Catching Up Part 2 - Utah

We arrived in Smithfield safe and sound and had a massive lot of help unloading and unpacking from Todd's sisters Missy, Laura, and Kelsi, and Kelsi's husband David.  My in-laws sure did a fine job teaching their kids how to work!  I couldn't believe how much got accomplished that day.  Meanwhile, Hazel and Jack had a heyday with their cousins.

My dad was anxious for us to arrive while there was still plenty of snow on the ground so he could take my kids sledding on the little hill on the side of their house.  They had a great time.  Hazel went out a couple more times with Grandpa during our first week out here.  Jack might enjoy it more next winter...

Todd was home with us for just a few short days, which we spent busily unpacking and setting up home.  I was heartbroken the day we drove him to the airport.  He'll be in Texas until mid-May.  Then we should have him home for a few days before he leaves for Afghanistan.  That'll be our last visit from him.  It was rough seeing him cry as he said goodbye to the kids.  This deployment is going to be harder than the last one, for both of us, because of the kids.  

My two bright spots for this year are the house we're living in, and being close to family.  The house is a massive tender mercy.  The owners have been trying to sell it and took it off the market for a year so I could rent it and live here.  It is in my parents' (very small) ward boundaries, so I'm only a couple blocks away from them and get their help in church every Sunday.  It is 3,000 square feet, plus a yard, so we've more than quadrupled our living space.  When Hazel gets mad, she runs and hides in a random room and I can't find her right off the bat.  That is incredibly strange and exciting for me.  She and Jack chase each other all over the house and have more than enough space to have a blast in.  We've got plenty of space for visitors, hint, hint!

I am loving being close to my family.  My parents have been over here helping me every single day.  My mom babysits one or more of my kids at the drop of the hat, so I will never have to buy groceries with all three kids in tow.  My dad comes by on his way home from work each night and brings books from his school's library to read to the kids.  He is often here during the crazy dinner hour, and everyone knows how priceless another adult is at that time of the day.  In addition to that, the kids have been struggling at bedtime and really taking advantage of the fact that I'm usually nursing Gemma and trying to get her down for the night right after I put them to bed.  So my parents are tag-teaming it, and one of them comes over every night to help with that as well.  They are truly my angels.

Hazel requests "spooky stories" daily.  She asked Uncle Scott to tell her one, and he really got into it.  I LOVE the look on her face.  She was enraptured!  

We made a trip up to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Bingham last week.  It had been too long since I've seen them.  They were sure excited to meet Gemma.

Uncle Chris came up to visit last weekend.  Hazel gave him a serious workout, asking him to chase and pounce her constantly.  I think he loved it.  She sure did.

Gemma is absolutely adorable and a delight to be around ... but is still having a hard time figuring out bedtime.  Baby bootcamp starts on Thursday, her two-month birthday.  Cry it out, little one.  It's time to be asleep...  But how can you not love that face?  Seriously.

Hazel and Jack are the best of friends, and the worst of friends.  They play together so well, but they can fight like the dickens.  I love it when they're happy together.  Hopefully they'll be buddies for life.  Hazel told me Jack is her best friend.  Hooray!  Here they are pretending to sleep in the "mouse house" they built yesterday.  They are finding endless creative ways to play with the bar stools.

Catching Up Part 1 - California

 I totally do not have time to blog, but I need to because it's basically my journal now.  So I've glanced through my pictures and will try to hit some highlights before I've forgotten everything.

Hazel and Jack love having Gemma in our family.  They are great older siblings and always super sweet to her.  She gets so much love from them.  I hope that continues as she gets older.  (Don't be alarmed that Hazel is naked - she's just being Mowgli.  It was a daily feature in January and February.  She does have panties on.)

Gemma got a staff infection on her forehead and had to have antibiotics.  It was so sad.  Thankfully it cleared right up.

Todd left to start pre-deployment training in central California the first of February.  It was difficult, but I tried to remember that I would see him again for a few days in three weeks and hold on to that instead of sinking into despair.  It helped that I was watched over by dear friends and that my mom came out just a few days later and stayed until we moved.

Hazel was sad to say goodbye to her best friends, Nova and Spencer.  She's gotten really close to them as they've been her preschool buddies this past year.  Their moms are my best friends and we all cried a lot saying goodbye.

 Gemma started smiling and hasn't stopped!  She is a cheerful, social little buddy with a ready smile for anyone who looks at her when she's rested.

We soaked up our last few days of warm California "winter" before our departure.  I tried to get the kids outside every day that last couple of weeks before our move.  They had no idea what they were headed for!

The last week of February, Todd returned and we frantically finished packing and loaded the moving truck.  We had tons of support from our dear ward family: dinners, babysitters, packers, loaders, carpet cleaners ... It was amazing.  

Todd blessed Gemma in church on February 24th, our very last day in California.  

Todd drove the moving truck as it pulled our Altima, and I drove the van with my mom, while she wrangled the kids.  With the kids and a breastfeeding baby, every pit stop took an hour.  It was a loooong drive.  We're glad we drove past Reno on Sunday after church and finished the drive on Monday.  Either way, we drove until about 11:00 each night.  

I was disheartened by the cold when we arrived.  Brr!  Ug, real winter.  I don't miss it!  Luckily, it has only gotten warmer and warmer every day we've been out here, so our first view was our worst.  

Life Must Go On

The kids were full of pent-up energy yesterday.  There's rain on the forecast for tomorrow.  And Todd had to attend a work meeting this morning.  It was up to me to wrangle with the wild things.

I snuggled Gemma up in the Baby Bjorn and took everyone outside.

 

Jack and Hazel rode their bikes over to the tire swing park (the park in our complex) and we played for an hour.  Jack did fast and furious laps on his bike around the park non-stop for the first ten minutes.  He really needed to get out!

I was proud of myself for daring to venture out.  I'm thankful this post is one of celebration, and not a "this will be funny someday" story of how badly things went.

Welcome Gemma!

Gemma Ellen Bonner made her appearance Monday, January 14th, at 1:12 pm.

 She weighed 8 lbs 14 oz (exactly the same as Hazel!) and was 21 inches long (just like Jack).

We are all in love with her already. 

We went to the hospital Sunday night so I could get induced.  I was 41 weeks to the day, and nowhere near being in labor.  Only dilated to a one, hardly effaced, and feeling only about four painless contractions a day.  Gemma hadn't even dropped yet.  Todd and I wondered if the induction would even be successful, or if we'd be sent home, still pregnant, the next day.

Thankfully, things did kick into gear, and by 6:00 am Monday morning I was having contractions 3-5 minutes apart that I couldn't sleep through.  I was dilated to a four.  I was in active labor! Two showers, one dose of Fetinol, forty-five minutes of Sherlock Holmes, a few laps around the labor and delivery ward, and one epidural later, my water broke and I was a ten. 

Gemma still had not dropped and was not quite turned where we wanted her.   My nurse Sue put me in a "magic position" to get the baby to rotate a bit, and it worked. She never did drop, but I pushed her out anyway.  Only took seven minutes, through two contractions.  Piece of cake, comparatively speaking.  

Hazel met Gemma at the hospital Monday night and didn't want to leave.  She was completely enamored with her new little sister.  Her eyes and her smile just glowed with excitement and joy.  

Jack met Gemma Tuesday night when everyone came together to bring us home.  He lovingly pointed out her mouth, her nose, her eyes, her ears, her chin... He leaned forward and gave her a sweet, sweet kiss without any prompting.  Since we've been home, he's the one that keeps asking to hold Baby Gemma.

I am healing well, much, much more quickly than with either of my other two pregnancies.  In every way, this labor, delivery, and recovery are easier.  I am on a serious high!  (For those who will understand what this means, Todd has told me I am enthusiastically loving everything much like my sister Emily.  Ha ha!)  

 

Hazel is dealing remarkably well with the transition so far, which is stunning when I remember how much she freaked out when Jack was born.  She's been sweet and happy and patient and her normal self for the most part.  

Jack is loving Gemma, but searching for security as he's been ousted from his place as the youngest in the family.  He is causing trouble to get attention, although (so far) not nearly as badly as Hazel did.  We are trying hard to shower him with affection and positive attention so he won't act out to get us to react to him.  

I invited him to do post-labor exercises with me, and was surprised when he sat through it for the whole ten minutes.  He just wants to be with me.

Gemma has been a delight so far.  She's so fun to cuddle and smell, she's eating well and sleeping almost all the time.  The last two nights, she's even slept all night long (besides feedings) as long as one of us was holding her.  What a good girl!

She looks very much like Hazel did her first week of life.  Looking back at pictures, Jack looks completely different from these two, but I am thinking I might have to figure out which baby girl is which by which house we are in at the time.

Deployment Number Two

I have started and deleted this post too many times to count.  We'll see if it makes it to "publish" tonight.  Todd is deploying to Afghanistan again.  He starts training in California February 1.  He'll come back home the last week of February to help me and the kids move out to Utah.  We are going to live near my parents for the year Todd is gone.  Todd will have training in Texas in March and April, then fly over to Afghanistan the start of May.  He should be back March 2014. 

I have been surviving by trying not to think about it too much.  Now that it is January, it is staring me in the face.  Every day that ends brings his departure too much closer.  I hate the calendar. 

Suddenly I am not doing well anticipating this.  I don't know how I'm going to pull this year off with three kids and come out on top.  I have been absolutely failing at positive parenting with two kids for the past week and am hoping I'll do a better job as a sleep-deprived mother-of-three than I have been as an end-of-pregnancy mom with two.  The personal breakdowns have begun. 

Jack's Second Birthday

 Today my little Jay Bird turned two.  I am thankful that I didn't have the baby today, so they can each have their own special day.

Jack is losing all his baby-ness and totally turning into a little boy.  He's a ridiculously picky eater (eats practically nothing but breakfast and treats) and is stretching out into a long and skinny little thing instead of the squishy chubba he used to be.  Don't be alarmed, though.  He might be losing his squish, but he still cuddles just as much as ever.  (Perhaps my very favorite thing about him...)

He's a bit of a mischief maker.  He's not "naughty" or disobedient, but he is always on the patrol for something he can investigate that just happens to be off-limits and trouble-making.  Like climbing where he shouldn't and falling.  Or bringing me matches and wood glue he found in the back of a drawer.  Or applying my makeup if I leave my bag within reach.  Or never staying in bed unless we have a duct-taped child lock on the doorknob. 

Jack is starting to jabber, but a lot of what he says is still incoherent.  He's definitely moving beyond parroting words, though, and is trying to string together his own short sentences.  He loves to dance (twirl in circles) when music is on, and still loves to sing.  In fact, for the past week or so, Hazel and Jack have joined in with me when I sing their bedtime songs, and it's turning into a shout-out competition.  Hazel sings loudly to try to drown out Jack, and Jack shouts out the words because he thinks its a great game.  He loves to do anything that frustrates Hazel.  He's all about getting a reaction. 

He loves dogs, has for ages, so this year I made him a puppy cake.  I stole my inspiration from this picture.  All day he was bringing his little chair over to the counter to stare at it and steal little nibbles off of it.  I'm actually quite surprised it made it intact to the evening. 

He got Legos and a toy tool box, as well as his very own Ariel figurine (he is obsessed with her!). 

 Being that I'm only a couple days away from my due date and Todd had work today, I didn't have a lot of oomph to go and do much.  We did pick up lunch from Wendy's and eat it at the train transit center so Jack could watch the trains come and go.  There wasn't as much action as I was hoping for.  We probably should have gone earlier in the morning.  I bet the trains run much more frequently during commuting hours.  Then we went to a park for a bit and headed home for much-needed naps (and quiet time for Hazel). 

We had breakfast for dinner, because I couldn't think of anything else that I could confidently say Jack would eat.  So he had pancakes and sausage for breakfast, chicken nuggets, apples and fries for lunch, and cranberry muffins and strawberry shakes for dinner.  After dinner, we sang to him and brought out the puppy cake.  After he blew out the candles, he kept giving the puppy a hug over and over again, and picking off bites to eat in between.  It was pretty tricky getting the whole cake away from him and leaving him with just a slice! 

The kids played with their new mermaid dolls in the bath tonight, and we put them to bed bright and early.  Jack is still singing at the top of his lungs in bed 45 minutes later. 

Happy birthday, sweet guy!  We love you!

Christmas 2012

We had Christmas at home this year and loved it.  Jack and Hazel are at a wonderful age.  We were able to soak up the magic of the season looking at lights, decorating sugar cookies and gingerbread houses, talking about Jesus, and wondering about Santa. 

 

Hazel's preschool group learned a few Christmas songs to perform at a nursing home.  They made cards to give out to the cute grandmas and grandpas we went to visit. 

 On Christmas Eve I told the kids Santa had to wait until they were asleep before he could come bring their presents.  Hazel flung herself into bed and proclaimed as her head hit the pillow, "I'm already asleep!"  And, to my amazement, she and Jack really did go right to sleep without a peep. 

The big Christmas Morning Reveal: 

I love the look on Hazel's face!

 

 Hazel got a dollhouse.  A neighbor gave the house to us a couple of years ago and it's been in our garage ever since.  It was unpainted and had marker scribbles all over it.  We spent several nights fixing it up.  Todd painted it and put in real flooring (carpet and linoleum) and I mod podged scrapbook paper on the walls. 

 Jack got a train set.  He has set it up and played with it several times every single day for the past week. 

 I made a play tent for the kids, following this tutorial.  It was harder than it sounded and didn't turn out perfectly, but it works and the kids like it.  I wish we had enough space to have it set up all the time instead of having to store it when they're not using it. 

 We have enjoyed our Tree of All Trees so much.  We are hoping we'll have another Christmas with vaulted ceilings someday so we can repeat this year's magnificence. 

 We took the tree down today.  It was bittersweet.  We knew it had to happen sometime, and better before the baby comes than after, but no one wanted to say goodbye to it.  Our living room feels so empty now.  We got creative with the ornament removal, but had to finish the job with the tree laying on the floor. 

 

Todd's birthday was the day after Christmas.  He got his grandma's raspberry dessert instead of cake. 

 

We went to the Oakland Zoo on New Year's Eve.  It was fun to show the kids real animals we've been learning about through books and videos, like lions and tigers, hyenas, elephants, cockroaches, poisonous frogs, bats, and snakes.  

  

I'll leave you with a little Bonner family treasure.  Hazel saw Jungle Book for the first time a couple of months ago, and has been obsessed since with pretending to be Mowgli.  At least once a day, she starts laughing and throws all her clothes off except her panties.  Jack has also gotten into it the past couple of weeks and now comes up to me lifting his shirt up, asking me to take his clothes off so he can be "naked" or "Mowgli" as well.  Usually, Todd and I are Baghira or Ka, or perhaps Sher Khan.  There have been a couple of times that Todd has joined in with the madness and become a third Mowgli.  I think it's gut-busting hilarious. 

Third Pregnancy Run-Down

Well, this pregnancy has been different in a lot of ways than my other two. 

First trimester was the worst one yet, with most of my nausea hitting me at night.  I was useless by dinnertime and frequently went to bed at 9:00 because I wanted to do what I could to stop feeling sick.  Several times I woke up in the middle of the night from having bad dreams of greasy food and sweets being shoved in my face until I couldn't stand it anymore.  I'd often feel queasy and dizzy like I was on a boat, even though I was lying down.  It was yucky. 

Second trimester was my most ambitious yet.  As soon as I hit 14 weeks and had my energy back, I was training for a 5K, running three mornings a week for about half an hour each time.  This is monumental because I am so not a runner.  Not even close.  But Jacko was enormous (9.9) and it was worth it to me to put in whatever effort I could to try to gain less weight this pregnancy and shoot for a smaller baby, if I could control that at all.  So somehow I turned into this Sheera workout woman and worked it all the way through mid-September, when the backaches and sciatica made me call it off the week after the 5K. 

Third trimester has been my best yet.  This could be because Todd is actually a) present, and b) finally on board with giving me a nightly massage.  That makes a big difference.  It could also be because I'm on track to have gained 10 pounds less than I did with Hazel and Jack.  (So the running worked, it seems!)  Or it might be because I found the secret to sleeping well: I snuggle with an enormous microfleece blanket.  I can bunch it or flatten it to my heart's content to get it to feel just right everywhere, which is simply not possible with a body pillow.  It is soft and quite delightful to snuggle with and I really have slept amazingly well this pregnancy, even up to this point. 

So here I am, two days away from my 38 week mark.  I fully expect to make it into January (my due date is January 6th).  I will be shocked if my total labor time is under 18 hours (Hazel was 22 and Jack was over 30).  I don't think this little lady will be a nine-pounder, but I also think it's unrealistic to expect her to be in the low-to-mid sevens.  My guess is 8 lbs 2 oz.  Todd's is 7.14. 

 

I am completely intimidated and scared to have three kids.  It is going to be insane for a while.  

I don't want Jack to not be my baby yet.  Although he's starting the terrible two's,  he's still mostly adorable and sweet and snuggly and I can't stand the idea of having to hold someone else at the same time I smush his softness up to me.  He is a true keeper and I don't want him to get lost or forgotten in the craziness after we bring the baby home. 

I Want to Remember

This afternoon the kids and I were driving about town running errands.  We were stopped at a train track for a few minutes.  One came rushing past, and Jack immediately requested, "Again."  I tried to let him down gently that there probably wasn't going to be another one, but then there was, coming from the opposite direction.  I told Jack his wish had come true.  He said, "Again," and we thought that was it, because the train crossing arms came up and we drove through, but after we turned onto Central Expressway, another train went past us and Jack was stoked.  I suggested we might pack a lunch and go watch trains for a while on his birthday since he loves trains so much.  After I said this, Hazel said, "And for my birthday, I mean my next birthday, maybe we could pack a lunch and go watch rainbows!"  Melt my heart!  I had no idea she loves rainbows like that.  She doesn't talk about them.  It was a secret revelation.  I will have to go on a research hunt to see if I can find a waterfall or something that would reflect rainbows for her to sit and watch on command.