Bad mom alert.

Now I know I'm not actually a "bad mom" because I think that I am actually doing a pretty good job with my two kiddos.  But I did however have a bad mom moment, or hours, basically a day.  Lets start at the beginning.

Chad and I went out of town for the weekend which of course meant the kids had to sleep with us because they didn't have their familiar beds to sleep in.  So as you can probably imagine no one slept well, especially Carson, and since I was assigned Carson because Chad refuses to lactate I didn't sleep well either.  I'm sure Chad didn't sleep much better, but if he wants sympathy he can get his own blog, this one's about me.  All of this was a round about way of saying I am tired.  I was hopeful that being home in his own crib would make Carson snap right back into sleeping through the night, I was so wrong.  So basically this is all just a really long way of saying I was the MOST tired person in the house and most likely the world.  Now to the point.

This morning Brisa was extra cranky and clingy and whiny and all around unpleasant.  At one point She was refusing to lay down and let me change her diaper and I was too tired to chase her so I started pulling out all my foolproof tricks.  I held out my empty fist and told her I had dirt and she wouldn't come. So I pulled out the big guns and told her that she couldn't watch Daniel Tiger unless she laid down, this is foolproof, it has never ever not worked.  Unfortunately she was too upset to comply so I had to follow through and it was like a punishment for us both.  So the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon I had to keep telling her she couldn't watch Daniel Tiger, or Curious George, or Elmo.  She doesn't usually ask to watch that much TV, but I guess knowing that she couldn't made her want to watch it even more.  Also during this time she was glued to my lap.  everywhere I went, there she was.  She was literally climbing all over me all day, I thought I was suffocating.  Eventually I was so done being screamed at by my toddler that I started tuning her out, luckily my dad is one of the best grandpas ever and he took her and calmed her down and not 5 minutes later he said that she was warm and that I should take her temperature.  102.5.  Yep that's right folks, I punished a sick 2 year old that was just trying to get some snuggles.

So I felt VERY guilty. To make it up to her I was extra nice and loving and I let her have unlimited play time on my phone.  As I was getting her medicine ready I was rubbing her head telling her that she was going to feel better really soon.  She looked at me, made a sad face and said "I can't, I can't feel better!  I don't want to."  So basically she loves all the attention being sick gets her and she may never feel better again.

 

This was right after I took her temperature.  She was acting like she was suddenly on her death bed.  She was not like this all day, I would have noticed something was up.  I love how dramatic she is.  It kills me.  P.S. after I took this she immediately asked to see it and insisted I take another, but that one was blurry.  I have a little diva on my hands.

The little mommy.

Brisa is so in love with her baby brother.  We have been extremely blessed because she has never once been jealous or mean to Carson.  It is nice in the sense that I don't have to worry about her hitting the baby, but scary in the sense that I have to constantly watch her to make sure that she doesn't love him too violently.  For example she likes to hold his face to make sure he is looking at her, and sometimes the only way she can reach his face is by climbing on top of him, scary.  Because she loves him so much she likes to be the one to take care of him.  So I have a couple lil stories that illustrate this point:

1)  Brisa thinks that every time he makes a peep it is her job to try and fix the problem.  She has come to realize that Carson eats a lot, and so that is always her first thought.  So on to the story  Carson was fussing because she had just woken up by yelling "baby awake?" in his face at her loudest volume.  She tried to put his pacifier in his mouth, but he wouldn't take it.  I was laying on the bed next to them and Brisa reached over, patted me on the chest, tilted her head to the side and in her most sincere voice asked him "baby hungry?"  She is very interested in nursing.  For the first week or so she would just ask me what I was doing over and over, but now she gets it completely and I have caught her trying to feed her toys on more than one occasion.  

2)  Brisa was holding Carson on the couch and he was starting to get upset.  I tried to give him his pacifier, but he kept spitting it out.  After a few tries, Brisa took it from my hand and in her best mom voice said "He does not want it"  It made me laugh so hard because it is the exact same phrase I say to her every time she tries to give him his pacifier in his sleep.  

3)  My aunt Cindy was holding Carson on the couch and he wasn't wrapped up in a blanket because it was pretty warm in the house.  Brisa ran to my room to get him a blanket and brought it out and handed it to her and asked her to put it on the baby.  It was so cute, and I couldn't believe she was that observant and worried about Carson's well-being.  

4) This morning was a pretty hard morning because Carson was fussy and Brisa was trying to love him and hold him and I was starting to get pretty overwhelmed.  I was about to lose it when Brisa walked over and said "Mommy, his seat"  nothing I was doing was working so I thought he was just going to cry no matter what so I laid him in his bouncer and sat back down on the couch.  Brisa walked right up to him and put his pacifier in his mouth while she bounced the seat and shushed him.  Carson immediately started to calm down and smile at his sister and I was so amazed by Brisa's patience and willingness to help her brother when mommy couldn't.  I am so incredibly blessed to have the little helper I do and I don't know how any mama out there could do it without a Brisa.

Now here are some pictures of the kids being kids. 

She was just talking to him making him smile so I tried to get a picture of them smiling at each other, but as as I snapped the picture she was overcome by his cuteness and gave him a kiss right on the lips.  I was so happy I got it on camera because it was so sweet!

Brisa was just loving on her brother at Chad's Aunts house during the Christmas party.

This was Brisa trying to steal my camera because she wanted to take pictures of her baby. 

Here is Brisa taking over the parenting for me :)

Carson's Birth Story

Now before I get to the story, know I have no filter and you read at your own risk.  So with that in mind, lets begin.

So it all started on the 19th of November.  I was one day over due and in full on depression mode at my Dr's appointment.  He stripped my membranes and stretched my cervix.  He tried to tell me that I would start cramping soon and I would hopefully be in labor within 24 hours.  I didn't believe him and I think he sensed my doubt, because he said it would be "soon" over and over.
 
It was GIS day (just Google it if you really wanna know, and you do) so we went to the library to admire some sweet maps.  After the long 3ish block drive from the Dr's office to said library I was in a fair amount of pain.  I blamed it on the strip and silently cursed Dr. Monroy for doing it.  I mean I asked him to, but I was past my due date and I think that over due women can say or think or do whatever they want.  The world owes them at that point.  So he was cursed.

After the library Chad took me to get some food, and we headed to Jason and Kelsey's house.  We had fun catching up, I was positive nothing was going to happen and Carson would be way over due and I would be in the hospital on Thanksgiving and I wouldn't get any turkey, but more importantly, I would miss out on the one day of the year I can cover my entire dinner with gravy in honor of the pilgrims.

We went home and I was having some pretty intense cramps.  I thought that it was because of the Mexican food so I laid down in bad and snuggled with Chad and Brisa and took a nap for a couple hours while they watched X-Men.  I woke up and felt a million times better so I made a mental note never to go back to that restaurant and ate some chili.  Looking back I am realizing that that was an odd choice seeing as I thought I was having cramps because of the Mexican food, but I was over due and living by a new set of rules.  (see above)

After dinner I went to bed early because I was exhausted from my action packed day.  I hadn't moved that  much in weeks. so even though I was only out and a bout for a few hours I felt like I had run a marathon.  I was deep into dream land when I dreamed that I peed my pants.  I remember waking up and thinking that was random, and I fell back to sleep pretty much immediately.  A few minutes later I dreamed I was peeing again. and woke up covered in liquid.  I sat there half asleep feeling so embarrassed, then I woke up more and realized that my water had just broken.  I woke Chad up and to my surprise he said "oh" and rolled away from me.  I know the second baby isn't quite as exciting, but I thought he would muster up a little more than that.  I don't think he realized what was happening until I turned the light on and started pulling back the covers to see if I had ruined our sheets (odd I know, but I like my sheets.  They are fine.)  I ran to the bathroom in my undies and was shocked to see that my mom was still awake, sorry you had to see that mom!  Turns out it was only midnight.  I sat on the toilet and listened to my mom and Chad discuss the next move.  My mom stayed home with sleeping Brisa and Chad called the hospital to tell the we were on the way, but he called the first Sierra Vista Regional Medical Hospital that came up on Google which he learned is in Arizona.  The great staff over there reminded him that we live in California and he quickly called the right hospital to tell them we were on our way.

I didn't have any contractions until we were halfway there, and then they were 3 minutes apart.  I got admitted and hooked up to all the machines and waited "patiently" for the drugs.  Carson's heart rate was dipping after every contraction, so I had to try laying in every position imaginable until I found one that he liked.  At 4 am a beautiful angel walked into the room with a giant needle.  I was still as a statue while I got my epidural.  So still that the nurse asked if I was feeling my contractions because there were a lot of them and I wasn't even flinching.  I am the type of woman that likes to labor silently so that I don't disturb my sleeping husband on the couch next to me.  It's crazy, but during my contractions I would literally think to myself, "He's tired, don't wake him up with your screams of pain"  you know because the last thing you would want to do while in labor is make your husband suffer, am I right ladies?

When I was done giggling and if my memory serves me correctly, asking Chad for a pet Pegasus I fell asleep.  I was woken up by my nurse at 6:30 and she told me Carson's heart rate was dipping and that he had pooped, which could be a sign of distress.  I panicked a little to myself, but I did my best to act like it was completely normal when Chad woke up and saw me with my oxygen. Again, I'm not sure why I try to down play it all for Chad. I usually try to go the opposite direction so I can get some sympathy out of the guy, but I guess Labor Megan is just more selfless than everyday Megan.

At 7 am the nurses did a shift change and I got a new nurse and she checked to see if I was dilated and realized that I had actually gone backwards in the dilation department.  While she was checking me she discovered that Carson was not planning on leaving the birth canal empty handed.  He was bringing my catheter out with him, and it was preventing him from sliding down.  She fixed the placement of the catheter and had me do a practice push to see if he would slide into position at all.  He did and so she went to get all the delivery tools ready.  At around 9:30 it was time to push and I was feeling defeated before I even started because I pushed for 4 hours with Brisa and I was not looking forward to doing that again. I think that this was about the time I started crying.  I was ready to give up before the first push.  Then my nurse told me to stop crying and that it would be much faster this time as long as I wasn't a wimpy pusher.  At this point my epidural was starting to wear off and I could feel the contractions and the unmistakable urge to push.  I never felt any of that with Brisa and I think that may have been a small part of the problem.  Well that and a million other things, but that's another story.  I was just getting into a rhythm and was mid push when my nurse told me to stop pushing and wait for the doctor.  I was shocked! It had only been about 20 minutes!  The doctor took about 5 minutes to get there, or at least it felt like 5 minutes,  although I think that time passes slower when you are crowning and it feels like your baby is about to rip his way out.  When the doctor got there I pushed a couple more times and he asked if I wanted to feel the head.  I declined because ew, and continued pushing.  And then I met my baby boy after less than 30 minutes of work!

So that's about it.  Carson is perfect and healthy.  He was 9 pounds and 19.5 in long, but still came out way easier than Brisa.  I guess you could say Brisa blazed the trail for him, I know I say it.  But after such an easy labor I'm actually considering having a third, maybe, someday, maybe.  But until then I will enjoy my off season.  :)

New Year, New Leaf.

So in honor of the new year I am going to start blogging more often (hopefully).  I guess I will start with Brisa's birthday party.  It was a ton of fun.  That fun was a lot more time and money than I had originally thought it would be, but once I started planning I really couldn't stop. Brisa loved being the center of attention, every time someone new would come in she would run up to them and let out the most excited squeal.  During the whole part she would run around in the middle of the living room and make everyone clap for her.  My baby loves to be the center of attention! I wonder where she gets that?

All the decorations.

Loving her new bike!

yummy green cupcake.

What does the blue one taste like?

120 balloons in case you were curious

Tired and ready to go home.

So now that Brisa is a year old life in the Bunn household has gotten a million times better!  Brisa's room has been transformed into a toddlers dream!  She has tons of toys, a table to sit and draw at, and her favorite thing, music! We have started spending a lot more time in her room and as a result she is much easier to take care of.  She will even hang out in there with Chad while I make dinner, which is a huge step from the crying at the baby gate she used to do anytime either one of us tried to go in the kitchen.  She loves getting her toys out, and sometimes loves to put them away.  She loves dancing around to the primary songs cds that my mom gave us.  She loves playing with all of her stuffed animals.  She loves to run in and out of her room screaming while you chase her.  And when she isn't doing any of that she is getting all of her clothes out of the hamper and trying to put them on while wearing her stacking rings as bracelets.  So basically her room is our favorite place in our apartment at the moment!

Her shoe collection (more shoes than daddy)

Playing Piano at her table

Her bike and wagon.

Her toy shelves and the toys that wouldn't

Brisa is turning out to be a very good eater!  She will eat just about anything we give her, as long as it isn't broccoli.  One of her favorite things to eat is hamburger.  She will pick all the meat out of her spaghetti, or tacos, or anything else with meat in it.  Last night we ended up just giving her the meat sauce because she threw most of the noodles off her tray and onto the ground.  She also LOVES olives.  She was introduced to them while eating enchiladas a while back, but she fell in love with them at Chad parents Christmas party in Fresno.  She loves to put them on her fingers and eat them off.  since then she has turned into an olive eating fiend.  At her birthday party she went up to everyone with a plate and pretty much demanded that they give her their olives.  But hey, she was the birthday girl so I guess she deserved them!



  She says "hi" and waves at everything and everything (including walls).  She loves dogs and it is one of the few words she knows how to say.  She also knows how to say mom and daddy and hey.  She uses the word "hey" when someone walks by her without looking or talking to her.  She is so used to our family giving her tons of love and affection, that when someone doesn't she notices and demands that they pay attention to her.  She has also started whispering lately.  I'm not sure where she learned it because Chad and I are both very loud people, but she loves to whisper.

Brisa loves kisses.  Every morning when she wakes up Chad and I bring her into our bed to snuggle/sleep for a couple more hours.  And every morning she grabs my face and makes me give her tons of kisses.  Se has even started giving me kisses randomly during the day.  She will just come over and pucker her little lips and kiss me right on the mouth.  I have tried to give her my cheek and she is not satisfied.  I have to pucker my lips and make the kiss sound, or she wont stop.  She also has started giving me hugs.  today I was picking up all of the puzzles She dumped our and she came from behind and wrapped her little arms around me and rested her head on my back and whispered "hi".  It was so cute, I thought my heart was going to explode!

Sleep smiles.

And as a bonus for all you readers out there:

Catch Up

So I haven't been keeping up my blog very well lately because I haven't had time.  Usually my day consists of taking care of Brisa, going to the gym, eating dinner, putting Brisa down and going to bed. I thought I would just post some pictures and a few of the key things that make Brisa so special, and maybe just some fun stories.

Brisa is a goofball.  She laughs if I am laughing and smiles whenever we take pictures together.  She loves to feel like she is one of the grown ups and tries to fit in.  It is so cute!  Last Sunday Brisa was making everyone laugh in Sunday school.  She was crawling around and pulled herself up on the back of a man's chair (it wasn't a folding chair, it had a back) and was hitting it because it made a loud noise.  Before I could grab her she was laughing and screeching and slapping the chair over and over and looking around at everyone laughing and having a blast.  As soon as I got back to my seat and we sat down she squirmed out of my arms and started crawling towards a water bottle under a chair about 15 feet away.  Of course the sweet woman let her have it and she started hitting it and laugh/ screeching again.  Then when she saw me coming to get her she climbed up on the lady's legs and was smiling at her until I took her out to play in the foyer.

Brisa is a social butterfly like her mama.  She loves attention!  We went on a hike on saturday and she waved at everyone that walked past us.  She gives the biggest smiles to anyone who will talk to her.  I love taking her out because she is so good!  People always come up to her and she always smiles and does a fake laugh.  She knows how to work it!



Brisa is an explorer!  When Brisa wants to go somewhere she takes a deep breath and crawls really fast.  I can always tell when she's on a mission because she breaths really hard the whole way and doesn't stop until she gets where ever she is trying to go.  She likes to see new places and isn't afraid to crawl all around peoples houses.  We have to keep our eye on her because she loves to explore dangerous things sometimes.

Brisa is determined.  Her two favorite things are the computer and the kitchen.  If she ever sees me pull out the lap top she is in my lap in no time at all.  I swear I never even see her coming.  She loves when I let her hit all the keys.  If she is ever really really sad the computer is my secret weapon.  We have to block off our kitchen with chairs now and most of the time she is content to just stand up and watch me in the kitchen, but sometimes she just has to be in there with all the action and she tries to sneak in.  So far she can't do it, thank goodness!

Climbing over the arm of the chair to the laptop on the end table.

Brisa is beautiful.  I know that all babies are beautiful, but Brisa is especially beautiful ;).  A couple weeks ago this woman in our ward that is Brisa's honorary Grandma said something funny.  She said that Brisa is the, and I quote, "most gorgeous baby" she has ever seen.  Then she told me that she had cute grandkids, but Brisa was gorgeous.  It was so funny!  I think that her personality is what makes everyone love her so much.  She really is a friendly little peanut.

Brisa thinks that she is a grown up.  She laughs when we laugh, smiles for pictures, and hangs out with us.  A couple weeks ago at Aunt Cindy's house everyone was sitting on the ground in a circle almost and Brisa just crawled over and sat down.  No toys no nothing.  Just sitting with the big kids watching what was going on.  

The bottle...

So Chad and I have been trying to get Brisa to take a bottle.  It was not going well... Every time we would get the bottle into feeding position she would freak out!  So I decided that I would just keep nursing her until kindergarten if that's what she wanted because she is way more stubborn than I am and I'm pretty darn stubborn.. Meanwhile Brisa has been waking up every couple hours at night and making Chad and I into Zombies.  

Well on Monday she slept for 5 hours straight and when she woke up I couldn't tell which side to nurse on.  Now for all of you out there that don't have a lot of experience, after that long not nursing it should be very obvious which side she should nurse on.  So I got a little worried, but brushed it off for the most part. 

Well the next day I noticed every time I nursed her she would still act hungry after and I was having to feed her real food right after breast feeding her.  So I got even more nervous.  

Well yesterday morning it was pretty obvious that I have run out of milk and I'm just not making enough for her at all.  Needless to say I panicked because my little princess won't take a bottle.  I decided I has to try and dedicate a whole day to trying of I had to.  So I went into the kitchen and got bottle ready and sat down on the ground with her.  She came right over and I thought for sure she would just let me give her the bottle and it would be a miracle and I could tell Chad I was the winner and ultimately the better parent. (until then he has been the one primarily in charge of getting her to take a bottle). Well that didn't happen... She screamed grabbed the nipple and squirted formula all over both of us.  The rest is a blur.  I decided to give up and try again later so I put the bottle down and let Brisa crawl around.  

Then something crazy happened she sat down, picked up the bottle, put it in her mouth, and laid down on my lap!  I was so surprised I didn't know if I was happy or angry.  She obviously wanted the bottle, but wanted it to be her idea to drink it.  She finished it so fast I had to go make her another one.  

Later that night I made her another one and thought that since she liked it earlier it would be easy to get her to drink it now, but again she freaked out when I tried to put it in her mouth.  So I handed it to her and she laid back and drank it.  

Needless to say my baby is crazy.  She thinks she is so much older than she is and has a mind of her own.  She can throw a fit like no one business and most of the time I don't see it coming.  She gets it from her mama I guess!  :)

P.s. she slept through the night last night.  I guess I was just starving her.  Poor baby!

Updates.

I haven't posted lately, partly because I have been so busy, and mostly because I forgot I had a blog.  Brisa is moving around like crazy!  Now that she can crawl and pull herself up on anything she is unstoppable.  If we leave a chair pulled out from the table she will crawl under there the first chance she gets.  Yesterday we were visiting with Nana and Brisa was crawling around while Chad and I laid on the couch.  Then we heard her talking and it sounded like she was right next to us.  So we looked over the arm of the couch and she was hiding under the end table.  I think that she likes to go in forts!   As we speak she is pulling herself up on a big speaker we have by the TV trying to change the song.

Brisa is also a giggle box.  I'm sure you all saw the video of her at the beach laughing every time I pretended to drink out of her water bottle.  Well a couple weeks ago Chad was feeding her dinner and I was relaxing on the couch.  I couldn't see her face from where I was sitting.  I was drinking my gatorade and heard the cutest little giggle.  So I looked at her and she was leaning in her chair peeking around Chad watching me drink with the goofiest smile on her face.  It was the funniest moment!  Another time she was getting tired (always her giggliest time of day) and I was going to feed her.  Every time I would get her in position to latch she would start laughing.  It went on for a while until she finally started to nurse.  It was so cute!

Brisa  also loves to follow me around.  I don't even carry her around the house anymore.  I just lay her down and walk wherever I need to go and I know that she will always follow me.  For example I will leave her in the living room and go to do my hair, and by the time I get my curling iron plugged in she is there trying to get in my lap.

Our little angel baby has been a lil demon lately.  She has been teething for what seems like forever and it is taking its toll on all of us.  She wakes up all night long and only wants me to hold her.  I always for some reason wished that I was a mom when I would see babies that only wanted their mommy.  I was looking forward to it even.  Now I feel so stupid!  It is not fun at all.  My arms hurt and I'm tired and cranky all the time and it makes Chad a little sad I think.