In the next 17 days, there will be 1 day where both Steven and I are not working. That's how come we comment on each other's posts. FYI Dad, Steven's still got the Red Lobster gift certificates in his wallet from his birthday, we're working on it, someday we'll get a date.

We qualified for WIC for 3 months while I was on maternity leave. It's about $130 worth of groceries a month and I was going to take it dang it. Despite what Steven thinks about government handouts. I actually really liked it. Milk is $4.79 a gallon (at the commissary) and we go though a lot of it, so to have someone else pay for it was nice. They also give out carrots, cheese, eggs, tuna, juice, cereal and evaporated milk. We used all of them.

The one thing we did not use was beans. I have no idea how to cook beans. And after 3 months we had 8 bags of beans that I had no idea what to do with. All they were doing was sitting on the shelf taking up room (that we really don't have).

So what did I end up doing with them? Putting a sheet down on the carpet, putting them in a really big rubbermaid container, throwing in cups and spoons and setting a toddler there to make a mess.

Felicity has no toys. Seporah owns all the toys. Every single one of them. We've been tying to help Felicity ever since we were told she has reflux. When she's up right, she's significantly happier. But she gets bored in her swing and Steven and I get tired of holding her. So I decided to get a baby chair. There's 2 brands, Bumbo and Bebe. First I checked out Freecycle and Craig's List to no avail. So I shelled out the cash and bought one (it's funny I thought I wouldn't need to buy more baby equipment after the first one, yeah there goes that thought). Steven and I discussed the fact that we didn't want Seporah to break it because she was too big. Steven said that she would get stuck so there wasn't any worry after the first time.

We brought it home. Placed it on the floor and went to another room. Sure enough, Seporah gets in it and gets stuck. Good, we thought now she'll leave it alone. Yeah well we were wrong. She continues to get stuck and gets mad when Felicity gets into her chair.

So Seporah has got the baby concept down. She sees babies and calls them 'Baby.' She usually calls Felicity 'Baby.'

The above picture is in a frame at our house. She brought it to me and said "Baby." I said "Yes that is a baby, That's you when you were a baby. That's Baby Seporah." She looked at me like I was crazy to suggest that the baby was her, she shook her head no and then said, "Sorry."

For our 5 year anniversary he gave me chocolates from www.zchocolat.com Then he gave me some for Christmas this year. They're handmade French chocolates and the best chocolate I've ever tasted. He gets these promotional emails all the time and I see them and my mouth starts watering. I want them, but they're terribly expensive (and no I'm not kidding, when I found out my mouth dropped open). But if you're not broke and you need something to give your woman for Valentine's Day send her these.

If you are broke, blow up a whole bunch of red and pink balloons in her bedroom while she's asleep. Jeremy did this for Heather and their son Ethan. I was like ahh, would you believe Jeremy's a romantic?

So Felicity has reflux, I guessed it around 6 weeks but didn't want to say it out loud. Instead keeping it to myself, in denial, saying there wasn't anything wrong with her. I mean this is MY baby, not someone else's. I initially couldn't even say colicky until someone else said it, I just said fussy. And to say she has reflux means I have to do something about it. As much as I give out medications, the thought of giving my baby medicine on a daily basis isn't so cool. However reflux is fairly easy to treat and she'll outgrow it within 6-12months. So here is a list of diseases that I see in other people's babies on a daily basis that I should be thankful my own don't have (instead of whiny about a little reflux).
Diabetes
Cancer
Sickle Cell
Tracheolmalcia
Recurrent Ear Infections
Recurrent seizures
Being born prematurely with all the crap that goes with that
One of thousands of disorders and syndromes

I really should have person proofread business card before I spend the moneys on them.

-Herbal Essence in toddler eyes will make the toddler scream "EYES! EYES! EYES!" for 20 minutes.
-2 sick babies are even more fun than 1 sick baby.
-Baby diarrhea when squeezed out the leg and onto the couch stains the couch.
-When you haven't seen anything but Disney movies in a long time, Toy Story 2 will make you a little teary eyed.
-Washable markers wash out of clothes, Sharpie permanent markers do not.
-The board books with extras like magnets on them are actually more entertaining for adults than toddlers during church.
-Popcorn when mixed with water is really gross and no longer tasty.
-Lincoln Logs make excellent play swords.
-Stickers are the coolest thing sine sliced bread.
-A bag of fruit snacks will shut a toddler up for about 73 seconds, then they'll need another bag.
-Raisins are very difficult to get out of the carpet once they are ground in.
-You may have 10 pacifiers in the house, but when you really need one, you can't find 1 anywhere.
-"A cow goes 'MOOOOOO!' " is the first line of my toddler's favorite book that has unfortunately fallen apart.
-Board books are between $5-15 each, finding them used is a good thing.
-Toys break way too easily.
-The computer is the most expensive toy in the house and perhaps the most fun for a toddler.
-Before children, your topics for conversation include (but are not limited to) politics, the weather, work, real estate, movies, music, religion, entertainment, clothing and celebrity marriages and divorces.
-After children, your topics for conversation include (and ARE limited to) child#1 and child#2.

 

 
 
 



 

After being gone for 75 days, there was a congratulations letter from the Commanding General of the hospital, a box of toothpicks, 4 pennies and 3 VERY large white staples inside of a bubble wrap bag in my mailbox at work.

Just as a FYI, I made it through my first 2 days back to work, it is now 8:30pm though and both girls are asleep. And I've worked 24 of the last 36 hours and spent the rest of the time pumping and taking care of 2 little munchkins, so I am going to sleep.

Well recovery from wisdom teeth extraction, what can I say. It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Probably because I was so sleep deprived that anymore dings to the body was too much. I'll spare you the details, but my bottle of Vicodin is now empty (unfortunately) and I have a bruise on my face that makes it look like I should go to a woman's shelter (Steven's not too pleased about that).

Thankfully over the past week Felicity has been sleeping a little better. I've been getting 6-7 hours of broken sleep as apposed to 3-5 hours. She can still cry and scream quite well, although it has subsided a bit. I appreciate and like my children and husband significantly more when I don't feel like the walking dead. It's nice to be able to quietly admire their beautiful features, both physical and personality wise (maybe that's the vicodin haze I'm feeling).

For those of you that don't know, I am going to be an aunt again. Jeremy and Heather are expecting and it's going to be a....GIRL!!! I was actually pretty surprised, since as Jeremy puts it "I only have Manly Sperm." I better go, it's time to start our bedtime routine, sometime I'll have to tell you guys about that. Who knew I would have to start at 7pm to get everyone asleep by 9?

Well, I've been telling people Seporah has about 200-300 words, but I wasn't sure exactly how many. So we decided to write them down. This isn't quite all of them, but it's what we could think of. Apparently we were off on the count. Only about 100.

OBJECTS - box, ball, dog, duck, book, balloons, mommy, daddy, baby, Seporah, Felicity, shoes, tree, flower, moon, car, shirt, bottle, fish, bird, Jesus, Pooh (as in Winnie-the-Pooh), Roo (Pooh again), Avu (TV), crayon, sticker, paper, poop, bubbles, pool, swim, teeth, swing, bed, block, bowl

PHRASES - hi, bye, hello, please, thank you, you're welcome, sorry, let me out, it's all right, you're all right, here, no, yes, me, mine, here you go, side (as in outside), go, I see, yummy, owie, I know, all done, all gone, uh oh, it fell, jump, good morning, good night, stuck, what is this

FOOD - raisin, apple, banana, juice, milk, drink, pop-pop (popcorn), cereal, cheese, fries (as in french), rice, eggs (normally for omelets), pepper (she loves red bell peppers)

NUMBERS - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 (although not always in that order)

LETTERS - a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,x,y,z (although not always in that order)

MISC - stinky, dirty, bath, cook, help, color, brush, hug, mmmmm (kiss), hot, really really hot (weally weally hot is quite cute =)

So they tag teamed it last night. I slept from 10:30-12:30. The rest of the night, one of the two of them was screaming. Security came to talk to me it was so bad. I'm getting my wisdom teeth out this morning. I don't care that it will cost me $515.83. I don't care that it will be drug induced. I don't care that I will wake up with a very sore mouth. I am going to go to sleep for an hour and a half and not wake up to a screaming baby.

Meaning, everyone was happy. See, I have the pictures to prove it. Look again, yes indeed those are smiles.









You'd never believe she's the type of baby that could/would scream/cry for 6 hours straight, but it has happened on more than one occasion. However not today. It was Steven's 27th birthday and we were going to go do something. First Steven went to go donate blood (insert plug to encourage all who can to please donate blood). Then we went to the zoo.

As we were all kinda tired and didn't want to walk around so much, we skipped over most of the big animals and went straight for the petting zoo. Every single animal on 4 legs was a dog according to Seporah. The elephants were dogs, the llamas were dogs, the pigs were dogs, the goats were dogs and the miniature horse was a dog. Thankfully the fish were "shishes." We hung around there for 45 minutes and then went to the playground.

There's actually a pretty decent playground inside the zoo and it is always packed. There must have been 50 kids playing on it (and 30 or so exhausted adults sitting on the benches next to it). Anyway we were there in total about an hour and a half and we didn't get any tears, any crying, any screaming or any fits for the whole time. It was great.

They were cute
They were comfy
They were on clearance
They look like I can wipe baby spit up and dirt off easily
I had a gift certificate
I still don't like going out to buy real clothes, I've got about 18 more pounds for that
And they may not buy lasting happiness, but with a colicky baby I'll get my kicks where I can







In other fashion news: Seporah's known how to dress and undress herself for awhile (how do you think she ends up naked with poop all over her crib), but now she's really getting into it. She'll dress up in Mommy's clothes and Daddy's ties. Try to fit Felicity's socks on and put her own shirt on the bottom half of her. It's great and often very funny to watch, as long as her diaper stays on.

When we're in the car and Felicity's crying and Seporah can't quite reach her, Seporah will reach over and pat Felicity's carseat and say "Iz awl rite" (It's all right).

When Seporah sees something she wants and I decide to give it to her, her response to tell me that she wants more than one is "2,3,5!"

I don't know if it'll stay that way, so I should write down that Felicity has fine bright red hair (I'm really hoping she'll stay a carrot top, don't know where it came from, Steven jokes it's a good thing the mailman is Hawaiian).

Whenever Seporah comes and sits with Felicity in her baby gym, Felicity stops crying and stays happy (if I could, I'd make Seporah stay there alllllll day).

Seporah has tried to share many things with Felicity including oranges, bread, gapes. candy and cow's milk. She usually tries to smush it into her mouth and Felicity scrunches up her face as if to say "Hey Big Sis, whatcha tryin to pull?"

Seporah hugs and kisses Felicity all the time now. I know you guys have heard the sound, but the kisses are adorable and sound like "mmmmwhaaa!"

We can't pass by a balloon without Seporah going absolutely crazy "BABOON! BABOON!" (even if she has one in her hand)

We can't take out the vacuum without Seporah going a different type of crazy "NO! NO! BYE! BYE! NO! NO! ALL DONE! ALL DONE!"

Whenever Felicity and Seporah are actually sleeping, it's sometimes hard to go to sleep because they're so cute (I have to think, ok time to sleep, both girls sleeping and if I don't sleep, I won't find them cute in a couple of hours).

Seporah's word for popcorn is "pop-pop."

When we yell really loud at Seporah because she's doing something she really, really shouldn't be doing, she makes the biggest frown ever, starts crying and hides behind the curtains in our bedroom (it's really sad and really cute and we don't yell that loud at her very often just when she really needs to stop RIGHT NOW, is that enough "reallys" in one really long run on sentence).

must not say anything good about felicity's crying or sleeping on blog, even as a footnote. it will come back to bite me. written at 4:42 am.

So there's this lady at our church who's in her 20's and she gave a talk on Mother's Day. I was really impressed with this talk, maybe because she validated what I was feeling, running around chasing a toddler while having the pregnant morning sickness. I didn't know her name, but I really thought she'd be cool to hang out with. However she didn't have any kids and I've got Seporah, who's not easy to hang around with for women who have kids. Women who don't have kids, well Seporah's an excellent form of birth control, but anyways. I never even figured out her name since she works as a leader in the teenage women's group and I'm in the women's group.

Flash forward to now. I tell every pregnant lady I know about my doula and that she was great and terrific and the best and to hire her (www.laborofloveoahu.com). This lady has become pregnant, I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks and well I'm really tired as you can tell from previous postings. Last Sunday I decided I was going to talk to her so I go to young women's and ask for the skinny pregnant lady who spoke on Mother's Day. They give me her name and tell me she's been on bedrest. Oh, I'll have to give her a call. Putting it off, putting it off.

Today I actually pick up the phone to call her, maybe chat, I know bedrest bites, a lot. "Hi, you really don't know me, I'm Märia Rushing, I'm in your ward at church, I had a baby a few weeks ago, I loved my doula, wanted to tell all the pregnant ladies I know about her, yadayada (lots of rambling)" Her very tired, hesitant response, "Um...I just had my baby yesterday." "Oh sorry, I guess you don't need a doula." Um yeah, I was embarrassed.

Well I realize it's not the first, but I thought I'd tell everyone my resolutions now anyways. Steven says he won't be telling his, I don't even know what they are.

1. 20 pounds in 6 months-I've never had a weight New Year's Resolution before, but since it's the number 1 done (and I just had daughter number 2) I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon. I think most people say 6 months because that's when swimsuit season is. That's not the case with me; this is Hawaii, I actually went swimming on Christmas Eve. Actually seeing myself in a swimsuit was probably what really influenced this resolution.

2. I'm going to write at least 1 snail mail card a week-I love to get real mail, Seporah loves to get real mail (seriously, it's like a holiday for her) and I'm sure so does everyone else. So I thought I'd spread the love. I'll tell you what though, writing a thoughtful note to one person is a lot harder than writing cynical blog posts to a number of people. So if you get an early note and you're like, this is the stupidest letter I've ever read, please realize I should get better. If you would like to get snail mail and you don't think I have your address, please email it to us at steven.rushing@gmail.com .

3. Read the Sunday School Lesson before Sunday-Since I've had 2 girls my reading material consists of other mommy blogs, comments on this blog (which I really enjoy), directions to the carseat and the book "The Happiest Baby on the Block." ***see below*** I haven't even read my magazine's I've gotten in the mail or any of the books I've bought. The scriptures are there like every 4, 5, 6, 7 days and then I'm like, where do I read. Steven's 1 of 2 Sunday School teachers, so if I get him on board I should be able to finish at least the lesson by Saturday night at 11:59.

There you have it, my New Year's Resolutions, can I make it past January 31st? We'll see, I'd say this blog makes me somewhat accountable to them. However since I doubt very many people will remember their own resolutions past January 31st, I'm not all that worried about you guys remembering mine and quizzing me on them.

*** "The Happiest Baby on the Block", I only read 4 days ago. I have been applying it's principals and I can now stop Felicity's crying in less than a minute usually. Holy cow! This actually should have a post all to it's self, but I didn't want to jinx myself the first day. I never thought I'd read a how-to-get-your-baby-to-stop-crying book but I have and I am utterly shocked it actually works! She is also starting to understand the difference between night and day and she's actually sleeping at night. True she still gets up every 3 hours to eat, but she's going back to sleep.

For all the many, many difficult parts of being the mother to 2 difficult girls under the age of 2, there are some very wonderful, magical moments. A lot of the time they happen while on Mom and Dad's bed. Seporah wakes up and comes to snuggle with us. She tucks herself in (for about 2 seconds), we play peek-a-boo, pillow fight, rough house and get lots and lots of hugs and kisses. Felicity quietly eats, looks and tolerates being squeezed and smushed as her older sister hugs and kisses her. The 4 of us bask in the warmth of each other, ahhh, those are the moments I live for. When they're both unbelievable cute and adorable, yeah that's what makes baby screaming bearable. There ARE moments that look the way Hallmark cards sound.

toothpaste
kid's toothpaste
sunscreen
bar soap
shampoo
baby liquid soap
hand sanitizer
desitin
nystatin
deodurant
lanolin
tums
raw onion
raw garlic cloves
chapstick
mascara
lotion
face foundation
room scent makers
markers
glue
dead cockroach
bird poop
Diet Pepsi

This is what you get when your toddler can climb everything and even though you've put it out of her reach, she can still get to it. It's a really good thing all adult meds have child proof lids, she hasn't figured that one out yet. I'm not sure if I should toss the adult meds, I think I should and then I get a headache from her screaming because I took away the toothpaste she climbed onto the bathroom counter to get and well, I really need the tylenol.

You'd think I'd get better results from my parenting considering I'm a pediatric nurse.

BTW I have poison control on speed dial in my cell phone.

Here's one example of a typical night
8:01 Place Seporah to bed after a 30 minute bedtime routine
8:05 I go to bed after brushing my teeth for an unacceptable 15 seconds and going to the the bathroom
8:06 Felicity wakes up, and I don't mean to eat, I mean she wakes up, completely 100%
10:15 Felicity goes to sleep after eating, being changed, being rocked, screaming because Mom put her down to try to sleep after not sleeping all day because her children can not nap at the same time, getting picked back up eating again, changed again, falling asleep for 3 minutes, waking back up and then falling sleep again.
12:23 Felicity wakes up again, change, eat, cry, scream, cry, scream, cry, cry (that one's mom's), screams (op, mom's again), eat, eat, eat
4:30 Felicity asleep
6:00 Felicity awake, eat, eat, eat, scream, please sleep, eat
6:25 felicity did sleep good
6:30 Dad home from work "she went to sleep 5 minutes ago, I don't care that she's on your side of the bed, if you wake her up, you're dead, I'm going to sleep." Dad goes to computer. Mom goes to sleep
7:15 Felicity wakes up, eats and Dad takes her, Mom goes to sleep
8:30 Felicity goes to sleep, Dad goes to sleep, Mom gets up. Seporah watching movie, Mom eats breakfast, checks email, plays with Seporah and stops 3 temper tantrums (and gives a couple spankings)
9:46 Mom fills bathtub and gets in with Seporah, Seporah mostly gets clean, Mom gets shampoo in hair
9:58 Felicity starts screaming, Mom gets soap off of hair, gets out of bathtub, feeds Felicity
10:05 Seporah gets out of bathtub, finds starburst from off of computer table, gets very sticky in about 3 seconds. Mom gets halfway dressed with Felicity screaming on floor. Gets Seporah unsticky and dressed. Seporah throws huge temper tantrum because she would rather be naked and kicks toys at Felicity's head (I should probably not admit how many times that's happened, CPS may come get me)
10:20 Seporah gets a very hard spanking and placed in crib for time out
10:23 Mom, Seporah and felicity all crying, that's it, Dad gets Felicity and Mom gets the couch. I'd say it's only 9 hours, 38 minutes until bedtime, but that's sure a lie.

BTW, I did not send out Christmas Cards.

And this post was written at 1:30 am the next night.

And last Monday I asked for 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I went to bed at 8pm, please don't wake me until midnight, there's milk in the fridge. Did I get to midnight, no, I got until 10:09. To be fair Steven was the one not asleep with the not asleep Felicity.

Go here --> www.apple.com/getamac/

When you first go clothes shopping after having a baby you should ALWAYS bring a friend. This friend will kindly and secretly rip out the size tags of all items you are trying on and repeatedly tell you how fabulous you look, "No Märia you don't look like you had a baby 5 1/2 weeks ago, in fact you look like you've never had a baby!" I didn't know this after I had Seporah and went shopping alone. I knew it this time around, but forgot it since the first incident occurred 2 years ago. Big Mistake.

3 hours, 8 stores, 8 dressing rooms, and a whole lotta clothes later, I have one shirt to show for the experience. And I didn't even have a child to blame it on, Steven had them... Well tomorrow is my 6 week check up and the treadmill is ready to be used. Now if only I had some exercise clothes to wear...

Hatched! The Big Push from Pregnancy to Motherhood by Sloane Tanen

If you are thinking of becoming pregnant, are pregnant, or have a child 2 years old or under, buy this book! It includes 80 pages of pictures with chicks and funny captions.


 
Baby Uggs: $85.00. Bugaboo Stroller $800.00. Knowing your child is better looking than your best friend's kid: Priceless



Goodnight Moon, hello Martini

I have come to an important conclusion. Seporah has come to the point where she is not allowed out in public with us. Public includes restaurants, movie theaters, anywhere with breakables, the commissary (at least not until we're absolutely starving), and anywhere with breakables (oh wait did I already say that?). Some might say this is harsh. However she'll get her justice. I'm sure in her own time (like when she's 13 years old) she will come to the conclusion that we will not be allowed out in public with her.

Would you believe my not quite 2 year old can peel an orange all by herself? I was going to peel it for her, but she demanded to do it. I didn't think she would have the dexterity to do it, but hey what do I know, I'm just the mom. She did a good job too, it was nice and neat and she split it down the middle and then ate it section by section.

According to these pictures, we have 2 little angels. Yeah... right... We have 2 little devils is more like it.

Everyone's probably tired of me saying how active my babies are, but I have witnesses this time. Grandma Pam and Grandpa Russ. They have come for a visit (mostly to see Seporah and Felicity, Steven and I just come with the package). And I got an early Christmas present (probably the best present they could have come up with), family pictures. Last night, I could not fall asleep I was so worried about it, I was imagining all the havoc Seporah could wreak while Felicity screamed her head off. I wasn't far off.

Seporah's dress is older than she is. It's been hanging in the closet for when she was big enough (thanks Grandma Lynda). However, this did not impress her. Both her and Felicity found the dresses to be itchey and not made for tumbling. We tried to explain to them it wasn't time to run around and play, that it was time to sit still and smile to no avail. We thought about bribing them with french fries and cookies but Seporah's really not old enough for negotiating and we would have just had another temper tantrum. And Felicity, well I think they would have been a choking hazard. Instead there are raisins in all the pictures (or a stolen Christmas ornament off a Christmas tree) and a sleep induced Felicity.

But thanks to a 4'11" woman with too much coffee this morning and a surplus of patience (who really scared Steven), there ended up being some really cute shots. They even had a sign that said "We work on baby time, please be patient" (Insert plug for Sears Portrait Studios). We got 3 seconds of angels between the hour of devilness.

(we then paid for the few seconds when we got home and put Seporah down for her nap...she woke up with a crib full of poopies...she was laughing)

1. After a horrendous trip to the commissary, Seporah would not take a nap, leaving a tired Mommy to continue to be tired.
2. The $1500 water heater which was replaced 2 weeks before Felicity was born started tick tocking like a time bomb, making it so no one got a shower and we all smell like a mixture of sweat, breastmilk, urine, and mud.
3. A huge storm occurred last night, waking Seporah up 5 times screaming, leaving a tired Mommy and Daddy to be even more tired.
4. A tired, scared from the storm Seporah ripped her diaper to shreds to get attention, leaving the crib and nursery smelling nasty (at least there was no poopies).
5. I won $1000 off a radio show, since I'm now a stay-at-home-mom with all the time in the world to listen to radio shows and with nothing better to do.

(as a side note, the day before Steven went back to work we had this conversation):
Steven "You're ready to go back to work aren't you?"
Me "Yeah, how'd you know"
Steven "Because I'm ready, I need a break"

Chorus to the song "The Humour of the Situation" by Barenaked Ladies:
"Come on now, now
Come on now, now
Enjoy the humour of the situation
Come on now, now
Come on now, now
Enjoy the humour of the situation"

...it was even worse than the day before Thanksgiving. It was the first time out of the house with 2 babies by myself. Holy Cow. At least I fed and changed Felicity before we started.

Somehow Seporah lost one of her shoes before we made it out of the car. I decided to ignore it, she wasn't even going to be touching the ground, just the shopping cart (some mommies would say that's bad enough, but desperate times call for desperate measures).

I always use to call my friend Felice SuperMommy because she would carry both her babies and the diaper bag around. Well I reached SuperMommy stage today by carrying about 50 pounds from the car to inside the commissary between Seporah, Felicity and the diaper bag. I then found the "cool" shopping cart, the one that looks like a car and put Seporah and the diaper bag inside of it and continued to carry Felicity in a sling. Down about 40 pounds, it was much easier to shop.

Then came the I want, I want, I want. By the time we had exited the store, I had opened and Seporah had eaten banana cookies, dehydrated minifruits, prunes, strawberry gum and another lady's in line's pretzels (God bless understanding older ladies in line who don't mind sharing their pretzels with a screaming toddler).

Due to the temper tantrums, I shopped as fast as I could. I only spent $52.96, that's a record for me. Felicity only cried a little bit in the VERY long line that took about 25 minutes. All I could think was it's Monday afternoon, why are all these people shopping, I picked now so I wouldn't have to mess with the line.

When we got to the car I realized Seporah had helped me steal the pack of strawberry gum. I thought about doing the right thing and going back inside and paying for it. But instead I put the girls in the car and decided to chew a piece myself as the girls whined in the backseat.

The Ensign is an monthly LDS adult magazine (there's also a teenager and children's magazine). Each month there's a Q&A section that anyone may write in and answer. Apparently one of the next magazine's questions is "I love and am grateful for my young children, but I sometimes get distracted or discouraged by the practical details of raising a family and struggle to remember what an important work it is. How can I better align gospel truths about family with my day-to-day actions and attitudes?" I don't think at the present moment I should write an answer for the question. It would be a long vent about young children right now. Tomorrow Steven is going back to work, so if I wrote it then it might be even longer.

So does anyone else have an answer? They are taking submissions until February 8, I'm hoping by that time I could have an acceptable one or at least one that they wouldn't send social services on me.

...And Daddy would like a shepherd to watch his flock.

So our tree is up. Seporah did the bottom 2 feet. It was pretty cute, she would be all serious and meticulously put an ornament on a branch that already had 4 ornaments on it. Someone may have to redecorate the bottom 2 feet at 2 am when Seporah's not looking (hey, if I'm gonna be up anyways...).

Felicity went for her 2 week check on Monday, 8lbs 13oz and 20.5in. I guess that's pretty good, most babies lose 5-10% of their birth weight and gain it back at about the 2 week mark (Felicity lost 10.5%, she was at 7lbs 7oz at 3 days). So at 2 weeks most babies are at their birth weight. Felicity was up 9 oz, yeah!

So I know different people read this blog, I don't know everyone, but hey people visit from Brazil, Russia and China as well as all over Europe. I'm not sure why exactly, maybe they think we're funny Americans. I guess the competition isn't so tough since Seinfield and Friends retired. But anyways, if any pregnant women on the island of Oahu read this blog go here --> www.laborofloveoahu.com That's the website of my doula, Tammy Uva and she was great. What you have no idea what a doula is? Well you really need to go there then.

By my estimates, between Seporah and Felicity, we are going through 20 diapers a day. Wow... We're certainly doing our part to fill up landfills. It almost makes me want to switch to cloth diapers...I said almost. It HAS made us run out and buy a potty for Seporah though. So far we've made it so she'll sit on the potty for 5 seconds without screaming. This is progress. And she gets a sticker for it.

In other news, I can eat 6 cookies a day and still lose weight. Literally, I have come to crave carbs and Cookie Corner cookies. Usually I don't eat a lot of carbs, but I've been starving for them the past 2 weeks. I'm just like yes! Helena Bonham Carter says breastfeeding is nature's liposuction and breast augmentation. And I didn't even say anything about the pudding and Halloween candy being consumed.

Well that pretty much covers the last 2 weeks, diapers and breastfeeding. Well I suppose I could throw in a little sleep deprivation and a lot of toddler tantrums, but if you're a parent you already know that. And if you're not a parent, well you really don't know what sleep deprivation or tantrums really are. You know both of those are used as torture methods some places.

Hey, so Steven lost his cell phone about 4 weeks ago and apparently told no one because we keep getting calls asking why he isn't returning messages and that his mailbox is now full. Sorry to those who did not know. Don't feel bad if you weren't in the loop, no one was apparently.

So I read a lot of mommy blogs, they're fun. Sometimes the only options to motherhood are to laugh or to cry, those blogs help to keep me from crying 24/7. This is a video I found on one of the blogs, the triplets are actually 3 years old now. I thought I'd post it and rewatch in when Felicity's 6 weeks old and think "Good Lord, at least there's only one of them."

Just as a side note, I HATE it when people come up and touch Seporah. It's like hello, that's not yours, get your hands off. They started when she was just itty bitty and it still goes on today, not quite as much, but it still happens and I always want to smack them. So don't touch other people's babies or kids without asking, it's just plain rude.

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I went to pick up my daughter out of her crib this morning and as I opened the door I took a whiff. It smelled like poop...a lot. Occasionally it smells like poop in her room, but never this bad. And then I saw it, on the crib, on the wall, on the floor, on my baby girl, on her dollies, and on the noise maker. I am really glad Steven didn't go to work last night. Read More...

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So Steven's suppose to get 3 weeks off when Felicity's born. All I can think about that is wow, that sounds like an awesome vacation, neither Steven or I will be working for 3 weeks. I know we'll have a newborn, but there's no way we can be more sleep deprived than we already are...or at least I hope not because that would be REALLY bad.

p.s. 3 more working days for mom, yeah! Read More...

Come on, were we not cute babies? That's how come Seporah came out so gorgeous and Felicity's bond to come out as a knock out.



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So I have tickets tonight for a Fountains of Wayne concert. Steven and I bought them last month when we found out they were going to come here. I don't know what I was thinking because there is no way I'm going to a rock concert at 36 1/2 weeks at 8 at night. I'm not even going to go to a orchestra concert with padded seats at 3 in the afternoon at this point.

Yeah, we really like music, a lot, it's playing 24/7 at our house. We have 6,690 songs on our iTunes playlist and the top 12 most played songs are all by the same artist-30 Seconds to Mars. I can listen to the one CD by them over and over and over again. This morning I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't go back to sleep (again). I got out of bed and decided to do some mindless surfing on the internet. Apparently the CD I have is the second CD, they actually have one before that one. All I could think was, why did I not know this?

Kids, yeah, they change your music. No concerts and no unimportant music knowledge stored in your brain. Unless you count the piece of knowledge that the 5th song on the Baby Einstein CD "On the Go" is the song playing during the race scene in Baby Einstein's "Numbers Nursery." Well at least I still know what I like and it's not all from the decade I was born in.

There are many Manly things that Steven is quite good at:
1. Being a Daddy - there's this shirt that I found that says "Real Men Change Diapers," if that's true, Steven's as real as they get.
2. Being a Mr. Mom - the pictures showing the before and after carpet cleaning ought to be enough to prove that one
3. Anything with the Computer - I am so glad I don't have to pay to have someone fix the computer, I just say fix it

However, there's some Manly things that Steven's not so good at:
1. Plumbing - the kitchen sink has leaked the entire time we've lived here
2. Sports - He likes to play, but doesn't watch them on TV, which I am soooo glad for
3. Car Stuff - and that is what this post is actually going to be about

So I've been bugging Steven to do the car stuff for months, literally. You're suppose to have a safety inspection every year and the sticker on the car says it's been expired since April. Since the car needed registered this month, the safety inspection HAD to be done. It's one thing to drive the car illegally by having a safety inspection expired, you can claim ignorance due to being in the military and just really not knowing. It's another thing to drive the car illegally by having an expired registration, I think they can put you in jail for that one. And since we've been pulled over multiple times to get it fixed and our home association keeps putting notes on our windshield (why is it their business anyways), I figured it really better get done.

I had planned on having Steven fix everything sometime this month (I was anticipating Halloween, that would be October 31st, the last day possible), but I lost my driver's license sometime in the last 2 weeks (I think that Seporah threw it away) so I figured I might as well do it since I had to go to the DMV anyways. But first things first, must get the safety inspection because no one will give me anything without it done. I go to a place that looks like a junkyard, pay the $20 and say let's get it started. They check all the lights and everything and say sorry, we can't give you the sticker, you don't have a license plate on your front bumper. There's no place to put a license plate on my front bumper and I only have one anyways. Well you're just going to have to buy another set of plates and a bracket to hold it on, here's a temporary form you can use to get the license plates and thanks for the money. To the DMV I go, however, this was Saturday and it's not open, I have to go to another that's 30 miles away.

I stand in line to get a driver's license as mine is gone. Sorry ma'am, you can't get one since you lost it and such, you need to take a written test, but you can't take it here, you have to take it at the one that's closed today. Ok, well can I have a book to study Hawaii Laws. No ma'am, you have to buy them, they're sold at Borders or Barnes and Nobles. WHO ON EARTH HAS HEARD OF BUYING THE STATE LAW BOOKS? HELLO! THEY'RE SUPPOSE TO BE RIGHT THERE AT THE DMV. Fine whatever, here's $6 at Borders for the dumb book. But while I'm at the DMV, let's get the car re-registered and license plates, that'll be $158, Lord Almighty, you've got to be kidding me.

Now to the Dodge dealership to get a bracket so I can attach the license plate on the front and get a safety inspection. What do you mean parts and services are closed on Saturdays, what am I suppose to do? Back to safety inspection place, would you just sign it, look I've got 2 plates now, but they're closed. Sorry ma'am, you can go to an auto parts store down the road. To there, sorry ma'am you'll have to go to the dealership. ARGGG! Screw that, home I go.

Monday morning, to the commissary I go, we're down on food, pulled over again. Ma'am do you know you're safety inspection is expired. I better get this done today. Calling the dealership because I don't want to drive down there again. Calling the dealership again since they're not answering and it's 10:30am. calling again, and again, and again, and again, and again seven times total. Yes, I need a license plate bracket, hmm let me check, what's your model, year, VIN number. Why do you need my VIN number? Sometimes the models are different, I just wanted to check what yours was. Well why didn't you just ask for that first if you were going to look up my specific car anyways? OK, yes ma'am we have one in stock, it's $46.61 plus installation. WHAT? FOR A PIECE OF PLASTIC? And how much is installation. I don't know let me transfer you to Service....ring....ring....ring.....ring, no one's answering, screw this. STEVEN! make it so I can get the license plate on the front bumper without spending an arm and a leg.

Steven did fix it, it took $4, big screws and bolts and tiny fingers going in between the air intake holes. Good, back to safety inspection place. The guy looks at it and says "Could you have gotten the bolts any bigger?" Haha, just put the sticker on and leave me alone.

So the car's registered and has a safety inspection. I still don't have a driver's license, but after looking over the booklet and decided I didn't want to take a test, I've been out of school for too long, I'd fail it even I knew the stuff in the book. So I sent another check and various things to Washington to get me one. I'm expecting it in the next 5 weeks, I'm just hoping I don't get pulled over again. If anyone would like to take it to go get the oil changed, I would be very grateful. I'm sure we could work out a Manly exchange, like Steven'll fix your computer for you or change your kid's diaper. Read More...

Yeah so I am 36 weeks today! Less than a month till my due date. I'm telling Felicity anytime is fine with me. I'm like today is fine, tomorrow is fine. If you really wanna hang out till November that's fine too, but Mom's cool with now. Especially now that the only way I sleep is with the aid of tylenol and benadryl and I'm still waking up 3-6 times a night with it. I tell people I was more sleep deprived before giving birth to Seporah than after and they don't believe me. But by the time she was born I literally woke up every 45 minutes to pee, If I made it an 1 1/2 hours straight I was like yes! So I'm just not looking forward to that and I'm like dude you can come out.

Yesterday I got floated to the Pediatric Clinic at work. It was really quite nice, they really didn't need the help, they just needed an RN. So mostly I just sat all day for my title. I was like ahh, this is the life. I want the next 5 shifts to be just like this one (5 more and I'm on maternity leave). Of course, I'm glad nothing went wrong where I would have had to actually use my title. It was just nice.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm just plain rambling. It's easier to type and ramble than do actual work, like the dishes or something to that effect. I plan on rambling for the next 2 months. I'll probably say nothing important here for the next 2 months because I'm too pregnancy brain (and then new momma brain) to think of something intelligent or coherent. Good thing for spell check or you wouldn't even be able to read it probably. I kinda feel bad for Jason's friends who come looking at the blog. Instead of seeing what's happening in Southern California, they get to read about some whiny pregnant lady and they're like "what is this, did Jason give me the wrong link?" Read More...

I'm not exactly sure how old Seporah is in this picture, but I just thought I'd post it to show how much has changed.

1. She's sitting still-that sure doesn't happen anymore
2. The shirt she's wearing has no stains-um yeah right, I just did laundry, she's a messy girl now
3. The carpet's white-I'm now not sure what color to call the carpet
4. All the toys are not only in one room, they're in one place-mmhmm
5. She's cute as cute can be-well that one's still the same Read More...

Yeah, so today wasn't a good day at work. I went looking for a pediatric nurse blog. I found blogs from ER nurses, labor and delivery nurses, OR nurses, student nurses, male nurses, med-surg nurses, but no pediatric nurses. I'm like man, it would just be nice to read someone else's failures and successes who knows what working on a pediatric med-surg floor was like. Read More...

There are times when living far away from family really sucks. Take when you're 34 weeks pregnant and tired and hungry. Now if I lived close to Grandma and Grandpa, I could drive over say feed the pregnant lady and I'd get food auto-magically, plus someone else would play with the toddler for free (when the going rate is $7/hour, it's just tough to justify getting a sitter to take a nap). Not only that but if I looked really sorry, someone might even offer to come do my dishes. Instead the house is trashed, Seporah is crawling over tired mommy and daddy and daddy is going to get Mexican pick up on a Sunday (FYI, we usually don't do that on Sunday, but I'm like, whatever just as long as it shows up and the only finger I have to lift is the one holding the fork). Read More...

1. Go Surfing-I have lived on this island for over a year and a half, but with a newborn and pregnancy and everything else, I just haven't gone. However I am going to go this summer. Because you just can't live in Hawaii for 3 years and not try surfing at least once (well, Steven has no intention of trying, but that's him).

2. Get My Wisdom Teeth Removed-they really should have come out a long time ago but didn't. I actually had an appointment for it last April, but then I was pregnant and well they won't pull them on a preggo lady. So the plan is this January.

3. Get My Tonsils Removed-they really, really should have come out a long time ago but didn't. I'm planning on May.

4. Breastfeed for a Year-would have maybe done this with Seporah, but I stopped when I got stuck with a dirty needle for fear that I'd give her something.

5. Learn to Make a Quiche-I really love them and I just haven't found a restaurant around here that makes them, so I'm just going to have to learn to make it. I checked out some recipes but haven't found one I like, so if someone has a favorite quiche recipe they use send it my way.

6. Go Camping on the Beach-we've been saying we were going to do this forever, but haven't. It looks like this may be the first one I'm actually doing, this Tuesday in fact (that's actually why I decided to make the list, because there's so much you think hey I'm gonna do that and don't, like EMP and The Space Needle in Seattle, I never went to either and I lived there for 11 years, hello?).

7. Get a Real Family Picture-We never got a real one with the three of us and I kept saying we should, but we didn't. However we're getting one with the four of us. I'd also like to get Seporah, Felicity and I all white dresses and get a mommy/daughter picture. When Felicity is a little older and more photogenic, I was thinking around Easter, plus little white Easter dresses are oh so cute.

8. Put My Hair in a Ponytail-true I've done this before, but not in years, it's been too short. I haven't cut it since last October and I figured 12 months would give me enough time to grow it out for a ponytail, alas that is not the case. Some of my hair is long enough for it, but most of it isn't, it's really layered, there's a good 6 inches between the shortest and longest layers due to the way it's grown, hopefully in the next 12 months it'll be long enough, if it's not, I swear it's getting chopped off.

9. Learn to Juggle 2 Babies, Full Time Work and a Husband in the Military-yeah, um, no explanation needed.

10. Start Potty Training Seporah-becauses 2 kids in diapers is expensive and annoying. Read More...

So I have a slight dilemma, I am going to have 2 little girls, which means I need "Big Sister/ Little Sister" T-shirts. However I don't want them to just say big sister and little sister, I want them to be humorous. So I need some ideas, cause the ones I'm coming up with are kinda lame, ie:

Boss
Grunt

Why?
Because?

I'm the smart one.
That's what she thinks.

You may be the princess, but I'm the queen ~The Big Sister
You may be the queen, but I rule the throne ~The Little Sister Read More...

So Steven says I gripe too much about my work, so here I am listing the positives about my work (and there are a lot). I may not have huge flexibility with maternity leave, but as for my schedule, I have serious amounts of flexibility. After Felicity's born, I will work full time and not work Sundays, that just doesn't happen in a hospital position and the only reason I can get it to happen is because I work in a military hospital and they make the soldiers work every Sunday. I like my job and the people I work with with (for the most part), that should be reason enough really since there are so many people who hate their jobs. I get paid good money, I may have to pay a lot for babysitting and such, but I know plenty of women who work and essentially their whole paycheck goes to babysitting or daycare. I don't get called off unless I want to, another really good thing, when I worked in Georgia, I'd sign up for a 40 hour week and sometimes only work 16 hours because of patient census being too low, and when you need the money, that's not cool. Because I work 12 hour shifts, I only have to work 6 days in a 2 week period to be full time, most people have to work 10, I guess this goes along with flexibility, but it's really nice with babies and kids. I work in a great place, I'd take my daughter's there if I had to, the hospital in Georgia I wouldn't have, it was bad. Occasionally (not very often but sometimes), I get to go to work and I get paid to color or play board games with kids (this one may or may not work because some people go to work and surf the internet or play games on the computer all day long). When I go back to work I'll have not only have a hospital grade breast pump at my disposal, but a breastmilk fridge to store breastmilk in (I may not have the time to pump some days, ouch, but it's there, at least I won't have to pump in the bathroom).

BTW, I think the reason why I write pessimistic blogs is because they turn out funnier usually, plus I think positive ones all sound like I'm bragging, but while we're on a happy-life-is-grand blog I thought I'd tell a cute story that happened yesterday. The past couple months I've been craving mint Mentos, yeah it's weird. Seporah has come to know what the package looks like and she loves them. Well I took a package out yesterday to take with me to work and Seporah saw. She reached up her hand and said "Peas, peas!" (she can't quite say please correctly, it's totally cute). I really didn't want to share, but if you'd seen how cute she was, you would have given her what ever she asked for. So I held up one finger and said, "All right you can have one, but only one." She held up two fingers and said "TWO!" Read More...

So I know I've griped about maternity leave before, but I'm gonna do it again. Yeah, maternal health sucks in this country and maternity leave sucks as well. Do you know Ethiopia has a better maternity leave plan than we do? ETHIOPIA?!?! They get 90 days paid leave, we only get 12 weeks unpaid. And you know what, I don't even get that cause I work in a military hospital and all military people get 6 weeks off. So they're like you want 6 weeks right, and I'm like NO, anyways it ends up being 10 1/2 weeks. But depending on when Felicity decides to show up it could be when she's 6 weeks old. I mean at 6 weeks most infants still wake up 4 times a night. Imagine waking up 4 times a night for 30 minutes each and then going to work a 12 hour shift (and that's on your feet all day, where a lot of times your customers, ie parents and patients, expect you to wait on them hand and foot). Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Everyone needs to pray for me that Felicity is born between November 2-12, I'd really like November 5th if anyone wants an exact date to pray for (she'd be 10 weeks old when I went back to work then). Oh and no c-section, because I have no desire to recover from major abdominal surgery, care for a newborn and go back to work seriously sleep deprived. Read More...

Whenever you go onto a military base or post, there is this sign that says how many days it's been since that base's last fatal accident. I'm not exactly sure why they post this, it's not talking about the "War in Iraq." No what those signs are talking about is the last time some stupid 18 year old brand new single soldier got really drunk and crashed his vehicle into a wall and killed himself. Now if the post makes it to 100 days, all the soldier's get a holiday for not being stupid (actually Steven doesn't because he has shift work, but that's besides the point). In the 6+ years I've seen these signs I don't think I've ever seen it go above about 120. What happens a lot is the soldiers get their holiday at 100 days and then they do something stupid during that point and it goes all the way back down to 0. The lowest I've seen was 11 days, where it promptly went back to 0. You might think I'm sadistic, but everytime I see this sign go back to 0 I start laughing. All I can think is good, one more stupid soldier down, only about 500,000 to go.

This last time however, the sign didn't go back to 0 at 11 or 120, no it just keeps on going up. Yesterday, I looked and it was at 320! You might think it's because soldiers are getting smarter, but no unfortunately they're not, they're just all being sent overseas. Holy cow, I keep wondering what would actually happen if it reaches 365, a whole year without a stupid soldier killing themselves on base. Maybe the base would get a whole week holiday (that should cause the number to go back to 0 at least once). Read More...

Daddy had just gotten home from work this morning and needed to sleep. So Seporah and I went to Wal-mart. Seporah was having a difficult time staying in the cart (she always does, she just wants to be a-moving). I took her out and we just went walking around. A friend I knew from church said hi and we chatted for a couple of minutes and then I turned around and there was no Seporah. I looked and looked, especially in the clothes carts because she likes to play in those, but I couldn't find her. I was like oh no, I don't even know what to do. I stopped some employee and she said to go to customer service. So I went to customer service and totally interrupted an employee and customer at the desk (for which I got nasty looks). The lady said what's her name, we'll overhead page her. "No, no, she's 1 1/2, she won't answer to it! She's in a blue shirt and khaki shorts!" Then some guy came up and said there was a girl in McDonald's. I ran over there and sure enough there she was eating animal crackers like nothing was the matter, I think she was also asking for some french fries. So she's alive and well. Needless to say it was significantly more traumatic for me than her. Read More...

So my last 12 hour shift until after Felicity's born turned into a 13 hour shift with no lunch break and only 3 potty breaks. I was hungry, thirsty, physically and mentally tired and felt like my belly and legs were going to fall off. I got home and went to pick up Seporah from the sitter's. She was so excited ad I got a Hi! Hi! Hi! Then a great big hug and 3 kisses. The sitter got a Bye! Bye! Bye! and hand waves. It's really cool to be a toddler's best friend sometimes. Read More...

So as I get more and more pregnant, I get more and more uncomfortable and about the only place I don't feel like I'm gonna fall apart is the water. We end up going to the pool everyday, it's way easier than the beach and bigger than the bathtub. One thing I don't particularly care for is the swim diapers. Now you can't put babies in regular diapers when swimming, one because it's against the rules most places but mostly because two, diapers in water get really nasty, they hold all the pool water, get huge and weigh about 3 pounds in the first 10 seconds and if they pop, well you're in for a nasty pool clean up with all that diaper cotton floating everywhere.

So we have to buy these swim diapers that don't come cheap. It's a package with 11 in them that cost $7. Ouch, and when you're going swimming everyday that's a double ouch. But the real kicker is they don't hold in urine, that's right there's lotsa baby urine in the pool (as well as kid and probably adult urine). They're really for holding in poop, usually you only go swimming for 30-60minutes anyways and in that timeframe babies don't usually poop. So you've spent all that money for nothing. I don't think before the last week that Seporah has used them (meaning pooped in them) but twice and it's not because we don't swim either.

Now I don't know what is going through my daughter's head, maybe she's getting ready for potty training and she decided the pool was the best place to go, but in the last week she has pooped 3 times in these swim diapers. Yuck, and poopie swim diapers are about the grossest thing to clean up because it gets all runny from the water. And you have to pull apart the sides and let this runny poopie mess go everywhere, we usually hold her over a trash can. This is just another example of the things you don't know anything about before you have kids. It's pretty gross. I hope you didn't read this post while eating breakfast. Read More...

I often say if I were President I'd make 9 out of 10 fast food restaurants go away. Steven's reading over my shoulder and saying that's stupid government involvement, but oh well, I like my government involved. I say having so many fast food restaurants takes away valuable tax money. So many fast food restaurants helps increase the obesity rate in America, increasing the many, many health problems of Americans, using up tax money to pay for treatments that these Americans caused themselves, which is why I'll probably never work with adults in nursing, they cause their own health issues. But anyways I'm getting off topic.

When I say 9 out of 10 fast food restaurants, people look at me funny and say, why not all of them. To which I say that fast food actually does have a purpose sometimes. Last night was one of those times. I had worked all day and hardly eaten anything (not good at 7 months pregnant) and Steven had literally been awake 36 hours working. Yeah we were both starving and Wendy's drive through sounded pretty good. I got a loaded baked potato, a caesar salad and a chocolate frosty. It was good. And as I was eating it, all I could think was this is so wrong. It's kinda like a vegetarian who goes and has a piece of chicken. Read More...

I assumed, like probably most people, that breastfeeding in public has become more and more accepted by the general public as time as gone on and people have become less clothed. However I was wrong actually. Our society has grown less tolerant of breastfeeding public as formula companies has increased their hold on people's minds that bottle feeding is better and Barbie and others have sexualized the breasts in the public's eyes. In movies if women are breastfeeding during historical times they are covered up, but come on it's the movies, that's not really the way it was. You can look at older photographs to realize that women breastfeed whenever and wherever they pleased because it was indeed normal and natural.

Besides breastfeeding with a blanket is truly hot and uncomfortable and the kid's gonna bat it away anyways because they're suffocating under it.

(blankets added by Steven)




1898, no blanket there

circa 1930s, no blanket there

no blanket here

1936, no blanket

And of course, WWJD? He'd breastfeed without a blanket over his head. Read More...

I went to work yesterday and saw a friend (who's in the military) back on her second day from maternity leave. I asked how she was, holy cow. She spent 4 weeks in the ICU and then she still had to come back after 6 weeks, she tried to extend or to use her leave time, but the military wouldn't let her. Hello? What? No one knew about this either, I asked and they're all like no way. If we'd known we would have at least visited, I mean we work in the same hospital. Yeah so the US is ranked 40th for maternal morbidity and mortality, Sweden is number 1. Women in Sweden also get maternity leave for up to a year there and 6 months of it is fully paid. I keep telling Steven we're moving there.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427256/?GT1=10252 Read More...

Both these elevator rides actually happened on Monday. I work on the 7th floor, I'm really pregnant, I need to go to the 2nd floor, the 1st floor and the 4th floor usually about 8 times in a 12 hour shift. There is no way I am walking that many stairs.



So I was 27 and a half weeks on Monday and riding in an elevator with an anxious man who's getting off on the 5th floor. I said "oh did you just have a baby?" Because the 5th floor is the mother baby floor. His response was "No, my wife's 27 weeks and the baby's trying to come early." You have to understand I don't really look pregnant in scrubs, they hide a lot and even if I did, this man was far to anxious and self-involved at that moment to realize I was. But all I could think was his wife and I were both 27 weeks and I sure wasn't ready for a baby to come. I mean I am, I'm sick of being pregnant and waiting but I really don't want a premie baby, I want a healthy 9 1/2 pound girl. It kinda made me apprehensive and grateful and scared all at once.


The other ride was with a man and a woman employee. The man said "I haven't seen you in a while, how are you doing?" Woman: "It's my first day back." Man: "Oh did you go on leave." Woman: "No I just got back from maternity leave." Ah-ha, another woman I was glad I wasn't. Yeah, the first day back from maternity leave sucks. Remember going back after summer break and you're a little rusty, you're excited to see everyone again but you'd prefer to play in the sunshine. It's like that except you're the only one who's rusty, you're still sleep deprived and you'd rather play with your little sunshine baby. Read More...

So I'm at work a couple of weeks ago discussing about a baby with failure to thrive with some co-workers (failure to thrive means VERY small baby who's lacking developmentally). One co-worker says something to the effect that formula feeding is better than breastfeeding and another co-worker says don't say that in front of Märia, she's entirely pro-breastfeeding. I went on to state the benefits of breastfeeding and why it was significantly better. It seemed kind of strange to me though, before I had Seporah I knew breast was best and I even knew quite a few reasons why, but that's about as much as I knew about it, I don't think I ever would have been known as a lactivist (lactation or breastfeeding activist). I don't think I ever would have discussed it, it wasn't the most interesting subject in my opinion. I've now read just about every website known to man about it (and boy are there a LOT), read 10 or so books on the matter (with at least 300 others in circulation and waiting to be read) and discussed boobie juice (I think that's the best term, makes me laugh) with literally hundreds of women (most of them helping moms get latched on and such in the pediatric ward). I could tell you just about anything you ever wanted to know about breastfeeding. Seporah and I only breastfed for 4 1/2 months, I thought I knew about breastfeeding before hand, but I never had a clue. Read More...

When I was pregnant with Seporah I learned that the number one consumed vegetable by children was french fries (as well as adults). I was shocked to say the least. First off potatoes aren't a vegetable, they're a starch. And second off, hello? How many french fries does anyone need, let alone children who's taste buds are unadulterated. Plus they really aren't that good. I said I would never, ever give my daughter french fries, at least until she was in kindergarden or something. I've seen quite a few 9 month olds who chow down on the soft salty french fries that come from McDonald's. Seporah made it to about 14 months, when I was heaving up chunks everyday in the toilet due to the very, very small Felicity. Steven would come home and I'd tell her to take her, take her anywhere, I don't care, just let me be. I wasn't feeding Seporah as much because I couldn't handle the smell of anything, so Steven took her to get french fries, well she loves them, a lot. It's mildly annoying how much she loves them, we drive past a fast food joint and she smells them and she starts whining for french fries. I always tell her no (and Dad tells her yes when I'm not around). Read More...

Did you know if you type "c-section" in Google's images pages the most popular picture is Britney Spears climbing out of a car without underwear where you can see her faint c-section scar? Most are edited with a heart or a kitty or an "oops" covering her so it's "decent." Did you also know that in the year 2005 (when Seporah was born) 30.9% of babies were born via c-section? That's essentially 1 in 3 babies. The WHO recommends the c-section rate be no more than 15%, but because of a lot of factors mostly fear of litigation and malpractice rates as well as the preferring of physicians to practice 9-to-5, our country's not listening. When you think about it, that's a lot of women running around with a laughing smiling face scar on their abdomen. A lot of women unhappy about their bodies. Of course in our culture of photo shopped images of perfect women, can any woman really get through life without some animosity towards their bodies wether they have scars or not. So it's not so much the scars but the robbing of the entrance into motherhood. I get a daily reminder or that when ever I get dressed, it's pretty ugly, every single day. Read More...

Yep that's right, we are seriously going to outnumber Dad! I thought I'd be disappointed if it wasn't a boy, but actually I'm pretty excited. I still don't know what I'm going to do with my blue layette, whoever has a boy next is going to be in luck. More than a little worried about when Seporah and the new one are teenagers, they are going to get in so much trouble together. But I don't have to worry about circumcision or getting shot in the eye or how much mud can fit inside jean pockets. We can all go shopping and get pedicures and maybe I'll even learn to french braid. So far though, I've got to do all the sex talks, I think that's unfair, Steven should have to do one. Maybe I'll make him do the drugs and alcohol talks.

We're really working on explaining to Seporah about the new baby. I thought she had it down because when I asked where the baby was she would come up and point to my belly. However apparently she doesn't because when Steven asked her where the baby was, she pointed to his tummy. And then this week Seporah and I went to the aquarium with a friend and her 4month old baby. I said "Look at baby Tosh, we have to be gentle with baby Tosh, etc." She looked at baby Tosh and said "Doll."
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So I was thinking about when we go to Washington in December and I said "Hey, we should go to the Melting Pot!" This is a really good fondue place for those who don't know. It's fun, you go with friends and eat fondue together. It's also kinda nicer, so I asked Steven if he thought Seporah would be mature enough to go. He said, "No, Seporah's a little Russell." Anyone who knew Russell as a child (or heard the many stories ;) knows exactly what he meant. Read More...

We all went to the water park today and had a lot of fun. We went in the little kids pool with little slides, water guns, sprinklers and other such children's swim stuff. It was also packed with, you guessed it, kids and their parents. Now Seporah is a very active, very social toddler. She loves to talk and she loves to be the center of attention. Read More...

If you ask any mom with young children what they consider a good day, most will respond with something along the lines "I got a shower sometime in the last 24 hours and I ate more than leftover cheerios." Before I had Seporah I took ridiculously long baths. Sometimes 2 or 3 a day. They were a way to wind down. I had an arrangement of bubble baths, bath salts, bath cubes, a bath pillow for goodness sakes. Read More...

Warning: this really is about weight and babies, it could get really boring if you don't care about this. But well, I'm a mom of a 17month old, it's geneticly encoded in me to worry. End of Warning.

I'm a pediatric nurse, I've seen quite a few underweight babies, and also some on the overweight size. My thoughts always were if a baby's underweight according to the growth charts check out Mom and Dad first to see if they're 5'1" or if the baby's truly underweight or just smaller. And big babies, well the bigger the better. As long as parents weren't feeding them steak and potatoes at 3 months, I was cool with that. Read More...

I do not vote.

Nope, I sure don't. My father's not very proud of that, but there you go. When I tell people this they smile and say, "Well at least you didn't vote for _____." Why you may ask do I not vote, is it because I don't really care and don't have an opinion, well yes partly that. But the real reason, is no one gives it to you straight. Steven likes to listen to Glenn Beck and Dr. Laura Love and a few other people who I can't remember their names. He listens to them because they're just about as conservative as he is and he agrees with them about 98% of the time. Read More...

Today I bought kid cuisines for my daughter...Yeah, there is just no energy in me to cook. I think they're worse than a McDonald's Happy Meal, and there's no toy to justify the high fat and calorie content. Read More...

Seporah's gonna be a BIG sister. We're like 5 weeks along and expecting little Oren (feeling boy vibes) in the middle of November. Read More...

Well since we no longer update Seporah's Crib, just too much to do, I thought I'd give an update on Seporah's many words. First is the words she says and then how they sound: Read More...

We're off to the big island for a couple of days (YEAH!!!) So we probably won't be as accessable. Hope everyone's New Year is going well.
Märia Read More...

So the earthquake just 10 miles west of the Big Island was a 6.5 earthquake, about 200 miles from us at 7:07 this morning. I'd say it woke us up, but I'd been up for over 3 hours (knew I should have gotten some benadryl somewhere). It's also been crazy rain here for about a week and then there was no electricity and boy was it fun. No fatalities, however there is a missing soldier in Steven's group (please exchange the word 'missing' with 'lazy and not answering the phones'). So it's all good, this would number 2 earthquake that I remember vivadly. Talk later,
Märia Read More...

And we're all ok, just an update. Read More...

Diced that is, she's moving up in the world, from glop to dices. She's wondering what the fuss is about and I think would prefer the glop. Unfortunately she has yet to learn the skill of feeding herself anything, not even a cracker. But fortunately she doesn't know that she has the ability to spit things out yet. We are still definitely going to need a bath anyways after this. Read More...

Well after 2 weeks of Seporah being sick, I am officially one of those crazy moms ready to pull her hair out. I just want to put her in her room and come back when she's my sweet happy baby again. For the first little while I was sympathetic, but well I don't have much patience and I'm done with all the crying. I really don't have a clue how parents with colicky babies manage (or get around to having another). I swear if anyone was baby happy and needed a good form of birth control all they would have to do was watch Seporah for a couple of the last few days and they would be like nope, I really don't want one of those. I know I don't have a lot of patience, I never acquired that virtue and now it's coming to bite me in the butt. Ouch... Read More...

Well today I was in a movie...or at least it kinda felt like it.

Josh, Seporah, and I were driving home from the post office when a huge accident happened right in front of us. We almost got in the accident ourselves but Josh told me to stop. A Honda Civic was shredded and flipped around 180 degrees and a red Toyota Tacoma engulfed in flames (literally). So we pulled over to help and this huge Polynesian guy pulled another guy out of the burning truck and then we kinda got him away from the truck, which was leaking gas which was burning down the highway (someone else stoppped it by throwing dirt in it's way). Read More...

Well summer has officially hit here. School actually just started last week, but the heat, oh my the heat. It's been fine all summer long until the last 3 days. The high has only been 85 and the low 76, but still we're in the middle of the ocean and there's humidity. And with no air conditioning it's been warm.
Maria Read More...

I thought I would tell what's going on in here since it looks like I haven't written in a while. I did write a post when we had the other style website, but it got deleted somehow. So life here is good. Mostly a lot of Seporah and Mommy time, which is 99% of the time lots of fun. Seporah's so easy going and happy that it's all good according to her. She's been tetthing the last week and a half. I thought she'd have a tooth by now, but that's not the case. Sorry about the lack of pictures, but in case you hadn't heard, I lost the camera (I am so mad at myself). Read More...

A lot of times with babies and toddlers it takes more than 1 try to get IVs in because their veins are so tiny and they like to wiggle. I totally got 2 babies on the fist try today. Someday's are good and someday's are bad and I was so good yesterday. I just thought I'd share it with everyone.
Märia Read More...

Well Lonnie and Patricia have been here the past couple of days. We've been doing the tourist stuff with them. We finally went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, it was just as good as I remembered it. The only bad part was it rained so walking around was a little wet. But it really was a lot of fun. We also went to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, I am officially tired of being thought of as a tourist. I need to develop a tan, everyone treats me like a dumb tourist and I'm like no, I live in Mililani. Read More...

Holy cow! Well some of you may not know this, but at our house Simpsons was the bomb. We all sat down and watched it every night (we didn't watch anything else on tv really, just The Simpsons). And would you believe it, they're finally making a movie!!!! I just had to tell someone, so there we go. I know some of you may be anti-Simpsons, but oh well. Read More...

Well it seems today is our wedding anniversary, 4 years can you believe it? It's been a pretty good 4 years. So for our anniversary, Steven went to the gas chamber...*pause for hesitant chuckles* Well actually he did, but it was for work (nothing to do with me). I spent the day cleaning, you can actually see our living room floor, holy cow.
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Well, wow life has been busy, busy, busy lately. We have moved into our new home and are about halfway settled. The other half is still in boxes. We're usual more organized but it seems having a baby changes everything (please see the Johnson&Johnson Ad Compaign). We were right about Seporah's needing her own room. She now sleeps 12 hours at night with 2 eating periods. It's great.We just got the internet today (Steven thought he was going to die). I actually can't write much, there's still about a million things to do.Hopefully all is going well with all of you. Seporah's website may take a couple more days too, sorry. Till then, Märia Read More...

When I was saying holy cow about the cell phone bill, I was trying to be funny. You know like those commercials "you used how many minutes?!?!?!" I didn't mean stop calling. Yeah it was a bad bill, but that was mostly talking to real estate agent and esrow people and loan officer and all the other people you call during moves (changing addresses and such). We knew it would be horrible, but figured the house was worth it, we couldn't just tell them now hold on I know I need to talk to you about the house, but I'm out of minutes, could you call back on my next billing cycle, I know I've only got so long to close, but I'm afraid of bad bills.
So look forward to your next call, Märia Read More...

I just got my cell phone bill..... Read More...

I took Seporah to her well baby check up this morning and she is a big girl. 14pounds, 11ounces. That's above the 95th percentile. I actually thought she was bigger than that, even though that is big. We've been using size 3 diapers which are for 16-24pound babies and they fit her pretty well (Guess she's just chunks around the middle, I like her that way though). So I guess I'm feeding her pretty well (boy is that ever a full time job). She does have super sensitive skin, even for a baby. We confirmed that. Because when you touch her, she turns red, even if it's just a light touch. And she has a diaper rash that's been there since the day after she was born (and yes we have tried everything we can to get rid of it). Read More...

What's the classic date everyone with children jokes about? "Where you guys going?" "Costco, we have kids!" Well actually we didn't go to Costco, but we went to somewhere just as good: Sam's Club. We got our first warehouse card there, and we bought it for the diapers. Whew...those get expensive... But anyways it was a lot of fun. We'll go there just for the tasteys next time (Steven says he never used the word tasteys, so that's where people give out samples of cookies or whatever). That's about it, tune it next time to hear about our navel lint.

Märia

P.S. New pictures in the photos. Read More...

Well Dad (Russell Albright) just called me and he's running a marathon this weekend in Kuwait. However Hawaii cell phone coverage sucks and it went out before I could say Go Dad Go! We're all rooting for you!
So "GO, DAD, GO! WE'RE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU!!!"

Märia, Steven, & Seporah Read More...

Well we now know why Polynesians have a little more fat deposits in general as compared to other people. Food in Hawaii is wonderful. We've eaten Japanese sushi, Korean gyoza, Italian pasta, Hawaii delicacies (except for poi and spam, we stayed away from that :), gourmet pizzas (for those of you that know me know I don't really eat pizza and I ate these) and others, and everything is great. I don't think we would have gone to so many restaurants except for the fact we're living in a hotel and get tired of microwave dinners. Everything we've eaten here is well above average (Actually there is one exception a Chinese restaurant that had to have served the worst food ever, but we won't go back there). So we've got the low down on food here and I've come to grips with no Olive Garden on Oahu. Read More...

Well, someone must have put in a good word for us with The Big Guy because we have been very blessed lately. Seporah is doing wonderfully. Two nights ago she only woke up twice the whole night. We were so excited, we kinda paid for it last though, she woke up 6 times (and we really can't ignore her being in the same room). However we are very hopeful. She continues to grow bigger and stronger everyday. And we get smiles out the ears (however she still won't do it much for the camera). AND eating time has decreased significantly. Only 20 minutes instead of 60-90 (no lie). Read More...

Well we're buying a condo, the offers been accepted and everything, we'll close March 31st! YEAH! We are very excited. Not only for buying a home and everything but also to get out of the hotel. Hotels are all right, but if you're actually living in them, that's another story. Plus Seporah definately needs her own room. She's 2 months and the longest she's ever slept at a time is 4 hours (and that's only happened a couple times, usually it averages 2 1/2 hours at a time). We're figuring when she gets her own room she'll sleep longer (don't get us wrong, she's still a great baby, just a bad sleeper). Read More...

Well the past week has been very busy. We've looked at about 16 condos and townhouses and we think we've found the one we want. Not quite sure yet, but we think. We're still going to look a little bit more. I know it's fast to most people for buying a home, however if we don't buy one before the military finds us housing we have to live on base. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's almost always better to buy than rent. Read More...

Aloha! From Hawaii! We have made it here safe and sound (or at least weíve made it here). Seporah was absolutely wonderful for the 10 hour plane ride. We were really worried about that, but she had 2 little crying spells that lasted for less than 5 minutes that werenít even that bad. After the plane ride we had like 20 people say what a good baby she was. So I was like YEAH! It wasnít bad at all (sorry to all those who have had bad plane ride experiences with their babies, especially if we were the babies). Read More...

Well Steven has completely outprocessed. We will be on a plane Feb 16th, it's a 9hour 56minute nonstop flight, whew, we'll see how that goes... Read More...

Well we sold the Kia, it was actually very easy with very little effort on our part. My friend Denise told her hairdresser while getting her hair done and her hairdresser bought it when she saw it. Steven's a little sad, he's going to miss it. For me, it's just one more step closer to Hawaii. Read More...

Well it seems life at home for me is all about feeding Seporah. No one really tells you how much time breastfeeding actually takes. But she just went down for her 2 hour nap (She only has one of those, the rest are 30 minute naps where she wants to be held or she'll wake up). Usually I take this time to clean or eat but I thought I'd write a post today, Steven can do the dishes :) Debra just came here to visit this weekend, you can visit SeporahsCrib.com to see pictures and such with her visit. Read More...

Well after something like 28 days off, Steven went back to work yesterday (Somehow I made it alone :) AND... *drum roll please*...we are moving to HAWAII!! YEAH! We thought we had lost the spot in November, so we were super excited. We should be moving somewhere between Feb 10-14. Yes that is super short notice. We're a little worried about getting everything ready, esp with Seporah, but I'm sure we'll make it. And Seporah will be raised in the Sands of Paradise....ahhhh! Doesn't that sound nice...

Märia Read More...

Well, Steven and I have been parents now for 9 days and we thought we'd give everyone an update. Seporah is a wonderful, happy, fun, and interactive baby. We have been very blessed. She goes with us everywhere. We went to the park twice, and we ate at the the Olive Garden, and we went on a day trip to Atlanta where she went to Great Harvest (an excellent bakery), the Apple store (yesterday was Steven's birthday), and she rode her very first carousel. She's very curious about the world around her and likes to look at everything with her beautiful gray-blue eyes. At the very beginning she was over 9 pounds and with the way she eats it won't be long before she's in double digits. Steven and I are quite enamored with her. We love you all and we'll keep you posted.

Märia Read More...

Hey this comment is for all those who want to see Seporah with her daddy and others. When you go to the gallery you just have to click on the picture of Seporah and me and you get to a whole other gallery with LOTS of pictures. I got a comment and someone didn't realize that. So actually all those pictures on the gallery main page open up into other galleries. If you can't figure it out, post a comment here. Hope you enjoy them!

Märia Read More...

Well, it's currently 2:53AM and I finally tossed and turned enough to kick my husband out of bed and on to the couch. Never thought that would happen, but I've only been asleep from 11pm to 1:40am this night. The rest of the time has been tossing and turning and moaning and groaning. I am truely sick of being pregnant. It's said that pregnancy and labor and delivery causes you to have a greater appreciation for your mother and I'm thinking this is just not true. Read More...

We wanted to write and tell everyone Merry Christmas! So Merry Christmas! Last night we had friends over for dinner and we ate duck, tastes less like chicken and more like turkey for those who haven't had it. The friends we had over said we were murderers and it was slightly morbid for us to eat duck since we collect them :) . Just as a side note we have 20 lightbulbs in our house, 12 of them have burned out in the past 2 months (three were yesterday and we'd run out of fresh lightbulbs so it was slightly dark). We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.
Märia, Steven, and Seporah Read More...

Well life at the Rushing house is anything but rushing. It's more like the waiting house. Countdown to Christmas, countdown to baby being born, countdown to Steven's birthday, countdown to getting out of Augusta, Georgia. Although technically we only have real countdowns for Christmas and Steven's birthday because we don't know when Seporah will make her entrance or when we'll make our departure from Augusta. We were too lazy to do reviews, but watch Narnia and Zathura. Oh and although I gave King Kong an 8/10, Steven gave it a 3 thumbs down (with vomit on the side). Read More...

Well it's now happened the fourth year in a row (or at least it has almost happened). Christmas has come and gone I have neglected to do my "wifely" duty of sending Christmas cards and a warm greeting to everyone. It's not so bad, except yesterday we recieved a whole bunch in the mail and I thought, "why didn't I do this again?" The first year we were married I had just barely survived my first quarter of nursing school and I didn't feel like sending them out. Read More...

That got your attention didn't it, hehe. Actually it didn't. I went to sleep with an almost full open 16 oz. bottle of water in my hands (not on purpose) and I woke up really wet and cold. So I sat straight up and said "My water broke" to my husband. I thought it was pretty funny, he didn't though.
Lots of other things going on around this house. Mostly trying to get ready for holidays and baby. Steven should write in the next couple days. Just thought I'd give a funny.
Märia Read More...

Well since Steven's been writing quite a bit about me I thought I'd put in my two cents as well. Let's see, I got back on Saturday, November 19th from Washington. It was quite an eventful trip (a little too eventful as you can see from earlier posts). I had quite a bit of fun though. I saw several people I had not seen in a while, spent time with family, learned Josh outgrew me (sniff, sniff), met my nephew for the first time, went to some fun restaurants, and had a baby shower. BTW I wanted to thank everyone who came to my baby shower and my mom and Lynda for throwing it. It was pretty fun and the gifts were much needed. Read More...