It doesn't get much better than this

Yikes! It's been a while since I posted but I have a new baby-I'm excused. Sooooo-updates from the last month.
My mother gave us a professional photo session with Julie Miller as a baby gift and I'm thrilled with how the pictures turned out. We had them done when Caitlyn was 3 1/2 weeks old and Julie was SO patient through the whole session. Especially since my daughter seemed to want to try to leave her mark all over Julie's home when we were trying to get her naked self immortalized. All's well that ends well. Luckily Julie's couch was leather.........

We have officially adjusted to being a family of 4 and having a girl in the house. She's not pulling too much attitude quite yet but she definately is a Daddy's girl already and I'm sure that I'll have to be the bad cop to his good cop for the rest of her life. Needless to say her wardrobe is twice the size of mine and twice as nice too. I think when a baby is born that it should be a rule that the mother should get an item of clothing every time the baby does. Because nothing fits me right now that isn't maternity or contains a LOT of Lycra or shows my baby fat rolls. Of course-I don't get out too much so it's sort of redundant.

I'm still in baby bliss with Caitlyn as she not only looks like an angel but acts like one too-she actually slept for 8 hours straight last night. It makes me want as many more kids as I can which is how they suck you in to having another one. LOL. For us that probably means one more but we'll see how we feel when she's doing more than laying there cooing at us with her big blue eyes. As you can tell from the picture to the left-her eyes aren't the only thing that are big. Our chubba bubba is just shy of 2 months old and she's 12 lbs 6 oz. Check out those cheeks.

Last week I took Josh and Caitlyn on their first bus ride to go visit with Aunt Patsy at the in-laws. I'm getting more adventurous as we are down to one car right now. Josh was thrilled to hop on the bus and every time someone pulled the wire to have the bus stop at the next stop he got really excited. He was a little confused at the lack of seat belts which also made me wonder why they figure we don't need to buckle up on public transportation. While we were there we decided to get a 4 generation picture with Great Grandma Bourne. It turned out pretty well considering it was a spur of the moment thing. I've really enjoyed visiting with Grandma Bourne and getting to know her better while she's been staying at Graham and Leah's.

I turned 33 today. Well-by the time this post is official it will be yesterday. My mom got me a Magic Bullet-let the blending begin!! And there are a dozen red roses on my kitchen table from the hubby. The best gift of today was that I got to spend my birthday at home with my 2 kids and not out at work. 9/11. Now that was a FUN birthday 7 years ago. However-it did make me realize that I was running out of play time and it was time to get off the fence for good and just go to church. I don't know why as humans we have to wait til tragedy strikes to wake us up and get us to do what we should have been doing all along. I also don't get why people get upset over getting older. I have enjoyed every one of my 33 years-some more than others-and I wouldn't want to go back to any of them to relive them. I'm an in the moment kind of girl. At least-I'm trying to be :> I feel so blessed to be where I am in my life and even though we've had some struggles this past year, it has made us bond as a family. I have so many wonderful friends and extended family to rely on when my trials are getting the best of me. I am definately learning patience and that sometimes it's ok to just let things work themselves out on the Lord's timeline. I hope this next year will be a CALM, boring one but none of the previous 33 have been.....

Here's Joshua on his first day of preschool this week. We have him going 2 days a week and he's attending with one of his best friends, Isabella, from his day home. It's just at the Temple community center and I love that I get to walk him over. Needless to say he's loving "school" and I'm really glad we decided at the last minute to enroll him. He's adjusted well to his little sister but I've been trying to emphasize the things he can do that she will have to wait a LONG time to do. I've been missing my one on one time with Josh and seeing this picture makes me realize how grown up he really is. He has elaborated on his standard 5 line prayers lately and we've been cracking up at some of the things he blesses.

Joe's been working long hours with a company named KWL

trucking doing dump truck work to pay the bills while he

continues to work on his solar street light business. I just hope that his business starts generating money before my mat leave ends so I can stay at home with my kids. I love creating my own schedule and not being ruled by my work schedule-it's SO liberating. I'm just trying to enjoy every day even if we're having a rough day-at least I get to be the one rocking my little one when she's fussy and playing Candyland with Josh (his latest obsession). Which is why it doesn't get much better than this ;>

I'm in love....with a girl

Well-she is my daughter so it's not sick and twisted. You just forget how in love you are with your newborn-it's nature's way of getting you through the sleep deprivation. I don't know if it's because I expected to not sleep a lot or if it's just that she's an easier baby but the second time around is SO MUCH BETTER for me. Probably helps that she's not a preemie, my delivery was easier, and she basically eats, sleeps and poops with minimal crying in between. That was definately NOT the case with Josh. I love her to pieces-even the smell of her. There have only been 2 times I've been slightly annoyed with her the past 3 weeks and they were both middle of the night cases where she just wouldn't latch-just kept bobbing her head around and I was like-get it done or just go back to sleep so I can sleep please. I just feel so blessed to get the opportunity to have another child. I love that the kids are 4 years apart so I don't have to chase after a toddler at the same time that I have a newborn. I really feel like I got to know Josh before Caitlyn came around and fully experienced each stage he was at. It's really great not having to go to work too. I much prefer this job-it's really rewarding though challenging at times. I think I could get really good at it if I could just work at it for 20 more years. ;>

One thing I DO notice with having a new baby around is I just cannot read or watch anything about child abuse or children dying as it just hurts my heart too much and makes me feel physically ill. I'm not usually too bad with stuff-I get that bad things happen in the world. But when you have this precious bundle cuddled up to you and mommy hormones buzzing-the stories are too hard to stomach. So I try to cuddle her a little longer because I can and because there are babies out there who don't get cuddled at all.

On another note-Josh is starting to calm down from the upstaging that his little sister has brought into his life. He had a MAJOR-can't talk because he's doing the chest heaving crying-meltdown the first night he was home after being at my Mom's for 4 days when Caitlyn was first born. Which is understandable as that was the longest he'd been away from us in his short life and he'd had my undivided attention the 5 weeks prior to Caitlyn's arrival. But still was hard to watch and he'd been so great up to that point that it baffled me slightly. Today we had time just to ourselves while Joey watched Caitlyn-Josh and I went to Prairie Winds park just the two of us. I really miss our time together and it was fun to spend time with him. Lately he's been saying "Oh thank you Mom" all dramatic like and it always makes me smile. We also went to the zoo as a family yesterday for Joe's birthday which was nice but HOT.

Tonight Alison and I escaped to Southcentre for a girls night shopping trip and then our usual dinner at Moxie's. So Caitlyn has been introduced to the mall at the tender age of 3 weeks. And so it begins....LOL. It was fun to look at the GIRL side of the stores-all that pink-it's a good thing I'm broke right now. I had such a great time and really wish Alison and I lived closer-we always have fun together and I love that she's always there for me. It's nice that some relationships are just easy.

2 things that are baffling to me lately. Music on blogs. Why? I just don't get it-I guess because with Josh around there's always so much noise that when I'm on the computer I just want quiet. But I get that it is your blog so you can put whatever you want on it-I just always go down and mute the music. Except for the classical stuff on Tiffany's blog-Yurima or something like that-LOVE IT. Very calming. But that's the only one. Word verification. Again-WHY? Trying to prove my typing skills are up to speed or just making sure it's not my 4 year old trying to post on your blog? Fill me in here people. Though I do get posts only being shown with blog owner approval especially after the anonymous fiasco. Drama drama.

Speaking of drama-I watched the first episode from the first season of Grey's Anatomy. It was fun to see how the character's have evolved since then. Lately I've been thinking of trying to go without TV for a month. Which has made me realize how much TV I actually watch even though I think it's a complete waste of time. And September will start new season's of my favorite shows.....so that idea has been shelved for now. I don't watch TONS of TV but I do like certain favorites that I'm not willing to miss out on. I'll set some other goals first. Maybe next summer I'll try the no TV thing when I don't have to sit in a fixed postion and nurse a child for 30-40 minutes.

Just to show you what we're mostly up to lately-here's a hint. :>

Caitlyn Evangeline Bourne

She's here! Here's the official story. Feel free to skip ahead if the whole birthing experience doesn't interest you.

My water broke Monday, July 14 at 8:45 in the morning. I wasn't quite sure that it was my water breaking but the reality of the situation hit after going through 3 pairs of garment bottoms while trying to lay back down in bed to go back to sleep. I called my Mom and Leah to say this COULD be it but I wasn't really sure. So I called my doctor as I wasn't feeling any contractions and they said I definately needed to go to the hospital to get checked. So I packed a bag for myself and for Josh as he was going to go stay at my Mom's. As I'm packing I start feeling slight cramping. Then it became more frequent. So of course I rationally did a load of laundry as those 3 pairs of garment bottoms meant I now had no clean ones. Pain getting progressively worse but still nothing serious. Nothing that stopped me from contemplating vaccuming the family room or tackling the dishes in the sink. However, I was having to stop and breathe every so often as the pain hit. So I showered and was drying my hair when my mom arrived around 11am with my cousin Daphne who was up this week visiting from Pensylvannia with her 4 kids. They asked how far apart my conractions were and I casually said about every 3-4 mintes. Daphne was freaking and saying that second baby's can come faster and how close is the hospital etc. I wasn't really concerned at this point so I went upstairs to finish drying my hair (because that will matter when I'm in the most extreme pain of my life) and when I came back down they'd put all Josh's stuff in mom's car including his car seat and Daphne made me promise to leave in the next 5 minutes. I'm still feeling pretty casual about the whole thing as we only live 5-10 minutes from the hospital. But then I went upstairs and threw up my breakfast and decided maybe we should get around to actually leaving.

So on the way to the hospital my pains are getting progressively worse and I can't really talk to Joe when they hit. We got to the hospital around 11:45ish and Joe dropped me off and went to park the car. There was a line to get in to triage and be assessed but as I was waiting and trying not to be too obvious about the pain I was in, I noticed that none of the other women waiting even seemed to be IN pain. Great. Now I feel conspicuous as I try to quietly breathe during my contrations. And slightly nauseous. I only had to wait about 20 minutes but it felt LONG. The nurse took me back to assess me and when she checked me I was dialated to a 6. What the heck? I thought the pain of a 6 would be WAY worse-at the most maybe I would be a 2 or 3. She seemed quite surprised too and said I was coping really well considering how far along I was.

They admitted me as an inpatient as Joe went to call Leah to tell her this was officially it and she'd better hurry. He called my mom instead and told her to call Leah (obviously I wasn't the only one not thinking rationally at this point)but mom was the one we decided to keep posted on how I was doing and if anyone wanted an update she was the one to call. They put me in a delivery room and then Leah arrived. Pain is getting progressively worse. Maybe at a 6 out of 10 and I'm having to REALLY concentrate on breathing through the contractions at this point. Joe decides he's hungry and goes to get something to eat around 1:30. I told the nurse I was thinking of trying to not have an epidural and she said that sounded like a good idea as I was still doing really well on my own. I asked the nurse about pain meds but she says morphine can make the baby not nurse well etc but she'd grab the laughing gas. I used it for 2 REALLY painful contractions that as I stood beside the bed I had to clutch the bed to get through them. I was starting to think that whole no epidural thing was a bad idea as even though I was clutching the mask to my face and sounding like Darth Vadar, it wasn't really even TOUCHING this pain. Felt dizzy and laid on the bed and then I was done. It hurt SO badly-I couldn't even really focus on anything but that stupid mask and breathing and moaning into it-so the nurse panicked slightly and said she needed to check me. Oh yes-fully dialated and at this point my body is just taking over and I'm starting to push while she frantically pages the doctor. Still no sign of Joe anywhere. From here on out it's slightly a blur to me but Leah was trying to dial Joe's cell phone and kept getting a busy signal ( hospital phone-no one told her she needed to dial 9 first) and finally says to hell with it-and they page him to labour and delivery. He is on his way back on the main floor, hears the page and just starts to run toward the elevators yelling "Hold the elevator" and some random guy yells down the hall"Hold the elevator!"-LOL. He comes into the room about 1:55 and I'm pushing for all I'm worth. Still in my own world of delirium at this point. I remember them telling me to hold behing my knees as I push and in my head I'm thinking-I'm trying to deliver a baby here people-maybe someone could HELP me and hold my knees for me?! Still feels slightly surreal that I've been at the hospital for 2 hours and I'm pushing this kid out. Her heart rate dropped to 30 and the doctor said if I didn't get her head out right away they would have to use the vaccum. 2 pushes later-boom-out comes the head but her shoulders are so broad that now I have to push those out too. Cut me some slack here kid. Leah said she thought it was for sure a boy when they said that. Nope-baby comes out at 2:03 and they say it's a girl. Euphoria. As SOON as she's out-pain stops. No word of a lie. Bit of freezing that I didn't feel at all-2 little stitches and done. Amazing. So in hindsight would I choose NO pain meds if I knew how much it would hurt-probably not-but considering the recovery after-I'd definately try without an epidural if we had another baby. I delivered an 8 lb 6 oz kid and only took Advil/Tylenol for the pain. Which I take if I have a headache. AMAZING. I have to toot my own horn on that one.

So she obviously has a full head of hair and looks a lot like her daddy. My mom has already said she's going to nickname her "LG" for Little Joe. I'm completely in love with her and she's been a really easy baby so far. It's been such a blast dressing her in cute pink clothes and she wore a little dress today for the first time. She's nursing well but she is jaundiced so we're at it every 2-3 hours the past 2 days which is surprisingly fine. I'll post more later as if I go to bed now I'll get an hour of sleep before her next feeding. Ah the life of the nursing mother of a newborn. Wouldn't change it for the world. The onesie she's wearing below says "little sister". Bow and blanket courtesy of Auntie Launey-thanks Auntie.

Slacking or sleep deprived???

Hopefully today wasn't a glimpse of things to come. I had basically no sleep last night for the 14th day in a row-no word of a lie-and so Josh spent most of the day in front of the TV except for the 45 minutes I kicked him out to the backyard to get devoured by mosquitos. I was just SO tired-I didn't want to deal with anything. HORRIBLE. He can quote scenes from Ghostbusters by heart. Sigh. This doesn't bode well for when there is a screaming infant around to add to the sleep deprivation. I don't know why my body won't just rest for longer than 1-3 hours. Actually I did get 4 hours in a row last night-from 1:30 to 5:30AM, then I was up til 7 and slept til 9. People keep saying my body is getting ready for the baby-what the heck-I still have 3 weeks to go? Or do I......?
Which brings me to the show I watched tonight. I'm trying to stay up as late as I can to see if it helps the whole sleeping longer thing. There was a show on called Baby Borrowers where teen couples who think they're ready to become parents move into homes for 3 days and watch other people's babies. One person out of the couple has to go to work and the other is home with the kid all day. They have professional nannies watching them in case of emergency but they're not allowed to help and the babies parents can monitor their child on cameras 24/7 and go into the home at any time if they feel it's necessary. HA! It made me realize that I'm a better parent than I thought-despite the mind numbing amount of TV/DVD's Josh watched today. Some of these teens started crumbing in the first 12 hours. Welcome to the real world honey. Yeah babies are cute and cuddly....til they're teething and it's 3 AM and you haven't slept for 2 nights. It made me feel so....SMUG. Though none of them sat the baby in front of the TV all day. Hmmmmmmm. At least I made dinner tonight-he ate well.
I've been off work for almost a month and it's kind of weird to not go to work. This is the longest I've had such minimal responsibility in 11 1/2 years-not having to go in to work yet not had to take care of an infant. I almost feel like I have to justify myself to people when they ask what I have planned for tomorrow and I say "Nothing". Not one thing. Maybe we'll go to the park/paint a picture/organize some more. It's funny how society is so go go go and if you're not you feel like you're not contributing your fair share. Again-I AM 9 months pregnant so I try to give myself a bit of leeway on this one. Plus this is the last time I'll be able to be selfish and do nothing for A LONG TIME. Once you've had one child you realize that life as you know it ends when there's an infant around. Not a bad thing-just a fact. Not something that can be fully explained to someone who doesn't have kids. I sound so negative about the whole infant thing-I'm not-I AM excited. However, I always say I'm an optimist but a realist. So though I'd like to think that this baby will be totally different from my experience with Josh and not scream for hours at a time, sleep through the night at 6 weeks and I'll be able to nurse them in bed I'm not holding my breath.
We'll definately go to the park tomorrow. Thank goodness we're not judged on one day of parenting. :>

Things I've noticed

It's now been 2 weeks since I've been off work and I've noticed a couple of things about myself. Some good, some bad.
1. When I have no solid time to get up in the morning, I have a much harder time winding down at night and getting into bed at a reasonable hour. Which means I'm generally not in bed before midnight. It's actually quite liberating. LOL.
2. It's infinately more pleasant to wake up to my son's smiling face beside my bed telling me it's time to get up than a blaring alarm clock-no matter what time that happens to be.
3. I'm more of a perfectionist than I thought I was. The longer I'm at home the more I realize that there are definately things I like done a certain way when it comes to the housework.
4. The more I'm home, the more I nag my husband. Poor guy.
5. I'm slightly laundry obsessed. Ok more than slightly.It's that instant gratification thing-what once was dirty is now clean and back where it belongs. If only life were so simple.
6. The amount of time it takes me to lose my temper with Josh is DIRECTLY related to the amount of sleep I have had. Period. For some reason I have not realized this concept til now.
7. More time home does not (unfortunately for my family) equal more home cooked meals. I just don't like to do it. If any of you want to swap home cooked meals for housework-let me know.
8. It's really nice not to deal with other people's crap all day and only have to worry about what goes on here. Quite selfish of me isn't it?
9. The more I'm around Josh the more I want to be around him and miss him when we're apart.
10. The same cannot be said for my husband.
11. The more time I have to do things, the less gets done. If you want something done, ask a busy person (and probably not one who is 8 months pregnant)
12. More available time doesn't mean I spend more time on my spiritual self-see #11
13. More available time also doesn't mean I'm any more on time for things than before (I know Mandy-I have NO excuses!!)
14. I spend more time blog hopping now than I ever did before~not sure why I care about some random stranger's pictures of their 2 year olds birthday. I think I need to buy a timer to go beside the computer and set some sort of limit to this
All in all, I realized I really do enjoy not working outside the home but sometimes miss the feeling of importance I got from being "SO" busy. I do like not having to hand Josh off to so many different people and just be able to take care of him myself. It's nice to focus on quality time with Josh before this baby makes an appearance. Only 2 things about pregancy are bothering my lately. 1.Trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in at night. I have never used this many pillows for sleeping in my life! 2. Acid reflux. Yuck. 1 month to go...

Last Day of Work

Friday, June 6th was my official last day of work. On Thursday, the girls booked fake patients for an hour so we could close down and celebrate with Thai food (thanks Boss!) and homemade strawberry cheesecake (Thanks Joi!!). The office also got me a $100 gift certificate for Riverside spa which I will make very good use of! I've been so lucky to work there for 11 1/2 years and I'll really miss some of our patients and the social interaction aspect of it. I definately WON'T miss getting up at 5 :45 am 3 days a week to get myself and Josh out the door, him at day home, and me at work by 7:30 am. In fact it was quite blissful to look at my alarm clock this morning at 7:15, smile, and proceed to go back to sleep til 9. Plus I'm still getting paid for this month as I had holidays saved up.
I took Josh to Prairie Winds park for 1 1/2 hrs this afternoon and it was so nice not to feel like we were rushed or have my mind racing about what we needed to get done. We just stayed til we were all played out. I took him to the bottle depot and he kept scrunching up his face and saying "It smells in here". Yeah-can you imagine working in that smell for 8 hours? As we got in the car I said-that's why you need to get an education so you have the option of NOT working in that smell. So I'm officially a stay at home Mom and now only have one job to contend with. We'll see how long it takes for the novelty to wear off-if it ever does.

Turning Point

Today is officially the most pregnant I have ever been. I'm not sure what to expect from here on out but people keep telling me that I'm just going to be getting bigger. Yeah-thanks for reminding me. Not sure how that is going to happen as the skin on my belly feels as stretched as it can be but there's no turning back now. Funny how when you're pregnant everyone is allowed to comment on your weight but how would someone feel if I walked up to them and said-Woah-you're so much bigger than the last time I saw you. LOL. At least I'm fat with purpose. It's slightly odd to that I don't really even care about the weight-it just means baby is growing like they're supposed to.

I'm SO excited to meet this new little person. I don't care if it's a boy or a girl-just the fact that we get to add another little one to our family. There was a time that I wasn't sure it would happen between all the drama of the past few years. It's feels sort of cavalier to say God has a plan but when that plan and my plan aren't meshing, it's hard to try to figure out exactly which curveball to dodge sometimes. And then my plan and his do mesh the very same month that I think-if I'm not pregnant this just isn't meant to be and we're going to stop trying. All signs point to this NOT being a great idea from every logical perspective. Luckily He anticipated this line of thinking and voila-positive sign on the test. Plus is there REALLY anything logical about having kids. Oh yes-please sign me up for gaining at least 30 pounds while being violently ill every other day, then going through the valley of death to take home a crying, pooping, demanding bundle to whom I am a slave to their every need. And that's just the beginning. And once you do it you'd never go back. In fact you volunteer to do it again-thank heaven for selective memory-labour wasn't really THAT bad, right?

Josh came early because I was leaking amniotic fluid for a few weeks. No leakage yet this time other than from these growths that used to be my petite B cup lovelies. Not so lovely now. TMI I know but it's my blog. Evidently I was a cow in a former life. (No comments please) I saw my MD Friday and she mentioned sending me for an ultrasound to check my fluid....until she felt my belly. Definately LOTS of fluid this time. And so we venture into the unknown. Wish we luck.

Despite the joking I've been thinking a lot lately about people I know who for one reason or another haven't been able to have kids. Though I can't say I understand how that would feel, my heart goes out to them. However, I do know what it feels like to want one thing so badly you'd give up almost anything to get it. We are all blessed in different aspects of our lives at different times of our lives and it's easy to look at others and think they have everything they want exactly when they want it. If only we could see their reality I'm sure we would think differently.