My life after the 15 minutes…

 It's been two weeks with little Ashley and for the most part she has been an amazing little sleeper and eater...that was until last night where she just wouldn't calm down and she just wouldn't latch. I know something was making her uncomfortable and my heart broke for her as Bubs and I took turns walking her around the house to get her to calm down. She finally ate at about 5:30 in the morning after which we both completely passed out in my chair--for maybe 10 minutes but it was one of those deep sleeps that felt like hours. Bubs had to be up and ready to go for his surgery at 6 so I was able to put Ashley in our bed and let her sleep while I got Bubs up, let the in-laws in so they could take drive him and get the kids up and ready for school. The plan had originally been that both of his parents would take him but my mother-in-law came in clutch and saw how tired I was (what me? my hair was a ratty nest, I'm wearing the same clothes I have been for days, I have milky...

It's hard to believe we are on day 12 of having our new baby in the house. I want to be so appreciative of all that we have and I think one of the areas in which I have been particularly lucky is that I've never gotten post partum depression. My heart goes out to the women it affects because while I love little Ashley more than I can imagine, this is hard work and I can't imagine doing it when depressed--the feeling of which I am very familiar.  As for the family and how they are adapting, my two older kids have been absolutely amazing. Our new family ritual has been me feeding Ashley in my stuffed rocking chair and one or both of the older kids standing behind us while brushing my hair. Oxytocin is called the love hormone for a reason--but when you get it from all three of your kids at the same time--no wonder we are wired as a species to have babies.  However, since I now have had the joy of delivering 3 babies, we are done. It's Bubs turn to lay on a uncomfortable be...

 So its been a little less than a week since we welcomed our little Ashley. Things aren't quite "normal" yet has my Mom  and sisters are still here in town. But they are leaving Wednesday,  Evie is back in Yuma with Brian (but she will be coming back very shortly) and while my in-laws are still here with us, they are making plans to move on before it starts to get too hot here in Arizona. For a long time it felt like Texas got up and moved with us but pretty soon, it's just going to be our little family.  We are so blessed to have 3 happy and healthy kids, we have so much in this life but to simply have that is more than I ever could have asked for.  Our new little girl is so doted on, held, loved, carried, sung to, kissed--that I actually don't think there's a time when she's awake that someone isn't holding her.   She is a beautiful little baby and she looks almost exactly like Abby did when she was born. Very blue eyes with the early shock of reddis...

 This post is going to be much shorter than my usual blather because I am exhausted. But it's a beautiful, perfect sort of exhaustion. Our new little girl joined us late on Monday evening. Welcome little Ashley. She is perfect in every way.  Labor went really well but as expected, I am sore and tired but it's all completely worth it. Her birthweight was almost exactly 7lbs. She is an amazing little eater and that oxytocin rush from breastfeeding makes me want five more. It's only been a couple of days but my older two kids have been amazing. It looks like Bub's work situation has stabilized a bit so he's going to do some lite duty from home for at least the rest of this week. The dogs have been curious but super sweet and my support team consisting of my in-laws and my brother's fiancé Genevieve have been utterly life saving.  My mom and sisters are supposed to get here sometime this morning and we are hoping Brian's trip to South America will be coming to a...

 So here we are April 13th--I woke up this morning having pretty severe contractions. Only this time they are pretty regular. We are timing them and they are lasting for about 30 seconds and coming every 10-15 minutes or so. My OB wants me to head in when they start to happen every five minutes. I think we are going to have a baby today.  I don't want to go to the hospital mad at my husband and even I am tired of fighting with him. So I am going to write this all out, hit the publish button and do my damndest to let it go. I have to admit that I don't fight fair with Bubs and if I were to give in to my irrational thinking, I could be upset with him as I'm delivering a baby. I don't want to bring our new child into the world like that. This may be a mistake to put this down in writing on what may be our third child's birthday but unfortunately our marriage counselor doesn't drop everything to meet with us on Sundays.  For reference, Bubs took his dad and the kids...

 I am livid this morning. I have been livid all night because I genuinely may be married to the dumbest person to ever live. I am going to keep our fight short because I got such a sweet email this week and I've been wanting to make sure that I give that person their due attention.  But I can't help it, I can't believe my husband (well maybe I can, that's the problem). As we were going to bed last night he hits me with "hey sorry I forgot to tell you, I'm going to take my dad and the kids flying tomorrow." It didn't really process through my brain so first I said that he didn't have a reserve weekend and I didn't understand. He said that no, he had arranged to rent one of those tiny little airplanes and they were go to go explore the area from the air. I was like no dude you are not. I'm potentially hours away from giving birth, you've been working insane hours, I hate flying and the last thing I need is to fucking be scared shitless th...

There are many times where I am reminded how much fun this little community is. This week was one of them. So there has never been a single topic that has garnered more comments, emails or direct chat's on reddit than the status of the pimple on my husband's earlobe...and I think it was sort of an off hand remark that one of us made in the comments...not even part of the blog. I wish I could say I didn't understand or thought this was weird but I am a popping fanatic. Pimples, splinters, ingrown toenails, all things I have such a weird obsession with. I can scroll through hours of disgusting popping videos and be revolted by every one of them but still scroll on. Before popping became a think on the internet, I really thought I was crazy so it's been nice to find there are other people as weird as me...heck some of you are as weird as me!  So before I get to the current zit, I'll explain a bit. Both Bub's and I were pretty lucky in that we had mostly clear skin ...

 Once again I am up with contractions at 5am. These are the low key "false" contractions so I don't think we are headed to the hospital today but it does mean baby is on their way! I am so excited. I can't believe we are finally about to meet her! Everyone but me is convinced that they are boy but I am 100% convinced she's a girl.  One thing we don't even have slightly picked out are names yet. With both Abby and TJ we knew their gender so we had names long picked out before we got to know them. It hit me over the weekend that we haven't even really had the discussion. My mother-in-law had the very generous offer that we could name the baby after her--Joyce. Which is a little dated but kind of cute however her idea of the masculine version of Joyce being "Jock" didn't really strike a chord with me--I'm not quite sure why. My family always insists on names that have some sort of connection to Texas history so there's Peggy, Susanna, Ma...

 Ready for more self indulgent blather? I sure hope so. I had an OB appointment today and this kid apparently loves me so much that they are going to go the distance. By this point with the first two, I was having tons of false contractions, they had dropped and they were ready to join us out in the world. Both Abby and TJ came about 15 days early and while they were a little underweight, it was nothing to be concerned about. I don't remember induction even being a topic but today the OB said we are far from making that decision but she wanted me to be familiar with it. I just looked it up and they don't usually want to induce until 41 weeks so I'm not sure if that was her subtle way at hinting that she thinks we are going to go past next Friday.   So with that, here I am in bed again. After Evie helped me waddle in from the car, my servant crew (Evie, my mother-in-law and father-in-law) took over all the duties I'm supposed to have as a mom of two young kids.  They ...

 I think I've mentioned that my sisters read my blog and quite obviously my husband reads my blog. While no one is mad at me, all three of them had a very fair critique that at times I have told embarrassing stories about them. Specifically, my sisters said that while they enjoyed reading the stories about how they held massive grudges, I am just as guilty as they are about not being able to let small things go and bringing them up years later. I have talked about my older sister not speaking with me for days because she found out that I stole her jeans when we were in high school. I have talked about my younger sister not speaking to me for weeks because she thought I stole her roses when she was in middle school. Both stories are totally true but they might paint me in a more favorable light while showing my sisters as being the irrational ones. Which, sorry Jess and Jenn...you are, but I'm sure you can remember Dad's saying "the three of you share the same brain, wh...

We are officially less than two weeks away from my due date of April 18th. This is absolutely going to be my last pregnancy. He may not know it yet but a certain man is going to go under the knife and get a little snip snip--and he has no choice in the matter. Well no choice unless he never wants to get laid again because I'm not having another surprise like I did in August of last year--where I went to a psychiatrist who ordered a pregnancy test just for my peace of mind, and well, I'm giving birth in less than two weeks. Other than the modified bedrest, this by far has been the easiest of my pregnancies. I think with the first I was a nervous wreck and didn't know what to expect. With the second, I had a toddler in tow, I was wheeling and dealing with Bub's aunt and uncle to buy our house and on top of it, I was teaching kindergartners who would say things like "Mrs M, are you going to get fired because you are having a baby?" and "My dad says you are p...