z’s bubbles 2

Ruth was right when she called me yesterday at what was probably the low point since Cora’s birth: we are completley out of control. I haven’t tracked our spending since March, we overdraw our account on a monthly basis, we hardly read books, we never read scriptures, we stopped listening to tapes, we let let our emotions go rampant and we let life push us around like leaves in the sea.

But getting out of all this seems so… overwhelming. All the changes that need to be made… there are so many.

Though we only do have to make one change at a time, everything seems so pressing, like it needed to be done yesterday.

And then I just read that Evangeline Lilly is turning 27 this week. I didn’t know she was younger than me. I thought she was older. I guess I am getting old.

It’s time to stop being a kid and do something with my life…

$360 for water??? And for a second water meter that has never been on our bill before and we’ve almost lived here a year???

What are they thinking?!?!

Today was one of those days that proves that an unplanned day will leave you feeling unsatisfied, even if overall the day was pretty decent.

Got up at 7:30 because Gillian was awake, showered and got Liam up, then Cora woke Ruth up. I made breakfast (pancakes again because I forgot we still had vanilla, had I known, we would’ve had waffles), the kids played, then the kids watched Veggie Tales while Roo and I did Crosswords on the couch.

Then we headed to church for an hour during which Liam proved to us he was positively tired and hungry. I don’t recall much about the speakers though. Kinda of a shame. Though I did learn that I don’t know how to handle the situation when two kids want to play with the same toy… I’ll have to look into that.

Then I took Cora, Roo and Liam home where we had a quick lunch (chinese leftovers that my mother treated us to the night before). After that, I abandonned Roo to a kicking and screaming (and begging not to be put to bed) Liam while I went back to church for 3rd hour. And the lesson was on…: journaling. How fitting. Jeremy tought it. It was a good lesson. It showed me that I was getting old and in desperate need of “doing something with my life”. I mean here I am almost 30 and still sitting on a dream that I started almost 7 years ago and I’m not one inch closer to taking a step into the direction of it. Pathetic.

After picking up Gillian and making our way home, the rest of the day (from 5ish until 9pm or so) was spent fighting with Cora trying to get her to either sleep or eat, but she wouldn’t hear any of it and stayed half-way awake, and cranky… But we won

And then we waisted away watching Don’t Say a Word again, which initially I had just put in for entertainment while feeding Cora… There are a lot of loose ends in that movie.

So now as I write this, Roo finished a sutdent-star-of-the-week sheet for Gillian. She’s convinced she’s a bad mom because she forgot it all year long. I think we need to plan a surprise party to remind her that we think she’s the best mommy in the world

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It is interesting to see how different Gillian and Liam are reacting towards their new sister. Gillian is the proud big sister who seems to enjoy nothing more than holding the baby or laying next to her on the floor, watching her, maybe having her hold her finger.

Liam on the other hand seems to have taken on the middle-child syndrome. Or at least is attempting to do so. He’s taken on hitting, poking and throwing. Though the latter was already present before Cora’s arrival. However I have to add that he’s not a brat. These mishaps maybe happen once a day or so and more often than not Gillian seems to provoke him or he’s just trying to be playful.

On an entirely different subject, I wish a phone company would offer to cover early termination fees of your existing contract if you switch to them now. I would so love to say bye bye to sprint. The sad thing is, their service is ok, it’s our phones that suck. And unfortunately to get any kind of discount with them, one has to renew our existing contract by at least a year, and it only saves you $25 off the retail price of the phone. Add to that their phone line up is bleak to say the least when it is compared with any other company (Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon…). Not a happy camper…

It’s almost been two weeks and life as it was before Cora joined us definately is over.

Thankfully with Ruth’s family resuming work and her brother and family gone again, things will quiet down a little. It will be particularly good to get Gillian and Liam back onto a schedule as both of them had been running on empty for a few days; poor things pretty much had circles under their eyes since Cora’s birth thanks to a lot of road trips and a lot of last minute changes, not to mention, in Liam’s case, all the skipped naps.

But the house is mostly reclaimed. We do need to come up with some more storage ideas though for our bedroom and our bathroom as clothes and supplies for Cora and an improvised changing station on our bathroom counter really threw our existing system out of balance. This said, the existing system was not really working in our favor either…

Come to think of it, it’s hard to remember what things were like before. The last weeks before Cora was born were anything but normal with the added physical and emotional stress on Ruth since she was and still is the one who manages to keep this entire household together. I wish I knew where she gets her strength and determination from!

Oh, and we’re actually getting sleep again Cora will at times sleep up to 5 hours straight, and we’ve managed to get Ruth to take afternoon naps. Those two things definately help in our overall progress.

Progress… where is it we’re going these days??

So, the time finally came.
A little over a week ago, on Friday the 30th of June to be precise, Ruth woke me up around 4am because she was feeling very nautious. We called her doctor as she wasn’t feeling any “real” contractions yet but he said to report to the labor and delivery floor of the hospital.
We packed (most) of our things, called Ruth’s mom to keep the kids and organized a short-notice sitter to cover the time it would take her to get to our house. At 8am, we checked into the hospital.
After an exam, it would appear that we were indeed in labor. The doctor announced he was going to give Ruth that pottuss-stuff (I can’t remember the name for the life of me) to accelerate labor a little and would probably break her waters around noon.
So noon came along with the epidural and the dreaded braking of the waters. A word from the “wise”: never have both done at the same time as it makes one miserable. And after regulating the epidural a little and four (yes, four) big pushes, at 1:25pm, little Cora Madison was born 19 in long and 7 lb 6 oz, making her the smallest of our babies yet. That was fast. To put things into perspective, at around 1:15pm, the nurse said she would check Ruth again as she really was in pain at that time and noticed someone’s head being “right there”. So yes, it was fast.
For the next two days I stayed at the hospital with Ruth, making daily trips home to get more stuff and bring other stuff home. Though between nightly nursing sessions and nurses wanting to check Ruth’s vitals, nobody got much sleep as is sadly evidend in the pictures we took on those days.
Ruth’s family came by as did my mother, though not at the same time mind you. And Sunday, we got to go home.
Over the next few days, partially thanks to Ruth’s brother visiting with wife and daughter and partially thanks to the holidays we spent quite a few hours and dollars on the road between here and Ruth’s parents’ house. Thankfully my mother let us borrow the van every time we asked as it does make travelling a lot easier than cramming all of us into our little wagon.
And we sent both grand-ma’s on shopping trips. Ruth’s mom spoiled us with TONS of clothing for all three kids, while my mother graciously bought Cora a bed. Those things are dreadfully expensive.
Now things are back to normal, if there is such a thing after an additional child. I have one more week off to help Ruth and my goal is to do a better job than I have been doing over the past days as the lack of sleep seems to have rendered me completely useless almost on a daily basis.
Gillian and Liam are completely gaga over their little sister, and Cora in return is fascinated whenever one of the two is nearby and talking. Speaking of which, Liam now answered questions meaningully and mostly talks in complete sentences. And even though the first week was a roller coaster for all of us, we all survived and everyone seems to be doing great.
It’s especially amazing to see how Ruth is handling everything: the physical challenges of giving birth, the emotional and homrmonal changes, etc… She sure reminds me how lucky I am that she said yes 7 years ago