a good old-fashioned recap

The week before spring break, I was dealing with awful allergies and could barely look at a screen. Then, Sutton started getting sick the first day of break and that lasted for an entire week, overlapping with me starting to get sick by the 3rd or 4th day of break. Which then worsened as the week went on. So we've had two solid weeks of not feeling great at this point. Scott had been traveling and also sick and my parents came to visit and they got sick and Wells seems to have escaped this, but he was sick about a month ago so, realistically, he got it all started. 

I ranted about this on instagram a few days ago but honestly, that's where I've been. I kept telling myself over spring break that I had to "lock in". I even went out and bought a $7 iced coffee one day, thinking it would give me the energy and motivation to get something done. All I did for a week was putter, sleep, and scroll. My diet consisted of ibuprofen to stop the body aches because, while I wasn't feverish or feeling chills, I couldn't focus with the body aches. And Sutton was miserable too, so that added to it. Wells played board games with my parents and played outside with his friends. He had a great spring break! 

Anyway. 

Wells' soccer practice (where Sutton first started saying "my legs and arms hurt"..the body aches)

Homeland in bed

More Homeland. Quinn was always my favorite character on that show.

Turned 4!

You can tell she doesn't feel good but she did eat sushi because that's what she wanted.

realizing I don't have nearly as many pictures of Wells because he's bigger and faster and she's the one who won't let me out of her sight..

Flashback to March 2022:

I posted a few pics of Sutton on Facebook for her birthday and included a baby picture and someone I currently know wrote "congratulations" under it and I'm thinking "did she think I just had a baby?

Her 4 year old well-check (where they said it's just an upper respiratory thing)

New toys

That $7 coffee. I did not ask for whipped cream but she enjoyed sharing it.

More soccer.

Randomly falling asleep

New messy toys

She got a tent for her birthday and she would just randomly go sleep in it

The weather was 90s some days and windchill in the teens other days

Then...

Sutton randomly fell off a chair before school on Tuesday morning and we went to the ER and they had to put a staple in the back of her head.

She was promised ice cream for dinner so they literally just ate ice cream for dinner TWO nights in a row this past week because I was in survival mode.

More soccer practice but healthy this time.

And we went to a bounce-house birthday party on Saturday. 

...staple in the back of our head and all. 

6 + years of Wells and 2 1/2 years of Sutton

I haven't done a post like this in forever.  

Mostly because I do feel like kids deserve some sort of privacy and don't need to be blasted out as content. But also because the milestones are farther between as they get older. 

Wells started 1st grade this fall, a month after he turned 6 so I think he's the youngest in his class here. The cut off is August 1st and he was born in July. 

I think he really likes his independence at school this year. Last year, he was kind of fearful but now he (unfortunately) will roam and run the halls with other employees' kids. He has lots of friends and hates to go home, to be honest. 

He's reading, which he picked up on his own due to some stellar kindergarten instruction. It's really fun to hear him read signs when we're in the car or at the store. He loves to read the labels on food containers while he's eating. 

Since he's the oldest, we're still figuring things out...he has chores he loathes: unloading the dishwasher, picking up after the dogs in the yard, unloading groceries...he has homework each night (also loathes) and I find him homework if none comes home. He hates cleaning up anything, basically, and he hates going to bed but also hates getting up. Weird, right? Also, hates taking "no" for an answer. Likes to ask at least 4 times in case you say yes.

But Wells loves going places with Scott, he has FOMO and hates to miss anything social (we'd do a lot more social activities if it weren't for the toddler :), and always wants to do things that aren't "boring". He's easy to bribe and easy to take places as long as he's not being bothered by a toddler. He is very sweet and smart and figures things out on his own.

(Wells is in the kitchen making his own breakfast as I type this and I just think what a blessing him being 6 years old is.)

Sutton is the complete opposite of Wells. While she is just as stubborn, she is defiant about it. She has learned helplessness, which is our own fault, I'm sure. It's the age, but I remember being able to bribe Wells at age 2+. Sutton will not be bribed. She doesn't care. She is in it for immediate gratification. Yes, she is sweet and snuggly and kind and helpful. She also wants our complete undivided attention 100% of the time. Unless she's "busy" and tells us to leave her alone. "Busy" usually involves her and her pacifiers (plural) laying on the couch watching Daniel Tiger or building something with blocks or dealing with her shopping cart that she fills up with babies and stuffed animals and pushes them around.

She still has her pacifiers. I think maybe birthday number three will be the magic disappearance date for those. She doesn't take it to school. It'll keep her quiet in the car though since she's still rear-facing. (We'd flipped Wells to forward-facing around 22 months and Sutton is almost 32 months now. She is so much more of a baby than Wells was at this age.)

Sutton is an angel at school and a "big helper", as she calls herself. She's talking and running and doing all the things a 2.5 year old should do. She's totally potty-trained there. At home, it's a different story. We're still working on the potty...again, will not be bribed. 

Sutton is also a pickier eater than Wells was at 2 years old. She eats what I pack her for lunch but rarely eats dinner. Half the time, Wells makes himself and her a snack after school and that's their dinner and I'm fine with it. You can't make a 2 year old eat, I guess. 

All in all, we're having a successful year in 1st grade and daycare as we ride out this final year in Missouri. 

Trying to explain why she must smile for a picture if she wants to get ice cream on the way home

Two years of Sutton.

 

another birthday foiled by weather. it was 27 degrees when we went to pick up her balloons. she was born on a perfectly warm and dreary spring day. both birthdays since have been 30 degrees. 

two cake topper

similar banner -- I got mine on Temu and it was super cheap and high quality. I hung it in her room after I took it down. 

The Daniel Tiger "party in a box" is no longer available. Indeed: a party in a box. 

You may also like:

 Two Years of Wells and Wells' second birthday party and second second birthday party

and Sutton's birth story and one year of Sutton and her first birthday.

19 months of Sutton

Posting one whole month late (usually I do 6 month updates on kids) because I literally forgot to do 18 months, plus she was so awful at her appointment in September that I think I blocked it out which means 18 months didn't happen.

All in all: 10/10 recommend having an almost 4 year age gap between children. One is completely independent by the time baby comes along. 

Also, 10/10 do not recommend having an almost 4 year age gap between children because one is completely independent by the time baby comes along and then you're sucked into the spiral of clingy, unreasonable toddlerdom a year+ later and you're not used to it.

That is the rock and the hard place I find myself between every day. 

I also saw a meme that said "Dads: I can't wait til they get older and we can do things together. Moms: I can't wait til they get older and they're more independent. Society: Moms, you only have 18 summers! Don't wish it away!"

:)

Anyway. That's the state of things. 

We've spent a lot of time trying to figure out Sutton. She was such an easy baby that we thought there was a mistake. I always thought that all babies were like Wells. Turns out, they weren't all up 5 times a night for 18-24 months. 

When Sutton turned 11 months, she became A Toddler in behavior and that's where we've been sitting ever since. 

That being said, we adore her and she knows it. Everyone loves her. She's the favorite at daycare, for sure. She's a completely different person there than she is the second she sees me. She's at daycare from about 7:30am-3:30pm, and 2-3 hours of that is napping time.  There are anywhere from 2-4 other babies/toddlers there for her to play with and her caregivers are amazing. 

I cannot take her into my classroom with me because she goes straight to the shelf with the glue bottles and throws them all into trash can. Her next stop is to grab handfuls from the colored pencil basket and launch them down the hallway. (This is so odd and stressful to me because none of the other babies do this when they go to their parents' classrooms.)

:)

She is starting to understand things though, which is helpful. She's signing "more", "thank you", giving hugs, nodding yes and no appropriately, and running to get things when we ask. She throws things away, she puts dishes in the sink, she runs to her highchair when she's hungry, goes to the fridge when she wants milk, she gets her shoes, puts her shoes away, puts everyone else's shoes away, and tugs the diaper bag to the door in the morning. 

She also shakes her head no and runs away when you tell her it's time for a bath and then again when it's time for bed.

She's a picky eater. Sutton loves eggs, clementines, bananas, whole milk, water, applesauce, grapes, and peanut butter sandwiches. 

....

That's pretty much it. She was a die-hard for strawberries and macaroni and cheese but she refused both of those this week. I stopped packing her lunch every day because the chances of her liking the school lunch is about the same as the chance of her eating what I pack. She really likes chex mix cereal bars, apparently. 

This is hard only because Wells ate everything, all the time. 

She did enjoy some pumpkin muffins last weekend but wouldn't touch the pumpkin pancakes. 

We've discovered that Sutton loves being outside more than anything. She climbs through dirt, rocks, climbs onto lawnmowers and tractors, and fills her hands with rocks to bring instead. I took her for a lawnmower ride this week and she loved that. It's really hard to drag her back into the house. 

The tree that used to be in our front yard.

*I absolutely meant to post this in July since the story you're about to read took place on July 31, 2021. However, I also meant to post it in July last year. So let's just clap because I got it written down at all.*

I was weed-eating (weed-whacking?) around a tree stump in our front yard the other day and I thought about our history with this tree. 

When we moved into the house in May 2021, it was there. At the end of July 2021, it got struck by lightening in such a fashion that it split the bark, shot it everywhere, and knocked out the neighbors' power. Then it was positioned so precariously that we had to have it cut down a week or two later ($800!) so it didn't fall on the house. 

Scott would've cut down the tree himself but he was in Kansas for work for six weeks. 

My point: 

During this lightening storm, I took a pregnancy test and that's how I found out I was pregnant with Sutton. Thunder and lightening and an anxious dog bouncing all around. I called Scott almost immediately (I don't even recollect what Wells was up to) because not only was he in Kansas for six weeks, he was leaving Kansas the next day en route to Pennsylvania for his dad's funeral. 

Good timing, right? 

In addition, in the middle of this phone call with Scott (which I could barely get through because our internet was nonexistent and Facetime or regular calls don't work out in the country without wi-fi), the neighbor came over to tell me the tree got struck by lightening. You know how a doorbell can rile up some already-anxious dogs. 

Again, good timing. 

It was such a unique strike, blowing the bark off like that, that the people who came to cut it down took pictures of it to show their coworkers. 

Anyway. I feel like I should carve her name into this stump or something. 

Did I have to double-check the info on Google Photos to verify the date of this event? I did. 

16 months out.

Sutton turned 16 months old last week and we're in such the Toddler Phase that sometimes I forget what my squishy little newborn was like. She's a yeller and a demander. She came out yelling. She apparently didn't want to go through labor and delivery. She was obviously ready and wanted out. I never felt a single contraction so I don't mind that they got her out asap. 

It's at the point now where I don't think about it a lot but I do have the literal reminder of a c-section scar so there's that. While having a c-section can make a person (sorry, female. only females give birth) feel like a failure, it wasn't really in my control and moms who make an idol out of Birth (capital B) rarely realize that they just got lucky that it went more or less how they wanted. It's like having a good sleeper, or a good eater, or a kid who's good at math, or an early reader; it has verrrrrry little to do with you. As in, nothing to do with you, the mother. If this has done anything to me in a permanent way, it's that my brain now assumes everything that can go wrong during the labor/delivery. Moms who spend a long time in labor make me nervous. I cringed through every episode of the M is for Mama podcast about her 10 birth stories...and that last one is why you have your babies in a hospital. Complications come out of nowhere. 

Okay, all this to say that just as no one will ask you if your kid was breastfed or formula fed when they're 5 years old, no one will care how your baby was born. Personally, I cannot believe the breast/bottle question wasn't on the kindergarten registration paperwork, with the discourse surrounding this topic in the mommy groups. Around age 2-3, doctors also stop asking how your baby was born and at what week gestation they were born. 

Just this week, I had a conversation with two other moms who had, also, awful c-section experiences for a variety of different reasons. 

And it is odd because I don't want to talk about this all the time but it's important to let other moms know that, if they are experiencing it, they're not alone. All we see is the highlight reel on social media and when moms post-brag about their seamless experiences, we can easily feel like we did something wrong. That's really the only reason I keep talking about it. Awareness is important.

And then, sometimes, I find myself staring down a street of absolute gaslights. 

These are Facebook comments, talking about the midwife I had my horrible experience with:

Talk about gaslighting, right?

The thought that someone is out there recommending these people who were so incompetent and trauma-inducing to me is really hard. 

So when someone reaches out to ask my opinion or about my experience (local acquaintances have in the last year), I have to tell them the truth in a way that doesn't make it seem like I'm nuts. Mostly because if I don't tell them, who will? What if they only hear from someone with a good experience and then they take a recommendation and have a terrible experience? I would almost feel like that's my fault for not speaking up. 

Anyway. Food for thought. What would you do if someone asked you about your experience (anywhere, with anything)? Would you stay neutral? Tell the truth?