Heroes vs. Villains Fun Run

Since Maggie arrived we haven’t done much.  I don’t have energy, motivation or interest in leaving the house much. I’ve learned of the things that trigger my anxiety, which is everything haha but since this is the 3rd time around I’ve learned.  So I stay home.  Being home with my little family is the easiest thing for me.  BUT day after day my kids are starting to get some cabin fever.  Yes Owen goes to school everyday…and Ella stays home with Nana and me OR goes to Marthas to play (2 days a week).  I know we need to start leaving the house as a FiveFamily…braving the outside world!

A few weeks ago Owen asked me to do a Color Run…he saw a mother/son participate in one on one of the reality shows we watch together (Our Little Family).  I thought HECK YES!! Thats exciting he wants me to do fun active activities like that.  BUT I’m not able to be moving like that post-baby just yet.  (i’ve been having issues with my incision and other stuff so recovery is  moving slowly!)

I saw on FB or somewhere an advertisement for a local ‘Heroes vs. Villains’ 5k or 1mile run!  How fun does that sound…and we could start our running with a 1miler rather than jumping into a 5k!  Since I’m not able to run I graciously signed Daddy up to participate! haha He was so thrilled. (insert winkie face).  Runners were the heroes and other people were the villains.  Each runner had flags on and the villains were to try and pull the heroes flags. Since Owen is in flag football this run was seriously like the perfect thing for him!  AND another bonus was this run wasn’t an early morning run…it started at 4pm.

We were the bat-family…and proud! haha

I told our friends about it and only one family wanted to participate too…Owen was excited to have friends run with him!

 

Getting their warm-up on!! The kids loved warming up with all the dance moves. So cute.

 

Ella wasn’t too sure…she saw some of the villains and wasn’t diggin’ them…at all!! 

It was a smaller event…which was great! So keeping track of all my runners was easy!! I wish I was able to run with them…but next time. There will always be plenty of time for that!

 

Poor Daddy had to bring Ella. I didn’t think she’d want to run BUT she did.  And Daddy did great. Owen shocked the heck out of me. He took off running and did SO good.  He even LOOKED like a real little runner.  He was in the front of the pack and kept his pace up the whole mile!

And he wondered why his back was hurting after this run?!? Poor Yosh.  Hot and sweaty, still holding his little girl!!

Owen finished top 10 of the whole race…I think it was actually like 5th.  I was so proud of him! That 100mile club is really paying off!

Ella was balling her eyes out as she crossed the finish line. The villains scared her…and she was tired!! One mile is a long way for those tiny little legs!

I loved seeing everyone so proud of finishing!! The kids were so pumped to get medals! And I was very proud of Daddy. He doesn’t exactly like running and he participated without pouting. 
Thanks babe…the kids love you!  

 

Can’t wait to participate in another fun run with Owen in the next few months. He said he’d love to do a Color Run or a Neon Run or a Mud Run. Score kid. Can’t wait!

Mom of 3

Before we had our 3rd child I remember watching my friends who have 3 kids and thought it seemed simple.  Little did I know that my amazing friends just made it LOOK simple.  THREE children is no joke! 

 

 

When we started planning when we wanted to try and get pregnant and how old we wanted Ella to be when we had a newborn I thought that having her be 2 years 9 months was perfect…she’d be old enough but not TOO old and TOO big of an age gap (like Owen and Ella are…4 years apart). When we brought Ella home, Owen was amazing. He was old. Became independent.  Was NOT an issue.  Well…Ella has proven that 2 years 9 months is still an age when they want and “need” their mommy.   She has had the biggest transition and giving mama grief.  She is quite the mama’s girl and that makes things hard when I’m nursing one and the other is crying “needing” me.

So sometimes my day looks like this…holding one baby and the other one is laying in my lap…how the hell do mothers do it with multiples??!?!?

But, overall Owen and Ella are both very helpful…well they try to be.

I feel like they are never close enough to her.  Owen ALWAYS wants to be holding her…and I’m constantly reminding him to get his face out of her face. He wants to smother her with kisses ALL THE TIME.  Which sounds so cute BUT in actuality its kinda annoying because germs are our worst nightmare right now.  Ella has come around…she went from NOT liking Baby Maggie to now she is always wanting to see her eyes and hold her as well.  Her interest only lasts all of 5 minutes though.

The early days of being home with Maggie were hard but could have been SO much harder.  I’m VERY blessed and thankful to have my mom here in the states and able to help me 24/7.  People have asked about how long Yosh took off work…he took the 3 days we were in the hospital and then we sent him back to makin’ that money! haha  I don’t want him wasting the sick days that I’m hoping to steal from him when I get back to work in January (with no sick days).  So we have Nana here. Everyday!  She’s absolutely amazing. I would be an emotional drowning mess if she wasn’t here to help me. 

She comes over at 7am (with bells on), gets Owen ready for school. Gets Ella up and dressed. Brings Ella with her to drop Owen off at school…all while I’m getting myself and Maggie up. I can NOT imagine trying to get up and everyone ready for school drop off.  The days I have brought Owen to school are the days that Yosh has brought Ella to Marthas for some time to play with her friends (daycare is a good thing for ALL…she needs it!! haha) Then mom comes back to the house after school drop off and does whatever I ask like hold Maggie so I can shower and shave my legs! (or don’t ask…she does laundry, tidies the house, plays with Ella, etc. I do NOT ask my mom to do my house work…but she insists and does it because she can’t sit still, ever)  And she has been my partner in my daily errands that I’m too scared to try on my own just yet (grocery shopping, target, kaiser appts, etc.)  she told me the other day “you’ll be sick of me soon!!”  and I replied “thats not possible!”

All I can say is THANK THE GOOD LORD for my Mom. I feel sad for all the ladies out there that have to do the first few weeks alone.

Slowly but surely I’m starting to get more and more confident with the kids and no help.  My body is healing more and more everyday as well…weird that this time around I was VERY VERY sore and still feeling the side effects of my last csection.  I can count 2 times when I have been alone with all 3 kids…yes I said 2…don’t judge me! haha And this was the first…

We were confided to a car so I don’t know if it really counts as being “alone”…BUT yes…thats me…Mom of 3! haha 

And for now…I spend most of my days at home…watching this little face, savoring every minute she is a “newborn” because I’m going to blink and never have a newborn again.

I’m so pathetic that I went and bought more newborn sized diapers, even though shes big enough for size 1’s…but I just want her to be a newborn forever. haha

And I’m going to try and remember to take as many pictures as I can of us as a #FiveFamily

Ptosis

First let me start this by saying that I KNOW I shouldn’t be so upset about something that is NOT life threatening for our little Maggie. I get that. BUT at the same time its very hard to think that ANYTHING is “wrong” with your baby!

When Maggie was born, both Yosh and I noticed that her left eye wasn’t opening like her right…

The pediatrician who came in and checked on her each day we were in the hospital told us that her eye was ok…and probably had some swelling due to trauma during delivery.

Both Yosh and I weren’t convinced.

When we got her home we continued to watch her left eye struggle.

Sometimes it looked GREAT…other times, not so great.

So we decided to google lazy eye.

I think everyone knows this already but DON’T GOOGLE! It gives the worst case scenarios and freaks you the HELL OUT!  I noticed Yosh’s attitude and mood change after reading.  He grew so sad about our poor little girl and what could possibly be wrong.  But we knew…we both knew without needing a doctor to diagnose anything, that Maggie had ptosis.  Basically ptosis is drooping of the eyelid.  There are different severities of it that require different treatments BUT basically if the eyelid effects vision, surgery is performed before the brain doesn’t develop properly!  We also figured it out because one of Yosh’s brothers was born with ptosis and had corrective surgery when he was 3 years old. 
Well the day we were doing our “at home research” must have been the same day my hormones were flushing. I could NOT stop crying!! Every time I looked at her, or looked at Yosh I would break down.  I didn’t want ANYTHING wrong with Maggie.   I didn’t want to think about her brain not developing properly, or her having to have surgery, or us having to patch her good eye and have a little toddler with a patch on! Ugh.  It was all so devastating.

So we had our day of crying and dealing. When we went into Maggie’s 2 week check-up and our pediatrician had no doubt it was ptosis and then referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist, we knew that was coming but I was bummed because the earliest appt was for NOVEMBER 9th…a month away!  And I wanted a specialist to see her ASAP…google says early detection and treatment was very important to prevent long term issues.

Once we knew forsure there was something wrong I decided to let social media know…I didn’t want people to be noticing her eye and wondering if WE had noticed her eye.  Get the elephant out of the room immediately. We knew her eye looked different and were taking care of it.  And I’m very happy I did…I have a friend in scheduling at Kaiser and she was able to get Maggie in to see the preferred doc and MUCH sooner than our original appt!

On Oct. 15th we got to see Dr. Duerksen.

I was nervous that I was going to cry whenever he told me something was wrong….something we wouldn’t be able to fix.

But the appointment was great.  Dr. Duerksen was very positive.  He said that Maggie’s ptosis wasn’t too bad….yet.  He gave me more information and I was happy with all of it.  Basically her ptosis could either a) get better and her outgrown it, b) get worse and need immediate surgery or c) stay the same. 

He checked her eyes out by dilating them and checking for stigmatisms and other issues.  Everything came back normal for her age.  But we will be seeing Dr. Duerksen every few months for the next 2 years.  If at any time her lid drops below her pupil we’ll have surgery to sling it up.  If at any time she develops a ‘chin-lift’ (tilting of her chin to be able to see under her lid), then we’d have immediate surgery to sling it up.  If at any time her vision becomes impaired, we’ll have a surgery.  BUT other than that she’ll be ok…and we’ll hope and pray that this resolves itself.

First eye appt…weird seeing such a little baby in this room.  

If we hadn’t already had our day of crying and dealing, this appt wouldn’t have been so positive to me. But I’m happy that my little baby didn’t need surgery right away…and that there WAS hope that she could possibly live a normal life without surgical intervention.

The other day I was looking at my little lady and realized…her eye is seriously getting better and better every day!! So Happy about that!

So now we wait…and watch.  And hope that she is one of the few that outgrow ptosis!!  BUT if she doesn’t..thats ok too. Shes gorgeous the way she is!!

We have survived 2 weeks

I was never so happy to go to a routine doctors appt than I was for Maggie’s 2 week Well-Baby Check-up.  I had some concerns about her so I was anxious to get to speak with her pediatrician.  Yes, me anxious..who woulda thought! haha.  I laugh when people find out that Maggie is my 3rd baby and they say “oh you’re a pro at all this by now huh?!?”  and I’m there like “ummmm NOPE still learning, still freaking out about stupid stuff…yep thats me!”

But anyway…this is Maggie at her doctors appt…

 
For some reason Kaiser has changed their policy…and all the scales read in kg rather than lbs.  Its SO annoying!  

At 2 weeks Maggie Mae was:

8lbs 15oz in the 72%
205 inches in the 52%

Lets see what the other kiddos were like…

Who is that baby weighing 9lbs 4oz at 2 weeks old….?? Ella!!! She was my BIGGEST baby…and now is so petite is funny to look back on how huge she was!

And Owen weighing the exact same as Maggie at 2 weeks!! 

Same doctor, same office, different baby, different year! haha

But Maggie is eating great, growing great and sleeping great too. Those thing weren’t my concerns.

I was concerned about her projectile vomiting, unhealed belly button, her droopy eyelid and of course her failure to pass the hearing test at birth.

So the projectile vomiting…I’m concerned because Owen had surgery for pyloric stenosis (projectile vomiting) when he was 5 weeks old…so when I first saw my little girl’s jaw drop and her become the exorcist baby I got a tad nervous. What would be the odds of having TWO kids with it?!? Apparently when you have one that had it, your are at a higher risk of having another one too!  But since it usually develops between 2-6 weeks of age our peds thought it was a bit early and that we’d just monitor it for now. Shes gaining weight and her “episodes” aren’t consistent, so no one is worried, including myself.

Unhealed belly button…shes a slow healer. End of story.

Droopy eyelid…that was a big one.  We noticed it at birth and were concerned, even though all the pediatricians we saw didn’t seem to be. Once our doctor saw it, she immediately diagnosed her with Ptosis and referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist. (I will be doing a separate blog for this).

Hearing…we had an appt for Audiology to retest her hearing.  While in the hospital she failed her hearing test with her right ear 3 times.  They also didn’t seem concerned saying that csection babies can sometimes have fluid in their ears.  So we have that appt later in the month.  I wanted to ask our doctor if she found it common and if we should be concerned.  Again…she wasn’t concerned and tried reassuring me to also not be concerned.

All these little things “wrong” with our Maggie were upsetting.  I know none of them were life threatening (Thank God) so we were thankful BUT at the same time you NEVER want ANYTHING wrong with your children…shit I don’t want Maggie to have a hang-nail nevermind something that could require surgery.

But the appt went great…shes overall a healthy little chunker!