BrownTown: March 2013

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Lots of grandma time.....

Just wanted to give a shout out to my mom and to Hatty for giving up so much of their time to come and spoil us this past month. Turns out life is pretty great when you aren't home alone all the time and when Samantha has a constant companion. It was so neat to see how even though we only get to see these great women a couple times a year, Samantha can still have a good relationship with them. She kept them busy at the park, story time, and playing endless hours with her sesame guys.

Grandma Colleen, aka m&m briber

Grandma Hatty, aka i-pad briber

First twiner outfits compliments of grandma colleen

We miss you like crazy. Samantha still walks by the spare bedroom and says, "grandma?"

Hair Fairy.....

Dearest Hair Fairy, can you please not visit Samantha every night? Or at least leave some detangler at the bedside to assist with hair styling in the morning.

One of those perfect moments.....

This is Samantha with her guys. She got them for Christmas and had I known that I could spend 15 bucks and change her life, I would have purchased them a long time ago. She carries them everywhere. Upstairs, downstairs, outside, on walks, in the car, in the bath. Lately, her favorite thing to do is line them up in the windowsills and look outside. Today she was having them fall off and having Ernie crawl to save them.

In the midst of this playing, I was laying on the floor in her bedroom watching her. At one point she walked over to me and layed down on my chest and gave me a huge hug. She then looked at me and smiled and gave me a kiss. It almost made me cry. Right after the kiss, right as I am thinking she is the best thing ever, she says, "Show?" Turns out she has already learned to butter me up before asking for something she wants.
Needless to say, it was really hard to say no.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

And then there were 2.....

How is it that an entire month has gone by and I have yet to blog about the most recent addition to our family? Since this is a journal of sorts, here's what went down:

We went in to be induced on February 1st about 12:30. We were told that they had just suddenly gotten busy so it would be a while. Chris and I settled in to watch some White Collar. After about 1 1/2 hours I was starting to wonder if they had forgotten about us so I pushed the call light. They assured me they had not and around 2 they came into start my IV and Pitocin. I was starting off at 3 cm. Around 5:30 I sent Chris out to get some dinner and the OB came in and decided to break my water. I was 5 cm then. I got my epidural soon after and set in for the wait. At one point I started to feel really light headed and they checked my blood pressure and it had bottomed out. The nurse checked me and said, "oh, the head is about to come out- don't push". She left and got the OB who was in delivering another baby so we waited about 10 minutes. She came in and after two sets of pushes out she came around 9:30 pm. When I first saw her the cord was around her neck and she was pretty blue. After a couple seconds she pinked up nicely. Chris was excited that he was the one to announce it was a girl. She weighed in at 8 pounds even. I pack em in for sure.

Overall, it was a completely different experience than Samantha's. Less people in the room since it wasn't a teaching hospital, faster, much less pushing. What I mean to say- it was awesome.

We decided to name her Madilynn Claire Brown. We chose that spelling because I didn't want people always wondering if it was pronounced Mad-e-line or Mad-i-lynn. Instead, people will just always spell it wrong like mine!

Here she is:

One of the best moments thus far as a mother was seeing Samantha's reaction to Madilynn for the first time. She instantly wanted to hold her and hug her (at least for 5 seconds!)

By her 2 week appointment she was already up to 8 pounds 12 ounces- nursing is also going about 1 million times better than the first time around. Since spending the first month of her life being cuddled because their were so many extra grandmas and people around she is having a hard time adjusting to her crib. It really is hard to put her down though, she's just so darn sweet and cute. Doesn't cry unless she has pooped (this girl really HATES farting and pooping) or she is hungry. Welcome to the family Madilynn, hope you like us as much as we like you.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Lets give them something to talk about.....

Today was a big day. I went to church after missing the last 5 weeks since Madilynn was born. So what's so big about that you ask? I did it all by myself and on the amount of sleep a person with a newborn gets. I thought I was prepared. A sling to carry Madilynn in, snacks and distractions for Samantha, all my lesson material. We were even on time. We had a bench seat. I got this I thought.

All it took was one michevious smile from Sam as she took off running across the congregation in sacrament meeting to know I will never be that prepared. There were multiple times when i was carrying both of them down the hall. One sleeping, one throwing a tantrum. I was hoping I had chosen a dress in which my sweat was not as visible as i felt it probably was.

Sam was so excited to go to nursery, but you'd never know it by the way she was blood curdling screaming at the gate after I dropped her off. People were laughing, I wanted to cry.

All during my YW lesson I felt disorganized and disheveled because my mind was wondering when they would show up at the door with her or when Madilynn would bust out into tears because she hadn't eaten much at her last feeding.

I haven't ever run a marothon, but I'd venture to say that today I ran an emotional marothon. I'll need brownies tonight, lots and lots of brownies.