prayer for tonight

dear Lord,
thank you for all of your blessings...please let tonight be a peaceful night, where brynna doesn't feel the need to stay up from 345-530 a.m. although it was nice to stand on the lanai and look at the almost full moon and feel the cool air, i don't really want to do that again tonight. if she does decide, though, that she wants to be up, please let me have patience and endurance to stay up with her without getting all futless. thank you Lord, amen.

water sucks

money worries suck.

i know that it'll all work itself out in the end, and that times like these are what we have a savings for, but it still sucks.

thank goodness we have home insurance, though, and hopefully that will ease some of the financial pain.

seems like the extent of our water issues seems to grow and grow...guess that's usually how it goes when something like this happens. we still have yet to pinpoint the exact cause of the water damage...could be the tub, could be the pipes behind the walls, could be the water heater, could be the washer. could even be upstairs or the main pipe, things not even associated with our unit. all i know is that the leak seems to be getting worse, and when the service masters guys came today, his worry is about how far the water damage extends (like possibly to caleb's bedroom wall).

guess we'll be living at the colmenaressss' for a while, which will be interesting. luckily brynna still fits in her bassinet, and caleb has a playpen there that he can sleep in. luckily they have two bedrooms available too, so my mom doesn't have to share a room with me and dave...lol.

it's been a little over a month since brynna was born...

and my stomach looks horrible. lol.

caleb likes to touch the squishy-ness and poke my belly button, which for some reason looks really black to me.

my pits are still black too.

overall, though, i don't feel quite as haggard as i did after caleb. i feel like i'm bouncing back okay, and i try to make a point every day to at least put on an outfit and makeup...after caleb, i don't think i put makeup on until i went back to work.

i'm starting to realize that my desire to get back to pre-caleb size may not be realistic...especially if i don't do anything about it...hehe. i need some cardio, but my lazy butt hasn't been motivated to do anything yet. i'm hoping rocking and bouncing brynna helps at least a little...

i love it that it's 415 a.m. and brynna's eyes are wide open...

i guess i should just be thankful that my mom fed her and put her to bed so dave and i could get some sleep early in the night, then her 1200 feeding went smoothly and she went right back to sleep. she woke up again around 2ish but only drank 2 before falling asleep...then woke up at 345, drank some milk, pooped a little, and now she wants to be up.

tv at this time sucks too...i don't wanna watch paid programs...lol.

transitions

caleb is screaming right now...we altered his crib so that it's like a daybed and we put up the baby gate in the doorway. it's been about 18 minutes so far...at least now he's stopping in between screaming...think he's getting tired. for the first ten minutes i tried putting him back in bed each time he came out, supernanny style, but basically he was at my heels back to the door so i just came out and we decided to let him cry it out. he was tired and cranky prior to us trying this, so maybe that will tire him out more quickly. poor guy...this is not as bad as the first time we had him cry it out, though...that time i was not yet a hardened mommy who could withstand the crying. lol.

caleb's newest funnies...

he sees me taking pantiliners and putting them on...today he grabbed a pantiliner and was putting it on his crotch area...

he also sees me putting make up on so will come and join me...and now he grabs the makeup brush and puts makeup on too...of course, dave doesn't love this...

this evening we didn't understand why he was making a "hail hitler" motion with his arm...turns out he was holding a sock between his ear and his shoulder...

he bit my mom's hand for some reason, the top part of the hand, so as my mom was trying to bite him back, he thought she was playing and started trying to bite her face...he thought it was so funny and so did we...

he never ceases to amaze us with his observations and copying what he sees...

trying to figure out how we're going to transition caleb to a bed. tried to get him to sleep in gramma's bed tonight but the two times i left the room, he threw a fit and ran to the door. if i stayed in there, he stayed contentedly in the bed and looked around and stayed in a lying down position. my mom and dave's idea is that we're going to have to do the supernanny thing and keep bringing him back to the bed when he gets out. i'm wondering if he'd be any better in a toddler bed...doubt it. any suggestions on how to do it for those of you who have had to?

brynna definitely is not as nutts as caleb, but she's got her crying spells too. she also has the same gassiness as him...and the same problem with trying to inhale her milk and then gulping too fast and too much air so that the gas is even worse. she still sleeps a lot...i'm sure caleb did too, but looking back at his pictures, it seemed like he was more awake and alert at one month. she has periods of being awake, but still majority of the day is sleeping. i guess that's how it is...maybe i just forgot caleb sleeping a lot cuz all i remember is him getting nutts.

today i wanted to venture out to some stores, but by the time i was ready to go i was catching a down and brynna was napping so instead we all (me, brynna and dave) took a nap together. that was needed. caleb went with his colmenares grandparents to the park, the mall, and their house.

last night brynna was pretty good except for her first night feeding where she cried and seemed to be having gas pains. after an hour we finally gave her another 2 oz which she ate, then settled down and went to sleep. her 2 am feeding was kind of long and she wouldn't let me put her down...after more than an hour of trying to put her down i woke dave up cuz my back was getting way too sore. we finally ended up feeding her another 2 oz then too and she went back to sleep.

gonna bocha and try to get in some sleep before brynna wakes up for her next feeding...what usually happens is dave and i fall asleep for like 1/2 an hour and then it's super hard to get up for the feeding...that's when the "we're tired and grouchy as hell so we're going to get pissed off at each other and snap" session usually occurs. lol. goodnight...

1 month and 15 months

brynna and caleb had well-baby checkups today...i was a little bit apprehensive about how it would be since caleb screams like a mofo at the sight of the doctor...

we all went in (the two kids, me and my mom) and the nurse started with brynna. at one month she's 9 lbs 5 oz and 21.5 inches. gonna take her to get an ultrasound on her hip next week because when she was born doctor noticed a click in her hip...hasn't felt it since, but just wants to double check it. brynna did good...didn't cry much at all...of course, she's oblivious at this age anyways...the most she screamed was cuz she was clutching and pulling on her own hair...she does that quite often...i'm worried she's going to get a bald spot where she yanks!

caleb's turn...at 15 months he's 23 lbs 2 oz and 30.25 inches. his weight and height have kind of eased up...less than 50th percentile for both now. he screamed and screamed throughout the appointment, but at least when doctor asked him to put the little thing in the bottle and stack the blocks, he stopped and was able to do it. and he gave doctor a smile before we left, so that's good.

my poor kids are both pinheads...brynna is in the 10th-25th percentile, caleb is 25th. oh well. i'm just hoping that they both have foreheads and not fiveheads like me. lol.

i dunno if it was cuz caleb was screaming bloody murder or what, but doctor said his dingding is fine. he didn't have to break skin or anything, so i was relieved. my dad said that my brother's one was all stuck when he was like ten years old and the doctor had to slit it again...yuck. that's gotta be traumatic.

i'm still more intimidated by cleaning the girl part than i am about cleaning caleb's part. i dunno what it is. i think it's because hers one is "inside" while his is all "outside." seems like the girl part is more prone to infection or whatever. it's just weird.

i think i experienced my first migraine last night...brought on by exhaustion and heat. it was like a pulsating pain radiating from my temple to the back of my head on the right side only. my vision in my right eye was blurry and i felt sticky and hot and like i was going to pass out. i had to wake dave up to grab brynna so i could drink some water and lie down. i told dave i thought i had an aneurysm or something cuz it was the weirdest, most intense "headache" i ever felt before. this morning there were remnants of the pain, but nowhere near how it was last night. nutts.

brynna's been sleeping on her tummy. she doesn't have the startle thing like caleb did, but she just sleeps more soundly on her tummy. i remember agonizing and fretting over putting caleb on his stomach...with brynna, i'm still anxious, but nowhere near as anxious as i was with caleb. second time around is so much more relaxed.

i thought brynna might fit in the bassinet until 3 months, but now i'm not so sure. though she's much slimmer than caleb, she's pretty much just as long and i'm not sure she'll be comfortable in there for that long. that means we have to decide if we're getting caleb a toddler bed or a regular twin size bed. i'm leaning toward toddler, just because i can't imagine his little self (well, relatively little in comparison with the bed) in such a big space. we'll see. we saw a trundle bed at room stores but i'm not wholly sold on that one either.

okay, almost 930...dang. i gotta get to sleep!!!

dave going back to work is scary to me...not the daytime when he's actually at work cuz my mom's home with me anyways, but the nighttime cuz i know i have to step it up and do more of the feedings and stuff since he has to get sleep. i'm imagining a night light last night, where brynna ate at 815, went to sleep, ate at 1050, slept for a little while, ate at 1220, then didn't want to go to sleep again until after her 340 feeding when she went to sleep on my chest. garsh. dave slept through most of it but toward the end i had to get him up so i could lay down and sleep a little bit.

it's a trip, though, that on thursday she'll be a month old already! i'm sure the months after that will fly by and next thing we know, we'll be celebrating her 1st birthday and wondering how we got through the year! lol.

caleb has another tooth coming in...nutts. tooth explosion in his mouth recently. he's also exerting more independence, wanting to help feed himself, walking us to the fridge to get his milk when he's thirsty, wanting to help brush his own teeth.

well, we'll see how this week goes. at least friday's a holiday so that's nice...

break's almost over and on monday dave goes back to work so we'll have to figure out the sleeping schedule. he said with caleb he'd do the first night feeding and the one in the morning at 5 or 6 and i'd take all the ones in between. if that's true, props to me for being able to handle...lol. right now brynna's still waking up every 2 hours (or less!) to eat. by the time you change her, feed her, burp her, and get her back down, that's not a lot of sleep time left for you before she's up again. oh well. hopefully she figures out how to sleep a little bit longer soon. i'm just thankful she hasn't done the fit throwing behavior that caleb had already started at this point...knock on wood it stays this way.

in the week of break, brynna's noticeably grown...her onesie is tigher, she feels heavier when i lift her up from the bassinet, her newborn diaper is getting snug, and when i had her on my chest for a nap yesterday i had to put her down on the bed cuz my back was sore from her weight. she's also having more periods of alertness and curiosity. her neck is getting stronger so though she's still a bobblehead, it doesn't feel quite so flimsy when you're carrying her.

as for the cockroach fiasco...for two nights in a row (the night i wrote about already and the next night) we killed two big fat ugly cockroaches. since then, though, none. i put out some of those roach bait things but i dunno if that's what helped. i sure as heck hope we're done with that problem.

i really can't imagine changing doodoo diapers for the next four years. caleb's doods are repulsive and massive and i can't imagine them getting even yuckier as he grows.

gramma comes back today so i'm sure caleb will be stoked. he bonded with grandpa these past few days and will go with his colmenares grandparents today for a bit. i never had my real grandparents to bond with (the only living one i saw was my paternal gramma and she didn't speak too much english and passed away when i was in 5th grade) so it's nice to see caleb able to have a relationship with all 4 of his grandparents. he gets showered with attention by them, which is good with brynna here.

cockroach yuckies

wth?? i've only once before found a big fat ugly flying b-52 cockroach in our house...last night, we found TWO. dave killed one in the kitchen when he went to make brynna's milk. later, at her 1200 feeding, when she didn't want to go back down, we hear a rustling sound by my night table, then we see a freakin' cockroach crawl from the table to the wall and behind our bed. grrrreat...cuz i ain't going to sleep with no fat cockroach crawling by my bed...luckily the big guy comes out again and i whack him several times with a magazine...he's on his back, but i should have known better because very soon he's crawling again and it takes several major whacks by dave to put him down. gross. for some reason, cockroaches in the house give me the hibby-jibbies. i can easily kill um in my classroom, but when i see one in the house it freaks me out. of course, after this episode all i could think of was when the next sucker would come out...was he crawling over everything in the kitchen...was there a cockroach in caleb's room, crawling in his crib???? yuck. i'm hoping that those were freak cockroaches that came in either cuz of the rain or cuz of the guys drilling and spraying outside for termites earlier in the day.

holy smokes, super tired...and this pouring rain is nutts.

last night actually wasn't too bad...caleb slept through the night until about 4 am when he started screaming. this time i went in there to sleep with him...and let me tell you, sleeping with him on the bed with you does not make for restful sleep. that guy moves around sooooo much. for anyone who has had to share a bed with me, you know that i sleep on my back, in one place, for pretty much the whole night. caleb, on the other hand, moves around, bangs on you, kicks you, wiggles all around...garsh. and since we're on a mini-me twin size bed, i felt every movement he made. he finally decided he was done with bed at around 630 and i heard brynna crying too so i figured it was time to get up. luckily dave let me sleep until 800 with brynna and took caleb out into the living room. i thought that would be good to sustain me throughout the day, but i'm feeling a major down right now! dave got to take an hour and a half nap this afternoon, so looks like he'll be able to get up for the early night feedings...hehe.

took caleb and brynna to the park again today. i put brynna in the carrier and we walked a little bit up kaahumanu while caleb and dave played at the park. dude, next time we're not going at 9:30 am while the sun is blaring down on us. we remembered to take caleb's ball so he had fun playing with the ball and going up and down the stairs on the jungle gym. guess me and my mom will have to take him to the park when dave goes back to school.

going to tash's house for her 16th birthday...surprise dinner. that's nutts...we started together when she was 8...craziness. we're going to leave brynna home with dave's mom and we'll take caleb with us. hopefully brynna will be good with her gramma. she doesn't eat good...she dribbles a lot and makes like she's choking or there's too much milk flowing into her mouth. it's so weird cuz caleb is such a good eater...lol.

anyways, caleb's really pulling on my leg cuz he wants to come up so i gotta stop typing...

since my mom went home, and i feel sorry for caleb cuz he's all by himself in the other bedroom, i decided to leave a nightlight on in there for him. BIG mistake. the first night he got up super early in the morning and began to scream his head off realizing that he was in there all alone. last night he got up at 10 pm and started screaming his head off. dave went in there to lie down with him but when he tried to put caleb back in the crib, the screaming started again. finally he just put caleb on the bed with him...and caleb proceeded to poke at his ears, nose, body (and laugh), lie down and kick his feet against the wall (poor neighbors), and move all around the bed. dave slept in there with him until brynna's 4 am feeding, when i went in there and told him it was time to trade places and i went to sleep with caleb until he woke up at 630.

tonight, i'm turning that dang nightlight out in hopes that our trickery will lead caleb to believe that gramma is sleeping in there with him. we'll see how that goes.

needless to say, dave and i didn't get good sleeps last night, and i'm sure it will all catch up with us tonight and tomorrow. grrreat. it's almost 9 pm now so we're gonna try to get to sleep early...hoping for a good night tonight!!!

last night i had flashbacks of caleb...

brynna got up around 1130 to drink milk...and didn't want to be put down again after that. at 105 she drank some more...and still didn't want to be put down. i'm not sure if she was having sore stomach or just wanted to be held or what. she'd fall asleep, then as soon as i tried to lay down, with her in my arms, she'd get up and start wailing. when dave would take her, she'd cry uncontrollably and i couldn't sleep anyway so i would get back up and grab her again.

i think i just gotta get it in my head that she likes to be up during that time...usually it's been about 2ish that she wants to be up and held...so we'll have to try to get in some good sleep time early, then when she wants to pull her night owl habits, at least i have some sleep in me. and i'm going to turn on the tv cuz that helped me stay awake last night.

caleb woke up at the crack of dawn this morning...and usually he'll yell a bit and then be quiet, but this time, because he was in his room by himself i think, he was screaming bloody murder until i got up and went into the room with him. i tried to get him to sleep with me on the bed, but he was up. then he wanted to go out of the room...so we went to the living room, where i fell asleep off and on on the couch. luckily, dave came out of the room at just the right moment because caleb was climbing from the couch to his eating chair and it could have been really bad if he fell...

took caleb to pearlridge while dave stayed home with brynna. the lahainaluna band was going to be playing at 11 so i wanted to go see. caleb is so cute...he watched, bopped his head, and clapped when the song was pau. he was a really good boy while we were there...the hardest part was when i had the brilliant idea to go shopping at longs and since he was in the stroller, i had to carry a basket, and since diapers were on sale and i had coupons, i picked up three packs, plus the other stuff on my list. needless to say, trying to carry the basket and push caleb's stroller was not such a smart idea. oh well. i only almost banged one guy and he was very forgiving.

it's 9:21 right now and brynna's eyes are wide awake...so hopefully she'll stay up for a little bit more, then crash hard. she drank her 3 ounces at 830...maybe she'll eat again and then go sleep for a long time...that would be nice...not probable, but we can hope...lol.

brynna has decided that she doesn't know how to eat today...she keeps dribbling milk all down her chin and sucking then spitting it out. she's slept most of the day so i'm looking forward to a long night. yesterday she ate choke, today not so much. weird. i definitely feel like we're getting more sleep with brynna than we did with caleb, but i swear i'm still tired all the time and now i'm starting to get headaches...i think it's cuz of clenching my jaw during sleep and the tiredness combined. i can't even imagine how we made it through the day with caleb and his craziness. brynna's approaching her third week, and i think that's when caleb's ridiculosity started, so i'm just waiting to see what will happen with her...

caleb is the sweetest big brother. i was so worried that he would be jealous, weirded out, start regressing, give us all kinds of troubles once brynna came home. luckily for us, there are three of us to shower him with attention, and his colmenares grandparents have been showering him with attention too. he's still his tempermental and strong-willed self, but he has never shown any aggression toward brynna. he has learned to kiss (with a big "muah" sound) and will go over and kiss her head, her cheek, her arm, her blanket, whatever. he likes to touch her, and though his touches are often rough and he has to be reminded to be gentle, you know it's not a malicious roughness. when we go to change her diaper, he'll often follow along and try to help by passing us diapers, alcohol swabs (which we no longer need, but he doesn't get that yet), and whatever else. he'll throw her diaper away sometimes and just watch as we change her. we're so blessed to have a son like him!

my mom went home to maui for a week...so we'll see how solo parenting goes...lol. i think the one thing that's definitely going to happen is caleb's going to hear more raised voices cuz when my mom's here we keep the yelling to a minimum...hehe. nah, we better be on our best behavior before caleb starts to think that raised voices is the way to talk. he already thinks that shrieking is the way to get what he wants so we better not add to that communication method!

right now brynna and caleb are both passed out...caleb is passed out on his eating chair cuz he never like take his afternoon nap, and brynna is doing her usual sleep choke in the day routine.

brynna's still eating 2 oz every 2 hours or so...seems like a lot so we'll see what doctor says when we take her in tomorrow. i'm sure she's gained weight since we left the hospital since i'm not subjecting her to the torture of starvation via the chichi. she's a much messier eater than caleb was/is...she dribbles lots of milk out of her mouth when she's eating whereas caleb's big mouth and big appetite savored every last drop.

i swear caleb has grown several inches and gained several pounds in the time brynna's been here. when we came home from the hospital both dave and i were surprised at what a big boy he is...must just be the contrast from our little one! lifting him and carrying him for any length of time is getting tough, though. we have his 15 month appt on march 25 so i look forward to see his measurements...

i don't look forward to his screams while we're there, though. once again, even though we really did try to make sure we did a good job with pulling back on the skin, his dingding skin is stuck. my mom says we should figure it out and pull it back here before doctor does it and traumatizes him some more...but i just can't. i try to get at it when i bocha him, but he's getting smart and will not let me get to it too good. i don't know if i can do it...when i watch doctor do it i just cringe at caleb's shriek.

we gotta take caleb to the eye doctor next week. doctor recommended we take him to check out his cross-eyed look even though he doesn't think it's anything major and that it's just cuz we're asian and don't have a tall nose bridge to help our eyes straighten out. anyways, when i called to make an appointment i could hear a kid screaming in the background and i told the receptionist that that's going to be my son when he comes in. she laughed and said that's normal for them...good thing, cuz i know caleb's going to have issues in there...

brynna, like caleb did, sometimes tugs on her hair and then lets out a shriek....the curse of having so much hair! brynna's legs are a lot skinnier than caleb's were, but today for the first time i noticed her calf muscle...lol...she's gonna have popeye legs like dave cuz i don't have any calf muscle at all...at least hopefully that means she won't have the daikon leg cankles like me...

we took caleb to fisher today and wondered how he'd do since i knew it would take me some time to find the things i needed to get. he was SO good...i was amazed. and we only had to bus' out his snacks toward the end.

got caleb a basketball hoop...the little tikes kine...and he's loving it. i guess he really is registering what he sees on tv cuz he definitely can imitate a jump shot...

the past two nights have been LONG. brynna doesn't cry as uncontrollably as caleb, yet, but she's definitely getting louder and crying more. she mainly just cries when she's waking up and wants to eat...but more often now she's crying to be held, then will fall asleep once you hold her, then wake up when she's put down.

because she's only being fed formula, i knew that she'd probably have issues with constipation. yesterday (or was it the day before??) she was straining to make doodoo and when i opened her diaper i realized it was because she was making hard doodoo. i helped her to get it out by pulling on it as she was making and eventually, after a kind of impressively long turd from such a little girl, the doodoo consistency became softer. later on she made more and it was all soft.

last night i knew she'd have problems because she hadn't made doods all day. she seemed to be in so much pain at times and only two little small turds came out. she hasn't made doods yet today, but i'm hoping it comes before the night begins.

just gave her her first real bath since her piko stump fell off. i'm trying to make sure her hair gets combed down nicely, but right after washing and drying, it definitely shows that it has the potential to do what caleb's did...poof upwards!! uhoh...oh well...at least we can put some headbands or ponytails on her!

i think i smell doods...let's hope it's soft ones!

big boy doodoo

wow. everybody told me about how stink doodoos get the older the child gets...we're getting a taste of that with caleb now. i never really minded the doodoo smell too much...until now. now that he's eating regular table food more and more, his doods stinks majorly. his futs stink too. i guess that's how i know he's getting to be a big boy. it's especially gross when he's made a big doods, we clean him and change his diaper, and then remnants of smell still remain and we have to go back and rewipe his butt cuz obviously we must have missed something if we can still smell it. i can just imagine the doodoo tracks on his bebs as he gets older.

teeth and sleep

holy smokes...i thought that caleb was suffering from two teeth (molars) coming in. nope! when we looked today, he has three coming in on the top and one coming in on the bottom. nutts. no wonder he's been in so much pain.

brynna was awesome last night...dave, not so much...lol. she slept for her two hour stretches, woke up to eat, and did not do her long stretch of wakefulness until 5 a.m. dave, on the other hand, must have had all his tiredness catch up to him last night because he was completely incoherent and grouchy during his one waking...and passed out like crazy for the rest of the time. well, i guess i give him a pass cuz he's been waking up with me and still going to school this past week. i was wondering when it would catch up to him.

our netflix movie is 500 days of summer...and though i thought it would be really stupid, it's actually pretty good. i'm sure everyone has had a "summer" in their lives. seeing reid from criminal minds in a different role is kind of funny, and it's even more funny that he can't change his speech pattern.

anyways, hoping to have some visitors today...we'll see. gotta go bank, post office, and we're having $5 deals from pizza hut for lunch.

we've been wondering why caleb's been scratching at his head...
now i know why!!! his first molars are coming in (on the top) and the wonderful world of google tells me that it's common for kids to scratch at the back of their head to try to ease teething discomfort. poor guy...when he woke up from his afternoon nap he was in pain...inconsolable...and then my mom said she saw the teeth and when i looked at it...yep, painful!!! gave him some tylenol and he's much better now. no wonder he hasn't wanted us to brush his teeth lately...he's usually really good about it but he's been refusing us so hopefully it's just because of the teeth coming in. wow..that's 10 teeth for him now! what a big boy!

looking back at older posts about my breastfeeding woes, i'm actually surprised i stuck it out so long...lol, yea not really...the last time. i'm not breastfeeding at all this time...tried it in the hospital, eased up when the nips started getting blisters, and then when i came home i pretty much gave it up. so instead of sticking it out for a few weeks, like with caleb, i stuck it out for a few days. i'm trying to pump some out, and though my chichis feel a little bit fuller, the pumping yields about 10 ml each time. what that means, then, is that it will take about 6 pump sessions to get 2 oz, which is what brynna's drinking right now. pretty pathetic. i'm sure most ladies drip out more than i can pump out...garsh.

so physically, breasts are not cooperating again. mentally and emotionally, though, i'm a LOT better than with caleb. i'm not stressed about it, really, and i don't feel those intense feelings of disappointment and discouragement. if can, can, if no can, no can. i do still sometimes wonder how it's going to affect brynna later on...like, will she get colds more often, is she missing some kind of only-found-in-breast-milk nutrient, etc. i try not to dwell on those negative thoughts, though...

brynna is confused right now...she sleeps like a champ during the day...then is awake like a champ at night! last night, after her 12:50 feeding, she did not want to go back to sleep. she'd cruise in her bassinet for a little while, just enough time for me to get back into bed, comfy, and drowsy, and then she'd start fussing for some attention. dave got up and stayed up with her for about an hour while i slept...then i was up again with her until about 430. the thing with her is that she wants to be held...luckily, that soothes her...not like with caleb, who would persist with screaming his head off no matter what. i'm still waiting for the night she starts doing that...when nothing will soothe her and i start going out of my mind. i'm wondering if she'll be colicky like caleb was...and if she is, will it be easier to take this time around, or will it still be a hellish situation...

caleb is still very cute with her...he likes to snuggle his head against her and give her kisses...but he's a bit rough so his idea of "patting" her head is more like a little head slap. and "pointing" at her actually is a kinda rough "poke". we have to be super vigilant of him with her, but so far, so good.

everyone said the second birth is faster and easier than the first...everyone was right...thank God!

wednesday night i started feeling weird...not pain, but just different. i dunno how to explain it.

thursday morning a little before 6 a.m. i felt like i had to doodoo, and when i finished there was a blob of blood in the toilet too. we called doctor, he said i might as well head in to queens so we didn't get stuck in traffic.

before we left, i doodoo'd again...thought the stomach pains were coming from the doodoos...

as we drove to queens i started to feel more regular contractions...about every four or five minutes. they weren't super painful yet, but i knew that it was heading in that direction. the drive to queens wasn't too long, and because i was trying to find dave a sub as he drove, i was distracted enough for the contractions not to bother me too much.

luckily when we got to queens the valet was already open so we valet'd the van and went up to the tenth floor. at this point, walking was still all good and my contractions were still about four minutes apart. we got up to the tenth floor, checked in with the nurse, and proceeded to the labor and delivery room to change and get settled. in the meantime, dave is trying to make sure everything is good with his sub and lesson plans and whatever. i make doodoo yet again and proceed to put the gown on backwards, which the nurse kindly lets me know (frick, i can't ever remember if the open is in the front or the back!).

i get all hooked up to the monitors for contractions and baby's heartbeat...nurse tries to hook up my iv in my arm first, and is digging around in my arm for a while because she says my vein keeps "jumping". finally she gives up on that idea and sticks it in my right hand instead. they hydrate me, the whoosh of cold liquid radiates through my arm, and the anesthesiologist comes in to give me my epidural. now, the first time around, the anesthesiologist was a miracle worker...this guy was okay, but definitely not as good as the one i had the first time. first of all, he takes forever...then, the pain doesn't fully disappear...somehow my left side is fully numb, but i can feel a sharp pressure in my right pelvic area and lower back. that sucks, but oh well cuz there's no time to fix it.

doctor feels around in there, breaks my water bag, and informs us that whenever we're ready, we can start pushing. seriously, i look at the clock and it says 8:00 a.m. we start pushing, go through 9 rounds of counting, and out pops brynna. look at the clock again, it's 8:15 a.m. NUTTS. caleb took a good two hours of pushing to come out!

with caleb, we had everyone and their mother in the room...i swear there were two doctors (mine and one from queens), one or two nurses, dave, my mom, dave's mom, leish, and pua...and when caleb was out, i swear even more nurses seemed to be in there.

with brynna, there was dave, doctor, nurse, me. it was weird that it was so quiet and lonely in there!

after the delivery, doctor stitched me up (didn't take nearly as long as after caleb!), and then after about an hour they transferred me to the other side. we were luckily given the corner room, which i guess is the biggest room on the floor. by about 11 a.m. i was able to shishi on my own. the next day i'd doodoo on my own. may not seem like much, but with caleb, it was torturous and painful and i couldn't even get out of bed on my own for a few days it seemed. this time, not a problem once the epidural wore off. last time, i had a slew of things to do down there...ice packs, witch hazel pads, medication to ward off infection. this time, perineum water shooting bottle and that's about it. i asked for hemrhoid cream (still can't spell that word) but haven't had to use it. last time i had to sit on that inflatable doughnut for a while cuz it was so sore down there...this time, no need at all!!! last time, motrins were prescribed for pain...this time, none!!

all i know is i've been giving lots of thanks to God for making this delivery easier, less painful, less traumatic. after the experience with caleb, i was a little bit scared about going through it all again...thankfully it's been a million times easier.