Soother Leash Hack

Here I am out of the blue with possibly the lamest post in the history of ever, but someone commented the other day on my quick fix for Dash's soother. I had purchased a few styles of soothers to figure out what he preferred, and I had also picked up some soother leashes that were supposed to be universal. Unfortunately when he settled on his favs and I went to attach them to the universal soother leash, the attached plastic bit didn't fit onto the soother! I was on the run out the door and didn't have time for shenanigans, and so I just took the hairband off my wrist and used that. It worked great - especially with the thicker elastic, it fits snugly and has never given me any problems. I know this is totally not some dramatic problem, mothers all over the continent rolling about in anguish because the soother leash they bought didn't work out, but hey. I figure if it saves another person or two from tossing some cute soother leashes in the back of the drawer to (never) return or loosing precious soothers (WHERE ARE THEY?! WHERE DID THEY ALL GO? BABIES ARE NOT EXACTLY WALKING OFF AND SHOVING THEM DOWN REGISTER VENTS!) then yay.

 

And for the record, my laptop has been busted for ages, and not even taping it is helping, and my software is not on my hubby's computer. Since I was busy with a new baby, I wasn't in too much of a hurry to get a new computer and go through the long and dramatic getting-to-know-you phase that entails. But soon, my loves, soon! Meanwhile you can get lots of doses of my delicious fatty fat baby and my exciting (that's a nice word for WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE) older children on Instagram!

A Miracle for Maverick

If you’ve been following my blog for a long time you may recognize Rachel and Dave and their older two boys (circa 2011.) They’ve popped up in photos on the blog a few times in the past. They’re some of our oldest and dearest friends. Rachel and I attended school together, Chris and Dave attended a different school together, and we all go way, way back. Colten and Nicole were born 5 days apart, Olivia and Brody are 9 months apart, and Jackson and Maverick are about a year apart.

Meet Maverick.
(photo credit for Maverick’s photos are K Wolfe’s Voluntography)

Rachel had by all accounts a relatively normal pregnancy. There was no sense of urgency or unwell, and when we put off plans to hang out one last time pre-baby because she’d had a busy day and was tired, I casually mentioned I’d be there to soak up my baby snuggles in no time. Sure enough, soon we got a text message announcing the birth of little Maverick. I was delighted and lost no time shopping for baby gifts, even excitedly buying matching little beach shirts for Jackson and Maverick like the enormous dork that I am.

Not long after, we received word that due to concerns about his O2 levels, he was being transferred from the small hospital where he was born to our local hospital. Nobody was too particularly worried yet. Chris went out that night to go visit Rachel and Dave, since we couldn’t go see Maverick until he got out of the NICU and somebody had to stay home with our own kids. He wound up going out for drinks with Dave. I was annoyed when he confessed when he got home that he had completely forgotten to give Rachel the baby gifts and care package of non-hospital-food.

Then the world shifted.

We received word the next morning that Maverick had been airlifted to the Stollery in Edmonton. We were confused, shocked, and unsure how to deal with going about our day to day lives while our friends sat by waiting to find out if their infant son would live through the next day, sometimes even the next hour. It felt so wrong to live a normal life while they couldn’t, and there was nothing we could really do to help. My phone lit up with questions I had very few answers for, as we all sat by anxiously waiting, teetering on the edge of grief. Many of us tried to find little ways to try fill the need to do something, anything to help, knowing it was just a poor substitute for what we really wanted to be able to do. And we prayed, all of us, all the time.

Maverick did live through hour after hour, day after day, baffling doctors and winning the hearts of the medical staff, not to mention hundreds of people across Canada and beyond. Four months later, he isn’t out of the woods yet, but he’s no longer in a place where the next few hours are continually critical. He’s had ups and some really serious downs, and his battle isn’t nearly done, but he’s still here.

Here’s the story of Maverick’s journey so far.

Artists and authors across North and South America come together using their talents and gifts to help families with children battling against heart disease. Heart Disease is the lead cause of infant death and is devastating to those families who go through it. An Auction will be held October 14th -21st 2013 in honor of Maverick.

Currently he still resides in the Cardio Vascular Intensive Care Unit in the Stollery Childrens Hospital in Edmonton Alberta. June 7th, 2013 Maverick was born a healthy 8lb 9 ounces. Everything was perfect except for his heart. He was immediately rushed from Manitoba to Edmonton's Stollery Hospital. He then underwent extensive planning for a long 9 hour open heart surgery on June 14th, 2013. The 5 major complications with his heart were: Double Outlet Right Ventricle, Narrowing of the Aorta, Coarctation of the Aorta, Atrial Septal Defect, Ventricular Septal Defect, left and right Coronary Artery complications.
The open heart surgery they thought went well until the following day when to our horror Maverick went into cardiac arrest & his heart stopped for 43 minutes. The amazing doctors at the Children’s Stollery hospital of Alberta got him back, and put him on life support.

From there Maverick was on life support for 33 days. His parents were told endless times that he would likely not make it and not come home, that he only had a 5% chance of surviving.

Maverick continued to fight massive organ failure due to being on life support for so long. The doctors, surgeons & other medical personnel took David and Rachel in a meeting to discuss either bridging him through life support to heart transplant or taking him off life support in which they did not think he would make it. In that powerful meeting Rachel said from the beginning Dave had always said 'boy, we've come here to fix your heart, your gonna use what you've been given.' They could see that the life support was killing him. That he would not even be eligible for a transplant due to massive organ failure. In that meeting Rachel continued on their behalf... 'We’ve always hoped for him to use his own heart, we have to give him that chance and take him off the life support. From there... we will hope and pray for a miracle!!'

From there Maverick went through a multitude of other battles, taking everyone he knew and loved on an enormous roller coaster.

To give you a glimpse into his journey, his mom wrote this poem

They said, the surgery is long and risky.
we prayed for a miracle.
They said, the infection is bad, he will not make it.
we prayed for a miracle.
They said, he will not come off the VAD
we prayed for a miracle.
They said, his kidneys will not recover
we prayed for a miracle.
There were a billion other times~
we prayed for a miracle.
They said, ‘he’s surprising us all!'
we said ' a whole army of host’s is a prayin’ for a miracle'.
Now here he is after,
13 surgeries,
over 200 units of blood
2 Cardiac arrests
1 crushed lung
1 enlarged liver
massive internal bleeding
right atrium haemorrhage
3 sepsis infections
1 amputation
1 heartbroken mommy
and a million other tests, scans, & things
~ our baby ~
a fighter
has surely shown them to be our little miracle.

There hasn’t been much I could do for my dear friends. But now I have an opportunity to help out a little bit more and if you’d like, so can you. Emily Wierenga is putting together a charity auction called A Miracle For Maverick. From October 14-21st, an online auction will be held thanks to the generosity of Christian artists and bloggers across the United States and Canada in honour of heart families. All proceeds will go directly to Rachel and Dave Vanderzwaag to help their family and others continue the fight. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, the world renowned heart care program set up by Dr. David Ross and Dr. Ivan Rebeyka, and to other organizations that will directly help families struggling with CHD.

And of course, your prayers are always coveted.

Currently, Rachel and the boys are living in Edmonton. Colten is enrolled in school there and he and Brody are being cared for by family (what a blessing!) while Rachel is busy with Maverick. Dave works in Winnipeg and he flies back and forth to work and to be with his family. It’s very hard, but with the support of family, friends, the communion of saints, and most of all our Father in Heaven, they are making it through one day at a time.

You can donate, or bid on the items from the Auction, beginning October 14th, by visiting the blog of Emily Wierenga at www.emilywierenga.com. For more information, please e-mail wierenga.emily@gmail.com. Thank you.

If you’d like to donate something to auction, send Emily an email. A photo and description of auction items needs to go to Emily as soon as possible, if you have something you’d like to contribute. Auction goes live October 14.

If you’d like to help spread the word about the auction, leave me a comment and I’ll give you a write-up. I’ll also have something to post around on Instagram and similar social media the week of the auction itself.

Blue-eyed beauties 3-2-1

I wish I could say I’ve been busy slaying dragons and conquering new skills, but no. Mostly just housework, hanging with the littles, and reorganizing my house. Actually, we shall restate that first bit. I have slain a dragon. Our playroom. I have completely reorganized it into an entirely unbeautiful and very functional toy storage system a la Rubbermaid, that makes it way easier for the kids to spend five minutes cleaning up. Instead of me spending two hours reorganizing every toy into it’s special spot, I have a bunch of buckets that are either by theme or by type, and they get one at a time, and if they want another they throw everything back in the Rubbermaid first. Pinworthy and beautiful? Not particularly. Functional? Absolutely.

I’ve also been working on skills, actually. Firstly, on my houseworking skills. Let’s be real here – it does not come to me naturally. If I strike you as the homemaker type, I apologize. In reality, I am the artsy fartsy type, and if I leave myself in my natural state I tend to sit up every so often and wonder what the heck happened. I’m forcing myself to create new habits and routines and so far I’m doing pretty well. I mean, two steps forward and one back – I have a toddler and a baby after all.

Secondly, I’m giving running another go. It’s actually just happenstance that I took it up in the New Year. That’s just when my husband and I came to the conclusion that going to the gym was not fitting in particularly well in this season of my life. Jackson has been clingy off and on, and my husband struggles with him when I’m gone, and that’s stressful for everyone involved. So in lieu of not having a whole gym available we opted for a second hand treadmill. I’m nearly done my second week of it and I’m getting stronger, faster, and yes, losing weight as well. But mostly I’m feeling more energetic, which is really helping with that housework skills thing… especially since I’ve got less sleep lately than I ever got when Jackson was a newborn. C’est la vie, and this baby season is long days and short years, and all the snuggles and laughter are totally worth the lack of sleep.

However, I have resolved to do or create something every day, even if it’s just a photograph. So, on a particularly crazy day, I pulled out my dslr and took pictures of my crazies. Then I edited them another day. Every day a little bit of something! Running and creating even just little bits, that’s what’s keeping me in a happy, healthy place (mentally and physically) this cold cold winter.

How about you? How do you keep in the happy healthy zone?

Teeny Tiny Zoe Dress

So, on New Years Eve my brother and sister in law were blessed with a second baby girl who they named Zoe. Due to some medical issues/complications, I didn’t get a chance to meet her until today, so I channelled my excitement into a teeny tiny dress for the teeny tiny little earlybird. (If you follow me on IG you got to follow along a bit on my progression on this thing.)

Sorry for the iphone pictures taken in the basement at midnight, ha. Naturally I was so excited I had to take pictures as soon as I finished it but then didn't think to take pictures with my DSLR this morning in daylight before I gave it to Zoe’s mom. Hopefully I can get some pictures of her in it and HOPEFULLY it fits as well as I hope it does! She is so very teeny tiny, I can’t get over it, so hopefully she can get some wear out of this little pinafore. And really, her big sister can use it for a doll afterwards! So small. (note: It fits her perfectly, and her mom says she doesn’t think she’ll be able to bear giving it to the kids to use for dolls afterwards. So I guess it’s a hit!)

See my new tag there? Yay! Washing instructions are on the inside. It’s a bit big looking on this dress, haha, but in normal garments it will be fairly unobtrusive. I will have to test it out by making a matching skirt or top for Zoe’s big sister, I guess! (;

If you’re curious and would like to make your own, the dress is a mashup of these two tutorials:

Click on the images to be brought to the tutorials. Except I didn’t actually follow the tutorials so much as skim them ahead of time and I’m seeing something in the second one which makes me think I make things way too hard sometimes, so maybe do read them at least right before you start drafting.

I chose to make the ruffles a bit less ruffled than I would have on a bigger dress, just because it’s so tiny and for such a little bitty that I didn’t want to overwhelm her with volume. I’m definitely planning to make this again in Olivia’s size and flounce it right up! Possibly also a tunic for Nicole, I think it would be quite charming on her, almost more so than on Olivia.

Because the world needed another home video of a laughing baby

Babies are adorable so that we adore them even when they won't nap for more than 15 minutes at a time so they're so overtired they are alternately laughing and screaming.
It's science.
 
Jackson, 4 months. Naps = broken. At least he still sleeps through the night.

I don’t actually sound like that, that is my talking-to-baby-voice. Thanks to the magic of voice messaging thanks to my husband and smartphones if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s how annoying my own voice is and what a blessing it is that anyone can stand to talk to me in person at all.

Jackson

Jackson :
8 weeks old
A whopping 13.5 lb of breastfed goodness
Smiley and quite awake
Has an umbilical hernia (shouldn’t require surgery and doesn’t require much extra care, just caution and attention)
Is going through his fussy stage but I think I figured it out today… he wants to sit up and be present. He’s over the constant sleeping and he’s not super interested in toys, he would like to sit somewhere with a good view and supervise. Actually, the way he looks at toys, I think he’s suspicious of them, and I’m pretty sure his thoughts on the mobile are something the lines of ‘circling… always circling…’

Here’s a peek at my baby announcements. Just in case anyone hadn’t noticed yet that I wasn’t 10.5 months pregnant, we’re still planning to send out announcements. I found a sweet template here on etsy, and I’m probably going to do an actual opening card and send it out to less people to compensate for the extra cost. Actually, considering the stack of envelopes with names and not addresses or stamps that I tossed a few months ago containing Olivia’s birth announcements, possibly more people. Awkward.

I do have other children besides Jackson, I am aware. I dragged the three of them to a bootcamp yesterday morning, one that allows you to bring your kids. (google The Tyson Method) I was a bit late, and Olivia was a bit of a clingy burr because she is really shy around strangers. Nicole is more the “Hi my name is Nicole and these are my siblings names and this is my phone number and would you like mom’s SIN number?” kind of a deal. Don’t worry, she doesn’t actually know my SIN number, phew. It’s a new thing, having a shy kid. Benefits to both, I’d say. Anyways, I was feeling like a badass at bootcamp. Look at me doing jumping jacks! Squat squat squat! Oh yeah, feel the burn. Oh. Hey, that really burns. Ow. More? Do not want. My butt muscles are shaking. I’m secretly glad I keep having to stop and deal with Olivia. I hate this. Can I have a cookie now? And then my muscles were so done that I couldn’t even haul my stroller up the small flight of stairs to get back out. I was lucky to have help available.

I was dreading this morning, and oh, was it ever everything I thought it would be. And more. You know you got your butt whooped at bootcamp when you’re sitting on the toilet looking around sadly, wondering if the toilet paper roll dispenser would give out if you tried to use it to haul yourself up to avoid using your leg muscles. Wishing for a handicap bar. Wishing you could pee standing up. Anything but that dreadful moment of sitting down or getting up from the toilet. Whyyyyyyyyy????! sob.

I don’t want to be skinny, I just want to be fit. Actually, let’s try that again. I have realistic expectations and an intense love of cooking, baking, and eating, would love to be skinny but would have to step away from the cupcake first, and want to be fit. Rumour has it that the afterburn feeling discourages you from noshing but so far no luck. I did a bunch of baking for bible study (which I wasn’t able to attend, but I’m sure my baking paid good attention) and did no small amount of tasting, licking, sampling, cleaning off spatulas, and the like. I figure I’m actually working harder if I’m pushing up more weight in a push-up, so its all good, right? ….right?

all photos in this post (except the picture of Jackson compared to Chris’ hand in the baby announcement) are thanks to Amy Vanderveen Photography

Itty Bitty Jackson

Jackson was, by a landslide, my smallest baby. He was just a teensy weensie itty bitty thing, and that did NOT last for long… today he’s six weeks old and starting to get stuffy in some of the 3-6 month onesies I’ve got! (sizing is, of course, skewed all over, as we all know. There’s one or two things labelled ‘newborn’ that still fit like a charm)

I did quickly snap a few shots of him as a little bitty one day. The light was poor and the pictures are grainy, plus they aren’t exactly beautiful bokeh-filled creamy shots, but they were never meant to be pro shots. I’m glad I took them because by the time I got to getting his pro shots done he’d chubbed up, wouldn’t want to have almost nothing but cameraphone pictures of his tiny little self! This was at two weeks old already, so he’d already grown from his birth weight by a pound or two.

And here’s a peek of his current Royal Chubbiness from his photoshoot with our family photographer, Amy Vanderveen. Oh, the difference a month can make!

Jackson Reid

6lb 9oz
2 weeks early
born 17/07/2012

 

And today, at one week old, back up in weight and again some, to 6lb 10oz. He’s the sweetest, most placid little thing. We are so blessed.

If I Have A Boy

I’ll hopefully be finding out whether we’re expecting a pink or blue bundle at my 20 week ultrasound next month. Boy, that came up fast! We’re pondering the idea of a boy because a) obviously, it could go either way, and b) the heartbeat came up at 145, and both my girls maintained a steady 165.

A friend of mine jokingly asked me what I would do with a boy, since I couldn’t make him tutus or headbands or hairclips. I proposed that I could dress him up like an english gentleman until he’s old enough to hate me for it. Later, I was thinking I could make him some quilts. Here’s a roundup of some other things I could do if I have a boy!

First things first, this quilt pattern comes to live with me and I make the coolest baby quilt ever. EVERRRRRRR. Allegedly it’s not even that difficult but my brain is dazzled and I assume if it is actually something I’m capable of, everyone else will be dazzled too. Especially the baby, who will write me a thankyou card as soon as he learns to write.

 

 

Baby boys need clothes, too, and this reversible vest strikes me as the perfect way to hide at least two food incidents before running out of clean.

Reversible cuffed pants? Girls and boys alike look cute in cuffed pants, and reversible is just french for magical as far as children are concerned. I need to make Olivia a reversible shirt for when we go to Costco and she rubs samples all over herself.

A comfy version of the gentlemanly look, I think yes.

Indulge my vulgar side.

Obviously.

Button up shirt converted to a onesie? I think yes.

And that’s barely skimming the barrel! Let’s not forget every single rad boy tutorial over at I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar, for after the baby child grows. Plus I will knit him many a tweedy sweater.

Now, as to what I would do WITH a boy child? Hmmm… I don’t know. Rescue him from his sisters mostly, I imagine. Time will tell!

(girl or boy… what a joy!)

Meanwhile, in my uterus…

 

untwinned

 

When they were little babies my girls were basically twins but now, at six months, Olivia has quite definitely deviated from the previous Baby Blueprint we seemed to have going on there.

Nicole at six months:

Olivia at six months:

I know, I actually have a nice camera to take pictures of Olivia with yet somehow the Nicole picture is much better. Go figure. This is the most similar picture that I’ve got, and it’s from my Ipod. Olivia actually has much lighter eyes than Nicole, who has really dark moody blues. Olivia’s are more like her daddy’s. Olivia is also much chubbier, but with a skinnier face. And the moral of the story is, we make pretty babies. The end.

Video Tutorial–how to fold cloth wipes

I didn’t invent this idea, but I saw it ages ago so I have no idea where it’s from. Just thought I would share for a quick second. I expect a thankyou note for the fact that you can’t see my face in this video. I got about four hours of sleep last night – thank you, Olivia – and while I feel fine, I look haggard. Now tomorrow… tomorrow I fully expect to fell like something a cat horked up. (You’re welcome for that little mental visual.)

please excuse the fact that I sound like… well… me.

Baby Giggles

Some baby giggles to brighten your day. I know they sure brightened mine!

Which witch is which?

That tongue twister is actually a terrible title for this post. I take it back. Neither of my daughters are witchy. (Thus says Laura when both of them are sleeping. Ask me how I feel when they’re both wailing for funsies.) Anyways, those of you who are friends with me on facebook – not the page but me the person – have seen these side-by-side pictures of Nicole and Olivia already. They tickle me pink, though, so I’m sharing them with y’all too.

Nicole at one month, Olivia at one month

Nicole at two months, Olivia at two months

They aren’t identical but they are definitely sisters, that's for sure! And I think Nicole is quite a pretty little thing, if I do say so myself, so it’s nice to know that Olivia will be, too. In my totally unbiased opinion, winkwink.

Coo over my babies. Coo, I tell you!

This one, by the way, weighed in at 14 lbs. at her two month appointment the other day. She’s also in the 97th percentile for height. My two month old is too tall for most of the 3-6 month dresses I have for her, they look ridiculous. 6-12 is of course far too wide even for this little meatball, here. So… to the batmobile! Wait, no. The sewing room! I have visions of a slew of little peasant dresses dancing in my head. If things go nicely I shall prep some tutorials. It’s been a long year, but I’m starting to rev my engines again! This year will be more craft, less reno. I say with drywall dust in my coffee machine. DO NOT ASK. TOUCHY SUBJECT.