Been a long time....

Sorry for the extremely long absence... I just really didn't feel I had much to write about that would be of interest to anyone. Not to mention the kiddos have been keeping me busy. We were also preparing for a possible 6 month deployment to Baghd@d beginning this month, which has thankfully just been canceled. And we are making some improvements to the house and yard in preparation for selling next summer! We've definitely had enough going on to keep us busy.

But, I really miss writing on here. So, I'm going to try to get back in to this. Of course it is no longer an infertility blog, but I'd still like it to be a place I can go to put my thoughts down or just 'talk' when I feel like it.

I've been trying to keep up with the blogs on my bloglines. As always, I may not comment often, but I keep you all in my thoughts.

My miracle girl is 4; she's in school; she's a beautiful, independent spirit who amazes us every day. My miracle boy is 10 months old now; he's walking already; he's beautiful and his smile brightens my day.

Too Young

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers on the loss of my brother-in-law. We finally found out the official cause of death last week. "Acute heart failure consistent with coronary artery disease." Remember, we are talking about a 38 year old man here. That is just unbelievable to me. They said he had high blood pressure, high cholesterol (common in the family) and that his arteries were quite clogged.

This has also put a bit of a scare into us. There is a strong history of heart problems in my husband's family. His father had his first heart attack at 35. Now he has a brother who died at 38 from heart failure. I've asked him to make an appointment with his doctor to discuss the possibility of running tests to check on his arteries. He is also overdue for a cholesterol check, because for some reason they didn't do one last year. He's already on blood pressure meds and I believe that has been under control for a while now. I'm thinking there has to be some sort of non-invasive way to check out his arteries. Maybe do a stress test on his heart or something. Anything they can do to put our minds at ease will help. He's 35 and we need him around for many many more years! My children need their Dada and I can't imagine life without my husband.

In case anyone was wondering, the family did end up getting together a couple weeks after the 'event'. There was no formal service, but my husband, his oldest brother, and my mother-in-law looked through photos together and reminisced. Our daughter got to play in the snow for the first time in her life and everyone got to meet our new son. So at least something good came out of it....

A blow to my ego.....

We have been working with my daughter on drawing. Really, she has been doing quite well, becoming quite the little artist - drawing portraits of us, herself, her cousins, grandmas, cats, etc. Today, she brought me a drawing and said,"Mama, this is you." Here is a picture of her drawing:



Does anyone else see what I see? I am quite sure it is unintentional, she is only 3 after all.... but I must say I am not feeling very thin or pretty right now!

When it rains, it pours....

Seems that my family is cursed. No sooner do we 'recover' from losing someone important to us, then it happens again. In 2000 it was my husband's dad. In 2002 it was my dad. In 2003 it was my husband's uncle. In 2005 it was my husband's Grandma. 2006, my Grandpa. 2008 is starting out no better. Yesterday we received news that my husband's brother was found dead in his apartment. He's only 38. As of right now they suspect he had a reaction to some medication he was taking, but until we receive the results of the autopsy we won't know for sure.

Please keep my husband and his family in your prayers. They are obviously very shocked and devastated right now. It doesn't help that they are all scattered in different areas so until more details are known arrangements to get together can't even be made.

I'm not the only one....

I did some research, basically just googling "How long should I let my baby cry to sleep", and it seems that the general public agrees that at this age he is too young to learn how to self soothe. That he needs to learn that his needs will be met, including cuddling and love, when he cries so that he will learn that he can trust us. That this will help him grow up to be a strong independent child and adult. That he is way too young to 'manipulate' me by crying, as the people on the other side of this topic feel babies are doing by crying to be picked up. His brain isn't mature enough to even know what manipulating is - he just knows that all he can do is cry to tell us that he needs something.

Certainly there are arguments for both sides of this topic, otherwise it wouldn't be such a 'hot' topic in the parenting world, one that there are many many books out there about and a ridiculous amount of 'methods' available to 'teach' your baby to sleep. And obviously all of the methods work, or there wouldn't be so much information out there and so many books sold, etc. I think it's just a matter of what the parents believe (ie I need to help my child become independent by learning to soothe himself versus I need to help my child become independent by letting him know I will always be there for him when he needs me, even if it means losing out on some sleep myself).

I'm sure I'm not phrasing these things very well, so please don't think I am criticizing those who choose other methods of raising their children. What I am trying to say is that I feel it is a very personal decision based on what you feel is best for everyone in your family, especially your baby. I agree that an older child can try to manipulate you by crying, but I don't think a baby this young is able to do it. I can't bring myself to leave him to scream himself into a sweat-soaked, shaking and choking frenzy when I can spend less time putting him to sleep myself than it will take him to 'tire himself out'. I don't have the heart for the whole cry-it-out method. I knew that when I tried it with my daughter, but I thought perhaps it would be different this time, especially being on new medication for the postpartum depression, another topic I need to write about. The meds never worked before but this time they are making a big difference. I thought perhaps I would be able to handle the crying better this time because of that. And I can - when it's just a matter of not being able to drop what I am doing at the moment to run to him so I can let him cry for short times.... even as much as 20 minutes while I'm showering. But it seems that the medication can't change what I feel deep inside, that I need to do everything I can to make my baby happy. If this means not getting more than 1-3 hours of sleep at a time at night, then I'm okay with that.

Honestly, I feel like my son is doing great compared to how my daughter did. She basically slept on me or my husband in the rocking chair all the time until she was 3-4 months old. She started sleeping completely through the night around 8 months old. I rocked her to sleep until she was almost 1 year old, then she starting putting herself to sleep. She never napped in her bed, always on me or in the car until she got to be a couple years old, then she would either not nap or would nap in bed with me. After I hurt my thumb this past July she gave up her naps because I couldn't 'force' her to sleep in bed with me. I couldn't cuddle her or anything because I was in so much pain. But, ever since she started sleeping through the night. Since she started sleeping through the night, she has been a great sleeper. We got her a big girl bed when she was almost 2 and a half and she slept straight through the night in it since the first day. She is one of the most strong-willed, independent children I've ever known. She has never once had a problem with separation anxiety or anything. I have to assume that this is as a result of the way she has been raised. So I apparently didn't harm her by 'spoiling' her all her life.

Perhaps if we are still having trouble when he is 6 months old or so, we will revisit this topic. But for now, I'm going to stick with what I know works for us. Though I will try to be more flexible on letting him cry during the day... not until he falls asleep, but while I'm showering or making lunch or something. Because he slept great last night. He was so exhausted that I got him to sleep really easily and he slept for 6 hours the first stretch. Apparently letting him scream for an hour yesterday did do some good as far as tiring him out, but I don't have the heart to do that again. Then again, it could just be that he is sick and seems to be getting worse so is exhausted from that. I hope that I didn't make him get worse by letting him scream himself into a sweat yesterday.

Sorry for the huge post on this.... like I said, I may revisit the topic later. But I would still love to hear from more people about what did or didn't work for you, specifically what age you did the methods at too please....

Thanks!

Am I the only one?

Am I the only mother in the world who doesn't practice the cry-it-out technique? Seems that nobody else rocks their babies to sleep. I keep getting asked if my son is sleeping through the night yet... um, no, he still gets up to eat about every 3 hours and I 'walk' him back to sleep. If I put him down before he's in a deep sleep he wakes up again and cries. I can't stand hearing my baby cry, it breaks my heart. To me, it's sort of cruel to let him scream when I know what to do to make him happy and get him the sleep he needs. But nowadays it seems I am the only one who feels this way. I guess we are supposed to 'train' our children to put themselves to sleep by letting them scream themselves into exhaustion assuming that eventually they will stop and start going to sleep easier. But what if it doesn't work? With my daughter everyone said "oh, she won't cry for more than 45 minutes or so." Yeah, an hour and a half later the poor child was choking on her own snot and soaked in sweat... as was I. I never could bring myself to try it again. Let me add that she eventually became a champion sleeper, putting herself to sleep by a year and sleeping for 12 hours. She still sleeps great and we never had a problem transitioning to the big girl bed or anything.

So here's my question... what do you all think? Am I doing it wrong by using the necessary means (ie swaddling and walking) to put my son to sleep? Am I doing him a disservice by not letting him cry? Do babies really need to 'learn' to self-soothe? After all I went through to get my little ones, I can't bring myself to let them cry when I can cuddle them and make it all better.

Please, comment and let me know your thoughts... and what did or didn't work for you.

Birth Story... Part 1

Ok, I've been meaning to do this... just sort of outline how everything went down when our little guy was born. So, here goes....

I called the hospital at 4:25AM to check that we were still on the schedule for that morning. Around 4:40AM my neighbor and friend P came over to stay with our daughter. We then left for the hospital. It took us a little longer than we thought it would so early in the morning so we got there just in time. We were supposed to be there by 5:30 and we got there around 5:25AM. I was aiming for a bit earlier.
Anyways, we got taken to a temporary room because they didn't have a postpartum room available yet (waiting for other women to be released that day). I got hooked up to the monitors and we took care of some paperwork. A nurse came in to put in my IVs... It took him 3 tries to get the IV in my left arm (I warned him I had lousy veins!). He tried once on my right arm and told me he would "do me a favor and let the next shift nurse try rather than poking me any more," because he was coming off a 12 hour shift and had a terrible headache. Yeah, he basically looked asleep on his feet. Didn't give me a whole lot of confidence in the nursing staff! After that I decided to request the anesthesiologist do my other IV because when my daughter was born we had the same problem and several pokes later they finally called anesthesia who got it on the first try. Yeah, this anesthesiologist was apparently not as skilled - it took him 4 tries, but at least he was nice enough to numb each spot before sticking the huge needle in. So, basically 7 pokes later I finally had both IVs in... in the most uncomfortable spot possible, my wrists/hands (sort of the side of the hand where it meets the wrist).

After all that, we were finally ready to go to the OR.... about 2 1/2 hours after arriving at the hospital.

Happy Birthday to me....

I turned 31 today. Still don't feel like a 30-something though, so I guess that's good!

Hubby is out of town so I'm having lots of fun (not!) handling the 2 little ones myself. Thankfully my 3 year old daughter has been very well behaved so far. With the exception of always seeming to need to go potty when I'm feeding the baby, she has been pretty easy. I learned pretty quick that it is possible to breastfeed using the football-hold while wiping a preschooler's behind with the other hand. Got a nice visual of that? ;)

Luckily some good friends took care of me today. They came over and kept me company, then one of them ordered us pizza for dinner and the other one went on a St@rbucks run for me and watched the kiddos while I took a long shower. Actually, her husband even came over and cleaned all 3 litter boxes before taking the garbage out for me! I am so thankful and lucky to have such great friends!

Well, it seems that the baby might actually stay asleep this time so I'm off to bed while I have the chance. Barely got any sleep last night so let's hope that all the talk about 'letting Mama get some sleep for her birthday' sunk in on a subconscious level today and he goes for a couple nice stretches tonight! Goodnight ya'll!

Just plain wrong

I am currently the only person in my house who is not taking a nap. My son has been down for almost 2 hours now and my husband and daughter have been crashed out in the living room for probably an hour or so. Me? I'm trying to get stuff done in the house that has been driving me crazy. Lots of clutter around and laundry piling up. Of course, I've barely made a dent in what I want to get done. What I should be doing is showering. I haven't washed my hair in 3 days. Yes, I'm feeling a bit gross. But, I'm unwilling to shower while everyone is asleep in case my son wakes up and nobody hears him. Especially since he could wake anytime needing to eat if it's been even just an hour since his last feeding start-time. And as I said in my last post, I just haven't had the opportunity to pump for bottle feedings.
I just had to drop in and comment on the unfairness (in my opinion) of the situation! ;)

Adjusting... or not

So far my son does not seem interested in a schedule. Though I've tried, it has been to no avail. There doesn't seem to be a pattern... unless you count that usually every other night he will sleep for about 3 hours from 9ish to 12ish. I live for those times. Unfortunately, it generally means I get about 2 hours of sleep. He'll go down, then we get my daughter ready for bed. Then I can grab a bite to eat, brush my teeth and head to bed. It seems that no sooner does my head hit the pillow then he is starting to fuss to eat again.

Speaking of eating, that is one thing I can't complain about - breastfeeding is going very well. I think it was a big help that I've done it before. He's feeding patterns are different, especially that he will only eat on one side at a time (talk about engorgement when he has a long nap!), but other than that it is going well. I have yet to find the time to pump though so I'm worried about that. In the beginning we had to supplement with formula so he was fine with taking a bottle, but the last time he had a bottle was Dec 16 so I'm worried that he won't take one when I finally find the time to pump.

So far I've been extremely lucky - my husband has been off work all but one day since our son was born. The timing was just right because he got 2 weeks off for family leave or whatever it's called, then it was Christmas and New Years and they had minimal manning for those weeks. His coworkers covered him on the schedule so he could stay home with us. He did work basically a full day yesterday and I was surprised at how well we did without him, but once evening came it started catching up with me. Next week he is going to be out of town and I'm terrified. How the hell am I supposed to take care of a 1 month old who only allows me an hour or two of sleep at a time, and a very rambunctious 3 year old who demands a lot of time during the day? Sleep when the baby sleeps? HA HA HA! Next week will be a true test on my sanity... Oh yeah, did I mention that I have 3 cats with colds who need antibiotics twice a day? That's going to make next week so much more fun! I'm lousy at giving the cats medicine.

J is doing great though... he had his check-up on Monday. He was 11.02 pounds and 21 1/2 inches long. 90th percentile for height and greater than 97th for weight. Definitely a big healthy boy! He had to get his umbilical cord cauterized, as happened also with our daughter. I think it's called an umbilicus granuoloma. Basically part of it didn't heal right. Hopefully that will take care of it - my daughter had to have hers cauterized twice before it healed right.

Well, J is waking up from his nap and my husband and daughter should be home with lunch soon. Hopefully I'll be able to write a bit about my birth experience next....

Happy New Year everyone!

Happy Holidays!

Just wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays, whichever ones you may be celebrating!

Here are a couple more pics of our little linebacker to hopefully put a smile on your face!

The Greatest Gift

Sorry for the long wait everyone. Surgery went ok, but our little guy turned out to be a linebacker so it was rough getting him out. Caused quite a bit of trauma inside and my recovery has been slow and painful. Not to mention that my spinal wore off during surgery and I ended up having a huge panic attack, resulting in something being put in my IV that basically knocked me out. I was seriously in a stupor when he finally made his arrival. But I was alert enough to hear the nurse say "It's definitely a boy and he has a full head of black hair!"
Possibly more details later, if anyone wants them, but for now I'll leave you with these pictures and some stats. Our little linebacker was born at 8:46AM Monday December 10, weighing in at 9pounds 6.6 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. He is truly everything we've hoped and prayed for and we couldn't be happier!

Game Plan for Baby Boy

Had my pre-op appointment Thursday and got my labs drawn today. If everything goes according to plan, baby boy will make his arrival sometime between 8 and 9am. Here's how it should go down...
Call hospital at 4:30am to check we are still on schedule (meaning they haven't been bombarded with women in labor). We better still be on schedule!
Leave house around 4:45am.
Arrive at hospital at 5:30am, begin all the preparations. They'll check on the baby (non-stress test), shave and prep me, iv me, give me a spinal, and whatever else they need to do.
Hopefully we'll be in the OR by 8am. Since this is my second c-section it will take around an hour and be slightly more complicated than the first.
Once baby boy is stabilized, hubby should get to hold him so I can get a good look at him before they whisk him away.
Hubby will go with baby boy while they do all the things they need to do to him back in my room. I'll be stitched up and sent to recovery for 1-2 hours.
Once the spinal wears off I'll be taken to my room where I will hopefully get to hold my son in my arms for the first time! At that point, hubby will leave to pick our daughter up and bring her to the hospital to meet her baby brother!
I'll be in the hospital until Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how things go.

So, unless you hear from me sometime Monday you can safely assume our son is being born! I can't say for sure when I'll be able to update here.... not until I get home for sure. Sorry to leave ya'll hanging, I promise to post as soon as I have access!

Unless the plan changes, my next post will be a birth announcement!

It's a scary world we're living in

I just read this news story and it scared the crap out of me. 2+ years ago we were living in Nebraska. We lived in the same town as the shooter in this story. We shopped at that mall. Some friends of ours just moved from there a few weeks ago. We have other friends who still live there. Hopefully, they were all at work and not shopping. Hopefully none of their family or friends were there either.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people affected by this tragedy in Omaha. Please lend yours as well. I really don't know what else to say right now, I'm a little bit in shock.

Big and small

Just for fun, here are some pictures of our biggest cat laying on top of our smallest cat. These two adore each other and lay together a lot. I just happened to catch this photo-op the other day...




See that bit of black sticking out from under his stomach? That's her tail! He's literally laying on top of the entire lower half of her tiny body!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We (finally) finished putting up our Christmas decorations this weekend. Here's how the house turned out this year:



It was a lot of work, but we're pretty happy with the results!

We also went this weekend and cut down our own Christmas tree. It was my first time ever doing that, though my husband said his family did it all the time growing up. We had a lot of fun choosing our tree, then my husband (with our daughter's 'help' of course) cut it down, they shook it for us and wrapped it, then we loaded it on the van and brought it home!
We had a hard time getting it to stand up in the tree stand, even going so far as to buy a different stand with no more luck. Finally, I looked it up on the web and discovered you should pound the stand into the base of the tree with a hammer (there are little spikes in the base) before tightening the screws and standing it all up. That finally did the trick!
Put the lights on it and decided to wait until the next day for ornaments because it was pretty late by then. Good thing, because we got up Sunday morning to find the cats had gotten into the tree, pulling 1/3 of the lights off and leaving some flattened spots where they were laying on the branches. I suspect it was our biggest cat laying in the tree because the flatted area was pretty big! So, we've decided we won't put any ornaments up. Hopefully the lights will stay on the tree from now on... we've been spraying them with water every time they go by it. I've tried some other 'remedies' to keep them away and it hasn't worked, so we're just going to have to rely on prayer to keep our tree standing!

Whining time

If you don't want to hear me bitching and moaning a lot, read no further...

I feel like crap. I've basically been sick for half this pregnancy. No idea what it is, except that my head always feels stuffy, I have headaches a lot, I can't ever breathe easily and I've had a cough for all but a couple weeks since around July. Did a round of antibiotics to no avail. Still taking my allergy meds. Cough medicine did nothing. So I suffer. Most mornings I feel like I've got the flu... by the evening I'm feeling better, but never normal. Also have a lot of heartburn. And have I mentioned the dreaded H word thanks to my screwed up system? Those of you who have been there know what I mean.

I'm exhausted. I barely sleep at all. The baby keeps me up until after 2am every night because he gets super-active and beats the crap out of me from the inside. Once I finally get comfortable enough to fall asleep, I have to pee. And so it begins again. Numerous times throughout the night. My daughter doesn't nap, so I can't either. A pregnant body needs more than the maybe 5 hours I'm managing most nights.

I'm in constant pain and discomfort. This kid feels huge and though my weight gain is right on track I'm huge. And it's all belly, all out in front. I can't get up from sitting without doing the as-seen-on-tv-rise (you know the one, where you skooch to the edge of the couch, then push your belly up in front of you), which I always thought was not real. I have to roll on my side and push up with my hands to get out of bed yet I still manage to hurt myself most times. Finding a comfortable position sitting or lying down is impossible. The baby has been pressing on my sciatic nerve for a long time so I constantly have pain, though oddly enough the worst of it runs into my thighs. Which makes it hard to stand and walk. Getting up from the floor is a joke. But I still have to do it several times a day. I can't bend over to do anything so I have to squat - which means it hurts like hell getting back up because my thighs hurt so bad. To empty the dryer I have to get down on my knees and press my belly into the dryer door to reach everything and pull it out. I have to squat down to help my daughter in the potty several times a day. It sucks.

Despite all that, I've gotten everything ready for the baby (nursery, washing and organizing clothes, making blankets and hats, recovering the glider), done all the Christmas shopping, wrapped and packed it all up and gotten it shipped, gone through all the stacks of mail, magazines, etc, re-organized drawers, done some much needed dusting (though not all), gotten baby announcements and Christmas cards ready to mail, done my best to keep up with my hyper-active 3 year old, and now at almost 38 weeks pregnant I've been outside helping put up all the Christmas lights and doing all the inside decorating, which still isn't done. It's crazy.

It's so hard to walk around stores and handle my daughter when we're out, that we are basically homebound. I'm sick of eating toast and chips for lunch every day the last several weeks when we used to go out for lunch a couple times a week. I'm starving, but I'm sick of the same crap all the time. And I'm going stir-crazy being stuck home all the time. My daughter and I are used to going out a couple times a week, even if just to walk around Target or something. The key is just getting out of the darned house on a regular basis. But it's too hard to do now. And she's suffering too, because I haven't been able to get down on the floor to play with her for some time now. She needs a change of scenery now and then too. She has taken to begging to go out to eat all the time, but we don't eat out very often. Macaroni & cheese and pizza have become the standard dinner food around here. Yuck.

I also attribute a lot of her attitude problem lately to not getting enough attention. She has been terrible to deal with and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with her barely getting played with and rarely getting out of the house. I know I get depressed spending all of my time in our living room, so I'm sure it affects her too. But it's not like I can just let her get away with being a snot, so I have to discipline her. Which turns into a huge ordeal every time. Which is hard on both of us.

Oh yeah, did I mention the swelling has gotten worse? I get this weird thing where my hands and most of the fingers turn a reddish color, but the knuckles look white. Like my fingers are striped. For the heck of it I tried to put my wedding ring on. Yeah, it goes about halfway to the second knuckle. Tried in on my little finger and it won't go all the way down.

I almost have everything arranged for the day we're scheduled. The bags are packed and I have the early morning shift covered for my daughter as well as the second shift running from when she wakes up to around 1pm. I haven't worked out after that yet, in case my husband can't make it back to pick my daughter up by then. Considering there's no absolute guarantee we won't get bumped until later in the day or to another day altogether, I'm pretty worried. It's not like I can just call my Mom or something last minute to watch my daughter. I have to work it out with friends and neighbors who need definite times on things because they have their own families to take care of. It's causing me quite a bit of stress worrying about this. I'm a little worried I'm going to end up alone in the OR and no one will be with my son while I'm in recovery. I'm also worried about being in the hospital after the baby is born. I'm having a c-section so I will be completely bedridden until at least the next day and then will still have a very hard time getting around. But I'll be alone at the hospital most of the day and all of the night. And the baby will be with me the whole time - there is no nursery, you are expected to keep the baby with you at all times. How am I supposed to care for a newborn when I can't get out of bed? Did I mention they also won't let you sleep with the baby in bed with you? Um, hello, what other choice will I have?

Damn it, I'm tired! I'm supposed to be taking it easy to prepare for after the baby comes, which is a tough time with no sleep and plenty of pain. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy about the baby, it's just that I am so ready to have this over. I want to be able to relax like I did with my first pregnancy, not constantly be on the go and doing stuff. And worrying about everything. It was so much easier the first time around. All I want to do is crawl into bed and not move for several days, but there's too much to do.

I'm ready for my reward now. If I had it my way, this baby would be born tonight. Once he's here and healthy, it will all be worth it.

Okay, I guess that's it for now. I can't promise there won't be more, but I promise I'll try not to unload too much. I know no one wants to hear me whining, especially when I'm lucky enough to have this to whine about.

I got it!

Went back to T@rget around 10am.... they had 5 of the tvs I wanted sitting in the front of the store! See, you don't have to wait in line all night! Apparently people who waited in line and got a number never picked up the tvs. I imagine some people just got numbers for a bunch of stuff and then decided what they wanted after getting in the store. Or perhaps gave up on waiting in line.

We were able to get a couple of other things we had wanted from the early bird specials too. Not everything, but we're pretty happy with the deals, considering the time we showed up at the stores. And we didn't even have to wait in line long! Actually, not at all at T@rget - we went straight through the express checkout. But K0h1s was still ridiculous after brunch at noon.... walked in, started towards the back and saw that the lines were still wrapped throughout the whole store, so I turned around and walked back out.

Crazy!

Bl@ck Frid@y

I've never gone out for the 'early bird specials' on Black Friday. Seriously, never once.

This morning I made an attempt.

Boy have my eyes been opened wide! I have come to the conclusion that Black Friday sales are for the clinically insane. Seriously, you must be insane to wait in those lines. I expected long lines at places like Be$t Buy. We drove by last night around 8:30 and the lines was already wrapping around the store, with tents set up and all that. This morning the line wrapped around the entire store and behind, down past the backs of several more stores. I expected that. I did not, however, expect there to be just as long of a line at T@rget this morning, almost an hour and a half before they opened. I definitely did not expect to arrive at K0h1s an hour after they opened to find the checkout lines wrapped all the way around the store. Seriously, there must have been 300+ people in line just to checkout!

Considering that there were probably 500 people (no joke people!) in line at T@rget, just waiting for the store to open, I opted to drive out to the other Target in a smaller town, hoping to catch a break. The line there was shorter.... by maybe 200 people. But still, 300+ people waiting in line before the store opened was too much for me. I opted to come home. Ye, if I had gotten in and gotten everything I wanted, I would have saved a couple hundred bucks. But to my 9 months pregnant a$$ I just didn't see how I could possibly do it. I value my time and sanity more than that.

So, being as that I am hopped up on caffeine (as is the little guy!) I'm going to see if I crash soon (doubt it)... and if not, the plan is to wake our daughter up a little early (maybe 8am), not too early because she went to bed late, get her a quick breakfast and head out as a family. If anything on our list is still available, awesome. If not, oh well, we'll grab some IH0P and maybe drive out to the cool yarn store some people we know own. Then hopefully we can come home and start pulling out the Christmas decorations! Or I'll take a much-needed nap.

So, that is my Black Friday experience. And may I just add that I will NEVER AGAIN make this mistake. At least not until my kids are older and I need to get the 'it' item. Maybe then.

Anyone want to share their experience with Black Friday? Good or bad?!

Just call me Suzy Homemaker...

Well, not really, since I don't really cook or clean very often. But hey, look what I can do:

I finally got the glider done! For someone who had no idea how to use a sewing machine, I think it turned out ok. Not perfect, but I'm happy with it! There's actually a second set of covers in a different pattern that isn't shown.





Here's another blanket I made for J... this one worked up so nice and quick! It took me less than a week to make...




I have to admit, I am very relieved to have the glider done. That was my biggest project for the nursery and I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to do it. Now that it is done, I can breathe a little easier - everything that technically has to be done before the baby comes home, is done. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't started other projects! ;)