Friday, April 10, 2015

Time to Catch Up...

I haven't been on Blogger for such a long time. I love having a recorded history of what is going on in our family and the stages the kids are at. I don't want to bother going back and chronologically add everything I've missed so I'm going to write about this current moment in our lives.

Life is so good. I think it's partly a change in attitude but I also think we're finally settling into life as we know it. Work is better than we could have dreamed of. When we were in school, it felt like it would never end. My life would always consist of dirty diapers, no money, a small apartment and a husband who made appearances at dinner and on Sundays. Not that it was a bad life, we were so rich with good friends, an amazing ward and all that we truly needed. But last year was a bit of a refining fire. Life after dental school wasn't at all what we had expected. We were still poor, living in a small apartment, trying to build friendships, and feeling more homesick than ever. I know we needed that year to come around and feel how immense the blessings are in our lives.

Keith has a stable job in which money is no longer an object of stress. We are paying our bills and paying down student debt which feels so good. We live in a safe neighborhood next to beautiful open space in a family friendly city. I get to go to a gym and have wonderful people entertain my children so I can exercise and feel good. I can hire a babysitter and go on a date with an amazing man that is faithful and honest and hardworking. I live in a home that is still small, but beautiful and I am capable of cleaning it. I have made friends with kind, good, intelligent women that I learn from. I attend a Church that teaches my children wonderful values and principles. My children know that they are children of God and that they have purpose in this life. Speaking of those kids:

Mackenzie is 6 1/2. She is growing and learning at such a rapid pace it is hard to keep up. At the beginning of the school year, she only knew how to write her name. Now she is reading simple books and writing sentences. She loves to have fun. She speaks in dramatics. Every day is "the best day ever!" or "the worst day ever!" I am either the best or the worst mom depending on her mood. She is still so good to her little brother and mostly good to Clara. They fight as I think all sisters probably do. She loves movies, anything artsy, playing games and being with friends. She has two permanent teeth on the bottom and about 4 loose at the moment including her top two which makes me more sad than it should. She is tall for her age and has long legs and a lean athletic build. She is a good runner and is making incredible progress with her swimming lessons. She is a good student and earned the highest award in her class this year "The high flyer" for demonstrating excellence in all areas of character. She is still sweetly innocent and sensitive to others. She loves sugar cereal, peanut butter and honey sandwiches and her favorite restaurant is Subway. She is a hoarder and sleeps with a bunch of dolls and animals on her bed. Her favorite is a pink gerbil? she calls bubblegum. She only likes to wear dresses and skirts.

Clara is 3 1/2. She is still such a sweet girl. A few months ago she was sitting at the table eating a sandwich I had just made for her and she blurted out "You're just like the best mom ever." I cherish that moment. She loves to give her daddy and a hug and a "tiss" before he leaves for work and at bedtime. She is a social girl and loves to be around friends and other people. She is the best behaved in her Primary class (I can brag because her teachers have told me this so many times). She is wise beyond her years and asks intuitive questions. She still likes to push Kenzie's buttons and wrestle with her little brother. She loves to do puzzles, color, do her "homework", play outside, and play games. She is happy go lucky and usually willing to help me out. She is average size and build right now, I think she'll take more after my side of the family. She almost always has a smile on her face. She will eat just about anything and her favorite foods are fruits. She also wears skirts and dresses because in her mind anyone wearing pants looks like a boy:)

Emmett just turned 2. I cannot believe he is more toddler than baby right now. We definitely spoil him still but he is a feisty little independent spirit. He currently loves trains, especially Thomas. He likes books and kicking around the soccer ball. He loves to run outside and chase rabbits. He is such a good little talker, I melt every time he opens his mouth. He likes to make us laugh and adores teasing his sisters. He likes his cuddles and will often say "I hold you daddy/mommy." He is a pretty good eater too but I think his favorite foods are pancakes and waffles. He's the only one I still get to dress. He likes to tease our neighbors cat named Bobby and climb on anything and everything. He is mischievous and with him where there's a will, there's a way. He doesn't like to sit still and amazes my with his energy. He is known to end up in our bed a lot at might because I'm too much of a pushover to make him stay in his own when he calls out for us.

Keith is loving being his own boss. He loves having partners to share his practice with. He works 3 12's plus a 1/2 day for catching up and likes his schedule. I love having him home some weekdays and we enjoy going to the gym together. He is the center of his kid's universe and is such a good hands-on dad. He keeps me up too late binge watching TV series.

I am feeling much more relaxed with the 3 kids. Wednesdays are my favorite. Keith usually has them off and we take the kids to swim lessons. Emmett and I are taking a mommy and me swim class which has really helped him with his fear of the water. After Emmett's lesson, we join the girls in the water and play for a couple of hours while they take turns with their lessons. I have been reading more and am enjoying the increasing independence of our kids. I started taking voice lessons in February- something I have always wanted to do. I love having my own thing to learn and practice. I have made some good friends. Most are older than me and have older children so I'm able to pick their brains and glean wisdom and good parenting advice.

We really enjoy the weather here in Denver. We've been here 11 months now and thought we would be buying a house right now. After a lot of thought and prayer, we've decided to wait another year. The market is still so hot here and our price range is really competitive. We think we've found the neighborhood we'd like to settle in and we know we can wait another year. We had been saving a down payment so it felt really nice to take that money and put it into student loans. We hope the interest rates don't climb too high this year but we have faith that it will all work out better for us to wait even if they do. 

Unshared Birth Story #6

Disclaimer: If you don't like period talk, don't read.

As usual this summer, we made a trip to Utah/Idaho. Towards the end of the trip I started what I thought was my period. We were really busy with Keith in town so I didn't have much time to pay attention to the fact that I only bled two days when I always bleed for 6-7. I should have known then that something was off but we were so busy I just didn't give it much thought. We came home about a week later and I'm usually a little bummed when we get back. It's so quiet and cousins aren't around to play with. Plus, we were still settling in and I hadn't really made social connections yet. Understandably, I was feeling down and irritable. I became so irritable though, my thinking became irrational and I was taking my anger out on Keith and the kids. He said something to me that I can't even remember but which set me off so badly and I knew I was being crazy and overreacting. I hadn't been feeling well either so I had the thought to take a pregnancy test. We weren't trying so I wasn't really expecting much but I knew if I wasn't pregnant, I needed to go to someone for help because my hormones were really out of wack!

I didn't say anything to Keith I just huffed up the stairs and locked myself in the bathroom. On a whim, I had bought a couple pregnancy tests in Idaho because I like to have them on hand. I took the first one and much to my shock I watched a second pink line form to indicate a positive pregnancy. I burst into tears. I was so crazy overwhelmed and in that moment I felt grossly inadequate to raise another child. After calming down, I found Keith (still rightfully frustrated with me) and told him I was pregnant. He didn't believe it and didn't say much. I think we were both in a bit of shock. I decided I needed to take another test just in case the first was a false positive. I was shocked again to find the second test confirmed the first. The next day, I went out and bought a non dollar store test because I was sure the first two were wrong (denial is strong my friends) and found that one also positive.

My mind was going crazy. I felt like I had already lost the baby and told Keith so. I think for him, the baby never felt real. I did bleed in Utah but I tend to bleed a bit every time I'm pregnant, just not to that extent. It had already been a week since the bleeding had stopped though and the tests were all positive. In hindsight, I should have gone to an OB. I was not in my right mind though and decided to wait it all out. It was a long few weeks of crazy hormones, frequent nausea and going back and forth playing mind games with myself (why didn't I go to a doctor?!) After a few more weeks of crazy, the cramping started. Horrible aching in my back and nausea that kept me in bed. I knew I was losing the baby. The next week was long and not nearly as awful as the last experience because I wasn't as far along but it still hurt knowing I had lost something I didn't even know I wanted. It took a couple of months for me to feel ok again and about 6 months later, I'm finally feeling back to my old self. I'm not sure if we'll try for pregnancy again. In my mind, I'm missing a 4th child but I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with any more loss.


Already Shared Birth Story #5

A sweet delivery and an even better recovery. I'm glad I wrote this one down as soon as it happened because I would have forgotten all of the little details:)
http://knshawfamily.blogspot.com/2013/05/emmett.html