Odellio

Oops, last time I posted was Linus' birthday...that means it's been 3 months since I last posted! I don't know what it is about moving to AZ, but it killed my blogging drive...
Oh well. We're still living life, guess that's all that matters.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our CRAZY little four year old Odell!
I seriously crack up at this girl every day. She dances. She giggles. She talks way to fast for her own good: Kingman has a lot of old folks, and they all love to stop in the store and try to get a giggle or a grin out of Odell because that's what old folks around here do, but they usually end up walking away with a sort of confused smile on their face when Odell ends up talking a mile a minute to them and they can't understand a word she says. She loves food. She hates food. She is in heaven from all the Frozen/My Little Pony stuff she got for her birthday (I know, I used to hate giving my kids media-branded toys, but it turns out wooden puzzles and blocks only go so far with three girls in this house, I'm official THAT mom...). She is currently happily playing with a couple of said dolls imagining a scenario where they are calling to each other from a big chasm, so everything she says she repeats 2 or 3 times for the echo effect. She loves to talk back to me and attempt to say some of the things she hears her siblings say to each other when they're mad to me- that never flies too well for her. She makes friends really quickly, especially any cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, or visitors ages 15-25 who clearly have nothing better to do than be her personal jungle gym and pretend to be Anna to her Elsa. She really likes the song "Come with me now" by KONGOS, and it's hilarious to hear her sing it. When she pretends, she often exclaims and yells something absurd about every 3 minutes during her play and really REALLY reminds me of Agnes from Despicable me. Watch this and you'll understand...

I'm not exaggerating when I say she is capable of doing any one of these things.
We love her to pieces. She's a great little sister and a great older sister now too, and now that she's old enough to make her voice heard, she's making it heard. I hope she keeps that quality throughout her life, even if she's a little loud now. A little.
We went on a route 66 adventure for her pics this year. She tried to talk to everyone at the Hackberry General Store (and not many of them were actually American, so they would just smile at her and talk to their friends in whatever language they spoke in an adoring way). She went on a scavenger hunt for the donkey we heard braying somewhere at the back of the property (never found it). She wanted to stand on every car, I only let her stand on one. She also gave me a heart attack when she nonchalantly pointed out a 4 ft. bull snake between her and I on our way up to another building on the property. Thankfully I was able to keep it together to get her away from it, but I'm sure if I hadn't noticed she'd be calling it fluffy and using it as a jump rope or something.
And I present to you, ODELL ANN!

Love you baby.

Linus turns SIX!

Hey all!
I was just about to write something about how I am going to attempt to be a better blogger this year when it occurred to me that the year is already half over. 2014 IS HALF GONE. WHOOSH! That was a little intense to think about, but I feel like I'm finally alive now that I'm not pregnant anymore, so somehow I suppose that validates me not doing anything for pretty much the past year...

Last month Linus turned the big 6! Sometimes I forget that he's only 6 though because...well, I won't say he acts more mature than a 6 year old yet, but he's a smart kid and he blows me away with the things that come out of his mouth sometimes.

 

He is always aware of everyone and everything basically in this house. And he's totally on top of it when someone breaks the rules. Craig and I call him our little mother hen, always making sure everyone is doing what they're supposed to and that things are going the way they're supposed to. I'm happy to say that he has for the most part broken out of a lot of his more violent and hard to deal with tantrums. He's still Linus, he still has a square box that the world is supposed to fit in, he still falls apart sometimes, but mostly we meet those moments with him storming out of the room on his own- nothing breaks or gets trashed as he stomps to his room (major improvement), door only sometimes gets slammed (also major improvement), he flies face down onto his bed and a minute later comes out feeling better. No follow up discipline required unless 6 year old expletives shoot out of his mouth, as they do on occasion (you know...the "S" word....*stupid*....or an "I never want to play with you again!!!" or two...), he comes back out after he's chilled a minute just fine. I didn't think that day would come, I was worried I'd be hauling him kicking and screaming to his bed forever.

 

We just got back from a two and a half week vacation to Colorado. I am very impressed to note that this is also one of his first vacations where despite the fact that he was up late most nights laughing and talking with cousins on Grandma's basement floor the whole time, we only had a few meltdowns, and none that included him injuring property or people. Hooray!! I know that paints an ugly picture of life with Linus, but it really wasn't all bad, we are just thrilled that he's made such progress and love seeing the wonderful things that have replaced his frustration.
Like all the endless questions and stories...all the time...

 

Funny story about Linus on the drive to CO. Grandma got him a watch for his birthday. The week previous he had gotten on "pink" two days in a row in K class and was able to pick out a toy from a toy box. He picked out a really cheap watch that did not work. In fact, it didn't even have the right shaped teeny weeny nails to be able to stick anything into it to open it to replace batteries. Linus was obsessed with trying to find a way to make it work, we finally had to take it away after he kept sneaking sharp objects out of my drawers so he could try and jam them in there to unscrew the back and open it. It was suggested to Grandma to get him a watch to replace the cheap one. He loved it. The first 30 minutes of our road trip was a minute by minute update of the time. We had also given the kids dramamine before we left as they will randomly get car sick on some trips and I thought we could just save ourselves the hassle of buckets or pulling over. After the first 30 minute by minute updates, it was clear the dramamine was kicking in because every little thing was triggering some kind of crying fit in someone in the car (crankiness and exhaustion were setting in). At one point Linus grabbed his ears and couldn't take it anymore and yelled, "EVERYONE IS CRYING SO LOUD IT HURTS MY EARS!!!", which made Odell cry even louder and Chloe get even more upset. It was a good time. We had told Linus that at 1:30 he could watch a movie in the car, and to keep an eye on his watch for when it said 1:30- but we silently congratulated ourselves as we watched each of the kids drone out of their irritation and start to drift off to sleep. I jokingly looked back at Linus, who was using his seat belt as a head support, snoring softly, and laughed to Craig, "Watch, right at 1:30 he is going to snap awake and ask to watch a movie". We chuckled and turned up our music a little louder.
Guess what happened at 1:30?
Bleary eyed and in a panic, he jolts up and blurts out "DADIT'S1:30CANIWATCHAMOVIENOW???"
 He couldn't understand why Craig and I were laughing so hard.
We love our Linus dearly. Happy Birthday little man, we're glad you are here.

Welcome to the world, Wren Olivia!

Obviously it's been a while since I last updated our blog. I am going to attempt to remedy that, but in the meantime, we have a big announcement to make!
This little sweet one made her entrance into the world on Friday, April 18th, 2014 at 3:54 p.m. She was 8lbs 4 oz. and 21.5 inches long, pretty average for Ellingson babies. We are so thrilled to have her in our home!

I wanted to write her official birth story before I forget most of it, which I'm sure I already have, actually (yay for the blur of the first few weeks of welcoming home a newborn!). I shall attempt to retrieve those memories, however, so I can look back at this and show it to Craig when we argue about the details in ten years *we argued about the details of almost everything to do with our previous births as we were going through this one- weights of each of the previous kids, length of labor, time spent pushing...way to pass the time...*
So I was over a week late. Torture. I know that due dates are just an estimate and every body is different and every baby is different and it's normal to go late or early and nothing is absolute when it comes to timing in pregnancy, but I spent every day after my due date mentally willing myself to go into labor and pouting around the house when it wasn't happening. Part of the difficulty in that came because the rest of my kids came early, I'd never made it to my due date before, and not only that, I had started dilating and effacing about 3 weeks before my due date, I'd been contracting pretty much throughout the pregnancy, but more and more each week leading up to then, and I had also lost my mucus plug (when that happened with my others, it was a matter of days before I was cradling a little bundle). So really I was waiting for a baby for about 4 weeks. Thankfully my mother in law had come out during Spring Break at the end of March and stayed until Wren was born and helped keep me sane and helped play Mommy for me so our house was functional during that time. I would have been way more of a wreck without her! Anyway- so the week Wren came I was doing just about everything I could think of to get this baby coming. Except castor oil. Almost everyone had to mention it, but ew. No castor oil. When we had the blood full moon in April, I was so sure it was going to come that night- I stayed up with my mother in law timing contractions- every four minutes apart for about three hours. They were uncomfortable, but not unbearable. Finally at around 1 am I went to bed thinking I would try to sleep between contractions, except the contractions went away and I woke up still pregnant. I had an appointment that Friday with Dr. Tedesco, who was not my regular OB (Dr. Lamanski)- when I scheduled the appt. they told me Dr. L was going to be out that day, but I said it was fine because I'd probably go into labor before then anyway. Well I didn't, so I called on Thursday and asked the nurse if there was anything I should let Dr. T know on Friday, and she told me I should come in that afternoon and get checked with Dr. L instead of going in the next day with Dr. T. So I did. Craig came with me and Dr. L said that he wanted to schedule an induction for the next morning since I was over 41 weeks. If you had asked me earlier, I would have said no, I'd like to wait longer, I'm not in a rush, I didn't want to push anything in the labor process, but I was tired. And achy. And my mother in law was leaving the next Thursday (after staying for 3 weeks waiting for the baby). And I was okay with it, so I didn't fight it. 6 a.m. the next morning was the scheduled time.
I turned to Craig as we were walking out of the office and said, "Do you want to go on a date right now?" And he said yes. It was officially the last date we would get for a while, plus Grandma was watching the kids already, and we both needed the time together. So we drove to Chili's and then we went to see Captain America. I contracted through the whole movie, uncomfortably so. I didn't even bother staying up to time them when we got home, I knew they would keep me up if they were real.
But, even though they were strong and even though they were frequent, 5 am rolled around and I groggily got out of bed and took a shower and got in the car to go to the hospital.
Dr. T came in to check me and broke my waters as soon as we came in. I love how with all of my pregnancies, the doctor is always sure that I am pregnant enough that once they break my water, surely the contractions will come immediately, I just needed a little push. I know better now. An hour later after nothing, they started me on a pitocin drip. They increased it one increment per hour and it took a little while to get the contractions going. I labored until about 12 p.m. and the contractions were fairly strong and consistent at this point. Meaning they hurt. I was getting through them pretty well, but I also know that I tend to labor slowly. I shouldn't have been watching the contractions on the monitor, but I was, and I knew how much further I had to go, they weren't strong enough yet. I would have liked to try another labor without an epidural, but I didn't know how much longer it was going to be. Craig and I talked about it, he is always very supportive of whatever I want, and helped me logically work through what it was that was most important to me. With Chloe, things were really intense and hard and crazy right at the end. When she came out, after getting stuck and needing a vacuum and lots of external pushing to get out, I didn't get to really experience the birth part because everything was so chaotic and I was caught up in all of that with the pushing and contracting. I'm not saying it was bad, I've loved all of my birth experiences, but with Linus and Odell with the epidurals, everything was so quiet and peaceful and I got to look down and watch the babies come out and really be there in their first moments. However, the recovery was always a lot slower afterwards with the epidural and I remember telling myself after both births how I wanted to try it again without an epidural because I hated the way my legs felt and my body was so sluggish afterwards. Anyway, I decided that I would get checked and see how far along I was before I made a decision.
Dr. T came in to check me soon afterwards and I was at about 4 cm (was about 3 when I came in) and still 80% effaced. Ugh. I still had a ways to go, and I then found myself asking for the epidural before I had even really felt like I made up my mind about it. Dr. T is also an anesthesiologist and administered the epidural right away. And a few contractions later I was almost asleep. I was laboring on my side and I needed to keep flipping sides because my contractions were couplet-ing a bit, which meant that the baby was sunny side up. Flipping sides helped her get where she needed to be. At about 3:25 or so the nurse came in and checked me again. She happily said that I had progressed to 6 cm. I remember thinking "oh thank goodness I got the epidural, I'll be in labor for a few more hours yet". I went back to resting when about 20 minutes later I suddenly felt a lot of pressure on my hips. Like a lot. I brushed it off at first and told myself that it was probably nothing, but the next couple of contractions had a lot of strong pressure and I found myself flinching and telling Craig that I think the baby was coming, despite the fact that it had only been 20 minutes since I was at 6 cm. We got the nurse (Emma, sweetest lady ever, actually grew up in Broomfield and was born in Boulder, weird) and she checked me. Yep, I was at 10 cm. I told her I wouldn't push because with my others it only took a couple of pushes to get the baby out. She kind of laughed in a "we'll see about that" kind of way. She told me she was going to check me again and wanted me to push before she went to get Dr. T just to see if she really needed to get him that quickly. I barely bore down at all before she told me to stop and then said, "Yep, I'll go get the doctor." He was in a minute later, they got everything ready, and then he gave me the green light. I bore down and she came right out. I also remember pushing as long as I could on the first one, and looking down and seeing her head- I asked if I should keep pushing and they were like, "yeah go ahead!" and so I bore down again and she was out!

For those of you who knew, we've waited to find out the gender until birth on all of our kids, so this was sort of the moment. I was so sure it was a boy. Convinced, actually, there was little doubt in my mind. I was sick during the first trimester, but I didn't throw up so much (although now looking back on that, I think I've just gotten really good at clenching my teeth and gritting my way through it while I might not have been so good at that with my other girls, and I equated that with "not as sick as with my girl pregnancies", therefore it must have been a boy). My hair got really curly, which it also did with Linus' pregnancy. I just convinced myself that logically, we would just have two girls and two boys. I was excited for a boy, but I think if you had really pressed me about it, I would have admitted that I've really enjoyed raising my girls. Not that Linus hasn't stolen my heart, but I just have a soft heart for baby girls. The nurse pulled the baby right on my chest and announced, "It's a girl!". Honestly I thought she was joking at first because I had announced earlier that I thought it was a boy. But I didn't hear anyone laughing or contradicting her, and I exclaimed, "A girl?!" Then I looked down at her while they were rubbing her down with a towel on my stomach and just started bawling. I didn't cry when my other kids were born, but I couldn't help myself. She was beautiful and I just wept as I watched her little red mouth cry a healthy cry and saw her fingers clench and unclench and her blinking eyes try to process the world around her.
They wrapped her up and gave her to me so I could try to start feeding her whenever I was ready. Craig and I just watched her and laughed with each other as we really hadn't picked out many girls names. We went through the ones I had, he didn't seem to think any really fit her, and he looked up some other ones but couldn't find anything that he really liked. While conversing about this, I started to feel a little dizzy. It came on rapidly and I soon found myself telling Craig to come hold the baby because I didn't feel so good. I told him to call the nurse and he couldn't find the button on my bed, and at that point I barely had the energy to lift up my hand and push the button next to my head. My vision was blacking out but I was still conscious as the nurse came in. At that point I announced I thought I was going to be sick, and the nurse came just in time to get me a container as I threw up. She checked me and immediately began pushing on my stomach. I was vaguely aware that I could feel a lot of clots coming out of me (not the first time I've had that experience) and I remember hearing Craig, who rarely gets shook up by anything, exclaim "Whoa!" and then asked if that was normal. The nurse seemed a little concerned, but not alarmed, as she removed the pads underneath me and cleaned up what had gotten on the floor (yes, it was that much)- we didn't worry about it, but she announced that my uterus was not behaving and she'd have to come back to keep pushing on my stomach. Which she did frequently, loads of fun.
After I got sick and she kept pushing my stomach, I was feeling better and Craig gave his mom the okay to bring the kids by to meet the baby. While we waited for them to get here, we decided on a name. Wren was my favorite on my list, and since he couldn't come up with anything he liked, we decided that Wren would be her first name. We then went through every family name or other names we had liked as middle names and nothing seemed to be working. Craig suggested we not give her a middle name as we kept vetoing each other, but I wanted her to have one. After a few other ones Craig was reading down a list he said "Wren Olivia" and it was the first combination that I thought was pretty. I used to like the name Olivia as a first name, but it started getting really popular and so it fell off my list- but as a middle name I fell in love. Craig consented, so we had a name to announce to the kids when they got there. Before they came in, the nurse came to check on me again and told me that she didn't feel comfortable with how much I was bleeding, so she had called Dr. T to come check me and said we'd like have to have the kids leave  when Dr. T came in so he could check me, I said that was fine. Luckily we had just enough time to have each of the kids hold Wren and get some pictures and converse a bit with Craig's mom about how things went before Dr. T came in. We said goodbye to the kids and then Dr. T then proceeded to torture me, basically.

He could tell by his first couple of pushes on my stomach that I was bleeding too much. He then started pushing harder (like literally to my backbone hard) and said that we were going to need to give me some medicine to stop the bleeding and then he was going to have to push everything out of my uterus to clean it out. The medicine was going to make me sick and the pushing was going to hurt. He started to work on me, opening up my cervix manually and getting everything out that he could. I sat there and gripped my bed like it was my lifeline and bit my lip to keep from yelling. It sucked. They gave me a shot in my leg and then announced they'd be coming back to keep pushing and making sure my uterus was firm enough. A few minutes later I started feeling queasy again and this time I held my own container as a new nurse came in to introduce herself to me. I must have looked awful. Internally I felt like if I could just eat something I would feel better, I hadn't eaten all day and was tired- we had had some food trays brought in earlier, but I hadn't been able to eat anything yet and was still feeling sick. The nurse suggested some anti-nausea medicine and I agreed. I'm really glad I did that because within the half hour I was able to slowly pick at my tray until I felt stronger and soon was able to finish most of a meal. And I felt a lot better. Well enough to move to a recovery room and hold Wren again and continue to get her latched on and feeding.
The last few weeks have been going pretty well, I feel like, all things considering. Wren has had a hard time getting back to birth weight- I started getting my milk supply up as much as I could and waking her up for feedings- part of the problem is that she sleeps a LOT. There was a few nights to begin with where I fell asleep expecting her to wake me up and 7 hours later I would wake up uncomfortable and ready to feed and she'd be sleeping away. I was concerned about dehydration and her lethargy, but I made some adjustments to our schedule and started pumping a lot more and things got better- she's gaining weight and poops and pees tons, and her doctor gave her the okay yesterday at her weigh in, which meant that she didn't mention anything about formula supplementation, which I was so relieved for. I always go through a huge guilt complex when a doctor or nurse recommends something that I don't want to do, especially when it comes to my kids. Wren is such a sweet baby and such a sweet spirit. She looks a lot like Linus did when he was born in some ways, except for her mouth and ears. She smiles a lot as she's falling asleep and is growing out of her newborn clothes already. I am head over heels in love with her and am so glad she's in our family.
Welcome to the Ellingsons, little Wren!