Oh Baby

My last entry I was 16 weeks pregnant with our third baby. Today, Feb 16th, is Chiara's due date and Brendan's 35th birthday. Chiara Rose Kenny was born on January 8th at 34 weeks and 3 days. I am so, so happy we made it that far. She had a little trouble breathing, so she was in the NICU for awhile, but she is home now and doing great.

So what has been happening during this time? Life. Life has been happening. Surviving one day at a time and trying to wrangle 3 crazy kiddos. For the most part, Miriam has been an amazing big sister, helping where she can and absolutely loving Chiara. James is another story. Our 20 month old has decided that screaming all day, everyday is the cool thing to do. Sigh, I'm glad God invented wine for Mommy when Daddy walks through the door, because by 7pm, I really need it. :)

Chiara will be baptized into the Catholic Church on Sunday, and we are all excited to have a new little Catholic in the family. Oh, and for everyone wondering, Chiara is named after St. Claire of Assisi and is pronounced (key-are-a).

What else? I guess I have an old man as a husband now, seeing as Brendan is 35 and all. Hehe.  Overall I think his birthday was a hit, we all made it to Church, had some good food, played with the kids, and watched a good series (Sherlock Holmes the BBC version-awesome!).

Speaking of watching something, I want to give my review of the movie Winters Tale, but that will have to wait for another day. But just a heads up, don't waste your money on that one. :)

Lastly, here are some pictures of the last few months, enjoy!

Time marches on

Seriously it seems like I blink and it has been months since my last post. And boy how things have changed.

We are currently 16 weeks pregnant with baby #3. This was quite unexpected and out of left field, but we are ecstatic non the less.  I know most people reading this think we are crazy with all my health problems and complications that we would be even open to more children. But we are. Children are the greatest blessing that God can bestow upon a family, and we welcome any additions with open arms and a joyous heart.

That doesn't mean everything is wine and roses in the meantime. Wine, oh how I miss thee. :)  Everything about pregnancy is hard for me; the mobility, the sickness, the liver problems, the sub chronic hemorrhage, the possibility of pre-e and abruption again, and the bed rest.

So yes, rough roads are ahead, but we have gotten through so much worse, we will survive this as well.

We will take all the prayers we can get right now. What's the saying, "we make too much for help, but too little to get by." This is us right now, caught in a very strange place and trying to work out the kinks. We will get through it, but need prayers.

The kids are getting so big and we love it here in Minnesota. Brendan loves his job and we are blessed with a new life once again.

I have also been humbled by having to hire a nanny. We love her and she is excellent with the kids, it just kills me not being able to take care of my kids by myself. Between my disability, stroke, bed rest and pregnancy, this mommy doesn't leave the couch much. I wish things were different, but this is the reality of our life right now.

So keep praying, call if you get the chance (I always love to talk) and keep reading for all the exciting upcoming twists and turns of our life ahead.

Home Ownership

Sometimes I hate being a grown up. Even more then paying medical bills and juggling appointments or even doing laundry (which I loathe with a passion) is trying to maintain everything you need to run a house smoothly.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE owning our own home with a yard and a garage! I love it. We have a washer and dryer and a dishwasher so I don't have to do things by hand anymore. Yeah! I love our basement that the kids can run around in and Brendan can have his office. I love the fact that we can take chalk and go out and draw on the driveway, or take chairs and sit on the deck.

But what I don't like, and quite frankly makes my head spin, is home maintenance. I have no clue what I am doing when it comes to appliances breaking down, changing filters, or yard/garden work. I do know there is a learning curve, but I think my brain just cannot keep up! Things need doing at certain times and I find myself pushing back "deadlines" because I'm at a loss.

We do have a home service plan for the major fixes, but I will be darned if I am going to pay thousands of dollars for the little things that we should be able to keep up with.

For instance, our lawn. It is in sorry shape. The previous homeowners stopped taking care of it once the home was on the market. We should have said something, should have caught it, but we didn't. So now we are stuck with a sad, sad yard and not a lot of experience. I refuse to spend a few thousand on sod and have it not really work or work well.

So I sent Brendan out with seed and fertilizer and then we water the heck out of things, hoping for the best. Hehe. I know we will eventually get used to this home ownership thing and come up with a plan and a system. But until then we seem to be treading water.  Oh, and Brendan likes to include the kids in home projects, I think it is cute.

Spring has arrived!!!

Everyone in the great state of Minnesota is breathing a collective sigh of relief, probably with the windows open and in bare feet. Spring has FINALLY come! It was just snowing four days ago and now it is in the 70's and it is beautiful.

My husband told me today that he never appreciated warm weather. He grew up in California and we lived there for the first 3 years of our marriage. It's a wonderful place where the weather is ALWAYS nice. He never appreciated warm weather until today.

We can thank God for the sun and the warmth and be grateful for beautiful days. I mean we went to the park four times this weekend! Four times and had to use sunscreen. I have never been happier then lathering my children up and sending them down the slides.

Kids love warm weather. They can run and jump and breath fresh air, and then they take three hour naps. I love this weather! Any depression or sadness seems to melt away with the sun. I know there will still be cold days in our future, the weatherman said the forties next week. But this is our glimmer of hope, our rainbow after a storm.

Summer will soon be here in the frozen tundra and I am grinning from ear to ear. Miriam even convinced me to buy her a pool, which she probably can't use for a few more months, but hey, summer is in the air.

Don't take good weather for granted. If you live in a warm place, praise God for that. If you live in the mid west, just thank God that we don't have snow in June. :) But in all seriousness, after a long, long time in the cold, a warm spring day feels like a blessing from God. I will be sure not to waste any time!

The tooth fairy better pay up!

I'm drugged, so we shall see how this one goes. Teeth pain is some of the worst pain a person can experience in my humble opinion. I have given birth twice, under some pretty gruesome circumstances, yet teeth pain makes it all pale in comparison.

I got a root canal done when I was 11 years old, and it has been holding firm for a good number of years. Then in January I had to get a root canal done on another tooth, forcing me to chew and use the right side of my jaw (which has never been used much because of my Cerebral Palsy.) Anyway, I think that contributed to my tooth trouble.

Yesterday I woke up in pain from what I thought was clenching my teeth. The Chiropractor adjusted my jaw and I felt better. 4am today rolled around and I was dying. My gums were 3 times the normal size and I was in a lot of pain. I thought it had abscessed, but it was much worse.

The dentist got me in at 8:30am and found that my old root canal was abscessed and that the root was cracked to the jawbone. The tooth had to go. I am glad it is over, but I don't wish that on my worst enemy. It was done at the office with a crazy amount of numbing agent, and after the extraction he found that the infection almost entered the jawbone, yikes. This means the infection had been brewing for a long time and finally drove me over the edge in pain.

I am also not your normal case, so my recovery time will be a lot longer. If you remember, please say a prayer for a speedy healing process. In 6 weeks I go in for an evaluation and discussion between a bridge and a dental implant.  Please feel free to chime in to what you think is best, bridge or dental implant. I will be doing research too, but I would love to hear from anyone with firsthand knowledge. All I can say is the tooth fairy better have a couple thousand underneath my pillow in the morning!

Well, it is WAY past my bedtime when I have drugs and pain taking over my body, so that will do it for tonight. Oh, and my sweet munchkins have cold, poor Miriam lost her voice this morning and James is a snotty mess.

What a life I lead! Hehe.

Children and Mass

Children are a blessing.  Blessings we love and cuddle and cannot get enough of, until they step through the doors of the sacred space on a Sunday morning. Then all hell breaks loose.

Taking children to Mass sometimes feels like preparing for battle. The diaper bag is packed full of weaponry to soothe the savage beasts and you pray for no blood shed. We don't use the crying room, crying rooms are for the faint of heart. No sir, we are on the front lines, front and center, facing whatever battle is to come.

I wish I could say we always have a successful time and there are no tears or screaming. But alas, I have a two year old and a 10 month old. The best I can hope for is no one dying and me to not need a drink after the closing song.

Most Sundays we struggle through, juggling baby James, trying and usually failing to avoid screaming matches with Miriam. It ends with Brendan taking her in back wailing, usually during consecration, "I don't waaaaant to go in time ouuuutttttt!!!"  It is days like that I wonder about our choice to take the little ones to Mass.

But then you have days like today, and they kind of make me smile. It was still hard, Miriam doesn't sit still and James is crazy. But there were a few times she got it. She really seemed to understand the point of Mass. "Jesus die on the cross mommy?" "Jesus come down in bread and wine?"  "Yes sweetheart."  And then she becomes a two year old again. "You drink wine mommy?" "Me drink wine when me get older." "Just one more song mommy." And then she claps at the end of Mass, "Yay! Now me can talk and get a lollipop."

Yes, I have been known to bribe my children for good behavior. But honestly, overall, she is getting better and better and I wouldn't trade the front row for the crying room in all the world. Happy Sunday!

Cabin Fever

I love Minnesota. It is affordable, full of wonderful people, and my husband loves his job. The one thing I hate, despise with every fiber of my being is winter. It can go, leave, and never EVER come back.

Here we sit, April 18th and there is a snow storm outside my window! Really? REALLY! Miriam and James have been going nuts inside and I'm reaching for another glass of wine as I write this post. Winter is only good for two things, Christmas and New Years. Therefore, it can snow from December 1st to January 1st and then it should all melt and be in the 80's. That is my kind of weather.

It is no wonder people get more depressed and sad in the winter. Being stuck inside for 7 months out of the year with two kids that are bouncing off the walls, we should get a dang metal. Better yet, keep your metal and give me a solo vacation to Hawaii. I think people in Alaska even have it easier.

Even with the day planned out, if the little ones don't get fresh air and sun, no art project in the world is going to make them happy. Why not just bundle them up and head outside? The downfall of limited mobility and a disability, I can't run after my kids in the snow. I can see the headlines now: "Woman found frozen in the snow after fall, two year old couldn't dig her out." Yeah, kind of want to avoid front page press.

We were supposed to go out to dinner tonight to see a friend that is in town for business, but we had to cancel because of the road conditions. For heaven's sake, it's Tornado Awareness Week, that time of year we should be worrying about spring storms and tornado sightings. Instead we had to cancel the one real adult interaction I was to have this week because of a snow storm. Yep, I am done and going stir crazy.

Days like today make me miss living in the Bay Area. It wasn't perfect, way too expensive, no families for miles, but they also did NOT have a foot of snow in mid April!

So if anyone reading this wants to treat me to a tropical getaway, I'm in. And make it a one way ticket while you are at it.