* It's been hitting me lately that having kids has in fact changed me. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it's true for me. Little thing, subtle things. For example. My bedroom is ugly. It doesn't match and the furniture is old and just a little bit of effort would morph it into a better looking space. But I just don't care that much. I just close the door so I don't have to see it and it is out of my mind. I also don't really care that some of our closets are piled up with clothes or that Nora's room is now the playroom. It's odd because before the girls were born some of these things would have sent me into a nervous breakdown. For real. I used to get SO overwhelmed with chaos and messes. I was the person that couldn't relax to eat dinner if I could see anything out of order anywhere! Before I could relax to study for a final in grad school I had to clean the whole house. Like, I'm talking dusting and vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen. I still like to do a quick once over at night so I can wake up to a clean house, but I feel like this part of me is kinda shrinking. I'd rather play with the girls amidst piles of messes than spend time doing house work over reading them books or playing games with them. I didn't expect to be that person. I just push piles of junk aside all day long and then once 8pm hits I get busy!
*Operation "get pre baby body back." Betho and I have started doing weight watchers. I lost 4 pounds the first week and although I will likely NEVER see the 122lbs on the scale that I was accustomed to for the past decade, I'll settle for a slightly more realistic number! However, I have a WAYS to go, but it's SO time to fit back into my clothes. Bed rest and no exercise during pregnancy did a number on me and damage control is finally in full effect!
*Work. God has been doing some work on my heart about "work" outside the home. There has never been a stronger advocate of stay at home mommyhood than me. For us, it was simply the only way with the exception of me going in one day a week and leaving to them with my mom & sis. No matter what the cost, what the sacrifice, whatever I would stay home. Period. Well, I truly believe God has some other plans for us for the time being in this area. I have the worlds most flexible job. It is truly a blessing and with very minimal work I can aid in supporting our family. Due to our adoption getting closer and closer and some other factors I have clearly heard (after much prayer that I didn't even want to pray to be totally honest) God telling me to help out my Husband for the time being with finances. Its nothing big, but in addition to working Monday I will also be working for 6 hours on Friday. Not sure for how long, but likely up until we get baby girl #3! I feel peace knowing I am following what I am certain God is telling me to do but oh man, leaving them another entire day is going to be hard for me.
* That leads me to my next thought. I realized as I was planning out what I want to tell the nanny for Friday, that my girls and I are finally in such a good daily rhythm. Our days are getting pretty predictable and although they are still babies and can freak out at times, I find myself spending most of the hours of the day just LOVING life with my girls. They are at such a fun age and surprise me and make me smile SO much! I think that's where my reservations with work come into play, because although I am with them 5 out of 7 days I worry that I might miss something or that someone will fall and need their mommy and I won't be able to pick them up and kiss them. Relinquishing control of those children has been a problem area for me since day one and it's honestly not getting a bit better. Probably worse. Just sayin....it's the truth!
* Our adoption. Now that my girls are 14 months old I am totally rested and actually kind of bored and needing to take on a third child to fill up my time. Ha...yeah right! I am actually pretty freaked out at the thought of adding a third baby to the mix and equally SO excited it makes me giddy. I have no earthly clue where this child is going to sleep, how the heck you put three car seats in the car, how on Gods green earth I will be able to take three children to the pediatrician at the same time...triple stroller? The double stroller doesn't even fit in there?! My nice little routine may get a bit messed up when little Jane Jordan makes it to America. But I'm counting on the fact that my girls will rise to the occasion and with the grace of God we will figure it out. I mean, isn't that what all people do when they add another child to the family? Just figure it out!? As far as a timeline goes, we have decided to be open to accepting a referral for a baby as soon as Lance is relocated back to Houston. He works in the woodlands right now and I unfortunately (for Lance mainly) solo parent for most of the week. The latest he should be back is early Fall, meaning that anytime between next few months to October/November we may be getting a little picture of our third baby girl. Yes, I'm getting goosebumps typing this!!
* Her name. Soon after we felt God telling us to adopt a little girl, we named her. We chose Jane Jordan so that she could share that fun little connection with us through sharing our names (those are our middle names). For the past several months I have been wanting to change her name to Ivy. No good reason but that I love the name. However, my husband has a picture of his third little girl in his mind and that picture will always and forever go with the name Jane Jordan and I am ok with that. So I don't get to have my little Ivy unless we have a fourth daughter...hehe!
* Nora's ER trip. I won't go into unnecessarily long details. Aside from saying, we thought Nora had a virus for a week. On two different occasions her lips and face turned pretty blueish and we were told that's normal with a fever and viral progression. Then Thursday morning she was sitting at Chic fil a with her cousins, laughing, smiling, bopping along to the music like her normal self and out of NOWHERE she started shivering and her little lips turned greyish/blue. I picked her up and tried to warm her up because she was covered in goosebumps but nothing helped so we left and she fell asleep instantly in the car. Then as we were pulling into the driveway (I had already called and scheduled a 2pm appointment after naptime) she woke up and was totally lethargic, not really that responsive and I freaked out. I called my sister and told her to come straight to my house, they were still in the car practically behind us. As she pulled in I literally kinda tossed Zoe into her lap in the drivers seat of her car and rushed Nora out. Right as we were pulling up to the doctors office she totally spaced out and started making an AWFUL gagging sound and I had to stop the car right where I was, not in a spot and run her in, wishing the whole time I was at the ER and not the pediatricians office. We got her straight in and although she was still pale the gagging seemed to take away the blue color. The doctor thought she was probably choking on something that came back up while she was playing and that the cough cleared it. However, as we were leaving one of the nurses patted her on the head and said, "oh Kayla she is so hot, we need to take her temp". Which was 103.5 and was only 97.5 about 20 minutes earlier. They told me to go have her blood drawn and told me it was ok to just let her sleep then take her in. So we took her in and they drew blood and then we came home & she was as happy as could be all day. I kept my phone close, but wasn't too worried at all. So at about 6pm I see a voicemail pop up on my phone, it never rang, and it was from my doctor and this is what I hear: "I just got Nora's labs back, her white count is 22,000 which is highly evevated, in addition she is showing some bands of cells that are a cause for concern and indicate a significant bacterial infection. I would advise that you take her to Texas Children's hospital in Katy immediately. Thank you." Umm, ok. I was home alone, getting dinner cleaned up and making a bedtime plan, as Lance wasn't expected home before 9 or 10, and was trying SUPER hard not to freak out. So of course my awesome family steps in with no problem, my mom goes with me and my sister and dad take over Zoe duty. Lance met us there and although the hospital staff was SO nice, it was just an awful night. Poor Nora had to have blood drawn again, because they couldn't get a hold of the labs from my pedi (who is not longer my pedi as of yesterday) and this time from her vein. It took 30 straight minutes of holding her down to find a vein and get the blood, it was truly traumatizing. She was hysterical and covered in sweat and at one point she just looked at me with this little look of defeat and just started moaning and groaning. It was gut wrenching. She also had to have a chest x-Ray, a catheter put in to get urine an IV & a shot of antibiotics into her leg. All this happening WAY past bedtime. The end result. A really bad UTI. We were so releaved that's all it was and as MAD as I was that she had to redo painful tests, I am so thankful it was an easy fix and not something like meningitis, which was a word thrown around a few times! (Oops that got long!) Oh and we later learned that what happened in the car was likely a febrile seizure, which as scary as it was is relatively harmless and caused by a sharp spike in temperature like she had. We also learned that in babies, when their bodies are fighting infection, all the blood rushes to protect the vital organs and can leave the less important stuff (e.g., hands, feet, arms, face) blue from lack of oxygen since the oxygen has to move into the core. So this dang UTI was what was causing Nora's week long fever, rash, and blue lips, and apparently a seizure. Geez! But happy to report she is totally better and hasn't even been the slightest bit feverish since the incident!
So that last part really should have been a post all it's own so I'll leave it at that. Bless you if you have actually made it to the end of these ramblings!!
Enjoy some snapshots of life lately with us. :)
My little monsters before bed. They love to run room to room and turn off lamps! :) Ok...marathon post complete. Happy Saturday!!
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