedings a day to one and we did that for a couple of days. At first I thought my boobs would explode for a day or two but then it was fine so I cut back to nursing once every other day. We did that for four days. Again it was painful for a day but then it got better. So I did every two days for a week and then I just stopped nursing completely. My boobs did ache for awhile after I quit but they weren't getting full of milk like they had been. I am STILL making milk... but hardly any. Apparently it takes forever for your body to stop producing. I had to get a new bra. Let me just say, they are way different than before I got pregnant. None of my old bras fit. Which sucks because I had just gotten some nice ones right before I got pregnant. I went and got fitted and I went from a 34 to a 36. Pregnancy made my ribcage wider. I really did love nursing though, and I'm grateful I was able to do it. 

Squatting is the best position for reading.

 Um yes, her room is a disaster. I hate cleaning it because she goes in there and just takes everything out of its place. She takes the dirty clothes out, pulls all her cubbies out, etc. I bought her this bikini at Target and it is SO CUTE! No, I don't think it's immodest for babies to wear bikinis. She is a baby. She could be in a diaper and no one would care. 

 Her belly!! 

 She has chocolate on her face.

 We had stake conference last week, and regional conference two weeks before that, so we just go straight into the multi-purpose room at church and turn on the speaker. We can't get through a Sacrament meeting unless we get a bench to keep her contained. If we're in the back on metal chairs, forget it. It's not happening. 

She's sitting in her stroller, which was obviously made for her to sit in. You can't tell, but her baby is underneath her. Smh.

 She was trying to climb in it and the stroller rolled away from her somehow.

She got stuck like this, her leg was hooked on part of it and it was rolling away from her pulling her into the splits, hahaha. 

Sometimes she gets mad that she is trapped in the family room and I am in the kitchen, and she yells and also presses her mouth and nose against the bar. 

She is just silly. She loves to color. She found a pen one day and she kept trying to write on a piece of paper she had found, I didn't even know she knew that pens write on paper. We will have to get her a coloring book and some crayons. 

I can't think of a title for this post. Is it more dumb if I call it "The Last Month and a Half" or "13 months?"