#1

Bela is 27 months old. Our family dynamic has changed so much. Most days, I can breathe. I can sit down and find a quiet time for myself. I can get in exercise and clean up the house. I can run one, maybe two errands a week with the kids. She goes a day sometimes without throwing up. Bela doesn't have to go to the doctor every week. We are now at 6 weeks between cardiology visits. I am actually starting to think about having another baby. I can stand the thought and feel like I could maybe, possibly handle it. She sleeps about every other night through the night. I have a better handle on making her daily blends and feeding her (although it still frustrates me regularly, I wish it didn't). SHe is growing at a steady, but slow pace. She is very stable.
She goes in tomorrow for a cardi check up and I still, however, feel anxious and nervous at the prospect of getting bad news. I am overwhelmingly grateful for the life she gets to live each day. My heart still burns within me when I watch her do new things for the first time. But I do not know how to live without the worry. Hope gets me through a lot of things I struggle with. I always know that she (and our family) will be taken care of, no matter what, because we have a loving Father in Heaven. I've known that from the start.
It is balancing act for me.. sometimes I'm really good at seeing the positive, and sometimes I'm really good at seeing the negative. More often than not, I feel optimistic.
Yesterday we celebrated mother's day. I felt so happy yesterday, but I missed my mom terribly. I'm so lucky to have such a bond with my mom. I can always confide in her and she always makes me feel okay about whatever I'm feeling or going through. She's so far away and I can't wait until she's back. Sometimes, even when you're all grown up and a mommy yourself, you still need to be your mommy's baby. I'm grateful to have her, and I thought a lot yesterday about what she has always given me: everything. I hope my babies will say that about me one day.
Today has just been one of those days. The house was a disaster from the weekend. Bela is kinda grumpy, I think she is fighting something yet again. She had a fever Saturday, slept most of the day away yesterday, and is still not herself today, although the fever is gone. I hope that was all it was. I stayed up til 12 to start her night time feeds because she wouldn't settle down until about 11. She started to cry at 12:30, and although I was wide awake, I let Tanner go in and make sure she was okay. She cried again at 3. She was sitting up saying, "out." So I took her tube out. 3 hours of tube feeding didn't make it worth it to stay up..:( Then she was awake at 5:30. That actually pretty accurately described the last 3 nights and mornings. So I was tired today. I tried to turn on the TV for her, but she was just not feeling good enough today for that to work. She needed me to hold her. I made her food at about 6:30. Blueberries, Strawberries, a banana, oatmeal, flax oil, spinach, cucumber, kale, quinoa, almond milk, pear juice, almond butter, 1/2 avacado. Bela reached up and pulled down the quinoa and little pieces of it went everywhere.. I fed her 4 ounces over the next half hour, and a few minutes later it all came up, somehow splattering about 10 feet in every direction. We're all cleaned up and Bela is sleeping. It's all better now, but I was just a little overwhelmed...

The other day Bens asked me if I could get a baby in my tummy, please. Everyone else's mommy has one. It's true.. I told him maybe we could start thinking about that. Then he asked me how a baby gets there. So I told him that Heavenly Father chooses to bless our family with another baby and then the baby will grow inside mommy's tummy until it's ready to come out!, and that maybe we could start praying for a baby. He looked at me with a huge grin and said, "Well we better start sewing!" Sewing?!? "yeah, we gotta make him a robin costume!" I love that kid.. Always thinking in superheroes. If you want him to do anything you have to ask him to show you how spiderman would do it. He's so creative and loves to imagine up stories. He could tell you a story for 45 minutes if you let him.. He's SOOO busy and could play outside from morning to night, there's just too much to discover to sit down. It's nice to have that kind of excitement and energy around you all the time. :)