Par-Tay!

The party's over. My little girl is officially one. We blew out the candles and opened the presents. Toys R Us has officially blown up my house.

We had an awesome time. Lots of family and friends there to celebrate the day. Here are a few of my favorite pics.

Allyson did a great job with opening gifts. She paid attention through most of it - albeit perusing a few empty bags, envelopes and bunches of tissue paper in the process. Thanks to a glorious group of family and friends the kid is set with clothes for the next two sizes and has enough toys I can rotate through from now until she's nineteen. SWEET!

Did you happen to see the cake that I'm holding? My sister-in-law is a fanstastic baker. She can get really creative with things (and has WAY more patience with this stuff than I could ever dream of having.) She made a special monkey-shaped banana cake for Allyson. It was A-dorable! The other cake (see below) was awesome too. Marble cake with chocolate mousse filling courtesy of Cake and Candy in Citrus Heights. (This bakery did my wedding cake and a few other cakes I've purchased - they are amazing!)

All in all it was a good week. I had about a week and a half vacation time off from work that I got to spend with my little girl. We did lots of great Mommy/Daughter things like sleep in and stay in our PJs all day.

Allyson is officially a toddler now. I can't believe how fast it has gone by. It's all true what they say (whoever they are) that time flies when you have a child. I get so excited for every milestone that she makes but then so sad for all the little things she has grown out of. She even goes for her one year check up tomorrow. She's gonna hate me when its "shot" time. Uh-oh!

~Becky

Happy Birthday baby girl!

Yesterday was Allyson's birthday. Steve had to work so we spent the day hanging around the house and then going out to lunch with the family. Here's a picture of Allyson and I at Claim Jumper (love that place even though I worked there for six years - Yum-O!)

Can you tell she's my kid? She looks so much like her Daddy. I swear I was there for the birth - oh man was I there! :-)

Even though we just had baby toy explosion at our house from Christmas she got a few more things on her actual birthday from Grandmas, Grandpas, great grandparents and an aunt and uncle who joined us for lunch. She got this adorable Precious Moments figurine from my in-laws. Love it! I'll just need to find a spot for some more shelves in her room.

She also go this cute monkey sweatshirt from my brother and sister in law.

There are a few more pics of Allyson destroying a cupcake that friends of ours made (we had a quiet New Year's at home with our buds who have a little girl about four months older than Allyson.) But they're on her camera. Steve was manning the video and I was trying to keep frosting out of my kids every orifice. I'll post those soon plus more from her party we're having on Saturday.

Hope y'all had a safe and happy new year!

~Becky

The weirdest thing...

Want to know what it is? Of all things it was wrapping presents and writing "To Allyson - Love Mom and Dad." Weird. I know, so many of you have done this a thousand times. But remember...its been almost a year and we have yet to get this girl a "real" present. Allyson was born on December 31st last year. We've gone almost 12 months without having any sort of card writing/gift opening celebration. So...this was weird. But AWESOME! I may be a total dweeb but I got chills when I finished wrapping her first present and wrote the little sticky tag.

So...my sweet baby girl is almost a year old and this is her first Christmas. We're so excited but also prepared for the fact that she's still little and will probably pay attention to open one gift (maybe) and then play with the wrapping paper. Ooh well...the excitement will be for her Mom and Dad.

Enough of my crazy hectic writing. I just have one more thing. Check out my little brag pic below. What a character! :-)

Take care and have a Merry Christmas!

~Becky

When will she?

How will I know when my kid starts to talk? I mean...when do you write it down in the baby book that she says her first word?

Let me back up. I had this issue with a few other "milestones" too.

• When did she start sitting up? Did she have to sit there endlessly while she played with her toys or did she just have to toddle there for a few moments and not fall over?


• When did she take her first step? When she made it from the ottoman to the couch? When she went from the couch to the dining room chair?


• When did she cut her first tooth? When she put my finger in her mouth to gnaw on it and I felt the little pokies? Or when you could actually see the thing?

I know. I should be so very thankful that I have these little milestones to write about. How many people out there aren't even blessed with having children? How many will never know about writing things down in baby books (or not writing and just filling in dates months later)? I might sound ridiculous but so be it. It's my blog.

Back to the first word. About two months ago Allyson started saying "mamamamama" when she wanted out of her crib. I loved it - thinking - is Momma going to be her first word? Well....that didn't last long. Momma soon went away and gibberish came back. Lately she's been discovering the wave and the words for bye-bye. My kid doesn't ever do anything on command so she has to be in the mood, but she will wave at someone who waves bye to her and will say "buh bwa." Sounds pretty good for an eleven month old. Is this her first word? Was Momma a few months ago? When will she start adding more to her repertoire?

I'm really not pushing her or concerned about this - really. She's going to do things on her own time, but you know how it is. You play this game with other Mom's. "My kid walked at 6 months old." "My kid said 'hello' at nine months." "My kid did advanced differential equations at 14 months." HA! When did my kid do this stuff?

Maybe it's my fault. Allyson - your Mom is a realist. Sometimes your Dad calls me a pessimist - tells me my glass has a tendency to be half empty. But, really, I'm a realist. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I don't toot my horn all that often, I won't lie about my kid's special talents. She's done a few things early, others right on time. I'll never make something up to make her sound more advanced than she really is. Maybe that makes me a bad mom...I dunno. Allyson will talk when she's good and ready. I'll be sure to let you know what she's saying.

At the end of the day, Allyson continues to amaze me. I walk in the door after work and she grins ear to ear. We play with the dogs on the floor and she giggles with delight. I set off all the Christmas decorations that make noise and we dance and laugh. Those are the things that I think are important to remember. Those are the things to write down in the baby book - or journal - or blog. Aren't they?

~Becky

Crazy Day....Funny Joke

It's been a nightmare of a day. Half of my team is out - my own fault, I'm the manager and approved the time off. But that means pure craziness for the rest of us. At least the day has flown by. Hallelujah!

Funny joke crossed my desk and had to share...

Two married buddies are out drinking one night when one turns to the other and says, "You know, I don't know what else to do. Whenever I go home after we've been out drinking, I turn the headlights off before I get to the driveway. I shutoff the engine and coast into the garage. I take my shoes off before I go into the house, I sneak up the stairs, get undressed in the bathroom, stick my foot in the toilet and pee down my leg to prevent splashing sounds. I ease into bed and my wife STILL wakes up and yells at me for staying out so late!"

His buddy looks at him and says "Well, you're obviously taking the wrong approach. I screech into the driveway, slam the door, storm up the steps, pee hard into the toilet water then use the full flush, throw my shoes in the closet, undress in the bedroom, then jump into bed, slap her on the ass and say, 'WHO'S HORNY?!?!??' and she acts like she's still asleep."

Later...

~Becky

Birth-day

A friend of mine gave birth to two beautiful baby girls yesterday (see Lindsay) and upon hearing her story and seeing the pics it brings back memories of my own experience having Allyson. Steve and I took a natural birthing class - I wanted to try to do this without drugs. We set up an email chain with the rest of our class and everyone shared their stories. This is ours. (Sorry for the length but it wasn't a short process.)

My due date was January 2nd. At our appointment on Friday the 28th of December I was 30-50% effaced and not even remotely on my way to dilation or any form of labor. I knew from the very beginning of this pregnancy that I was going to be late. I knew that she’d like to stay in there as long as she possibly could. No chance of the tax deduction my husband was so rooting for – we should continue with our New Year’s plans as if nothing was changing. Well…I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Sunday December 30th started like any other day. Steve and I went out to breakfast, ran to Home Depot and Best Buy, went grocery shopping and headed home to relax for the evening. My brother called to have us over for dinner – enchiladas YUM! We packed up the dogs and headed over to their house. We got there, got the dogs inside and I went to fill up the dogs water dish. I squatted down to put the dish back on the floor and felt a pop. Didn’t really think much of it. When I stood up however – things changed. WHOOSH! Now that sure is a weird feeling. I looked at Steve, my brother and his fiancée and said “I think my water just broke.”

Well…my water did break. And kept breaking. But I was not having any contractions. At least none I could feel. We called the hospital, they advised us to come in, but we sure took our time. Me the procrastinator – so set on having a “late” baby – hadn’t even begun to pack the bag. So we showered, dressed, packed and headed to Sutter Roseville. When we got there I had dilated only a fingertip and was still 50% effaced. The consensus of the nurse and the doctor was that I was going to have a “long and difficult” labor. Nice words to first time parents, huh? We got checked into the room and were told that because my water had broken we were on a time limit for delivery. We had to get Allyson out within 18-24 hours or the risk of infection would go way up and we’d end in C-Section. So we looked up our positive positions. I stayed out of the bed as much as possible to keep pressure on my cervix and try to speed up the labor.

I was hooked up to the external fetal monitor from the start and was allowed 30 minutes on and 30-60 minutes off. While hooked up, however, any position other than lying in that bed was not conducive to good monitoring of the baby. This gets real annoying later on.

When we checked in the nurse wanted to place an IV in and start fluids. I resisted. The nurse’s comment was “well, you’re going to need it for fluids now and for your epidural later.” I advised her to go read my birth plan. After some conversation with the doctor we settled on the heparin lock.

Settled into the room and still not feeling contractions (although I was having them, just not feeling them,) we continued our positioning. At around 10 pm the staff started mentioning pitocin. I rejected the idea knowing that that stuff was going to make my “long and difficult” delivery even harder, but after a discussion with the doc I knew that because of our timeline I was going to have to make the labor progress or be left with no other choice. At 3 am, we had not made enough progress (still 1 fingertip dilated and 50% effaced) and had to start the pitocin. Once on the pitocin, however, fluids were introduced and I had to be hooked up to the fetal monitor at all times. Thankfully I was still allowed to use the restroom on my own, but when done, it was back on the monitor.

At 8am I started to feel the contractions. I was checked and was dilated to 3-4 centimeters. Not a lot of progress. The pitocin was increased every half hour in an effort to speed things along. But I was starting to have to focus through the contractions. Hallelujah! This felt like progress. I was disappointed at the fact that I was only 3-4 centimeters, but encouraged knowing that we still had about 8 hours until the deadline ended. Between 8 and 11 things started speeding up. I struggled to find positions that made getting through the contractions better. That darn fetal monitor was going to be the death of me. I couldn’t be in any position where I was hunched over because we would lose Ally’s heart rate. We’d be in the chair or on the birthing ball and the nurse would come in and have to reposition the monitor. A few times I was asked to get back in bed because they weren’t getting Ally’s readings.

Being in bed was awful. I was in the most pain when I was there, unable to handle the contractions. I was positive she was doing just fine – I was focused on getting through increasingly stronger contractions and doing so without the benefit of anesthesia. This was a battle with the nursing staff. It got to a point where I was so terribly frustrated – the pitocin kept getting increased – the contractions continued to get stronger, longer and more intense – and that darn fetal monitor was the most annoying contraption.

Around 10:30 am I started giving up. I couldn’t get comfortable – or at least in a tolerable position – without having a nurse come in to scold me. The pain was becoming increasingly unbearable and I started begging for drugs. I knew that the pitocin was to blame. Steve and my mom kept distracting me and telling me I could get through it. Every time the nurse came in I was going through a contraction or I’m sure I would have asked for something to help with the pain. Because my water had broken so much earlier, they kept the exams to a minimum in an effort to keep the risk of infection down. So we were a bit unsure of my progress. Having only gone 3-4 centimeters earlier I felt that the labor was going to go on forever and I knew I couldn’t make it much longer without some sort of pain relief.

At 11:00, I sat on the floor. I know…weird. The nurses had not been thrilled with the idea, but I knew I had to try one more position. The ball, bed and chair were not working and I needed to try one more thing before I gave up and got the pain relief. I sat cross legged on the floor with my head on the couch. Steve lay next to me, holding the fetal monitor in place (he ended up staying in the same spot for two hours), and I just started breathing. The contractions really started to hit me. I stopped looking at the monitor. I think part of the issue was that I could watch their intensity, watch how long they were taking and watch how fast they were coming on.

Before I knew it, I started to feel the urge to push. It was only 1pm but I had this weird feeling and asked for a nurse. Having only been 4 centimeters 3 hours earlier I resisted the urge to push because I knew that it couldn’t be time yet. I got into bed and the nurse checked – 10 centimeters! Unbelievable! It’s amazing how fast everything goes once they discover you’re at 10 centimeters. They turned off the pitocin and we started to push. The contractions were different at this point. Coming every 5-6 minutes. There was so much time that I was actually falling asleep between them – I was so thoroughly exhausted. This didn’t work for the docs so they turned the pitocin back on and in about 45 minutes Allyson Jae Carroll was here.

Monday December 31st, 2007 Allyson Jae Carroll was born at 1:47pm. She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and was 20 inches long.

Having one of the last babies born in 2007 Steve, Allyson and I were on the news the next morning. I’ve attached the link to our short interview.
Warning – I’m a total cheese ball and we’re beyond exhausted.
http://cbs13.com/video/?id=28726@kovr.dayport.com

I'm not one to toot my own horn about alot of things. But the fact that I had Allyson completely drug-free is something that I'm VERY proud of. There's nothing wrong with having a little help from some pain killers but this is my claim to fame and I'll take it!

~Becky

Back to the grind

Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was fantastic! Ours was nice. Steve's parents and my parents get along really well so we're lucky enough to be able to spend some of the holidays all together. Makes the whole "split the day" thing go away - at least a little bit. Christmas will be another story entirely.

So...Thanksgiving was at the in-laws. Steve cooked the turkey on the rotisserie - YUM-MO! We ate and ate...my child decided there were WAY too many people to nap. It was a good day.

Here are a couple pics of the kiddo from Thanksgiving. During the festivities my mother-in-law put a cape on Allyson that belonged to Steve oh-so-many years ago. Funny how life becomes a circle {play Elton John song here}.

~Becky