Oh, HI! I didn’t mean to take a 10-ish day break from writing, but I have THE BEST excuse…
… we’ve been doing ALL THINGS SUMMER!
Remy Bea turned 3 on January 23rd. I’m in disbelief. Absolute disbelief.
It seemed like just yesterday that she came bursting into our world — faster than expected and with a full head of hair!
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This blog post is coming to ya 3 days late, thanks to a healthy dose of laziness at the holidays! Ha! At least I’m being honest.
But also? I’ve been doing a lot of extra reflecting over the last couple of days. And my emotions are straight up all over the place.
I truly expected 2018 to be SUPER hard. I started the year pregnant with baby number three and fully anticipating that this child would send me down a deep dark hole of PPD and PPA. It turns out she didn’t. In fact, I’ve kinda been flourishing and finding myself kicking butt at this mother of three thing.
We ended our night in perfect ‘parent-of-3-kids’ fashion — with an 8:30pm Netflix countdown with party hats and sweet tarts. And followed it up with a parents-only movie night in our NEW home, with a bottle of champagne, and homemade lobster rolls.
So while our 2018 came to a slow and quiet end, I looked back through my camera roll to see all of the amazing things that transpired since last January.
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I met up with some great local bloggers for a little networking and brainstorming. It really kicked off my year in a big way by getting the creative juices flowing and reigniting my spark!
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Visited NASA Glenn Research Center with a special group of influencers for the State of NASA address. We got a behind the scenes look at some really cool aerospace technology.
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Later in the month I covered the Cleveland Auto Show on behalf of Toyota!
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We spent most of the month having fun at Cafe O’Play with the kids (thanks to a Winter family pass!). It wore the kids out and allowed me to get some work done at the same time!
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Oh – and Chad and I had a much-needed date night at Hilarities at Pickwick and Frolic, complete with a Barrio dinner-date beforehand!
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This was a pretty big month for us. We had (secretly) known about the gender of baby number three for a while, but we finally revealed the news to our friends & family! Baby number three was officially a GIRL!
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We also celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary with little fanfare. And, by little, I mean none! Ha! But that’s what happens when you’re pregnant with your third baby, right?
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This, the month before my due date, I spent as much time as possible loving on my existing two babies. Lots of small adventures were had.
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Oh, and I had some maternity photos done.
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And met up with some fabulous bloggers for glass blowing at the Glass Asylum.
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And then again for a photoshoot meetup at Borrow Rentals.
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I swear to you I spent this entire month just ready for Mila to arrive. In any spare moment I had, I was walking. Usually with the other two kids in tow.
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The kids also enjoyed a LOT of swimming!
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And then, of course, the arrival of Mila Rose.
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We adjusted to life with another little.
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But I still managed to make it out of the house with all of the kids! Like Mila’s first trip to the Cleveland Flea with me and Remy Bea!
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And her first trip to the LEGO Store with Ari!
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Oh, and we had amazing newborn photos done.
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Then visited Edgewater Park Beach.
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And I took a yoga class with some fellow bloggers at Sibling Revelry Brewery. Mila came, too, although she spent most of her time in her car seat. Ha!
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My first baby went off to his first day of Kindergarten!
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I spent my first week completely solo with all three kids. I survived while Chad went away on his business trip AND I even managed to sneak out with just Mila to see the Infinity Mirrors by Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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Remy and I went out exploring our local Akron neighborhoods.
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And we visited the apple orchard when Mimi came to town!
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Ari turned SIX!
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Chad and I went on our first truly solo (no Mila!) date night to the Best of Cleveland party at the Rock Hall.
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And we had a fun Halloween photo shoot with the girls!
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I got to check out the new indoor putt-putt course at Punch Bowl Social in the Flats!
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The Big Kids went to Kringle’s Inventionasium to see Santa’s workshop!
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And we decided to purchase our forever home!
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We closed on our new house!
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…and between moving and getting settled, we celebrated Christmas.
Seriously I could not be more grateful to all of the people who made 2018 the best year yet. I may not have taken a fancy vacation or gotten a big new promotion, but I had the most fulfilling year to date! It was full of everything that is most important — family, friends, lots of love, memories, and delicious food.
Cheers to 2019!
If I could wrap up this last month in one word it would be the following: bittersweet.
Bittersweet because over this last month Mila has changed dramatically. She’s no longer a squishy little baby that just eats, sleeps, and poops. Nope. Now she laughs, smiles, and watches her siblings play. She’s, like, a real human now! Ha!
But I’m sad because that was the last time I’ll ever go through the newborn stage. My last baby is already FIVE MONTHS OLD — and that just seems crazy to me. I want, terribly, to relive these days again, another time.
In the same breath, I’m really okay with moving on with our lives — away from newborn ‘things.’ I am looking forward to watching Mila grow into an even bigger little human. I can’t wait to see her continue to interact with her siblings (and me!).
Here’s what else we’ve been up to over the last month —
And apparently, she’s a fan of slapstick comedy. We found out by complete accident. The whole family was lying in bed when we playfully pushed Remy and she ‘fell’ back and laughed. Mila cracked up. Like, full-on belly laugh. It was hilarious so we did what every parent would do… we kept on ‘pushing’ the kids. And every single time, she would belly laugh.
This past month has been a whirlwind of appointments. We The first appointment was an echocardiogram at Akron Children’s Hospital. The technician let us know that there was nothing that required immediate attention and sent us on our way.
The second appointment was a dermatologist appointment at the Cleveland Clinic. These world-renowned doctors let us know that, again, while it’s odd that her hands and feet are still purple (a condition that should correct itself the first few weeks after birth), there didn’t appear to be anything causing it. At least not outwardly. I was asked quite a bit about whether or not autoimmune diseases run in our family (none to which I’m aware of), and we decided that if she still has this condition at her six-month well-visit, we’ll do a blood draw to test for things like lupus.
Just as I thought we were totally in the clear, I received a call from our pediatricians’ office. They called and said that the echo showed a hole in her heart and they wanted to refer her to a pediatric cardiologist at Akron Children’s Hospital. And, sigh, my heart fell. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but I knew that if it was anything serious, they never would have let us leave her echo.
So we saw a cardiologist and it was explained to us that 20% of all grown adults have this hole in their heart (from birth) and they may never be aware of it. She’s perfectly healthy, heart-wise — no murmur, nothing. In fact, she doesn’t even want to see us back! Hooray!
We’ll just be awaiting our 6-month well-visit to see if her hands and feet are still purple. That’s it!
We haven’t yet started on food or cereal. But we are still EBF (exclusively breastfeeding). She’s gaining weight, which is a good sign. Truthfully, I’ve never doubted my ability to nourish my children. But the fact remains — she was born my largest baby at 8 lbs, which means she ‘should’ be following a heavier growth curve than she is. But my children are small — they always have been. So I’m not surprised that she dropped off her original curve and she’s trending more like my first two babies.
We never used cereal or rice with the first two babies (personal decision), but I considered it this third time around. I haven’t ruled it out (yet) but I’m holding off until our 6-month appointment. From her specialist appointments this past month, I have zero weight worries. She gained and gained with every appointment!
We’ve been super hit or miss this last month. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated. She’s been doing an awful lot of cluster feeding lately (thanks to a growth spurt and teething), so there are many . nights where I’m basically pulling an all-nighter. And then other nights she seems to sleep for 6-hour stretches. It’s weird. I can’t find a pattern. I’m just hoping it levels off soon.
We’re technically still co-sleeping (same room, not bedsharing), but as soon as we’re in the new house she’ll be in a separate room. I know it will be an adjustment, but we’ll all be adjusting to our new home, so fingers crossed that helps.
I honestly cannot wait to spend this holiday season with my little (big?) family of 5. I’m finally comfortable saying “We’re good with three kids. Believe it or not, I was considering a fourth just a few months back. But now that we’ve moved into our new home, I’m ready to settle into our family as it is. I feel like this new house may be our fourth ‘baby’. Ha!
So for now, I’ll just be over here eating up this last baby stage. Ever laugh, every thigh roll, every breastfeeding punch, and every sleepless night… I’ll just eat it all up.
Time flies, friends. It truly does. And this past month has been nothing short of a whirlwind. So much so, in fact, that I totally missed Mila’s 4-month milestone. No joke. By that, I mean that it was days — days! — before I realized she was 4-months-old, not 3-months-old.
Third kid problem? Yep. Girlfriend better get used to this. Ha!
She’s garnered the nickname Scooter from Mimi + Poppy because she will lay on the ground on her back and somehow manage to scoot all over the living room! And she’s still rolling over from back to belly over and over and over again.
