A few of my favorite things

Madeline (14 months) is joined by her cousins Maya and Madison (6 months)

The Christmas holiday has (sadly) come and gone, and now I'm sitting here, on a Sunday, dreading the return to my work week. Although, thankfully, I do have Friday off and three days next week. Nels will be exploring New York City with one of his good friends and a fellow photographer and then heading to Connecticut for a wedding photography conference.

I decided to take some time off, mainly because my PTO has joyfully been repopulated on my timecard (Happy New Year!) and I thought I'd spend some non-holiday-related time with my baby. Erika will be in school but I thought Madeline and I could do some fun things...like host a tea party, which is what we did yesterday with her, not one but THREE new tea sets she got for Christmas. Funny. She loves them all and is pretty funny to watch as she sips her tea.

I had more than 25 relatives over on Christmas Day, including five kiddos under the age of 5. Everything went very smooth and they're already starting to harass me about hosting it next year. Geesh! Not even giving me some time to forget about all the blood, stress and tears I went through to get ready for the big day.

Here are a few of my favorite things that happened during the holidays:

• Pregnancies! No, I'm not prego, but I found out on Christmas Eve a very good friend of mine is, after trying for more than a decade to get pregnant. So, so happy for her and her husband. They broke the news to their families on Christmas Eve and Christmas so I'm dying to hear the details! Also, my cousin Shannon had an ultrasound last week and had the technician write down the gender of her baby due May 1. They then opened the envelope on Christmas Eve, surrounded by family, and learned they were having another boy! Such exciting news!
• It was so fun to see how well Erika watched over and played with her little cousins and sister. It was also fun to watch her open up her new laptop we got her for Christmas. I don't think the laptop has been idle since Christmas Eve.
• We just enjoyed popcorn from my Whirley Pop popcorn maker. I love stovetop popcorn but Nels didn't like that I got the pot so filthy from making it. Problem solved. He got me this stovetop popcorn maker and it's fabulous. That thing is going to get a lot of use.
• Last but not least, I got to meet my twin nieces, Maya and Madison! They're six months old and came home from New York for the first time. So fun! Madeline was so sweet with her twin cousins but a bit wary, too, when they would start giggling at her antics. Those girls are going to have lots of fun as they grow up together.
• I felt blessed to be surrounded by family and good friends.

Hope your holidays went as well. Here's to a healthy and happy 2010!

Perspective

I always tell people that Christmas is my favorite holiday but really, I don't know why I think that way. The Fourth of July is much less stressful. Warmer, too.

Between trying to finish all the stories I have to write and getting enough work hours in before 2:30 p.m. Thursday, when I have to make it to the church service with my in-laws, and planning to host 21 adults and 12 children for Christmas at my house, I'm on the verge of a breakdown. Oh yeah, and the shopping. That totally sucks. I'm terrible at buying gifts. I'm working long days and then coming home and, like tonight, cleaning the bathrooms at 10 p.m.

I didn't see my 14-month-old at all today. Sigh.

Today I took a long break from work, and life, in general, and attended my friend Cindy's funeral. To my surprise, my 16-year-old wanted to go too, so I picked her up at school.

The streets were lined with cars but I found a semi-illegal place to park. As we were walking in, I ran into my favorite eye doctor, a genuinely nice man who is battling terminal brain cancer. We ended up sitting next to him and his family in the packed church.

It really put many things in perspective for me. As much as I'm dreading the holiday gatherings, and a few of my relatives, at least I'm relatively healthy. None of my family members are ill or dying, as far as I know, and I'm fortunate to be able to spend the holiday with my loving husband and two beautiful girls.

After the funeral, which was quite emotional for all of us, my daughter sought out Cindy's son, Danny, and gave him a hug. It was a thoughtful guesture and made me very proud of her.

I have a lot to be thankful for this Christmas. Here are two of those reasons:

Heaven gained one more angel

There are people in this world that you never expect to lose. You see them at the grocery store and stop and chat. Or on church on Sunday.

Cindy Ringstrom is one of those people. Sadly, she died unexpectantly because of an infection related to antibiotic use, on Friday. She was only 52.

Cindy's 16-year-old son, Danny, is friends with my daughter and she taught Sunday school for them for many years, following the class up each grade as they got older. When I started teaching the 3-year-old class, she taught the 4/5-year-old class and our little kiddos would often have music and activities together.  She also helped with Erika's confirmation class, serving as a mentor. She was so nice, so considerate and such an asset to our church - and community in general. If a volunteer was needed, Cindy was always there. I have many wonderful memories of chatting with Cindy while our little students worked on a craft or practiced for their programs.

I spent much of the weekend in tears, thinking of her, of how her family lost her just before Christmas. She loved her two little grandsons, who attend our church, too, and was excited about her new grandbaby due in March.

It's still such a shock. I can't believe she's gone. I just saw her last week helping with the children's Christmas program. And now her funeral is planned at the same church on Tuesday.

Life is far too short.

God bless the Ringstrom family as they struggle through this difficult time...and her many, many friends, whom I know are having a hard time accepting that Cindy is gone. Like me.

Houston, we have a walker!

Madeline, now 13 months, is officially a walker! And nothing, not the cat, dog or our cabinets, are safe anymore.

It's funny how the simple act of walking is an incredible milestone. She's now trying to open doors, climbing on top of the coffee table (and falling off, too!) and trying to grab forbidden items off the counter.

Life in our home has become a game of strategy. Before I put her down to roam, I have to make sure the doors are shut, the dog is in the baby play gate (to protect her from Maddy), the dog water and food bowls are on the counter (she's dumped water on herself a half dozen times and been caught eating dog food) and ... the list goes on.

Exhausting.

But with this freedom has come some fun rewards, too. She brings me and her daddy books to read to her, letting out an exuberant scream as she puts her arms up for us to put us on her lap. Her favorite books are "Piggies," "The Monster At The End Of The Book (was one of my fave's too!), "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!" (one of Erika's favorites) and "Llama, Llama Red Pajama."

Maddy has the funniest belly laughs and she loves to dance to music. Elmo is her absolute favorite. She plays with her talking Elmo doll and loves to watch "Sesame Street." My parents and I both DVR it so she can get her Elmo fix.

I'm getting excited for Maddy's second Christmas but we're a bit concerned about getting a tree this year. Knowing my little girl, she'll be trying to figure out a way to climb it - with help from the cat.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Madeline wasn't loving her wig, but she certainly looked adorable at my work children's Halloween party Friday.
We may go out and trick or treat at a few friends' and families' houses but really, since Maddy doesn't eat candy it's more of a pain this year than it's worth.

Maddy seemed a bit overwhelmed at my work Halloween party and got completely freaked out when her three cousins, Jack, Luke and Reed, showed up dressed in ghoulish costumes. I tried to snap their photo together and nope, didn't work out.

I wish Madeline had many cousins living next to her like I did. I always had so much fun trick or treating with them each year. The best part was going to my grandparents' house and finding out how grandpa was going to scare trick or treaters that year. He always dressed kinda scary and would sit like a statue in his yard or on his deck, waiting til the kids got closer for a better look. Scared me every time, even if I knew it was Grandpa Les sitting in that chair.

Miss you, grandpa! Wish you were here to enjoy the holiday!

Writing 101

A friend and I have decided to find ways to encourage ourselves to start writing again in hopes of beginning those novels we keep telling ourselves we're going to write. We found a Web site that provides short topics for writing prompts and decided to pick one daily.

I thought I'd share what I wrote for our first assignment.

Describe the easiest decision you've ever made.

I wasn’t sure where I was going, what I was going to do, or even if I was going to make anything of myself.

The one thing I knew for sure was that the test was positive. I was 21, single, living alone thousands of miles from home and pregnant.

It was the hardest phone call I ever had to make, calling my mom and telling her I was pregnant. I cringe now, just thinking about how badly I sucked at it.

Sure, I had a few options, but it was the easiest decision I’ve made in my life. I was about to embark on a difficult path, leading to God knows where, a trailer in some backwater Minnesota town like Jenkins, I imagined. I had to leave my slightly remarkable life in the big city, working behind-the-scenes in television and going to school at a nearby private college to an unremarkable return to my parent’s basement with a baby in my belly and a 90-minute one-way commute to the nearest state university.

But it worked out. The baby is now a beautiful high school junior who towers over me, gets straight As and drives me insanely crazy most days.

And I couldn’t have planned it any better.

Happy 1st Birthday, Madeline!

It's official!

Our baby is no longer a baby! She's a toddler. Madeline turned one on Thursday and we had a family party on Saturday.

She grew bored with opening up her gifts and, naturally, wanted to play with the boxes instead. We were letting her play with the Little People Animal Sounds Farm box until Sunday when she took a header off the box, landing onto the wood floors.

Meanwhile, we weren't sure last week if Maddy was going to have a party since her big sis came down with a suspected case of the H1N1 virus. Thankfully, she got the flu earlier in the week so she was better for Maddy's party. I also was grateful that the rest of us didn't catch it either since nothing clears a birthday party faster than saying you've got the swine flu. One of my twin nephews wasn't there because he was sick but I guess he was diagnosed with strep throat.

At 3:23 p.m. Oct. 15, I was at my mother-in-law's house. It's hard to believe that it was at this precise time we first laid eyes on our precious Madeline.

It's been hard not to dwell on how I would be about 4-5 months pregnant right now with Maddy and Erika's little brother or sister if I hadn't had a miscarriage in July.

But I do take comfort in the fact that our girls are happy, healthy and love each other.

Terrible twos, ready or not, here we come!

On a lighter note...

Here's a recent photo of Madeline, 10 months old, swinging at a local park. She is so full of life. It's a joy to pick her up out of her crib every morning because she's always so excited to see me. She has three teeth now, which she used to clench down and leave a small blood blister on my finger a couple of days ago when I was trying to figure out if she was getting her fourth tooth yet.

Erika turned 16 today. She's visiting her dad and his family in Las Vegas this week (Sept. 1) but we're going to celebrate her birthday next weekend with a marathon shopping session.

We have had a couple other losses in the past couple of months, in addition to our pregnancy loss. My cat, Sam, died in early August at the age of 17. He was the soul of our home and he's missed by all, although we knew it was for the best because he had gotten very weak. I had gotten him from a cameraman I knew in Nashville when I worked at a television show there. Sam was just a kitten, living underneath his neighbor's steps.

Also, our goldfish died, which had more lives than most cats. It had a deformed short fin and would often float upside down to save its strength. You'd think it was about to die when suddenly it would start swimming again. This went on for several years. It was nice, I must admit, to finally take the aquarium apart, clean and store it. It had been in our living room for many years, taking up valuable real estate.

I'm so excited to sign Madeline up for an Early Childhood Family Education class this fall. Even my baby is going to school this fall, which is fun. :) And Erika starts back to school on Tuesday. In addition to several college courses she's taking in high school, she has a child development class she's excited about. I have a feeling she might be taking Maddy as a class guest. I'm sure Madeline will love it.

Rainbows, butterflies and other sad tales

I found out I was pregnant June 30. The bleeding started the next day.

And I've spent the past two months going through weekly blood draws, a few depressing ultrasounds showing no signs of new life, two-for-one shots of Methotrexate, a cancer drug that required me to stop breastfeeding Madeline immediately — and a constant yearning for the lil' munchkin that won't be born in the spring.

We weren't trying to get pregnant but apparently the estrogen-only pills I was taking weren't quite that effective for me. We were both pretty stunned, thinking that we'd have babies about 17 months apart. But it was exciting, too.

And since I seem to be quite the efficient breeder, I never gave it a second thought that this pregnancy would be any different than my previous two. I went online that night and ordered a pink onesie for Madeline which read on the front "I've got a secret..." And on the back continued ... "I'm going to be a big sister!" It was how we were going to share the good news with our families.

I spent the Fourth of July weekend wondering if I was still pregnant or not. But that Monday my HcG levels dropped, confirming I was having a miscarriage. It was the same day I got that damn onesie for Maddy in the mail.

About three weeks later I took a pregnancy test, just to see if my HcG levels were back to normal and the test revealed I was pregnant. A blood test detected even higher HcG levels, possibly indicating a new pregnancy.

After another flurry of blood draws and two ultrasounds and more bleeding, my doctor felt I was either having a continuation of the miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy. There was no sign of a gestational sac or baby in my uterus or tubes so it was highly recommended I get the methotrexate shot, which eliminates any leftover fetal material so I wouldn't find myself with a burst fallopian tube and subsequent emergency surgery. It was an agonizing decision, since I was hoping there was a viable pregnancy in there — anywhere! — but there wasn't.

It was sad for me to be forced to quit nursing Madeline, too. While I was only nursing her mornings and nights at this point, I had hoped to nurse her until she was 1. She was 9 months. Fortunately, she didn't seem bothered by the abrupt end of her breastmilk supply.

Now, two months later, I'm still dealing with the bleeding involved with my pregnancy loss and hopefully that'll end soon. My HcG levels are nearly down to zero.

It's amazing how quickly it took me to become pregnant and how painstakingly long it's taken me to become unpregnant. While I may have only been pregnant for a short time, it's hard not to think about the pregnancy experience and newborn baby that we'll be missing out on. The baby would have been due in March. Around the same time as the Duggar family's 19th baby.

On the miscarriage/pregnancy loss message boards I now frequent they refer to a baby conceived after a miscarriage as a rainbow baby. Hopefully, we'll be able to someday conceive our rainbow baby. My husband isn't ready to make that decision now, however.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about buying a butterfly necklace as a remembrance for the little one who fluttered away, way too soon. Many other cultures, including the Greeks, Celts and early Christians, believed that butterflies were new souls seeking new life, that they represent the undying circle of life and death. The Celts believed that women became pregnant by swallowing tiny butterfly souls.

I saw a Monarch butterfly as I was walking into work the other day and thought of this.

Perhaps, just maybe. He/she will flutter in again and stay this time.

For good.

Stinkin' Swine Flu

Just had to share how Madeline is all ready for the swine flu, thanks to my dad, who paints houses and had some 3m masks on hand.

My Easter lily

Our little girl is growing up so fast. She turns 6 months next week. She spends two days a week at her grandma and grandpa's house and my mom recently bought her a few new spring/summer outfits and then had a little photo session, which is where these photos came from.

Madeline loves to squeal and she and my dad like to have a squeal-off. It's pretty funny. She squeals, he copies her, etc. She still looks so much like her daddy but I'm starting to see a lot of myself in her too, including her big sis.

I bought matching personalized Easter baskets for Maddy and Erika and they finally arrived in the mail yesterday. I was starting to get a little worried. So I'm heading to Target after work tonight and getting some things for their baskets from the Easter bunny. No candy for Maddy this year and since there is no way I can put breastmilk in a plastic egg, she'll be getting a few little toys. Erika will get an iTunes gift card and some other little treats.

Madeline still gets up in the middle of the night to nurse but she usually falls back to sleep right away. She loves to eat food, especially bananas, sweet potatoes and rice cereal. She usually grunts and makes "Mmmmm" sounds when she eats. So cute. Nels calls her high chair her "eatin' chair." They have developed quite a routine on the three days he spends caring for her while I'm at work. She spends time in her exersaucer, then when she gets bored she's on her jungle playmat, then her jumperoo, then her swing and maybe then a nap, etc.

Madeline has gotten really good at flipping over from her back to her stomach but often gets mad when she's stuck on her tummy too long. She does know how to flip back over, but doesn't seem to have the double flip quite yet. Then we have to flip her back over like those beached whales who need help getting back into the sea. Then she flips back over on her tummy and the process repeats itself. Silly girl.

Erika qualified for sections in speech this year but unfortunately didn't make it to state. But she performed her speech last night for my parents, my uncle and his family at a pre-Easter celebration at my parent's house and everyone was moved by her performance. She performed an exerpt from Jodi Picoult's book, "Nineteen Minutes," about a school shooting. She's quite the little actress. She has a bit part in an upcoming high school production of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice."

We'll be spending Easter at my aunt's house on Sunday and my mother-in-law is coming along too. I can't wait for Madeline to be big enough to hunt for eggs but that won't be til next year. She'll just have to sit back and watch her cousins do it this year.

Hope you and your family have a wonderful Easter. :)

Maddy's big girl bed

Two nights ago Nels talked me into letting Madeline sleep in her own bedroom, rather than in the bassinet in our room. I was devastated. I didn't want our baby so far away from us in the middle of the night. It's so nice to be able to roll over and slip her pacifier back into her mouth or put her blanket back on her.

We do have a video/audio baby monitor so I was able to check in on her and see her sleeping soundly in her bed. It was reassuring. I can even hear her breathing on the monitor.

The first night of our big sleep experiment, Madeline slept from 11:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. I got up and nursed her then she immediately fell back to sleep until 8 a.m. It was fabulous.

Then last night Madeline went to bed around 11 a.m. and slept until 6:30 a.m. It was practically a miracle. On Christmas night she had slept about 6 hours but that had been the longest time in her nearly four months.

Madeline has her next doctor's appointment on Monday and I'm excited to find out her height and weight. She's wearing 6/9 month clothes now and they fit perfectly.

Our baby girl is growing up.

For Grandma and Grandpa

My parents have spent the last three weeks in New York, helping my brother and sister-in-law remodel and move into their new home. I've e-mailed several photos, but here's a video I took tonight of Miss Madeline (3-1/2 mos) since I know they've missed her a lot. (Erika would be in there, too, but she's been on her cell phone downstairs all night. Sigh....)

They won't be home for a few more days, but here's a sneak peek on how much Maddy has changed since you've been gone. :)

Time has flown by

It's been nearly a month since I returned from maternity leave and I have yet to post anything on this blog. Geesh.

We've all settled into new routines since Miss Madeline joined us about 3-1/2 months ago. Now I'm back at work and Nels is a full-time stay-at-home dad. Erika is super busy with school, her social life and her extra-curricular activities. She's active in speech - and got a red ribbon at her first meet last Saturday - and she's the stage manager for the high school One-Act Play, in addition to getting straight A's and having a boyfriend...yep, you read that correctly. She's been dating Dylan (as opposed to her ex-boyfriend, Dillon) for about a week, which is how long her relationship with the other Dillon lasted the week before this one.

Nels is settling into his days spent caring for Madeline and it hasn't been easy for him to juggle his wedding photography business and a newborn. Thank God we have an awesome baby swing she loves. He puts her in the swing and he can get at least a little bit of time to work. Plus, my mom plans to help out more often once she and my dad get back from visiting my brother and sister-in-law in New York. Nels has got quite a few winter weddings to keep him busy and has been booking a lot of summer weddings as well lately.

Madeline is a charmer, a very happy baby who smiles all the time. She is so happy in the morning that it's hard not to smile back at her as she grins up at you from her bassinet. Her hair still sticks up in back — what my dad refers to as her orangutan hair — and she's starting to drool a bit, a sign that she might be teething soon.

Maddy and I went to the Twin Cities last weekend to hang out with my friends from high school, who all gather once a year for our annual Christmas party. It was so fun and Madeline, of course, enjoyed the attention. On Sunday we visited Madeline's aunt Patti and uncle Mark, and had fun chatting with them. Madeline even got to try out their baby swing, which is ready and waiting for their first baby to be born in April - Madeline's cousin!

Work is going well for me. Some days it is hard to leave a smiling Madeline behind but then, it's always a happy time when I can come home and grab her out of Nels' arms.

Life has become more busy with a baby and a teenager AND a full-time job, but we are blessed.