The Luckiest No Matter What!

Our littlest guy is a month old!  It's so strange, having babies at literally the same time of year because it feels a little like ground hogs day in those first few months.  The things you miss on maternity leave are the same, the weather is the same, the clothes are the same (especially when you only pop out boys), the daylight hours are the same.  Time still flies though holy cow! What We Learned About Preston: In utero, Preston had the hiccups all the time, enjoyed being awake at 3:00am, and had a consistent steady heartbeat that barely fluxiated. In fact, for several weeks in a row... like maybe even almost two months, his heart rate was 154 every time it got checked.  My mom said maybe this baby would be laid back and calm.  So far (knock on wood), she's been pretty spot on.  Preston's outside-the-womb behavior has been fairly similar- he gets the hiccups all the time, did, at first, VERY much love being awake at 3:00am, and has been pretty calm an...

Well, readers, hell has officially froze over I think.  The first reason I believe this to be true is because it is literally frozen here: we've been in a winter storm warning in April that's been bringing wind, snow, sleet, and mostly ice.  I was up in the middle of the night, around 3:30am, which is my new awake time, listening to the freezing rain and watching Friends while the baby kicked me.  I don't even understand why this storm is called a winter storm since it is NO LONGER WINTER.  Get with the program, mother nature!  The other reason hell has froze over around here is because my children slept until 7:00am this morning!  SEVEN A.M.  If you've read any of my blogs about sleeping lately, you know that is NOT normal, for Nolan and Judah anyway.  In fact, the last time the two of them slept until 7:00 was probably a year ago? They've only slept until 8:00 once in their entire almost five years of life.  When Judah came waltzing into ...

My Bing Bong is a lot closer to a year right now than he is to 11 months.  AH blogging... I love you when I'm top of things and hate you when I'm not.  Alas, Carter is wonderful, busy, funny, happy, and growing like CRAZY!  Here's what's been going on with him... What We Learned About Carter: The big things going on with the Bing Bong right now are all about three things: walking, talking, and eating. Carter took his first step this month (March 30th).  Originally, I was expecting Carter to be one of those babies that walks at nine months because of how earlier he was crawling and how much he wants to do what his big brothers are doing.  Thankfully, he slowed down just a bit.  Carter continues to balance between the way his brothers did things.  Judah would not try something until he was ready to be a master at it; Nolan would try anything at anytime whether he was ready or not.  Carter really does do both.  In reference to the walking, ...

One of my biggest mom struggles is how to give individualized attention to all three of my little boys.  Living with three kids under three, it can be difficult, on the daily, to feel like you had special bonding time with each child in a meaningful way.  Sometimes it's all I can do to dress, diaper, and feed all of them (those things are taking FOREVER right now by the way).  Each one of my boys is special and unique and different.  Each one has talents and struggles and experiences a variety of feelings and emotions in any given day.  It is SO important to both Josh and I that we spend one-on-one time with Nolan, Judah, and Carter.  It is SO important to both Josh and I that we can foster a sense of confidence and self-worth in each boy as well.  It is SO important we let our boys explore and practice and experience things that they are interested in.  We want also, especially for Nolan and Judah since they are twins, that each of our ...

The fact that I've been such a bad blogger is sad because some of precious little Carter's story is going to be missing.  Rather than try to back log things, I'm starting fresh and hoping to keep up much better in 2016 than I've been doing the last few months. Carter is eight months old and bringing a ridiculous amount of joy into our family.  What I Learned About Carter Pavona: Carter does not want to be eight months old, he wants to be 2.5 like his brothers.  He wants to run like them, eat like them, play like them.  Because of this, he is not the typical eight month old that I became accustomed to with Nolan and Judah.  Carter is crawling all over the place; he can easily crawl up stairs.  He has also been pulling himself up to stand on EV.ER.Y.THING.  His body can not quite catch up to his determination and so he definitely "humpy dumptys" a lot.  He is huge and his muscles cannot accommodate his chub when he tries to do things he shoul...

As this pregnancy comes to an end (sometime in the near future), I am reflecting on what a different journey it has been with the Starfish Baby VS. when I was pregnant with Nolan and Judah, here are some of the biggest and some of the most surprising differences I have experienced... 1.)  Physical Exhaustion : When I was pregnant with Nolan and Judah, I was carrying around TWO babies.  I was certainly tired, certainly sore, and certainly physically tired.  However, chasing those same two angels around, picking them up, bending over to pick up their toys, and not being able to rest very much because they always need me has actually made me MORE physically exhausted while being pregnant with the Starfish Baby.  I essentially put myself on bed rest towards the end of my pregnancy with the twins; totally CANNOT do that this time :) While pregnant with Nolan and Judah, I rested when I wanted to, napped when I wanted to, took it easy when I wanted to, and ...

Now that Nolan and Judah's first birthday is here, I can't help but reflect a lot on how incredible and life-changing these last twelve months have been for me (and for Josh).  While I know there will be enough gushiness in other blogs I will write, I decided to give a nod to the not-so-glamorous take-a-ways I've had throughout this last year.  I have leaned A LOT A LOT A LOT .  Here are the twelve most practical things I learned during Nolan and Judah's first year (one for each month): MONTH ONE: Breast feeding is NO joke... it is difficult and time consuming and not without it's struggles and set backs.  We were not naturals at breastfeeding and had to work at it a LOT before we got it right.  With that being said, I am SO grateful I stuck with it! MONTH TWO: Smiles from babies can cure just about anything, including, but not limited to: sleep deprivation, witching hour, having awake babies in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping, etc....

This eighth month was quite a month... Things We Learned About Nolan Gerard: I always knew this about my eldest child, but he sure smacked us in the face with it this month: he does NOT like change... at all...not even a little bit.  When we had to stay at Mike and Eileen's and the Alexander's during the ice storm when our power was out, he was a grade A disaster.  We feared he would never, ever sleep again.  Also, this month, he was working on getting upwards of four teeth (two are out so far), which is another change he is not fond of.  Nolan really does go through things at night; during the day you'd never know there was anything wrong or anything different with him.  He shines in the wee hours.  If Nolan wakes up enough to need attention, it is so difficult to get him back into his crib.  He wants to sleep on Mommy or Daddy, it's just that simple.  During the worse of the teething, he was getting up around 1am to cry non stop for at least ...

With all of my extreme planning, I could have never anticipated the crazy ice storm that hit Lansing on Saturday/Sunday December 21st and 22nd.  On Sunday, the boys and I were minding our own business.  Josh was at Meijer picking up groceries and other items needed for baking and cooking for Christmas.  My parent's had lost power the night before in Okemos and the fact that we hadn't lost it yet made me confident we wouldn't.  All of a sudden, at approximately 8:30am, out went the lights.  Josh was on his way home with all of our food.  Super.  We tried to go about Sunday as normal as we could.  I figured maybe that power would be out for a few hours and then we'd be good.  This ice storm couldn't have been THAT bad, I thought, Josh was out driving around the morning after and the roads seemed fine.  By the time the boys got done with their afternoon nap, around 3pm, we knew we needed a plan.  Our house had dropped almost ten ...