Meghan sat up for the first time! 2 weeks ago at thanksgiving she was only rolling back to front. Now she has 2 teeth, is rolling like crazy and sitting up!

i'm dreaming...

...of a white christmas. no really, i am. every year i look forward to snow on christmas and am a little disappointed when it melts before 12.25

i just love the snow when its crisp and white and perfect. for about 2 hours. then there's salt and sand on the road, it starts to melt a little and everything gets all muddy and brown. but, oh those glorious 2 hours.

hey man...

...don't leave me hanging!

we're just hanging around the house today, at least for a little while. that's only because we don't have a car. here's a little backstory:

if you don't know i live in central ny, and we've been getting blasted with snow for a week. literally. it did not stop snowing for a week straight, maybe longer. we have 2 cars on the road, drew drives an alero and i have the 88 in case i need it. we hadn't bothered to clear off the 88 during this ridiculous snow because i didn't have anywhere to go when drew was at work. so when the snow started to melt a couple days ago, it got real icy.

fastforward to 230am sunday morning:

i get a phone call from drew saying he slid off the road. coincidently into the same spot some else went off the road but not as far. i would've gone to get him then but the 88 was buried under feet of snow. he had just left a friend's house, so he texted him to see if he would come and take drew home at least. his "friend" never answered.

meanwhile i was trying to figure out if we still had AAA. my dad has been getting AAA for the last four years as Christmas presents. but he didn't renew the policy this year because AAA knocked his coverage from gold plus rv down to basic claiming we've used their tow service too much. when i found that out i was like, really?! really aaa? we've used your services that we pay for too much?!?

but there was no changing that, so we moved onto trying to get drew home instead of sleeping in the car overnight. around 3am he told me his phone was going to die, so i sent him a text at 312am to call his mom right away. she might've still been up and willing to come get him and bring him home.

i called him at 430am because he was still not home and he said he had fallen asleep in the car but would call his mom right then. he had to keep calling to wake someone up. his mom and dad went out to pick him up and he finally arrived home around 545am. his parents were hoping meg was awake but she kept sleeping until they left around 630am.

then we finally went to bed. sunday afternoon we had my stepfather, jim pull the alero out and we were on our way home!

you got to...

...keep it off the record. try that on for size. no, really, savor it, let it roll around in your mouth. and then go listen to my morning jacket. drew's been crushing on them lately so we've been listening to their albums z and evil urges.

but i digress, the point of this post is to talk about meghan. our blessing in disguise she has become a terror lately and it's not her fault! no, really, it isn't. poor baby got her first tooth on 11-28 (her 4 month birthday) and she's been in pain everyday.

we went to the pedi yesterday and found out she is 14 pounds 10 ounces (67% for her age) and 26 1/4 inches long, which is 97%. she is taller than 97% of every other baby in the world her age, about 372,480. she is taller than 372,480 4 month old babies! we were astounded, we are every time she measures long, but at this point we shouldn't be because our avg height is 5'10". :)

in case you can't tell...

... i'm trying to make my goal of 30 posts in 30 days. and since i took a week off, unintentionally of course, i am attempting to make up for it. not sure what to write about. meg is taking a little nap, dylan is playing and i am blogging. not much else so i guess that's it for today.

in a related story...

... meghan has her first tooth! she had been having teething symptoms like spitting up all the time, chewing on everything and lots of drool all of a sudden since about 2 months old (end of september). then finally on her 4 month birthday (november 28th) her first tooth popped through! its been awful since then. she's up every two hours or more often at night where she was sleeping 6-10 hours straight. she's constantly drooling and in pain. sometimes she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.

sometimes drew and i are just at wits end because she can scream her little heart out. drew even broke down and called his mom for her advice and asked her to come over on her way home from bringing his sister to work, but she was unable to. and i completely understand. she's a mommy to 12, with 10 still at home and the youngest two are 5 and 3. she has her own family to take care of. drew got all upset and offended because she wasn't able to come out. of course he is the oldest and thinks everything should be his when he demands it. oh well. atleast i understood.

ok dr, whatever you say...

... dr's can say whatever they want but teething and diarrhea are directly connected! meghan hasn't pooped this often ever. she pooped 5 times yesterday. and not just a little fart/poop, i mean full on/full size regular poops. she's already pooped twice today before 930am! my poor baby.

for the love of pete...

... i don't know who pete is, but he needs some love. and so do i. i need some love in the manner of a maid. to clean the kitchen and the bathroom and meghan's room and do the laundry and the dishes and the dusting and the vacuuming.

and don't forget, start dinner. every day is so overwhelming. adding dylan to the mix i just do not have the time, nor do i make the time to get things done around here. our apt is in complete disarray. constantly. and when i try and clean up on the weekends when dh could be watching meghan, he says to leave it. ugh. it is frustrating.

and now a little note on religion

this is something i've been meaning to write about for a while. i feel conflicted regarding religion. when i was little my dad's girlfriend would take us to a baptist church in a small town near home but since then i haven't had any other exposure to religion. i think i've always felt some sort of higher power is out there watching over us, dictating our every move. i also believe that when my sister was attacked and almost murdered i came to a turning point in my faith.

i was devastated. i was so angry that He had let this happen to her. why didn't He send someone better to help her than the woman in the car who was too scared to get out. i came to realize that he has a plan for everyone and perhaps this was the only way to get rid of dylan's father. perhaps now the right person and my sister will find each other and she can finally get her happy ending.

that's all for now. the kids are napping and i'm enjoying this relative silence.

ok 2 for today

that's right ladies and gentlemen, 2 posts for today. the first will continue on my last post. so, four days out of the week, my older sister works at a doctor's office about five minutes away from my house. dylan then gets to spend all day with me and "baby meghan" (as he affectionately calls her).

i admit, it's a trial. everyday. unfortunately he's got quite the attitude and acts out his aggression violently. he often does things he knows are bad like hitting, kicking, throwing things, and generally disobedience.

but we're working on it. i try and be a good example and leader so he can make the right decisions.

we also working on potty training. like i said, a trial.

must try harder

well so much for the one post a day for 30 days. but i think i can make up for it my doing double posts. so the first one for today is about what i do everyday:

i'm a stay at home mom!!

and i love it. a little background:

drew and i started dating in high school i was 15 he was 17, one grade apart. he proposed the following year before he went to college in a big college city near the big lake about 30 minutes away from home. i of course accepted, we totally in love and clueless. i used to daydream about how many kids we'd have and i always said that i would stay at home because my one dream in life was to be a mommy.

so fast forward 9ish years when we get pregnant and i want to leave my customer service job to stay at home with our new baby. drew and i were in disagreement for a few months, he's rather have 2 incomes. but finally we decided that we couldn't leave meghan at a daycare and it wouldn't make sense to drive her 30 minutes in the opposite direction in my mil had offered to watch her.

so now i spend my days basking in the light of meghan that we have been blessed with.

a new goal!

i've decided to try and post at least once a day for 30 days! a whole month of my ramblings! i'm not sure how well it's going to work but we'll see.

today we did some christmas decoration shopping. we went to a mid sized city about 25 minutes away after having breakfast buffet in the suburb drew works in. we bought bulbs, candy canes, stuff to make a wreath for the door and a tree skirt and most importantly, an angel for the top! she's a color changing fiber optic angel with a beautiful light blue and silver dress. our tree is almost complete. my mother brought over my ornaments from her house and i have a few to pick up from my dad's house.

when my sisters and i were little, my mother would give us a new ornament for the tree as one of our gifts so now we have 20-something to adorn our tree. we also bought some wrapping paper, gift tags, curling ribbon and bows to start wrapping the presents we bought on black friday.

in addition to all of this we got 3 stockings and holders to put on the front of our entertainment center, i should post pictures. maybe tomorrow will be a picture post. that still counts.

well that didn't work

hmm. i tried to text a picture to my blog but it didn't work. good to know.

meg slept for 50 minutes in the bassinet, then another 30 minutes later that same night. but wouldn't go back in after that. better than not at all i suppose. i just don't want her to be 5 and still in our bed. which i hope won't happen and shouldn't especially if we have more children.

i had drew take the portable air conditioner

(wrote all that this morning at 1am then meghan woke up so i went back to bed, now its wednesday morning)

so i had drew take the portable air conditioner out of the window the other night and now it is a lot more quiet at night. plus the weather has finally turned cool and the hot summer seems to be over! fall is my favorite season, the changing leaves, everything smells crisp and lots of baking! i made apple crisp last night and it was delicious with vanilla ice cream all melty and goood. yum!

of course as i was lying in bed last night i had all kinds of things i needed to write about and google. and now i can't remember any of it.

sleeping through the night

it only lasted 50 minutes. but she went to sleep without a breast in her mouth. this is just the beginning. after meghan woke up, we stayed up until it was the next feeding time. that time she fell asleep while eating, but i was able to move her to the bassinet without waking her up. she's there right now, we'll see how long this lasts. haha.

atleast i know my text-post worked. nothing else too new. today meg was sort of sitting up with assistance. it's funny to watch because she slooowly falls over and i have to catch/steady her.

@ et's see how long this lasts!

@ So meg's been cosleeping since i was able to sleep in the bed and not the recliner. I just laid her down in the bassinet for the first time in 7 weeks! L

ugh. get over this hump.

so i've been trying to post meghan's birth story for the last three weeks. literally. i haven't finished it yet so i'll just post it when it's done. at any rate, the most important facts are:

meghan louise is here!
born wednesday 7-28-10
at 1:29 pm
weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces
measuring 21 inches long!

she came via c-section after 42 hours of induced labor (more on this in her birth story post) but everything is going great, no problems so far. except for the fact it looks like i'll be watching the sun rise today. we went to bed around 10, meg fell right asleep and me not long after. then i woke up at 2 am, tossed and turned until 330am and decided to get up and surf the web! i know i should be doing something constructive like cleaning or putting away the groceries, but oh well. drew says leave the cleaning until monday but i don't think he gets how hard it is to do anything with a newborn around! especially since she doesn't nap very much and only for about 20 minutes at a time.

i think i might be suffering from the insomnia due to stress. our car broke down today. granted, it's a 97 olds 88 with lots of scratches, dents, rust and 175,000 miles, but we really cannot afford a new car until tax time in february. i was driving down the main road in our town today going from bed bath and beyond to walmart. (this main road is 2 lanes on both sides, mind you) and i heard/felt banging underneath the car like i had run over something. i looked out the back and didn't see anything and the driver behind me was acting normal so i didn't think anything of it until i went around a curve and didn't have any power steering! so i managed to get the walmart parking lot. i changed and fed meghan (not an easy task in the car, ps) then i checked the engine and the belt was shredded. so i called drew-he and cousin joey went and bought a belt while i started shopping at walmart.

drew called saying a belt wasn't going to cut it before i was even a 1/3 of the way finished with the groceries. i went out to the parking lot and drew showed me where a coil was broken on the auto tensioner (?? we're not totally sure) i called my dad and he said not to bother putting the belt on. so we're calling someone in the am to follow us out to my dad's house while aaa tows my car.

now that i've vented maybe i'll be able to fall back asleep.

meghan's birth story

meghan louise was born 7-28-10 after 42 hours of labor and an unplanned c section. this is where we left off:

i went to the dr on friday 7-23 for my 39th week check up/sono/non-stress test and meghan was measuring 8 pounds 14 ounces. dr. f decided we should be induced monday night at 6 pm if she still wasn't here on her own. i had been having very light sporadic contractions for the last couple of days but nothing that went anywhere. i really only noticed them during the nst because i could see them on the print out.

on monday 7-26, drew went to work (since he would be with me in the hospital for only a couple days we thought) with our only car, so his mom, kim, came out to drive me to my appointment at 3. drew's done with work at 430 so he was either going to meet us at home or at the hospital at 6. well, poor kim was waiting in the waiting room at the dr office because i was in there for 2 hours! dr. f had to call the hospital and tell them we'd be late.

so kim and i met drew at our apartment, we got all packed up for the hospital and met kim at burger king for my last meal before heading to the hospital. we got to the hospital at 7, only an hour late. we got checked in, settled and i changed into hospital gowns. they started with cervadil at 8pm, which is inserted vaginally, looks sort of like a tiny tampon on a string and you have to lay down while it's in, so they start it at night so you can sleep through it. cervadil starts ripening the cervix. due to being induced, they have to monitor the baby the whole time. well, i NEVER sleep on my back and if i tried to roll over onto my side, the monitor would lose the baby. sleep was inaccessible to me. i got a few snippets here and there and the nurse would let me sleep on my side for a half hour at a time but would eventually come in and wake me up to make me lay on my back again.

at midnight they inserted the first round of misoprostol which is a tiny pill inserted into the cervix to continue ripening the cervix. i was dosed again at 4am and 8am. dr. f came in and checked me, i was finally 100% effaced and we could start pitocin to get my contractions going. i begged to have breakfast because i hadn't eaten dinner since the night before. breakfast finally arrived at 10am and we started pitocin at 11am. that's when things finally got interesting.

contractions picked up and were coming every 3-5 minutes lasting maybe 30 seconds in length. this continued all day and night into the next morning. dr. b was now on call and allowed me to eat breakfast before we decided on our next move. i wanted to continue as contractions were every few minutes lasting 60 seconds or more. i was really feeling the pain and got some stadol to take off the edge. i'm firmly against epidurals being that our bodies were meant to deliver babies and i should be able to handle the pain! (haha, i needed that stadol like my life depended on it)

around 1pm dr. b came in to check me and i was still at 4 cm as i had been earlier that morning. dr. b suggested a c-section and i protested firmly because i wanted to keep going. i wanted to have my baby naturally. i wanted to go without drugs and feel every movement, work with my body and contractions to get meghan born. i didn't want her born into a drug induced stupor were she slept for days. i gave into his request that we do a c-section because he said someone was scheduled at 130pm so we need to do it now and i had just gotten a shot of stadol and i was literally falling asleep as he was asking us what we wanted to do.

i was so upset after i consented i was in tears in between falling asleep. i wanted so badly to bring meghan into the world in the most natural way and i had failed her. i felt like i had given up when i could've done more for her. i could've given her the best birth experience and i made the decision to put myself through seemingly unnecessary surgery and a drug drunk birth.

at the same time i feel like i was pushed into 'deciding' on a c-section. no one who was in the delivery room with me (dh, mil, my parents) even questioned me having a c-section despite me adamantly denying that i wanted one earlier during my labor. yet i can only blame myself for the decision. i still cry when i see a natural or vaginal birth on tv.

too make matters worse, now that i've had a c-section my chances of having to have another one are high and there are only 2 hospitals in my area that allow vbac (vaginal birth after cesarean) one is the hospital i gave birth at and the other is in a college city about 1 1/2 hours away from where we live now, a 1/2 hour from the small town our parents live in. so not easy to get there from our current home.

so we went in for a c-section at that time, dh got all suited up in scrubs and they wheeled me into surgery. i kept falling in and out of sleep and i was falling asleep as they tried to do an epidural. i was screaming from the pain of the shots to numb the area, i even swore at the anesthesiologist! the surgery itself only took about 20 minutes and dh was there throughout the whole thing. i could feel tugging and other sensations while they were pulling meg out but i couldn't see a thing.

meghan louise was born at 129pm on wednesday july 28th, weighing in at 7 lbs 8 oz!

i should be resting...

but my to-do list is sooo long! i definitely shouldn't be blogging, but i wanted to get one in before tomorrow. when we went to the dr on 7-23 for my 39th week check up (i was at 39 weeks, 1 day) the baby is measuring 8 pounds 14 ounces (give or take a pound) so if she doesn't come on her own by tomorrow (7-26) at my dr appointment at 3:15 then i will be induced at 6pm at one of the hospitals in the big city.

i'd rather not be induced but she must come now because she is getting so big! i'm not very worried, d was 9 pounds 6 ounces when he was born and he came vaginally from my tiny older sister. kait and i got to watch d be born, i think we are very lucky to be able to experience child birth in such a close capacity. you know those 20 year old videos they showed you in health class do not do anything any justice.

in a related manner, i've named this blog 'margotsmom' but we're actually not naming the baby margot anymore! drew and i decided it is still a lovely name but we don't love it and i really wanted an irish name (drew's family is irish and i picked the middle name, louise, to honor my grandmother) so we have it narrowed down to:

teagan riley louise (g-last name)

or

meghan louise (g-last name)

i like both but i really love meghan. we decided to wait to see the baby to decide between the two names.

last fall, drew had 3 cousins in his uncle's family all give birth within 6 weeks of each other, 1 boy and 2 girls. the girls were born with red hair-like drew's paternal grandmother who passed away a few years ago. i would love to have babies with red hair and freckles, i think it is so adorable.

time to finish my to do list before our trip to the hospital!

it's been a long day's night...

and i've been working like a dog.

apologies for not updating on a more scheduled manner, but c'est la vie.

i am officially out of work on maternity leave and man, am i excited. i cannot wait to have our little bundle of joy here with me all day and night. i am a bit nervous about the delivery but that's to be expected with my first child.

i'm having the wonderful hubby, drew, my momma, debra and his momma, kim in the delivery room with me so i have nothing to fear. my mother has 3 kids and kim is the proud momma of 12! with their experience and guidance from above i know all will be well.

here's a little background on me/my life. i am married to drew (5-15-10) and we live in a nice suburb of the big city with our chihuahua mix, sweet pea. up until today i worked a full time customer service job for a regional electronic service center in east big city, drew works full time as a boxer in the shipping department of a computer repair company in another nice suburb of the big city, about 20 minutes away from home.

i have 2 sisters, lacie (27) and kaitlyn (23). i am the middle child, my parents are debra and jeff. they've been divorced since 1994 but (magically) remain very good friends. my dad has never remarried and lives in a small town with his dog spanky and cat sophie (who just had 4 kittens!) the small town is about 20 minutes away, my mom lives in the village within the small town a few minutes drive from my dad. she has remarried twice since my parents got divorced and is on husband #3! his name is jim, they all went to high school together. they have no pets and are building their own house on a small lake about 5 minutes away from the village. my sister lacie and her son d live right around the block from my mom and jim who are still in the house i was raised in, in the village. my sister kait lives with a bunch of friends in the little city about 20 minutes from me and from the small town. coincidently, drew's family also lives in the small town about 2 minutes drive from my dad's house.

drew's parents, tom and kim, and thier kids live right down/on the same road as my dad. drew has 4 brothers and 7 sisters: pat (24), michelle (22), val (20), liz (19), luke (17), carrie (15), jake (13), eileen (12), olivia (10), danielle (4), and sean (2). (disclaimer: all ages are approximate, i am so bad at remembering ages) and i love them all dearly. sometimes i feel closer to drew's family than my own but i love them in different ways. i even considered having some of drew's sisters in the wedding party but not my own, this was quickly kiboshed by my mother.

pat and his fiancee alex (20) live in the big city and they both work at a one of the city's hospitals, but not the one i am delivering at-it is right next door however. they are both hoping to be working when i have the baby so they can just walk over to visit. they rent the bottom of a 2 family house and live there with their dog, ulrich (not sure on the spelling, pronounced yur-rick) they are set to be married this november and are very excited!

michelle lives at home with the family, but just recently applied for and got a full time job at the wholesale store she works at in the little city and will be applying for a transfer to another store in the same suburb of the big city that drew works in. she and her boyfriend, cory and planning on moving out on their own at the end of summer.

val recently moved in with kim's parents at the north side of city because she just started aesthetics school which is in a plaza across from grandma judy and grandpa keith. she dates a nice man named john.

liz (on down) also lives in the small town. she just spent (most of) a year in norway at the main center of their family's church (www.brunstad.org). she's spending the summer at the local conference center working as a handywoman doing general maintenance along with others her age. i admire liz's tenacity for her faith and her good will.

luke's a generally awesome kid, very dependable. very much involved in video games and computers, much to drew's delight. they often have video game night.

carrie is a subject of much consternation among the older family members. some think she is headed down the wrong path, some blame bad parenting, some think she is just figuring out things for herself. personally i think it's a combination of all. val went through the same sort of phase at the same age and val has been able to do right in the past few years. i think both of them still have issues to be worked out, but carrie has not yet gotten herself into an undesirable situation.

jake is much like his older brothers. the silly one, he can make anyone laugh.

eileen recently has become kinder and less like val, much to my surprise and excitement. eileen at one time could cut you with harsh words as val used to do and i am glad to see her with a much more positive outlook.

olivia is quiet and sweet. more quiet as of late, she was the closest to their uncle billy who commited suicide in march of 09, on her birthday. she seems to be healing and dealing well this particular demon. i know she will overcome, she has a strong heart.

danielle is an angel and looks like one too. quite possibly the most beautiful of all the kids with her blonde hair, blue eyes and dimples. we have to be careful not to give her too much of a complex.

sean is the youngest and is so much fun. often found playing in the dirt in only a diaper, he is very excited to become an uncle.

well, thats the short version.

lucy you got some 'splainin to do!

well ricky, i feel as though i've started on a sad note. and really, who wants that? on the other hand, a free blog is the cheapest therapy, so here goes.

since i wrote last, i haven't cried before sleep and my admiration for my sister grows stronger each day as she heals physically and mentally. d seems unaffected at this point and he (in theory) will have no memory of the attack so all appears to be well.


in other (more joyful) news, i am ready for this baby to come. i was so sore today from mid back to my knees, it really stunk to have to get up out of my seat at work so many times. another sono on friday to check growth and fluid-perhaps i will be granted a (mini) miracle in the form of being put on bed rest or pulled from work for some reason.

i know she will come when she's ready, but sooner rather than later would be nice.

speaking of work. i know we all think our job is the hardest, but really nothing can prepare you for answering the phone at a call center. thank goodness i don't work for a huge company with thousands of calls daily. we get about 4-500 a day and i am one of 8-9 reps that answer the phone. right now we're down one as a girl is out on vacation and our manager only backs up the phones if needed, so we're at 7.

i called in sick yesterday. i wasn't really sick, but i don't feel guilty because i'm at (almost) 36 weeks and i haven't taken a day since before we moved into our apartment 8 weeks ago. i don't think the man upstairs appreciated my white lie because i woke up today actually feeling sick and had to go to work! all that soreness and some post nasal drip with sore throat to boot. add in heartburn after lunch and either He or karma got me back for yesterday.

but i did get a lot accomplished at home yesterday. kitchen/living room/bedroom is clean/vacuumed and every piece of clothing the hubby and i own is clean except for what we wore yesterday and today. now just have to put all this laundry away...

a bad beginning

today is d's 2nd birthday party.

5 days ago, his father tried to kill his mother,
my sister.

i don't get how she can go on with things like they're normal when they're not. she keeps saying she wants to get back in her house and for everything to just go away.
i break down and cry after every time i see her and every night before i go to sleep.

his father sliced her throat from one ear down around the bottom of her chin.
despite the amazing job the surgeon did, she'll never look the same.
and she's so beautiful. i just don't understand how God could let this happen. wasn't he watching?

i know he must have a plan, i just haven't figured it out yet.
why are you testing us like this?