Chop Shop

Brett is in trouble. You see, he failed to do his husbandly duty. He forgot (or maybe didn't ever know, but that seems absurd) that any time I ask, "Brett, should I cut my bangs?" he is required as a good husband to immediately respond, "NO."
Luckily all of my many previous bangs' misadventures has taught me one thing: don't go too short. A professional can always fix ugly LONG bangs.
Now I just need a professional.

Motherhood.

Motherhood is having a filthy fishtank, several piles of laundry (most of them dirty, a few of them clean, only one of them folded because it is towels and was easy) a twin mattress in the middle of your living room, along with a couple dirty diapers, a wet vac and a stroller that doesn't seem to have a "place," a dishwasher 1/4 full of clean dishes, a sink 5/3 full of dirty dishes, a partially finished sewing project and 2 fat and happy babies.

Best Day Ever!

Instead of griping and complaining about my day, I am going to look at it with the perspective I will have in a few years. I assume this new perspective will make the events of the day terribly funny – and laughing all day counts for the best day ever, doesn’t it??

So I put Juliet in her chair with some beef stroganoff and start cleaning the kitchen. I'm feeling a little sick so I make myself a smoothie for dinner, and just as I turn off the blender I hear a crash and thump.
The crash was Juliet's bowl being thrown against the table, and the thump was it hitting the ground. The beef stroganoff flying in all directions and splattering across the floor didn't seem to make any sound at all.
I got her out of her (now sticky) sundress and put her in her pajamas. She'd missed a nap that day so even though it was only 6 I felt that bedtime was imminent.
I had some extra smoothie so set her up in front of some cartoons with a sippy cup of a fresh and delicious snack, and I returned to my kitchen.
Bensen was supposedly sleeping during all this time. Come to find out, he was actually filling his diaper and most of his onsie. I'll let you try and figure out what he was filling it with.
Finally finished with Bensen, I check on Juliet only to find she has turned her sippy cup upside down on the couch. Strawberry banana yogurty goodness suddenly becomes finger-paint. The world is Juliet’s canvas. I strip her down and clean up the couch as best I can.
Bensen has spit up all over his new onsie. Like, a lot of really smelly gross spit up. I decide it is time for a bath.
For what feels like the first time all day, Bensen is calm! He loves the bath. I think it takes pressure off of his endlessly aching tummy. My house is quiet for about five minutes. Juliet (clad only in her size 3 diaper) walks into the bathroom to show me a crumpled photograph. Actually she has left a breadcrumb trail of photographs all through the house. Some torn, most crumpled, all ripped off of her cute photo wall ribbon. I take the time to put a diaper on Bensen, but that’s it. It is a warm evening, and he’ll probably smell up anything I put on him. Both of my kids are now naked.
I gather the photographs up and tuck them away in my “to-do” pile (a code name for the stack of papers and books I keep on my bookshelf that I will probably never “do”). Bensen is crying again. He’s so hungry he could die. I sit down to nurse him.
Nursing is still painful.
10 minutes later I realize I haven’t been paying any attention to Juliet. She has climbed into her chair at the table where a bag of groceries has been waiting patiently to get put away. Juliet has found them. More specifically, Juliet has found a carton of eggs.

Couldn’t you just die laughing?
No I couldn’t. The wounds are too fresh. The truth is, I couldn’t die laughing – I could’ve just died then and there.
I wish I could always be “that person” that sees the humor in every situation. I mean, seriously, eggs scattered about the carpet almost artistically, their insides slowly oozing out of the lace-like cracks caused by a swift fall from table or hand to floor. That is the stuff movies are made from. That is funny stuff! But at the time I honestly just wanted to cry.
But we can laugh about it later, right?
Well, just writing about it has already put a smile on my face. Maybe later will arrive sooner than I’d hoped.
It is obviously time for bed. I retrieve Juliet from the table, kicking and screaming, struggle to dress her in a new set of pajamas, and put her in bed. Bensen, having been cut off early from his dinner, is now kicking and screaming. And instead of locking myself in the bathroom or running from the apartment pulling my hair out, I feel I did the mature thing and simply burst into tears.
Best. Day. Ever.

Bensen Sawyer Foutz

Bensen is here! My sweet perfect angel baby Bensen. He is so perfect. And he is mine!
Benz was due May 2nd, but my doctor was convinced he was going to come early. This posed a couple of problems for us!! First, my doctor was going to be out of town April 23rd – April 28th. Second, Finals week was April 27th through May 6th. So we started talking about inducing. Now, thanks to several horror stories I’ve read on the internet and also heard from friends and family, I was terribly afraid of inductions. And pitocin. And Emergency C-Sections. And long painful labor. (I guess this can happen without being induced. i.e. Juliet.)
Well, we prayed about it as a family, and my doctor scheduled the induction date and April 22nd slowly rolled around. Who am I kidding, it was only a week away!!! Time flew by! But by the time I called the hospital on Wednesday morning to find out what time we needed to go in I was feeling pretty good about it. Plus I was so tired of being pregnant! I just wanted to start getting my body back to normal! I did my hair and makeup and we left for the hospital to be induced at 6:30 that morning.
Everything went PERFECTLY. I’ve heard that inductions usually take 10-12 hours from start to finish, sometimes more sometimes less, but even though this baby was being evicted he must have been pretty ready to go. At 7 they started pitocin and broke my water. I was dilated to a 2 (and had been for the last two weeks) and hadn’t had any contractions. (I’ll just add here that Bensen was 38 weeks and 4 days along. Another reason I was nervous to induce, he was so early!)
Brett was a real trooper. There wasn’t a couch or anything in the labor and delivery room, so he was trying to catch a nap on this tiny chair with his feet propped up on a stool. I was too excited to sleep and got online and was reading a question answer session from an OBGYN. Pretty entertaining. Well I started having contractions around 8:30 but they weren’t bad. But everyone knows how contractions are – they got progressively worse. They still weren’t too bad when Brett left for class at 9:10. The most awful experience of the whole day was when I realized I had to pee soooooo bad, but since they had broken my water already they weren’t going to let me get up to go to the bathroom. I had to pee in a bed pan. BOO! It was gross. I hated it. Well around 11 a.m. the contractions were bad enough that they got the anesthesiologist in there to administer the epidural. That was kind of fun since it only really took on one side. I was dilated to a 5 and the contractions were pretty intense. But only in that one spot on my right side. They finally rolled me over so that gravity could take care of it, and soon I was blissfully numb. The only downside was that to get the epidural to take on that one side they cranked it up really high, and my left side just was totally dead for HOURS. But, it was totally worth it. ☺ Brett came home from class about 11:20. He had debated going to Spanish class, but we found out later that it was a good thing he didn’t!! at 12:30 they checked me again and I was dilated to a “9 or 10” as the nurse put it. She said we’d start pushing in a half hour. Just so the doctor could be there.
Well, 1 o’clock rolls around, and they tell me to start pushing! And 3 pushes later Bensen was born. It was easier than pie.
Sweet angel baby was born April 22nd 2009 at 1:03 p.m. He was 9 lbs. 6 oz, and was 21 inches long. Can you imagine how big he would have been if I hadn’t induced a week and a half early?? Sounds like all the rest of my babies are going to be inductions.

My sweet babies! There is nothing like holding a baby in your arms for the first time and knowing that you are his whole world. Juliet is 19 months old now, and I’m still her whole world. There is nothing like being loved by the most perfect things on earth. That just boggles my mind – that these little people are perfect in every way, and out of everyone in the whole world, they love ME.

Growing up so fast!

Juliet! How are you so big! This girl needs to slow down or she is going to be driving and dating before I can blink three times (and boy is that a terrifying thought!) Every time I turn around she is doing or saying something new. I am constantly AMAZED at how smart and sweet she is. I just can't get over the fact that my little baby is growing up, so fast, and there is nothing I can do about it. She is so independent it makes my teeth ache!

Happy Valentines day!!

Or was it?





This was a disheartening site to come out to on Valentines Day morning. We aren't really sure how they got in. Maybe we hadn't armed the alarm system and they just jimmied the lock. But they took our stereo and converter box, about $250 worth of stuff. Luckily the dash wasn't too damaged. Unfortunately our insurance deductible is $500 . . . . so, no help there. We are just out of a stereo I guess. Major V-Day bummer.
The worst part is, we weren't even supposed to be in Lubbock last night. We should have been in Virginia, but the flights were dumb.

The rest of the evening was good! We got to see the Romans and met the Jacksons and hung out with the Pratts. We ate yummy chinese(ish) and this delicious brownie pudding creation wrought by Chelsea. And played Mario Kart.

Darn you responsibility!

I was just sitting here thinking how hard it is to type on the wii and how much I miss my husband.