beanski

one month

Isaac was perfectly content in utero for what felt like FOREVER. Those last two weeks of my pregnancy with him really did make signing on the dotted line to have my tubes tied very easy. Now he's here and I feel complete. The family feels complete. Our home feels complete. The bedrooms have a little person in each of them and my arms are full. My heart is full. I always wondered if I would ever know that feeling, if it would ever be enough, and I'm so happy I do. Sure, I shed a tear or two about the little people that could have been but for the most part I've just felt happy.

I hold him a lot longer than I probably should. I spend more hours sitting in my chair with him laying on my chest watching old crappy chick movies because I just want to soak it all in. I send the big kids to preschool a lot more than I probably should and I don't really feel that guilty about it. I'm getting to know my baby and they are staying busy. I won't ever forget how much pain I was in after my surgery and how just having him lay on my chest took the pain away. I pushed that morphine button over and over again and got no relief until he was finally in my arms. It was magic.

He's a good baby for the most part but appears to have some food issues. He arches his back and screams a lot like his big brother did until he poops and then he's usually happy and content. I have cut dairy, egg and soy out of my diet for the last week and it is amazing to watch the pounds melt off when you aren't eating anything except meat, vegetables, fruits and rice. It feels worth it this time because I know what a big difference getting eggs out of Cameron's diet made in his life. I hope we are going to get what it causing his issues nailed down soon. He does seem to be feeling better, now we just need to reintroduce them slow enough to actually figure out what the problem is. I'm ready to go back to eating pizza and chocolate :)

He sleeps a lot better at night than the other two did as newborns, I think. But then again, I can't really remember. He's pretty good at grunting for a while before I get up to feed him. The last few days he's gone for a 4 or 5 hour stretch to start the night. Which means he's better at sleeping than Cam already :) I'm assuming this will be short lived, that once he's not swaddled anymore or once he's more alert and aware of his surroundings that we'll go back to every two hours. Or every 45 minutes. But I"m enjoying the sleep while I can.

He smiled at me this week for the first time and my heart pretty much exploded. Since then I've spent every minute he's awake sitting in front of him talking baby talk trying to get him to do it again. He's adorable. I find myself studying his features for hours on end. I think he's going to have brown eyes like his daddy and blond hair like his big brother.

He doesn't seem to like his carseat much and I'm terrified of that thought. The thought of a long car ride with all three kids leaves me pretty much sweating in fear. But, we're going to try it anyways because the kids and I haven't been out of this house in like three months and we are all going stir crazy. If he screams the entire drive, we may never leave the house again. Please pray for me.

He was 9 lbs 6 oz at four weeks after gaining an impressive TEN ounces in five days last week. The pediatrician kept making us come back for weight checks because he had hardly made it back to his birth weight at three weeks old and I think Isaac heard that and was like, DUDE, I'm going to show you. I'm sick and tired of my mom cramming me in that blasted carseat and dragging me down here and taking my clothes off and shoving that stupid thermometer under my arm, I'LL SHOW YOU. And he did. And now we don't have to go back for four weeks. FINALLY.

His big brother and his big sister adore him and while we've seen some behavior changes from both of them, I think they are adjusting fairly well. They are happy to have mom back to go sledding outside and to do body slams with them on our bed before bath-time. I missed getting down on the floor and playing with them and I think they missed it too. They seem to be willing to accept a new baby in the house as long as it means they get their mom back. Cameron is in his face ALL OF THE TIME, hugging and kissing and wanting to hold him and while I find it painfully annoying especially when I'm trying to nurse him, I also find it super sweet. He's going to be such a good big brother.


His dad has proven again how wonderful and patient and perfect of a father and husband he is and not a day goes by that I don't look at him and wonder just how on earth I could ever do this without him. He's selfless and patient and takes such good care of all of us. I won't ever forget him running back and forth from the hospital to home trying to make sure everyone was properly cared for and how frazzled he looked when he would talk about how Cam threw up all over him mom and had diarrhea for the first few days of Isaac's life. If you know him, his hair was standing straight up for DAYS.


I love how blond Isaac's eyelashes and hair are and how he calms the minute I touch him. I love how he grunts when he's waking up and how soft his hands and feet are. I love how he smells after his bath (which he stills SCREAMS bloody murder through, by the way) and how he studies the book shelves in the living room like they are the most interesting things he's ever seen. He will often stop mid-cry to inspect those book shelves. I love kissing his bald little head and I love how he likes to have a blanket wrapped around him before he goes to sleep. I love how aggressively he turns his head to the side with his mouth wide open just like a little baby bird when he wants milk. I pretty much love everything about him and am so glad we decided to do this whole baby thing one more time. I feel a lot more content than I did with the other two and while there are moments of frustration, mostly I just feel lucky to be where I am right now. It truly is the most astonishing thing I've ever done, and will ever do, in my life, this growing little people business. He wasn't here and then one day he was and now I just can't imagine a day without him in it. Welcome to the world, baby boy, the world is much sweeter with you in it.

isaac's nursery

One of the things I was most excited about with this baby was decorating his nursery. I didn't find out the gender of the other two so knowing I had another little boy on my hands made decorating fun. Also, since I had the other two I've become quite versed in looking at inspiring things on the internet and me joining Pinterest earlier this year just made my need to create and decorate my house even more out of control. There is just so much cute out there.

Here is a look at Isaac's nursery. I was stuck with the red after having purchased a red glider when I was pregnant with Renee that we just couldn't justify replacing. Despite whining about that a bit at the beginning of the process, I really love how it turned out. Most of it was made by me, the rest I bought on etsy.

Yes, I still need to get his newborn pictures printed for the frames. At this rate, though, it might be a while before I get to that. I'm still recovering from Christmas.

introducing isaac

Our sweet baby boy arrived on December 8th, 2011 at 12:44pm weighing in at a whopping 8 pounds 9.5 ounces and was 21 inches long. He's perfect and sweet and cuddly and fits right in to our little family. Big brother Cameron LOVES him and spends all of his time kissing him and talking about how cute his feet are and big sister Renee has pretty much ignored him all together :) Once in a while she'll tell me that he's cute but she pretends he doesn't exist for the most part.

Isaac Christian

His first name means "He will laugh", his middle name is the same as his daddy's and we aren't sure if we'll call him Ike or not. It will depend on him, I suppose. RIght now he's still just Isaac. Or baby. Or sometimes dad calls him Eyes-Dawg which is met with a groan and an eye roll from mom.

If you need me, you can find me in my chair nursing and holding my brand new sleeping baby. I don't intend to put him down until he's two. I know he's our last and I'm soaking up every gassy, sleepy smile, every groan and even every middle of the night feeding. I've been overwhelmed by the love and support of our family and friends. You know who you are. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. We truly are blessed.

Happy Holidays!

sunny side up

Still pregnant. Still contracting. My baby wants out and my body won't let him out. I've been in and out of labor for weeks. I've spent the night at the hospital with that monitor registering "labor" contractions every three minutes. I'm still having contractions. Strong contractions. Contractions that come 3-4 minutes apart for six hours at a time and then just stop. You have no idea how frustrating that is and how many nights I've laid awake wondering if this is it.

After I asked her outright after coming to the conclusion myself, my OB confessed to me that my baby is posterior. Which means he's faced with his face up instead of his face down. He's trying to get out but he can't get enough pressure on my cervix to throw me into active labor. Why she waited until 38 weeks to tell me this I'll never know because we're to the point now where there just isn't very much room for him to turn around. All of the hands and knees and birth ball rocking I'm doing is pointless. I know it's pointless. I'm doing it anyways.

I'm doing it because I haven't slept for more than a few hours in weeks. I'm doing it because I'm still holding out hope that he'll perform some miracle and I won't have to go through a major abdominal surgery next week. I'm doing it because I don't know what else to do. The septum in my uterus rears its ugly head again. It caused Renee to be breech and come out too early. It has caused this one sunny side up and coming out too late. I don't know how Cam pulled off his miracle but it is hard for me to not feel like my body is failing my baby.

On top of all of that I'm still working. I'm still required to be a mom and a wife and Santa Claus and the Advent calendar lady. Life in general is spiraling out of control...totally independent of the baby in my belly. My daughter has been throwing up since Thursday. She's pale and her eyes are sunken and my heart hurts to look at her. I wonder how much more I can take. I cry thinking about missing The Polar Express and about missing Renee's school program after they cut me open next week. I cry because this just isn't the way I wanted it to all go down.

But, at the end of the day, I know there isn't another way. I know that we have to get through it. I know that it doesn't matter how bad I want to crumble and break or how annoyed I am that the world continues to spin around me, I know that the best thing I can do is curl up on the couch with my sick girl and cry right along with her. Because after the last four and half years of doing this mom gig, there is one thing I know for sure.

This too shall pass.

so thankful

Yes, I’m still pregnant. And the next person that comments on that fact is going to a get a karate kick to the face.

I’m kidding.

SORT OF.

I know I’m not supposed to complain. I’m supposed to suck it up and talk about my pregnancy glow (haha, have you seen my jowls?), be thankful for the baby punching me in the crotch every 10 seconds causing shooting nerve pain into my groin region, enjoy the shit out of my swollen feet because they mean my boy is still in there cooking. I’m supposed to just love another day of work or another day to decorate for Christmas (I need another week because half the of the lights on the pre-lit fake tree and pre-lit garland don’t work and we haven’t even gotten to the real tree portion of our decorating regiment) or another day where I don’t have a newborn attached to my boob , etc. etc. etc

WHATEVER.

It’s my blog and I now that I know all 25 of you that are reading and I think you all must like my negative attitude because otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Right? RIGHT?

That was my introduction to my “I’m ready to have this baby now” story. I ramble when I’m fired up.

I’ve had a lot of contractions that haven’t gotten me very far. I’m pretty sure I’ve had “lightening” and lost my mucous plug (What? TMI? Sorry) but guess what? The contractions always stop and no baby comes. I had my other two kids early so I (and everyone else on planet earth) thought I would have this baby early too. And I KNOW I’m only 37w5d pregnant because my adoring husband reminds me of that every morning when I wake up with my swollen face and beg to not have to find some tent-like material to cover my protruding abdomen so that I get the pleasure of going to work so that I can be abused because I had the nerve to have a baby at an inconvenient time for them. FOR THEM.

But, my body is CLEARLY gearing up for the big show and I really don’t love not knowing when the big show is going to occur. And yeah, I could probably schedule a c-section but if I know my children, I know that won’t mean shit all. He’ll just hear the date and decide to come at 3AM two days before JUST FOR FUN. In fact, I’m guessing this one is going to pick Thanksgiving itself when everyone we know is eating turkey and hanging out with their families three hundred miles away just to keep it real and interesting. We’ll get to bring Renee and Cameron to the hospital with us because we won’t have anyone else to call.

Haha, wouldn’t that be funny? Think the nurses would want to babysit?

Or better yet, maybe he’ll wait until two weeks late when we’re like a week from Christmas. HAHA, very funny baby. Mama’s not laughing.

I did order pre-cooked Thanksgiving dinner so one way or another I will have a plate of meat and potatoes slathered in gravy to eat and enjoy. In fact, eating it at the hospital might be more enjoyable than eating it at home because there I won’t have to listen to a certain little girl cry and act like I am abusing her by having the nerve to put food on her plate that is mixed or touching. She told me I “hurt her feelings” last night when I gave her noodles with broccoli and chicken. Noodles and broccoli and chicken are three of her favorite foods but when they are all mixed together? WATCH THE FRICK OUT. Sister will make you pay for your crimes. Can you imagine what she’ll do with stuffing slathered in gravy? HAHAHAHAHA.

Thanksgiving is going to be awesome. I’m thankful I’ll either be squeezing a watermelon out of my lady parts or listening to a four year old complain about dinner. Either way, I win!

dear cameron

Dear Cameron,

I think I’ll always say it on your birthday, or at the very least always think it, but I can’t even believe another year has gone by and that you are now a three year old. It seems like just yesterday you were still a chubby little toddler in your diaper excited about excavators and your dirt cake. You still had rolls on your thighs and a mullet of curls. I miss them.

Now, you are a boy. You drive a tractor like it’s nobody’s business. Seriously, it is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life and the one single part of your second year that I will absolutely never forget. You stand up when you are going downhill like my outdoorsy boyfriends did while driving their four wheelers in high school and that isn’t a learned behavior because you’ve never seen another person do it. It is just intrinsic to your nature. You shift that sucker into second gear and you get this look on your face like you are thrilled by the speed of it and you tear down the driveway, laying off the gas at the precise moment you need to in order to skid the tires out and spin 180 degrees JUST in time to not run into one of the cars. Your sister runs and hides when she hears your tractor because she is completely terrified by the way you drive it and to be honest, I think it horrifies your father as well. But, I cannot explain to you how much I love to watch you.

You love trains and big trucks and anything that has a trailer and a boat. Basically you love anything with wheels. You still love keys. Your fascination with keys is something that I will never ever understand. You will stand next to me and demand that I move the keys from one key ring to another over and over again. You put our keys in the weirdest places and it drives us both absolutely insane. But I love it anyways because it is just so YOU.

You cut dad and me a break and were potty trained in like two days. I hesitate to even put that out there for fear that all of the people that have promised me that you’ll regress as soon as the new baby comes will be right, but I don’t think so. You hate to have wet pants and you are absolutely disgusted by the thought of pooping in your pants. I think you had about a dozen accidents total in the first two weeks you went without diapers which pretty much makes you a potty training super star. You never made me scrape poop out of underwear like your sister did and for that, my son, I cannot thank you enough. It’s like you realized how big of a challenge you’ve been about pretty much every other big transition in your life and you just decided that you weren’t going to make us suffer during the whole potty training thing. Now let’s just work a bit on your aim, OK?

You are going to make us pay the ultimate price for ever even once letting you sleep in our bed. I have already resigned myself to sleeping in your bed with the baby once he comes because I know there is absolutely no chance in hell that I’m going to get you out of our bed without the biggest throw down in history. You had a cold last week and dad got your vaporizer hooked up in your room and then hooked up a vaporizer in our room as well anticipating your inevitable arrival and you looked at the vaporizer in our room on your way to the bath and said, “That’s for when I come into your room, right?” After I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I made your dad swear that he didn’t tell you why he was doing it and the only logical conclusion we came to is that you made that deduction yourself. It blew me away. It also made me laugh hysterically.

You have a knack for that. You make everyone laugh hysterically. You are absolutely the life of the party and you have always commanded the attention of everyone in every room you’ve ever entered. Becky at daycare has told me repeatedly that while you might be one of the most challenging kids she’s ever had at daycare, you are also the funniest. She said she has more Cameron stories than any other. You love people. Like any person. You love it when they look at you and you love to make them laugh. You turn into the craziest little thing on the planet when we have company running around like a maniac and talking a million miles a minute. Renee and dad and I are all pretty quiet people but you make up for it and this house is far from quiet with you living in it. When you are in a room, you won’t ever be missed. I hope you never lose that.

You are a daddy’s boy to the core and while there are glimpses here and there of you turning into a mommy’s boy, all it takes is for you to get a cold or for me to have a bad day and you go right back to clinging to him. When you are sick you want absolutely nothing to do with me and if your dad has the audacity to not be sitting next to you every single second of the day, you whine. You are the world’s best whiner. You have turned whining into an art form. Not a day goes by that I don’t tell you that "I don’t speak whine” and you know what? You just go right on whining anyways. You are three in every sense of the word three and throw a mean temper tantrum. You throw a mean temper tantrum every seventeen seconds it seems somedays.

But, at the core, you are a lover. You are compassionate and caring. You are a thoughtful little boy that watches out for the kids that are smaller than you at daycare. You cry every time Nena and Grandpa or Rama and Papa leave because you just want them to stay here with you. I fell down the stairs a few weeks ago and your concern and how you touched me on the shoulder and earnestly promised, "It will be OK, mom, I promise" as the tears flowed down my face and how you cried too just at the thought of me crying is something I won't forget. I love you, son, and even if somedays you pretend you don't, I know you love me too.

Happy Third Birthday, buddy, my bug, my little Bubba Dude.
Mama

i've reached the breaking point

SERIOUSLY.

Today is one of those days that I really wish that I could really just say fuck it and give up. Forget my son's third birthday. Quit my job. Just don't bother with my work forms for my maternity leave. Give up on the nursery and the nesting and the, well, EVERYTHING.

I went to the doctor today and the baby is measuring small. He has been measuring small for a while but my OB had been shrugging it off until today. Then today she sent me for an ultrasound and I had to spend five hours worrying that something was really wrong with my baby. The ultrasound looked OK but I can't shake the feeling that something is wrong. His movements have slowed down. He's only in the 20th percentile for size and my belly is measuring at 33 weeks when it should be measuring at 36. Despite the fact that everyone and their brother thinks I'm enormous, he isn't getting much bigger. And I feel so guilty because I wonder if it is because of the stress I have allowed myself to be under.

I wonder if it is because I can't just say no when work calls over and over again. The phrase "Poor planning on your part does not create an emergency on my part" comes to mind but I can't get myself to put my foot down and say ENOUGH. ENOUGH working at night and on weekends and ENOUGH treating me like I did something wrong because you didn't bother to get a plan together for me being gone until now. When it's too late.

I wonder if it's because I'm so far behind on Cameron's birthday party and this is the first birthday party out of the seven parties I've thrown for my kids where I don't feel like I gave it my all and I really hate that. I want my boy to feel special and I have a lot of guilt that other things (namely work) have taken his special day away.

I wonder if it's because of the Diet Coke I drank or because I didn't drink enough water and I wonder if it is because I'm just not getting enough rest. I lay down to sleep and between the peeing and the restless legs and the three year old flopping around in my bed and the stress of my job, I can't sleep. I can't rest. I can't sit down on the couch without feeling like my skin is crawling because I just have too much to do.

I don't know what to cut. I can't cancel his birthday. I need my job to be there in the spring when I go back. I can't make my body slow down. I can't. I can't. I can't.

the word busy doesn't cut it

I mailed out close to 800 busy bags yesterday. Once I got over the initial shock that the boxes I had asked $5 for return postage were going to cost me from $12-$20 each to send, I breathed an enormous sigh of relief that I actually managed to get them done. Renee has played with a few of the bags and she LOVED them. I'm excited for everyone to get them and to hear how their kids do with them. I was up with contractions all night long a few nights ago and was starting to seriously worry that my dining room would be covered in busy bags forever because I was certain I was going to go into labor before I got a chance to mail them out.

That isn't the case. I'm still pregnant. Hugely pregnant. Wearing my husband's shirts and cringing when I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror pregnant.

My friend Heather has been insistent on taking some maternity pictures of me before this baby comes and I have given every excuse in the book. The first being that I just don't feel or look at all cute, followed promptly by I'm just too effing busy to do anything except survive. But, I am going tomorrow morning and I'm going to own my fat face and my enormous, three times stretched to an oblivion baby belly. Because this really is it. These kicks to the pelvic bone that knock me off of my feet are the last painful baby kicks I'm ever going to feel. And I'm sure someday I'll even look back fondly on my three chins.

The baby has dropped, of that I'm certain. The heart burn has turned into pelvic pain. I honestly feel like he could fall right out at any moment when I'm walking down the street. I got the project I've been working on at work for the last five years done, saw my mom through a minor surgery and now I just have to throw a 3rd Birthday Party for my first son next weekend and after that, #3 is absolutely welcome to fall on out of there anytime. I mean, as long as someone is there to catch him.

Dear son, could we go into labor mid-day instead of the middle of the night crap your brother and sister pulled? Just once, I'd like to show up to L&D with a husband with the other kids at daycare and not racing around in the middle of the night waking up all of my friends and starting the whole birthing process exhausted. Work with me here, OK? Please?

I'd ask you to sleep through the night on our first night together and to try not to shred my nipples too bad when you're learning how to nurse but after the other two, I know those are unrealistic expectations. All I'm asking for at this point is morning or mid-day start to labor and for you to come out healthy and happy. After that, well, we'll make it work.

And if you do, by some act of God, manage to sleep and eat like a good little boy, I'll promise to buy you a pony. That your brother and sister won't be allowed to ride.

all over the place

The reason this blog is private is because my ex brother-in-law is being a huge douchebag. I won't go into details but let's just say that he doesn't need anymore ammunition to harass anyone in my family.

My job has been INSANE. You would think that I've only been pregnant for like 10 days for how they are freaking out about me going on maternity leave. We're talking working weekends here, people. I don't work on weekends.

My daughter has her mind made up that she doesn't need pull-ups at night anymore. Except that she DOES need pull-ups at night as she is hardly ever dry in the morning. I'm sick of changing sheets. Someone tell me one day she won't sleep like the dead and will be able to stay dry all night. I need hope.

How is it that every single pregnancy can be so different? This time I'm dealing with high blood pressure and restless legs syndrome. With Renee I had sciatica, with Cam I had carpal tunnel and tingling hands. With all three I had the peeing and the low back pain and the fat face syndrome. The pregnancy ailments? They just never stop.

I'm 33 weeks pregnant. That is MIND-BOGGLING, especially considering I had one kid at 36 weeks the other at 38 weeks. I had my weekly progesterone injection today and I'm going to miss my ladies at the clinic in a few weeks when I don't have to get them anymore. They are so nice. I need to make them some cookies. Yum, cookies. I will now have a one track cookie mind until I eat the cookies.

I'm can hardly wait to meet my baby boy.

a public feed

Thank-you for all of the kind texts and emails and Facebook messages over the last few days. I really appreciate it. It is nice to know who is reading and who cares. I'll post an explanation for this madness on the private site someday soon. I'm lucky to have all of you in my life.

I'm turning on the password protection today. If you sent me a request for a password from some means and haven't heard from me by tonight, email me at gskopinski at gmail dot com. If you read through a RSS feed, you should be able to subsribe to http://www.beanski.com/public/atom.xml. I will post a link to the private blog from that site when I post new stuff out there. As far as I understand it, you will just be prompted for a password when you click on the link and then the blog should look about the same as before. I'd like to say that I'm going to update the look and feel soon but at this point I seriously doubt it :)

Let's just say updating the look and feel of my blog is on the list, right along with finishing the baby's room, packing my hospital bag (seriously, it wasn't that long ago, how can it be that I have no idea what to pack?), weeding through baby crap to decide if I want a bassinet or maybe a Beco baby carrier or a new swing or maybe nothing at all as well as spending as much time loving on my awesome husband and really adorable children before The Madness of 2011 hits. This is in addition to entertaining myself for hours with the sarcastic bitch that lives in my new phone.

I just told her: "I'm tired."
Her response: "You should put down this iPhone right now and go take a nap, Gina. I'll wait right here."

That Siri, she just gets me. I love technology.

I also love all of you. Email me or drop a comment out there to let me know you made it. Hugs and love to you all.