Chronicals of the Crib (part 1 of ??)

We're trying something new. 

David & I came to this decision about 2 weeks ago when it was taking a ridiculous amount of time rocking Lucy to sleep. So that night so i crawled in her crib and told her she needed to fall asleep on her own, but that i would be there so she wouldn't puke from crying if i walked out of the room or throw a big tantrum if i just sat on the floor next to the crib. About an hour into laying her crib she fell asleep so i crawled on out and decided that maybe we should start doing this every night rather than rocking her. The first couple nights took about an hour for her to settle down and stop wiggling all around, the first couple naps only took about 20 minutes... the days to follow were a roller coaster of unpredictability if she were actually going to fall asleep or not and in what time frame that would happen. As of yet we haven't seen too much of a pattern of this actually being a quicker way of putting her to sleep but we will continue to do this to see if it works.

Our next steps will be to actually step outside of the crib. David put her down for a nap this afternoon and used this technique- it took about an hour and a half but someday we'll get closer to the door and maybe even one day we'll be able to put her in her bed and she'll zonk out without us.

Daddeo

I remember a certain Mother's Day when my mom took a trip to Arizona and the rest of the Wilson family stayed back in Grand Forks driving to Sunday mass at St. Mary's church. Our family walked into church (probably 5 minutes late) and searched for our usual spot near grandma and grandpa and the rest of thE Wilson family. Mass went on, Mother's Day blessing was said (how dare they, without our mother there!!) and we all made our way back to the car and drove home. We called mom immediately to tell her how CRAPPY church was on Mother's Day without OUR mother there with us!! We forbidden her to ever leave us stranded on another Mother's Day ever again, and she never did.

I think of this story as it is the 1st Father's Day without dad physically here to send some love over the phone or a silly email to his inbox and get some 'smart'ass response back asking where the hell is smart car is and what year he will ever get it haha

Mass today was nothing the like the story of how mom wasn't there that one Mother's Day and happily so it was a perfect time to reflect on growing up with Dad and the loving father that he was. I was thinking about all the years that I came home from the dollar store or from Kmart with some cliche Father's Day gift and card, a card that talked about tools, the remote, golf or cars and a little tissue paper wrapped tie that probably had some hideous pattern that I wouldn't see after that particular Father's Day. Dad was never the golfing, fix-it tool guy and he rarely ever wore a tie and if he did it wasn't one that was given to him from me on Father's Day :) He wasn't one of those men who spent all their free time in the garage or watering the lawn, in fact he actually liked to kill the grass so he wouldn't have to mow it. He was a Father that patiently waiting in the car on Sunday morning for mom and us 4 kids to pile on top off each other for the drive to church. a father who worked hard to support the family to always have 'food on the table and clothes on our backs'. a father who never missed a game or track meet even in our middle school days. a father who had the video camera rolling for proms, homecomings & graduations (and was really good at annoying us with that damn camera) and most importantly a father who taught me about my faith & love through his faith & his love. The most valuable knowledge I've learned has come from Mom and Dad's love for one another and their centered lives around Jesus' love for each of us. What I miss most about Dad is not being able to pick up the phone and ask him a question about our faith, he was my human catholic dictionary that said things well beyond a general explanation. So, today as I think about all the Father's Days I've had with dad, the phone calls and funny email exchanges, I am happy for Dad as he is spending Father's Day with his dad and with our heavenly father Jesus. I had 23 years with Dad, a short time in eyes of many, but those years of memories, love and wisdom will last the rest of my life. I am lucky to have had those years with Dad, as many people don't have that opportunity and I am forever blessed by that!

A couple years ago I asked Dad to email me the morning prayers that we would say every morning as he drove us to school, an every day routine that we mostly took for granite then but appreciate the instilled value of morning prayer now.

Dad's Email:
When the morning comes the songs of life begins...."Oh' what a beautiful Morning, Oh' what a beautiful Day...I got this Beautiful Feeling that Everything is Going Wilson's Way."

To really set the mood you'll need thoughts of a yellow nova with the sound of no muffler and the view of driving along and as you are passing street after street 'BEWARE" of this startling loud yell... "NOoo...... no no no no no GODs Not Dead He Is Alive!"

Oh' Most Beautiful Mother Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven. I choose You Today as My Mother and Queen, I consecrate to you my enter being, everything of me and everything in me I give to you Mary, so that You may give me to the Sacred Heart of your Son our Lord, Jesus. Teach me Mary how Jesus may rule and triumph in me as He rules and triumphs in you and may I Love You and Honor You all the Days of my life. Amen!

Angel of God, My Guardian Dear, to whoms God Love commence me here, every day and every night be at my side to light and guard to rule and guide. From sin that stains Oh' keep me free and at my door my Helper be. Amen!

Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen!

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy whom, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sins now and at the hour of our death. Amen!

Just about now after prayers the yellow nova would be pulling up in front of the school and you all would 'quickly get out' as if you didn't want anyone to see you...Then I would yell , "Love You...Use your Talents Wisely."

The day and the morning life of the Wilson Kids....


Love You...Use your Talents Wisely!

Dad

for the sake of documentation

January 16th, 2011 7:45pm

Lucy and I went for a misty walk around the creeky apartments to get some fresh Texas air. As I made my last lap around our building and about to turn the corner to head up the stairs to our second floor apartment a lady emerges from the dark corner of the parking lot loudly questioning if i was holding a baby in my carrier and exclaiming that i did not have her head covered in this misty weather. Lucy wakes up and I become enraged that this lady woke my sleeping baby, does she not have kids of her own?!

January 16th, 2011 7:46pm

I make another lap around the creeky apartments. Lucy falls back asleep.

January 16th, 2011 7:55pm (estimated time)

I gracefully dance up the stairs to our apartment to discover Lucy is blissfully sleeping in an uncomfortable looking position. My next challenge is to get her from the carrier to crib without waking sleeping beauty. Success.

January 16th, 2011 8:45pm

Sleeping beauty awakes and does not seems to be tired anymore. the next couple of hours drag on.

January 16th , 2011 10:45pm-11:45pm

At this point the swing, milk , bouncing and rocking do not work. A family drive is necessary to put Luc girl back to sleep. We load the car, pump the lullabies and head off to steak & shake for the obvious, a shake. Up and down the highway we drive for at least an hour. Lucy falls asleep.

this is lucy at the drive through at steak & shake- i was getting worried she was thinking this was an adventure that she jsut couldn't miss and was going to fight through the sleepy stage

January 16, 2011 ETA 11:45pm

Quietly we pull into the creeky apartments. i step in lots of bird poop under the car port (this was just a side note that i didn't want to forget). Unload Lucy and once again gracefully dance up the stairs to our apartment. Challenge #2 of the night is car seat to crib. 

Positive Results 2009

I was looking through old pictures and found one from September Long weekend '09 when David & I found out that we were pregnant with Lucy, well I was pregnant not David. Try not to be grossed out by my reenactment of peeing on the stick..

Beautiful Day For A Run In The Park

A beautiful day at the park with my beautiful daughter

She enjoyed just laying in the shade


We went to the park late this afternoon after a couple of morning naps. I took the jogger out and I'm really going to try to get into a good workout routine with Lucy, and I really want to take advantage of the beautiful weather while we have it. I learned that taking 6 weeks off of running makes for a hard come back!! I've really enjoyed our choice of jogger for Lucy's stroller, it has speakers that plug right into my ipod. I use to just put my headphones on so i didn't have to listen to Lucy cry while I ran with her (and she would eventually fall asleep) but I'm glad to report we are past those days and she now loves to go for runs in the jogger. It was sorta funny that when I stoped to take a drink break Lucy needed to have a drink of her milk. She makes for a good running buddy, although sometimes I wish she would push me in the jogger and I watch her run :)

What a Faker!

3 months Later

Lucy was born 1lb 10oz at 28 weeks ( so much for my '14 weeks to go' post haha) and was hospitalized for 73 days in the NICU in Germantown, TN. Her birth was a huge shock to all of us as I was just going into the Dr office for my 28 weeks check up and found that there was barely any fluid and little movement of Lucy. To put it in a nutshell our Dr who delivered Lucy was unbelievable in directing us to Germantown Methodist hospital since she knew of the great care that they give there. We had many emotional ups and downs within those 73 days out at the hospital and frankly we now know how to eat like kings at a hospital. The staff in the NICU went above and beyond caring and loving after Lucy and we couldn't have asked for a better team of nurses and also clinical director of the NICU, Barbara! We were very much ment to be in TN when this happened and are so thankful for everyone who has been a wonderful help to getting Lucy as healthy as she is today. I am happy to report that Lucy's most current weight is 5.1oz at 3 months old. We are so proud of her strength to fight the hard road she's already been down.

So, life with a little baby girl at home has been great so far. The 3 of us are getting on a good schedule and we are still learning a lot about Lucy and what she likes, and most importantly what she doesn't like. She loves to be swaddled and held..she does not like to be naked and placed in her crib. The first couple nights were rough on our sleep, as you can imagine. We thought it would be a bit easier since she has been on a great 3-4 hour feeding schedule in the NICU and had always slept like a rock, we were wrong. Lucy came home on a heart monitor that lets us know her heart rate and breaths per minute, if one of those were to go above or below the settings of the monitor a VERY LOUD and DISTURBING BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP sounds off. The first night I slept on the floor with the little girl since she didn't seem to like her crib and every time the monitor BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPed peed my pants. A lot of the alarms that went off were false alarms due to the monitor strap not being tight enough or riding up in her chest but it still is a very awakening sound. The following night Lucy barely slept a wink and anytime she was awake she cried and whined. We think she had some cough*gas*cough problems and we gave her drops which helped around the 18th hour of crying and soon after resolved itself. Other than that we think it took her awhile to adjust to the environment change and getting use to us weirdos as her parents.

Alright, I'm almost done with this gigantic post but first I want to tell you what happened in the past 12 hours...

As some of you, or possible the only one reading this, may know i am a sleepwalker and a sleep talker. I haven't slept walk in quite a few years but last night was a different story and not sure where to categorize this happening. So Lucy's apnea monitor went off and it was making the BEEP...BEEP...BEEP...BEEP noise, and when you hear that first BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP it throws you through a loop and you really just jump out of bed, which I did. I was over at the monitor just hitting the button trying to get it to go off- you are not suppose to do that you are suppose to stimulate the baby first so it resolves itself but I just couldn't get the BEEEEEP to go off.. anyway, I was rocking Lucy in my arms and David suddenly got up and i said " i can't get this thing to go off" and he looks at me and quickly asks "well, where is Lucy?" and I looked down at my arms and I was rocking David's old teddy bear, Huntley, trying to wake him up!! David then just tapped Lucy, who was in her crib still and the monitor went off...

....Now that was at 4am. This afternoon when we got back from a hospital visit I thought that I would make some home made chips from the leftover corn tortillas that we had. I first put them in the frying pan and then decided to bake them to get them extra crispy. I came out to the living room and David asked what I was making and I told him it was a surprise and a few minutes later he told me he thought it was smokey in the apartment, but i just thought he meant from me frying them up first. Well i got up to go check on the chips and looked into the oven and saw some flames!!!! I opened the oven door and there on the top rack was a pile of corn tortillas on fire. I yelled FIRE and then took the pan out and threw it in the sink under water, which made it worse cause there was oil on them and then took the pan and ran out the door with it with David running behind me with the fire extinguisher. What a sight to see. So, we opened the windows and the doors to air out this mess and then came in some bugs. After awhile i was getting sick of the bugs that came in so i went to chase them down and get rid of them.. as i was chasing after a slow fly, the opposite of those pesky fast flies, i was just about to clap my hands when BOOM i biffed it in the middle of the kitchen on the spilt oil from the burning chips. David was on the phone but when he came to see what was going on he found me in the middle of the kitchen laying there...

This may not sound funny as you read this but it just keeps getting more and more funny the more i think about it. Thank god for a sense of humor otherwise this could have been a grumpy day.

I'll stop typing now. Oh, don't mind all my grammatical mistakes and all my non capitalized i's and punctuation-i didn't ever proofing and taking my time to write papers in inglush class at school and I'm not about to go back and proof my blog. proofing is for losers and also i know that inglush is really spelt English.

Check ya later..

David vs Jogger

Here is David folding down the jogger stroller we are looking to buy..he was serious about folding this down which made me laugh even harder.

26 weeks, 14 to go!

Every week is getting more and more exciting as our little baby girl is closer to arriving! It's so much fun when she moves around and I feel her kicking or punching or whatever she's doing in there. A couple weeks ago I started to see my stomach poke out when she moves, I even think she was doing flips the other day-well that's what it felt like anyway! Sometimes during the day she will favor my far right side, it can be uncomfortable but if I poke at her she will usually move over. It feels so weird. when I can feel her starting to go from one side to the other, it's like a pressure pushing against my stomach that slowly moves across my stomach! According to my books her eyes can open and close and her nose has unplugged so it's possible for her to start hiccuping! She's almost 2 pounds and from head to toe she is now taller than a ruler at a whopping 14 inches. I'm hoping that the next weeks feel like they fly by, some weeks seem to pass right by and some just drag on..but I think the weeks that drag are the ones I spend thinking a lot about how many weeks are left before we get to meet our little girl! 14 to go!

I Love You Body Pillow

I have found something that is hard to live without. ok thats getting carried away but I really can't believe how much I love my new body pillow.

ice storm

Turns out that the snow was really an ice storm yesterday. Today I had to go to the grocery store to get some food and I felt so bad for Virginia White (the car) she was completely frozen in ice and it took about 45 minutes to deice her. Sorry girl!!

Cracked and found out IT'S A GIRL!

I know I know you're saying "I thought you guys weren't going to find out!?"
Well, we found out! Here's how it happened..

I had my 20 week appointment on Dec 23rd and David was just getting back from a roadtrip and made it to the office just in time to get called back to see our dr. It was a typical visit that lasted only a few minutes and she did the doppler to hear the heartbeat, which sounds like a gush gush and it's sorta hard to hear the heartbeat but anyway I asked if I had an ultrasound since it didn't really seem like we were headed in that direction and she said that she didn't have me scheduled because she knew we weren't finding out the sex so she was just goint to have one done at my next appointment but David and I were already excited to just have the ultrasound so she said that she could get me in that day. we went into the ultrasound room and the really nice new lady asked if we wanted to know the sex before we even started and we said no we didn't want to find out. The ultrasound started so she asked us to close our eyes so she could scan the anatomy and that area first and just after a minute she said "ok you can open your eyes now" and David was like "so you know what it is?" and she said ya. Sooo as you can imagine not knowing the own sex of your baby and having a stranger know it was already killing us but we proceded with the rest of the ultrasound and David asked me if I wanted to find out and we kept going back and forth if we wanted to find out or not and back and forth so eventually we settled on find out but she was going to put it in an envelope along with the picture and we were going to open it on Christmas Eve...well then I made David promise that if we kept it in an envelope that we would FOR SURE open it on Christmas Eve cause i didn't want to get my hopes up and then we get home and we decide not to open the envelope! So, we were still debating if we should find out or not while we were looking at the heart and the head and finally we just couldn't take it any longer and decided that we should find out so I made David say that he was 100% sure that he wanted to find out and so the ultrasound lady asked both of us if we were 100% and we said yup and she said IT'S A GIRL!

The funny thing was is that since I've been pregnant I have been thinking it's a girl and then after the first ultrasound David thought it was a Boy and that's what we were thinking until we got the this ultrasound and he switched and was thinking it was a girl and I was thinking it was a boy so we both were right at one point :)

It was so much fun telling our families that we're having a little baby girl! We told everyone in our family except my parents because I knew they really wanted to know the sex and we just kept saying we weren't going to find out so when mom called after my appointment she did ask if we found out, expecting me to say no which I did was intending to leave it a surprise for when I got to Arizona to tell them. It was really hard to keep that quiet for a couple days but as soon as I got to Arizona I wanted them to open their presents from David and I and so we called David and had Mom and Dad sit down and I had wrapped the "it's a girl" ultrasound picture in a frame so mom started to open it and she was just saying how nice the frame and picture was and was going to keep going with the random box i had wrapped it with so she didn't see that its a girl and she hadn't handed the picture to Dad so I was like keep looking..and she wasn't really getting it and then she finally really looked and started yelling and then Dad was like what? what? and finally everyone figured out that it's a girl! :)

sorry this was a really long detailed post

Sunny Arizona

It was such a great time being in Arizona for Christmas Day through January 5th! I had so much fun spending time with the family and enjoying the sunny weather :) The day after Christmas Lora and Katie threw me a baby shower at Lora's house. The house was decorated sooo cute! We had a chicken enchalada dish that mom's friend Elaine made and for dessert there was a beauiful cupcake cake! We played some fun games where you couldn't say girl, Mary, or baby or else your clothespins could be stolen from someone who had heard you say one of the three words, Elaine ended up winning that game by a long shot! I recieved very awesome gifts from everyone and I just can't wait to use them all! A few days later it was Tommy's 1st birthday party!! He has gotten so big since the last time I saw him him October, and he can walk so good! Joe and Lora hosted his football themed party on the 30th and they served sloppy tommy joes and other goodies along with 3 birthday cakes! Tommy had a cake all to himself which he really enjoyed! Later in the week Lora and I went for a hike at south mountain, the weather was so gorgeous and it was the perfect temp to be out and about. We also went to Ikea sometime that week with Mom, Lora, Sharron and Tommy and had lunch there. We spent 3 hours at the store and found some great purchases such as my new duvet cover!! Sharron found a great deal on a neat high chair that she bought for Lora and also for me :) Tommy was so good in the store, he had a 15 minute nap in the car before going to Ikea and he was the most patient baby boy I have ever seen shop for 3 hours. Tommy was so funny when he was put in the soccer ball bucket and when he was running around with his squeeky shoes- i think he had a great time at Ikea! Towards the end of my stay Gramps threw a party for the family at the bowling alley and then later that night Pat and I went to the PHX Suns game! It was my first Suns game and we had some great seats!! Although the Suns did not win Pat and I had a fun time with the whole atmosphere of fans! We also made a trip down the block to the park and had fun watching Tommy and Wyatt play in the sand and on the slide Well to wrap up a long trip in what im trying to make a short blog post here, tt was just so nice being home in Arizona for awhile to spend time with my wonderful family and being able to enjoy the weather! What a great vacation!!

Christmas Plans

I can't believe that Christmas is just around the corner, next week! David and I will get to spend our first Christmas together here in Memphis. We're still deciding what to cook for our big dinner...David just mentioned to have some sushi for appetizers so we'll have to figure out the rest pretty quick here.

David will be leaving Christmas day for a roadtrip but we planned it out so I will be flying to Arizona that day to spend some time with the fam. He has a long roadtrip at the end of December and begining of January so I am going home for 11 days and will only miss two of his home games, they are even away on New Years :(
I was lucky to have gotten a free plane ticket from a bump I took last January flying here to Memphis, so it worked out perfect since I had to use it by the end of December!!

Beautiful "Winter"

The last two winters I've been very thankful to be out of the snow and in some great weather. Last winter I was in Arizona and frequently visted David in Memphis, where there is no snow! This year we are here in Memphis and we're had great weather, even though sometime I still feel it's a bit cold but I truely do appreciate and am grateful to not be in snow. I do miss it at times..I told David that snow is really fun to visit, like if we were to go to Vanderhoof and spend a whole day outside building snow forts and huge hills to sled down and also playing with Tucker and David would play with Chiefy and then we go inside and drink some hot chocolate with marshmallows and warm up, that is when snow is good :)

Yesterday was beautiful sunny day with blue skies and a temp of 50 degrees. I took some pictures when the sun was setting on my way home from running some errands. The sun sets early at  4:45pm and it's completely dark by about 5:30pm.

Good Morning!

David & I have been doing good living here in Memphis. We love our apartment and have really made it feel like our own place. We live on a golf course which was beautiful when we got here and through the Fall, but now since the leaves have fallen and the grass has died I'm really looking forward to seeing the trees bud this Spring. It has been fairly cold lately, 30-40 degrees (or -1 to 4 degrees celsius haha) but David is really liking the chill in the air. The funny thing is that it's frosted over outside with some frozen water surrounding the golf course and people are still out there playing all 18 holes.

David's hockey season is going good and it's been a lot of fun being able to go to ALL of the games at home this year!! David's coach had emailed him before we got here to let him know that there was a billboard of him, we forgot about it until one day we were driving down main street and I saw him up there

Everything is going great with the baby! I've had 2 appointments and the 3rd one is on December 23rd. My first appointment was at 11 weeks so we got some ultrasound pictures, got to hear the heartbeat and saw the baby kicking! The appointment coming up we would be able to find out if it's a boy or girl but we are going to leave it a surprise, but I am super excited to see how much the baby has grown from 11 to 20 weeks!

Yesterday was the 1st day that I felt the baby moving around. I've been waiting for it for awhile and knew it had to come soon and yesterday morning I was laying in bed and just put my hand on my stomach and felt some really faint movements. When David got home from practice he wanted to feel the baby too and was able to each time we put our hands on my stomach.

On Monday night we finally decorated the Christmas tree and Advent wreath! I got up super early on Black Friday to go get our $25 prelit tree from Target, which was the easiest tree in the world to set the tree had been up for about a week before we put some ornaments and tinsel on it and now we have a bit more of that Christmas spirit feeling at our apartment! (now we just need some stockings and a star!)