My kids are normal

So, we've started giving Zac and Kate baths together sometimes. Kate has a whale bathtub that we put inside of the regular tub (in which Zac bathes) and we fill them both up with water. About a week ago I gave the kids a bath this way in the middle of the day. When bath time was over I emptied the big tub but not Kate's tub. Zac was standing up next to Katie's tub and started peeing on her. I laughed a lot. Zac's reaction was, "Oh, there's water coming out of there!". Kate's reaction was pretty non-existent.

We've all been sick this last week. Zac had croup and the rest of us have had some kind of cold thing. When babies have colds they swallow their mucous because they can't blow their noses. Kate's been doing this for a couple of days and the bowel movements from our little lady have exploded. Saturday I was burping her after nursing and She pooped. It went up the back of her diaper and shot out all over me and the rocking chair. I laughed a lot at this incident too.

Life is good.

Oh, Boy!

So, it's been a long time - with justification. Nathan started working 40 hours a week instead of 30 about 6 weeks ago (while going to school full time and having kids and me and Med school stuff to take care of). My Pap-pap (Grandpa) died 5 weeks ago and we went up to Utah for the funeral. Then both of my kids got Thrush (see previous post) and Kate didn't nap or sleep or eat. Then we came home and Nathan started his last semester of undergrad ever :) :) :) :) :). then Nathan's family had a family reunion. Then Nathan had his medical school interview at UNM. Then I had surgery to remove a ganglion cyst in my left wrist. Then Katie had her baby blessing and my family came down for that. Then just when we thought the month of going, going, going was done, Katie was hospitalized because her Thrush had gotten so bad that she had again stopped eating and sleeping. Zac was taken to different people to stay the night and Diko was left at home. He, Diko, developed some separation anxiety. Argghhhh. Oh. Boy. Now we're settling down. It's so nice to be settling down. I get to play with my kids again. Oh, yeah, and breathe.

Katie almost completely rolled over today. I put her in her pack n' play in order to change Zac's diaper. When I came to back to pic her up, she just had her little arm stuck underneath her and was on her tummy. She's been wanting to do this for a couple days now. Every time she's not restrained she tries to jump ship. Very entertaining.

Today Diko was chasing his tail and Zac thought it was entertaining, so, he started spinning in circles too. I really wish I had a camera nearby for that.

I try to go running every morning with the kids in their Cadillac of a double running stroller in one hand and Diko leashed in the other. I used to go running because I was passionate about running itself. Now I go running because it's alone time and because it helps me be kind and patient. I'm not as good of a mother, wife or friend when I don't run. Happy Note: I've lost an inch in circumference everywhere but my arms (I haven't been able to work them out because I had surgery) Also, Diko needs it; without his exercise he drives everyone crazy which is intensified by my lack of patients from having no exercised. Today when we got home and I was stretching - something I don't get to do very often cause Kate usually is hungry when we get home - Zac sat down on my lap with a book and wanted to be read to. It's been too long since we last read a book together; he's getting very independent. Also, when Zac sit on your lap, he backs up to you and then plops right down. It's so funny and characteristic of him. Zac has such an evident personality now. I wish you could all know him. He LOVES friends, making people laugh, helping his sister by shoving her binky in her mouth and "burping" her, his dog!!!, his Grandpa Blacker, raspberries and every other fruit, reading and playing in dirt and water.

We find out whether Nathan got into the UNM medical school either September 30th or October 3rd. It's getting really nerve racking for me. We moved down here in order to maintain residency and were reassured that it was what we should do. We felt like dong the early application program was the right thing to do too - it means we only applied to UNM and if we get in we have to go here. Anyway, we know it will work out. I am just having trouble being certain How it will work out.

I'm trying to be a better mom. I feel like I haven't been devoting enough energy and love to my kids. Sometimes I just can't wait for them to sleep so that I can sleep or do things I want to do. I'm trying everyday to remember that I Want to be a mom. I want to fulfill my divine purpose. It's not all about me and what I think needs to be done or what would make me most happy and comfortable. It's all about compromise; what my kids need, how close I am to losing it because the house is a disaster and I haven't eaten breakfast or lunch, how much sleep everyone has gotten, what Nathan needs, what would help others have a better day. Anyway, I'm trying. Best part is it's working. Self improvement here I am :)

I'm not sure how school's going for me. It is flat out hard. I've felt stupid for the last year about. I don't comprehend things. Yes, I've had two babies but still. That's how I feel. I have always wanted an undergrad degree and sometimes I wonder if that's just not what I need to learn right now. I know that I don't need to get my degree. But I love learning to an intense degree. I need mental stimulus. I enjoy excelling. Sometimes I wonder if I want a degree because people in the world will think better of me for having one. I don't want this to be a reason. It's so superficial. It's also hard because my family is very education oriented. Getting a degree is what you do. And I always thought it would happen in four years, not 8 years and marriage and two kids (so far) and medical school. Sometimes I feel left out because I'm the only one on both sides of the family who hasn't gotten an undergrad degree excepting Hannah (currently a junior at BYU), Shantae (17 years old), Abi (16 years old), Rachel (10 years old) and Nathan's mom, Kathren, who is working on getting into an Ultrasound tech program. I feel so lame. But then sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes it does.

Anyway, now that our lives are not so frantic, I'll be writing more.

Read me!

I follow a friend's blog who postedthis today. Read it. It made me feel powerful.

Owie

My babies have Thrush. It's a yeast infection that is manifest through diaper rash and a bunch of white gunk in the mouth. I've known something was wrong with Kate for about a week but I didn't realize it was this bad. She only ate 3 or 4 times two days ago and slept for about 8 hours. Miserable for the poor girl and the rest of us. Then, yesterday we got her medicine. She slept for almost 24 hours (with breaks to eat A LOT). Soooooo grateful for modern medicine. SOOOOOO grateful for sleep.

While reading the scriptures...

Last night as Nathan starting reading the scriptures for our family scripture study he said, "And the man said unto the beautiful woman-" at which point I interrupted with, "Blasphemy." My husband laughed pretty hard.

Zac is talking a bit now. He says:

Da - Dog
Dada
Mama
Oww - Out
Dow - Down or Done
Ay - I
Nathan was witness to Zac's first "Thank you" yesterday. He has all the fun.

Ironic

Nathan found a diaper in our toilet bowl last night. :)

Katie's Growing, Kinda.

So, I feel like our little girl is Huge compared to when she was born. At a week old she had only grown maybe an inch in length but had gained 2 and a half lbs.! She's still not even chubby though. Her cheeks and chin are but that's it. Anyway. She just barely grew out of newborn diapers and the only reason for that is cause we didn't want to go buy more diapers when we had number 1s lying around waiting to fit. Nate's parents bought Kate some really adorable newborn clothes which was very much appreciated because she still doesn't fit into 0-3 month outfits. She's 6 weeks old and yet is still a "newborn". I'm hoping she turns out cute and petite. Also, she's "woken up" just in the last few days and it seems that her eyes will be blue... I know they can still change color but they're very true blue right now. That's fun.

I'm at the point of wanting to go buy new clothes. None of my pregnancy clothes really fit me, like I can wear two of the shirts, and very few of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit me. I'm so in-between. The waiting game is hard. It's frustrating to want to be somewhere and not be there but know that you'll probably be there soon. Meaning, I keep thinking, why would I buy a few new shirts (I only gain weight on top, all of my pre pregnancy bottoms (except for skirts) fit me right after I had Kate) when they'll be loose to the point of un-cute in a month? Or why would I buy tight clothes? They show off my chubby parts. Anyway, I'm stale-mated.

Also, I'm running again. I can't tell anyone how much exercising effects me. Basically, if I exercise I'm patient, relaxed, happy and kind, if I don't exercise I'm irritable, easily set off, stressed and negative. Me + Running = LOVE.

I figured out why Zac hits Kate!!! It's cause he sees us burping her. I'm glad to have figured it out, but he's still too young to udnerstand why we can "hit" her and why he can't.

Nathan got an e-mail from UNM today saying that his secondary application is on it's way and so he'll fill that out when he gets it and then we'll hear about an interview! Wohoo!

The Mundane

Life as a mother can be incredibly hard. My goodness. Some days it's hard to keep your sanity. It's hard not to hand your kids off to the first willing person. Some days it's hard to be calm and playful, happy and encouraging. Some days you just want to nap, take care of yourself, take care of those things that have needed to be taken care of for weeks. When you finally give up the struggle and let yourself forget about those things and just take care of yourself instead of taking care of everyone else and not yourself then you remember. You remember that taking care of yourself IS taking care of your family. Your kids can tell when you're on edge, unhappy, moody and impatient; so can your husband. When you allow yourself to take care of yourself everyone is happy because everyone feels loved. You feel loved and you are, therefore, better able to love.

I'm teaching my son to do chores!!!

So, the title of this post is semi-true. Zac LOVES to help do chores with me. I let him do them as long as it doesn't compromise his safety - even if it means I have to clean up even more later. The reason I'm doing this is because he's learning to enjoy working! He is learning to help happily and if they start young they'll never stop :) Anyway, he helped me sweep and mop today. SOOO adorable. He loves these activities more than most others.

After we mopped I put Zac in the bath to clean him up. The litte tyke can get out of the bathtub by himself now! It was soooooo incredibly hard to not just laugh when he climbed over the side and started running away laughing hysterically naked and dripping wet. I'm proud of my son's accomplishments.

Zac's imagination has sparked recently. He's started to "talk" on the phone :) He hold it up to his ears and says "Hi" over and over and over again. I pretend that I'm talking to him and he just listens and says bye after I say bye. So cute.

A few things...

Did I mention that while I was in labor with Kate that I ripped out my IV? With my teeth? Yeah, I wasn't conscious of it until the nurses were scrambling to stop the bleeding.

This weekend Nathan got to be home with me every day! It was a very nice treat and accentuated by the fact that he watched Zac until I would wake up (around 8AM). I got to sleep in! Once I would get up, Zac would run to me with outstretched arms in order to give me a hug. It made me feel so wonderful! My little boy loves me soooo much that he misses me if I don't wake up at 6:30AM :)

I've realized I love our dog, Diko. I can actually play with him now!

Also, I've been reading Shannon Hale books. Absolutely LOVE them! They're fairy tales but not extremely generic. As I was ly6ing in bed last night I realized, "All of these books have happy endings. I'm going to have a happy ending. Wait, I have a happy ending every night I go to bed. The person whom I love most in this world adores me and lays down to sleep by my nightly. I have a happy ending every day!" Happy thoughts :)

I like to read good books

The other evening as Nathan and I were tidying up the house before we went to bed he picked up the stack of library books that I had just checked out and said, "If I didn't know better I'd think we had a teenager in the house". He was referencing the fact that every single book in the stack was of the Young Adult Fiction genre. I LOVE YA Fiction. It's happy and I don't have to worry about the content being something I don't want to read. I enjoy the ease with which I can read these books and how relaxing it is to read them. I also love the Classics - but right now - Young Adult Fiction is and probably always will be my favorite genre.

Happy and free and some stories about Zachary

I do Not do well being pregnant. We realized this after we had Zac but we forgot. Two nights ago I actually laughed for the first time in months. I wasn't depressed but I was not myself. I've always been a happy, go-lucky kinda girl but the past two years I haven't been that way at all. It is soooo wonderful to have me back! It's so nice to laugh with my husband, to take joy in everyday living, to find passion in living. My goodness it is wonderful to be myself again! I LOVE not being pregnant!!!!!

On another note, yesterday I was making chicken enchiladas for dinner and had to shred the chicken. I decided to perform this task on our coffee table - about chest level for Zac - and Zac wanted to help. Remember how he's uber into utensils right now? especially forks? Yeah, well, I got him a spoon so he could "help me" but he kept crabbing and trying to grab the forks I was using to shred the chicken. Finally, I gave in and got him his own fork. He scooted the shredded chicken around on the plate "helping me" the entire time I was shredding the chicken. I was so proud of my little man! He is really getting into helping us do things. Of course he ended up flinging some of the chicken on the ground while he was helping, but what does that matter? Our son is learning life skills; how to shred chicken, how to use forks, how to help Mommy etc. I am so proud of my developing Zachary. Also, he loves my homemade bread. When he was about a year old, he got into the fridge and tried to eat my bread through the bag. Another time, I put him on the counter and was cutting a new loaf and he grabbed the heel and tried to eat it as soon as it was separated from the loaf. He also likes oatmeal a lot! and bananas. I love my little guy soooooo much.

Anyway, I'm happy! I'm me! I'm not trying to be happy anymore - I simply am :) Ah, joy.

Katherine Ann Blacker

Note* This post and the one before this are complimentary to each other. In other words, read both!

As many of you know, I started having contractions around 29 weeks with Kate's pregnancy. This was horrible because:
1) it limited my ability to care for our family
2) I wasn't supposed to exercise cause it caused contractions
3) everytime I had contractions (these were not just Braxton Hicks) I had an effusion of "scared for my baby's health" emotions

Saturday, June 11th, I had contractions from 3:30 AM to around noon. Really disappointing and uncomfortable. Then around 11 PM that night the contractions started again. I couldn't sleep so I woke Nathan up, hopped into the tub and he timed them from 12:30-1:30 AM. During this time they were 3 minutes apart but not terrifyingly strong. So, finally after many reservations, we decided to go to the hospital. We were discouraged because we were sure the contractions would stop and we'd have spent yet another night at the hospital only to come home without a newborn baby. So, we got to the hospital around 3 AM. The midwife on duty checked my cervix, I was effaced 90 ish percent and dilated to a 5. And the contractions weren't subsiding! We were going to have a baby! Nate and I were stunned that it was actually going to happen. Anyway, the midwife wanted me to walk around for 2 hours before I got an epidural and I conceded. I made it clear to her that I wanted to be sure to get one though. At 4:20 ish I decided the contractions were toooooooo strong and so we went told the lady I wanted an epidural now, before I couldn't handle it anymore. The anesthesiologist (I spelled that would perfectly by sounding it out) was in taking care of a woman having a c-section and wasn't able to come right then, but we were told she'd be coming in about 20 minutes. The midwife asked if I'd like any other pain medications. We told her how that went during Zac's pregnancy (I made me throw up). So, around 5 AM I told them I wanted something to take the edge off, and they gave me the pain meds mixed with Benadryl which my body received well. So, that dosage lasted for 20 minutes? After that everything went more entertainingly for everyone around. I don't remember much of my labors. It's as if I'm in a different place and am not aware of my surroundings. According to Nathan, every time I had a contraction I yelled about how much I hated the nurses cause they wouldn't give me an epidural - not their fault really but I wanted to blame someone. Then when the contraction subsided, I would apologize to the nurses and tell them I really didn't hate them. Etc. I also kept whimpering to Nathan to "Help me." That was really hard on him. When I was dilated to an 8 they had me sign the epidural papers so that the second the anesthesiologist got out of the OR I could get my epidural. Things progressed a little too quickly for that. I was at a 9 1/2 shortly there after and wanted to push. That was the most incredible (in a powerful, not a good, way) feeling. Wow! It's like you need to poop but are sooooo backed up that you have 7 lbs of stuff that you want to push out and it's hard! I pushed for 10 minutes and she was out at 6:32 AM! After having given birth naturally, I don't know if I'll do it again. I'll just wait and see. But I'm so proud of myself. I. Am. Woman.

They said she was 6 lbs. 7 ounces and 20 inches long. Funny thing though, the pediatrician said a couple days later that she was 19 inches long and then at her 2 week appointment she was 20 inches long. Who knows.

Zac has taken very well to Baby Kate. He loves to give her kisses. But he's had his hard moments and those are hard!

Also, you should all refer back to my 2010 May posts and see how much our little ones look alike. I'll have to post some pictures in which they look similar so that you guys can see!

She's a great sleeper already. She slept from 12:30 AM - 6:50 this morning. It was so wonderful to rest.

Funniest thing! We like to go to the park to eat dinner about once a week. This last week there was a mom and her boy kicking a soccer ball back and forth. Zac would walk toward whomever had the ball and since they were passing the ball, he ended up walking in a zigzag in a trance. He wanted that soccer ball!







And you thought that these headbands were cute. She looks like thug - kind of :)











Aren't these towels cute side by side?



We went Mini-Golfing and Zac was thrilled that we let him play. He loved picking up the balls and trying to drop them in the hole. it was adorable.

I'm so proud that my boy likes to play in dirt :)



From the previous post - this is a picture of Zac right as he noticed the soccer ball and starts to zigzag toward it.



Zac likes to walk the dog.


Zac had his first whole apple. He loved it and tried to share it with Kate. He's really been into feeding others recently. He feeds us all his food. And here's him trying to use a fork - even when Nathan and I are eating with our hands.


So, my bow making has continued. This green bow I helped Mini-Dorff make while she was visiting.