Savvy Toddler Mom

A year ago today I broke out on my own from a free WordPress blog.  What a year it has been!  Unfortunately, this blog hasn’t become what I had envisioned, but there is still time.

At any rate, I would like to take a moment to celebrate the life that is the blog — being a mom to my cute little guy, the toot, who keeps me running and running and running.  He is the light of my life and I can’t imagine another experience this life has to offer that would make me grow more.  Parenting is the quintessential life experience, isn’t it?

Here’s a shot SavvyDad took of me (and the toot!) at Silver Lake near Brighton last week.  He titled it “A Mommy’s Life.”

Here’s to a better year… hopefully more blogging, fewer miscarriages, and much, much more of the happy, wonderful things that make parenting so rewarding.

Alright, so the career crisis is almost over, my hideous cold (or whatever secondary infection I got) is being attacked by wonderful antibiotics, and it’s almost August.  Ack!  Must be time to get back on the blog wagon.

This last week has been kind of a blur.  Full of spreadsheets and coughing, pioneers and bed wetting (the last was the toot, not me). 

Seriously, did we actually have a holiday last week?  If it wasn’t for the fireworks I would have missed it completely, I was so sick.  SavvyDad took the toot to the Days of ‘47 Parade and had a great time.  I went to the Instacare.

(If you are wondering what this Utah state holiday is all about, check out my more appropriate post from last year.)

But about the bed wetting… ugh.  So, the toot is practically potty trained.  He did it almost completely by himself in a few weeks’ time.  However, he is still a little hit-and-miss overnight.  Does anyone have any suggestions for that?  The last two nights he’s woken up crying because he wet the bed.  Not only is it upsetting to him, SavvyDad and I are losing (more) sleep and I’ve been having to do a lot of laundry.  If this keeps up, I think I’ll need to make a bigger investment in sheets and blankets.

I don’t want to just put him in a pull-up, though.  He wants to wear his underwear and he says he wants to try to keep them dry.  I don’t want to force training wheels on him if he doesn’t want them.  Any ideas?

Along these lines, have I mentioned how much I love my washing machine?  Well, I do.  Last August we got a front-loading LG washing machine and I have been having a love affair with it ever since.  It’s amazing.  Not only do our clothes get cleaner, but it’s HUGE (think: 1 1/2 times as many clothes per load as our old one), uses less detergent (high-efficiency only!), less water, and less energy (qualifies for energy rebates!), and is really fun to use.  No, really.  It’s fun to fill up the little drawer for the detergent, fabric softener, bleach, etc. and the toot and I like to watch the clothes swirl around after we turn it on.  My favorite perk (aside from all the above) is the cute chiming sounds it makes when you push the buttons and when it finishes the cycle.  It’s adorable.  Happiness in laundry.

I just put three twin-sized blankets in to wash at the same time.  It’s awesome.

SavvyDad says my blog is stagnating.  Sorry!  I just have been too stinkin’ busy to write much lately.  So much going on!  Between work, swimming lessons, potty training, and the usual craziness, we went out of town for a few days, had two cousins getting married, several birthday parties, and one newborn niece!

I want to blog about all of it, but today I’ve been having a bit of a career crisis that is taking precedence over all else.  What to do?  When I sort it out, hopefully I’ll be back to blogging as usual.

In the meantime, I’d like to thank one of my best friends, Helen….  She told me today, “You have a career destiny that you constantly fight with.”  (Or something to that effect…)  Thanks, Helen.  Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.

As promised, here are some photos from our trip to Steamboat Springs a couple of weeks ago.  It was beautiful there.  For you Utahns, imagine a Park City on steroids.

Last Thursday I got a call from my doctor’s office with the pathology report back on our twins.  We lost two perfectly perfect little girls.

Where did I put my Xanax again?

Just signed up the toot for swimming lessons at the Bountiful Rec Center.  I’m so excited!!!  The next session starts July 14th.

We have a busy weekend shaping up… Oakley Rodeo tomorrow (if you’ve never been, you need to go), BBQ at the in-laws on Friday, SavvyDad is going to do some electrical work on the family cabin on Saturday.  (I love having such a talented man around!!!) 

The toot and I had a great time yesterday at the park and then shopping at the Gateway.  I think I am going to try and get him to the park daily, if I can.  He was SO much more cooperative about everything!

To summarize, today’s summer activity ideas are:

• Swimming lessons
• Trip to the park
• Shopping at the Gateway - take the kids’ swimming suits and towels and let them play in the fountain!

If you are really ambitious, you can go to Lagoon.  That’s where CTM is today.  Hot day for Lagoon!

I wrote the following post yesterday and thought that I had lost it during a computer blip.  I think I lost the last couple of paragraphs, but today I will take what I can get.

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I’m trying to get some work in this morning before going to our park play group, but I keep getting shot by Buzz Lightyear!  We have been having a Toy Story 2 fest at our house the last couple of days.  It’s pretty funny.

We just got back from a few days in Steamboat Springs, CO.  What a beautiful place!  I will post some pics this afternoon.  We went with SavvyDad’s parents, siblings, and families.  Mass chaos, really.  We met my SIL and her family there - it was SO good to see them.

Here she is!!  She’s sweet and adorable and already wary of the toot.  He just wouldn’t stop following her around and trying to get her to play ball with him.  It was really cute.

This article totally made me laugh today.  I hope you enjoy its truthfulness as much as I did.

On a more personal note, I am finally off of bed rest and started back working and being a functioning adult on Wednesday.  MAN, this whole staying vertical all day and being responsible thing is exhausting.  I crawled in bed last night at 9:30pm.

I still have a bad cold, but it too is going away and I hope to have my normal voice back soon.  Other than that, I feel pretty good.  Finally.  I went and got my hair cut and colored yesterday and that cheered me up immensely.  Isn’t that a funny thing? 

I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend of easing back into normality… SavvyDad is going golfing, I’m going to venture to Costco (first time in a month!!), and I think I will even make it to church so that my friends and neighbors can see for themselves that I’m still alive.  And so that I can hug and hug and hug them to thank them for all of their love, help, food, and prayers.  I’m really looking forward to that.

Also, my parents left for New Mexico this morning to pick up a new puppy!  We are all very excited.  Dogs are part of the family in my parents’ household.  They/we have had either one or two dogs at a time since I was in high school.  Our current dog, Velvet, has been alone for a couple of years since Durnik died (all of our dogs have been named after characters in David Eddings’ books - yes, we are total nerds), so getting a new puppy is really a big deal.

All of our dogs have been Bouviers… they are HUGE and wonderful.  My dad has been looking for a puppy for a while, but had a hard time finding a breeder without a huge waiting list!  He just got a call on Sunday that he finally had a puppy waiting for him.  It was a great Father’s Day gift.

This new little gal will be named Poppy… my dad insists that it needs to be spelled with an “i” (as in the book) and especially with a heart over the “i.”  Gah.  Apparently my dad’s girlish side is starting to come out.  I am going with “Poppy” because it also reminds me of the flower, which I like.  Also, this is my blog and I will write whatever I want.

Stay tuned for pics of the pup.  They will be back with her on Sunday.  The toot can hardly wait!

This is me a week ago yesterday.  What a horrible couple of weeks.

To bring you all up to speed… not only did we lose our twins at 13 weeks, but after the D&C I had on Friday, May 30th, I apparently retained some tissue that caused internal bleeding and hemorraging.  On Wednesday, June 4th, I went to the doctor (had to see one of my doctor’s partners since my doctor was in surgery) and he prescribed methergine to control the bleeding. 

Needless to say, 24-hours later on Thursday, June 5th, I was back at the doctor’s for an ultrasound after no improvement.  The ultrasound found my uterus to be still about 14-week size (since it was carrying twins, it was about 18-week size the week before) and FULL of huge blood clots.  They sent me straight over to the hospital for a second D&C.

After this second surgery, I wasn’t feeling very well at all.  That combined with an insanely low blood pressure had SavvyDad insisting I spend the night at the hospital for observation.  An excellent decision.  By the next day, they discovered I had lost so much blood that I needed a blood transfusion.  Two units of O+ later, followed by 12 hours of sleep, and I felt like a new woman.  I woke up Saturday morning feeling better than I had in months.

Since arriving home from the hospital, I have been on varying degrees of bed rest — for a day or two there it was bed rest with bathroom privileges ONLY — and am now healing normally.

I have so much more to say and to share about this entire experience, but will save it for another day.  Today I would like to leave you with this…

As SavvyDad so eloquently wrote on his Flickr page: “We’d like to thank anyone who donates blood, as someone’s generosity has immensely helped her [my] recovery. We are deeply grateful to you, anonymous donor.”