get this off me.

so i dont know if any of you remember but a long time ago arabella was in her high chair pulling really hard on her fingers and when i asked what she was doing she said 'fingers off!!' i asked if she wanted her fingers off and she said 'yeaaa!'

then yesterday she was pulling up on her chin and saying 'get this head off me!!' i said 'um.. you want your head off???!!!!!' and of course her response was 'yeaaa!'

THEN this morning... she was pulling up on my chin and said 'get your chin off...chin off!'


what the heck?

can someone please....

give me a sedative and feed my child every two hours for the next 5 days... i need some sleep, thanks. hahaha

at least i fit in my jeans. ;)

its 7:40 and i'm in bed.

i have had an interesting day to say the least...

but i'm still gonna give a lil shot out to the things i'm thankful for, cause i am so blessed by these things..

the three pieces of my heart. seth, ara, and nola.
my home.
my sweet friends.
my little baby sister, even if she does give me a heart attack sometimes. ;)
that i fit in my jeans. (i'm obviously a little excited about this)
gin.... and tonic.
the rain.
my life. its pretty damn good.

2nd times a charm

everyone always said that it was so much harder after the second child to get your body back, so i was worried when i got pregnant, because it took me a year to lose the last 25 pounds with ara and once i did, i was pregnant again! but for whatever reason, this time has been a breeze! and in the end i ended up weighing the same amount i did with arabella! i started before ara at 100-103 and ended up at 150. i got down to 110 after ara, which is my new goal weight because before i had arabella i had no hips, butt or boobs and i looked anorexic... i always wanted hips and boobs. anyway so this time i started at 110 and in the end still got to 150... only it was weird how this time i didn't look as big (seth says this time it was all in my butt... hahah thanks babe) but i'd rather that than my arms and face! so yea i lost 15 pounds giving birth, lost 5 more the first week and i've lost another 5 this week. so now i'm at 125 and i only have 15 left to go! and its only been 2 weeks and i haven't exercised yet obviously! awesome. plus mary came up and said i could start doing crunches.... look out bod i love, here i come .... to stay!

um right after i wrote this i got ready to go to the store (which went off without a hitch again!!) and i discovered that i fit in my jeans again!!! wooo hooooo

sinking heart.

hopefully this doesn't send shock waves around the world.

if it does, its worth it.

i just watched the SADDEST birth i have ever seen. it was the woman's third child, she went in to get induced, she got induced, he came and checked her, she was 5cm... he told her he was gonna break her water... then laughed and said 'oh, is that ok with you?' ... he broke her water and then gave her pitocin. she was in absolutely no pain. she kept saying she wasn't in pain and she was afraid that she wasn't gonna get the epidural soon enough and she might feel a little 'uncomfortable'. her contractions never started hurting... she got an epidural. he checked her after a bit, still she just laid there like NOTHING was going on....she felt like she needed to push but she said 'oh i'm probably wrong' and the nurse said 'most likely if you feel you have to, you're ready' the doctor came, she was 10cm... he told her he was going to turn the epidural off and she just kept whining about how she didn't want to feel one little bit of pain and that when she pushed it better come out really fast. she pushed and when she did the nurse had to tell her how to push and for how long and the baby was out fast. she mentioned how she has never tried to have a natural birth because she's always been to afraid to even feel the pain. i can't even believe that someone could have given birth to three kids and has never even felt what labor is like! that's so outrageous.

there are so many things about this that make me sooooo sad. sad that she doesn't see herself as strong enough to bear that pain and overcome it. sad that she doesn't trust her body or herself enough to listen to what its telling her and do it. she has no idea what she's missing out on and all she cared about was getting the baby out without every feeling any part of the experience. it was just sooooo insane to see a birth completely run by the doctor. everything she did was because the doctor said, the whole experience was just like if you went to the doctor and laid in a bed while they poked and prodded you except in the end a baby came out. seeing the way the doctor treated her was so foreign to me. he wasn't mean, he was totally nice, just so business. this is his job, but that's all he treated like. there was no heart, no relationship in what happened in that room. it was a medical procedure that she was having done to her. she never got up, never moved, never felt a contraction, didn't know how to push for herself.... i dont understand how this is looked at as normal?!!? she said when she was getting the epidural 'in no other situation would i do this, but i'm having a baby, so i need it'... talking about in no other circumstance would she take drugs like that... so what i dont get is why would the one time you see fit to do it be the one time there's a baby living inside you? and i just feel so sad that she thinks she needs it. women are strong, women are made to birth babies and our bodies are amazing. they do it and they do it better than anything, with strength and grace... but she doesn't know that her body can do that, no one told her she could.. no one believed for her that she could.

i'm sooooo thankful i had people around me to encourage me that i could do this, that i was strong and i didn't have to be afraid... i'm so thankful i had an army of people who loved me and believed in me and lifted me up when i felt broken and pushed me through... i'm so thankful that now i truly know what i am capable of and that i have accomplished one of the greatest things you can in life... i allowed my body to birth my children. i didn't let a doctor run my birth, i didn't let drugs artificially make my body do the work, and i wasn't absent from the experience... and because of those things my life was changed through those births. it makes me so sad when women dont get to experience this, or willingly choose not to. they'll never know what they've missed.

in and out and the opposite sex.

so i never understood why people love in and out so much. i mean its good, but is it that exciting that if you live out of state any time you're here you have to make a trip to in and out? this is what i ordered when i ate meat : cheeseburger with grilled onions no 1000 island. and as a veggie: grilled cheese raw and grilled onions no 1000 island.

seth and i got in and out on the way back from a midwife appointment a couple weeks ago. he got me to try a bite of his grilled cheese with 1000 island on it for the first time, not bad. then we went again on the way down to santa barbara yesterday and i made the big leap and ordered mine with 1000 island on it.

my life is forever changed. i have seen the light.

that was what was missing for me all these years. now i know why 1000 island comes on every burger automatically, it used to seem like such an obscure choice. now it only seems natural and like the best choice possible. if i lived in another state i might drive to california JUST to get in and out.

that being said... i'm onto the opposite sex. after seth and i got in and out we had a great conversation about the opposite sex. seth and i always had mostly friends of the opposite sex. he had lots of girl friends and i had lots of guy friends. after we got in and out he said how he missed his girl friends and i said how i missed my guy friends. neither of us feel weird about the other hanging out with their friends of the opposite sex, but theres this weird thing that comes with marriage where your friends all back off. i get that its out of respect and other people get weirded out if they see you with another guy/girl other than your spouse... but seth and i wish we could have our friends back in our lives. they are important to us and both of us want those kind of friendships again... anyway its always so nice when we talk about, well, anything cause we relate so much and its so nice to have a husband who wants me to have my guy friends and isn't jealous.... and its nice to trust him so much that i honestly really want him to spend time with his girl friends cause i know its important to him. .... so to all our oppie friends... come out of the wood works and chill with us again!!! its not awkward.

cuties

lovie sisters.




my lips. not the same as ara's. ... she's got mine. trust me on this one.

um evidently she likes to sleep in the bath..

i love sleep smiles.


the first video is her dancing to delta spirit in papa's sunglasses, which she LOVES to wear and the second is her singing 'umbrella' which she sings every time she gets to the U in her abc book.

wtf fridays.

kids.

WTF?!?!?!?!

one day they make you feel like you are the luckiest person in the world, they make you laugh, they make you feel thankful to be alive, they make you feel loved, they make you feel strong they make you excited to wake up the next day to their little faces and excited to take care of them every day for the next 18 years.


the next they make you feel like you're going to die, like you're the meanest mom, the craziest person, like you want to crawl under the covers and never come out. they make you feel dread at the thought that you HAVE to wake up to their little faces tomorrow morning, at 530. ... and that you have 18 years left to go.

drink up

adiri natural nurser.
awesome. with arabella i had these bottles called 'breast flow' which i loved cause the end looked just like a boob, like these ones... only they were just regular old plastic. these ones are safe plastic! ... and they're so great because they're super soft on the end and are shaped like nips... so there's not much confusion. with ara i had to use a bottle when she was 2 weeks old cause she had sucked an actual piece of my nipple off (that is the reason i dont understand the phrase 'i tried to nurse, but it was too hard') ... anyway i had to pump so that my nip would heal... so i didn't want her getting confused because of having to use a bottle that early, and she didn't, i think cause they were so much like breastfeeding.... and this time i found these bottles which have the same shape but are not dange! wooo hooo ... and this time i gave nola one this early cause i went to see twilight and before i got to go get my first gin and tonic in 9 months!!!!!!!!!! yessssssssssss!

set me free.

example one. seth said something while we were driving one day about how it was so sad that his dog that he had had while he was younger died from its heart being too big. i had no response, because to me, that wasn't sad.

example two. seth came home and told me his friend's grandma might die very soon. again, no response, because to me, it wasn't sad.

i dont believe we are born 'sinful' or evil in our hearts. i believe that people are born good and life and things that really are evil corrupt us. so i dont believe that my 'nature' is to be sinful or to have the tendency to be heartless about things. i believe that something made me that way, life, other people, etc etc... as it does for everyone, i believe. so i have many theories as to why i would be so insensitive to other peoples feelings, or to things that are really important to other people... but it could be that i'm wrong too, that we are just born sinful.. who knows... anyways, seth and i got in fights about those two examples when they happened because for him it comes naturally to be very sensitive to all things other people feel.. really. i have compassion, but its either abundantly overflowing or there is none at all. i dont find everyday things worthy of much emotion or compassion. it takes extraordinary situations or tragedy to get a lot out of me. i dont express feelings or sympathy or compassion in these situations like i described above not because i want to be mean, but just literally because i feel NOTHING when i hear about them. like for those examples my thoughts were grandma's are supposed to die, they're old.... its better for them. i understand the person who's grandmas is dying being sad, but why would i be sad? its not my grandma and its just a normal part of life... its good. its not someone dying when they were young or your parent dying, or your child... (i know, a lot of you will hate me after this, but, oh well) and the dog i thought, it wasn't a person... and we all know dogs dont live forever... so why is that sad? these things make me wonder, am i really crazy insensitive? is seth just super sensitive? am i normal? am i super mean? how many other people out there feel like me?

anyway the whole point of this was to say that recently seth showed me his friends band delta spirit and i didn't really like them at first.. we went to see them at calpoly the other day and i really loved it... then i listened to their cd and heard the song streetwalker and i just started crying and saying how i loved God and that it was the first time in a long time that someone was talking about God in a way i could relate to. i would have overflowing compassion for the situations he describes in the song, because they are all stories of tragedy, but it made me think about the little things, that affect the people i love in small ways that i just feel black to... and i can understand saying 'love set me free' set me free to love people around me, even if that means just caring about their small cares... i wanna feel what that is like.

i can feel a wall inside me to having that kind of compassion... and honestly i believe that its hard for me to feel compassionate about things people go through that aren't nearly as sad as the things my childhood was surrounded with... and that same thing is what makes it easy for me to have compassion on people who go through worse things than i ever did, crazy deep, abundantly overflowing compassion. but i want to feel for both.

and i'm not sure that that's really why i am this way, but that's my main theory.



Streetwalker knows how to strut right
She knows the truth
Bad boys walking through the corridor
God knows what they're gonna do.

Darkness paraded across the headlines:
'Little girl stolen from her bedroom,'
Homeless, beat to death, or put out
Hopeless... greedy and cruel.

Oh why can't I feel for you?
My heart is so black to you--
Oh--

Her head was spinning like a hurricane
Tina was singing her name
Old men like to rape her in the red light
She's too young and numb to complain

Little boy bought at the age of six,
Down the street he's wearing a dress
Look at his face, you won't see no innocence
He's got so much experience

Oh why can't I feel for you?
They lie, what can I do?

Oh Love, set me free!
Set me free!
Come on and set me free!

Oh Lord, set me free!
Set me free!
Come on and set me free!


Underground... the German Casanova
Underground... The Panamanian Queen
He whispers, "Down here, the law will never find you.
Down here I am your God and King"

It's a sin to sit and just do nothing,
There's a special place in hell for me
Oh God I just gotta do something
I swear to God this is happening--

Oh Love, set me free!
Set me free!
Come on and set me free!

Oh Lord, set me free!
Set me free!
Oh, it could have been me.

Oh Lord, set them free!
Set them free!
It could have been me.

our first outing alone.

me and my girls had our first trip out without papa... to trader joes. i made sure i had like 2 hours to get ready, i even took a shower this morning! i had a plan for getting them in the car, having them in the store and getting them and the groceries inside and then unloaded (we live upstairs so its harder than it seems)... and when we got home i knew it would be perfect timing for ara to go down for her nap. it all went off without a hitch. this is our first day home alone without seth and without ara going anywhere for any amount of time and its going really well... i better knock on wood right now. i'm excited cause i feel like i can do this, i know sometimes it will be crazy, but its not impossible and this is the first time i dont feel totally overwhelmed at the thought of having two kids home with me alone all day....

bouncing back and breasts.

ok. a lot of ladies might hate me for saying this, and i would have hated to hear it after having arabella.... but i dont think its weird or crazy or impossible or because of a CRAZY diet that heidi klum was able to be back on the runway at 6 weeks postpartum. (it was either 6 or 8 weeks... its hard to find on the internet, weird.) anyway after i had arabella i had heard that she was back on the runway after the kid she had had then in 6 days, and i thought that it was INSANE that she could look ok enough for that.... and thought she must have like dieted when she was pregnant. i dont know if she really was on the runway after 6 days or not.. this time they're saying after the kid she just had it was 6 weeks. anyway my point is, its been 9 days for me and honestly... lets just say, i can see how 6 days or 6 weeks is totally possible. i stopped exercising at like 30 weeks... and not to sound conceited (but dont really mind if i do) i look awesome. had i kept exercising the whole time and still eaten everything i wanted i think my body would have bounced back even faster. with ara i thought that was totally impossible, but this time its proven that its not.... exercising does more than we think evidently ;)

except i wouldn't be able to do a runway show right now because i have a breast infection (and that's the only reason why.. haha). i had a clogged duct last week and it got better for a few days then i wore an under wire bra out to buy a nursing bra... and it came back over the weekend and last night was INSANE.... when i stand up the weight of my boob, is too much for... my boob, and when it was touched the pain was making me shake and salivate (i know that's weird but its like the kind of salivating you do before you puke) and then this morning the other one was starting to get sore... but my ever amazing friend erin the neighb was able to watch arabella for me today so that i could just nurse a TON and use the caster oil/ golden seal remedy... and it already feel tons better....

which by the way... if any of you out there get a breast infection i highly recommend using the caster oil and golden seal before getting antibiotics, we all know why antibiotics aren't good, plus your baby can get a yeast infection from them when you're nursing... the caster oil thing is a bit more annoying to do, but it works really fast and its totally safe...
here's what ya do
mix like 2 tbs of caster oil
and about 1/2 tsp golden seal powder (you can get this at the health food store, its like $100lb but you only need a tiny bit, like 2 tbs)anyway mix it in a bowl and then smear it on your boob cover it with plastic wrap and put a heating pad on it.
if you do it like right after the baby eats every time for a day it
helps dramatically.... anyway, that's my breast secret.

and i will leave you with a photo taken from the best life ever... haha...

i think its funny that we all have our right hand up and in a fist.

for the erins.

well, two of them at least..

this erin told me that just cause i had two kids i didn't have an excuse to abandon my blog....

and this erin wanted to see more pictures of nola....


first heres two pictures of me from day four, the first day i went out and got to wear a cute non-pregnant outfit wooooo hoooooo!!!




and some nola.... the blue outfit ones are from today

in so much love.

i am in so much love. in love with seth, in love with arabella, in love with nola. my family is perfect. you all have heard about how much i love seth but the most amazing thing about having kids is how much more you fall in love with your spouse and how much closer you feel to them. when arabella was born this happened and its happened again only in a totally different way... with arabella there was so much of a bond formed over us both being scared and young and coming into being parents together and pushing through all the tough stuff that came at us from having a baby. it was like we were both innocent kids that moved into being mature adults together and it molded our hearts that much closer... even with the birth i needed seth there because he supported me, he was afraid for me but he encouraged me like he knew i could do it, even though in reality he had no idea. having him believe in me without knowing for sure that it was possible created a trust we didn't have before....

and now with nola there is a bond that i didn't even know could be reached in my heart and there is so much more love than i've ever thought i would be capable of. this time we weren't scared and young, we knew what was happening and to see the grace with which we have handled each other over the past 9 months shows me just how much we've grown together... and to have him there to hold me up at the birth this time was so much different. it was an entirely different bond... i leaned on him because even when i was afraid, he wasn't because this time he knew, he had seen me do it and he wasn't afraid.. he was a rock for me. and now that she's here, knowing she was the piece to complete our family there is a feeling i can't completely even describe... that seth and i are the head of this family together, made to perfectly compliment each other, not just for us but for these two beautiful souls we brought to earth... so that we can teach them love. its amazing to look at her and to see her as his daughter is so much different than it is with arabella, but just as amazing and life changing. i'm so beyond thankful for my babies and the most amazing best friend i could have asked for... we have love i didnt even know existed and it is what my whole life is for.

home

so, to anyone who would want to see the video of her birth, write to me and i'll send you a link... its just the short clip of her actually coming out.

ibloomblaum@hotmail.com

me and my tiny one.

healing has been AMAZING so far.... its the opposite experience of the things that took place after having ara... i can walk, i can poo (without feeling like I AM going to die for sure), me and nola are nursing pros... its insane. anyway, here's some pictures of us and her...

also i need to give arabella props because she has been beyond amazing with nola, i can't even describe how great she's been... she's not jealous, she loves loves loves nola, she's sooooooooo gentle with her and she's just been handling all the change and craziness with more grace than i could have expected from her. i'm so proud of the sweet big sister and good girl she is. she definitely deserves some sort of prize for all this.. i'll have to figure something out ;)

happy birthday baby!

nola chlo is here, and yes i'm already blogging about her.

she was born at 7:24 this morning weighed 8.2lbs was 20 1/2 inches long and had a 14 inch head.

i went into labor last night after my midwife had come up and informed me my amneotic fluid was leaking... she left and i never went to sleep. i was having the same kind of contractions i'd been having for days until about midnight. they started to get a bit more intense and were consistently coming every 15 minutes. i didn't call mary until around 2 am. she started on her way up and i called erin to come be with me becuase even though labor wasn't on yet, i knew i needed her. when she arrived my contractions were every 5 minutes but bearable... i kept asking her if she thought it would just stop like every other time and she would just laugh at me and say 'um, no you're in labor'. mary arrived at around 3 or 330, i was still laughing in between contractions and talking, no big deal. ara woke up at 5 and was going to be picked up by my mother in law until i started pushing. i wanted to get in the tub so mary checked to see if it was time. i was expecting to be dialted to like 2cm or something and to feel totally defeated. she checked me, i was 6-7cm. ara left and i got in the tub... within an hour and 10 minutes of getting in the tub nola was out. i pushed for 22 minutes. my contractions were short the whole time which was amazing... but pushing this time was SOOO much more painful than with arabella. with ara, since i had pushed for almost 3 hours and been having contractions for so long i was just numb down there, this time i felt ever singe thing. i felt when she moved down, i knew exactly when she was starting to crown, all of it. it was insane. when her head was out i had to wait a minute for the next contraction to get her body out, in that moment i got to touch her head and when the next contraction came mary and i both pulled her out. the labor was just as hard as arabellas but in different ways... although the way i feel now is extremely easier than after arabella... plus my face isn't swollen to ten times its size! ara did amazing watching the whole thing and amy helped her stay grounded :)... arabella LOVES her... she has been waiting so long to see nolas face.. she was getting really crazy and disobedient right after nola came and finally when i got a moment with her i asked her what she needed, she looked down made a sad face and i said 'are you sad?' she said 'yea' and i said 'what do you want?' she said 'hold nola.' she wasn't jealous, she just wanted to hold her! once she did, she was so much better... nola is so adorable, she looks just like me when i came out, she has black hair! its crazy cause i expected her to look more like ara, but all they have in common is their undereyes from papa :) she has the cutest cry and makes super cute baby sounds.... and she has THE longest toes and fingers i have EVER seen.

that was our morning... here are the pictures to prove it ... and i have some short videos of the process that i will post later....

i'm so excited that she is finally here, i'm done with the pregnant phase of my life and our family is complete.

just so you know.... the lady holding her with glasses is my amazing midwife mary. there's a picture of ara holding her baby with her eyes
closed, she was being like mommy and nola, and the big bloody thing is my placenta.... gorgeous. it wasn't as huge around this time but it
was super thick.

i forgot the best part... not one single suture! woooo hooooo!