- Hippity-hopping back to Easter... -

Cinco de MAYOOOOO!!!

...The perfect day to hop! hop! hippity-hop! all the way back to Easter! 

*womp womp* ...But #letnothinggoundocumented!

[I'll make it quick!]

Brian is alwayssss very eager to break my tradition of visiting the [free] Wal-Mart Easter Bunny; but no no nope, he did not get his goal accomplished this year! 2018 makes it four years and counting, so why turn back now?! ...Harper's like, "Hurry and snap your pic, Mom...this rabbit is sketch!" and Scarlett's like, "I think I'll just nap here for a while...wanna come back and grab me after you finish getting groceries?" #momsmemories

^^ PS -- Thanks to Aunt Emma for the matching "sister outfits," as Harper calls them! 

We also did a little Easter egg dying session with Grammy...

...along with some festivities on Easter Eve that included Cricut coloring pages and dinner with Kate [complete with caveman-ish chicken leg gnawing] annnnnnd laying out some carrots for the Easter Bunny...

...which seemed to be the perfect bait, because he showed face and left all these goodies for the girls!

Harper reported to us in the morning that the E.B. woke her up while he was hiding goodies around the house, but she told him, "Shhhhhh! Be QUIET!" so she could go back to sleep. Scarlett watched wide-eyed while Harper hunted all the eggs and then ate about 1/4 of their sugary contents before we scooted off to Mass...

...which was a borderline DISaster, but I won't let it dent my pride this time because surely it was a result of the sugar crash... A+ for Scarlett who slept all the way through Mass [and even through our family-of-five photo afterwards!], and a big fat F for Harper who had already thrown a screaming fit to leave for a bathroom break + flailed her body all across the kneelers like a dying fish + eaten her large collection of snacks alllllllll before Fr. Jeff even initiated the entrance procession. Of course she did shape up to the little angel she usually is by the time the homily was finished, so with that she redeemed herself from earning an F--.

Next! Off to family Easter #1...

annnnnnnd #2!

I know I take this for granted more than I'd like to admit, but we are so very blessed to be able to spend the holidays [and non-holidays, too!] with so much family close by!!! I love watching my girls grow up with their grammys and papas and aunts and uncles and cousins! :-*

Happy Easter, all!  He is risen, just as He said!  *party emoji*

- Three months young! -

Helloooooo, sweet Sissy!!! I just realized that there's only THREE days left of your third month, so I suppose I better hash-type this up and out while it's still [semi-]legit! .....Why you gotta go growin' up like 'dat?!

You are the absolute sweetest little thing, and your bright blue eyes and big toothless smile have us all sucked righhhhht in. We're in trouble! ;)  No pediatrician visit this month to report your weight/height...but OH WAIT, there was still a pediatrician visit... Much to momma's dismay, you caught some nasty bug during your first week of daycare; we were horrified with your cough and decided to take you in to the pediatrician, but she said you're handling your first virus-turned-bronchiolitis like a champ! Shower/steam sessions and essential oils and lotssss of extra snuggles got us through one day at a time, but overall this was a pretty rough month for you!  Four weeks later, you're just starting to sleep through the night again [about 8pm-4:30am!] and your cough is finally gone!!! PRAISE. the. sweet. Lord., because that poor cough just broke momma's heart! :( 

ALSO!  You love your playmat these days and are rolling side to side pretty effortlessly [just can't quite get over that chubby elbow to roll yourself all the way over!], and you still sleep in a pack-n-play butted up next to mommy and daddy's bed...

...in the morning, Harper comes in to snuggle us and is always trying to teaching you the art of "watching bid-eos," which you don't seem to mind!  And of course, you never turn down a little afternoon siesta in the swing.

The winter weather is officially on its way out [I think?!], and we've been enjoying lots of stroller rides and time at the park!  Looking forward to all the fun things we'll get to introduce you to in the next couple of months!

Three months up and three months down... Wowza! 

We love you so, Scarlett Clare!!! 

xoxo

- Pump the brakes... -

...like SCREEEEEECH!  Annnnd halt.

For all that go, go, going we did the last month of maternity leave, we're back to square one -- AKA -- a dead stop. I started back to work on Easter Monday: 

...and with one full week of daycare [which is actually just two days] in the books, poor sweet Scarlett just couldn't hang. :(

I think it's the pangs of #momguilt which are always sooooo sharp no matter the circumstances, but I'm always very quick to blame the daycare when one of the kids gets sick.  Every.single.time, I go through this whole dramatic routine in my head like, "I should probablyyyy go back to part-time 12-hour night shifts...and make the same paycheck as I'm making now working three 8-hour shifts...and pick up more weekends...and sacrifice my sleep and sanity and all of these things just so we won't need any childcare!" And I'm always about to bite the bullet on my feelings when said sick kid easily bounces back among the living, then all is swell again. But in all honesty, I know that it's also very likely that Scarlett caught something from one of our relatives at Easter or maybe even from a random old man who sneezed disease into the air at Schnucks and therefore this is not even related to the daycare at all, so I should just drop the argument right there and get on with my life. 

HOWEVER! 

Any way you roll the dice, I hate having a sick kiddo, and it's the saddest of sad times when a 3-month-old is down for the count! After a couple days of a low-grade fever that progressed to thick congestion and a nasty cough, the pediatrician looked her over head-to-toe and stamped a big ole' "BRONCHIOLITIS" diagnosis on her chart. Boo, boo, double boo.  Fortunately, we had a pretty competent doctor in the house who was very eager to keep a close eye on her baby sis!

Next! Harper started with the snots a few days later, and now I have some respiratory junk, too. Brian is the sole survivor and -- call me crazy -- but if I were him, I'd be donning a surgical mask every time I stepped foot inside this infectious abode.  For a week and a half now, we've been cramming the entire family into our closet of a bathroom any time someone showers [because steam is a coveted thing] ...diffusing essential oils 24/7 ...and napping/sleeping here, there, and everywhere...

...and low and behold [dare I even say it?], I think we're all finally on the upswing and looking up! up! UP! a little more every day!

So!
 
Saint Bernadine, pray for us!
Saint Philomena, pray for us!
Saint Blaise, pray for us! 

And anyone else out there ...powerful and mighty or little and lowly ...anyone at all who can send up some prayers for quick healing and continued health ...please PRAY FOR US...

...because back to work and daycare we go tomorrow! :/

- Eleven weeks down... -

...and [less than] ONE to go!

Holy cowwwwabunga, dude! That maternity leave FLEW!

{Week one.} Not gonna lie, I was pretty terrified to bring home a tiny human at the apex of flu season [ugh, ugh, ughhhhhhh]; and so -- just as an instinctive + protective momma bear would/should do -- I initially refused a lot of visitors and basically turned our family into a pack of shut-ins.  I'm kind of hermit/homebody anyway, so I didn't think staying home 24/7 would be tooooo huge of a deal... But!  I forgot to factor in that I'm no newbie when it comes the disaster that is cabin fever and #zomg... Add a month plus of that emotional hurricane to this physical tornado:

...and [as you probably can't quite imagine, but rest assured it happened] I deteriorated into the hottest hot mess that you ever did see!  Scarlett was/is a gem, but having a newborn to juggle on top of no-nap Harper's energy and messes and attitude [terrible threes comin' right up] all while being stuck in this shoebox of a house in the dead of winter sometimessss often times pushed me 0.7 millimeters away from not-casually hopping off the edge of the cliff:

...and while I feel like the worst mom in the world for admitting it, lots of those first days home as the solo parent left me literallllllly staring bug-eyed out the bedroom window in the evening just waiting to see Brian's truck rolling into the subdivision.  Because ahhhhhh, "momming" alone x 10-11 hours a day x 5 days a week was [is still] hard, and as soon as Brian was home, sweet help be mine!!! 

So basically, the ugly reality of the situation was that, most of those early days, I camouflaged right into the mess of the house because I really struggled with getting dressed and putting on makeup and overall looking like a presentable human [not sad or depressed by any means, but lazy and living in "crazy mom survival mode" by all means]. This cabin fever situation snowballed quickly until finally [most likely due to the plethora of daily text messages like, "Whereeeee are you?" and/or, "What time you getting home tonight?" and/or occasionally some other emotionally-charged expletives as a precursor to arriving home at 6pm to find all of us still in pajamas], Brian recognized that a little Mexican + margaritas date might do our souls some good! [So sorry, Scarlett... I know you were little and vulnerable and it was 20 degrees outside with the flu germs just swirling circles around youuu, but MOMMA HAD TO GET OUT!]  And so! February brought our first family restaurant experience! #scarlettlovesmargaritas

And then!  After having a sniff of the outside world and life as I once knew it, we hit the ground running and have been on the go! go! go! ever since! For the sake of momma bear's mental health, we kicked it into gear fullllll speed ahead for the second half of maternity leave and never looked back. :) #thank #the #lord

First on the list was signing Harper up for gymnastics at the YMCA! Her class goes for thirty minutes every Friday morning, and her favorite activities are jumping on the trampolines and walking the balance beam.  The first day [after running and jumping and bouncing all around for a good twenty minutes], she ran up to the window where Scarlett and I were proudly watching. Smiling ear to ear, she happily knocked and waved at us, then ran away to keep playing. I was choking back tears, because #biggirlontheloose!  She's so old and brave and honestly doesn't even need her momma anymore!!! Go, Harper! You look so forward to this outing every Friday morning, and we love watching you blossom!

Gymnastics is the only "scheduled" event we have on the calendar, but [again for my sanity] we made sure to get out of the house most other days, too! Whether it was snagging a new master bedroom mattress during Short Furniture's President's Day sale:

...or unloading the circus at Wal-Mart juuuuust to buy one or two items [yes, that is Harper applying her purple eye shadow to impress the people of Wal-Mart]:

...or taking drives on the weekends to look at houses:

...or showing up at the pediatrician's office for 2-month and 3-year well child exams: 

...OR dropping in [multiple times] to visit Mommy's friends at work: 

...we just jumped on any opportunity that involved getting out of the house and breathing in the fresh air!!!  Every once in a while, Mother Nature threw us a nice curveball called "warm-ish weather," so believe me when I say we took fullllll advantage of that:

...by enjoying stroller rides/walks here, there, and everywhereee!  Sometimes we got to hang with four generations, because #imthemommy #noimthemommy #waitimthemommy!!!

We've had friends over for breakfast:

...lunch:

...and dinner:

...and even gone to visit some friends at THEIR house!

We've celebrated birthdays and holidays and visited the daycare and then poof! Eleven weeks down and what what? What's that you say? Well, now that I've actually happily settled into life on the go with my two princesses, it's already almost time to switch up the gears and go back to work! Wahhh!  It's bittersweet for sure... But more than not, [I think] I'm looking forward to it! While I love being a mom, I alsooooo love being a nurse! It's so fulfilling to be able to help others, and on top of that, I absolutely love my co-workers! [Hopefully I'm still singing this same tune next week, hah!]

I've absolutely loved spending this special time with my littles, and the things I'll miss most next week are our lazy [late] morning snuggles:

...and afternoon yoga sessions:

...and late evenings and loose bedtime routines...

...but I only work three days a week so will still definitely get to enjoy these things with my babies the other four days!  Perfect!!! 

All in all, we're looking forward to next week and ironing out our new normal [and nail-biting over the anticipation of Monday just a little bit!]!

Back to the grind...

Wish us luck!!! :)

 

- Chloe's Birth Story -

Being a labor and delivery nurse is a pretty awesome job all of the time, but it's even more magical and special and AMAZING when you get to stand on the front lines for your best friends' deliveries!!!  I was so honored when Nikki asked me to be there for Chloe's arrival [only small problem was that I'm still on FMLA for maternity leave so couldn't be on the clock to take care of her, but eh, taking pictures was even more fun I think!].  But really, there aren't enough words in the world to say how much I LOVE THIS FAMILY and how very excited I was to be a part of their special day!

It was a picture-perfect day and delivery, and I am absolutely thrilled for your beautiful family of four! Thanks for trusting me [again!] to be your "birth photographer," haha. You rocked it, Nikki! :-*