Brothers

To say Ian has accepted his role as a big brother is an understatement! He is fabulous! Every morning he has asked how baby brother slept, gives him kisses constantly. Has been a big helper, I did hear the following from him when Lane was crying and I was pumping and unable to tend to his cries at that exact moment "baby brother mommy will be here in just a second" more cries and I hear "mommy, baby brother is having listening problems". 

Lane Michael

Lane Michael has ARRIVED!!

One can't arrive without a birth story so here is his. 

It doesn't get exciting until Friday if you wanna bypass the lead up then by all means scroll on done.

Tuesday: ate some eggplant Parmesan and after googling it's believed by the Italians that it's the combo of oregano and basil that gets women to go into labor. Turns out I like eggplant parm. That night for dinner tacos with hot sauce. I went to bed still pregnant.

Wednesday 11/27: woke up still pregnant and tried another food concoction of Mac n cheese and A1 sauce it was gross. Went to my dr appt and had my membranes stripped and was 4cm 80% effaced

Thursday 11/28: had bloody show, ran a 5K, attended Thanksgiving dinners.

Friday 11/29: awake for almost 2hrs with contractions happening every 2-3min lasting for about 45secs-1min. Since they fizzled out it was no concern to me. Did some Black Friday shopping and headed to Five Guys for a meal. I had finished eating and headed to the restroom, Ian then needed to go so back we went. I had the urge to go again luckily there were 2 stalls, Ian then felt the need to crawl under the door to me. As he did this I heard a pop and felt a gush. Sent Marcus a text at 4:40 making him aware of this new development and of course the text didn't go through right away. So Ian and I walked out and I gradually sat down and attempted to give Marcus the "I'm ready to go" look and the "I need to leave here now" look. He then had to look at something on his phone where he saw the message. We were of course at the Five Guys located about 5min from the hospital but had no bags (I in fact unpacked my bag after my 36wk appt in an effort to jinx myself) so back home we went. Got bags, dropped Ian off at my in-laws and headed to the hospital. Arrived to hospital at 6p, get taken back to triage and hooked up had a couple contractions that cause discomfort but could still talk through them. They had to verify that my water in fact broke and I wasn't just peeing on myself for the last hr and 20min. I passed that test!! The hospital OB comes in along with a nurse and an OB person in training (honestly I have no clue who he was or if he was legit but didn't care I will assume he was a legitimate student). They checked me and I'm at 7cm. During this time Marcus and I are discussing whether or not I'll get an epidural. I personally wanted to forgo it as it slowed things down with Ian. Marcus was supporting me in either way he just didn't want to see me in pain. At 6:22 (I only know the time because that is when I sent out the text to keep family informed) we were waiting for a birthing suite. I was giving the option of walking to the suite, wheelchair or triage bed transfer. I choose walking on my own (I have a dislike towards wheelchairs or anything that brings attention to me) we walk into the room (hospital gown and ballet flats make quite the outfit) the nurses (it's about 6:30 shift change happens at 7 so the nurse said I'll get you set up and then we will do a shift change) were getting things set up and me entered into the system. I had a contraction resulting in me unable to talk through it or really stand through it, got past that one and they asked about pain meds again I said no and then had contraction #2 again leaving me walking around trying to find relief and unable to talk through it aside from saying "tell me about IV pain meds". That contraction ended and then bam another one hits this one I announce that I need to push (note they have yet to get me fully entered into the system, they don't know my blood type, they know my name and that last they knew I was only 7cm dilated and that's about it) they check me and I'm at 10cm it's go time! My dr from my office has yet to arrive (come to find out he lives 5min from the hospital I have no clue when they paged him) so the OB from the hospital who looks all of 15yrs old is now going to deliver Lane with his student person over seeing. I have a contraction and start pushing, it took about 4 contractions, I said (possibly scream) 1 naughty word (I never say naughty words at least never out loud under my breath, yes I am human) and sounding like a cave woman (throat was sore that evening and the entire next day) and at one point I said "I can't" (FYI: there is no backing out of labor) to push him out and right around 3 pushes per contraction so took about 12 pushes. At some point my Dr came in and he according to Marcus he just barked orders to the 15yr old. Lane Michael entered the world at 6:49pm (The nurse totally wasn't expecting me to go before she left) he laid on my chest for 2 full hours before they took him to clean him up. He weighed 7lbs 12oz and was 21" long. It was without a doubt painful but also incredible to feel his body leaving mine. And here we are 2wks later and I can honestly say I don't remember how bad the pain was. But have no intentions of repeating it:) 

leaves

For our house to have only 1 little tree that has small red leaves we sure did have a lot of leaves:

Lane's Room

Since he is here, I'll share where he sleeps. One thing to note is we don't do themes. I dislike themes, Ian's room to this is not themed its blue with a navy blue comforter allowing him to incorporate whatever it is he is into.  He has no themed sheets but rather pillow cases made from the fabric of what he is into. 

Ok back to Lane's room, we spent a total of $52:

crib rail covers: $25
scrapbook paper: +$2
Spray paint: +$12
Frame: +$1
toy box: +5
magazine/book rack: +2
paint: +5

Ian being a good helper

So these cost all of $1 had 2 of the 3 frames so a trip to Dollar Tree solved that problem, printed off silhouettes of the animals, cut them out and traced them onto construction paper and cute them out and framed them.

took a piece of MDF that we had in the basement and cut into 12x12 squares and spray painted with the spray paint from Lane's dresser, then applied scrapbook paper cut into 5x7 pieces and applied with mod-podge

then we screwed binder clips onto the mdf to display 4x6 pictures (one of Ian's newborn pics for example)

we had the frame in the frame closet that we got from Ikea almost 2yrs ago, we got crib rail covers to cover up Ian's teeth marks he left in the crib, the bumper doesn't work with covers so we had to remove those. The yellow unit is something I picked up at a garage sale 1.5yrs ago and we had it in our kitchen.  I spray painted it the yellow from the "Z" that I did in the living room

dresser was originally from Marcus' grandma's house, we then used it at our first house and when we moved here it sat in the basement

chair from the living room, lamp was a wedding present that use to be in our bedroom at our first house and was being stored in the closet of décor.

All the walls

 

 

400

This is my 400th post...I feel like there needs to be a celebration of some kind. What better way to celebrate than announcing the birth of baby boy #2 Lane Michael!!! So here we go...

Oh...did you get really excited with that? Yeah I would be really excited too if that were true instead he is still cooking away. Head is down (dr could feel his head when I got checked last week) yet I can still feel his feet in the top of my rib cage so he must be pretty long. At my appt on 11/6 the Dr said "with any luck baby next week", but here we are 2wks later and still no baby Lane is here.

So, in the last couple weeks we have done the following:

Created a wall gallery:

we spent all of $6 to make this happen, how did we manage that? Well, we had a closet full of frames from our other house. The items that were purchased were the small yellow mirror and the "Z" and the scrapbook paper that I applied to it.  Ok and a can of yellow spray paint but we used that in Lane's room as well.

yrs.

Did you also notice the chairs that are below the wall gallery??  Those are "new" too!!  I say "new" because those are new to use thanks to craigslist.  Brand new those chairs are $99 each at Ikea they are practically brand new despite the previous owners owning them for 6-8yrs. We paid $65 for both and we are contemplating slip cover colors. 

 

Next up we replaced our couch:

 

Here is the before:

 

 Here is the after:

 

 And here is the before and after together:

So, this couch also from Ikea originally and $399 brand new with no slip cover a white slip cover is $59 brand new, we scored the couch and 2 sets of white slip covers for $100. The couch is 2yrs old and comes with a 10yr warranty.  The one set of slip covers had some stains so after some searching and a recent trip to Ikea we did some googling and decided to dye the cover grey. Round 1: didn't go so well, learned the hard way that a top load washer is needed to dye fabric. Round 2: landed Ian and I at my in laws where we used their top load washer. We also had to switch from pearl grey to black which surprisingly turned out to dark grey which is exactly what we wanted and were settling with the black.  So here's what it took: 2 bottle of RIT dye for the base cover set on large load cycle, 1 bottle per 3 sets of cushions set on medium load cycle so a total of 4 bottles. Here's what I did the instructions are the same for all 3 loads:

1) place load in washer and run it threw the rinse and spin cycle (assuming the covers have already been washed, if they are brand new then wash first)

2) pull the cover(s) out and start the washer on large load, let it full with water and dump your bottles of dye into the water add 1tbsp of laundry detergent and 1 cup of salt per bottle of dye (pray and try not to pee your pants out of nervousness as you watch a perfectly white washer turn black).

3) once washer is half full put your cover(s), pray some more

4) close your washer and set a timer for about 8min, you want to reset the washer as the water starts to drain from the wash tub you, you will repeat the resetting 2x resulting in a total of about 30min

5) now, you are going to wash it with regular laundry detergent

6) we put ours in the dryer or you can line dry.

7) put it on the couch, sit and enjoy!!!

 

do you see a problem in this picture??? Well, folks I do and so does Marcus (who is color blind and guy) so that says A LOT!!! We had to remedy this problem ASAP!!!

 

 

A craigslist search led us to this chair:

 

 

It's again originally from Ikea it's the called the Poang chair and it has a sheepskin cover, this retails for about $180. We paid $15...did you read that right? Yep I said $15!!!

 

So grand total we spent:

wall gallery: $6

chairs: +$65

Couch w/dye: +$130

Poang chair: +$15

sold old couch: -$75

GRAND TOTAL: $141

 

Now, we aren't done yet we are still on the hunt for a ottoman I'm thinking large black ottoman with storage, a throw, new slipcovers for the pillows, footstool for the poang chair, new covers for the chairs (possibly), and new curtains (possibly) haven't convinced a certain someone on those yet. No matter we have come a long way since our mod-podge of furniture. We moved the chair (plaid one) into Lane's room and the Lazy Boy will be sent to the basement (where all lazy boy's belong).

I absolutely love our living room and I'm no longer ashamed to have people over (they just can't go past the living room until the tile in the kitchen has been replaced).

Next post will probably be Lane's room and hopefully his arrival, fingers crossed!!!

kitchen phase 5000

Ok so really it's not phase 5000 but it seriously feels like it. A couple weeks ago, Marcus ripped out all the drywall and replaced it. We then made our first major purchase in our kitchen upgrade which was a new countertop.

 Next up is the trim around the doorway and window, new floors and possibly a build out on the side of the ovens (depending on how my 1 man construction crew is feeling and our budget). For now loving the new countertop and couldn't be happier with the color choice.

35wks

Well here we are 5wks or less away from Lane's entrance into this crazy world.  I'm ready to see the feet that have been kicking me, to the see the mouth that the constant hiccups have been coming from. And to be totally honest and selfish I'm ready to have my body back, my wardrobe back, and anxious to see what our new routine will be like.

to be young...

**this post is late as usual but it's been posted.

3wks post broken humerus  Ian is sling/immobilizer free and back to being a lefty.  Beyond grateful for his resilience, may he always be resilient when it comes to life happenings.

Back to being a lefty again...

adventure

This past weekend we loaded up our vehicle and headed south for Shades State Park located about 4hrs south of us. We went camping, and by camping I mean in a tent, sleeping on the ground with raccoons right outside of it.  We went on several hikes which Ian went on every single one too. Which was surprising after our day 1 hike which after looking at the description while we were on it, it read moderately rugged, he over all did a fantastic job with only a few tears of tiredness and Marcus carried him.

who can blow up the air mattress' 1st? Grant won!

 



playground, hiking and a beautiful view

 

camp ground life: pay phones, random bad for you food, s'mores, fires and tent sleeping



helping and hand some resting

Got some good one liners of out Ian while hiking: Me: do you need my hand while going down the stairs? Ian: no, thanks I can handle my hand.  Me: more stairs Ian: how many times have we done these stairs?



little boy on a big hike

more adventures and map looking over (this is never a good sign)

 

Camping was a success, Ian wants to do it again!!

 

Another round of firsts

First visit to Med-Point

First time getting X-rays alone (since I'm pregnant I couldn't be in the room with him)

 First broken bone

 Lessons learned:

No matter how close you are or watching their every move accidents will happen and you have no real control over it.

Children are super resilient, it's truly amazing to watch.  He had moments in which he has asked how much longer he has to wear the sling/arm keeper downer contraption but overall his spirit has not been fractured. I would like to wrap him in bubble wrap until he's completely healed.  We are enforcing riding in the cart when out at stores as his tendency to trip is still high and with only one hand/arm to catch himself with is a recipe for injury.  He has no desire to simply sit he is as a toddler should be constantly moving and we find ourselves constantly saying "take care", "that's probably not the best idea", etc.

 

He was sentenced to 3wks in the sling/arm keeper downer contraption pending x-rays. and 1wk in the sling more as visual to other kiddos to be careful around him again all pending x-rays. He is going to South Bend Orthopedics and seeing the upper arm bone specialist there (because they seriously all practice very particular areas).  And to think he was on track to not meeting his deductible for this yr, oh well that's why we have insurance for accidents like these.