How to Break Up With White Flour

Let's face it, it's not going to be easy.

You two have known each other practically your whole life. It's been there for you. Comforted you. Made you happy.

But it's an abusive relationship and it's got to stop. It wont let you wear those cute jeans you love so much. It wont let you button up your shirt. It makes you tired and more hungry. It's hurting your body.

It's time to break up with white flour.

And it' doesn't have to be as painful as white flour wants you to think it's going to be. It has a smarter older brother it doesn't want you to have anything to do with, but I think it's time you two meet.

Meet your new relationship: Wheat Flour.

Stop rolling your eyes and gagging, it's not that bad! I mean sure, this might seem like breaking up with the popular jock everyone loves to start dating the nerd in glasses who only wants to talk about star wars, but if you take his shirt off you'll find rock hard abs because he is one healthy son of a bread.

So let's think of foods you might start replacing: bread, pancakes, pasta, etc.

Pasta is pretty simple. You can use whole wheat pasta, you can find corn and quinoa pastas at health food stores, or you can cut pasta meals down to once a month or once every two weeks and have your white flour pasta if you really can't give it up.
I only have it on special occasions when I eat out. I don't like the texure of wheat pasta personally and don't feel like going to a different grocery store and spending $5 a box just so I can have mac and cheese.

Okay, breads. You have to be careful with this one because not all wheat breads are good for you. Lots of them have extensive ingredient lists, with one ingredient in particular called azodicarbonamide. It's a dough conditioner. Which is also an ingredient in YOGA MATS and the SOLES OF YOUR SHOES.

YUM.

So, ideally, you need to find a wheat bread with a minimal amount of ingredients. My local Target carries a brand that a local bakery makes. It's really soft and doesn't have a terrifying, extensive ingredient list. Pay attention to ingredients and what your store carries. Buying local is always better anyways because you support local business and help keep and create jobs in your community.

But that's a bandwagon for another day.

So pancakes and waffles and such. You're going to want to stop using Hungry Jack and Bisquick and start making them from scratch. It's not as hard as it sounds, and once you've done it a few times you practically memorize how.
I like to use Wheat Montana Prairie Gold White Wheat. To me, white wheat is a nice compromise. It's not as...wheaty as hard red wheat. It makes for lighter tasting results. Where I am, I can find it at Walmart and Target and a 5 lb bag is something like $4 and it can last me a while because we don't have things I would need to use it for often.

Fifteen Spatulas has a great pancake recipe for light fluffy pancakes with wheat flour here.

So that's how we broke up with wheat in my house.

Did I forget something? Any questions? 

Comment below and let me know!

Why You Should Break Up With White Flour

In our food culture, it is pretty hard to avoid flour in your food. For breakfast, we have toast, bagels, cereal, pancakes, waffles... If you think of lunch you typically think of a sandwich. Or wraps, pasta, pizza, burgers...and I know growing up we always had a piece of bread with butter on it with dinner. And snacks are no different. Flour is everywhere. And it's typically very refined white flour.

As our appetite for flour has increased, coincidentally so has our waistlines. However, many nutrition experts don't think it's a coincidence at all. When they compare the evidence linking food choices and obesity and disease, they see flour's white, dusty fingerprints everywhere. 

So, what does flour really do? Why would flour make you fat?

Any carbohydrate containing food affects your blood sugar. When you eat flour, white or wheat, your body breaks down the carbohydrates into glucose (simple sugar). The glucose circulates into your blood stream to provide fuel for your cells, which is why carbs aren't bad. You need them. BUT food with higher glycemic indexes are bad. The glycemic index (GI) refers to how fast that glucose gets to your blood. High GI foods leads to a quick spike and subsequent crash of your blood sugar making you feel hungry again soon after eating. 

Remember when your mom told you not to eat too much sugar because you'll have a sugar high and then you'll crash? Like that. Any food with a high GI can cause that effect. 

Foods with a lower GI cause you to feel more satisfied and prevent that blood sugar spike.

The GI Index is rated 1 to 100. White flour has a GI of 71 and wheat flour 51. To give you and idea, table sugar has a GI of 68.

So wheat flour has a medium glycemic index, BUT it is obviously much better for you than white flour. The best choice would be to change over to maybe an almond flour or coconut flour but that can be pretty expensive and a tough jump to make. 

I like taking baby steps to healthier habits because I know they'll stick. And sometimes, a medium level GI is worth not spending $5 extra for half the amount of flour with a low GI. Especially if you can cut down how much you eat it.

So now that you know this, what do you do?

You break up with white flour, that's what. In my next blog post I show you how I've changed over from white flour to wheat flour with out hating life and feeling grossly un-American ;)

The Binkey Fairy Came to Our House

So my three and half year old still used his binkey until this weekend.

I felt like we were never going to able to take it away from him...he has sensory issues and he absolutely would refuse to fall asleep with out it. He just couldn't get to a calm enough place with out one. It was causing a gap between his top and bottom front teeth. Not to mention, we could barely keep tabs on one and it was so incredibly frustrating to play "where is that dang binkey?!" every night at bedtime.

With in the last year we had gotten him down to only using it at night, but he refused to give it up then. Trying to get him to sleep with out it was met with wailing and tears, and when your two boys share a room, you do whatever you have to to keep your children quiet so the other can sleep.
It seemed hopeless.

I had read about using "the Binkey Fairy" but I worried that due to Kaiden's language delay, he wouldn't be able to understand the concept.

Then I saw that there were books about the Binkey Fairy, and since Kaiden is very visual, I figured that might help. But I didn't want to buy him a book, and I wanted the child in the book to look like Kaiden so he could relate to it.

So I made my own book.

I made the little boy in the book look like Kaiden and had four simple pages which in a way as simply as possible that if he put his binkies in a basket on the porch, the Binkey Fairy would come and take them to new babies and leave him a present.When we got to the point in the story where Kaiden puts the binkies in the basket, we got the basket, found his binkies, and he put them in all on his own. He didn't want to at first, but we showed him the page where the binkey fairy leaves a present and put them in. Then my husband Jake got Kaiden all hyped up and took Kaiden to put them on the balcony.

Now, we were originally going to have him go to bed and wake up to a present. But as I helping Kaiden with his nightly bathroom routine, I realized Kaiden might sleep better if he immediately saw that the Binkey Fairy came and he had his present to replace the Binkey that night.So Jake quickly switched out the binkies for his present while we were still in the bathroom and gave me the okay to tell Kaiden the Binkey Fairy had come. Kaiden ran to the back door and looked through the glass. Upon seeing the blue bag with colorful tissue paper, he exclaimed "whas dat?!"

 

We let him out the door and he ran right to his present, of course. Jake helped him read the note the Binkey Fairy left, and then he got to open his present right there on the porch.

Now every time we go to Target, Kaiden goes to the children's bedding section and grabs a stuffed octopus pirate that matches a bed set they have. He LOVES anything that lives underwater, but particularly the octopus and whale. Target didn't have any stuffed whales, so I knew the octopus would be perfect and Jake agreed. It was one of his favorite animals, he already loved that toy and it would be perfect for cuddling at bedtime to replace his Binkey.

 

He LOVED it. He kept hugging it and saying "awwww." My brother-in-law was visiting and ran over to him and showed him his new octopus very excitedly. He was one happy little boy.

When it came time to go to bed, we decided letting him fall asleep in our bed, which he calls "boo bed" (big bed), might be best considering it would be his first night with out his binkey.
He instinctively asked for his binkey when we gave him his blankey, but I got his little book out and showed him the pages and reminded him again that he had given it to the binkey fairy and that's when she had given him the octopus. He understood because then he turned to go to bed with out any fuss. However, it turns out, I wasn't invited. He said " 'mon dahee! bye mommy!" (Come on Daddy) took Jake's hand, waved to me and led him into our room. I had to go ask for my hug and kiss from my now-too-big-to-give-mommy-kisses-goodnight-because-he-doesn't-need-a-binkey-boy. But I felt nothing but pride as I watched him walk into our room and get right into bed with out a melt down for his binkey.

I was later told that while they were there in bed, Kaiden kept hugging his octopus and saying "I ya you red ocopus" (I love you).

I later came in and snuggled with everyone, and where my husband was asleep...Kaiden was not. Jake woke up to me getting into bed, and I gently reminded Kaiden it was bedtime and he needed to go to sleep.

He turned onto his back, held his octopus in the air and said the cutest thing I've ever heard him say.

"dake you beekey fah ee"    Thank you Binkey Fairy.

Each word was slow with a pause between because longer phrases are difficult for him to get out of his sweet little mouth.

Then he hugged his octopus, rolled over, closed his eyes, and sighed.

He did not go to sleep unfortunately, so later we took him to his bed and there was a little bit of resistance, but it was mostly to the idea of going to bed. He asked for his binkey one more time, and we gently reminded him what happened once more, and once again that was that.

He went to sleep with out his binkey, snuggled up to his octopus.

I was the proudest mommy alive.

Are the Terrible Twos REALLY so Terrible?

A friend of mine posted a wondeful status on her facebook about the wonderful morning she had with her three year old and how happy and proud it made her. Someone then commented on that and told her to enjoy it now because the "terrible teens" would be there before she knew it.

Back up just a minute...terrible teens?
I always thought it was called the terrible twos.

_

But how many times do we hear that being extended now to the "terrible threes"
"fearsome fours"
"sour sixes"
And now
"terrible teens"

(I've heard all of these, I'm sure you've heard more)

Why are we labeling each stage of our child's development so negatively?

I have a three year old. He threw tantrums at one, and at two, and does still now. Does that make this a terrible time??

No! This is a BEAUTIFUL time!

My son is learning to speak in sentences and sings me the alphabet and sings and dances to all of the songs in Frozen.
He excitedly helps me make pancakes, he constantly asks for hugs and follows them with an adorable "ahhhh" once he's in my arms. He snuggles and softly strokes my arm or face. He tells me he loves me and says "scuze-ski" when he burps. He jumps up and down and yells "daaaheee!" when my husband walks through the door and rushes into his arms.

There is so much that is beautiful in who he is and what he does, how is it fair to him to label any part of his life as terrible because he doesn't want to put his shoes on and throws a fit?

How will it be fair to call him a terrible teenager because he rolls his eyes or misses curfew or talks back to me?

If we label a whole year or group of years of our children's lives in our minds as terrible, before or after it happens, then that is exactly what it's going to be and that is how we will remember it.

Just some food for thought...was the whole second year of your child's life really terrible?

Everyone is somebody's baby...

I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago; one I don't think I could have had if I wasn't a mother.

My husband and I were in the car and we were complaining about someone who had irritated us.

A little background though: I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and in our church we have a program called "home teaching." A man is assigned a teaching companion and they are in turn assigned a few families to "home teach" once a month. They aren't just teachers, they are friends and servants. The purpose is to create an intricate supports system so that the needs of members can be met, be that a meal, fixing a roof, or simply friendship. There is also visiting teaching where women are assigned a companion and a list of a few women to accomplish a similar goal of fellowship, love, and service.

Time is a very valuable commodity in our house hold. My husband is a full time student and holds a full time job so most of his spare time is taken up by homework. What little time we have together is precious. We had agreed for our home teachers to come visit us ever second Sunday of the month. Since we didn't set a time except for "after church", we figured they would let us know, or call and ask to set one.

The first month, they set a time, and came.
The second month, no one called, no one came. That can be very annoying when you spend your Sunday wondering if they're just going to show up.
 The third month, the first Sunday of the week, we aren't expecting anyone. It's before church, I still look like I just crawled out from UNDER a bed and there is a knock on the door.
There is one of our home teachers, by himself, Sunday best, Ensign in hand (a magazine put out by the church that has the home teaching message in it every month)
 He is immediately caught of guard that I answered, and asked if Jake was home. I was instantly annoyed, because the fact he was dressed up with an ensign and asked for Jake meant he wanted to home teach us. Right then. He couldn't come in if Jake wasn't home, it wasn't appropriate.
I said "yes." and stood there. There was no way I was dressed to entertain, nor was my house in a state for company.
 He begins to stammer after realizing I wasn't going to get Jake and makes up a story about wanting to know if before church would be a good time for home teaching. I said no. Then I reminded him he was supposed to come next week and asked if he had our number, indicating I would prefer he call us if his true intentions were simply clarifying details.
He said that he did, but that he was already out to see someone and thought he would drop by.

He had done this to us once before, showing up unannounced to try to home teach us with out his companion, only to have us" reschedule" him for the time he was supposed to come. That was the month they didn't even show up.

So after I told him, next week after church was good, he leaves. That next Sunday no one called and no one came.

So back to the car, Jake and I were complaining about this man's lack of manners. We were both so annoyed by his random visits expecting to come in and then lack of follow through. In the middle of one of Jake's sentences I was hit with a huge wave of humility and compassion.

I thought about Kaiden, my three year old son with a severe speech delay and Aspergers. I imagined him as an adult. Although he actually doesn't have problems being social like most children with Aspergers do, he doesn't know how to be appropriately social. Which yes, some of that is his age.

I wondered if this man had some high functioning spectrum disorder, or a social delay, or any number of things that could cause him to act so impulsively. He had good intentions, just not so good consideration of others and their lives.

I thought again of Kaiden. If he is that way as an adult, I sincerely hope that whoever is on the receiving end of his well intentioned lack of manners would be understanding and compassionate whether they knew his situation or not.

And I knew the mother of this man hoped the same thing for her son.

This man is someone's baby boy all grown up, loved by a mother the way I love my boys.

I look around now when I'm out. When I see or come in contact with someone that may annoy or anger me, I try to remember that that person is someone's child. someone loves them the way I love my children. Its then I try to draw on that, look at them in a different light, and try to feel a love for them inspired by the love I have learned as a mother.

Sometimes that person wasn't loved by a mother or father the way they should have been and deserved to be as a child. Sometimes that is the reason why they can be rude to others for no reason. And those are the ones who deserve the most compassion and understanding.

However, looking around you in the grocery store, it's impossible to know who that is. And that's why everyone deserves your love. Everyone was once as innocent and sweet and easy to love as that child in your arms or the ones you see everyday in someone else's.

Everyone is somebody's baby.

Are you grinding or polishing?

"You know, we really are perfect for eachother."
"Yes we are."

It was midnight, I had just gotten our 5 month old son to sleep. My husband and I were lying in bed where he was entertaining my desire to talk despite his desire to sleep. That's usually when we do most of our real talking. Not the "Where are the wipes??" and "What do you want for lunch?" kind of talking, but quality conversation that reminds us we have more in common than the mess-making minions we cohabitate with.

"No, but not just because we're in love," I said "because we bring out the worst in eachother."

"What??" I had his attention.

"Well, each of our short comings are the other's strengths. We seem to bring out the parts of each other's personalities that need to be worked on. We're constantly giving one another opportunites to grow by causing us to have to work on our immaturities and short comings...we are polishing each other into better people."

"Yeah..." he said thoughtfully, "Sometimes I think we grind more than we polish."

No marriage is perfect. Its very rare you find a couple who had never been in a fight. Its even more rare to find one that never argues or disagrees at some point. It's natural to do because we're individuals with different thoughts and feelings. And let's face it, men and women are on completely different planets when it comes to thought processes. So, there are going to be times in your marriage when you are going to disagree.

The question is: Are those moments being used to polish or grind?

Women, think for a moment about something your husband/boyfriend/fiance does that drives you absolutely crazy. Now think about how you react when he does that.

When we react angrily and negatively to situations where our spouse is displaying their not so positive qualities, we are "grinding" on them and our relationship with them. Instead of saying "I understand you're a human who isn't perfect and I accept you for your flaws, lets work on this" you're saying "You can't do anything right, why do you always do this? I'm right, you're wrong!" when almost always, none of that is true.

But that is how we make eachother feel when, in an argument, we are prideful and only think of ourselves.

As a couple, our job is to build eachother up. To be using the situations where we disagree or perhaps are displaying our shortcomings to help polish eachother as individuals and as a unified force for good. When we respond to eachother with patience and understanding and then look at ourselves and accept the existence our own flaws then we can truly begin to polish and stop grinding.

Because just like there was at least one (or probably more) things you could think of that drives you crazy about your spouse, I guarantee he or she has a few of those about you. We need to be willing to let go of our pride and accept that the weaker areas of our relationships are most likely 50% our fault as well. We have to be willing to step back and not always be right. We need to be polishing ourselves into more understanding individuals who value the feelings of our spouse more than our own.

When you care about someone else more than you do yourself, that is true love.

So...what are you going to do next time you get in an arguement?

Grind or polish?

It's going to be okay, and we UNDERSTAND.

I was in church a few weeks ago, sitting next to another family with small children. The young mother of this family had her son on her lap, and he appeared to be about 3 or 4. He was being rowdy, talking loud, swinging around in her arms and trying to get down. If she let him down he would try to run off, so up again in her lap he went. This caused more noisy protests. She offered a book and this appeased him, but it was short lived and he was quickly back to trying to escape.

You could see the embarrassment on her face...the longing in her eyes that he would just behave. You could see her trying to listen, trying to get something out of the talk being given. You could almost hear her wondering if it was even worth it to come to church.
I understood completely because that is Kaiden every Sunday. The embarrassment is real. You think people expect your child to be quiet and sit perfectly still. And some do...but those are they who do not have children, do not interact with them EVER, and do not want any of their own.

Most people are understanding. They know a child is not meant to sit still and be quiet.
I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell her we understood, and that we were happy she was there.
Then he headbutted her right in her nose.
I saw her holding her face with her eyes shut, in obvious pain and dealing with the internal struggle to NOT get mad.
Seeing what he had just done, the child instantly felt remorseful and loudly began to say "Sowwy! Kiss it!" and aggressively tried to wrap his arms around her head and "kiss better" her now possibly broken nose.

He loved his mother, and he didn't mean to hurt her. At no point in the whole situation was he ever trying to misbehave. He was being a little boy who was bored and didn't want to be where he was.
Just like a child who falls to the ground in the grocery store because he's tired of walking and he can't eat any of the yummy food he sees. And the child who gives the appearance of being kidnapped as he kicks and screams because he doesn't want to get in the car to leave the park and go home.

Just like ALL of our children old enough to express personality have behaved at one point or another.

Do not worry about the crabby, immaculately dressed woman who makes the aside comment loud enough to hear that if she had children they would never behave that way. There's a reason she doesn't have them.

We understand. We've been there and we know.

You are doing the hardest, most important job in the world. Keep your chin up, because someday this will all be over, and you are going to look back and wonder where on earth the time went.

But for now, please know that you'll get through this and it is going to be OKAY :)

Whoever Said Patience is a Virtue Did Not Have a 3 year old

I am not a very patient person.
I am, in fact, quite the opposite of patient.
I look up movies on IMBD before seeing them because we're poor and I can't wait for them to come to Redbox.
I eat food when it's still too hot.
I can rarely keep presents from my son for Christmas's or birthdays, causing me to have to go buy MORE right before his birthday.
As a teenager, I would change into the new clothes I had just bought at the mall instead of taking them home first.

There are many other examples I could give you, but I feel like that paints enough of a picture for you to understand my impatience.

So, unfortunately, my lack of this virtue tends to work it's way into my parenting style. This has caused me to easily loose my temper resulting in yelling and sometimes spanking my son to do what I thought was teaching him how to properly behave.

And that works...if you want your child to be afraid of you.

But it's not the approach to take if you want your child to respect you and do what you ask because they know it's the right thing to do and because they know WHY it's the right thing to do.

So, story time.

My husband, my son and I were at dinner. I don't remember what Kaiden was doing, but it was his usual acting out of some sort and it had been repetitive. So for whatever reason, I popped him on the mouth and very sternly told him not to do whatever it was he was doing (something to do with his mouth as I try to make punishments fit the crime).
My husbands eyes grew wide and he asked startled "Do you always hit him??"
I immediately became defensive, "I didn't hit him. I just popped his mouth, I would never hit him."

But I had.

And it didn't show Kaiden that I loved him and that I understood he was a child who isn't going to behave all the time.

It showed him that if he does something he isn't supposed to, I'm not going to calmly try to teach him what he should do instead and help him understand why he shouldn't do that particular action, but that I am going to hurt him.
Either physically with spankings and "poppings" or emotionally by yelling.
I would never reach over and smack Jake on the mouth if he said something I didn't like, so why on earth was I doing this with my son?

Because it was so much easier than being patient. It was easier than being understanding, holding my breath to calm down, and addressing the situation in a way that may take much more work to get the desired result of obedience.

So back to the dinner table, a slightly heated discussion about how to discipline our children ensued. I felt I was not wrong in my approach. I wasn't beating Kaiden. He was perfectly fine and now he knew not to do what he did.

But Jake had a much wiser approach then I would ever expect from a 21 year old father, but then he's always been much older and wiser than he actually is. He has always been the one to keep me grounded and help me see how to handle things in better ways.

He told me he thought that we should give Kaiden excessive amounts of positive reinforcement to encourage him to do the things we want him to do and later we can combine that with reasoning with him (when he's at the appropriate age level to do so). Yelling and spanking would get us no where. He will only continue to be upset and it wont stop the undesired behavior. We need to show love and patience and redirect the negative action into a positive one.

I threw my hands in the air and said "Fine. Be my guest." And the next thing I said is crucial as to why what I was doing wasn't working: "I don't have the patience"

So later that night before bed, Jake asked Kaiden to help him clean his toys. Kaiden did what he always does: he dropped to the ground and wailed and proceeded to kick whatever was closest to him.
Now here is where I would have raised my voice and yelled "Get up and put your toys away NOW!" and possibly yanked him over to his toys.

Jake stayed calm, helped Kaiden sit up, and started to put toys away again asking him to put his toys away. Kaiden angrily threw one car into the bucket as if to say "I'm going to do this, but you're not going to like how I do it!"
Jake immediately praised him like crazy.
Kaiden smiled and threw another car in.
Jake praised him some more.
With in seconds Kaiden was cleaning up his cars, no crying, no fits.

I was instantly humbled. I knew I was wrong, and that this is what I should have been doing all along.

I can't say that I'm perfect, I still slip up and lose my temper and raise my voice occasionally. BUT I'm trying very hard to always respond to Kaiden with love and patience.

Because he's just a child who is learning how to be his own little person and he needs my love as he figures that out, not my wrath.

So now, instead of yelling, I take a deep breath, bite my tongue, and force through the much more difficult patient approach in hopes that some day it will not be so difficult and it will be as easy to respond with love and tolerance as it is for me to respond with anger and frustration.

I'll let you know how it goes :)

And then 3 became 4

The story of Brantley's birth is far less eventful then Kaiden's. Still beautiful and wonderful, just less dramatic.

You see, after the terrifying ordeal of giving birth to a 9 lb baby with out an epidural, being induced, and having an episotomy, I decided that this time I was absolutely having an epidural. I was not feeling an ounce of pain besides getting an IV and having the epidural placed in my back.
We opted to have me induced again. Jake was working full time and we couldn't afford for him to miss more than one day of work, so we decided to have me induced on a Thursday (my doctor didn't do inductions on Fridays) so Jake could work only the next day and then have the weekend to spend with the new baby before returning to work on Monday.

This also made it easier because our friend base in Utah was limited and our closest family is California, so having an exact plan for a babysitter for Kaiden was much more settling.

So the morning of June 10th my friend came over to stay the day with Kaiden and Jake and I headed to the hospital. We were taken to our suite which was just as nice as the one I delivered Kaiden in. We lived in Provo, but I chose to deliver in Orem for that reason. It was a small, adorable women's center connected to the quaint little Orem Community Hospital

I was given my IV in my forearm, started on low petocin, and told I was third in line for the anesthesiologist to come give me my epidural. They then said they were going to go ahead and break my water because if they didn't do it now, they would have to wait until the afternoon when my doctor could be there again.

I panicked. Last time breaking my water meant  my contractions got intense, and fast. I asked the nurse if there was ANY way we could wait to break my water until after the anesthesiologist could give me the epidural. I gave a quick recap of my first birthing experience and told her I did not want to ever feel another contraction EVER again. I probably stressed that fact 10 different ways, trying to get the point across that this pregnant chick did not want to feel herself give birth to this baby. She sweetly offered to turn down my petocin until the anesthesiologist could come in. I'm pretty embarrassed at how I reacted, I must have sounded like a spoiled princess.

No, NO pain for her royal highness despite the fact she is pushing a human life from her body through a cavity logic dictates it should not fit through! This matterth not, bringeth forth my drugs peasants!!

So the doctor came and broke my water and miraculously as he was finishing up, the anesthesiologist showed up. I swear the needle was as big as my pinky finger. My stomach churned as a momentarily rethought my decision. Then I remembered the pain of labor and pushed aside my fear of needles, squeezed my eyes shut, held onto Jake and the nurse, and braced myself.
I would find out later that the needle I saw was only the needle to administer the local anesthesia and that the actual needle that went into my spine was MUCH bigger. I probably would have passed out if I had seen it before hand.

It was the strangest feeling not being able to feel my legs. I could move them, I just couldn't feel them. Then they got itchy...oh did they itch!! And my scratching did nothing, because I couldn't feel it. The nurse assured me it was just a rare side effect of the epidural, but told me that there was unfortunately nothing she could do.But I didn't let it bother me. If itching was the trade I had to make to not feel any contractions then so be it.

I also was surprised because I started to feel drugged, just a little. If I'm ever given meds I start to ramble. It's ridiculous. I'm there, in my head thinking "No don't say that! Stop! Just stop talking now...seriously? WHY am I still talking? OMG shut up..." buuuut my mouth doesn't seem to get that message and so I say simple things in the weirdest, longest ways possible. When the nurse picked up on this, she sat me up and told me that I needed to stay up so that the medicine from the epidural stayed down beneath where the line was in my back. Apparently it had been going up as well, instead of just down. She left and I looked at Jake and said "Please tell me to shut up next time!" He just smiled like the smart man that he is and saved himself from saying anything which, as we all know ladies, would have been the wrong thing no matter what he said. So the drugged feeling left and I was back to no excuse for the ridiculous things that come out of my mouth.

So then it was a waiting game. And before I knew it the nurse came in to check how dilated I was and said his head was actually right there, and that his shoulders just needed to come past my pelvis. It was time to push! All I could think was "Already?? That was so easy!"

So in came the doctor, up went my legs, and I began to push. Not even ten minutes of pushing brought our sweet little Brantley into the world at 2:22 pm weighing 8lbs 2 oz and 20 inches long.

He had brown hair! I was thrilled because Kaiden is a carbon copy of my husband. Brown hair meant this child had at least one physical attribute that came from me.

They cleaned him up a bit and put him into Jake's arms. I instantly got very jealous. I wanted to hold the baby I had just carried for 9 months. So I said so. And Jake said no! But before you gasp in surprise and disdain, hear out his argument. He was going to have to go home to be with Kaiden that night and then go to work the next day, all the while I would have Brantley to myself. So, he got to keep holding Brantley for a little while longer.

He did eventually share, and I got to meet my beautiful little son. And it was just as amazing as meeting Kaiden. This was our child. We created this precious little life..

Jake came and sat next to me while I held Brantley. I looked up at him and felt more in love with him then I had ever felt up until that moment. The song "Then" by Brad Paisley came to mind. (If you don't know it, you should. And if you don't like country, well...then what kind of an American are you??). This wonderful man had my heart, and in my arms was this beautiful little life we had created together. I was filled with an immeasurable joy. 

The next day we brought Kaiden to meet Brantley before Jake had to go to work.

Kaiden wanted nothing to do with him.

It was a little saddening to not get the adorable picture of your whole family next to you in the hospital bed, but we knew that if Kaiden needed time we should give it to him. He was losing his spot as the baby, and I suppose for some children that's a harder pill to swallow than it is for others. So Jake took Kaiden home and I did get that time with just me and my new baby boy.

And that is the story of when our little family of three became a family of four.

The day 2 became 3

Thursday, September 9th, 2010 I walked into my doctor's office for my 40 week check up. My due date was the next day, and I was already 4 cm dilated and 80% effaced. 

My doctor looked at me and said "You're still pregnant? We'll schedule you for an induction tomorrow morning."

This being my first baby and not really knowing much about all of this, I complied. I don't resent my doctor for his decision, although looking back I think it may have come from me being so close to going into active labor and he not wanting to deliver over the weekend. 

However, knowing when I was going to have this baby was actually a relief. We lived 30 minutes from the hospital and having never given birth, it was kind of nice to have a plan of action. So he called the hospital and scheduled me for an induction the very next morning at 7 am. I remember leaving the appointment and calling Jake to say "Hey guess what, we're having a baby tomorrow!"

That night we sat and talked about the next day. We were excited, but there was also a sadness. This was, essentially, the death of our time together as just the two of us. We would not get time like this together for a minimum of 18-20 years assuming we only had one child. I wasn't ready to give it up, although I had no choice. The thought of being a mother also terrified me. All of those factors mixed with pregnancy hormones had me crying at dinner and left Jake to try to comfort his crazy wife.

By the next morning, those fears were replaced with excitement and anticipation. This was the day we were going to meet our sweet little boy! We drove to the hospital in a giddy state of nervousness. We checked in and taken to the room. The hospital we delivered at had very nice suites for delivery and you stayed in them through recovery. It felt very peaceful and relaxing.

They stuck the IV in my wrist and asked me if I wanted an epidural. I said "no" and that I wanted to deliver without any drugs. The nurse then looked compassionately concerned and told me to just let her know if I changed my mind as she started my petocin. 

She knew what I didn't know:  that although an induced childbirth was faster, it was far more painful then if your body did things on it's own.

I was about to learn that.

I remember feeling my first contraction. I held my stomach and said aloud "Oh wow, so that's a contraction!" It didn't hurt, it just felt like my entire stomach tensed up. 

Then the next one came only two short minutes later.

And that DID hurt.

"Oh...OH! This hurts!!"

Jake and my mom held my hands and told me to breathe through it.

The contractions came every two minutes, hard and painful for the next hour. Then they came every minute. Then they started to couple together, which means I didn't get that 30 seconds to a minute between two of them. I was breathing in the only Lamaze technique I had taken the time to learn, and it managed to help me through my contractions but I was in the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. 

My sweet nurse asked me if I wanted Stadol (sp?) and I said yes. It made me fall into a light sleep, although I could still feel the pain of the contractions, just not as strong.

I had those horribly painful contractions for 4 hours before I was dilated enough to push. When they told me I was at 10 cm, I was so excited. My body had been telling me for 30 minutes that it was time to push. 

So, then began the pushing. 

I pushed and pushed and pushed for over an hour. I guess Kaiden was content where he was, because he didn't seem to want to come out.
My doctor showed up as Kaiden was crowning. He then took over and made the decision that I needed an episiotomy. I saw him giving the shots of general anesthesia and wondered what he was doing. Jake would later tell me that watching him make the incision would be the most disgusting thing he has ever witnessed.

Even with that episiotomy, Kaiden's head was so big he still needed to be vacuumed out.

And then, at 3:45pm our sweet little Kaiden was born weighing 9 lbs 6 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. 

He was beautiful, and I fell instantly in love.

I, however was not beautiful. Sure, it's typical for women to look sweaty and tired and have disheveled hair after giving birth...but I looked like a raccoon. You see, I don't like to go anywhere without makeup on. This philosophy would become more laid back with two children, but at the time, I felt I had to wear eyeliner and mascara to go to a hospital full of doctors and nurses who have seen far worse than my face with out makeup. After all, that is the only proper way to welcome a child into the world. NO ONE told me or thought to wipe my eyes when my make up was running. Yeah, better believe Jake is STILL in trouble for that one.

But I have a confession, as they were cleaning him off, I just kept thinking about food. I was STARVING. All of the work to push that kid out and the last thing I had eaten were french toast sticks from Burger King at 6:30 that morning. Jake had cheesecake left over from the lunch they brought him, and I demanded it be put into my hands. I'm pretty sure it only took me 10 seconds to eat it.  I had finished by the time they were done and my new little angel was placed into my arms.

I remember feeling complete awe. This little baby was mine. I was a mom and Jake was a dad. Two kids who had a kid. I snuggled my nose against his soft little cheek and silently promised him we would always do whatever we could to take care of him and make him happy.

And that is how our little Kaiden Marshall came into the world.