Lost a battle, but uh WINNING!

Ok sorry for the Charlie Sheen reference but it's quite fitting for these past two days.  Overall, I'd say I do well controlling and keeping Keller in line and on schedule, however, as with every parent and every child there are those days.  All of us moms are familiar.  The day when even though your child's antics and behaviors aren't any different, the amount in which they need to do them to send us over the edge is for one reason or another substantially smaller than usual.   That was yesterday.  And Keller gets a tally in his "W" column. 

Today, I'm happy to report that I'm back on the winning side of this lifetime battle of being a parent.  Granted, Keller was with dad for the entire morning and maybe that's why I feel so good about it all.  Haha. We've also very recently put in place some new "child proofing" things to help me out.  We purchased fencing (gate looking stuff) to barricade Keller (and Marvin) into the back yard.  They can still get out by wandering past our back driveway, but considering how isolated it is back there (only two other driveways of retired folks) and how far they'd seriously need to wander to get close to a road, I feel much more calm about Keller being outside.  He also is becoming a professional at going out the door by himself, down the stairs successfully, and up the stairs and IN through the doggie door.  Haha, we knew it'd be a useful purchase.  I think Keller just really enjoys being outside, just as anyone would. 

All in all today is great.  Hopefully tomorrow follows in today's footprints.  :).

Until next time...

Outdoor Adventures

I can't get over how nice it is outside! Our family is LOVING this weather.  I might even get to break out the maternity shorts (they're the type that go just above the knee...so totally a mom type of shorts) that I bought way back on Black Friday!. Yippee!

Today has been an up and down kind of day with Keller.  For some reason he is getting cranky with me but after his late-morning nap, he was doing good and we played outside for a while.  Broghan came home for lunch today which was nice as well and took Keller across the street to play on the playground for a bit while I made lunch.  I ended up packing up the food and bringing a blanket with to have a little picnic over at the park, so we were able to play outside a little longer.

Keller loved loved LOVED the playground equipment and impressed Broghan and I with his ability to climb around on everything and get up to the slides and go down the slides! First time being over there and he figured it out!

Keller and his bubble machine! 

There are two videos here.  They're of Keller climbing up on the playground equipment and working his way to the slide.  The first video ends before he actually goes down the slide because he decided to stall.  The second is of him actually GOING down the slide..

The plight of a business owner..

As you know by now, our family owns and operates our very own little Chiropractic office (Reilly Chiropractic - www.chiropractorlakehallie.com - go here to check out my "intro" video).  We bought it back in the middle of December 2010 and have been running smoothly for about 4 months now.  This isn't going to be a long post ranting about the weight of owning a business, but I just spent quite some time updating our QuickBooks and it is just exhausting! I also keep track of payroll and all the liabilities (tax payments) we have to make each month and sometimes it gets confusing how my numbers end up different than QuickBooks and how in the world do I reconcile them? Blah.  It's just a lot.  Never really THAT hard, but just mental work...and to be honest, I've been so far removed from the work force and from the learning environments of school that sometimes the mathematics and logistics of it all can be overwhelming.

And that's it.  I'm sure many of you can relate, since the same feelings and situations happen within personal finances and handling household budgets too.  But, I just wanted to put down those feelings so hopefully sleeping tonight will go well!

Oh and no baby news, as far as I can tell, baby HAS dropped quite a bit since last week (heck since this last weekend).  It's now pretty low into my pelvis and pretty well centered in my belly (different from the usual side-lying position...what can I say....I'm short!).  Other than that nothing super exciting to report.  Lots of squirming around from the little one and a few Braxton Hicks contractions every once in a while, but nothing for real.

Maybe tomorrow though ;).

Until next time...

Keller...future MBL player.

So as many who have kids know, they go through these "phases" of having favorites.  Keller's once was bananas and our dog's dog food.  We're slowly but surely getting over the dog food fascination and bananas are apparently a thing of the past.  But as Keller is moving into "toddler-hood", he is in love with any type of ball or item he can throw.  In particular, his Uncle Logan got him a T-ball stand for this past Christmas and I've been slightly amazed at how well Keller is able to hit the ball with the bat.  We've been working on two hands and he seems to get the idea.  I've gotten a few pictures and some videos as proof. :).  We have a future MBL player on our hands! Maybe a future Twins player?!

OUR 1st day of spring..

So while the world and nature apparently think the first day of Spring was officially back in March, here in WI and at the Reilly household, I don't consider it spring until ~80-90% of the snow is gone and it's warm enough for us to actually spend decent time outdoors.  Also, it needs to be nice for more than one day. Plain and simple, I think Spring is FINALLY here!  Two day ago (Tuesday 4/5/11) our little family was fortunate enough to get to spend some time outside, enjoying the warmth and sunshine.  Broghan continued his plight to clean up the yard from months worth of....well...Marvin using it as his own personal restroom; Keller wandered around and picked up sticks from the driveway (he gets a twig or two and then is content to just carry them around...I see it as a form of cleaning the driveway); and I got to work on painting a shelf that will end up back in our kitchen and sanding down a railing for our step leading to the downstairs of our house.  Broghan also did some manual labor work on our future egress window space...digging the hole a few feet deeper.  Here are some photos I snapped of the boys.

  

Twigs in hand.

Broghan in the future egress window hole

These were my (twice) failed attempts at getting a picture of Keller pretending to paint the side of the house...

Marvin doing what dogs do...lounging in the sunshine and chewing on a stick.

Keller and his bucket.  Watch the video on here to see how far he wandered with it.

Final Countdown!

I've been waiting and waiting to be able to say this but it truly is THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! Full term tomorrow...holy crap. 37 weeks tomorrow and sometime in the next 5 we'll be a family of 4 (ok 5 if you count the dog)...part of me is still in disbelief that I haven't gone into labor yet.  I guess with two pre-term deliveries it's not surprising though.  It's kind of a cool feeling to feel part of the majority for once.  So lets just hope it stays that way and I don't end up with another crazy situation on my hands. :).

I'm not sure if I mentioned it on here or on a babycenter.com board (I'm seriously on that website way too much these days) but a few weeks back Broghan changed the background on the computer to a picture of closed flower buds.  We both agree that visualization and mental thought processes can have a big effect on your bodies ability to either go into or stay out of labor (for example being chronically stress - in the flight/fight response mode - will prevent labor from progressing OR cause it to go extremely fast).  So each time I turn on my computer I get to see this picture and think "I'm a close little flower".  It seriously makes me giggle each time but heck I'm full term so who knows!  

But now that I AM full term...maybe I should change it to a nice wide open flower picture ;). 

But then again, maybe I'm not so ready to have a baby TODAY...haha. This waiting game is hard!  You can be sure though that there will be blog and FB updates if/when the time actually does come for this baby to be born (even if Broghan gives me crap about it).  I really just want to do it so I have real-time records of what all happens....and of course I want all of you to be in the know ;).

Until next time...

Home Sweet Home.

To say that I'm excited for this home birth is a complete and udder understatement.  The idea of being able to just relax once contractions start, not worrying about "when to go" and not having to shuffle Keller and Marvin around is just a great feeling.  Plus, once everything is done, I just get to curl up with my new little babe and my family  in one of our beds!  No interruptions from nurses, no waiting for discharge papers, no packing up the car, no scary car ride home (even though its just a mile).

Yesterday and into last night I spent many hours getting some organization done and creating what I like to call my own private "birthing center" in our downstairs.  We're really fortunate that our house has a completely finished basement and as soon as I get some things in the mail (hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday) we'll be completely ready to go in terms of supplies.  I also moved some small shelves and cleared out space in our office so that when the time comes we can blow up our birthing pool, which is already ready and waiting on the floor in there.  The rooms downstairs each have their own heat source too which is nice so that the temperatures can be easily managed without affecting the whole house and I'll be putting a small lamp in the office space so that way we can dim the lights lower and create a calmer atmosphere.

I also spent many hours getting about 10 loads of laundry done (finally) and washing all of the towels in the house so the ones we need are folded and ready to go.  I will say it was really fun going back through all of the Newborn sized clothing we've had packed away for so long.  Such cute little outfits! Sadly, only a few are going to really work well if it's a girl (granted, no one really cares what colors they're in) but most of the clothes are definitely blue and boy themed.  And we're all stocked up on NB and size 1 Diapers.  I'm sure we'll go through them in about a week, but hopefully we won't even need them all since we still have the x-small clothe diapers from Keller.

I'm starting to lose focus here on this post and feel myself drifting onto other topics, so to sum it up: I love that we're planning a home birth. :).

**pictures of the set-up to follow..**

Until next time..