fun party favor...

happy 4th birthday jack!

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Breaking Bedrest News!

Yep - you read that correctly - I'm on bedrest.

First things first, our sweet little Bunny is doing just great. She's weighing in at a whopping 1 lb. 1 oz. and was busy kicking her little legs & sucking her little thumb throughout the ultrasound today.

So, to the bedrest - here's the abbreviated version of the last 24 hours:

• Ultrasound yesterday at 2pm went great. Baby looked healthy and strong.
• Headed back to Dr. Firestein's office & he shared that my cervical length is too short. (I won't go into details here but suffice it to say that with my long history of obgyn-issues, this is something to be taken seriously.)
• Put on strict, side-lying only bedrest until follow-up appt with specialist at Good Sam this morning.
• Follow-up ultrasound sees baby floating "high" and not putting any pressure on cervix, so cervix length looks great today. (She was way low yesterday & her head was sitting right on my cervix.)
• The ruling: weekly ultrasounds and more bedrest. That's 16-18 hours per day - horizontal! (Sitting doesn't count but sleeping does.)
• Basically, if I'm sitting or standing then gravity and the baby are pushing on my cervix and "the little cervix that could" doesn't like that.  When I'm on my side, no weight is on the cervix & all is well.

So, where does this put me at the moment? (Besides flat on my back when I'm supposed to be on my side?) Well, it's a crazy mix of gratitude (because the baby is okay), frustration (because I'd love to go to just one OBGYN appt without a crisis unfolding the office), awe (because the female body is such an immensely complex piece of work that it's amazing to me that humans are able to even procreate at all), and panic (because this couldn't be worse timing in terms of the amazing opportunity I've been given through my consulting job to do work directly impacting state education policy and there are only about 3 other people on the planet that realize that I'm not kidding when I say no one else can just pick up where I've left off and do my part of the project in the next month). Yea, and there's also some vanity (pretty sure I'll gain 100 pounds if I spend the next four months in my bed).  Above all, I'm fine.  Really, I am.   We feel really positive about this. (It's certainly not the biggest hardship we've faced in the last couple years) And we know it's all going to be all right.
And...you all know me and my "everything happens for a reason" mantra.  There's this great quote about how the Universe speaks first in whispers and then sends louder and louder messages until we finally get the point.  Those that are close to me know how much I've been pushing myself lately - working morning, noon, nights & weekends. I guess it took this big "HEY YOU...SLOOOOOW IT DOWN!" to teach me my lesson.

So, with that. I'm going to follow doctors orders and know that this too shall pass.  Luckily I have an amazing husband, understanding daughter, wonderful & supportive family, amazing friends & colleagues, and lots of offers to help.

sucking her thumb

love this little girl so much already

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A whole new world in five minutes or less!

Someone just got Photoshop. And in two words, "It's on!"

Quick Quote

Yesterday Josie and I were playing in her playroom, and this is the conversation that followed:
Me: "Josie, won't it be soooo cool to have your little sister's bedroom right here next to yours?"
Josie: "This isn't a little sister room; this is my playroom."
Me: "Well, we can make a playroom somewhere else and make this her bedroom right by yours."
Josie: "We can make the little sister room somewhere else.  Like in my room."
Me: "Okay, we'll just put her crib right in there with your bed."   
(Sidebar: We've actually had this talk before and really is the way we are leaning for lots of reasons I won't go into now.)
Josie: "She doesn't need a crib. She can sleep right in my bed next to me. Then I won't have to sleep by myself."
(Sidebar #2: She doesn't actually sleep by herself. Ever. She sleeps in between us in what is very quickly becoming a way-too-small queen sized bed.)
Me: "Well, when she's older you can share a bed, but when she's just a baby she will have to sleep in a crib or bassinet. She can't sleep in a big girl bed yet because she could roll right out."
(Sidebar #3: Get ready for the sweetest thing ever...) 
Josie: "She won't roll out. I will keep her safe. I'm the big sister. I will keep her safe right in my arms."

Sunrock Farm

The good folks from Sunrock Farm have made appearances on the blog before. Josie has enjoyed their animals at events since that first Earth Day Celebration down on Sawyer Point back when she was just crawling. But, this was the first time we actually visited Sunrock Farm itself. (And...um...why did we wait so long?!)  It was perfect. Beyond perfect.  I've been working between 50-60 hours/week for the last month so enjoying the part of the weekend when I'm not working has taken on even more importance. This day at Sunrock was exactly what we all needed. (And if you live in Cincy and haven't taken your family there yet...wait no more.)  Enough explanation, I think the pictures speak for themselves.

The hayride to the pumpkin patch:

 Refusing to cooperate for pictures at the perfect spot (that looked like an Olan-Mills backdrop but really was just some old farm equipment & a rickety fence):

 Collecting freshly-laid chicken eggs:

 Holding the sweetest baby chick on the planet (and loving every minute of it):

 Feeding, hugging & talking to lots of animals:

 Getting really interested in the possibility of milking a goat:

Getting her turn, milking a goat!



Nearly passing out after all the action:

 Watering the garden (Oh I can't wait to plant our first family garden in the spring!!!):

 Enjoying fresh apple cider & homemade goat's milk soap:

 Literally pouting in the carseat because she didn't want to go home (and neither did we):

Halloween Take One

We kicked off Halloween this year with a trip to the zoo's Halloween festival.  The crazy thing about it this year was that it was hot, hot, hot.  Luckily, we got there early and Josie had Makayla & Ava to keep her busy.  It was a great afternoon & a fun way to kick-off the season.  Josie wore her first of what will be a total of three costumes. She decided to be a veterinarian since we were going to the zoo. And it was the perfect costume to buy because she can play dress-up with it well beyond Halloween. Here are some of our favorite pictures from HallZOOween.

Head on over...

...to www.fouraustins.blogspot.com for some really great pictures of our weekend in Chicago for little Lylabird's second birthday!

Ta-da!

Ready for fall...

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We LOVE Elizabeth Mitchell!

When Josephine was just a wee little thing, I saw a review for Elizabeth Mitchell's "You Are My Little Bird" CD in Mothering Magazine and that was the beginning of what has become a complete love affair with her music!  Fast forward three years and the full collection later ("You Are My Sunshine," "You Are My Flower," "Catch The Moon" and her latest "Sunny Day") and we are still over-the-moon about the songs that she and her family have added to our own family's history.
I really could go on and on for days about how these songs have formed the backdrop for our lives since Josie was born - only three voices on the planet could calm baby Josie: mine, her dad's and Elizabeth Mitchell's.  There are so many memories of me nursing her off to sleep singing "Los Pollitos" and the day when she was old enough to add her own "pio, pio, pio" just about melted my heart.  And then there's her rendition of  "Three Little Birds" which will get its own post very soon.  And Josie's newest obsession "Shoe Lie Loo" where they sing "Hey Miss Jojo" and Josie screams, "That's me! She knows my name!!!" All told, Elizabeth Mitchell and family (and the "and family" part is a big deal) make brilliant music. It's not "kids music" per se.  Sure, there are silly verses and sing-songy rhymes but they are paired perfectly with beautiful, peaceful, lyrical songs with depth and meaning.  As I said, I could go on and on for days.  But, I'll stop there for now and leave you with this.  If you don't own any Elizabeth Mitchell CDs. Get them NOW.  Here - I'll make it easy for you!  Two - if you still need convincing, check out this video of the snippets I put together of Josie and Lyla at her concert in Chicago earlier this month.  It was Lyla's second birthday and Josie's "Beatles moment."  Front row. Absolute awe. Pure Joy. Tears in her mama's eyes. A flood of memories. The passage of time. Absolute gratitude. Enjoy.




Oh - at the end of this video Josie is pretending to be Elizabeth Mitchell on her own stage. She's singing "Three Little Birds" but you really have to crank up the volume to hear it. Technical difficulty. Sorry.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Well, obviously we've got some catching up to do...

Lou's birthday was October 1st. Having just come off of what was a pretty stellar celebration of her third trip around the sun (that lasted well in October itself actually), Josie was really psyched about Lou's birthday.  I wanted to give her full freedom to get him whatever she wanted as a gift. We talked about it for almost two weeks, and *finally* she came up with the "perfect" present.  "We have to get Daddy a stuffed animal for his birthday! He doesn't have anything to sleep with. We should go to Target!"  So, with that, we went to Target and she picked out this little monkey "so Daddy will have something to cuddle with at night."

She was insistent that he wanted a blue bag with the biggest bow you can find.  She spent a good ten minutes in the card aisle and then quickly made up her mind when she found a card with dogs that bark to the tune of Happy Birthday when you open it.

She chose big shiny My Little Pony stickers that she just knew Louie would love and then rounded the whole thing off with a Fruit Loops t-shirt that she thought he would think was funny.

 

She was so excited that we had to get the present ready in the parking lot so we could give it to Lou as soon as we walked in the door.  I don't know what was sweeter - Lou's reaction to opening the gifts or Josie's glowing smile at seeing Lou's reaction. 

(I am truly the luckiest person in the world!)

Breaking Costume News

After some gentle nudging from mom & dad, Josie is going to be a veterinarian for at least part of October. The hard part was getting her to commit to one costume that was good enough for HallZOOween, her best friend Lucia's costume party on the 23rd & Trick or Treat.  So, we all comprised on the vet costume since that was something she could keep playing with well beyond October.  She's pretty pumped about being a vet at the zoo (although I think she's pretty sure she gets to actually climb in the cages to give them check-ups, which could obviously get a little interesting).

Swampthing

I haven't forgotten you, my dear readers.  It's just that I am full-on *swamped* right now!  I'm hanging there, going to bed early & taking my vitamins - so don't worry too much about me.  I hope to get some quality blogging time in sometime before the end of the week. My phone is overflowing with pictures & videos.  I promise it's all worth the wait. (xoxo)

elizabeth mitchell!!!

i will do a full post about this soon, but suffice it to say that this was an absolutely magical experience.

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