June is officially going in the books as "Defcon 1." Hard month. Exhausting month. Apparently #twoundertwo needed to go out with a bang. I hate that I feel obligated to also say that I still love staying at home with my kids, and still love being a mom to my kids, and still  enjoy life in general. But the problem with blogging is that by acknowledging a hard month that I wouldn't want to do again, I somehow get placed into a "unhappy Mom" category that I don't want to be included in. So, hear me: I might do a little grumbling and groaning this month, but it was just a bad month, not a bad life. 

We kicked off this month with a visit from my Enid family, and it was truly the highlight of the month. I rather enjoy being on the "grown up" side of the spectrum, getting included in the grown up conversations and not being banished to the "kid table." It's fun to hash out parenthood with people who did it with five kids as opposed to my two. We soaked up the encouragement and promises that we would make it, gleefully accepted the extra cuddles for our kids, and were sad to say goodbye when they had to go back home. You can't ask for much more in a family visit, I would say. 

So now I have a four month old and an almost two year old. Does this mean that I'm officially done with newborns? Does this mean that my soul can shatter? Despite my vents and shortcomings, I love newborns. I love cuddling them after they nurse. I love the peace that their "sleep grins" bring to a household. I love the overwhelming sleepiness I feel while they nurse. I love couch naps. I love how perfectly they mold into the curves of my body while we co-sleep. I love to watch their baby bird mouths search vigorously for dinner any time they smell me. I love it. Through the lack of sleep, you're oblivious to the exhaustion as your baby nurses for the umpteenth time that day, because you're so captivated by that "newborn smell." You know what else I love about newborns? They stay where you put them. And they love to sleep. And they eat what you offer them. And when they cry, there's a reason. There's no foot stomping and shrieks of anger filled tantrums. There's no spankings. There's no time outs. There's no overall sense of "Where have I gone wrong?!!?"Just a sweet, cooing baby that is so clearly captivated by the very sight of you.

I feel that was a great segway into the entire greek tragedy that summarizes Ella Morgan right now. We are in a hard phase. We are in a seemingly endless tunnel of "can't win" with that girl. And before anybody starts in with "terrible twos" or "Wait until she's three! It gets so much worse!," let me just say stop it. Stop it right now. What if we encouraged each other instead? What if it would be enough to say, "Hey. I've been there. Solidarity, sister." What if we said "It won't always be this way. You'll find new challenges and new victories every day. Just grab your coffee and get through it." I personally would LOVE that kind of encouragement. Instead of "Oh, you just THINK it's hard now. It gets so much more difficult. You don't even know misery. You don't know pain! No coffee will be enough! Good luck making it out alive!" Okay, maybe people don't say those words exactly, but it's what my brain hears. But I feel like as mothers, we should stand beside each other and say "Hey, bring your kid over here and go sing an N*Sync song alone in your car." Now, back to Ella. This is not a happy phase around here. This is a "How many hours until nap/bedtime?" phase. This is a "Is it time for Cody to come home and take a shift or do I actually need to take a shot of something at 2 in the afternoon?" Phase. Ella is wonderful. She is smart, and adventurous, and fearless, and intrigued, and independent, and stubborn. All at the same time. Every second of every day. She is old enough to know that she is entitled to her own opinion, and she's exercising her right to assert it. She refuses food even more violently than usual. She throws herself in the floor and cries when she gets frustrated. She screams when she doesn't get her way. She fights her sleep, and when she finally goes to sleep, she never sleeps longer than two hours at a time. Do you know what it's like to have a 4 month old that sleeps 8 hours at a time and an almost two year old that still doesn't have a consistent sleep schedule? DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW INFURIATING THAT IS?! Especially after a day at war to be "the boss." Is she a brat? I don't think so. I really don't. I think she is expressing herself the only way she knows how. She is so brilliant. She amazes me. She can say and recognize all of her letters, numbers up to 18, and all of the animals and their sounds. She can successfully communicate through most of the day to day with "baby sign language," and that's usually enough. But when she can't convey what she's trying to say, she instantly loses her cool. And then it's just kind of a downward spiral until I can get her together. She gets embarrassed easily, especially if she messes up in pronouncing a letter, or if she trips and falls. Basically, she's two years old. She's learning that she's her own separate entity, and she's learning who she is. She's putting together all of the little pieces that make her "Ella," and it just requires a little more grace from me while she figures it out. She's super frustrating. So frustrating. But I love watching her learn. And I know that very soon, she'll be her own little functioning miniature adult. And that will be a whole new rodeo for us. C'iest La vie.

Meanwhile, Mr. Adam is just the easiest and breeziest guy around. He's the chunkiest little guy I've ever seen, and I. Love. It. His thighs. His thighs make me go all kinds of cliche "white girl," because I CAN'T EVEN. He's starting to stretch out a bit, so we're starting to see those signature enormous "Gaines Eyes," but there's still plenty of Chins to go around. He's started rolling over, but there's no sign of sitting up in sight. He's a belly sleeper, and wakes up almost immediately if he ends up on his back... which has been troublesome lately, as he started rolling in his sleep. His most irritating quirk is that he likes continual movement if he's awake, and unfortunately has gained just enough weight that his swing says "Nope." So he cries to be held pretty frequently lately. It melted my uterus to bits when Cody threw him in the backpack baby carrier and helped me clean the house while Adam's big eyes looked to and fro. He coos and grins at just about anything, and unlike his sister around this age, he's an easy laugh. Minimal comedic effort required. He's wonderful. They don't lie when they say little boys grab ahold of their mamas and don't let go. He's beginning the "crying with strangers" phase, and it always toots my horn when he stops crying when I hold him. We love to watch his eyes light up when I sing to him, and he absolutely loves for me to sing him to sleep. It's a really precious, special time for us, because I really don't get a lot of "only Adam" time. When we get those moments alone, I soak up every second of them. I'll miss him so much when he's grown and rambunctious, because he's so precious right now. His sweet spirit and "chill" demeanor is so wonderful for making me stop and take a breath. The coos and sighs that accompany a few minutes with Adam are wonderful reminders for me to stop and take in the details of both of my kids. Most of the time, Cody and I don't really remember what life was like before we had babies. We're so tired, somebody always needs something, and it's usually midnight when we fall into bed before we say "Hey, so how was your day?" But in the same breath... Ella will be two years old this week. We're both blown away by it. And Adam is already on the flip side of his first six months of life. I don't want to miss too much in waiting out the "hard days." Maybe things will always be hard, with a little bit of sweetness to carry us through. Or maybe there really is an end in sight to all of these little details that summarize our exhaustion, and there's a day coming that is mostly easy, with a few kinks in the chain.

While we're on a rant about things being hard... Cody left us for a over week this month. NINE DAYS, do you hear me? Those were dark days, y'all. And I would never, ever, in one million years begin to compare my nine days to the life of a single mother, because at the end of every exhausting day, my husband called to check on me. And I knew when we woke up at the beginning of each day after a night of no sleep and cries for Daddy that my husband was coming home. Each day that we soldiered through meant one step closer to him. And it was so hard when Cody called to check in not to "word vomit" my entire day of challenges at him, because I knew how badly he wanted to be home. He was sick while he was away, so he was miserable in his own ways. You know when you're at your sickliest and you can't lay in the bed and sleep it off (AKA Motherhood)? That was Cody's week. But he pushed through and probably still worked hard with a smile on his face, where I would have worked in sunglasses and blessed everyone with a super bad attitude. So, while we were battling equally hard days, It was a weird thing, because as the one at home with the kids, I was like "Oh hey, will you please come home right now because we have two really needy babies and I'm probably going to die before you get back" and he was all "Hey, I'm surrounded by junior high and high school kids and I'm so relieved that our babies have 10 years before we get to this phase." He missed his family so badly, and while I felt so loved, I also felt so annoyed that he was gone. And that he was sleeping all night, while Ella slept until 2 A.M. before she woke up crying and stayed awake until 6:30 or 7:00 A.M. before she crashed again. Did I mention Adam was waking up at 7:30 to eat after sleeping ALL NIGHT LONG? So I would drag Adam into bed and attempt to sleep, finally falling asleep around 8 or so, only to have Ella wake back up at 9. Then when the night rolled back around, I would get her to sleep, and then be afraid to go to sleep... because I knew how hard it would be to wake back up. So I was falling asleep at 1 A.M., only to get my wake up call an hour later. It was the longest nine days of my motherhood so far. But we made it. And Cody came back home and Ella didn't let him out of her sight for three days. And when we went back to work a couple of days later, she cried the entire day. And I called Cody like "Oh hey, can you come home?" and he was like "No." So we had to work through that. So for the first couple of weeks of June, we were in survival mode... maybe even more so than when we brought Adam home. But we're on the other side of it, and I've never been more thankful for a husband that committed to co-parenting with me. So now the conundrum we'll face next year is whether it's worth interrupting my kid's routine to spend nine days seeing Daddy at meals and bedtime, or whether we solider through it and sleep in our own beds. I would say the answer is simple, but anybody that's ever traveled with children will understand. We'll see. We have about ten months to decide. 

That just about sums up our month. This month also marked the end of the #twoundertwo phase in our lives. Of course I'm sad that Ella is embarking on an official "Toddler" phase, and there's nothing baby left about her. She has stinky breath in the mornings and her bowel movements aren't pleasant. She's communicating in her own ways and finding her own sense of humor. She knows what she likes and what she doesn't, and has the power to voice her opinion, whether it's asked for or not. I've already talked a lot about this, but I'm just crazy about her. On our worst day, I'm so amazed that I made her, and (with a lot of help from Youtube) taught her the things that she knows. She's a little clone of Cody and I walking around, and she thrills me to my core. Cody and I are entering in a phase of our lives where we feel a great need for "experiences" over "things," so for her birthday, she's getting a trip to DFW, with a week dedicated to all of the things she loves, with the Zoo being the highlight of the trip for her. She doesn't "need" anything that money could buy, and I'm so excited to capture the look on her face when she sees a lion in real life for the first time. That being said, her birthday blog will be up after our trip, which will be toward the end of July... but do not distress. I would never miss a birthday blog. So, until then, here is sweet Adam's 4 month picture, and first "you two don't fit in the chair but let's make it work" picture. 

Turtle and Gus: Month Three

Let me just tell you about the first week of month three.

Wednesday Afternoon:
Ella takes a three hour nap. I think to myself "Weird. But YES!" And watched 3 episodes of chopped.
She's in good humor after her nap, but a little on the quiet side. "Must be a growth spurt."

Wednesday evening:
Ella picks at her dinner. This is no surprise.
9 o'clock rolls around, she's falling asleep on her Daddy.
Goes to bed without drinking her milk. There's something sinister going on here.

Wednesday night/ Early Thursday:
Ella moans and groans in her sleep. Cody goes to check on her.
"Kaylea. Kaylea. Kay-lea. Kaylea. KAYLEA GAINES."
"What?!?!?! Shut up! It's 2:30!"
"Ella has fever."
"Okay." *rolls over*
*sighs, shakes Kaylea back into reality* "Listen to me. I think Ella has fever."
"What?"
Cody gives up and marches back to Ella's room. Kaylea follows behind in a zombie fashion.
Kaylea touches her sweet baby's foot and is instantly awake. Tries to remember where in the world we put the thermometer that we've used exactly once in her life. Checks temp. 102.2.

What?! There were no symptoms! No snotty nose. No irritability. No tears.
We gave her a little tylenol and Cody stayed in the room with her. He was already sick and feverish anyway. What else could be done at 3 in the morning?

Thursday Morning/Afternoon:
A miserable little baby turtle snuggled up with Mama while Mama closed her eyes and prayed without ceasing that Adam would be unscathed. How could I protect him without rejecting her germs? Then the dread settled in that he had already been too exposed yesterday. What was the point in freaking out about it now? We waited anxiously for the doctor appointment while Ella came in and out of sleep and tears. When we finally made it to the doctor, her fever was under 100 for the first time all day. Because why would it cooperate? After a dramatic start to the appointment, things didn't get much better when it was time to actually examine her. So I held my baby down while the poor doctor tried to look in her ears and mouth. She listened to her lungs. "Sounds good." Looked in her right ear. "That looks good too." Seriously? All this way and there's nothing wrong?! Looked in her left her. "Oh, that's no good." Looked at her throat. "That's definitely not good." Yep, after almost 22 months, Ella ended up with her first ear infection and tonsillitis. JOY. We were given appropriate prescriptions and sent on our merry way.

Thursday Evening/ Friday Morning:
Cody was sent home early from work, and it worked out so wonderfully, because it meant that the two sicklies could cuddle together while I sanitized and kept Adam away. She was the saddest, most pathetic thing I've ever seen. It broke both of our hearts. She wouldn't eat or drink anything, not even slushes or milkshakes. She just laid and trembled from weakness and fever. I felt helpless and distraught for most of the following two days.

Saturday and Sunday:
Ella stayed miserable and spent a lot of time crying.  Still no eating, just a tiny bit of drinking. We would see peeks of her sweet personality before the sickness settled in again. I began to feel a bit of exhaustion settling in and began to wonder if Alexander Fleming was actually a fraud.

Monday:
Adam was due for his two month vaccinations. He was sniffling a bit that day, but the pediatrician assured me shots wouldn't make things worse or better. Ella was at my Mom's house, irritable as ever, seemingly unable to heal from this blasted sickness. Adam took shots like a champ, and seemed in great humor.

Monday night/ Early tuesday:
Ella cries all night long next to her equally exhausted Dad. She begins running fever again. She's also still refusing food. She's surviving on milk and pumped breastmilk at this point. Adam lays next to me running a low grade fever and coughing a scary cough. We call the doctor and get an immediate appointment. Kaylea breaks down in tears for the first time. That afternoon, I'm assured that both kids are recovering. Ella's ear is healed, and her throat looks much better. We're on the upside, she says. Adam is great, coughing because of drainage from allergies. The timing was uncanny, but whatever. She agreed that his cough sounded scary enough to bring in. Ten points for not being excessively paranoid. She even showed me his oxygen levels to reassure me. Best pediatrician in the land.

Wednesday:
Adam is on the upside. Everything is fine. Ella is in pretty good spirits. She even ate a little bit. We made it! It's over! Hallelujah.

Thursday:
I notice Ella has a rash on her belly. "Hmm. Must be heat rash." I go about my day. Next diaper change, the rash has spread. "What in the world?" I say. It's on her back, neck, legs, chest... basically if it was skin, the rash was present. It wasn't a raised rash, didn't seem to bother her... What in the flanahan is going on here? Another frustrated call to the doctor. "We've had three other recent patients call with a rash today. Email us pictures." Kaylea Bangs head against wall. A call twenty minutes later says it looks viral and to ride it out. Well GREAT, Kaylea says, then cries again. 

Friday- Monday:
Ella looks terrible. Like a sickly, diseased baby turtle. Miserable. It hurt both of us to see her. But she was finally acting more like Ella and less like a raging psychopath, so that helped. Ate a full meal for the first time in over a week. Adam was untouched by the rash and we were so, so thankful.

It took two weeks before things evened out around here. I can't tell you how many times I text my Mom and told her I was losing my mind. I cried in the kitchen while I cooked. I cried when my kids cried. I was so tired. I was the only healthy one in my house for over a week, and sometimes I wanted to join the sicklies, but I was so thankful for my husband. He looked and felt like crap, but he was wonderful to help me when I needed it. On one hand, while Adam did succumb to his allergies, I remained amazed at the power of breastmilk. On the other hand, he nursed constantly and I thought I was going to lose my mind. He takes a bottle better than Ella did, but not when he didn't feel well. And nobody slept for two weeks. When Ella did finally sleep through the night, we got up to check on her countless times before we finally accepted that maybe she just felt like sleeping. And she slept twelve hours. And hasn't slept through the night since. Because now, dear friends, we're cutting stomach teeth on top and bottom, and two year molars. SIMULTANEOUSLY.  AT THE SAME TIME, DO YOU HEAR ME?! It's never ending. It's always something. Sometimes I want to run away. But at the same time, I love it. And I love these babies. And I love comforting them. And I love that I'm able to stay at home with them and not worry about missing hours from a paycheck or what it will do to our budget. My husband is so good to provide for us in so many ways. I'm really just crazy about that hunk of burning love.

Adam is still thriving. He managed to nurse his way to 9 month clothes, but seems to be slowing down. He sleeps about five hours at night before he wakes up to nurse, but only eats for about five minutes before he goes back to sleep for an additional three hours. He goes three or four hours between feedings most days, but other days he eats every two hours until bedtime. Basically, he's breastfed, and I let him eat when he wants. Because he's a baby. He's got his head control pretty well figured out, and still has a great head of hair. As a matter of fact, he got his first haircut. He was not a fan. Ella got several inches cut off of her hair, because she uses it as a napkin and I was sick of the tangles. She was also a brat at her appointment, so basically we're not getting haircuts again until we're all recovered from that drama. 

To end the month, we took a trip to the farm so that Cody's family could meet Adam. He was so sweet, and so good natured the entire trip. His sister, on the other hand... Bless the child. Tantrum, fit, tantrum, fit, snot, tears, tantrum, kicking and screaming, fit, tantrum, nap, food, fit, tantrum, bed. That's really the only way to summarize our trip. I had never seen my child act that way, and it didn't help that every time you tried to explain to her family that she's normally a pretty easy going kid, they would just raise their eyebrows and say "mhmm" in a tone that said "Bull Butter." Blergh. I've never been more embarrassed, and this is coming from the girl who does or says something stupid at least once a day. Ella won the embarrassment game. Hands down, white flag waved. It rained a crazy amount of rain while we were there, and apparently that was like... day eighteen... of rainfall for them. When you're in farm country and farmers can't farm, there's a certain gloom in the air that kind of weighs heavily on everyone involved. We were trapped inside the entire trip, Ella went stir crazy, I loved the quiet, and Cody stood at the door and watched it rain a lot. Cody's Grandpa held Adam for three hours straight, and it was nice because I think it distracted him from the pending "planting deadline." I'm not cut out for the farm life, y'all. Just give me a job that doesn't depend on mother nature and her mood swings. Sometimes I wish I had a job that didn't depend on Ella and her mood swings, but that's neither here nor there.

To sum it, my kids are in two extremely different life phases, which makes life difficult and hard. Ella is trying hard to figure words out, and grows extremely frustrated at a rapid pace if she's can't communicate what she's trying to say. Adam is somewhere between newborn and infant. Content to "hang out," but old enough to know he doesn't like to be left alone. Ella is surviving on macaroni and tomatoes (until she finds out that I blogged that she was eating something consistently, then she'll go on strike.) Adam still loves to nurse and I don't see any signs of him needing another form of nutrition any time soon. Ella has started letting us know when she needs a new diaper, so her "training potty" was ordered last week. I'll be wiping Adam's butt for at least another two years, help me Jesus. See what I mean? Two babies, two very different life phases. Sometimes it's WONDERFUL that Ella is transitioning from "baby to toddler," but I go back and forth from wishing she was already a toddler to mourning the time passing so quickly. I'm in no hurry for Adam to change a bit. He's so easy going, a champion nurser, and the last baby. I'm holding on tight to every second of him. And to Ella. Look, I have a lot of feelings I'm working through, okay?

That's it! Here's his sweet 3 month picture and his monthly picture with his sister. Sweetest babies.

Turtle and Gus: Mother's Day

It's bedtime.

It's been bedtime for over an hour, and for some reason, tonight of all nights, you're not interested in sleeping. You're laying beside me and I can hear those tired little yawns, but I can also hear you sing "Itsy bitsy spider" as you fight the heavy of your eyelids. The room is mostly dark. But the glow of my cell phone provides enough light that I can see you doing the motions along with it. A text message alert draws your attention to my phone, and you sit up and say "Hi friend!" And hold your hand out for my phone. I tell you no for the umpteenth time today, and you sigh and plop back down on the pillow. We both stay quiet for a moment, because both of us are annoyed with the other... But I lose the fight first because I laugh at your attempt to sneak out of the bed. Sometimes I regret that I raised you to believe they somebody has to being laying beside you in order for you to go to sleep, but I think that in the grand scheme of things, I'll be thankful for it when you're grown and gone. So many nights, I've watched your baby head move closer and closer to my chest, until your ear finds my heartbeat... And you grow still just long enough to let your eyes get heavy. You jolt yourself back awake and I sigh in frustration, and the process repeats itself over and over until uou finally surrender to the sweet dreams that are beckoning you. I stomp down the stairs angrily and swear that tomorrow, things are going to be different. I'm going to put you in bed, read our nightly stories, and March back out of the room. But somehow, every night, your sweet baby hand lands on my face and you kiss my nose. I'm not a fool, I know that you do it whenever you know you're in trouble... But you're no fool yourself. You know I'll kiss your nose right back as I pull you up close to me again.

You exhaust me. Every day of your life, you find some way to make me want to bang my head against a wall. I dread the bedtime process all day long. The entire process wears me down, because I know your Daddy is waiting for me to come down so that we can talk about our days without you interrupting and without one of your obnoxious sing along videos playing in the background. 9 times out of 10, I trudge out of your bedroom because I know that as soon as I plop down next to your Daddy, your little brother is going to pop his head up and let out a disgruntled shout that he's ready to eat. And Daddy and I will look at each other, sigh, and then smile as we head upstairs to our own bed. Are we frustrated? Sure. Are we exhausted? Absolutely. But we're okay with it. Because we know these days are but a vapor.

One of these days, we're going to sit in our recliners and look at each other. The same sparkle in our eyes, but faces that say "we raised two babies that were nineteen months apart." We'll probably wonder what to do with ourselves when you're both upstairs sound asleep in your beds, without any help from us. I don't like to think about a day that you're not living in my house, though I'm sure as you grow older and start sassing me with teenage eye rolls, I might grow a little more ready.

I never want to fear letting you go out on your own. I want to know that I poured every ounce of what I had to give you into you before I let you go. I only get eighteen years of you (Lord willing) before I have to be okay with whatever choices you make. They won't always be the right ones, but I hope that they're decisions that you're willing to discuss with me. That you're willing to hear what your Dad and I have to say. I hope that all of the energy and effort and dedication that we're pouring into you right now will reflect on the grown up side of you. We want you to have 100% of us right now, because we want to see 100% of us later. We never want to look back and say "we should have cuddled that little girl more often." Or "I wish we had taken a picture of her covered in mud and grass" before we both sighed in frustration that we had JUST bathed you. We want you to know that were present in the little moments too.

That's not to say we want to raise a clingy brat baby. No, we want you to be fierce, and we want you to grab life by the... Well. That's not a phrase you need to know yet. Someday. Not today. We want you to be independent and bold, and not need us as crutches.... But that's why we're so determined to build you up now. While we have you here with us.

You made me a Mama, Ella Morgan. And you have made me work hard for it. Your brother melts me to my core, but you're my fighter. You're the stubborn that I see in myself. I'm your greatest ally AND foe, because I know where your brain is headed before it gets there. I frustrate you as badly as you frustrate me... And it makes your Dad laugh outloud sometimes. He throws his hands up and says "leave me out of this." You're everything I could have asked for in a "first child," even on your worst day. And I want you to know that I am absolutely, completely, totally, and irreversibly crazy about you. I'm so thankful that I'm the arms that you landed in almost two years ago. I always tell your Dad "that girl is going to kill me." But we both know that you're what brought out the spark in me. You bring out the best and worst sides of me, and you keep me running back to Jesus sometimes. I love you so much for that. Truly.

Your little brother is teaching me different things. Mostly the importance of loving your Daddy openly and compassionately at all times, so that he knows what to look for in a wife. He's still in a "sleep constantly and smile goofily" phase, so there's a great bond, but not much of a relationship. Maybe I'll write a blog about how crazy he drives me in a few months, but tonight, just as you do every day, you're teaching me. The sounds of your breath just got noticeably heavier, which means that you've given up. An entire hour later. Bless your stubborn little heart.

I'm mad about you. That's all there is to it.
Until tomorrow, when I lock myself in the bathroom and say "NOT NOW!" For whatever fight we're having at that moment. I can't wait... Although maybe I can wait a little.


And as for Mr. Adam Jace... I already hear you. I hear your Daddy trying to distract your rumbly little belly. He knows that on any other night, I would come down the stairs and hear you crying, then put my head in my hands. "WHY DOES EVERYBODY ALWAYS NEED SOMETHING?!" I shriek exhaustedly. He knows I don't mean it. He knows that I know the day is ending and I can really freak out. But if we're being honest, nursing you in the quiet of my bedroom are the moments I look forward to with you. Your little sister is sound asleep, your Daddy is usually knocked out as well... it's just you and me. I inhale the sweetness of the "newborn smell" that I've grown to love so deeply as you look up at me through the sweetest blue eyes. I see a little bit of your Daddy looking back at me, but I mostly see myself. It's so true that little boys grab onto their Mama's hearts and don't let it go. May you stay this cuddly and sweet. I hope that your eyes always light up when they see me, because mine will always light up when I see you. You were unexpected, but certainly welcomed into our lives two months ago, and being your Mama is the greatest accomplishment in my life. Be strong and warrior like, sweet one, but hold on tight to the tenderness that's already peeking through your demeanor. 

Today is Mother's Day. And a sappy blog might have been expected, but I certainly didn't intend to write one. The Lord is so good to steady my heart at the best moments. It's a challenge and so hard, but I'm so thankful that I'm their Mama. Today and every day. 

Turtle and Frog: Month Two

I regret to say that the blog titles might be changing. Frog isn't sticking. I know this is likely a small matter to you, but I hate that his nickname hasn't come about yet. Although, we call him Buddah right now, and while funny... probably not the best for "uplifting his soul" as I'm charged to do as his mother. Eh. Oh well.  There are worse things.

I think the hardest part about two under two for me so far is remembering my children's ages. Adam is such a big baby. Well, I'm sure to somebody else, he's just an average sized kid, but Ella was a tiny little tortoise, and Adam's current weight at 2 months is what Ella weighed at 4 months. Adam's current length was Ella's length at 6 months. Even now, Adam swallows Ella when he is in her lap. He's a big kid. And I forget that he's only two months old. So sometimes I'll look at him and think "Why aren't you holding your head up? Why are you still cross eyed? I feel like you should be cognitive enough to know that I'm super funny and smile at me constantly. Why do you make me work so hard for a grin?" And then I remember the kid is still shiny and new. He's still just a wee little kitten. It's okay that he doesn't do those things yet. Meanwhile, Ella was born three weeks early and was the tiniest little mouse, but she was always leaps and bounds ahead developmentally. She smiled consistently at three weeks old, figured her eyeballs out fairly quickly, and was so alert, all the time. She's still that way. Adam isn't. Homeboy likes sleep as long as the sun is out and everybody else in the house is awake. Come moonlight and REM sleep for the rest of the class? Bah, humbug. That's the time to party. Bleh. Anyway, like I was saying, just as I forget how little Adam is, I do the same thing to Ella. I guess that once he was out and tiny and officially in the role of "baby," Ella got shoved into the "big sister" corner, and she's been adamant about being released. And lately, it's been important for me to remember that she's really not a big sister. She's still very much a baby herself. Some of my greatest frustrations this month have involved "Ella! You know better!" but then I had to stop and think... "Wait... does she? Is this something she already knew?" And usually the answer is no. So these days, I've taken on the role of "Bad Cop" and there's been a few wars while Ella learns what limits she can stretch and what buttons can't be pushed. Cody (aka Good Cop), usually unaware of the war zone he's walking into at the end of the day, is greeted with shrieks and grins, occasionally kisses and hugs. And by occasionally, I mean always. Nine days out of ten, it infuriates me to watch. Confessions of a real stay at home Mom. I mean, hey little girl! I carried you for nine months... oh, and remember that time that I couldn't go on a date lasting longer than an hour because you wouldn't take a bottle? But I breastfed you anyway, because it was the best freaking thing FOR YOU?! Or maybe when labored for thirty one hours and still ended up being filleted like a fish because your eternally stubborn butt wasn't having it? No? None of those things ring a bell? That's fine. That's fine. I'll just be here, counting the diapers and rejected meals. Someday you're going to come to me crying with your own daughter's troubles, and I'm just going to point and laugh.

All jokes aside, we're still looking for the normal. Things are so much smoother than last month. She still smothers Adam, but Adam is learning how to be vocal about his annoyances. Maybe we've reached the light at the end of this excessively affectionate tunnel. I think Adam might be like me when it comes to affection. It's on our time, and usually the clock runs out fast. We'll work on it. In the meantime, everybody soliders through Ella tantrums and Adam keeping us awake at night. The great news is that my husband whisked me away for a weekend, and it was food for my weary soul. Technically, he whisked me away because we had to go to Fort Worth for Adam's appointment, but he was sweet enough to book the hotel for two extra nights, arranged for Ella to hang out with my parents, and lined up dinners at some of my favorite places. Adam was a champion traveler, so all in all, the trip was good for my soul. I've felt motivated to do things for the first time in six weeks. I've tackled a chore every day. Yes. One chore. Judge me! I've returned with a need for organization, so I've also organized one part of our lives every day. I feel refreshed. I feel vibrant. Basically, while I don't want to say "I needed a break from Ella because I have bald spots from her new tantrums!" I do feel okay saying that I needed to get away from my house, and our hometown, and all of the mundane that comes with it. I needed to wrap my arms around my husband, and sit at a restaurant with him for two hours and look at our phones saying "We've been here two hours?!" After Adam's appointment, we didn't have anywhere to be but with each other, and it was wonderful. We talked and laughed and walked around Lowe's planning the rest of our kitchen. We ate at restaurants we wouldn't dream of taking our toddler tornado into. We stayed up late watching "Criminal Minds" and weren't ashamed. We walked around a ritzy outdoor mall and pretended like we had the money to spend on petty things. I picked up a 94.00 DINNER PLATE and casually said "That's not bad" while I prayed to the God above me that I didn't have a klutz moment while putting it back. My husband basically followed me around the stores that I love to look around, and never said a word about whether or not I was purchasing anything. I should say I hate to spend money and never buy anything when we shop. He sees it as a waste of time. I can't totally disagree, but I'm also not going to change... so it is what it is. I could go on and on, but we spent two wonderful days together, then really started missing Ella, so we were relieved to see her on Friday, when my parents met us in Dallas to finish out the weekend.

How did Adam's appointment go, you ask? It was everything we hoped it would be. I was obviously nervous about the unknown as we walked up to the hospital, but almost assuredly the Lord placed a familiar hymn on my heart:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
His mercies never come to an end
They are new every morning, new every morning
Great is Thy faithfulness

So I felt a certain peace as we rode the elevator and gave Cody's hand one last squeeze before we entered the office. There was no insane wait time in the office, the Doctor was an absolute dream, and we left feeling assured that Adam was going to be fine regardless of results. I will say that I went in with a really bad attitude and left with a new, humbled perspective. I felt peace about my son, yes. But I also knew that he was about to be poked with a needle for what was likely to be no reason at all.   So that allowed my mind to wander. My baby was huge, thriving, and showing no symptoms of this disorder that just wouldn't leave our vocabulary or lives. I didn't want want to be in Fort Worth at a hospital, and I certainly didn't want Adam to endure more tests and more hypothetical results. When would it end? Would today's tests lead to more tests? Would this be our lives for the next eighteen years? We were in the waiting room filling out the paperwork that accompanies these visits, and a family walked in with a sweet baby girl, no older than Ella, with very obvious learning disabilities. I watched her grandmother try to control her, only to be met with angry shouts and violent tantrums. I saw the embarrassment on her face as she quickly tried to distract the little girl from her rage. Shortly after, another family walked in with a little boy in a wheelchair, his eyes distant and unaware of his surroundings. It hurt my heart. Here I was, annoyed to be here because there wasn't anything "obviously wrong" with my baby, while there were families all around us that very obviously needed to be in the care of a physician. Even now I look back so ashamed of my heart and my attitude, but so thankful that I quickly became aware of it. I don't have the answers as to why I have healthy babies and others go through such struggles. I never will. I can only pray that I never lose sight of how humbling the entire experience was for me, and how thankful I am for modern medicine, as they can offer those families support and maybe even a little bit of hope.

Basically, Adam's initial results were so borderline that the doctor considered clearing us without having us come to Fort Worth... but since there were a couple of diagnosed cases in his range, she didn't want to take any chances. She sent us for the necessary labs (break my heart in two) and told us she would call us in 7-10 days with results. A boiling anger started to pop up, since we had basically driven all the way to Fort Worth for a blood test with no immediate results... but those images of those babies kept popping back into my head, so I said "okay." and we went about the rest of our trip that I've already oogled on and on about. We received a call 5 days later, were told that Adam is carrier for the disorder, but does not have an active gene. He's totally, completely, one hundred percent healthy. Should he marry somebody that also has an inactive gene, there's a 50% chance of it being passed to his kids, but let's deal with that in forty years, when I allow him to marry and reproduce.  Basically, they are the results Cody and I were expecting, as there was a 1 in 40,000 chance of Adam having an actual diagnosis of the disorder, but I'm thankful we walked through it. Those first six weeks of being his Mom were hard for me. I had to worry about things healing when we left the hospital, then he got thrush at one week old and the medicine kept his tummy upset, then we got the call about the newborn screens, then I watched my newborn baby scream during labs, then we were told he was fine, then we were told we had to go to Fort Worth. It felt like it was never going to end. There was something new every day. Fortunately, the church has been doing a series on steadfastness, and since I haven't been to church almost three months, I've been playing catch up over the last month or so as nap time allows it. And it was just everything my heart needed to hear. I've hated missing church, but I believe that the timing in hearing those messages was no accident. I listened to one at least every other day, and every time there was something I needed to hear. I'll probably tape the pages of my journals to Adam's baby book. The Lord is so good to us, and not just because we received the results we wanted. God is still good to us even if Adam had been diagnosed with the problem. In the face of my worst nightmares, I believe that God is still good. And that his mercies never come to an end. And that his love never ceases. Great is thy faithfulness.

Since then, we've been at home enjoying the quiet. I've obsessed over typical Mom things, like why he sounds hoarse (air conditioning dries his throat out) and why his percentiles didn't add up on the paperwork we got back from Cooks. I've been so relieved to have such simple problems that I've totally abused the "email" option on the patient portal with our pediatrician. I email any question that comes to mind. I'm sure when we go for his check up, his doctor will do a silent evaluation of me to make sure that a looney tune isn't responsible for two kids... but I'm okay with that. We put our garden in the ground for the fifth time in Cody and I's marriage, and it gave me some feelings. We've been doing life together for almost seven years now, and five of those years have been married. Our first garden was an oasis in a ghetto, sad little house. No sooner had the garden died out, the house was broken into, and we got out as quickly as we could. The next year was a rough year, full of "container" gardens... I don't think we harvested anything that cycle. The next year was a bountiful harvest, in the first home that we ever owned. We tilled that soil because it was ours, and we were never so proud of anything. We had vegetables out of our ears that year... almost to the point that we were ready to pull the plants because we couldn't do anymore. The next year, I was 8 months pregnant with Ella when the garden went into the ground, and wasn't super involved. It was an okay year, but not the best. Last year was our first garden in our dream backyard. Again, pregnant, but in the first trimester and too tired to care about the garden at all. Too sick to enjoy any of the produce that we ended up with. Frustrated that we were throwing things away because they sat on the kitchen counters. And now, here we are again. A new baby in my arms, a toddler in the swimming pool across the yard. Two people, still committed to the same dream that we dared to dream when we got engaged. Recognizing that God has been faithful and carried us through the good gardens and the bad gardens. Blessed us with two beautiful babies in perfect health. So many feelings. If I could freeze time, I would. Sleepless nights, rage filled Ella fits, scraping by on the grocery budget, and crazy filled schedules included. Our life exceeds any expectation I ever had, and words fail to express how thankful I am. So, I'm probably just going to stop before my emotions trigger a letdown and I have to wake Adam up to remedy it. Yes, I said it. These are the days of our lives.

I think that wraps the month up in a very wordy nutshell. Adam weighed thirteen pounds at his appointment in Fort Worth, and my arms are only growing more weary holding him during feedings. His check up and immunizations are next week, and I won't be surprised at all if they tell me that he's over fourteen pounds. He's wearing size 6 months in clothing, so I've basically just stopped buying anything "cute" until we hit a size for longer than a week. I'm thankful. He's fat, but he's so obviously healthy, and that's carried us through the past two months. Here's his deer picture, and another picture with his sickly sister. We're battling our first real illness at casa Gaines, but I think we're going to make it. I don't know how many more of these sweet pictures we're going to get, because I don't know how much longer the chair is going to hold them both. So sad. Anyway. Until next month!

Turtle and Frog: Month One

What a month. 

Certainly world's above the first month with Ella, mostly because I'm a second time Mom. When my newborn sneezes, I search for a piece of blanket fuzz or a hidden booger in his nostrils before I assume he has pneumonia. When he cries for no good reason, I throw him over a shoulder and go about my business. When his sister is screaming bloody murder for attention while he screams bloody murder for food, I watch "30 Rock" and tune one or both of the screams out. He gets his dinner, she forgets while she was crying, I laugh at Liz Lemon and hope that someday Tina Fey realizes that needs to cast me in her next Netflix series. Tina, when you find my blog, call me. I'll work for a hotel room with blackout curtains and a full night's sleep. It'd be fine if you threw in a dinner that I didn't cook... preferably not McDonald's, not because they don't use real beef or chicken or whatever the latest drama is... just because I feel like the food is utterly disgusting and gagworthy. I share the same sentiment about Burger King and Wendy's (with the exception a spicy chicken sandwich... sometimes the line at chick-fil-a is just too much.) Okay? Terms met? Call me. 

By the way, if you haven't watched "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," stop reading this blog and go binge watch it the way I did in three days. The best. The very, very best. I'll never say Pinot Noir the same way ever again. MOVING ON.

Our first month was simultaneously everything I expected and nothing I expected. My daughter was a total nightmare for the first two weeks, and I really thought I was going to contact some sort of child psychiatrist because I had clearly scarred her for life and she was permanently damaged. The kicker? The problem wasn't Adam. Homegirl has been in love and obsessed with him since the very first day. Kissing him, patting (read: hitting) him, sitting with (read: on) him, watching his every move, crying when he cried, laughing at his yawns... the whole kit-n-caboodle (aw, nostalgia.) Her problem was with me. I guess Adam was the root of our issues, but I was the blunt of her frustrations. I don't know if she felt like I abandoned her during my hospital stay, or if my Mama Bear instincts to protect his soft spot made her feel like I didn't love her the same way... I don't know. She wouldn't have a single thing to do with me for the first two weeks at home. She cried for me in the hospital, sat with me while Cody held Adam on the other side of the room, I mean, she made me feel like a Queen. But when I got home, the walls caved in on our bond, and things got complicated. Wouldn't let me hold her, play with her, ignored me when I talked to her, it was all a very big drama. At first, I tried to overcompensate for her rejection, and forced my love... which resulted in an explosive fit and running to her Daddy. After a few days, I gave up and figured she would come around when life started calming down a bit. I spent the first week cuddling Adam, napping with Adam, and all of the various newborn things that bonds a Mama to her baby. When Cody went back to work the next week, it was a hysterically awkward morning that I'll never forget. It was like a flashback to junior high, when you were paired with "that guy" that nobody wants to be paired with. Usually because they do things differently than everybody else, like eat Spaghettios or Spam out of the cans at lunch when everybody else brings a "Make Your Own Pizza" lunchable. Or the kid that says "I would vote for John Kerry because that's who my parents are voting for!" during Social Studies when the rest of the republican offspring proudly said "Bush because he's from Midland!" If you're wondering, both of those examples stemmed from the same kid, and he had the same birthday as me, and it was the worst day of my life when we had to stand at the front of class together. I know it's mean. I just really want to convey that Ella and shared these same feelings as we stared at each other that fateful Sunday morning. I text Cody and said "It's totally fine if you want to get chicken pox and come home." Fit after fit, tantrum after tantrum, doing the opposite of what I said just to spite me, throwing bowls of food into the floor... it was a whole thing. And I cried the whole day. I couldn't do it. Two under two was not meant for me. Two children in general wasn't in my wheelhouse. As soon as Cody got home for the evening, I went upstairs and fell into bed and dreaded the rest of this phase. The next day was just as bad, along with most of that week. But eventually Ella realized that I wasn't going anywhere, Cody was going to be gone during the day, and she could live with me or be miserable. I started seeing little peeks of my baby again, and these days things are mostly back to normal. She has permanently morphed into a Daddy's girl... and while at first it hurt my feelings, these days I kick my feet up and grin while I overhear "What do you want from me?!" followed by a frustrated shriek. I remember when it was me trying to figure out what she could POSSIBLY want now, and it's been a great break for me when he gets home. There are still bad days... sometimes terrible days... but for the most part, the Gaines are morphing into a sweet little family of four. We're finding out what works and what doesn't work for us, and it's usually the exact opposite of what our "peer families" are doing... but we have wonderful, non-judgmental friends that rejoice in our victories and say "Do what you gotta do." 

To say that Adam is thriving is an understatement. He wore newborn diapers for exactly one week before transition into a size one, and today I put a size two on him. Two weeks ago, he weighed 9.8 pounds, and these days I can't support him while he nurses for very long. I have to have a pillow under my arms, otherwise they tremble. Does that make me totally out of shape? Definitely. But it also makes me exhilarated because I know my baby is healthy and thriving. Ella was not a chunky baby. I look back at pictures and say "Look how fat you were!" only because she's even skinnier now, but comparing her one month picture to Adam's was like comparing a mouse and a lion. Looking back at her growth charts, I see what the 16th percentile really looks like compared to the 80th percentile Adam is in. I've always wanted a baby with tons of fat rolls, so my fingers are crossed that I've finally got one. He's so healthy. Obviously healthy. And that's been the absolute best thing that could have happened for various reasons. Namely because one of his newborn screens came back abnormal, and while every test so far has confirmed that it was a false positive, we've agreed to make a trip to Ft. Worth to nip all of this in the bud for good. A quick blood test will confirm whether or not Adam is a carrier for this particular condition, and another test (done at the same time) will confirm the condition if the gene is present. From what I understand, the whole thing could have been a false positive, Adam could be a carrier but not have the condition, or something has been off in all of the bloodwork and he has it. Vague, right? Sorry. At this point, we are SO OVER IT ALL, man, and we're so OVER IT that we're going all the way to Ft. Worth so that doctors will just buzz off about it. I would like to clarify that I was a total wreck for the first two weeks at the very thought of it all, but in the midst of it, felt peace. My husband reminded me that Adam isn't ours, and the Lord is running the show, even when we don't see the end result. My Mom reminded me that Adam is fearfully and wonderfully made, and we know that full well. Adam's pediatrician was quick to remind me that he is thriving, and sick babies don't thrive. As a mother, of course I'm anxious about the upcoming trip and what the results may entail... but as a Christ follower, I know what I believe about the Lord, and I believe He is sovereign, and that He is who He says He is. In the words of our wonderful friend Tricia, "If He promises never to leave me or forsake me, then what could come into my life, GOOD OR BAD, that has not first passed through the hand of God?" And in the words of our Pastor from his latest series, "Circumstances are such inadequate measures of God's faithfulness." So, that's really all I'm going to say about it. The condition has no name to me anymore, which is part of the reason I'm not going into excessive detail about it. If it's something we have to deal with, I'm not going to become a spokeswoman or start a blog to offer support to others dealing with it. It'll mean a diet change for our entire family, a few supplements for Adam, and grace to absorb the change for me. And life will go on, sisters, because that's just the circle of life. And it moves us all. Through despair and hope. Through faith and Love. Till we find our place on the path unwinding. In the circle of life. Also, once again, we've never walked alone before now, and the Lord hasn't abandoned ship just because we had two babies in two years and feel like we're going to lose our minds. 

Basically, this entire month has been full of doctors telling us what our baby should be doing, and our baby doing the exact opposite of those things. He's basically just been the description of a newborn, and we've been so thankful. But to repeat, we are over it. I'll be so relieved when this appointment is over next month and we don't have to deal with "false positives" or "errors in lab work" ever again. His second newborn screen came back completely normal, and while Cody and I felt like that should have been the end of it, we're willing to do whatever it takes to put it all behind us and have two healthy babies. So I'm sure there's going to be a few "I can't believe you didn't tell me!" reactions, it's just not something we felt like needed to be shared. But I plan to update the blog with the results next month, so I felt like a brief overview was necessary. And the more I type the more I feel I need to explain, and that's the opposite of what I planned to do here... so I'm just going to stop. Imagine me saluting awkwardly and running out of the room. 

Other than that, it was a month of dealing with twenty month old that cannot possibly fathom the idea of picking up her toys, a hormonal mother throwing every toy she tripped on into the trash angrily, and a tiny baby sucking every calorie she consumed away. I'm so exhausted, but in the best way. Adam has his days and nights mixed up, and they rarely sleep at the same time during the day, but these days are short. Soon I'll be able to throw them both in the backyard and say "Okay see you at lunch buh-byyyyyye!" And they'll have each other, and we'll be so thankful for the serendipitous occasion that this whole "two under two" drama has placed into our laps. We're not there yet, and I think it's totally okay that we're not there yet. I think maybe that anybody that reproduces more than once feels the same way, whether their babies are nineteen months or five years apart. There's a transition required, and it's not always a quick transition. C'iest La Vie. 

Daddy decided Adam needed a Buck for his "socktopus" pictures. Clearly my speech about not shoving redneck traditions on him was a waste of time and effort. But it's okay. It's the only boy we'll ever have, so it's crucial that he learns how to shoot a gun. Anyway! Here's his one month picture!

Adam Jace: The Arrival

We made it! There's a sweet, fat baby in my lap. The pregnancy is OVER. Forever. For-ev-errrr.

Truth be told, we knew he wasn't going to come on his own. From 32 weeks until the day the doctor pulled him out of my uterus, he was breech. And now we know that he was entirely too large to turn himself. I was so hopeful that the doctor was wrong and I would randomly go into labor on my own, but alas, his medical degree proved that he was smarter than me, and I was forced to wait until I was exactly 39 weeks pregnant before we could have a baby. It was a blessing and a curse, especially since I was having tons of contractions and tons of awful other "here comes the baby" symptoms. For three days before the baby was born, I told Cody "this is it, this is it, we're having a baby tonight." And at the exact same time every night, they stopped. It was so frustrating and so disappointing. So all that to say, the day was extremely planned, extremely uneventful, and altogether wonderful. Here we go.

The night before the baby came, I wanted a "Bye-Bye Fatty" dinner, and we went to my favorite mexican food restaurant. It was so sweet, as it was just me and my family. The entire day had been extremely emotional for me, as I knew that this time I was very intentionally laying on a table and saying "Filet me, Doc!" and I was very purposefully saying "Hello, anesthesiologist! Why don't you stick that enormous needle RIGHT HERE in my spine?!" I googled "second c-section recoveries" and worked myself into a panic. It was a bad day... so to sit at a table and watch my baby dip cheetos in her queso made my heart settle a little bit. My husband and I talked back and forth about how crazy life was about to get. Peace kind of settled in. Anxiousness remained, but I knew I wasn't going to die of some freak accident on the operating table, and though pain was unavoidable, I would be back home with them soon.

Of course, there was very little sleep the night before the surgery. We were scheduled for a noon c-section, meaning we didn't have to be at the hospital until ten the following morning. I laid and combated the usual contractions, and around 2:30, dozed off. At 5 A.M. my phone rang three times in a row... I knew it was the hospital, but still found myself annoyed and silencing it. Finally, I called back and a nurse said "Well we were just wondering when you might get here for your c-section at 7:30!" After a slight panic attack, multiple phone calls, and thirty minutes of waiting, a final phone call said "There was a communication error, we'll see you at 10!" GREAT! I trudged back up the stairs, fell into bed and fell into a coma. I even snoozed my alarm three times before I rolled out of bed at 9. I showered, put make-up on, and blow dried my hair. Yes, Make up. I look back at Ella's pictures and appreciate the journey that my face shows (31 hours of labor is brutal, then the c-section swollen face... it's all very prominent), I always wish I had least thrown on mascara. SO I put on a light layer of "welcome to the world," and off we went. I expected to cry the entire way to the hospital, but I inherited this fun trait from my Dad that allows us to kind of shut down when we're on the brink of a major event. We open up when we're ready, but don't expect anything until then. We made it to the hospital and found a parking spot after 3 trips around the lot, and made the trek to labor and delivery. I caught one final glimpse of the basketball hiding under my shirt, cradled it one last time, and then held my husband's hand a little tighter as I fought off the nerves. 

Upon entry into the "surgical prep" area, we were so blessed and fortunate to have the best nurse in America. She is the mother-in-law of one of my favorite people, and she is 110% of the reason I was wheeled into the O.R. room relaxed and not hyperventilating. I ended up calling her Barbs, never asking if she was okay with it or for her permission, but she was kind enough to let me roll with it. She prepped me for surgery, asked all sorts of personal questions for MMH's records, and laughed at our jokes. Most of which were made out of nervous energy and not funny. I could talk about her all day long. All day. But I'll stop before it gets creepy. Anyway, she made Cody wait outside the room while I got my spinal, and as soon as I was wheeled into the frigid O.R., I started feeling the nausea that always accompanies knowing you're about to be sliced in half. The anesthesiologist was probably the best thing about the O.R., as he was very chatty and very distracting. He complimented my beautiful back (it wasn't as awkward as it sounds) and then gave me the first shot, which was intended to distract from the second shot. It wasn't pleasant, but things really got ugly when he couldn't find the "sweet spot" for my spinal. He shoved a needle into my spine four times... FOUR TIMES... I finally started tearing up on shot three when I felt a hand grab mine. Good ole' Barbs to the rescue. I practically broke her thumb during the fourth needle, but then felt immediate warm and tingly feelings in my legs. Finally. The "sweet spot." They rolled me over and prepped my stomach, applied something that had to sit for 5 minutes or I would burst into flames, and then brought Cody in. The doctor started the surgery without discussing it with me, and the chatty anesthesiologist noted that during the spinal, my blood pressure jumped up to 160/100, but during surgery, hung out at 115/60, prompting a snarky remark from my Doctor that I was able to roll my eyes at in the most gracious way possible. The needle man continued to talk me through the surgery, and when the doctor said "Get ready, Kaylea," the anesthesiologist said "Lots of pressure coming." My Lanta. The pressure. There was a lot of it with Ella, but nothing compared to this. I finally shrieked something like "What is happening?!" and the doctor said "Get a camera because here comes your LARGE and hairy baby!" and maybe three seconds later, I heard a boisterous, angry cry come from sweet baby Adam. And the cries never went away. He was unhappy about being on this side of the world, and he wanted everybody to know it. I waited anxiously to hear the weight, as my guess was 7'7, and suddenly Cody started laughing and the pediatrician said "He's 8'9!" Redemption. Sweet redemption. The hip aches, the back ache, the whining, the painful heartburn. Everything. All worth it. A fat, healthy baby entered into our lives at 12:40, and it was the best possible experience that somebody with a C-Section could have asked for. 

To say that things are different with your second baby is just a huge understatement. Honestly, to say that it's anything short of wonderful still wouldn't do it justice. Everything is so much calmer, and you don't sit and watch their breaths. But the feeling that you get when you hold them in your arms for the first times is one of the only things that remains the same. Delivering at this hospital was wonderful, because I got to hold my baby for the first time 20 minutes after I had a major surgery. I was the first one besides his Daddy to hold him, and if we're being honest, they offered to let me do skin to skin WHILE I was being sewn up. "No, Let his Daddy see him first." I said through a yawn while I was still filleted on the table in front of them. Ten minutes later, they wheeled me back to my recovery room and my husband was waiting for me with my baby. The sweetest, chunkiest, funniest looking little thing in the world. He was beautiful in all of the ways that I hoped he would be, but super swollen. Plus, he was 8 1/2 pounds, so he was significantly larger than the barely 6 pound baby I had delivered nineteen months earlier. Cody put him in my arms and I let the sigh of relief I had been holding in for 39 weeks out. The same rush of emotion that I felt with Ella rushed over me, but I didn't cry. I don't really remember crying with Ella either, but I was super drugged, so who knows. All I could do was look at his face and see everything I believed to be true about the Lord reaffirmed. I looked up at my husband and grinned like a school girl, and a snippet from a song we sing at church played through my head. "Come and See, Come and see what God has done. Come and see, Come and see what love has won." I closed my eyes. In the quietest of moments that I would experience for the next two weeks, I thanked God for my husband. And that we chose each other seven years ago, the same way we choose each other now. Over and over, love has won in our relationship, and we have two of the most beautiful babies in the world to show for it. God has been so faithful to us, even when we didn't see it. In some of the slums of the first year of marriage, when you really learn that marriage is a fancy word for added finances. From the struggles of getting pregnant the first time, to the shock of learning you're eight weeks along with a second one, the Lord has been constant. I kissed the nose of a baby that looked just like his Daddy and put my head back on the pillow. Not even a minute later, he was moving his head to and fro across my chest. "Surely not..." I thought to myself as I gave him the opportunity to eat for the first time. No problems at all. Latched immediately. Ate for thirty minutes. The nurses came for him three different times and were sent away each time by the lactation consultant. It was everything I could have asked for. Me, my husband, and my baby. The first hour of his life was spent with the two that made him, and it was so wonderful for me that I wasn't the last person to see him. Ella was three hours old the first time I held her, and while equally wonderful, to hold Adam in the first thirty minutes of his life is something that I'll always cherish. 

Adam was a name that people still kind of tilt their head at. I'm not sure why, because I think it's the cutest. He's always been an Adam for me. It was the very first name I ever suggested and the name I kept coming back to. There's no fancy meaning, it means 'Man' or 'Red Dirt,' just depending on where you look... but I couldn't shake the name. I've never met an Adam that I didn't like, and I can't say that I know very many Adams these days anyway. Cody wasn't always on Team Adam, and so until he was Adam, he was also Hudson, Grayson, and Carson. We obviously liked the "son" names. Grayson was the front runner until Cody said "Gayson Graines" for the umpteenth time, and I was forced to veto it. I was all about naming him Andrew, but Cody was not. I didn't think the baby would ever have a name, and I guess I was about 6 months pregnant when I finally said "I want to revisit Adam and I want the opportunity to make my case." to which Cody calmly said "I like Adam?" like he had been for it the whole time... which is not true. So I took my opportunity and said "If I can have Adam, you can pick his middle name." So in 2 minutes, baby No Name became Adam Jace, and we never looked back. And he is the epitome of Adam. Every time I look at him, Adam is the only name that fits. 

Adam was greeted in our hospital room by his Nani and Ella, and despite our fears, Ella was hooked immediately. She kissed his forehead, said "Hi!" and has loved him ever since. I'll elaborate more on that in a later blog, but it's been wonderful and horrendous at the same time. We suffered through the typical hospital stay. Somebody coming in the room every second, rolling eyes at nurses for saying they're concerned about blood sugar levels because he was such a "large" baby... which, by the way, infuriated me. Apparently if your baby is over seven pounds these days, you had undiagnosed gestational diabetes and so they prick your baby's foot every three hours. I appreciate the concern, but after 3 good readings, Mama Bear came out to play and refused anymore of that nonsense. I was in a great deal of pain for most of day two, and unlike my first go around in recovery, this time I stayed in the bed and cuddled my baby while I kicked back the painkillers. We waited around for most of the day on Friday, because though we were both discharged at 10 A.M., the pediatrician missed a signature and was caught in an emergency that took several hours to remedy. Anxious to get home, we drove as quickly as we could in the snow and ice (it was 70 degrees on the day of his birth, mind you. I hate that groundhog) and came home to our new family of four. After about an hour of incessant screaming from Ella because we wouldn't let her kiss Adam repeatedly, she went home with my mom, and we spent the next two days adjusting to life on this side of post-partum. Again, I feel like my pain levels in this recovery were exponentially worse, but I feel great now, and I'm so proud of the scar my Doctor was able to give me. My last scar was jagged and red and hideous, and I was embarrassed by it. This scar is virtually invisible and noticeably less sensitive than my last one. A petty thing to be excited about, maybe, but also something I'm extremely grateful for.

And I think that mostly covers the "birth." He's already two weeks old, so it won't be long before it's time for an update. It's been a stressful, hectic couple of weeks, but none of it has anything to do with the sweet chunky baby sprawled across my lap. He has the sweetest demeanor, sans bath time and waiting too long to eat. He's tolerant of his sister's affection and his mother's love for a canon. He cuddles closer than any baby I've ever held, and he makes it near impossible to put him down. I'm so thankful that the Lord chose me to raise this baby. He was a shock, and he bruised just about every inch of my torso, but he is the great love of my life. Well, besides Cody... but I am absolutely crazy about this kid. I had to laugh at myself last week when I told him "No woman will ever be good enough for you!" Even though I know it's not true. Ella is the light of my life and he is the love of it. I am completely exhausted and pondering how in the world we're going to get through the next two months, but I'm not letting a single second of his existence escape me. I cuddle both of my babies, usually at the same time, and I'm reminded of the grace of God each time I look at each tiny eyelash. Every hair on their head. Every finger and every toe. Each a perfect design and a perfect reminder that God is faithful, and we've never walked alone. I have to go now, or my hormones will surely destroy us all. This picture is a great example of our life these days, so I'll just leave you with it.