Desitin Disaster!

Last night before we went to bed we checked on Oli like we always do, sometimes he's asleep in cute positions, or there's multiple toys in his bed. We usually have a little giggle and then go to bed. But last night when we opened the door something was obviously wrong. For one the room absolutely stank, of what yet I did not know. On closer looking at Oli, he was asleep on his back but he was as white as a ghost, it scared the life out of me.

When we quickly turned on the light we saw what had happened. There was thick white paste all over the door, carpet, multiple toys and Oli's bed. His hair was completely coated in it. And then we found the culprit, a whole tub of desitin. It was basically empty, Oli has used enough desitin to cure at least a hundred diaper rashes. I freaked out and began searching for any sign that Oliver had eaten some, there wasn't, luckily. So since desitin is extemely effective at locking out moisture, it is ridiculously hard to clean!! Tim put Oli in the bath and tried to get the paste off his skin and out of his hair while I tried to get it out of the carpet and changed his sheets and cleaned his bed and toys. We found somebody online that said Dawn is effective at getting it out, and it worked! It worked better than anything else anyway. His hair was the hardest part to get clean, its still quite bad this morning so I'm probably going to buzz his head later on today!!

This is how we found him: asleep

I like the handprint on the door!

The bests and worsts of Provo...

Reflecting on the last almost 6 years of my life that have mainly been spent in Provo there are definitely some things I will miss, and definitely some thing I will not!

I will miss:
Cafe Rio!!!
Living right under the mountains...gorgeous
BYU Choir every day
Seven Peaks passes
BYU football games (mostly Tim)
Visiting teaching 2 minutes away
All our amazing friends

I will not miss:
Long, freezing and snowy winters
Buying textbooks from the bookstore...ridiculous
University Ave and Center Street
Homework!
Utah news, it drives me crazy
Allens

Life's precious moments...

So this morning I was all ready to go out. I had both kids strapped into their seats-side note-sometimes life begins to feel like an endless loading and unloading of children into car seats! Anyway, we were about the leave when I get a whiff of something bad...turns out both of my children had pooped. So I unload both of them and start all over again. This got me to thinking...a lot of times in life there are things that happen, like today, and you have two choices: get mad or laugh. Here's a few examples:
When you get to the checkout and realize you've forgotten your wallet. When you put the baby down after finally getting him to sleep and 2 minutes later he's crying. When you think you've come into some money and then realize a check just hasn't cleared. When you buy something full price because you HAD to have it and then it's on sale the next day. When you get home from the supermarket and realize you left a bag. When your computer crashes and you hadn't saved the essay that was almost finished. When you shut the car door just as you realize the keys are still inside. When you are just about to fall asleep and you hear that little cry. When you wake up thinking its Saturday and realize its Friday...
I guess what I'm saying is next time it happens, try to laugh, it won't seem as bad!

A word to moms

I read something tonight that fueled the idea for my next blog. A mum on facebook was asking for advice about weaning her 6 month old. Loads of friends gave a bunch of different words of advice and encouragement. One ruffled my feathers a little. It was along the lines of: "I fed my child a variety of foods since they were young so now they love to eat all their fruits and vegetables." That's great I thought....for you. So for those of us who find it difficult to get their 2 year old to consume anything remotely green, we feel like failures. Which got me to thinking, everyone is always going on about the "correct" way of doing things. No more than two hours of TV, make sure they eat this many foods from this many food groups, if you don't breastfeed for 6 months there's something wrong with you, your child is two and he doesn't know his ABC's??, your 3 year old is still not potty trained, that child is really too old to have a dummy/pacifier, oh and my personal favourite: if you had an epidural you didn't really suffer during labour.

There's some really strict rules like: no cows milk until 12 months. So does that mean if you give your child who is 11 months and 29 days milk he will be sick, but somehow a day later he'll be fine???

When we achieve something we feel great, but if somehow we fall a little bit short we punish ourselves, too much. Honestly some days it is just about survival, getting through that day, and then I'll get to the next one. We put too much pressure on ourselves to have the perfect scrapbook, to be the perfect parent who never raises their voice. It's unrealistic to expect your two year old to stop doing something right away the first time you tell them no, it's going to take a few tries. It's not realistic to imagine that we can live up to the world's really high standard of what the "perfect child" should be like. So mom, go get a pedicure and give yourself some credit...you are doing an amazing job.

Some thoughts...

Last night I was feeling frustrated so I started writing. It ended up being amazingly therapeutic and made me feel a lot better. So I thought I'd share. By the way this is probably the cheesiest thing I've ever written...

Sometimes I look at my life and wonder: Is this it? Is this how I am going to spend my next 20 years? The constant cleaning when you know its only going to be dirty again tomorrow. Trying to discipline a toddler who is acting out and will not listen to a word you say. Trying to feed him fruit and vegetables when all he wants is candy and chips. Trying to entertain him with a book when all he wants to do is watch TV. Trying to keep your cool when he screams at the top of his lungs and breaks something you had no idea he could reach. And then there's the baby: the constant feeding which to be honest hurts and is usually followed by being puked on and/or changing poop. He cries a LOT and doesn't give you much love. Then your husband comes home and wonders why you're in a bad mood and wonders why there's no dinner ready. He calls you high maintenance when you get angry he leaves his stuff on the floor and calls you a nag when you ask him to take the rubbish out three times in half an hour. You ask "permission" to go and take a shower and feel guilty to take a nap while he watches both kids, even though that's what you've been doing all day! You are completely exhausted.......

And then you have a moment, it usually takes only one, and it all becomes worth it. All the picking up dirty socks and doing dishes. All the 3am feedings and dirty nappies. All the mundane and monotonous things you do every day become worth it when your two year old does something so cute you have to laugh, when he runs over the baby and kisses his head. When he sits on your lap and plays with your hair. When he comes over to you for a cuddle just because he wants to be close to you. When he curls up in bed with his favourite toy and softly snores. When your baby looks up at you with those huge eyes and blinks, when he burps so loud after you feed him. When he falls asleep in only your arms. When he cries until you hold him. And when your husband tells you you look cute today, or when you look at each other and laugh over something only you both know. When you know what he's thinking and what he's going to say. In that moment you realize that this is true happiness, this is what you have wanted all along, this is what makes everything else doable. In that moment you know that you are doing potentially the most difficult thing in the world. You are being a wife and a mum.

New Baby Boy!!!

So our new baby boy Jordan James (JJ) is now just over a week old.

Here's the story of last Sunday:

So I wake up on Sunday morning (May 2-my due date!) at 4am with quite painful contractions...I'm very excited because I'm thinking, maybe I'll have a baby by lunchtime! For the past week I had been SO ready to have this baby, very uncomfortable and exhausted. By 8am my contractions had slowed down and weren't very regular. By 10am they had completely stopped, so I was disappointed. I continued to have random ones throughout the day, everytime one came I got excited and would start timing, but then I wouldn't have one for a while again. Finally around 3pm they started up again and were quite intense...they continued for a couple of hours to get stronger, closer together and longer. By 5 30pm I had gone from happy I was in labour to focusing more on the pain! We got in to the hospital around 6pm, I was only dilated to 3cm so I was disappointed because I felt like I was further along!

Me a couple of hours before delivery

An hour and a half later my waters broke and I got an epidural...finally! 2 hours later I was ready to push! I pushed about 20 minutes and JJ was here...it was such a relief. With Oliver I was pushing for 2 and a half hours.....it was tough! So this time it almost felt easy! My whole labour experience this time was really enjoyable.

JJ weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and was 20 inches long, bigger than Oliver, which I could tell by the way I carried him. He nursed about minutes after he was born, he already knew what to do! I was really happy about that too because nursing was a struggle with Oli for a while. We stayed in the hospital for a couple of days and came home Tuesday afternoon with a new happy, healthy baby.

Introducing: Jordan James Oblad

Our little family

This week has been interesting, I'm so glad my mum has been here helping with Oliver....otherwise I don't know what I would have done! JJ is a really good baby, his days are switched with nights right now so he's not very good at sleeping at night! I had to take him in to the hospital every day to get his bilirubin levels checked, on Friday he had gotten so high that we had to get the bili lights (again-same thing with Oliver). Basically its a little suitcase with lights in it that are supposed to help cure the jaundice, I've no idea how it works scientifically, something to do with red blood cells. Anyway, it's hard to keep them in the suitcase, only taking them out for feeding and changing. He especially didn't want to be in there at night, so we had a few sleepless nights this weekend! Yesterday morning I took him in for another check and he's low risk now so I'm glad he only had to be under the lights for a few days!

My mum leaves on Tuesday so I'm nervous for it to be just me and the boys but I'm really happy and loving being at home with my little ones!

BYU Alum 2010!

Us at Graduation dinner, 4 days from my due date!

So....Tim and I both graduated! It has been a long time coming and I am so relieved. I have LOVED being in school, but trying to juggle our schedules, work, and studies whilst raising Oliver has been a HUGE challenge. When I got pregnant I considered the fact that I might not be able to graduate, because Oliver's needs would automatically have to come first, and since Tim needed to stay in school for the future, it would have been my responsibility to quit! We considered day care but quickly decided against it: too expensive, and we wanted to look after Oli ourselves. We arranged our class and work schedules so we could switch Oli in between us throughout the day, it worked pretty well our first 2 semesters as he was quite little and would sleep a lot in the push chair on campus. Arranging our schedules to fit exactly with each others: not easy! I also had to ask a LOT of people for help and so many of my friends helped me out during the day on campus with watching Oliver while I was in class.

Our second year with Oli and last year of school was a lot more of a challenge. Partly because I was also pregnant, and because Oli was bigger and wanted to run around and be a toddler, not be strapped in his push chair all day! It was difficult and tiring and to keep him entertained on campus and I felt bad for him but somehow we got through! We were really fortunate because I was able to stay full time the whole time instead of having to take less classes, which meant I wouldn't have graduated the same time as Tim. We were also fortunate in that Oliver has always been really good, and a great sleeper, his 12 hours at night gave us time to study and kept us sane during the day! We've all also been really healthy which could have presented huge challenges, in that every time Oli gt sick one of us had to miss class to stay home with him. I even managed to be able to do BYU Singers this last year, something I didn't think I'd be able to do after having Oliver.

So, we're done! The days of dragging Oliver around on campus between classes and trying to quickly study during his naps are over. I'm so grateful I was able to graduate and have a beautiful little boy and another one on the way! So I guess my message is: if you are determined and want something bad enough, willing to sacrifice, and ask for help, then you can do anything! Cheesy but true......