Something flies, and it's not pigs.

Its time.  See what I did there?  Pretty great.

You know what's happened to me?  Yesterday, just yesterday, I had me a baby.  And I turn around for one minute to go to the bathroom or wash a pot or something, and he's sitting up and crawling and growin' teefers.  How is this okay?  I distinctly remember telling him not to get bigger.  Then again, I also told him if he wanted to sleep through the night and change his own diapers, that would be dandy by me.  Maybe there's a trade off there?  Not sure.  But regardless, I now am mother to a seven and a half month old.

A very chunky seven and a half month old.

Here he is in all his chunky mobile glory.  Cruisin' along, throwing diapers all over the floor, and learning to open the drawers on our new entertainment center (one which we specifically purchased because we believed it would be slightly less accessible). He is now learning to stand holding on to things, and he gets a tad overzealous once he's accomplished the feat.  This usually ends with him fussing at least a tad, and standing there awkwardly with every muscle tensed until Chad or I come and rescue him.  Quite entertaining, as I'm sure you can imagine. 

Relatively but not really so new fun fact-  Caleb can now hold a binky in his mouth all by his lonesome!  Up until about five and a half to six months, he was either incapable or too lazy to do so, and would insist on anyone in the near vicinity holding it in for him.  Little stinker.


Well that's enough random update.  Hopefully I'll quit being such a slacker and maybe post once in a million years.  We shall see.

A Post in Which I Get Very Serious.

Caleb is about 10 weeks old now.  Time flies!  He's so smart.  He's gotten so good at holding his head up and cooing and smiling at me.  He gives me butterflies every single time he gives off that big cheesy grin.  His movements are still jerky, and he's still managing to give himself a good whack in the face, but he is learning, ever so carefully, to move more precisely and to shape his lips to make different sounds.  He's learning, with a little help from the people who love him.

I was thinking the other day about when I had my temporary permit.  I remember walking out of the DMV with my newly laminated beauty and thinking I held the key to freedom!  Then, I distinctly remember asking my parents, "which ones the gas?"

You can imagine their concern.

But somehow they mustered up the courage to just let me take that first test drive.  But suddenly I was terrified.  I'd never driven a vehicle before! I could kill somebody!  But with their encouragement, I made it home in one piece.  I remember slowly learning the ropes.  Having near run-ins with mailboxes.  The jerky corrections when I was too far left or too far right.  The issue I had with speed and forgetting how fast I was going until I hit 70 on a 55.  Then one day, I felt it was almost second nature.

But I still had faults.  I wasn't a perfect driver.

When I was 19 and a legal driver, I was leaving a parking lot after dark, speeding towards the exit.  Out of nowhere, a dip in the road appeared, and I slammed on my brakes.  The wet pavement gave no purchase, and I turned the wheel just in time to not hit a cement road block head on.  I was flustered.  Terrified.  I never thought I'd be that person who wrecked a car!  This couldn't be happening to me!  I was invincible!  Then it occurred to me...

This wasn't even my car.

It was my step mothers.  My father had married her only months earlier, and she was one of the sweetest, kindest women I'd ever met. How could I tell her what I'd done to her car?

I began frantically crying.  I jumped in the car and drove home, wobbly wheel and all.  I began wondering if I could survive the coming night.  I arrived home and ran in the house where my dad sat and yelled, "I wrecked the car!" with tears streaming down my face.

He stood up, took the keys, and stepped outside to take it for a drive.  When he returned home, he told me it was totaled.  I cried more.  After he told Susan (my step mother), he told me I'd have to talk to her.  I couldn't bear to do that!  I was so ashamed!  I wanted to go bury myself in my blankets and never come out again.  I wanted it to be like it never happened, but the damage was done.  When I finally confronted her, I was sobbing.  Begging for her forgiveness.  I was amazed at what happened.

She looked at me with a smile on her face and said, "it's okay, Alex.  I was a teenager once, too."

I couldn't believe it.  She then began to tell me all the unfortunate car mishaps she'd had in her life, none of which came even close to what I'd just done.  And yet, she remained calm. Happy even.  So forgiving.  I've never forgotten that.


I've been thinking a lot about this with regard to the Plan of Salvation.  I can see it now.

We are so blessed to receive bodies.  We come to the Earth.  We grow.  We mature.  We learn to walk and talk, we go to school.

But we all have our weaknesses.

I imagine Heavenly Father was reluctant to let us go, just as my parents were reluctant to let me drive in my completely inexperienced state.  Much like I had to learn the basics of driving, we've had to come and learn to have and control a body with carnal impulses.  The natural man.  Some of us (all of us, at times), when we've tasted freedom, will let those impulses overpower us and take us down a road with nothing but wet pavement and a concrete roadblock at the end.

In that moment, we will see the error of our ways.  We will know we are not invincible, and we will have a choice.

Do we hide in our blankets and try and pretend it never happened...

Or do we make it right?

  I know that we are all children of the Almighty God.  He loves us so much, and is trusting us to use the bodies he lovingly gave to us with respect and care.  We cannot disrespect them and feel peace.  But He, knowing that we would make mistakes, has given us His son, and through Christ, who loves us so much, we can become clean again.  We can receive forgiveness if we are humble enough to ask for it.  I know this to be true.  And I bear witness of it in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

'Birth Story' of sorts.

My baby boy is here!

Sometimes it's still so strange for me to think that this little man was the one kicking me in the ribs all those months. He is literally the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. He smiles in his sleep and pees all over the place during diaper changes, including on Chad while he's across the room at the doctors office. He sleeps better with tons of noise which makes it difficult to get him back to sleep at four in the morning. But I'm in love. I wouldn't change anything at all, and I'm enjoying every second of getting to know his sweet young spirit.

I won't be sharing Caleb's actual birth story. Something about it seems extremely personal to me. But just know it didn't go like I'd planned. I am not one for pain. Ask anyone. But three failed epidurals and quite a bit of pitocin later I believe I found something in myself I didn't know was there. I know that I wasn't doing it alone. I had family support and I had help from my Heavenly Father to make it through no doubt the most painful experience I'd ever endured, and in the end, I wouldn't change a thing. I love every bit of how my baby came into the world and I love everything it taught me about myself. End birth story rant.

What I am sharing is how the whole process started. Wednesday the 20th of February, I woke up with a small wet spot in my underwear. By the way, of me talking about wet spots in underwear is tmi, stop reading now. There's a lot more where that came from.
I didn't pay a lot of attention to it because my doctor specifically told me that water breaking would be either a big gush or a trickle down my leg. This didn't trickle, therefor no big deal. But it kept happening. Chad and I were actually organizing Caleb's things when I explained what was happening. He said it wouldn't be a bad idea to call the nurses hotline just to be safe.
I called, and they told me to go straight to labor and delivery. I wasn't expecting that at all. What a surreal feeling that was. Both chad and I left the house with jitters!
We arrived at labor and delivery and did our paperwork and eventually got into a triage room. They had me change and hooked me up to monitors and checked the fluid to see if it was amniotic. I had some anxiety during the test. Something in me told me it'd be negative. But something felt wrong about that. But I shrugged that off as just wishing it were positive.
Turns out, it was negative. They brought in an ultrasound to check Caleb's fluid, and he was at a safe level 12. This test gave me some relief from that earlier mentioned anxiety, and later I found out chad had the same anxious feeling that also went away with the ultrasound. We were sent home. I was feeling so embarrassed. They had kept repeating the old "he's probably just really close to your bladder, it's totally normal to have leaks like that" over and over. It drove me crazy. I'm not peeing every time I move. I empty my bladder and it happens right after. Sheesh. Needless to say I was a little frustrated, but mostly humiliated because for all I knew, they were right.
The leaking continued throughout the day, and I tried not to pay attention to it. We went to sleep and just before I woke up, I had a dream somebody was talking to me, very concerned. They grabbed my shoulders and said, "your water broke!"
I woke up immediately after to feel my underwear more wet than ever. I frantically felt the sheets underneath me only to find them dry. I found myself embarrassed again. Great. Now I'd really peed myself.
But I went to the bathroom and emptied a full bladder only for the leaking to continue immediately after. I was beginning to feel a little crazy. All of it came out clear. Not even close to yellow. I didn't understand. Chads mom suggested putting on a pad and lying down, because amniotic fluid will pool when you lay down and come out when you sit up again. So I laid there twenty minutes and sure enough, when I sat up, a little mini gush happened. Frustration ensued.
I went downstairs to make sure it wasn't yellow and to my surprise I actually found pink! That was it. I actually called the office instead of the nurses hotline and again I was told to go in to labor and delivery immediately. Chad had just left for work, so his mom and I went together. Again I was checked into the triage. They did the same test to sample the fluid that was leaking and we waited.
Negative again.
At this point I was at a loss. I was that crazy lady. The one that cried wolf all the time. She was I and I felt so silly. They brought in the ultrasound again and at this point I was almost annoyed. Just send me home! Why torture me anymore! They continued to do the same things they had done the day before, when the nurse turned to me and said, "your levels are dropping. You're at a 7 today, so you are losing fluid. We're going to keep you and induce your labor." Wow. Wasn't expecting that.
I couldn't believe it. I called Chad and he was as surprised as I was. He ran home to grab a few things and rushed to the hospital just as things were starting up. About 12 hours of labor later, we welcomed a perfect 7 pound 14 ounce, 20 inch long baby boy into our family. Seeing him made everything worth it. Cliche, I know. But cliches are cliche for a reason.
It was such a relief for me to know that I understood my body. That I was right about leaking fluid. I couldn't believe it, but even that gave me a new sense of self confidence. I could trust myself to know what was happening with my body. Even if it seemed crazy. I felt somehow validated. I was no longer that silly woman that was obsessed with coming into labor and delivery because she peed herself. And that was a great feeling!

Looking back, I'm so grateful for family. I had so much support through everything. But I'm especially grateful for the man I married. I know him being by my side helped me more than he knows. He kept me going when I thought I wouldn't be able to do it. He is my biggest support and my very best friend. I love him so much and I'm so grateful everyday to Heavenly Father for letting me marry him for time and all eternity. If Caleb turns out anything like his wonderful father, I will be proud to say the least. He's already an amazing father and, just when I thought it impossible, I love him all the more everyday I see him with Caleb. But I'll stop there. Don't want to get TOO sappy. ;)

Caleb Chad Eddington
Born 2/22/2013 at 12:59 am
7 pounds 14 ounces and 20 inches long