All Hail Queen Charlotte!

If we lived in a kingdom, Charlotte would be our Queen. She pull's the strings, she's the head honcho, the big cheese. She pretty much determines how each particular day is gonna go and we hope that she takes it easy on us. She is a complete opposite baby than Ayden was. Ayden was SO easy going, he would pretty much only cry when he was hungry and then just hang out till it was time to eat again. Charlotte is NOT this way at all. She does not like to be put down and want's to be held ALL DAY LONG. In my arm's she is totally calm, as soon as I set her down she will scream at the top of her lungs. She is a turkey! Things actually have been getting better, in the past few day's she is naturally starting to get on a schedule. I was waiting until she was a little bit older to start her on a schedule but it seems to be working out sooner than I thought. The past 3 day's she has been on her eat, play, sleep 3 hour cycle and it's working out GREAT! She has only been waking up once a night to eat (I do feed her around 11 before I go to bed). I'm so happy to finally be on a schedule and know better what the day will look like.

I feel like I'm just getting out of a fog! Adjusting to 2 kids has been crazy! Adjusting to Charlotte has been fairly easy, adjusting to Charlotte AND Ayden not so much! I feel a little outnumbered and overwhelmed most of the time! I don't know how you people with more than one child do it! Seriously, it's crazy! Hehe, other than the craziness and my inability to think straight life is pretty good! I am SO excited for the fall season and can't wait for all the fun holiday's!

We went to Tucson about a week ago and my wonderful sister took some pictures of Charlotte for us! Charlotte was grumpy, awake, had baby dandruff, and a goopy eye but somehow my sister got some amazing pics! Here are some of my favorite's, it was so hard to choose just a few!

(And in case you were wondering, I do realize that I have another child and will share some pics and what's going on with Ayden in the next post :))

Birth Story

So I guess I had better write this down while it's still somewhat fresh in my mind! I'll try to keep it as "not gross" as a labor story can possibly be :)

Sunday morning I woke up feeling some contraction's. Throughout the day they gradually got a little bit stronger and by around 3:00 they were starting to get uncomfortable. We even had our home teacher's over, while I was having contraction's! I told Brian jokingly after they left that we were going to have to go to the hospital tonight. As the contraction's got worse I started panicking a little and started cleaning our house like crazy. By about 8:00 the contraction's were getting to the point where I'd have to stop what I was doing because of the pain. After a while of the more painful contraction's I decided we should probably be timing them, and was pretty shocked to see that they were about 2 minutes apart! STILL I was unconvinced that I was actually in labor and begged Brian to let me vacuum before I'd go to the hospital (which he did not).

When we got to the hospital, there was only one lady checking in a few people and told us to take a seat in the waiting room. The waiting room! After a several minutes she came back out and asked what we were there for and I told her I thought I was in labor and that my contractions were about 2 minutes apart. She seemed sorry for making me wait and sent me to triage. We had Ayden with us and decided to call around for someone to watch him just in case I was really in labor. Once I got set up in triage they checked me and to my surprise I was 4 cm dilated and 90% effaced! So while Brian waited in the waiting room with Ayden trying to find someone to watch him, I was in triage by myself. My contraction's all of the sudden started getting WAY worse and closer together. For some reason throughout my pregnancy I have been terrified that I would have back labor, and guess what?! I had back labor, and wouldn't wish that kind of pain on anyone! Those contraction's were about 100 times worse than with Ayden! I'm not 100% sure of times after this because I was alone and in quite a bit of pain, but I'd say around 10:00 they got me into a labor and delivery room.

As soon as I got into the labor and delivery room my contraction's were so strong and close that the nurse's frantically tried to get everything ready for the baby to come. They called for someone to give me an epidural but said that they didn't think I'd have enough time for it. So at this point I'm alone, with no epidural and just totally not ready for the baby to come! Brian and Ayden came into the labor and delivery room, right as they are about to give me my epidural. I was a total mess and I think Ayden was pretty shocked to see me that way. I tried so hard not to cry or show much pain while Ayden was in there but he knew something was not right and quietly said goodbye a few minutes later. Brian's aunt was able to come and pick him up and watch him for the night (thank you SO much Cindy!). Right after they gave me the epidural Brian came back to be with me. Once I had the epidural things slowed down quite a bit and I still had 1 cm to go for about 3-4 hours. My epidural with Ayden didn't quite work and this time it was SO weird to actually feel it. It made me super cold (like teeth chattering cold) and my back was aching but I couldn't feel the contractions anymore. I was extremely tired but couldn't sleep because I was freezing and uncomfortable.

At about 1:30 I started feeling a lot of pressure and asked the nurse to check me about 3 times in a half an hour but each time I still hadn't progressed. Finally the pressure was getting painful and the nurse moved the baby and ended up breaking my water (why they didn't break my water 3 hours ago, I'm still not sure about). My epidural had been turned down at this point, so I would be able to push (load of crap, in my opinion :)). Within a few minutes I was pushing and the baby was crowning. They had called the doctor, but it would be about 20 minutes before he could get there. So for 20 minutes I had to not push and breath through the contractions which was VERY painful and hard to do! When the doctor finally came he had just about enough time to put his gloves on before she came out in one push! Amazingly I didn't tear this time which has made recovering pretty painless (in that regard). I am SO grateful for that!

Charlotte Marie Cluff was born at 2:36 on Monday morning, weighing 8 lbs and measuring 21" long. She shares a birthday with my dad which is SO cool! She is such a good baby and is even smiling already. Ayden has been slowly warming up to her and is very sweet and soft with her, but mostly keeps his distance. I know he is gonna be a great big brother once he gets used to this "new arrangement" :)

So that's Charlotte's birth story, I hope it wasn't too gross or graphic but I figured it be a good idea to record as much as I could remember while it's still fresh in my mind!

Introducing....

Charlotte Marie Cluff

born September 20, 2010 at 2:36 AM

8 pounds, 21 inches

and stinkin adorable!

Anytime your ready.... anytime....

So I kinda of think that the last couple of weeks of pregnancy are just a big fat joke! It's like the universe just want's to throw every known sickness your way and generally anything that makes you feel like crap. Carrying a full grown baby in your stomach? oh no, that's not enough to make you want to loose your mind, let's throw on headache's, 2-3 hours of sleep every night, crippling sciatica pain, heartburn, and MANY more painful and disgusting ailment's that I won't go in to (your welcome :)) . Then to top it off a few day's ago my feet suddenly swelled to about 5 times their normal size! I hadn't really swelled much at all this pregnancy and then bam! 2 weeks left, the universe decided it wasn't gonna let me get off this time around. The picture just doesn't even do my feet and leg's justice, it is almost comical how swollen my feet are! I can hardly even walk, because my toes can't bend! It's ridiculous! I had to run to Walmart yesterday and very proudly rode in the electric wheelchair, oh yes I did! No way was I gonna waddle around that entire store! But seriously this little girl can come out anytime she likes.... anytime at all....

Just Because He's Cute

Here are some pics I took right before church today, just because he's cute :)

Nesting

So I have been MAJORLY nesting lately! And not in the productive getting my house clean and organized way (much to Brian's disappointment ) but the crafty kind of nesting. I have alway's dreamed about all the cute crafty girly things I was gonna get to make if we were having a girl and now that we are actually having one I hadn't done a thing. Finally the other day I started making some things and I can't stop! I have to remind myself that I do have another child and that ignoring him to make crafts for the new baby isn't exactly winning me any awesome mommy point's. Now that I got most of the things made that I want I'm gonna limit my crafting time to just while Ayden's in preschool :) And I guess it wouldn't hurt to NOT ignore the piling dishes and laundry.

I'm getting SO excited for this baby! I can't believe how close it's getting and I finally feel a little more ready. Although I am totally ready for this little girl to come, I'm having so much fun with just Ayden. It makes me a little sad that these are the last few weeks of just "us". And I feel a little bit guilty that very soon his little world is gonna be totally changed and he has no idea that it's even coming. But we are so excited and very ready (at least I am) for baby girl Cluff to get her little bun's on out here :)

Here are some of the crafty things I have been working on

Trying to girlify Ayden's car seat. I made a removable pad because we washed Ayden's cover so much the stuffing was a little bit lumpy.

Made a ton of flower bow's, these all attach by velcro to the different bands.

I really wanna do some more off these, because I don't think there is anything cuter than a baby with ruffle's on their butt! :)

Some burp cloth's

Worst first day of school in the history of the world!!!

So I have alway's imagined what my child's first day of school would be like. You know, waving goodbye as the bus drives away holding back tears. Yeah, SO not what happened! Now I have been having a huge reservations about the bus. All the people who evaluated Ayden kinda of pushed the bus, especially with the baby coming. It is a special bus that has seat belts and is supposed to pick him up right outside our apartment (Brian and I had a little laugh last night realizing that our kid would be riding the short bus :) But hey, no shame in that!). I finally decided that it would be a good thing and that if I'm gonna have him ride it I should start the first day of school, so we aren't changing things on him. So I wake Ayden up this morning for his very first day of school, make him a big yummy breakfast and head outside to wait for the bus. We waited, and we waited, and then we waited some more! Finally I went back upstairs to call transportation and see what the heck was taking so long. I call and they call the bus driver who said he already stopped by at 7:50. He had just stopped by the front of the apartment complex instead of coming around to us like they told us he would! Now it's 8:20, school started at 8:00 and we had been waiting outside since 7:35! I asked the lady on the phone where I was supposed to pick him up and she said she didn't know and that I should just wait at the front of the apartment and then talk to the bus driver about where the official pick-up would be. So, I run Ayden over to school (without a shower, or makeup, and extremely sweaty from waiting outside for an hour) and drop him off late, ON HIS FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! I felt terrible having things start off so badly.

After about an hour and a half at home I get in the car and drive to the front of the apartment building. I wait out front for what seem's like forever (it kind of was, 25 minutes) and decide to go back to the car and get my phone to call the transportation people once again. As I'm about to call them I get an incoming call, it's from the school! The teacher saw me drop Ayden off and I guess thought that I was gonna pick him up so they didn't put him on the bus! Holy freakin cow! So now it's 25 minutes after school has ended and I rush to pick him up. Okay, so now I'm feeling like an AWFUL mom thinking of him sitting alone in the office waiting for me on his first day of school. I go in and Ayden is super excited to see me and the office lady couldn't have been nicer. She said things like this happen on the first few day's of school before things get straightened out (which I'm not really sure I believe).

What a CRAZY first day we had, definitely NOT what I imagined it would be like! But Ayden seemed to have had fun and I'm excited for him to continue going (hopefully without so many problems)! He was SO tired on the way home and passed out, SO cute! :)