I Won't Play Outside

Ever since being put on bed rest Tiko has not been very playful. For almost 3 weeks now when ever we have taken him out to throw the ball he hasn't seemed interested and we've never been able to figure out why, until today.

Recently they've started construction on the lot next door and have been making a TON of noise. While outside on our swing I've never noticed whether the noise bothered Tiko or not; he lays on the porch and stays close by me. His protective nature of me when I'm not feeling good caused me to think nothing of his need to be close by.

This morning he was eager to play and full of energy; although, I'm not really suppose to be picking up and throwing the big jolly ball I wanted to exercise him a little. I threw the ball he ran after it, scooped it up and headed back towards me as he had done a hundred times before. On his return trip one of the large construction trucks dropped their load making a huge BANG. At that moment Tiko scooted his butt in towards his front paws, like he was going to be stepped on, dropped the ball and took off across the yard with a look of pure terror on his face. When he reached the other side of the yard he turned around and headed straight for me, on the porch, taking up position behind my legs. Doubled over and laughing hysterically, I told him he was ok and went to retrieve the ball to try again. I threw the ball away from the construction and Tiko took off; however, mid stride the truck made another loud noise and yet again Tiko changed direction. He came straight for me, circled me, then headed for the door and sat down. He looked at the door and then to me and back to the door, making it more than clear that he did not want to play outside anymore.

Now laughing harder than I was before I took him inside while shaking my head. The mystery was solved, Tiko didn't want to play because he was terrified of the "big scary trucks!" HAHAHAHA. Sissy dog!

Bed Rest is Stressful

It has never ceased to amaze me at the profound effect being outside the enclosement of 4 walls has on me. It is my belief that we were made to out in God's creation, not hiding from it within sturdy walls of concrete. I was created to be out in the wind, experiencing the ground under my feet, the sun and snow and rain on my skin, and the sound of bugs in my ears. I was made to explore woods and valleys, walk the neighborhood streets, and conquer the deserted canyons! I was NOT wired to sit in front of a TV or lay in a bed all day.

With this in mind the idea of bed rest, for a possibility of 5 months, was enough to drive me insane and over that 5 months cause a serious bout of depression. As soon as the Dr ordered my to bed rest immediate plans began forming in my head as to how I would find ways to get out beyond the walls of our house and outside; whether it be our back yard or else where.

It's in time like these I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful and understanding husband. He knew keeping my couped up in the house would drive my nuts and in turn cause me to drive him nuts. He'd been wanting to purchase a porch swing for a couple weeks but lack of time had prevented him from really finding anything. I, on the other hand, had nothing but time and could spend hours scowering the Internet for the perfect swing. When one was found that Brandon liked he went out that very night to purchase it and bring it home.

Putting it together was easy and the result made every minute of it's 2 hour creation worth it. We both sighed as we sat down and huge grins split our faces as we made the first swing. For an hour we simply just sat there. we didn't talk but just enjoyed the movement and one each others company. Contentment washed over me as I reached for Brandon's hand and gave him a light squeeze of thanks and love. He didn't even need ask if I was happy because he could see it written all over my face. When he finally got up to go back to work he left me on the swing asking if I would be okay.

Grinning from ear to ear, taking a deep breath, and closing my eyes so that I could feel the wind on my face I simply stated: "Of course!" I can now ease the stress of bed rest outside, where I belong.

Adventures in Baptist East

So many women experience so many different things in their pregnancy that it can be hard to distinguish one thing from the next. Just like people, pregnancy is different for each individual and no two pregnancies are alike. For some the feeling of pressure is nothing more than gas or constipation; for me it's contractions.

In the wise words of my sister: Pregnancy, everything hurts! So when I felt pressure in my abdomen I originally thought nothing of it and made plans to get my hands on something carbonated and call it a night. It was when the pressure caused me to become short of breath and eventually lead to me having a hard time breathing I called the Dr. She told me to meet her at the hospital immediately and go directly to Labor and Delivery. Being a the emotional drama queen I am, panic began to set in.

The panic only worsened when we got to the hospital and they lead us to a room and told me to get in a gown and climb into bed. Thinking this was the beginning of a miscarriage I finally began to calm when we heard the heartbeat beating strong and constant. A few minutes later that calm was shattered as I heard the 3 scariest words a 4 month pregnant women could hear:

"You're having contractions".

My thoughts went into a whirlwind and my emotions couldn't keep up; contractions, it's too early, why, but I'm not in pain, and so on. The nurse reassured me all was going to be okay and the medicine they gave me to stop my contractions, I was told, would start to work in around 30 minutes. At the 45 minute mark the pressure in my abdomen reached gut squeezing levels and removed all breath from my lungs. Tears began to pour from my eyes as I realized the medicine wasn't working and I was still contracting every 3 minutes; with the increase in pressure it was getting worse.

We spent the night at the hospital and watched as the contraction monitor moved up and down anxiously waiting for morning to come so we could do an ultrasound and check on the baby. When the ultrasound tech shared that everything looked normal and completely on track I wanted to sob in relief. Even though they still had no idea why I was contracting the baby was safe, normal, and appeared healthy; nothing sounded sweeter to me at that moment and the need to cry out to Christ in joy overwhelmed me.

The doctors find me to be somewhat of a mystery. I eat healthy, exercise, and have done everything right so far, all the test results are good and everything is normal so why am I having contractions; especially ones strong enough to knock the wind out of me? Until further notice I am on modified bed rest at home.

Brandon laughed at our little adventure and blamed the "Kennedy Curse". I told him he should have known better than to think that this pregnancy was going to be easy, nothing is every easy for me. Right now, we're just glad that the baby is okay and I'm home.

Morning Goodbyes

A normal week day morning in our house Brandon gets up an hour before me and is out the door before my alarm even goes off. Once he leaves Tiko is invited to join me on the bed for some snuggling while I attempt to get another 30-45 min. of sleep. When my alarm goes off Tiko noses at me and we both get out of bed.

On mornings where Brandon works from home he gets to sleep an extra 45 min. and when he gets out of the shower he lets Tiko outside. Some mornings he remembers to bring him back in and I still get to snuggle with him and some mornings I wake up alone and dog less. This morning was a dog less morning and Tiko wasn't let back in the house till I was about to walk out the door. As always I stopped in the office to give my hubby a kiss goodbye and exchange any reminders for the day, Tiko was quick to follow me to the office and immediately jumped on the couch turning toward the window. Laughing I commented that I was glad to see that he was going to enjoy staying home with Daddy today and went over to rub his head and give him a kiss goodbye as well.

Brandon surprised me by sharing that when ever he works from home Tiko always rushes to the couch so he can watch me leave from the office window. Shocked I asked: "Really?!". Brandon explained that he each morning he tries to remember to open the blind knowing that Tiko will want to watch me leave. Each morning that the blind is up he rushes to the couch to do just that.

Maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones but I teared up at the small gesture of love that my dog was displaying and he didn't even know it. At that realization I walked back over to give him another scratch behind the ears and a quick kiss on the nose; Tiko really is the best dog there is!

Apples

It's true what they say, once married each individual needs to take time to go home and spend time with their family alone. I was lucky enough to have the privileged to do just that this past weekend. It was a wonderful day filled with much laughter and entertainment most of which was provided by my incredible nephew, Kyndahl.

Kyndahl will be 3 in October and truly is the best kid out there. Despite only getting about a collective 45 min. nap he was quite reasonable the whole day while Amanda and I were out shopping. Our last stop was Walmart and, per usual, the kid had me laughing the whole time. He was starting to get whiny when we first went in so I gave him some string cheese to pacify him; the kid LOVES cheese. He found my trick of stringing it quite funny and told me: "You silly Erin." When he finished the cheese he fussed about wanting more so I asked if he would like an apple instead and he eagerly agreed; the kid didn't eat lunch so we were not surprised he was downing every scrap of food I was giving him.

As we neared the end of our trip Amanda decided to make a stop at the pharmacy while I parked Kyndahl's stroller next to a bench and hunkered down to share the apple with him. We played and giggled as we shared the apple making funny faces and noises at one another. When Kyndahl was done he held the apple out to me exclaiming: "I'm done!" I made sure that he didn't want anymore, that he was done, and told him I was going to throw it away and again he told me: "I'm done!". Thinking nothing of it I got up and threw the apple in the garbage close by. Immediately Kyndahl burst into tears, the big sad ones that made his eyes become the size of saucers. He was utterly heartbroken that I had thrown his apple away. "MY APPLE!!!" he cried. I explained that he said he was done so I threw the apple away and it was gone. He began to sob:

"MY APPLE, MY APPLE! I DIDN'T GET TO SAY BYE!!!!"

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. Kyndahl kept sobbing despite my attempts to reassure him that it was okay, while trying not to laugh at him. After a minute or so I told Amanda we were going to go for a walk to try and distract and calm him down. As we passed the garbage can he reached toward it and cried again:

"MY APPLE, MY APPLE! I SORRY I DIDN'T SAY BYE!!!"

Still laughing we made our way toward the door and ended up passing a large display of yellow roses. Kyndahl was still crying over the apple as we walked past but was quickly distracted by his favorite color:

"MY APPLE, I DIDN'T... OOO- Yellow!" At which point he immediately broke out into giggles and wanted to show me all the yellow that he saw. We stood for a moment to talk about all the different colors while he pointed them all out and then made our way back to the pharmacy to pick up Amanda. As we headed back you would have never known that he was recently so distraught over not getting to say goodbye to his apple if it weren't for his tear stained face.

He really is a character and always keeps you guessing and laughing! :)

Telling Time

As nice as it will be to have a clock in the nursery I would give $100 to bet that we never put a battery in it and use it; or if we do that once the battery dies we never change it. Despite that I had a scrapbook clock that I utilized to add another Dr. Seuss book to the room. The clock I originally wanted to buy was Cat in the Hat and I decided to stick with the theme and use it as my inspiration.

Cat in the Hat

Since the clock was wood it required a bit more paint than the other artwork and took more time. The imperfections show more clearly and thus I had to be a little more careful. My first mistake was to paint the white front first and THEN the red sides; this was not the smartest decision I've ever made and I had to do some white touch up later. Just like the other artwork I used the same method: print pictures, painted background, mod podge it all down. Everything was going splendidly until I dipped my white paint brush in the mod podge and ended up with white streaks down the hat. Furious I cleaned up my mess, threw a tantrum, and left it alone for almost a week. I debated buying a new clock and starting fresh but decided against it when I realized I could just reprint the pictures and mod podge over the images I already had down. You can't even tell I made a mistake in the first place! :)