RAZ-ma-taz

happy 4th!

greetings from miami!  we are officially on summer vacation and are having a great time!  as ryan told everyone at the party we attended yesterday, "happy birthday to america!  we get to eat cake!"  we went to my brother's best friends house and they really know how to throw a party!  there was a water slide, a bounce house and the house pool of course, the kids were in hog heaven.  ryan LOVES to swim.  it's becoming an addiction for her i think.  she swam for an hour and a half in the morning and then came out kicking and screaming at 6:15pm after going in before 4.  she's getting so good at it though.  she actually really swam for the first time (unassisted) yesterday, holding her breath, going under, and using both arms and legs to propel herself (she swam last summer during her lessons too).  otherwise, she likes to kick around in a floatie or life vest. 

below are my 2 favorite pictures of the girls from this trip so far.  the mid air shot of ryan is an activity she does everytime we're here but this was the first time i thought to grab the camera i believe. i don't want to speak prematurely but we seem to be breaking cooper of her stranger anxiety after the party yesterday where there were upwards of 75 people and she did pretty well.  we are fully booked already for the foreseeable future as is always the case when we're in miami and we wouldn't have it any other way. 

here are some more pictures from the first 3 days of our trip...   

can i get my ears pierced... did you say a needle? uh, maybe not...

so yesterday ryan and i were watching wimbledon, venus vs. somebody (the person she ended up creaming).  the camera focused in on venus and ryan noticed that she was wearing earrings.  for the first time, ryan turned to me and asked if she could get her ears pierced.  i said sure.  i told her that when she was ready we could make an appointment with the pediatrician and she could get her ears pierced.  "we can make an appointment today?" she asked.  i explained that we couldn't do it today but could any other day and that the doctor would put a little needle into her ear lobes to make the space needed for the earrings.  it would be quick and mostly painless.  "oh", she said. "I guess I should wait until I'm a grown up because I'm a kid and kids don't like needles".  "No problem" I told her.  "We'll go whenever you're ready."

It was really cute.

our weekend so far

yesterday we had an incredibly fun day.  we headed south about an hour to a quaint part of town called serenbe (www.serenbe.com).  we have a good friend who we hadn't been in touch with for quite a while who lives there.  she called friday and came over to hang out a while which was really nice and ryan fell in love with her (again) so she invited us to her place for saturday.  her house is absolutely incredible (ryan played her piano and harp and loved on her doggies), the neighborhood is adorable, the people were super cool (everyone in the community knows each other and seems to generally like each other and a little boy her age who we met at the treehouse asked ryan without any urging from his folks if she wanted to ride his atv to which ryan replied with, "woo-hoo!!!"), the little bakery we went to for lunch was out of this world (particularly the chocolate chip cookie), the farm animals we got to feed were really sweet, the treehouse lisa and ryan climbed was really fun, and i could go on and on.  not only did we do lots of cool things but we had never seen ryan connect with another adult the way she connected with lisa.  it was really cool to watch.  ryan is a really social and happy kid and seems to like most people she hangs out with but she's not especially touchy feely with people other than her moms but lisa was the exception.  i had never seen her hang on someone and want to be held by someone like she did with lisa.  it was a trip!!  needless to say, lisa has invited us to come back for a weekend and it really felt like vacation so we will totally be taking her up on that offer when we return from our stint in florida.  ryan will be in hog heaven to have lisa to hang out with for 2 days and her moms will enjoy it too!!

cooper seems to be going through a rough bout of stranger anxiety lately.  she seems a little young to already be going through it but she is and it's really bad.  the only 3 people that she doesn't have a problem with are melanie, ryan and myself.  she freaked out when mimie held her, aunt raine, uncle phillip, holly & lisa.  pretty much anyone in the last month or so who has tried to hold her other than us she completely loses her mind.  she does eventually come around but not normally in the same day.  it's going to be interesting when we're in florida because there are lots of people that we will spend lots of time with who will want to hold her so hopefully it will break her of this problem while we're there.

this morning ryan woke us up at 6:15 saying that she was ready to be up for the day.  so melanie went in to her room and laid in bed with her for about half an hour before ryan got restless and wanted to go downstairs to play.  melanie told her that she could go by herself  which we've never done before.  so she turned the "max" setting of the alarm off and turned on the "stay" setting so that if ryan tried to escape the thing would blast rather than just beep like it does when a door opens.  she was downstairs for about 5 minutes until she was back in our room with her 2 pinwheels that she's been carrying around for the last day, a box of breakfast bars, her bottle of vitamins, and her little toy rocket from little e!nsteins.  she announced that she brought breakfast up so that we could all eat breakfast in bed together.  really sweet!!  we asked her how she reached the box of bars in the pantry and she said matter of factly, "i climbed on the tupperware with ivy's food and knew exactly where everything was".  so yeah, that part wasn't very safe but we cracked up and let her eat breakfast in our bed. 

today should be a fun one.  we're either going to hang out with my cousins (if they don't go on the boat since i'm not healed enough to join them yet) or we'll go over to my aunt's place to swim.  either way it'll be fun so we're looking forward to another fun day.        

new stats!!

we took cooper to her 4 month check up today about 2 weeks late.  she's healthy as a horse except for the exzema plague that ryan had pretty badly at her age too.  hopefully she will grow out of it like her big sis.  she weighs 13.7 lbs keeping her in the 50th% for weight.  she was 25.75 inches long putting her off of her curve from 75% last time to 90% this time.  think our babe grew in the last 2 months?  i don't remember what her head measured but it's 75th%.  so she's obviously doing great.  she's also almost current on her immunizations which is never fun.  we're behind on her 2nd hep B but i won't let them give her more than 2 in a visit so we'll do the 2nd part of that one at 9 months since she wasn't scheduled for any others.  she keeps trying to get her knees up when she spends time on her belly now so we're explaining to her that she's entirely too young to practice crawling.  we'll see how that goes.  we're enjoying watching her grow and evolve and most of all her interactions with and admiration for her big sister.  it's absolutely amazing!!

looking forward to the weekend...

sunday

scene:  [cooper coughing] 

mama talking to cooper: "hey coughity mccougherson" 

ryan: "mama, i think her saliva went down the wrong drain"

that little diddy occured this morning but i wanted to write a post about sunday thus the  title.  we've begun slacking again on remembering all of the hysterical things that ryan says/does which is really ashame because she is such a trip and we really want to have it recorded here for prosperity.  anyhoo, on to sunday...

sunday epitomized for me how i envisioned we'd spend every weekend together once we had kids.  it was amazing.  and part of what was so amazing about it was it was just a regular sunday.  there were no theme parks, no toy stores, no circuses or parades.  those types of events are sure fire ways to create perfection for a 3 year old.  no, ours begun rather unassuming with some cuddling and tv in our bed with ryan while mel and i held on to every precious second of shut eye that we could.  then we had breakfast together and ryan and i played for an hour while mel and cooper got a little more sleep.  next, we got ready and went to publ!x to buy groceries.  after we unpacked them we eventually had some lunch.  then we decided it would be really fun to go to a store that had shaved ice/ice cream.  ryan was all about that treat!  then we went to c0stco to continue our errands and we wrapped up the day with an impromptu visit to the bounce house.  ryan befriended a really nice 6 year old boy and the 2 of them proceeded to run, jump and slide for an entire hour with no slowing down.  ryan's face was beat red and she looked like she was going to pass out.  she has never played so hard in all her days, it was awesome to see.  we had a great dinner together and then gave the girls baths and put them to bed.  sorry to have included every boring detail but i wanted to illustrate how normal the day was but yet it was filled with so much quality time and fun and the few impromptu trips that were woven in were just enough for ryan to have the best time.  her behavior has shifted again and the sweet funny girl that we know and love appears to be back for the time being.  we're not naive enough to think that it won't continue to change maybe daily, it's certainly the age but when she's listening and cooperating there's just nothing cooler!

back to the grind this week...

housekeeping

we finally took the time tonight to fix the picture link.  it appears that we've maxed out the capacity of the file we were saving them to so we've started a new one.  things have been pretty low key for us lately.  i'm still recovering, though i feel ok for the most part i am acutely aware of how little i'm able to do which is really hard for me (and melanie).  we had a fantastic day today.  we went to my aunts pool and ryan and mel swam for 2.5 hours and then ryan took her 1st nap in ages this afternoon for 2.5 hours which was amazing.  we heard no whining tonight and she was nothing but cooperative which was mostly a thing of the past in the last few weeks so it was nice to have such a peaceful household tonight!  no big plans for tomorrow other than to run errands.  hope everyone's having an awesome weekend!!  see pictures from the last few weeks here.   

cuties!

we went to an art studio yesterday to celebrate cousin bens 3rd birthday with him and ryan had a great time.  the party theme was fantastic - pirates & princesses.  each kid got a canvas with a pirate ship or a princess castle on it that they got to paint and decorate and it was fun watching ryan pick out star stones that she threaded to hang the finished product.  afterwards, we went to bens house to play and the kids had lots more fun until ryan melted down at dinner.  we pushed her too far.  even though she rarely naps anymore, she does normally get an hour or so of down time in the afternoon to decompress and re-charge.  so needless to say, we need to do a better job of not pushing it because it's no fun for anyone when we do.  before we all left for dinner, ryan & ben decided they wanted to take a bath together.  

cooper turned 4 months old on saturday.  time certainly seems to be rolling by quickly and her personality is coming out more every day.  she's totally become a little goofball which we definitely didn't expect but it's been super fun to discover.  she also continues to have a few screaming episodes every day that we haven't completely figured out but it does seem to be getting easier to calm her so that's progress.

 

i'm feeling more pain and discomfort these last few days than i felt last week which is a bit disappointing to me but it was surprising that i felt as good as i did last week so i guess i can't complain too much.  i'd still do it all over again in a heartbeat as the results are just astonishing.  i cannot wait until i feel good enough to hold my kids again and run and jump and play and do all of the things that were so uncomfortable before.  here's some pictures from the last week or so... 

the big unveiling!

the bandages are off and i am thrilled with the results!  we expected a gory site today and were pleasantly surprised that scars don't look that bad.  when the swelling goes down and the scars heal i'm guessing we're going to barely notice them which is pretty cool.  i'm already getting lots of tingling and "let down" feelings which is a great sign because my surgeon said it could take 18 months to get all the feeling back so things are well on their way.  i didn't take "before" pictures because i figured i had 35 years worth of befores and now i'm looking forward to 50 years or more of "afters"! 

recovering

i can't believe i had my surgery just 3 days ago.  it already feels like a distant memory.  except for the fact of course that i'm still bandaged.  tomorrow is the great reveal.  amazingly, i've had very little pain and have spent virtually no time in bed - so sadly, there's been no percocet buzzes.  either that or my pain expectation was so high that anything less feels like nothing at all.  i've definitely been sore and uncomfortable but worse than any of that, i've been super itchy.  i guess it's a combination of the incisions healing and the stickiness of the bandages.  needless to say, i cannot wait to get them off and to take a real shower!  through the bandages, the results definitely seem to be the size i was hoping for but i guess i'll know for sure tomorrow.  the other thing that has been tough with this recovery is the fact that i can't sleep comfortably.  i've had to prop myself up with several pillows which is not comfortable at all so my back is hating it and then have been up every 30-60 minutes until i'm up for the day around 6am.  don't get me wrong, i'd do it all again in a heart beat!

ryan has been particularly difficult this week too!  i don't know if she's having a hard time with my being less hands on or if it's that she's going to camp everyday with a new group of kids or if it's that she's exhausted because she doesn't nap now and wakes around 6:30am for the day, or if it's the transition to underwear at bed time now (with only 1 accident so far), or some combination of all of those things.  but she is really giving us a run for our money.  she's being totally obstinate at every turn, it's getting really old!  

and cooper has become quite a little chatty cathy.  she's imitating us now all of the time and laughs hysterically.  it's really really sweet.  she's also rolling front to back and back to front regularly now.  she's in constant motion, totally opposite of how ryan was when she was a baby.  she's going through a little something rough though between 7-9pm every night and again sometimes once in the middle of the night which hasn't exactly been a whole lot of fun.  our girls are definitely testing us, they sure are lucky we love them so much!!      

half the woman i use to be!

i am home sweet home.  yesterday was absolutely miserable.  i've had surgery a few other times in my life and have never reacted so poorly.  i puked all day long and have virtually no memory of anything that happened before 5pm.  i came out of surgery at 1130am and melanie said i was completely green but thankfully slept through most of it.  i described my transition of the fog lifting yesterday by singing the song, "i can see clearly now the rain is gone."  it just seemed apropos.  anyhoo, i'm bandaged and bound until friday so am very much looking forward to the great unveiling then but cannot stop feeling around in the meantime and they definitely feel like half of what they used to be but awfully perky.  this is something that i've always wanted but was only willing to do it after we had our kids.  i feel like they served their purpose by providing 14.5 months of nutrition to ryan.  i cannot believe that this is yet another life event to check off for me.  very surreal.  i've got to admit though, i had some serious fear going into it.  i've never had "elective" surgery before (although I guess my C-Section started out elective) and the idea of putting myself at risk by going under anesthesia as a mom caused me a tremendous amount of panic and guilt.  i've always had a great life and have had so much to live for but my life now is more fulfilling than i ever dreamed it could be and to put myself at risk unnecessarily just seemed so irresponsible.  since i lived to tell the tale, hopefully my quality of life will be that much better now and there will be no stopping me!!