Simon's story

January 23, 2015

It was 6am and I was getting up to take my millionth pee for the night. First blessing of the day, I actually slept REALLY well that night. As I laid back down in bed, my lower back started aching. It wasn't the first time I've had that pain, especially this late in the pregnancy. But for some reason, that morning, and this time, I knew it was different-- mother's intution. I tossed and turned in bed, trying to find a position that would ease the pain, but no luck. I tried to pull my legs out of bed to walk around, but every little inch I moved killed! How the heck am I supposed to get Lincoln out of his crib in an hour? Second blessing of the day, Lincoln slept in for me. 

It took every ounce of energy to get out of bed and go get a glass of water to alleviate my nasty cotton-mouth. Unfortunately, that glass of water made me nauseous (dang you water!) and by the time I choked down a saltine cracker, I was waddling like a mad-woman to the bathroom to throw up. Ever thrown up straight water before? It's one of the better things to throw up that's for sure. I'll say that was my third blessing. 

Lincoln slept in till 8:15 which is rare. God knew I needed some extra time that morning and I'm super grateful to Him for that. It was enough time to be able to walk around a little bit and I mustered some strength to pull him out of his crib. He ran to his chair for breakfast and we skipped his usual oatmeal and I poured him a BIG bowl of cereal. I knew that would occupy him for awhile. I went and laid down on the couch while he ate. I didn't hear a peep out of him for 20 minutes until he said "more peease". I poured another big bowl, have at it kid.

After his breakfast, I tried having another sip of water. Bad idea. I waddled as fast as I could back to the bathroom with Lincoln following me. He stood next to me as I was throwing up. I thought he would be mortified seeing me like that, but instead, he took his chubby little hand and stroked my shoulder. My 22-month old was showing me the love I needed in that very moment. There were a few seconds that I was able to focus on Lincoln and how sweet he was being......and then he closed the toilet lid (almost on my head), flushed the toilet, and walked away. 

I texted Ryan and said he needed to come home. I'm 99.9% sure I was in labor and even if I wasn't, I needed him to work from home that day. He was home by 930 and that's when the contractions started coming. Every 5 minutes. We were at the hospital by 11am.

Fast forward to that afternoon when things got a little ugly. I was taking fentanyl for the pain, which was effective the first time, less effective the second dose, and the third dose wouldn't even touch the pain. They waited to tell me every dose would become less and less effective. Uhh? Thanks for nothing! It was late afternoon and I had stopped progressing and knew that I needed an epidural at this point since the drugs weren't even touching the pain. But guess what? After they brought the epidural cart in and got everything set up, they told me that my platelets were too low to receive an epidural. WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?! This is the point where things got REALLY ugly, and by "things", I mean, "me". Ryan saw a different side of me that day. A side that I'd rather not have to bring out ever again unless someone tells me they won't give me an epidural. Ever seen a mama bear protecting her cub? Well, I was the mama bear and the epidural cart they wheeled out of my room to give to another mother-- well, that cart was my baby cub. Ryan later said he would try paying off the anesthesiologist to give me an epidural anyway. My husband is the best.

They said they would redraw blood and do another platelet count. That was the. longest. wait. EVER. And then the nurse came back and said, the platelets were still too low.

But then another blessing. The anesthesiologist came in and agreed he would give me the epidural since the platelets weren't dropping anymore and the levels weren't too below the cut-off. He instantly became my hero.

Then, shortly after receiving my glorious epidural, I learned something new. It's called a hot-spot. It's when you get an epidural and there's a patch that the epidural doesn't touch. My first contraction after the epidural kicked in, I thought my left hip was on fire. Literally. Hence the name, hot-spot. It was localized to my left hip and even though it was extremely painful, it was a whole heck-of-a-lot better than where I was prior to the epidural.

And then it was time...
Luckily, after my lack of pain management ordeal, I was blessed with a speedy delivery. After 2 pushes, I had the greatest blessing of the whole day in my arms, Simon Barry Shideler. And my day became perfect, just like him.

The next day, Ryan brought Lincoln in to meet his new brother, and eventually BFF. Lincoln brought me a rose, a chocolate doughnut (which he ended up helping himself too), and a trash magazine. My boys take good care of me. :)

And watching Lincoln with Simon, and saying his name-- just down right melts my heart. 

And lastly, the look of a mother who realizes getting a family photo will become more and more of challenge...

Our first, FAMILY of 4 PHOTOS!

Lincoln

One morning, maybe like around 4am, Lincoln wasn't sleeping well because he had been sick. I was way too tired and just brought him back to bed with me and he finally fell back asleep. I was laying there, trying to fall back asleep myself when my little sleeping Lincoln softly and slowly muttered the words, "chooooo-choooo". I tell ya, it was one of the sweetest moments EVER!!!! One of those moments that you'll remember and tell him about one day when he is old enough. I can still here exactly how it sounded too. The sweetest choo-choo train noise you've ever heard. Now I know what he dreams about.

I told Ryan we should let Lincoln sleep with us one night. He's never really slept the whole night with us because having our kids in our bed with us hasn't been anything we've wanted. Even when we brought Lincoln home from the hospital, he was in our room one, maybe two, nights total before we both decided he needs to be in his own room. Our bed is our bed.

Don't get me wrong, there are rare occasions where I would bring him into bed if he was sick and having trouble sleeping. But he was only in our bed long enough to fall back asleep and then I would take him back.

SO, here comes my experience. My sister-in-law had posted this sappy poem online about how there's always a "last time" with your kids. So sappy, in fact, that it literally made me cry reading it. There will be a "last time" that you carry your child on your hip, and a "last time" for singing "Wheels on the bus" and a "last time" they'll crawl into your bed because they had a bad dream... And how we need to cherish these moments because they don't last forever. And that's when it hit me, I wanted Lincoln to sleep in bed with us for a night. Just to have his sweet little body there, all peaceful and cute.

I talked to Ryan about it; I even quoted some lines from the poem, which I think is what helped win him over with the idea. He agreed, I was happy, but that all changed----quickly. We had Lincoln fall asleep in his bed (since he wouldn't fall asleep with us in our bed-- too exciting for him) and then brought him into our bed once he was asleep. I was so giddy having our toddler sleeping with us for the first time for the whole night. It was so hard to fall asleep with him next to me, but eventually I did......and then eventually, I couldn't stay asleep!!!!!! Reality hit me hard. It was the worst!!!!! He smacked me in the face I don't know how many times, he would kick me in the stomach or judo chop me in the throat. He breathed way too loud for me to ignore. And I had no room at all. We have a king size bed, but I had Lincoln more on my half, so that Ryan wouldn't be disturbed. It was my idea after all.... I couldn't let Ryan think my idea was the result of his poor night's sleep. Pretty much Ryan had half the bed, Lincoln had the other half of the bed, and I had the very edge. And don't get me started about when he woke up in the morning. I'm used to slowly waking up, but Lincoln just popped up and started shoving his finger up my nose and jabbing my eye out. Not exactly how I want to wake up.

On to more pleasant times with our boy. 

This week I went in for my 38 week appointment and was 3 cm dilated. The doctor says he'd be surprised if I even made it to 39 weeks. I was thrilled..... until I realized I now have one week to get those little things done I need to before baby boy 2 comes. And then I went into panic mode. I'M NOT READY!!!!!!! No wait, yes I am. NO I'M NOT. YES, yes I am. NO. I'm not!!! You catch my drift. Anyway, leave it to Ryan to calm me down. He's my tranquilizer when I'm getting out of control. :)

So the next day I decided to take Lincoln out, just me and him, and have a fun day together before his brother comes. We went to the children's museum. I love that place as much as he does. I tried to just soak him up, as much as I could, and enjoyed every moment. I would get excited when he got excited about something, I let him drag me and my big belly in every direction he wanted to go....Man it was exhausting. But really, I'll cherish that day forever.

We ended the night by going to get us some doughnuts!!! I don't let him have many sweets.... so this was like, "ENJOY THIS DAY BUDDY. YOU GET A DOUGHNUT FOR DINNER!!!" Here I am trying to be "fun" and spoil him with krispy kreme... but guess what?!? This kid of mine wouldn't eat his doughnut!!! The glaze was too sticky on his hands so he wouldn't touch it..... and even when I tried to hand feed it to him, he would take a tiny bite and shake his head no! So I sat there, big belly and all, and ate my chocolate sprinkled donut and his glazed donut while he sat and watched me. He came home and ate an apple spinach pancake and yogurt. HA!

Our first own little christmas

This Christmas was our first own little Christmas without family. Just us three (+baby boy). We went to the Trail of Lights here in Austin, which will now be a new tradition for as many years as we live here. Lincoln had special seating right up on daddy's shoulders for the whole trail. We thought about having his picture taken with Santa while we were there, but that thought was squashed in about 30 seconds when we saw how long the line was. So what does any lazy but somewhat creative parents do? Just pose in FRONT of Santa, and maybe photo shop the other kids out? Well, at least we got a picture with Santa in the background....close enough. 

Christmas Eve we went over to some friends for a little while and then made a drive around neighborhoods with gas-station hot chocolate on our way home. Since we were in a residential area, we brought Lincoln up front to sit on my lap to get a better view of the lights, but all he was interested in was pulling on the visor and cranking up the radio and pushing buttons and trying to open the door. He lasted maybe one block or two before we put him back in his car seat. 

I know our gifts look bare. Funny things is, is that two of the three gifts you see wrapped are from the in-laws. And all the little gifts for Lincoln were from my parents. The only thing we bought Lincoln was a train set I found at a consignment store for $20. With the train set and gifts from Papa and Nana, he scored big time. SHHHH. I even put half of the gifts they gave him away for his birthday. :)

Oh, and then there was the brilliant idea of decorating sugar cookies. I tried to make it as easy as possible and buy the pre-made dough that only requires you to slice and put on a cookie sheet. Apparently that's still a little too complicated for me. Mine turned into a sugar cookie sheet. I ended up getting a cookie cutter and cutting a few and thought, screw it. I don't care if they are perfect circles. They're all going to the same place right?

Good thing I didn't take the time. Lincoln didn't care for the cookies, or frosting, or sprinkles. He's weird like that sometimes. Or maybe he refused to eat the cookies because they were ugly and odd-shaped.

But he was pretty dang stoked about his Santa pancakes I made. It's a good thing he doesn't really understand Santa because he would have told me off right away saying, "This doesn't look like Santa!" And I would have replied, "you're right kid, they sure don't." Thanks pinterest for making our food look creepy. 

And this picture just cracked me up. I was making our hot chocolate and thought, as I was admiring our pretty hot chocolate, "Parenthood must mean having toy rifles on the counter."

And lastly, our new christmas ornament this year!!! We do one every year and I was so unoriginal and bought a texas state ornament. It's pretty cool but pales in comparison to what Ryan bought. He's never bought one before and of course the first time he does, he showed me up big time. If you didn't see the photo I posted on instagram back around Halloween, we had an owl get into our house that nearly gave me a heart attack and luckily didn't scar Lincoln with owl-terrors. Anyway, Ryan was the hero and caught the owl. He found an owl ornament and now, every year when we hang up the brown owl we can re-tell the story of the owl getting in the house through the fireplace. Good times. :)

anyway, we hope y'all had a great and merry Christmas!

Overdue pregnancy post....

my favorite things right now: my first pair of maternity pants, which I tried to hold out on as long as possible but quickly became a necessity....especially if I wanted to ever leave the house without wearing sweats and yoga bottoms. 2. Cankle rubs from the hubby. he originally had asked to give me a foot rub, but I told him the cankles need some lovin and WOWZA it feels good.

well i'm now 37 weeks and have grown quite significantly than when these pictures were taken. I'm planning on taking at least one more picture before the arrival but if my procrastination continues, as it has this whole pregnancy, I'll be grateful for one last belly shot in the hospital before this baby boy makes his arrival.

This pregnancy has flown by rather quickly. Quicker than when I was pregnant with Lincoln for sure. There was a drag around 24 week mark when I thought really? That's it??!?! Now I'm thinking, HOLY *&^#*&^ there's so much to do to prepare! But then I remember how things were with Lincoln. His nursery wasn't set up and the house wasn't as clean as I would have liked, and guess what? We survived! I'm not going to stress about it (At least that's what I say now and then watch what happens; I go into labor and start yelling, "I CAN'T HAVE THIS BABY NOW!! I'M NOT READY!!!!"). *sigh*

Let's give myself a round of applause though for a freezer full of dinners I prepared over the weekend. WOO HOO! Last time I did this with Lincoln, there were some I had never tried before and they didn't turn out that great. This time around, we've tried them all and they're delicious and ready to be thrown in the crockpot! Eventually I'll share what dinners I prepared. Just don't hold your breath, you know my procrastination lays heavily on this blog.

So here's to the next 3 weeks (knock on wood) before baby boy graces us with his presence. Until then, I have a babysitter lined up every weekend for Ryan and I, as well as special dates to take Lincoln on for some quality 1 on 1.

halloween and some friday night lights

this boy is such a ham^^^ Look at those cheeks stuffed to the max of kettle corn. 

We went and checked out the halloween hot air balloon event. It's definitely on our list to go again next year. Bring a big blanket and food and wait for the show. As soon as it's dark you can line up and go trick-or-treating at each of the hot air balloons. We didn't bother standing in line, instead we stayed cozy on our blanket, ate our kettle corn, and watched the hot air balloons light up. 

Lincoln was pretty mesmerized, which made Ryan and I mesmerized watching Lincoln's reaction. Even though that last picture I have of him and Ryan in front of the balloons makes him look not-so-thrilled... he was. 

We decided to take him out trick or treating this year since he was old enough to walk around and actually score some candy for his parents. Unfortunate thing for Ryan and I..... Lincoln was not a fan of going up to the doors and getting candy. We practically had to shove him up there. He eventually got the hang of it but by that time his pumpkin pail broke. The stash he got was decent. Ryan and I would have been happier for more, but next year we'll have to do a little more coaching beforehand if we really want the jackpot. 

Oh, and crazy me decided to make costumes for all three of us. I figured I would do something easy, and it was... but I was regretting it last minute since I postponed making them to the last day. But they were super easy to make and I thought they turned out pretty decent. I went for the skeleton costumes since I had seen some pregnant mama's sporting the costume with the baby on the belly. Naturally I had the boys match me. Except Ryan had a burger and soda and Lincoln had candy. :)

We ended our Halloween  by 7 and went with some friends to a high school football game. High school football is a pretty big deal here in Texas, I guess. Ever seen the show Friday Night Lights? "Texas Forever!"