Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Dear Nikki

Dear Nikki,


This is a phase. You will not always feel this way. You will not always look this way. Repeat those three sentences five times. Take five deep breaths. Now read on. Before you know it your days and nights will be two separate entities once again instead of one never ending black hole. It feels like forever away right now, but in the big scheme of things, it really is such a short period of time. Working full time, taking care of two kids, a home, a husband.....oh yeah and yourself is a lot of work. Don't be so hard on yourself. You don't have to be perfect. No one is perfect. Be nice to Brad. Try not to snap at him. Everything isn't his fault. You're just tired. In the night, when you're up with the baby for the fourth time and you get up with Lily cause she's teething, just breathe.

If you're feeling depressed, do one of the following. These things always make you feel better.
- Call family or a friend (you have several great friends close by)
- Organize something. A drawer, a closet, the fridge.
- Do NOT go shopping. Retail therapy backfires when you're still carrying around baby weight.


- Do NOT eat away the blues. This is only a temporary upper that will result in more depression later on. (Besides you ate enough junk food during pregnancy to sustain you forever. And then for a week after that.)


- Do NOT make a drastic change to your hair. Color, cut, OR style. Chances are, you won't love it and because of the hormonal state you're in, the consequence of this little decision won't be healthy for anyone. Don't stress when the house is a mess. Don't stress when at the end of the day you don't have a nice hot meal ready to serve the family. Hang in there. This too shall pass. And before you know it, you'll be going through your pictures on the computer - maybe for a blog post, and you'll see pictures of your newborn baby boy. He'll look so unbelievably small and sweet. And you'll wish so badly that he could be that small again. Just for a few days. So you could smell his cheeks and kiss his little feet and rock him to sleep one more time. Remember this when you feel tired and when the baby is fussy and when the house is a disaster. And try to enjoy every minute you have with your precious newborn boy.

Love, Nikki

Friday, November 25, 2011

My Very First Turkey

This year I wanted to do something I have never done before, cook an entire Thanksgiving meal from scratch. I have never made a turkey before so I was quite intimidated. About a week before Thanksgiving our oven broke. I totally panicked. We were having a ton of people over at our house, we have 2 kids, I have a husband who loves food and we have no oven. Yikes! Thankfully we found an oven a day before Thanksgiving and all was good.


The night before the big Turkey day my mom came over to help me prep the following day's meal. Lily wanted to help too. She screams.....HELPER HELPER. So I put an apron on her and she mushed sweet potatoes for me. Man she's adorable.Helping Me-Maw put spices in the stuffing for the turkey. Mom and I making stuffing out of 3 loaves of bread.....mmmmmm. Its my favorite. The following morning I woke up early to get everything ready and get the house clean. I went into Lily's room to check on her and she was covered in vomit. My poor baby didn't make a sound cause she was feeling so sick. So I brought her into the bathroom and gave her a bath as she cried and cried. She just wanted her mommy to hold her. Afterwards I went into her room to strip the bedding and clean out the disgusting smell. Not only do I have to make an entire Thanksgiving dinner, but on top of that I have to nurse Jax every 3 hours and take care of my sick baby girl. Once everyone showed up it was much easier since I had help.


The meal was soooo good. Everyone brought something yummy to share and it was so nice to visit with our family and our friends. Jax's God father Eric and his fiance Hannah! They just got engaged! We're so happy for the two of them!Aunt Anna snuggling with Jax. Daddy trying to wrangle two kids. Ezra, Lily and Audrey cuddling in our bed watching cartoons. She was feeling a little better here since we gave her some medicine.

The day after Thanksgiving, I got up bright and early to do my yearly Black Friday shopping at 5am with my folks. I got a ton of really great deals for Christmas.....I can't tell you what they are or else they won't be surprises for Christmas, but they were really good deals that I am really proud of. When I got home Lily was sicker than ever and was such a limp noodle. So I took a nap with her and cuddled to make her feel better. After our nap I woke up feeling awful. I had caught what Lily had. I had no idea she was as sick as she was. This was the worst stomach flu I have ever had, very violent. I couldn't even hold my 9 pound little boy since I was so weak. Brad was such a wonderful husband and took such good care of me. He let me sleep while he took care of the kids. The next day we learned that practically everyone who came to our house for Thanksgiving caught the violent stomach flu. I felt so awful. My brother in law Marc totally made me feel better when he told me that it was the very first year that he lost weight on Thanksgiving calling it the Supermodel Thanksgiving.


So my first attempt at Thanksgiving was memorable to say the least.