Holly's Nursery

At long last, Holly's nursery is finally done and ready to be shared online (only took us four months...)!

Back over the summer, I had the hardest time finding a theme that was girly but not pink walls, princess, over-the-top feminine.  I had looked everywhere -- Pinterest, every feasible store website, four (yes, FOUR) fabric stores -- and couldn't find anything I like.  Note to Self: make girly dinosaur nursery stuff, market it, and make a million dollars. 

Then, one afternoon at Buy Buy Baby, I was taking an "I'm exhausted from all the nursery-searching and also generally being pregnant" break in the gliders.  Jason brought me a package of decals he had found.... Alphabet.  Girly alphabet.  Girly alphabet in fun colors that weren't just pinks and purples.  SOLD!  (also, love him!  He knows me so well).  Added bonus: Tyler is obsessed with the alphabet, so maybe he wouldn't mind so much that his play room was being converted into another bedroom if he got to look at ABC stuff in the new room!

Anyway, I used the decals as a springboard and built the room off of it.  I present... Holly's bedroom!  *fanfare*

Handmade fleece blanket, ABC sheets (close-up in another picture), canvasses based off the decals, and yellow chevron curtains)

close-up of the canvasses (W is for watermelon whales, O is for owl on an orange tree, etc.)

close-up of the (wrinkly) ABC sheets I was able to find

other side of the room -- white furniture from IKEA (which was how we were able to go with such a dark gray paint), the decals, yellow chevron changing pad, and fun pink clock

close-up of the decals (note the pictures the canvasses were based off of)

I never did make Tyler letters, but I made Holly some understated ones that she'll hopefully be able to keep for years.  Problem: once I painted them, we couldn't find a spot for them!  Jason saved the day by mounting them above her closet.

So that's Holly's room!

The Story of "Holly"

This is the story of how we came up with Holly's name.

Though we were originally hoping for a boy, one big relief in finding out we were going to have a girl was that girl names seem infinitely easier to pick than boys.  Looking through baby apps, I quickly discovered something about the names I gravitated towards... they were all "lee" names.  Seriously, some of my contenders -- Hailey, Hallie, Holly, Caley, Callie, Kylie.  Jason nixed most of them, saying they didn't sound like "real" names.  Still, they stayed on my list.

We went back and forth with names, usually immediately hating the names the other suggested.  I won't list them here, because I don't want to hurt any feelings (especially if you have those names for hypothetical or real children), but we just couldn't agree.  Even the few times we both agreed, we usually ended up talking ourselves out of it.  Several were just too "out there" for me or too commonplace (we wanted a happy medium).

We were at an impasse.  We tried to get Tyler to pick (That's become a new favorite thing for us, especially when picking restaurants.  What?  It could work for baby sister, too!), but after we'd name our "big 6" (3 were Jason picks, 3 were Megan picks, none had been vetoed, but none had been highly favored), he'd just say her name should be "Baby Sister."  Hmm, if it worked for the Berenstain Bears, it could work for the Selfs, right?  Right?!?


Two weeks before my due date, my nephew Hudson was born.  I talked to Tyler about it, sharing that his new cousin's name was "Hudson."  I asked again, "Tyler, what's baby sister's name going to be?"  And then my sweet sweet boy said, "Holly."  Well, to be honest, he said "Hawwwley" (he's gonna have his mama's drawl, I believe).  No prompting or anything.  I whipped out my phone, pressed record, and asked him again.  He said it again, "Holly."  I very quickly sent it to Jason, saying we had to name her Holly.  The fact that "Holly" was one of my 3 picks, well, that's just a coincidence!

Hudson was born the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving morning at breakfast, we once again discussed names and somehow landed on Holly.  I was ecstatic!  Her middle name, Coraline, was a name both of us liked, but we had ruled it out as a first name.  I was concerned that if it was her first name, she'd suffer from a lifetime of being called "Caroline," and that would just be annoying.  So we made it her middle name instead!

Four months in, I've said it about a million times now, and I still love the name!  My sweet, sweet Holly. :)

The Story of Holly

Wow, just now realized I never wrote up anything about the day Holly was born.  Oops!  Here's the rundown.  Let me be clear -- this is the story of her birth, so if you're squeamish about labor-y stuff, this may be a post you want to skip.

I woke up around 2:30 on December 5th (Holly's due date) with what I thought was a contraction.  I wasn't positive, since I didn't really have contractions with Tyler (his story here).  The last few weeks of pregnancy are basically one huge discomfort, so I couldn't tell if it was just pregnancy stuff or the real thing.

me at 39 weeks

At 4:30, I could definitely tell I was having contractions.  I called the doctor, took a shower, called Jill (who was on deck to take care of Tyler while we were at the hospital)... and then I waited.  Because you're not allowed to go to the hospital until the contractions are regular and 5-7 minutes apart.  So... I hung out.  Played with Tyler.  Chatted with Mom (who had come into town a few days before).  Jill and Jodi came, Jason bought everyone lunch, and after monitoring my contractions all morning (btw, yay for contraction apps; so smart!), we went to the hospital around 1:00.

Things progressed, but not a ton, so they broke my water.  They also decided to encourage things by having me rest on my side with my knees between basically a peanut-shaped yoga ball (best way I can describe it).  At some point, I had an epidural (hmm, knew I should have written all this down while the memory was fresh).  

At some other point, the doctor came in and decided it was time for me to push.  The RN disagreed, but followed the doctor's wishes.  No dice.  She very quickly decided that I wasn't ready.  So more peanut-ing to encourage things to happen naturally.  Around 7:40pm, it was time to push, for real this time.

With Tyler, despite his size (he was a big boy!), the pushing wasn't really bad.  I pushed for about 40 minutes, but with the epidural, it was pretty easy sailing.  I only pushed 10 minutes with Holly (yep, you read that correctly), but it was NOT easy sailing!  We later found out the main problem was that she was face up (or "sunny side up" as it's sometimes called).  Babies typically are face down when born.  In fact, I just looked it up, and only 4-10% of babies are born face up.  Plus, it's more common in first babies than second.  There are several complications that can be involved with this (including many deliveries switching to c-section), but Holly was born healthy, so we're very thankful!  I just found out a little while ago from my mom (who was also in the delivery room with Jason and me) that Holly also had the cord wrapped around her.  The nurses had said earlier in the day that they suspected it may be (something about her vitals made them suspect), but that it wasn't a big deal.  I guess it wasn't, since I knew nothing about it once she was born.

Holly was born at 7:50pm on her due date, 8lbs, 13oz and 22" of perfection.

Perfection... except for the crying.  Boy, that first 24 hours, whew!  Homegirl would turn straight-up burgundy in the face when crying.  Suuuuuper fun.


That night, Jill came to meet Holly, drop off dinner for Jason, and pick Mom up to head back to our house.  The next morning, Jason went home to take a shower and get Tyler.  The meeting didn't go well (note: a swaddled baby with a hat on doesn't look very human to a toddler), but Tyler was a trooper.

The rest of the day was fairly low-key.  Several things were better this time around.  Less nurse visits.  I had magazines and a smart phone to keep me entertained.  At the end of the day, we got a surprise -- we'd be able to go home that night if we wanted to!  There were a few tests that had to happen 24 hours after birth (aka, 8pm), but if we wanted to, we could leave after that.  Sleeping in our own bed instead of at the hospital?  Yes, please!




A few other things of note:
~Holly actually failed her hearing screen in the hospital (hormonal worrier Megan did not handle this news well), but thankfully passed the follow-up two weeks later.  Apparently, we learned that pushing for a short period of time (like Holly's 10 minutes) doesn't allow the "gunk" (medical term for it, I'm sure) to exit her body, so it was more than likely blocking her ear.  The nurses also explained that was the reason for some of her early-on reflux issues.
~We went through the usual (I'm guessing it's usual since most people have similar stories) cycle of 1st pediatrician visit = not enough weight gain, come back soon.  2nd visit = milk has come in, yay, your baby has gained weight!... but come back soon just to double-check.  Then, we had a 3rd visit... and a 4th...  All of this around Christmas, mind you.  We finally discovered that Holly was tongue-tied (You know that little flap under your tongue?  Hers was too big, which didn't allow her to eat properly.  The little flap that connects her top lip to her gums was also too big), so she had a procedure at a dentist office where they used a laser to cut both flaps.  I didn't notice a big difference right away, but she seems to eat just fine now.  Thank goodness!

So that's our girl!  The first few weeks (especially with all the appointments and big question marks about hearing and eating) were quite stressful, but we survived!

Grandma Visit

At the end of February, we traveled to Nebo for Jaina's first birthday party.  We had a great time, but all in all, it was a pretty chaotic weekend... long drives, a lot crammed into very little time, both Holly and me having to be on a very regimented schedule, Tyler and Sawyer having a "sleepover", etc..  On the way home, Jason looked at me and said "I can't do this again any time soon."

Problem: we were planning on visiting Jamesville in March.
Solution: invite Grandma to visit us instead!

I'm absolutely horrible about taking pictures when people visit (especially my family).  So here is a mostly-pictureless rundown of the weekend.

Friday: 
Mom was already at our house when I got off work.  We caught up with each other before everyone else got home, and then there was lots of playing with grandkids that occurred.  One of the many things Mama has missed since Daddy passed is grilled food (my dad was king of the grill), so Jason grilled us steaks and I made real baked potatoes (no microwave for us tonight!).  We stuffed ourselves and called it an early night.

Saturday:
Jason left for some early-morning photography while Mom and I played with the kiddos.  We all ran a few errands together, then went to the Leesville community library.  We ended up stumbling into a "kids hour" (that was thankfully only 15 minutes!).  Tyler had a great time listening to stories, singing songs, etc.

After that, we visited Duck Donuts to treat Grandma to its deliciousness (she was a fan!) and headed back home for lunch.  While Tyler napped, I did too (oops!) and woke up to find Grandma on the deck having some quality Holly time.  I think the pictures say it all...

Saturday night, we went out to a sushi restaurant (my mom likes sushi, who knew?) and had a really great (and really yummy) time.

Sunday:
We couldn't quite get ready in time for early church, but we made it to the 11:00 service a little out of breath, but present at least.  About five minutes into service I made a startling realization -- I had left Holly's bottle on high in the warmer.  That meant 1) Holly was bottleless at church and 2) that bottle was going to be ruined by the time we got home from church.  Now, without getting into too many details, let's just say that it takes a lot of effort to make one bottle, so I was upset about the prospect of that hard work going to waste.  So Jason decided to drive home (we had driven two vehicles) to turn off the milk.  If Holly got hungry (which was a pretty strong likelihood), I would feed her the "old fashioned" way.  Which, she did.  So, I did.  Which meant I left Mom in service by herself while I went to take care of Holly.  We got back just in time to hear the last hymn.  Kind of a crazy church service for the Selfs, but I think we rolled with the punches fairly well!  After church and after lunch, Mom got on the road.  The weekend was far too short for me, but I think we all had a really good time.

Family Time

1) Being a family of four is tough.  #adults = #kids = chaos most of the time
2) I'm thankful every day for Jason and his level of involvement with our family.  I know there are a lot of single parents or parents who have to do the majority of the parenting on their own while the other is a bystander, and I do not have that.  Jason is amazing!
3) Most of our outings involve a (hopefully) sleepy Holly and all hands on deck to keep Tyler in check.  Which means Jason and I are on defense the majority of the time and leaving said outing feeling... well, feeling exhausted!
4) We occasionally have outings that are thoroughly enjoyable for the whole family.  They're rare, but wonderful.
5) Before I go any farther, let me be clear.  I love my family.  I love my kids.  I've been pretty vocal about difficulties these past few months, but please know there are just as many (if not more) moments of smiling and commenting to Jason how happy I am with our family.  Please do not read #1-3 up there as me being ungrateful or having any regrets.  Just telling it like it is, honestly.

Recently, we had an absolutely lovely day playing outside in our backyard (the day of baseball).  Here are a few more pictures from that day.

The many faces of Holly:

I promise, she WAS having a good time!

I have a leaf.

Once Tyler got tired of playing baseball, he switched over to playing swings and slide.  Gotta love the hat hair!

I even got a moment of peace to take a Selfie with Jason.

And then Jason grabbed the camera from me to capture this moment:

Self, Family of Four.  Making it work since 2015.

Siblings

Several people have asked how Tyler acts around Holly.

1) Most of the time it's the "Tyler show" and Holly is mostly ignored.
2) If too much attention is directed towards Holly, he will start acting up to get attention.
3) He shows a general love for and interest in his little sister.

Things Tyler likes about Holly:
~When she kicks her blanket off.  This, according to him, is "hilarious"
~Giving her night-night "gentle" kisses
~Comforting her when she's crying, especially when they're in the backseat together.  "It's ok, Holly, you don't need to cry.  We're almost home."
~Telling us to turn down the music and/or tv when Holly is sleeping (though he forgets three seconds later and decides to whoop and holler!)
~Giving her toys to play with (aka, plopping them down on her!) and giving her her pacifier (can almost do this without poking out her eye).
~"New" toys (aka, his old baby toys) that are in the living room
~When Holly wears "no pants"... how silly!

We have some room to grow, but I think he's accepted her into our family.

Holly's reaction to Tyler:
1) Mostly ignores
2) Looks of terror.  Let's just say, Tyler hasn't quite mastered the "be careful around your sister" command.
3) General interest.  She loves watching him eat and listening to him/watching him on the video monitor (btw, how did we go so long without a video monitor?  love it!)  Big brother is awesome, and he is (hopefully!) showing her how to be a "big kid."

Baseball

I'm not sure how it started, but when the weather turned nice a few weeks ago, Jason decided to play baseball with Tyler.  We already had the gear, thanks to a Christmas present from Beth and Jake and a hand-me-down from my coworkers Will and D.

teaching correct form

pitching the ball

That is the face of a happy boy!

some tee action

Holly = nonplussed

Then, Jason put out bases...

heading to first

rounding second

third base in his sights

 He's a natural.

You Decide

Tummy Time Failure or Laundry Detergent Ad Campaign?

Candids

Disclaimer:  These photos are awful.  Out of focus, messy background, poor lighting.  But that's kinda the point.  Just wanted to inform you that I know these are bad photos before you proceed.

People have asked what it's like being a family of four now.  This kinda helps give you a glimpse of our daily life.  Holly was in a particularly good mood, so I wanted to get some pictures of Jason with both the kids.  This is what I got...

At first, Tyler seemed game.
Me: "Oh, let's get that blanket out of the way."

Tyler decided to help.  Daddy and Holly just kept doing what they were doing.

Tyler "helping" by throwing all the pillows in the floor.

Everyone (well, except for Holly) distracted by the tv

At this point, Tyler was totally over the "let me take your picture" thing

...and proceeded to jump on the couch, which he knows isn't allowed (that's half the fun, though, right?)

*sigh*  Guess I'll have to try again later for a family photo

Mom of Two

Every once in a while, someone will "remind" me that I have two kids now.  Trust me, I know!  Jason and I have done A LOT of divide-and-conquer with them.  But when one of us is busy (or out of the house, like Jason was one Saturday morning), it becomes really clear!

Here was a somewhat tame morning (because I'm far too busy during the not-so-tame moments to pull out my camera!) where I was able to manage being a mom of two.  Tyler sat contentedly putting together his puzzles, and Holly played on her activity mat (which is rare; she's not too keen on it, hence the bouncy chair also in the picture as a second option)

ta-dah!