talk like a doctor and other life lessons

 

We learn things every day, in the most unexpected of places, in some of the oddest ways. Little nuggets of info we tuck away for another day when we will be very thankful to have hoarded that very memory.

Sometimes they’re a hard lesson learned. A slap on the wrist, a devastating mistake, a road we wished we hadn’t taken. We hopefully learn the lesson with such a steep price. If you’re mindful and keep your wits about you, you may only need to look at others’ regretful choices and their consequences to learn the lesson for yourself. The vast majority of people though, feel the need to earn that scar themselves before heeding the wisdom of the situation.

 

But today is about one of those lessons learned from a meaningless notion, a quick moment that caught my attention, made me laugh and made my neurons scream EUREKA!

 

 

Let me set the scene up for you:

CVS pharmacy – an older gentlemen walks in, talking on his cell phone and heads directly to the pharmacy where he paces in front of our counter while seeming to become increasingly annoyed with the voice on the other end of the line. When the technician working the cash register finally appears free from any other waiting customer, he approaches the counter, holds his cell phone out in front of the technician and says “Can you talk to her? Her name is Monica.”

This doesn’t surprise me. This same gentleman had just pulled the same stunt with me only 3 days ago. Monica is his wife and she is full of questions. He can give her the same answer to her simple question that I can, but she doesn’t believe him.

Classic old married couple syndrome ;)

This did however, surprise the technician who is trained to usually divert all clinical questions to the pharmacist. You could see it in her face as she took the phone that she was nervous she wouldn’t know any of the answers to Monica’s questions.

As they begin to talk, Monica’s husband grabs an emptied Altoids box off the shelf, scribbles on it and hands it to the girl.

 

“TALK LIKE A DOCTOR. SHE WON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.”

^hahahahahahahahahaha!!!

I could have rolled in the floor laughing the next 5 minutes.

I kept that piece of trash by my computer and continued to spontaneously laugh at it all weekend.

 

 

{Yes, if you walked into your CVS pharmacy this weekend and saw your pharmacist bursting out in maniacal laughter in the midst of silence… that was probably me.}

{No, I am not insane. Possibly a bit ditzy, definitely a tad awkward at times, and whole heartedly sleep deprived. Which all should explain the slap happiness at a piece of trash.}

 

 

Besides being good for a much needed laugh in the middle of a 14 hour shift, it also got me thinking and reminded me of my own personal motto:

“Fake it till you make it.”

 

And when I say “Fake it”, I’m not talking about dishonesty or lying or falsely pretending to be something you aren’t. Just as the man who wrote “TALK LIKE A DOCTOR” just saw the look of trepidation on the technician’s face and knew the questions were simple, his wife just wanted to hear the answers from someone else – someone confident. NOT that she was to pretend she was an actual doctor.

 

For example:

• New pharmacist with a license for 6 measly months hired as a manager with absolutely no managing experience – grow some confidence and “Fake it till you make it”.
• New mother with little to no baby/newborn experience – pull your big girl panties up and “Fake it till you make it”.
• Throwing caution to the wind and taking on an exciting and terrifying “second job” in a new world you’ve never been a part of that will someday hopefully afford you more time at home with your little one – lose a couple more hours of sleep and “Fake it till you make it”!!!!

Whenever you’re scared and want to run from a new opportunity because of your lack of confidence, worrying that you’re not good enough or that someone else would be much MUCH better at it than little old you… I hope you don’t miss out on the experience and keep remembering to “Fake it till you make it” or as he put it:

“TALK LIKE A DOCTOR”

Which is now my personal favorite motto ;)

I feel better now :)

 

I’ve had so much on my mind, I decided to do a little post to get it all out there.

It’s going to be long, it’s going to be random, and it may make you feel a little disoriented if you happen to read through it all, but I sure do feel better.

Perhaps bullets will make it less chaotic?

 

 

• This post’s title has dual meaning. I’m literally feeling better these days in more ways than just a nice head clearing, blog brain dump. I’ve had a cold for nearly two weeks and it was a killer. Some of the worst of it hit while Nick was out of town for 3 days. Playing single mommy and full-time pharmer while feeling achey breaky sick was one of my biggest challenges to date. We survived, but sadly I’m the reason baby boy now has congestion and a runny nose :( He doesn’t seem to feel bad though, just blowing a few disgusting and somewhat cute snot bubbles from time to time ;)

 

• Houston’s been eating solids since about 4 1/2 months, but only baby oatmeal till about a week ago. We’re now venturing into making our own baby food - I never knew it would be so easy! I love this little gadget = worth.every.penny.

 

• A couple weeks ago, I found Houston’s bottom left canine had popped through his gums. It’s rare for canines to come first, but it does happen. I read up on it and came believe he was on his way to getting all 4 canines before any other teeth – he already had the pale skin and heard vampires were all the rage right now, so why not?  Saturday, I was startled to find both center bottom teeth cut through when he chopped down on my finger. I guess we’re Team Jacob after all?

 

• Momma’s hair went a little darker recently. While I look like a strange Vanna White wannabe in this picture and my hair has gone flat from the rain, you can at least see what I’m talking about and a small inkling of how much our boy loves the dog… and how little the dog cares about him.

 

• Why do some of the BEST pictures have to be blurry? :(

Still, I love my blurry boys♥

 

• Speaking of teeth, our situation as of late brings new meaning to the saying “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. Except in our case, it’s not a hand… have I shared too much?

 

• …and speaking of nursing the babe, I can not believe we’re about to ring in 6 months of breastfeeding! {or that my baby boy is about to be 6 months old?!?!?} Breastfeeding has been quite the amazing  journey - from overcoming the hurdles that came in the beginning, to learning a new way of life that involves altering the way I dress, eat, drink, and think and of course, life with my most stylish accessory… the breast pump. But nursing and pumping deserve a whole post {or two!} all to themselves. I am so astonished we’ve made it this far with no end in sight just yet. It has truly become second nature and unbelievably rewarding - I am beyond thankful I stuck with it!

 

My almost 6 month old looking more like a little boy than a baby every day:

 

• Every time I hit “Publish” on a blog post, I feel so accomplished. Still, it’s so hard for me to prioritize blogging into my daily life. Just though I’d throw this one out there at ya.

 

• For Valentine’s Day, Houston decided to get his craft on with a little acrylic paint and some modge podge. He made a couple for his grandparents, but the one for his daddy I love the most. What a sweet, thoughtful child ;)

 

for that silly baby-daddy that found his way into the the first photo =)

 

• I am loving my new job. LOVING IT. It still comes with it’s own frustration and stress as any job does, but the perks of my new schedule trump it all. That and I no longer work with the devil incarnate. True story.

 

• Finally, my aunt, Sandy, says this will be Houston at Easter:

 

Seriously? I would never put Houston in a pink bunny suit…

hehehe.

xoxo!

Cupid says…

It’s so amazing to think of this day last year, when we shared some very sweet news with you♥

 

Even more fun is to compare that picture of our little gummy bear last year to our first family Valentine’s day card of our little cupid this year:

 

How far we’ve come!

Is there anything I won’t put my child through for a picture? ;)

 

 

 

At least these aren’t reminiscent of the pumpkin debacle… you can tell he did enjoy this photo shoot, for what it’s worth ;)

Some close-ups and a few that didn’t make the cut:

 

From our sweet cupid and the rest of the family to yours, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Houston’s birth story, part 1

 

I’ve had this post written since Houston was 12 weeks old.

I’ve wanted to share it, but other posts kept getting in the way and I felt like I was waiting for the right day – not sure what day that was going to be or what exactly I was waiting for.

Now I know.

Today, I feel the strong urge to share this. Today I’m thinking back to the day he was born. Such a momentous occasion, one of the best days of my life – his birthday. Every birthday he has while I’m still on this earth, I will think back to that beautiful day I gave birth to him.

It’s today that I now understand my own mother a little more. What she did for me to enter this world and what she continues to do every day after that one in order for me to have this extremely blessed life I’ve enjoyed.

 

Today is my 28th birthday.

 

It’s no longer about me since my son’s own birth. This morning I woke up to a smiling, happy baby with a poopy diaper :) I joyously changed that diaper and silently thanked God for letting me live to this birthday and for giving me the best present I’ve ever received – poopy diaper and all♥

 

Thank you, mom, for enduring those 9 months of pregnancy, labor and birth, 28 years ago today without pain medication {super woman!}, nursing me many sleepless nights while you also had my 4 year old sister to take care of, and showing me a living example of a completely selfless life along side my father, both doing anything and everything for their children without a moment’s hesitation for what their own needs may be. 

 

♥♥♥ ♥♥♥ ♥♥♥

I’m hoping I haven’t forgotten any precious details of his birth and that I can tell you the story to the best of my ability, five months later. It makes me giddy to think of our sweet boy grown enough to be able to read and to want to read my words about that joyous day he entered our lives. I can’t wait to share this with him! I feel comforted to know that if I should no longer be here when that day rolls around, he will still have my written words and hope that he knows how much we loved him and how he made our lives infinitely happier, better, purer.

 

With all corniness and cliché aside… he lights up our lives.

 

But not only that, he set them afire. We are on fire with an intense love we never knew before and a longing to be there for every breath and every occasion in this dear boy’s life. Our world in which we selfishly lived before, now happily revolves around him.

♥♥♥

 

 WARNING: I have recounted every tedious detail in this story for my own memory’s sake. I am aware that it is lengthy!! It may be overkill and at times, too much information in an over sharing of personal info kind of way… but it’s *my* story and my story goes like this:

 

The morning of August 28th, my mother’s birthday {how’s that for irony, today?!}, a Sunday, and two days past my due date… I woke up feeling no different than any other day and started my business of showering and getting ready for church. As I exited the shower, I was shocked to see I was bleeding as I was toweling off. I knew immediately that we were not going to be making our induction appointment for the following Thursday(!)

I threw on a robe and opened the door of the bathroom to see my husband still in bed. I’m not sure what I said, but I tried to play it cool and let him know that the birth of our son was imminent in a nonchalant manor. When I opened my mouth my voice cracked and my wording came out less cool and more oh.my.gosh.this.is.happening.and.you.better.get.out.of.bed.

He sat up and I talked to him about what I saw and that I wasn’t feeling any contractions yet and it probably just meant he would be coming in the next couple of days.

Then I started “googling” {terrible idea} what I saw in the shower and it scared me that maybe there wasn’t suppose to be that much of what I saw or for it to be that dark. I called the doctor and she reassured me that as long as it didn’t increase, yadda yadda yadda, it was just a good sign that labor was on it’s way.

We called our families and prepared them for the possibilities. It could be today, maybe tomorrow, possibly even later, but be ready.

By that time we were too late to make it to Sunday school, but went to Sunday service. At some point, my contractions did begin. Slowly, with very little pain. The contractions I had been having for a couple weeks had never been accompanied by pain, so I knew these were becoming the real deal.

We came into church a few minutes late and sat in the back. My contractions had picked up and I was timing them with an app on my iPhone. The doctor had told us to come to the hospital when they were consistently 5 minutes apart over an hour’s time. They were sporadic through-out church but stayed within 3-7 minutes apart and my back was now hurting more and more with each contraction. It was one of the most exciting church services I have ever attended though I’m sorry to say I didn’t pay much attention to the sermon! ;) We headed out, all smiles and excited from head to toe, just a minute before church was over, not wanting to get caught-up in conversation or traffic in case things took a quick turn.

 

Home from church

 

40 weeks, 2 days and in labor!

 

We made our game-plan in the car on the way home and got to it as soon as we reached home. Bags were packed and in the car, house was thoroughly cleaned, and families were called and updated. We ate lunch and decided to walk the dog because #1) he needed it and was about to be left alone for who knows how long and #2) I wanted to progress labor the best I could and did not want to be turned away at the hospital for not being far enough along.

We walked in the sweltering, humid heat of Kentucky in August. We enjoyed ourselves talking, pausing for contractions, and taking a few pics on our phones to remember the time.

 

 

We got back home, I blogged this post, and we continued to wait.

 

 

…and wait.

 

 

…and wait.

 

The contractions had been consistently 5 minutes apart for hours now {remember that the doctor only said it needed to be one hour before coming in…} and the pain in my back was definitely increasing with each contraction. But we still didn’t know what to do. My water hadn’t broken and I was comfortable in my own house in my own clothes without being hooked up to any monitors.

 

To go or not to go? That was the question.

 

We decided to go. If I had planned a natural birth, I would have stayed at home much longer, but even then without having went through labor before, it was difficult to tell how far along I felt that I was. I didn’t want to be turned away, but I also didn’t want to be delivering this baby on the side of the road myself.

{I say “myself” because Nick would be passed out beside me if we were in that actual predicament :)}

 

NEXT TIME I WILL KNOW THAT LABOR HURTS MUCH WORSE THAN I HAD EVER EXPECTED IT TO… and if next time it is as manageable as it was feeling at home, we are NOT very far along yet! =)

 

More than anything, more than other things I should have worried about much more than this, I did not want to be sent home by the hospital to labor more before coming back.

I had dreaded that exact possibility for a long, long time. Not sure why – except that I find it extremely embarassing to be turned away. Kind of like, “You silly woman, you’re not in labor…”

 

We had packed our bags, lugged them all the way to labor and delivery room, settled in, answered a million questions from the nurses, and when they checked me… ehh, maybe a 2.

They wanted a 3 before they would keep me.

 

We were told to walk around the hospital for an hour and they would recheck me to see if there was any change before sending me back home.

BOO!

I was tired, I was past my due date, I had already walked plenty in the mid-day heat AND cleaned my entire house. I was disheartened, disappointed and defeated.

 

We made a half-hearted, sad attempt to walk the halls of the hospital for about 20 minutes. But when you can only walk about 30 feet down a hall before having to turn around because of dead ends, you start to feel like the ball in a pin-ball machine, which gets old pretty fast.

 

We went back to the room to watch t.v. where I tried to do squats and lunges, knowing it was probably just wasted energy. At the end of an hour they checked me and my dilation was unchanged. They hooked up a fetal heart-rate monitor and said it was policy to monitor it for at least 30 minutes before I was allowed to leave.

By that time, I was ticked at the whole situation. My contractions were actually slowing down?! but getting much more painful in my back. All of our family were on their way into town, dropping things they were doing to be here, with the farthest driving almost 6 hours to be with us. I was embarrassed to say the least.

 

And now we had to stick around even longer when we could at least be out eating a nice dinner to console my bruised, pregnant ego.

30 minutes passed by and the nurse came in to say I needed to stay longer because the monitor kept slipping and they had to have at least 30 minutes of continuous fetal heart-rate monitoring.

Seriously?!

An hour passed by and they still didn’t have what they wanted. I was being kept longer and longer because of a faulty monitor, knowing this was all going to end with me at home, trying to figure out again when I should go back to the hospital.

I asked the nurse how I was suppose to know when to come in again since I had obviously misjudged it once already. She said to come in when the pain was unbearable. I cried to Nick when she left the room, I was more confused than ever and the pain was quickly becoming unbearable.

At this point, we had been in the hospital almost 3 hours. My pain had progressed even if my contractions weren’t as close together as they wanted them to be. I was squeezing Nick’s hand through each, threatening him if he spoke during one, and breathing the best I could to get through them. I had already decided that if they sent me home, we would just go sit in the car in the parking garage because I knew I was in true labor even if it wasn’t good enough for them!

 

Part 2 and the account of how I almost strangled the nurse that tortured me with two different faulty monitors to come :)

Thought I could stop at just 2 posts… wrong. Don’t miss Part 3!

play-dates defined

Playdates: once thought {by me} to be a day for parents’ of young children to meet together and provide socialization for young, budding individuals to learn about others and enjoy playtime with tiny people their own age.

 

My previous thinking was almost completely wrong.

 

Playdates redefined since I’ve now attended a few of my own: a day for parents’ of young children to meet together and provide socialization among adults including an outlet to vent, share parenting ideas and possibly even let our children play together if we can’t coerce them into taking a nap ;)

At least that’s what it is in our current season of life while most of my friends have babies and toddlers. Things will surely change as our children grow, but I’m definitely enjoying this time!

 

 

Back in November, I got to meet up with my friends Danielle and Brittney at Danielle’s house. I hadn’t seen Danielle since the last time we all got together, while she was still pregnant with her second child and I was still pregnant with Houston.

What a big difference a few months have made in our lives! Danielle, now with two children, me with my baby boy, and on this same day, my roommate of 4 years in college, Brittney, broke the news to us of her little one on the way! I have never been so blown away!!!!

 

11.16.11

Harper {almost 6 months} and Houston {almost 3 months}

 

Checking him out while Houston gives me the stink-eye for taking pictures instead of coming to his rescue =)

 

A little closer inspection was necessary.

 

“Really, lady? Don’t you have enough pictures yet?”

 

“Dude, you’re kind of lazy laying around all the time, but I dig your blue stripes almost as much as my pink ones.”

 

“MoOOOOOOm!!!!!!!!!!!!! Girl cooties!!!!!!!!!!” 

 

“Wait up, babe. I think I need a little more of that sugar!”

 

 

After getting a little too close, big brother Harrison had to step in. He better start practicing now – in the future, boys after Harper might be a little more agile than this one!

 

The best pic we could get with all three kids :)

 

Oh, the chaos!

 

 

 

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hosting 4 other girls and their sons for a playdate at my house! It was a blast.

 

01.18.12

Seated left to right from oldest to youngest:

Mason, Houston, Hudson, Wyatt and Ty

 

When was the last time you saw this much cuteness in one place?!

 

The mommas had a lovely time talking everything baby and getting to know each other. Surprisingly, the 3 hours went by FAST with no melt-downs what-so-ever. Our little boys were as good as gold!

Who says boys are rowdier???

I can’t wait to get together again!!

 

Holding hands, completely un-coerced  – I melt.♥

 

 

The difference these days – no more pictures of the mommas!! We’ll have to change that one next time ;)