So, here we are, nearing Rory's SECOND birthday!! For real??? What happened? I remember bringing home this tiny ball of absolute perfection wrapped up in her super cute green velour outfit!!! She weighed in at 8 lbs 4 ounces. Now . . . (gasp) . . . she weighs in at probably 30+ pounds!!! She is 36 or so inches tall!!! Boy is she big! She's started this new trend lately . . . probably about a month ago . . . where when we (she and I) are at home, she always has to be in my arms. If not, she'll lay on my feet and grasp hold for dear life screaming "I wanna hold you Mommy! I wanna hold you!" Cute? Yes! Exhausting? Quadruple yes!!! While at home, Rory wants to be 100% with Mommy (or as she says, Mom-A). I joke with her and ask if she'd like to go back in my belly for a few months. As a baby, she was SUPER independant!! She still is rather independant in that she has to do everything herself and says "my doit, Momm-A, my doit!", but as far as being and playing by herself, no way!
She is unbelievably smart! A few WEEKS ago, she was sitting next to me on the couch at our house (Daddy also was present but inattentive), and she said "two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine". What less-than-two-year-old does that??? My genius less-than-two-year-old. That's who! She can and does say everything anyone else does. I try to keep my sailor's mouth clean and PG, and as of yet, she's not said anything four-letter or close. Thank GOD! My new thing is to shout, "Good Lord!" Good? Bad? I don't know, but if she repeats that, it's better than the other options. She recently showed me that she could fit ALL of the shapes from her shapesorter into the container. Huh?!? I play with Rory A LOT! A LOT, A LOT! She has NEVER been able to do that before, but then one day, she and I are playing and she just all of a sudden had mastered the shape sorter. She's so dramatic about it too. HAHAHA! She'll take, say the circle, put it on top of where, say the square, would go and looks at me, oh so questionably yet knowingly, and says "NOOOOOOOO" (like, if you thought it went here, look who's the DA), then smiles and puts it through the right shape. I love it! She loves to stand atop of a surface, typically a "bucket" (actually a stool), and dance, twirl, jump, anything to show off, like it's a stage. My little performer! I'm SO proud. Julliard, here we come!
For her birthday, we have plans to do a Dora party. I bought cute little Dora plates and napkins and tablecloths and the sort. I bought her a cute pair of Dora earrings. She's only ever had the one pair of earrings from when she got her ears peirced, so this will be her second set. Kind of exciting! We also bought her the second Precious Moments princess birthday train. My plan is to make that gift a tradition, as my grandmother did for me. Next year, though I hope takes a while to get here, the third princess is Aurora, so guess what the birthday theme is likely to be??? I LOVE IT! As the big part of her birthday, however, we are building her a swingset. I say we, but yeah, Aaron will do all the work. :) We've already bought the coolest swing ever. It's a tire swing shaped as a horse that you ride. It should last for years and years and be cool for years and years. Kind of a "where in the world did you find this" kind of thing. I hope she'll love it for a long time. I'm requesting that no one bring toys!! Only clothes or Lowe's gift cards or something else. Anything else. She has a lot of toys, in fact probably too many, because her Mommy is a bit insan-o when it comes to Christmas and went a little crazy this year and last year too. So. . . no more toys until next Christmas. Maw-maw and Paw-Paw are supposed to be getting the slide. Daddy says it will have a playhouse area. I hope it works out and looks nice and is super fun! I'm excited.
I have big plans for this year. First, I'm trying to wean Rory. Yikes! This is going to be a feat! A huge feat! I've, for the most part, completely cut out daytime "boos". She typically fights with me about it once a day, but as long as I can deter her with something else (a snack, a "bop", ice, poppy-sicle, or anything), then we can make it until "nightnight boos". Nightnight boos, however, are going to be impossible to cut out. Furthermore, morning boos will be darn right impossible! She looks, oh so, forward to nightnight boos. I attempt to let her nurse for 10-20 minutes then just hug me and go to sleep, but so far, that ain't happenin'. No way! I've told her that boos were empty. That worked once. The end. The next time, she screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, then Daddy came in and said, "Mommy, give it a rest. I don't think it's happening tonight. Let 'er at 'em!" Thus, attempting, but definite feat. I do hope to have her weaned by April though, and today is January 19th. Boy, oh, boy! Will it happen? We'll see!
My next plan. . . get her to sleep in "Rory's bed". Yet another HUGE feat! She won't even nap in Rory's bed. She won't even stand and watch TV in Rory's bed without screaming in intervals between being interested in what's on TV. She HATES, FEARS, DESPISES Rory's bed. So, now what? I'm considering moving Rory's bed into Mommy's room. Maybe that will help some??? I don't know, but right now, it's not even an option. Maybe by April too?? Totally doubt it, but that's the plan.
Next in line . . . perhaps another baby. I'm definitely considering. I'm a bit hesitant at this point though because I have a two year old. On top of that . . . a newborn? By the time he/she would be here, though, Rory would be three. Still a bit young though maybe. I haven't quite decided and am a bit on the fence. I want to be able to be just as much there for Baby #2 as I am for Rory. At the same time, I want to be able to continue being there for Rory as I have been all along. I may wait until Rory is in Kindergarten, that way while Rory is at school, Baby #2 is all mine and I'm all his/hers. Sounds good in theory, but we'll see. That would make Rory almost six and Baby #2 newborn. Makes sense. Rory could and would be helpful. Wouldn't need or probably want as much Mommy time. But. . . we'll see.
This summer, Aaron and I are going to take Rory back to the North Carolina Zoo! We had so much fun there when we drove back from the beach this past June. Rory was only 16 months old and loved it. Now being 28-30 months old, she'll probably explode with excitement.
Today is Day 1 of my already nearly 3.5 years of employment at The Greenbrier Clinic of my now HAVING to work 40 hours a week. If I don't (and I typically don't), then I can't keep our medical insurance!!! Hells of incentive, but yikes! My goal is to get here at 7:45 AM every morning and leave at 4:45 PM every evening, giving myself a little leeway (spelling?) just in case. So I work nine hours Monday through Thursday and only have to work four on Friday or get overtime at. . . $18.75 per hour!!! Sounds good to me!
Aaron just recently started his new job with DISH Network. So far, I love his job. His first paycheck was $1400! That's for two weeks! If he brings home $1400 every two weeks and I manage to bring home (subtracting the cost for insurance) $750 every two weeks, giving us $2150 every two weeks, what will we ever do?? We should have American Express, Chase, John W. Eye, and the stupid four-wheeler paid off by May. So, by May, our bills will be 450$ house, 380$ truck, 150$ insurance, 150$ electric, 60$ frontier, 60$ DISH, 160$ cellphone, $45 sewer, $600 gas (or $300 if Aaron is a remote technician by then), and $100 for those other stupid autowithdrawal things (partly medical bills/partly Aaron's insurance or OnStar). That equals $2150-1850 per month!!! What we make in two weeks will pay everything. The next two weeks' pay would be groceries and spending money! For real??? Will that actually happen??? Then what happens if we get raises?? Richdom??? Are we there? Man, that would be too cool if we were. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's starting to look really nice! Maybe Rory could go to Harvard or Yale!!! Ergo, my next concern.
Where will Rory go to school??? Two thoughts. On the western end of the county, she would have smaller classes and be one of the cool kids for sure! She'd have awesome self-esteem, make good grades, and be involved in sports (as that's all the western end offers). The teachers are kind of dumb though, so that's concerning. They didn't push me AT ALL when I went to school here. On the eastern end of the county, she would have much better technology, be one of the cool kids but also part of the crowd, probably have a lot of peer pressure, make good grades, and be offered a LOT more opportunity as far as arts and extracurricular things. I just don't know!!! I guess will come to that when we come to that but YEESH, I'm not going to like it.
Well, as I sit here at work for the past 3+ hours doing nothing but blogging, I guess I should start wrapping it up and pretending to be doing something. My job is such pie. They demand that I work 40 hours to keep insurance but don't have anything for me to do. Doesn't make much sense, but okay. You want to pay me more? I'll take it.
Until tomorrow and the next day and the next day, good day!
Signing off!
Mommy Kate
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Monday, April 19, 2010
Sweet Baby Rory
I can't believe that Baby Rory is almost eleven weeks old! I wish I would have known about this website so that I could have blogged our entire journey, from pre-pregnancy to full-term pregnancy to labor to motherhood, but now's as good a time as ever to keep up.
So, it all starts sometime in Spring of 2008. I'd been dreaming of Baby Rory since Aaron and I were married in June of 2007, but I postponed the talk with Aaron until Spring of 2008 when I bought him an AR-15. The agreement was . . . "If I let you get this gun, you have to promise that we will try making a baby come December." So the agreement was made. That December happened to be the year that my entire family came in for Christmas. Joel, Mae, and Ella from Kuwait and Josh, Dena, Braden, Maddie, and Olivia from Kansas. I'd never met Mae, Ella, or Olivia. I'd not seen Josh for four years. And I'd not seen Joel for a year and a half. That Christmas was the best Christmas EVER!!! Even though we'd made plans to start trying then, we postponed for a little while more. We didn't take any precautions, but we didn't REALLY start trying.
We had a trip planned in March of 2009 to go to Disney World. Since the trip was planned, we decided that instead of trying in December, we'd make it our goal to begin trying on this vacation. Boy, oh, boy did we try then! The vacation was amazing!!! Disney World is a blast! It was romantic and exciting and fun. We drank margaritas while we walked around the parks. We ate amazing food. We played. We laughed. We took 100s of pictures. And we tried making our Baby Rory.
When we got back and I took a pregnancy test, I was saddened to know that our many attempts had failed us. It seemed to me that it was going to take forever!
Forever was short-lived, as it took only another six weeks before we discovered that we'd finally done the deed! LOL. When I peed on that pregnancy test stick and finally discovered a "pregnant" reading and not the typical "not pregnant" that I'd been used to seeing, I screamed, followed shortly after by bawled, follwed shortly after by ran into the bedroom to inform Aaron. He knew exactly what I was going to tell him before it even came out of my mouth! Stunned is how I would describe his reaction.
From then on, the idea of being pregnant never became less joyous! I LOVED being pregnant. EVERYONE commented on me and how I was growing. I don't believe I have ever felt so special. Nonetheless, pregnancy was hard on me! I didn't fret about how hard, but boy was it. I gained 100 pounds, and toward the end, I couldn't even lift my legs. I had 1000000+ pitting edema. LOL. But that belly of mine was sensational! I couldn't help but to smile every time I looked at my belly and every time I felt Rory's hiccoughs, startling movements, or kicks. It was absolutely amazing. I couldn't stand the wait for her arrival though.
I spent all my time waiting either talking about her or cleaning up the house in it's entirety for her or buying her things. I'd always said how much I wanted a boy, but when we found out (September 22) that she was a girl, to my amazement, I was ecstatic!!! Mommy Kate was going to have her own little girl. I'd always known her name was going to be Rory since I started dreaming of having my own little baby after June 23, 2007, when Aaron and I got married. Aaron was not fond of naming a boy Rory, but either way, this baby was destined to be named Rory. I also wanted her initials to be AK as are her father's and my initials, and I wanted her to have a family name, as all of the women in my family have been named after an elder. Thus, Aurora (for the A and the ability to shorten to Rory) Elizabeth (named after her great-great grandmother Elizabeth Muriel) Knotts became her name. We had decided on her name the day we found out that she was a girl.
Finally, Monday, February 1, 2010, I called the doctor for an appiontment because I was SO swollen. I'd planned to be delivered by Dr. Flowers, but Dr. Wheeler saw me this day. He asked if I'd considered induction before, and that was music to my ears. I'd told myself that I would never be induced early, as Rory would come out when she was ready, but the swelling was just TOO much for me to handle. I was becoming preeclamptic. (Actually, I had all the signs WAY before, but Dr. Flowers never did anything.) Dr. Wheeler told me to come in on Wednesday, February 3, to start my induction and said that labor would begin on Thursday. Aaron and his mom came with me on Wednesday and stayed with me. They went out to get me my last meal before becomming Mommy while the nurses put in the catheter to begin dilation. Wow was that uncomfortable! I can't stand a urinal catheter, and this was WAY worse. It always seemed that something was trying to yank on it. It was like sitting on pins and needles waiting for the moment this horrible contraption could come out. It had to stay in until I was 3 cm dilated, and after putting it in at 4:00 PM, it didn't come out until 7:00 AM Thursday morning. Horrible, horrible, horrible experience, but worth it, as it lead to the arrival of my sweet Baby Rory.
At 7:00 AM Thursday, February 4, Dr. Wheeler came in and broke my water. That was quite an interesting feeling. No pain followed by a gush of water. I bet I lost 10 pounds right then. I had absolutely NO pain for hours, only to find out that I'd not progressed any! I was stuck at 4 cm from the time he broke my water until probably noon. I started feeling a little bit from my contractions, but it still wasn't too bad. But before it got bad, I asked for some IV pain meds. My instincts were right on, because as soon as I got the pain meds and took a much needed nap, the monitor was picking up on my contractions, and they were there full speed! I still felt no pain! The contractions actually felt amazing! I knew where they were leading. It seemed then that things were progressing fast! The IV pain meds were to wear out in two hours, and by that time, I'd progressed another 3 cm. I called for an epidural, still not in any pain but knowing that the IV pain meds were about to run out and the show was about to start. Bad idea! As soon as the epidural was placed, my blood pressure starting crashing, and Rory's heart rate started dropping. I was too "out of it" to feel any fear, excitement, anything, meanwhile soon-to-be daddy, the nurses, my mom, and Aaron's mom were freaking out! I later found out that the nurse informed all of us to not be surprised if Rory ended up going straight to the NICU!!! I came to shortly thereafter and all was okay for the moment. I just had to really listen to what Rory was telling me and keep doing only what she responded well to.
Finally, at 5:00 PM, the nurse told me that I was at 9 cm!!! We called everyone we knew. "Katie's at 9 cm, the baby will be here anytime now, get here if you're coming." So everyone came, except my three oldest brothers. They wanted SO badly to be there, but one was at work, one lives in the Philippines, and one lives in Kansas. They kept calling to check on me though. At 6:00 PM, I was still at 9 cm. At 7:00 PM, still at 9 cm. At 8:00 PM, no change. At 8:30 PM, still no change, but I started pushing. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed. I pushed for two hours. (And with all that pushing, I pooped and I pooped and I pooped! LOL.) The pain never hit me until she started coming. The epidural had ran out, and I felt everything! Glad I did too because, though painful and exhausting, it was amazing. It was kind of like I was in a dream. I saw nothing but gave everything I had. My face swelled so big! I had dried sweat crusted to my scalp. Finally, at 10:17 PM (a mere 13 minutes before C-section was to begin), Baby Rory arrived, healthy and screaming, in no need to be rushed to the NICU, with a full head of brownish blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and weighing in at 8 lbs 7 ounces. Once she'd pooped, they gave the official weight of 8 pounds 3 ounces with a 14.5 inch head circumference and was 20.5 inches long. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on!!! I remember moaning after she'd finally delivered, "my baby, my baby, my baby!"
After all was said and done, I then was stitched up and cleaned up and rid of all the crazy contraptions I was hooked up to and was able to hold my sweet baby girl for the rest of the night. Since that wonderful night, I've had many, many more wonderful experiences with my baby girl. Tune in for more information at a later date.
This is Mommy Kate signing off. Until next time.
So, it all starts sometime in Spring of 2008. I'd been dreaming of Baby Rory since Aaron and I were married in June of 2007, but I postponed the talk with Aaron until Spring of 2008 when I bought him an AR-15. The agreement was . . . "If I let you get this gun, you have to promise that we will try making a baby come December." So the agreement was made. That December happened to be the year that my entire family came in for Christmas. Joel, Mae, and Ella from Kuwait and Josh, Dena, Braden, Maddie, and Olivia from Kansas. I'd never met Mae, Ella, or Olivia. I'd not seen Josh for four years. And I'd not seen Joel for a year and a half. That Christmas was the best Christmas EVER!!! Even though we'd made plans to start trying then, we postponed for a little while more. We didn't take any precautions, but we didn't REALLY start trying.
We had a trip planned in March of 2009 to go to Disney World. Since the trip was planned, we decided that instead of trying in December, we'd make it our goal to begin trying on this vacation. Boy, oh, boy did we try then! The vacation was amazing!!! Disney World is a blast! It was romantic and exciting and fun. We drank margaritas while we walked around the parks. We ate amazing food. We played. We laughed. We took 100s of pictures. And we tried making our Baby Rory.
When we got back and I took a pregnancy test, I was saddened to know that our many attempts had failed us. It seemed to me that it was going to take forever!
Forever was short-lived, as it took only another six weeks before we discovered that we'd finally done the deed! LOL. When I peed on that pregnancy test stick and finally discovered a "pregnant" reading and not the typical "not pregnant" that I'd been used to seeing, I screamed, followed shortly after by bawled, follwed shortly after by ran into the bedroom to inform Aaron. He knew exactly what I was going to tell him before it even came out of my mouth! Stunned is how I would describe his reaction.
From then on, the idea of being pregnant never became less joyous! I LOVED being pregnant. EVERYONE commented on me and how I was growing. I don't believe I have ever felt so special. Nonetheless, pregnancy was hard on me! I didn't fret about how hard, but boy was it. I gained 100 pounds, and toward the end, I couldn't even lift my legs. I had 1000000+ pitting edema. LOL. But that belly of mine was sensational! I couldn't help but to smile every time I looked at my belly and every time I felt Rory's hiccoughs, startling movements, or kicks. It was absolutely amazing. I couldn't stand the wait for her arrival though.
I spent all my time waiting either talking about her or cleaning up the house in it's entirety for her or buying her things. I'd always said how much I wanted a boy, but when we found out (September 22) that she was a girl, to my amazement, I was ecstatic!!! Mommy Kate was going to have her own little girl. I'd always known her name was going to be Rory since I started dreaming of having my own little baby after June 23, 2007, when Aaron and I got married. Aaron was not fond of naming a boy Rory, but either way, this baby was destined to be named Rory. I also wanted her initials to be AK as are her father's and my initials, and I wanted her to have a family name, as all of the women in my family have been named after an elder. Thus, Aurora (for the A and the ability to shorten to Rory) Elizabeth (named after her great-great grandmother Elizabeth Muriel) Knotts became her name. We had decided on her name the day we found out that she was a girl.
Finally, Monday, February 1, 2010, I called the doctor for an appiontment because I was SO swollen. I'd planned to be delivered by Dr. Flowers, but Dr. Wheeler saw me this day. He asked if I'd considered induction before, and that was music to my ears. I'd told myself that I would never be induced early, as Rory would come out when she was ready, but the swelling was just TOO much for me to handle. I was becoming preeclamptic. (Actually, I had all the signs WAY before, but Dr. Flowers never did anything.) Dr. Wheeler told me to come in on Wednesday, February 3, to start my induction and said that labor would begin on Thursday. Aaron and his mom came with me on Wednesday and stayed with me. They went out to get me my last meal before becomming Mommy while the nurses put in the catheter to begin dilation. Wow was that uncomfortable! I can't stand a urinal catheter, and this was WAY worse. It always seemed that something was trying to yank on it. It was like sitting on pins and needles waiting for the moment this horrible contraption could come out. It had to stay in until I was 3 cm dilated, and after putting it in at 4:00 PM, it didn't come out until 7:00 AM Thursday morning. Horrible, horrible, horrible experience, but worth it, as it lead to the arrival of my sweet Baby Rory.
At 7:00 AM Thursday, February 4, Dr. Wheeler came in and broke my water. That was quite an interesting feeling. No pain followed by a gush of water. I bet I lost 10 pounds right then. I had absolutely NO pain for hours, only to find out that I'd not progressed any! I was stuck at 4 cm from the time he broke my water until probably noon. I started feeling a little bit from my contractions, but it still wasn't too bad. But before it got bad, I asked for some IV pain meds. My instincts were right on, because as soon as I got the pain meds and took a much needed nap, the monitor was picking up on my contractions, and they were there full speed! I still felt no pain! The contractions actually felt amazing! I knew where they were leading. It seemed then that things were progressing fast! The IV pain meds were to wear out in two hours, and by that time, I'd progressed another 3 cm. I called for an epidural, still not in any pain but knowing that the IV pain meds were about to run out and the show was about to start. Bad idea! As soon as the epidural was placed, my blood pressure starting crashing, and Rory's heart rate started dropping. I was too "out of it" to feel any fear, excitement, anything, meanwhile soon-to-be daddy, the nurses, my mom, and Aaron's mom were freaking out! I later found out that the nurse informed all of us to not be surprised if Rory ended up going straight to the NICU!!! I came to shortly thereafter and all was okay for the moment. I just had to really listen to what Rory was telling me and keep doing only what she responded well to.
Finally, at 5:00 PM, the nurse told me that I was at 9 cm!!! We called everyone we knew. "Katie's at 9 cm, the baby will be here anytime now, get here if you're coming." So everyone came, except my three oldest brothers. They wanted SO badly to be there, but one was at work, one lives in the Philippines, and one lives in Kansas. They kept calling to check on me though. At 6:00 PM, I was still at 9 cm. At 7:00 PM, still at 9 cm. At 8:00 PM, no change. At 8:30 PM, still no change, but I started pushing. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed. I pushed for two hours. (And with all that pushing, I pooped and I pooped and I pooped! LOL.) The pain never hit me until she started coming. The epidural had ran out, and I felt everything! Glad I did too because, though painful and exhausting, it was amazing. It was kind of like I was in a dream. I saw nothing but gave everything I had. My face swelled so big! I had dried sweat crusted to my scalp. Finally, at 10:17 PM (a mere 13 minutes before C-section was to begin), Baby Rory arrived, healthy and screaming, in no need to be rushed to the NICU, with a full head of brownish blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and weighing in at 8 lbs 7 ounces. Once she'd pooped, they gave the official weight of 8 pounds 3 ounces with a 14.5 inch head circumference and was 20.5 inches long. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on!!! I remember moaning after she'd finally delivered, "my baby, my baby, my baby!"
After all was said and done, I then was stitched up and cleaned up and rid of all the crazy contraptions I was hooked up to and was able to hold my sweet baby girl for the rest of the night. Since that wonderful night, I've had many, many more wonderful experiences with my baby girl. Tune in for more information at a later date.
This is Mommy Kate signing off. Until next time.
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