Sunday, November 28, 2010
Senses are a funny thing. They can be so unimportant until they facilitate a memory or experience, making them so powerful. As winter has set in, I find my senses taking me back to a very beautiful place. Last winter, when I holed up for several months in my new house and loved on my snuggly newborn. Everything was so fresh..so exciting..so new. When the heat kicked on for the first time this winter, I was flooded with memories of Lyla and I by the sliding glass door watching it snow, or wrapped up in a blanket snuggling all day. It reminded me of all the emotions, feelings and experiences of those first few months being a mommy. The first time it snowed this year, I remembered late late nights when we'd be in the rocker watching the snow fall under the street light. It brings memories of peace and the warmest fuzziest feelings of nostalgia. I hope these memories flood me every time winter approaches as they will surely keep me warm. Babies really are the very best.
On September 29th I had my first experience calling poison control.
eek
Lyla was helping me in the bathroom as usual. I was brushing my teeth and she was playing in the cupboard below. She pulled out a drawer from a little plastic container thing and I let her continue to play in it since it just held hair things. A few seconds later, I looked down just to be sure she wasn't into anything and that's when I saw a little blue pill (not viagra...hahah). And panic set in. I grabbed the little drawer and there were 4 different looking pills. I had no idea if she had eaten 1 or more, or any. After an Internet search and a frantic conversation with Todd, I learned 2 pills were Zyrtec, an allergy pill and the other was a generic Tylenol pm. These were as old as our marriage at least. I kept replaying the event, trying to decide if she could have had the chance to swallow a pill or not. The irrational side of me kept thinking she probably swallowed a fist full, but playing it out, I knew at best she could have only swallowed 2. That didn't' make me feel better though. What do I do? Go straight to the ER? Assume she's fine??? Ahhh. It was pretty late at night. I finally called poison control and found out that even had she taken 2-3 of each kind of pill, she would be fine. Why I didn't just call them sooner I don't know (I guess because I wasn't sure what she had or had not taken). At worst, she'd just be tired (ha!)
Relief is the only word to describe the experience! I burst into tears and irrationally cried for awhile. It was just such a real reminder of how precious life is. I had let myself think what life could be like without her which was truly the worst feeling in the world. Frightening. I'm happy to report Lyla wasn't even over tired. She slept normally and has been fine. Man, it's tough being a mom.
Dear Lyla,
You have been with us for one whole year my baby. How did that happen? It's no exaggeration to say it's been the best year of my life. There is nothing like the feeling of being your mom. There is nothing like waking up to your smiling face, when you let me cuddle you. There is nothing like your ear to ear grin, with little teeth poking out. Like when you get real close to my face to talk, and take me in. There is nothing like a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss from you. There is nothing like your raised arms beckoning for me to grab you. There's nothing like comforting you, watching you experience something for the first time, or being a part of your life every single day. Your 12th month will go down as another one of my favs. Each day is like getting to chill with my mini BFF. You get things enough now that we can laugh and play and learn together. I just love watching you play with toys. You go all over all day and love figuring out how each toy works. You're not soo big yet though, which means you'll cuddle and love on your mama. Thanks for this year my baby. Congrats to you for all you've accomplished in this short time. It's been a pleasure.
The Theme of this months is Communication. You are so good now at telling me in one form or another what you want and need. You are a master at using grunts, whines, begs and cries to tell me what you want. Pointing and reaching are also a big part of your new communication skills. It helps that you are so incredibly expressive. People remark all the time that you have the best facial expressions. You have the whine face, the happy face, the smile face, the contemplative face, the offended face..and the list goes on. It's really great to be able to interact this way and not have to guess as much at what you want. Just wait until you can talk!
in12 Month STATS
Weight: 15 lbs 09 oz..... {point}16%
Height: 26.50 inches.....1%
Head Circumference: 17.25.....14%
My itty bitty babe!
Here' some other things about your 12th month...
- You squish your nose all the time now. When you're bored, mad, sad. It's cute and funny
You are NOT a fan of blankets when you sleep. No matter how asleep I think you are, you know the instant you're covered and kick and squirm until you are not covered
You love to share your food...to us, to Ty, whomever.
You can say HI
You can drink from a cup now
You raise your arms all the time to get what you want. You raise them to get picked up, if you want something we have...you name it - Now that you're very mobile and understand where mom goes, you follow me EVERYWHERE. I have a new partner when I use the bathroom and shower. I love when you pull back the curtain of the shower and smile as if you've found the most precious prize. You usually drench yourself in the process too.
You make the motions of the itsy bitsy spider climbing the web. It is to die for! You put your little pinchers together and nod to the song. You are SO smart.
One day something just clicked in your brain that you can mimic. Now you do everything we do...you'll raise your arms, make similar facial expressions, stick out your tongue, etc, etc. It was so amazing that one day we finally saw that you understood and really grasped what we were doing.
You had 5 teeth starting your 12th month
As evident from the pictures, you still LOVE climbing in things
You take our cell phones and put them to your ear as if you're talking. It's so adorable
You can lead the music. When music is playing, you'll raise your arms and swing them like the chorister.
You LOVE ice cream. I think you'd eat it for every meal if we'd let you. You beg and whine as soon as you see it
You can shake your head NO! If we try to give you food you don't want or someone picks you up who you don't want to, you let them know you're NOT okay with it!
You love the minky blanket gran gave you. You'll crawl over to it and lay your head on it and rub it. Lord knows you won't sleep with it though!
When eating something you really like you want one for both hands!
You drink milk really well and go through a half gallon a week
You point to things when you want them
You dig on twinkies
You give kisses! I love when you learned this to this. I feel so loved when you open your mouth and lean in towards me.
September 29th was the most monumental day perhaps in your life. At 12 months and a few weeks, YOU FINALLY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!! 8 whole hours of uniterrupted bliss. I felt as if I'd been at a spa retreat for months. Honestly, people had hassled me for months that I hadn't let you cry it out yet...but I really just knew that you would get it by the time you were one. I just knew it. When 12 months came along and you were still waking up 4-6 times a night and not napping, I started doubting myself, but you got it!!! I knew you would my love. Since then it's been better and better. You now sleep about 12 hours a night and take a regular 1-2 hour nap. You sleep so soundly I can't beleive how different it is from before. I'm so glad I waited and you caught on. Thanks a million baby girl.
You LOVE nutella. Thank goodness for it because it adds calories to bananas and bread which you desperately need.
You gasp when you get excited. It's killer
You HATED shots at your 12 month. I can't say I blame you. It was so sad...I think with the flu shot you got 5 total.
You now listen when I read you books and will sit still without turning the pages. It is great
As you got closer to 13 months, you started to HATE when I shower. You used to love finding me and would chill while I finished. Now you bawl and scream until I get out. I don't know if you're just that needy or it you think something bad is happening to me while I'm in there. I usually grab you up all soaking wet and you rub my shoulder until I calm you down. It's so sad that now I only shower when I can get dad or somebody to chill with you (which still usually pisses you off)
You chipmunk your food. You act like somebody's going to snatch your food away so you shove tons in your mouth and store it in there until it can be all swallowed. It's amazing how much food you can keep in there without choking.
You still LOVE bathing. Now you know when I start to drain the water and scoot to the back of the tub! You smart stinker! I love how much you love it though. You have this bath toy that plays music that you bob your head to and sqeal to. It's so funny. - You really like putting random things on your head, like clothing or whatever. Yet, you won't wear bows or hats that actually go on your head, go figure
You eat basically what we do now which is very nice...but messy. You love pastas like spagettis and alfreado, macaroni and cheese, pizza, hamburgers (sometimes) yogurt, bananas, toast with nutella, chicken noodle soup, and milk. You hate pretty much all other fruits and veggies and most meats. It's lovely. I have to get pretty creative trying to get good foods in your tummy
You can say mama and papa so good now. I love it
You're much closer with dad now, or show affection to him more. You point and say DA excitedly when he gets home
You whine and beg instantly when you see a treat you want. Even hearing the wrapper of a candy in the other room. You have a 6th sense when it comes to chocolate and you hunt it down!
By the time you turned 12 months, you had pretty much weaned yourself. It might have helped that my supply likely decreased with the pregnancy. You now breastfeed once before bed and that's it! Otherwise milk in a sippy is sufficient. My that was easy! You didn't seem to care/notice at all. Pretty suprising.
You are INPATIENT! Oh my. When you want something you make it known...and beg and whine til you get it. You even whine during pop goes the weasel until it finally pops!
You LOVE pictures of yourself on the wall. Dad says nothing cheers you up like yourself:) You point and smile and want to look all day long.
You bring books to me now that you want me to read to you. Oh this melts my heart. I wanted you to love books. I scoop you up and read away. Its' great.
Friday, November 26, 2010
I've been a fan of Shutterfly for a long time now. Clear back in 2003, I made my BFF a picture book of our senior trip to New York City using their templates. Its an awesome book. Since then I've made countless greeting cards and other little things using Shutterfly. Mostly, I appreciate creativity but I'm not creative. Shutterfly is perfect for me because I can pretend I'm creative using their templates.
We made our moms the cutest Mother's Day cards. You can view all their photo cards at
I'm planning to make some photo Christmas cards which you can see at
You guys should check out their website and get into the digital scrapbooking craze if you're not already! There's lots of advantages to doing things digital but my favorite is that you don't have to first print the photo then spend the time cutting it out and arranging it on a page. Instead you have copies of your photos arranges all cute like in one step!
P.S. if you want a Christmas Card from us comment me your address or email it to me at chelseagambles@gmail.com
Saturday, November 20, 2010
For those who haven't seen these yet, you can view Lyla's One Year Photos
Someday I'll upload some here
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
I realized there's lots of things going on in the Gambles household I failed to write about. Here's my sad attempt to not make this update extremely boring
You have to read the whole thing for it to make sense
A is for April. The month we'll become a family of 4 (at least I hope anyway...I better not go into May!!). I've always thought spring is a perfect time to have a baby. You get to be fat during the winter months and have the baby when the weather is mild and temperate.
B is for breastfeeding no more. Lyla was so easy to ween and was completely done at 13 months (It was my neediness that made it go longer). She went straight to milk in a sippy. I was so surprised since she was such an addict for so long. My doc says I shouldn't expect my milk to dry up since now my body's working for #2. Pretty crazy I'll basically go 4 years of being either pregnant or breastfeeding.
C is for Clinical. Licensed Clinical Social Worker that is! I got my LCSW last month. This means I'm no longer supervised and can have a private practice. It's supposed to mean more money too (we'll see).
D is for driver's license. Utah law says once a person is diagnosed with Epilepsy, they cannot legally drive for a minimum of 3 months. My doc sent in my revocation the day he told me I had Epilepsy this has caused a lot of stress as you might imagine.
E is for Epilepsy. My EEG (crazy test where they hook all these tiny wires to your brain and make you sleep) apparently indicated that my left frontal lobe has seizures. All my incidences (like even back from when I found out I was pregnant with Lyla) were just misdiagnosed as my heart-or wrongly blamed on my heart because I have an arrhythmia (but it is not causing the problems). All I really remember is the neurologist saying things like "everyone has a disability, this is just yours" and telling me to join support groups. I just wanted to say shut up, I'm fine, tell what this really means.
F is for fatigue. I am SOOOO much more tired this pregnancy. At first I attributed it to Miss Lyla but now she is a champion sleeper and I'm still so tired. It's a different kind of tired than sleep deprivation. It's fatigue. I try to nap with Lyla but I just seem to have too much going on.
G is for Glee. The whole family loves this show! Lyla boogies with every song.
Halloween. I love this holiday and will post soon. Lyla owned her bumble bee costume.
I is for Intermountain. My employer no more. After a lot of pros and cons and pep talks from Todd, I quit my hospice medical social worker job. It didn't bring in that much money but required me to be on call essentially 7 days a week. It felt like I was working all the time but getting paid nothing. Stress + little money=quitting time.
J is for Jazz. Todd's sister gave us her company's tickets which her $114 a pop! They were great seats. It was my first time going to a pro basketball game. Todd and I had a great time on date night since we never do that.
K is for Klohe. The first name of my new, amazing neurologist at IMC in Salt Lake. She has taken a much more conservative approach to my neurological issues. She DID NOT think it was advantageous for me to take the seizure meds while pregnant and is okay with me waiting to start them until I'm done breastfeeding baby #2. She also says I can drive as long as I pull over when I have the vision problems. She is my hero. I cried when I left her office as my initial consult was so devastating. It's no fun to be told you can't legally drive, have to take meds that may cause your baby to have a cleft lip, and can never breastfeed again.
L is for Lamictal. This is the drug my original neurologist prescribed to manage my seizures. I was told it may or may not cause birth defects like cleft lip. Taking it also requires that I NEVER breastfeed again. He said my options were to take the meds or not be his patient anymore. I'm not his patient anymore.
M is for morning sickness. I actually understand the word this time around! It's not so bad to puke up breakfast when you know you'll feel better as the day goes on. I kind of crawl out to the kitchen each morning, nab Lyla and I food, and feed her in the recliner. It makes a huge mess but it's how i survive. Then by noon I'm feeling amazing.
N is for Nutella. I owe this product my life since it's the only way I convince my child to eat anything remotely healthy.
O is for Odyssey. Part of Todd's reaction to this new baby has been anxiety-ridden planning. One night he stayed up all night, downloaded this app to his phone and starting researching vans and applying it to our budget. Cute huh? Apparently Honda Odyssey is the one to buy but we'll wait a few years since we just paid off our car.
P is for Private Practice. I was recently given the opportunity to be a referral source for students at a boarding school in town. All students come from a treatment facility and are required to participate in therapy. The school recommends a few options to each family and I'm now an option. When I do get referrals, I'll be functioning as a private practice. I've got to figure out the billing thing and get an office before that, but it's exciting.
Q is for Queen. Lyla is definitely taking on a queen bee persona. She won't even let me hold her dolly! She also pushes her little pink chair in the center of the living room for all to admire her.
R is for refurbished. I've been trying to get smart about space saving, etc for the new addition. Thank you craigslist for great old used furniture that looks new with a can of spray paint and hardware. I recently found a solid 2 drawer night stand I'm going to put in our room to serve as the diapering center. Out with the space hog, changing table!
S is for smell. I've been much more offended by smells this pregnancy.
T is for Todd. He says there's nothing new with him. He stretches his handiness every day doing things around the house. He recently rewired the cable up through the attic so that it could be on a different wall. I was impressed. Both BYU and Denver aren't having the best of seasons which makes for eventful game nights.
U is for University. We're already arguing about what school we want Lyla to go to. I say no to BYU because I have a fear she'll get married at age 19. Hahaha.
Violet. From Private Practice the show. I love her.
Walking. Lyla is sooo close. She takes up to 5 steps but then plops down. It'll be nuts when she's just trucking around the house.
X is for The XY Chromosome. I am convinced this baby is a BOY! Mainly because I haven't been nearly as sick this time around. There's been other differences too like I had instant heartburn with this babe, I cry double the amount and I get turned off by smell so much easier. I know this doesn't necessarily mean anything but It's my prediction. It's great because either outcome is a great one! Boy means we get both flavors. Girl means fun little sisters. Win-Win.
Y is for THE Y of course. I might not want Lyla to go there but I'm still a supporter overall. I get the biggest smile thinking about Todd taking our brood to the games all decked out in blue.
Z is for Zombies. We saw some killer ones at Thriller! We love going to Thriller in Tuacahn. Lyla slept pretty much the whole time and luckily it was a warm night so she and I just snuggled in the blankets while I enjoyed the show!
That's all :) I'm realizing now that we didn't have that many updates and they were mainly about me! Ooops.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
What do you get when you take...
A woman that's breastfeeding full time
A couple with supposedly a 3% chance of getting pregnant when trying
A couple who required THREE inseminations with drugs up the ying yang to get pg the 1sr time
A man who is gone 3 nights out of the week
.
.
.
Aparently a baby?!?!?
Without going into too much detail about our "infertility" I would like to add that our problem wasn't anything to do with my plumbing so while we've heard about infertile women who get prego quickly after delivering, we thought we were exempt to the whole plumbing-getting-cleaned out rule
Obviously, this little lovely was QUITE the suprise. Todd was at a meeting with the bishop when I took the test. I think I hyperventillated. I stood there staring at it for a long while repeating "oh my gosh oh my gosh" over and over. Todd didn't believe me when he got home. He promptly went to the store and bought a none Western Family test before he allowed the news to set in. For at least an hour he pulled on his hair, shook his head and just kept saying "there's no way".
Our conversations were never about how we wanted to space our children because he learned early on that we're not in control (literally). We had decided we'd wait 2-3 years and then head back in for IUI (insemination), hoping after that it wouldn't take another 2 years. hahahaha.
For about 2 days I was filled with a great deal of anxiety and guilt. Mainly guilt. Would Lyla be resentful? Would her needs be met? Would I contemplate death daily for the next year? Remember, my pregnancy was ROUGH, my family is spaced very far apart, and I couldn't image caring for Lyla while throwing up all day for the next 9 months.
After those 2 days I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I think it freaked Todd how calm I felt. Looking at the above odds, how could I NOT simply know this was meant to be? It could in no way be a fluke. This baby was meant to be ours at this time. From then, I really haven't had too many moments where I've questioned what in the world we were thinking not using birth control...
...fast forwards a few weeks. We had a little bit of a perfect storm. I was diagnosed with Epilepsy and with it came a lot of stress (hello, driver's license revoked, etc). A few days later the 3 of us (and my whole family) came down with this HORRIBLE flu/cold. Congestion, sore throat, fever, etc. etc. I didn't dare take anything and my ear drum burst from all the congestion. It lasted 2 weeks in everyone that got it. We're talking super bug. Let me add that simultaneously, morning sickness set in. Me oh my. Earlier than with Lyla. From week 6-8 I was throwing up every 3 hours all day AND all night. I couldn't keep anything down. Lyla was in a teething funk and still not sleeping through the night anyway so I was surviving on 4 hours of sleep a night if I was lucky. Each time she woke in the night, I had to run and throw up. I was sooo tired from being sick and pregnant and being up with Lyla. I did my best to pretend to be happy and play with Lyla but it was so hard. She always (and still does) accompanied me to the bathroom and tried to play in the toilet. I got good at pushing her hand away, aiming the barf, holding my hair, and pinching for life so I wouldn't pee my pants all at once. lol. Did I mention Todd was still traveling and gone from Mon-Thurs night? I wasn't even thinking about how there was no way I was going to survive all this because I was in zombie mode. It was so hard for about 3 weeks.
...and as if Heavenly Father new I couldn't take any more, my morning sickness dissipated like I didn't think possible!!! Since about 8 weeks I feel SOOOO amazing. I wake with sickness and have a daily morning barf but then I feel good, like human good the rest of the day. Feeling decent while pregnant is such a novel thought to me!! I'm beyond grateful. Its' been the biggest blessing.
I now just marvel at where we are now, after where we were just 2 years ago. I feel so unworthy of this amazing opportunity I get to have...again! And for free this time! I know there will be rough patches ahead, but how minor those are, knowing I'm blessed with something I wasn't sure I'd ever have again. I already feel achy for that warm cuddly newborn to be in my arms. Life is so amazing. And now I'm crying, so I'll go. Love you readers of mine!!
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