Dear B,

Oh my big Brock boy.

You’ve grown so much! You’re a completely different child than you were a year ago.

You’ve accomplished so much! You can walk! You’ve been doing it for so long now that it seems like you’ve always been this way, but just a year ago you couldn’t.

And you talk! More words than I can count, strung together in beautiful 4 and 5 and 6 word sentences.

You love your Sister. You walk her to the bus every morning and try to sneak on. As soon as you wake up from your nap you start asking if it’s time to go get her from school. You guys wrestle every night and it stresses me out but I’m thankful you can do it. I love watching you two play together.

And you love your sister. I just knew you’d be jealous when she arrived but you haven’t been. Not one bit. You want to hold her and kiss her and when she starts to cry you quietly whisper “It’s ok ‘Reesies.’ My right here, my right here.”

You love trains and cars and balls and Mickey Mouse and making me lunch. You make the best plastic pancakes I’ve ever had.

You love gymnastics and you’ve gotten so much stronger since you started! Daddy does gymnastics with you and I love that you boys have that time together.

You’re a parrot. You repeat EVERYTHING you hear. Even mundane phrases like “This taco has too many onions on it.”

You love mothers day out.  You’re smaller than the other kids but you don’t let that stop you from bossing them around. And you certainly don’t let them push you around. Your teacher says they’re not quite sure what to think of you when you stand up for yourself. I’m proud of you.

You go to speech and physical therapy at the ‘big school.’ You let me drop you off without crying and you’re happy when I pick you up.

You eat now! Not much, but at least it’s something. Crackers, chips, goldfish, cereal, bananas, milk. It’s a start.

Happy (belated) birthday, sweet boy. I love you. I’m so glad you’re THREE! And I’m so thankful God has given us another year of laughs, of fun, of memories…of hope.

Love,
Yo mama

Catching Up

So, I had a baby. And that throws everything off. She’ll be 3 months old next week and we’re finally starting to settle in to a routine. Which means I *might* have time to catch up on all of the blogable things that’ve happened in the last few months. Like Brock’s 3rd birthday. And the new baby. And Christmas. And before I know it it’s going to be Jaycie’s birthday.

Time. It flies.

WIWW, pregnancy edition

I know it’s been for.ev.er but I’m posting another What I Wore Wednesday….not because maternity fashion is anything to get excited about, but so a few friends of mine *ahem* will stop bugging me to see belly pictures.

For the record, these were all taken between 32 and 33 weeks.

dress, cardi: old navy
necklace: allorahandmade

I thought I was being all cute by combining stripes and floral….now it just kind of looks like I threw it together.

shirt: target
sweater: old navy (not maternity)
capris: old navy
posy pins: the pleated poppy
necklace: the vintage pearl

I wore this to take Jaycie to see Cathy Rigby in Peter Pan.

 

My crazy daughter can’t wear shoes without socks.  I drives me nuts but it’s not a battle I’m willing to fight.

It was quite a night.  The show didn’t start until 8.  My niece threw up during intermission.  And 5 minutes into the 2nd act Jaycie leaned over and said “Do we have this movie at home?”  When I said yes she said she was tired and ready to go home.

I’m linking up with Lindsey at The Pleated Poppy.  Go check out her creative outfits – they’re much cuter than mine!

Sunday

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Wordless Wednesday

The C Word, Part 4

I know it’s been 6 months and no one is probably interested in this “series” anymore, but I’m going to add another chapter anyway.  Because hey! Both kids are at school and it seems like more fun than cleaning house.

You can read the previous installments here: part 1, part 2, part 3

From Part 3:

While I was waiting and worrying, a pediatric oncologist was taking her kids for a well-check.  Taking them to see our pediatrician.  And sitting in the exact same exam room I had been in with Brock just a few hours earlier.

“Hi Dr. M.  While you’re here, I need to tell you about one of my patients that I saw earlier today…”

————————-

I’d been waiting anxiously at Jay’s office for a few hours.  Jay was away from the office shooting a commercial, his parents were there with me (it’s a family business) and both of my kids were taking naps in the back room when the phone finally rang.

I wish I could remember more of the specifics of the phone call.  I know our pediatrician told me the results of the blood work.  The only number I remember was his platelet count: 3,000.  A normal platelet count is 150,000 – 450,000.  He told us that he’d talked to some doctors at the local children’s hospital and that he’d made arrangements for Brock to be directly admitted, right away. 

For some reason, remembering the next few moments are what brings me to tears more often than any other events of that day.  I walked to the back room, woke Jaycie up from her nap and just held her and cried.  It was our last few moments of ‘normal’ – even though it wasn’t really normal anymore.  I cried because our lives would never be the same.  I cried because I was going to have to leave her with Jay’s parents while we took Brock to the hospital.  I cried because the future was so terrifyingly uncertain. 

Brock was still sleeping – he’d been sleeping all day, a result of his hemaglobin being dangerously low.  I can’t remember when Jay returned to the office but it must’ve been quickly because both of us woke Brock up, got in the car and headed to the hospital. 

We still didn’t know for sure that it was cancer.  The pediatrician told us that it could be leukemia or it could be some type of auto-immune disorder.  Of course we were praying for the latter.  On the way to the hospital I told Jay that no matter what happened I KNEW we’d be ok; that I knew, with absolutely no doubt, that God would take care of us – I just didn’t want this to be our road.  I remember repeating that phrase over and over during the first few days.  “I know we’re going to be ok – I just don’t want this to be our road.”

When we got to the hospital, we parked in the parking garage and started the long walk across the skybridge and into the hospital.  As we walked through that skybridge Jay commented on how it smelled like hospital and I remember thinking that it was a smell that I was going to hate – one that I would be all too familiar with. 

We walked into the admissions office, holding a sleeping 11 month old boy, and told them his name.  There’s no way we could’ve know that it would be 133 days before he would see the outside of that hospital again.

{to be continued}

Sunday

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Bullets

– this girl started kindergarten. i don’t like it one bit. neither does her brother. every day around noon he starts asking “get sissy? get sissy?” i’m completely confident that we’re making the right choice by putting her in public school (more on that later) but i just miss her!! and i’m so sad my time at home with her is over. it went by so fast.

– yes, she chose the outfit all on her own. right down to the socks.

– this guy thinks he’s tough. he’s showing you his muscles.

– brock starts mother’s day out next week. two days a week. while i’m a little sad about both of my kids being gone all day i’m REALLY excited about having a few hours a week to get things done before the baby comes.

– being pregnant during the hottest summer on record sucks.

– 10-ish weeks until sweet baby girl gets here. i’m nervous about so many things (more on that later too) but i’m mostly SO excited to have a baby around the house again.

On Cloth Diapers

Many thanks to my best friend Brandy for giving me something to blog about. She sent me this message last week…

“So, what kind of cloth diapers do you use? I am soooooo tired of buying diapers every other day…”

Yep, we use cloth diapers. Well, we did before Brock was diagnosed with ALL. Chemo is excreted in feces and urine and I don’t want to deal with all the safe-handling issues that go along with that.

Her 1 question led to a host of other questions and I figured I’d type up the response here in case anyone else was interested.

1. What kind do we use?

When I first started researching cloth diapers I was completely overwhelmed with all the different types that were out there. And without seeing them in person it’s a little hard to imagine that they’re like, and therefore hard to imagine which type would be best for you.

We finally settled on 2 different systems.

a) A prefold diaper fastened closed with a Snappi and covered with a Thirsties brand diaper cover. I tried several brands of diaper covers and I liked Thirsties the best because they fit well and were really trim underneath clothes.

This system tends to be the most economical. Prefolds are by far the cheapest type of diaper out there, even given the fact that you’ll have to buy several different sizes of them as the baby grows.

Brock at 5 days old in a newborn size prefold, fastened with a Snappi. Still needs a cover so it won’t leak.

b) BumGenius one size pocket diaper. This diaper has snaps to adjust the rise of the diaper, so theoretically they’ll fit a baby from the time they’re born until the time they potty train. They are a little bit bulky on a newborn and really fit better once the baby has hit 10 pounds or so. Brock weighs about 25 lbs and they still fit him great.

Brock at 7 weeks olds in a BumGenius

2. Are they smelly/how do you keep them from smelling up the house?

Believe it or not, cloth diapers really do stink LESS than disposable diapers. For one thing, you’re flushing any waste down the toilet instead of wrapping it up and throwing it in the trash can. Also, we wash cloth diapers every few days so there isn’t time for them to get stinky.

We store dirty diapers in a regular trash can with a liner like this one. As long as the lid is closed, there’s no smell!

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3. How many of the inserts would you recommend?

It really depends on which type of diaper system you want to use. We had about 2 dozen prefolds, 2 snappis, 6 thirsties covers, and 6 bumgenius diapers and that was enough to last us a few days. I should mention that with the prefold system, if the diaper is just wet, you change the prefold and reuse the cover. The only time I changed a cover was if the diaper leaked (which RARELY happened) and the cover became soiled. With the bumgenius you have to change the whole thing (the insert and the cover) every time.

4. Do you use a different detergent on them?

Yep. We used Purex Free and Clear. There is an excellent list here of which detergents are ok to use on cloth diapers and which aren’t. Most “regular” detergents aren’t ok.

5. Is there a special cream that needs to be used with the cloth diapers?

In general, diaper rash cream and cloth diapers don’t mix. The cream can affect the absorbency of the diaper. Brock hardly EVER had any problems with diaper rash in cloth diapers and if he did, I just switched to disposables for a few days until it cleared up.

6. Do you use Snappi’s? Do all of them need these even if they have velcro or is that what the Snappi’s are for? Or are the Snappi’s so that kids can’t get their diapers off?

Snappi’s are for keeping a prefold diaper on, but you’ll still need a cover with it so that it won’t leak everywhere. You can just lay a prefold in a cover and fastened it on without a snappi but you’re more likely to get leaks that way.

7. Are they any harder to wash once they start eating food, do you have to pre-rinse them, etc?

I don’t think they’re any harder to wash. My kids were exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months, and breast milk poop is water-soluble so I would just toss the dirty diaper into the pail. I always did a pre-rinse with cold water before washing in hot water. Once they started eating solid food I would dump any waste in the toilet and then rinse the diaper with a diaper sprayer, if needed. But the washing routine stayed the same.

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The only thing I can think of that she didn’t ask about was drying the diapers. We line dried them because they’ll last longer that way and because it takes a lot of energy to dry a load of diapers. They’re meant to be really absorbent so it takes a long time to dry them! I could dry them outside in the sun faster than I could dry them in the clothes dryer.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ask any other questions you have in the comments!

Linking up with Megan at Sorta Crunchy for Your Green Resources. http://www.sortacrunchy.net/sortacrunchy/2011/09/your-green-resource-week-one.html

Things I’m Longing For

1. Tempteratures below 80 degrees.  Heck, I’d take anything below 100 degrees.

2. College football

3. Cardis, Scarves, and Jeans

4. Chili, Cowboy Stew, Cornbread

5. So…to sum it up: FALL