I should have known...

I should've known when Jack was just days old and refused to nurse on anyone's schedule but his own, that I would be in for some epic food battles. But since Jane opened her mouth each time the spoon was presented I actually had no idea that babies could so willfully refuse to eat solid foods. Like, it is NOT getting in his mouth, period. Not all solid foods, of course not. He will eat Cheerios and bananas until the sun comes up. Try feeding him peas, rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, broccoli, or anything else and you will get a tight-lipped, head-turning, arms-waving baby! And those of you who know me can just imagine how much I want to rip my hair out!!! Not only can I not feed him the healthy foods that I painstakingly cook and puree myself, I have to relinquish control over to a 6 month old! I'm sure my friend Monique has called it when she said Jack is going to be one of those insanely skinny kids who won't eat anything. And at dinner I'll say, "Well, this is what we're having so you can eat this or nothing." And he'll skip merrily away and say, "Okay, nothing."

And now I have years of guilt ahead of me for having a child who won't eat anything healthy. And I'm just positive it must be because I let him taste bananas before I introduced peas...

"But mom, how could someone that looks this innocent be doing all that?"

A Glimpse into the Life of a Mom with a Herniated Disc

The sweetest daughter ever comes to me many times a day with something like, "Oh, mommy, you are in pain? I'm sorry, mom. I love you mom." "What is it mom? Is it sciatica? It's okay, mommy."

As I lay in bed in a pain-filled, drugged-out haze I have conversations with Jane like this: "I'm hungry." "Get a banana from on top of the fridge." "I can't reach." "Get a chair, push it to the counter, climb onto the counter, get the bananas, and bring it to me." Ten minutes later she came in triumphant with 2 bananas. Later on I gave her the tutorial on how to get into the pantry to reach the bread. Now if only I could teach Jack how to climb out of his crib, crawl to me, and begin nursing.

I have the Utah Department of Health pregnancy and nursing hotline number on speed dial. I have called at least half a dozen times to check on taking different drugs while nursing.

After a misdiagnosis and the prescribed muscle relaxants not helping at all I packed up the kids and made the very painful drive back to my doctor's office in Provo for a shot of toradol. I was told it would work in 15-30 minutes. Luckily I had to nurse Jack in the waiting room. As the minutes passed and my pain did not subside I started to panic. ( I started to bawl). I waited a full 35 minutes then went up to the receptionist and begged her to help me. I said "I canNOT drive home in pain like this only to call you guys to tell you the shot didn't work." So she fit me in with another doctor, as the first one I saw was not there. The new doc thought it might be a disc problem. He gave me prednisone to decrease the swelling of the disc. He also gave me a list of new exercises to try.

The next morning I wake up at 4 in a lot of pain. I down two percocet. Fall in and out of sleep. Jack woke up at 6:15. I step out of bed only to realize I can't put any weight on my leg. I manage to stumble down the hall, get Jack and nurse him. I army crawl back into my bed. My leg feels like it weighs 50 pounds, and feels all seized up like a gigantic charlie horse or something. I take one muscle relaxant, and two prednisone tabs. Matt only got home a couple hours earlier from work so I try to wait out the pain. An hour or more passes and no relief. I take two more percocet and call it quits. I call my doctor, tell them I can't stand on my leg. They tell me to go to the E.R. And the bawling begins. I feel awful to make Matt take me when he has a cold, is working 16 hour days and has barely had any sleep. I feel awful calling around trying to find someone who can watch our kids. Thankfully I got a hold of Candis who was immediately ready to help-ran to the store for formula, picked up our kids, and made me feel a thousand times better by assuring me she is happy to help. So Matt dresses me, lays me in the back of the car and takes me to the E.R. Eventually I get a shot of morphine. It helps a little. I wait for my MRI. Matt leaves for work. I have moments of wanting to freak out while in the MRI tube but manage to talk myself into keeping calm. The morphine wears off. They give me a shot of something "Ten times stronger than morphine." that didn't help at all. The doctor comes in, tells me I have a herniated disc between my last vertebrae and the top of my sacrum. He prescribes me percocet, (thanks, but it doesn't work) and tells me I will hear from my original doctor when he sets up an appointment for me to see a specialist. I call Candis, who comes to pick me up. We grab some dinner, get the kids and head to my house. As we approach I realize I don't have any house keys and I can bet 10 to 1 that Matt has locked both doors. We try just in case, then head back to Candis's house to wait 4 more hours for my helpful brother to drive to SLC, get the keys from Matt and drive them back here to Lehi.

What will today bring? I HOPE it brings a call from my doctor telling me my appointment with the specialist is very, very soon!

Half a Year Old!

I can't believe Jack is 6 months old already! Hooray!
He is such a sweetie and usually has a smile ready for anyone who looks his way.
He has been finding his own ways to get around. He'll use rolling and scooting backwards to change his scenery. And he's started rocking back on his knees. Sometimes he'll scrunch his knees up and then do a desperate belly flop forward to try to inch his way towards something in front of him.


Jack also started some solids this month. He did okay with the rice cereal. Sometimes I thought maybe he just didn't know how to eat yet when he would just stare at me blankly with his mouth closed. Or he would just let it sit in his mouth without doing anything. Then I gave him some mashed banana and realized he could eat when he wants to. Just like with nursing, he's only going to eat on his time table. Jane nursed and ate any solid food I offered her at anytime. Jack is so different. He usually tries desperately to get a hold of the spoon I'm using, even when I give him his own spoon to play with. And I'm always surprised that a 6 month old baby can manage to grab a spoon from me!



Happy 6 months Jack! We're so glad you're in our family!!

Our trip to Missouri

This trip to Missouri has had three phases:

PHASE I: Just me, the kids, and Grandma and Grandpa. Jane has had so much fun with my parents. I am so happy that we were able to stay for so long. To be perfectly honest I did not realize just how awesome my parents were at being grandparents! She has had a blast playing games with them like, "You be the bad people and I'll run and you chase me." I talked her into not playing that one so it's been "You be the big, bad wolf..." They've reenacted the 3 little pigs together, and Papa and Jane have played Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I hope that she remembers this trip for a very long time and all the fun she had with her grandparents.

Also during Phase 1, as Jane played with Mom and Dad, I got some serious crafting done. It has been a very, very long time since I have "created" much of anything. But I read something someone wrote on etsy that said something to the effect of: "We are all born with some level of creativity. You can either starve it and let it die or nurture it and let it into your life." Ok, I can't remember how it ended, but something touchy-feely like that. Anyway, it inspired me to make something. So while in Missouri I made Jane a crayon roll (here) to put in her Christmas stocking. I threw away my first attempt. The second has plenty of imperfections which bug me to no end. But I've talked myself into realizing that no one will be grabbing it from Jane at church to inspect it for flaws. (crayons go into those little pockets).

For Jack's stocking gift I made him a "crinkly taggie" (here). I threw away my first three. Then for good measure I made a thousand more. Unfortunately I don't know a thousand babies being born, but I do know a few.

And then of course I needed to make the stockings that these gifts would be going into. And I made one for me to. (Matt already has a sewn one).

Next up I made some playsilks for Jane. They cost like 50 bucks for 4 or something ridiculous. I thought, "Why not buy silky fabric and make my own?" I realized the answer to that question when I went to hem them. I can't hem silk. Not prettily anyway. But I talked myself into believing that they are just a toy and Jane won't care what they look like.

I also turned this Ikea twin bed duvet into a twin bed comforter. I don't have the guts, patience, time or skill to quilt it (here), or the 150 dollars to pay someone to quilt it so I tied it. It's about 1/60th of the awesomeness, but 100% of the functionality so we're still okay.

For some Thanksgving fun I made this turkey game for the cousins to play. Then we interviewed Jane and the Dickson cousins about what they were thankful for and made these Thankful poems (here).

I have had so much fun creating that I asked my parents for a sewing machine for my birthday. It's very exciting.

PHASE II: Family came into town. The Dickson's came from Kentucky and stayed 4 nights. Jane had fun getting to know her cousins. She really had fun with 1 year old Seth when the older cousins went to a sleepover. I had a good time seeing my sister and her husband. Andy and his family live in Kansas and came down for Thanksgiving. Aubrey also spent the night and was able to be girly with Jane for a night. It was great to see their family and their new little Tate. Nate and Paris flew in from Utah. We see them often there but it was great to have all the siblings together. The only person missing was Matt!! (please forgive my misplaced bang in both pictures).



PHASE III: With Thanksgiving over, the family gone, and a whole week left, Phase III was dedicated to my soul-twin, Monique. We grew up in Missouri together but she lives in North Carolina now. We may or may not have very carefully and strategically planned our trips home together. We spent a couple days together. We attempted to work on our creations together but we mainly just took care of our kids together. Time always goes too fast. I suprised myself when I got choked up at saying goodbye to her. I could go on, but since this post is already enormous I will just have to give my friend of 16 years her own post someday.

So the phases have gone. I'm packing up and we'll leave tomorrow. I have mixed feelings. I'm looking forward to seeing my loml. (pronounced lahmull, meaning love of my life). I'm looking forward to seeing my dear Utah friends and a new little addition to the Felt family. But I'm so nervous about getting back and feeling the stress I put on myself to get everything accomplished each day. I have a hard time relaxing and enjoying myself until everything is done. And since everything never gets done, well, you get the idea. But I have some new ideas and new resolves and I hope I can get back and have some fun with the people I love.

Thanks, Missouri, for the good times. I'm sorry I doubted you.

Janey-head

Tomorrow's the fifth. Which means you get a very long and very detailed and very child-obsessed post about my girl. Because really, is there anything cuter than your own kids?

Jane kept trying to tell me something about shampoo. I was so lost. Finally I realized she was talking about Pooh, which apparently she thought was simply a nick name.

Jane put a silk scarf on her head and said, "I'm SO married."

Jack dropped his paci. I reached down to get it as Jane came running over. She was pretty upset when I got it first. She told me, "I wanted to get it. I want you to say, "Oh, that was so nice."

Jane likes to pass on her life-lessons to her brother. Like after an episode of Super Why about not tricking people, she went to Jack, put her arm around him and said, "It's not nice to trick people, Jack."

Jane and Jack and I spend an unfortunate amount of time together at the ENT office. When he looks into my ear she usually says something sweet like, "It doesn't hurt mom? I love you, mom."

For family night we talked about the story of the good samaritan. We acted it out, having one person fall down, one person walk by rudely, and one person pretend to doctor up the hurt person. Jane loved being the one to help. When it was her turn to fall down and I walked by acting mean her eyes got huge and sad. We had to take a time out to explain that it was just for pretend--just for the story.

Jane asked me about Jack: "What's his also name?" I answered John. She told me it was John, Jack, big boy, and buddy.

Jane has generously received a lot of hand-me-downs, and gifts from people over time. She tends to know exactly who gave her what. When she doesn't know she always asks, like before putting her shirt on, "What somebody gave me these?" Then I'll tell her. She usually lights up and sighs, "Oh, thank you!" And like with the pink table Candis gifted her with last year. She got a mark on it and said, "Oh no, Candis will be so sad."

Jane was eating something and said, "I love these because they are so dinnery."

I was singing Jingle Bells in the car and Jane was having me sing it over and over and over again. She kept saying it like I was the radio though. One time she said, "I want it on again because I love a lot of it."

Poor Jane said about Matt after we'd been gone for a week, "My dad is dead." I tried to explain to her what dead means and how Daddy isn't dead. Later she told me, "My dad is a little bit dead."

Jane got a case of the throw-ups while in Missouri. The first time she threw up it was only a tiny little bit. But she looked at me very seriously, shook her head and said, "That was NOT yummy."

Jane saw a big dog that was waiting with some people at the KC airport. She begged me to pet it so we approached the couple and they were so sweet to Jane. Jane pet the dog for about 10 minutes. Jane knew just how to get those dog-lovers to adore her. She said in her sweetest voice while hugging their dog, "I love dogs." Then she put on a stink-face and said, "But I don't like cats." They laughed for about two straight minutes and kept telling me how much they loved my daughther. I didn't have the heart to tell them that Jane bawls when she sees a cat and can't pet it.

And my fun-loving gal has confirmed my fears this month. I've always feared that she will have the potential to be a great student and to learn a lot, but that she will choose to goof off and have fun instead. And sure enough, after a couple weeks of reading a dozen little readers all by herself, she announced, "I don't like reading." And since I don't want to push her, there you have it: A girl that can read quite well but would rather run around making up songs about poo poo instead.