What Mom's are for!

So, I don't know about y'all, but I'm pretty tight with the momma. She's my bestie. She's always been there for me, letting me know when I'm acting like a mega witch and she's especially good at telling me when to "get a grip". As I have gotten a bit older, I've come to realize that she's wiser than I once thought. I was one of those teenagers who knew everything and lets face it, sometimes I'm not quite grown out of that. :)

My most recent smack in the face with the reality that my mom actually knows what the heck she's talking about came last night. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a dress that I thought looked just fabulous on me. She promptly told me it made me look like a fattie.. er didn't "flatter" me. I was totally shocked. I told her I would leave it up to the blog followers, maybe post a pic and see what you guys thought. So last night, I had the husband snap a pic of me in it.

She.was.right.

Thanks, Mom!

A letter..

Dear Sugar,

My dear, dear, sweet Sugar. We need to talk. I've loved you for as long as I can remember. You are included in most of my memories, from chasing down the ice cream truck as a kid all the way to my brand spanking new husband and I feeding each other our *amazing* Italian creme wedding cake. I love you in most of your forms but seriously, Sugar? We need a break. I think my wake up call has come to me this week. Maybe it was the THREE pieces of my dad's birthday cake you forced me to consume? I don't know. Could it be the over 20!! POINTS worth of Golden Oreo's that I just.couldn't.stop.eating. tonight? Maybe. Thing is, the more I have of you, the more I can't get enough of you and well, my dear sweet, sweet, Sugar, too much of an amazingly good thing has proved to be a notsogreat thing.
Kindly let me be, sweet Sugar. The last time I tried to leave you behind, you made it so hard for me. Always calling my name from the kitchen, tempting me in the sweetest of ways. Not this time Sugar! Let my ass heart heal from all the sweet lovin'. MMMKAY?

Fatty Friday

Hey y'all. I've missed a couple of FF posts thanks to Poppyseed and all that jazz but here I am again!
I have MISSED going to the gym on the regular. Who would have thought? We got to start going back yesterday and you should have seen me Wednesday night. I was a giddy school girl just anticipating going the next morning and getting back some semblance of a routine. I thought that I would have gained a few pounds for sure because I had been staying at my parent's house for extra help with B and for some reason I feel like I have a free pass to munch on as much chocolate as I want when I am over there. Maybe that's why I'm over there so much? ;)
Anyway, I stepped on the scale and I had dropped another 2 lbs! I'm giving this one to BFing and the fact that my metabolism must have just gone way up from me working out consistently.
That 2 lbs brings me to 20 lbs total! What a great milestone. I only have about 12 to go to my initial "goal" and then I will re-evaluate. The *best* part is that I'm 6 lbs away from being in the "healthy" range for my height and finally out of the "overweight" range. UGH.

So, gone are the fat jeans, my momma bought me some shorts for the summer (huge shoutout to the best mom eva) and they are size 8! I'll be extremely happy to get into 6's but for now I'm enjoying the 8's.

              5 weeks ago                                                        

today, after my sweaty run

Uh, for some reason I can't get those side-by-side. :(

Want in on my #1 tip for loosing weight? A while ago I took a step back and looked at my eating habits and noticed that I was consuming a crazy amount of calories after the boys went to bed because I was just bored and didn't know what to do with myself. I made a rule that I won't eat anything after 7:00 (which was bedtime at that time). It has helped so much. Now, I'm not a Nazi about it or anything. If I get to 7:00 and I haven't had time to grab a bite for dinner or I haven't had all of my POINTS yet, I still eat. But, as a general rule, I won't eat after 7:00.

What is your #1 weight loss tip?

"Ashton! We do not sit on your brothers' face!!"

So, we had to make not one, but two trips to the plastic surgeon today!
It all started when I was trying to get the kids ready to go to Ashton's 18 month appointment. Braxton wouldn't nurse so I had to pump. I put Braxton on the ottoman and was pumping away. Ashton crawled up onto the ottoman with him and proceded to SIT on Braxton's face. Immediately B is screaming and blood is flowing. We all three just bawled while I scrambled to think of what to do. I've never felt like such a failure as a mother, it was terrible.
Once we all calmed down, I called the plastic surgeons office and actually got to speak right to him (have I mentioned that he is amazing?!) He said that he thought everything was probably fine as the bleeding had stopped but wanted us to come up just to make sure. We went right away and I swear, I didn't even have to wait 2 minutes once we got there to see him. He said that he thought it had probably separated a little bit and that he might need another surgery in a year or two to correct it. Not great news, but not as bad as it could have been.
When I got home, I started to nurse B when my phone rang. It was the PS. He decided to try to put a steri-strip on the separation in hopes of avoiding another surgery. I finished feeding him and we went right back up there. This time, he cut the glue off that had been pulled up and once he did, he could actually get a look at it. He said that if it had separated, it was back together perfectly so it didn't even need the steri-strip! Such great news! He thinks it will heal up just fine, but now we have to be ultra cautious to not let anything bump into or touch it. We're putting ointment on it and he's doing great. His momma is shook up quite a bit, but he was smiling 20 minutes after it happened...
One thing is for sure, he's going to be one tough little boy! I'm sure he'll pay his brother back once he's big enough!

A hospital is such a fun place for a toddler.

Just some pictures of our big boy from the hospital! 

He got tired while we were waiting.

I needed to contain the monster. :)

He actually did pretty well at the hospital. We were constantly chasing him around, but this is nothing new! 

Whew... It's over.

Braxton's surgery has come and gone and we are in full recovery mode around here! The day of the surgery was crazy to say the least. We had to be at the hospital at 6:00 AM and everything went fast after that. Much faster than I was expecting but I guess when you have a tiny baby that hasn't been allowed to eat for a while, they move faster!

We had several doctors and nurses come talk to us before it began and they all had different thoughts on how long it would take, we got answers of anywhere from one to five hours. We figured we would go with the doctor's guess of 3-4 hours but that time came and went and before we knew it, it had been SEVEN long, long hours away from my baby. When they called and told me we could come to the recovery room, I practically ran (actually, I think I did a little.) It was so hard to see him coming out of anesthesia, all drugged and wanting to cry but all he could get out was a horse whimper. His poor throat was so raw from a tube being down it for the whole surgery. I've never been so relieved to see someone, and let me tell you, he looks like an angel! But I might be a little partial to him. ;)

Luckily, my doctor had a change of heart and decided he wanted me to continue to nurse, if Braxton seemed interested. We gave him a small bottle in the recovery room and then it was time to try to nurse. I was SO nervous! I had never thought about what his lip would look like after the surgery for some reason. Thankfully, he nursed great and we've only had to give a couple of bottles. I'm sure you know what an absolute relief it was for this momma!

You may be asking yourself how you would deal with having your child in surgery for such a LONG time! Well, let me tell you! I have the best friends a girl could ask for. They came (some even taking off work) and sat with me and kept me company and kept me from just sitting and worrying. It was amazing. It made the time go so much faster. If they weren't there, I just know I would have been a blubbering mess the whole seven hours. I'm forever grateful to them for that!

I surely hope that none of my friends' children never ever have a reason to be in a hospital but if they do, I can't say enough great things about Children's Hospital in OKC. Dr. Petersen, our plastic surgeon has the best bedside manner that I have ever seen and the nurses were phenomenal. There were people coming in just to make sure the nurses were great, volunteers coming in just to see if we needed anything, departments bringing Braxton a stuffed animal or us hot chocolate and cookies. You wouldn't even believe how great they were.

I've gotta say, Dr. Petersen did absolutely amazing work. He couldn't have done a better job, I think it's going to look so great when it's healed. That said, I miss his wide smile. I think I'll always miss it.

Recovery hasn't been too awful. He really opened up and seemed like himself about 24 hours after his surgery, even trying to smile here and there. We still can't tell what his smile is going to look like because he's quite swollen on the inside of his lip. Today (day three) has been a bit of a rough day, the worst for sure but not unbearable. Hopefully he will start to feel better soon!

Pity Party OVER.

After two days of crying and feeling sorry for myself, I've decided to change my attitude about this whole thing. I'm going to do everything I can for my little boy.

If that means that I have to stop nursing for two weeks, then I will do it. I'll work my ass off to keep my supply up with pumping and I'll try as hard as I possibly can to get back into nursing after the two weeks. I'm refusing the idea that it won't work out, just like I did when he was born. We *will* get through this, and come out better on the other side for it.

Thanks for all the kind words, advice, and for being the proverbial "shoulder to cry on". Y'all rock my face.