Welcome, Little Sweet One

I am VERY overdue in putting up my follow up post to the baby name game. 

I don't feel to badly over it though, as it's just NOW that I'm able to begin to get into a solid routine with my punkin's. 

I really went through the knot hole with this one, friends. 

I fought with the docs, nurses, myself ... everyone BUT little Flash. 

With some health 'problems' ... I won't get into detail, but it was a load of BS, essentially, just padding the bill for the insurance co, I am convinced. It got to the point that I fired one doc about 2 months before having  the little one, then nearly fired her replacement when he got confrontational with me without reading my chart. 

OH, you just gotta love attentive docs. 

I was *this close* to just packing up and spending the last few weeks of my pregnancy holed up in a hotel room in Escanaba waiting to go into labor and drive across town to OSF hospital for an emergency C. 

But, I did not. I tangled with the doc, gave him an ultimatum to do it as previously discussed, rather than hospitalize me for a week pre baby with no reason (other than bill padding) and off we went. 

She was born *technically* on the full Harvest moon ... the morning of October 1st, a very healthy 9# 1.8 oz., and 20.5" 'tall'. 

I was out of the hospital a day and a half later, as I was pushing to get out as soon as I could feel my feet. 

She is very healthy, thanks. Super sweet, and quite wonderful in my own opinion, seeing as she's spoiled me rotten with her sleep habits. oh yeah, she was sleeping a 5 hour stretch the first week home, and has slowly increased that. It's still just around 6 hours, but for a 6 week old, and a mom that's used to only 4 or 5 hours ANYWAY, I'm a happy girl. 

SO. Here she is. My little punkin' ... she looks very much like my baby pics, only she has LOTS of dark hair, and I was bald, then blonde, so... she's my little dark haired beauty. 

Happy Holy Deer Opener, by the way. I made it out today. Didn't see anything but a trespasser, some crows, various obnoxious birds, rabbits, a renegade squirrel, and some 3 to 4 day old deer tracks. Meh. Better luck next time, I suppose. 

Little Girl Name Game

So, last time, I said I'd tell you about how I came to my new little girl's name. Well, it's been a long time coming.
When I was pregnant with my first (10 years ago) I still had one of my grandmothers with me .... literally. We were together every day. I woke up, gave the hubs a kiss, did my chores and had breakfast with her -- spent  all my spare time with her, and she was for all intensive purposes my best friend in the world.
She was the one who went with me to my ultrasound. She helped me to pick out names, and name possibilities. We tried for months to come up with a good girl's name. I wanted to find a way to mesh her name and my other gramma's name. It was impossible. We tried every single combo. Especially hard when you consider the whole story. My bff gramma that I lived next door to was named Mary. No middle name. well, later in life, she said her middle name was Evangeline. HOWEVER, it was a middle name she gave to herself, after her godmother. So, technically, not really her middle name. All I had to work with at the time for her, was Mary.  My other grandmother, whom, she didn't really get along well with for years *though they did have a pretty good understanding of each other, and were civil, and even friendly when I was a kid, and growing up* had passed away a few years before, so I couldn't consult with her too, or I would have. Probably would have started a huge fight between the two of them all over again. Anyhow, her name was Lily Ranghild. WELL. I'm down with Lily. Ranghild is old Norse for 'war council', so .... that was out. Mary Ranghild -- um, no. Mary Lily --- no. Lily Mary ... also, no.
During all this, Gram got a little teary eyed (killed me)and told me 'don't ever name a baby Mary. It's too tough a name for any baby to carry'. Well, that threw the whole thing out the window. She told me to name her after my mother instead. I'm sure Mom would be thrilled with a little Christine Lynn.
The name I had in mind for my first was Anna Rika. After both of my Swedish great grandmothers, but it didn't matter. We had a boy, and named him the highly original exactly after his father with a JR tagged on the end.
The 2nd baby we lost ... never got to see her in any way, (don't know if it was a boy or girl for sure) but in my mind, I named her Emma.
Third baby was a boy again. He was named for my father, which was great, partly because Gram was still with us, and loved it. She got to know him, and hold him, and he matched up closely with her description of how my father looked at her in the delivery room when he finally made his appearance, but also because I couldn't come up with a great girls' name, and I couldn't use my girl's name I came up with for my oldest since she had a little girl not long after my 1st was born and named her Hannah. WAY too close to Anna. Couldn't do it.

Now, this one. I couldn't possibly NOT find out ahead of time if it was a boy or girl. I would have lost my marbles. No, really. We knew ahead what Davey was, to prep Lar Jr. I couldn't handle it wondering about it  any longer than absolutley necessary. Now, i have a girl on the way, and the girls' name problem reared it's ugly head. This is the first baby in our family with Gramma gone. I lost my partner in crime. She passed away last year. Ma is spending time with me & the boys, but it's just not the same. I love Ma, and we get along great, but her perspective is so close to my own sometimes that there just isn't that different angle that I always got from Gram. I miss both Grammas so deeply that I knew that this is my one and only shot at honoring them both with a little girl named for them. My rule was simple. No naming after just one. It was both or nothing. So it started. Add to that, Gramma's request to NOT name a baby Mary added to the challenge. I ran through the names. Lily was going to be the first name. How could I get Gram in there? She had no middle name and Lily Mary just doesn't work right in my mouth. 

I had almost settled on Lily Christine out of sheer frustration, but a google search educated me that Lily Christine was once a stripper in the 50's. Oh, hell no. That wasn't going to work.

Then it hit me. 

When my folks were dating, my mom gave Gramma Mary a nickname. One that she embraced. So much so that I thought her nickname was her name until I was probably 9 or 10 years old. I would get angry when cousins called her by her given name, because it wasn't her name. If it was good enough for her to sign just about every single card she ever gave me, good enough to answer to for maybe 40+ years of her life -- WHY couldn't I use that for my baby's middle name? 

After all, there are millions of Mary's in the world. There has only ever been one Flash. 

So, her name will be Lily Flash in honor of both of my beloved Grandmothers. The pictures represent the names .... the lily for, well --- Lily. And the shoes? well, Gramma Flash once had a pair of gold high heels she had pictures taken in. She must have loved them, because she had them in her closet for decades. When I saw these little suckers at Target, I had to have them for little Flash/Lily. The timing was just too perfect. 

SO. Now you know. That's the story. Lily Flash will be here in the fall. I will be proud if she follows the example set by either one of those fabulous fantastic women.

Surprise, surprise!

I recently (well, not too recently) had a moment when it became necessary to re-arrange my summer schedule. It involved a cake, somewhat like the one below, that announced to my closest family that in addition to the inital surprise of becoming parents (again), we could even tell the family WHAT kind of baby we were expecting unexpectedly. 

After 2 super sweet little boys, I wasn't sure what we should have. Another boy would be great --- I'd have 3 little cowboys, the opposite of my mom's 3 little girls. This was the result of our ultrasound, though officially, I won't 100% believe it until little Lily is in my arms. 

YES, we are supposed to be having a little girl.
As I said --- I won't totally believe it until I've got her. NOT at all in my immediate plans. We were going to wait a year so baby would be 4 years from Little Guy.
However, it wasn't my idea. It wasn't hubby's idea. Nope. I was on birth control pills --- took them religiously, same time every day, never missed one. Didn't matter. Not complaining too loudly about the whole thing though because
1) we were planning on one more, even if the timing wasn't as I saw it
2) It hasn't interrupted TOO much of my normal routine. I haven't been sick at all --- I was tired for a while during the first, but that was remedied with an afternoon nap most days. Horse training is out, just because the little mare is green, but come October, oh, little one you watch your ass -- I've got pent up training to deal with!!!
3) Even after figuring out I was unexpectedly expecting, my math was WRONG. We're farther along than I had initially thought. In fact, as of Friday, we will be in the 3rd trimester. Apparently, I hadn't seriously considered the possibility of pill failure until I was damn near out of the 1st trimester. OOPS. Good thing I'm not a drinker.
and finally ...
4) She's healthy. She's a SHE. I have wanted a girl since first finding out about my Big Boy. I wouldn't trade him for the world --- or his brother, but a girl. wow.

Officially, I am fa-reaking the hell out about that single fact. I have my little cowgirl comin'. Oh shit. I have a little cowgirl comin! that means dresses & skirts & bows in addition to the bluejeans & cowboy boots.
Oh hell, I hadn't considered the clothing aspect. When the boys picked out an outfit for her, my oldest wanted to get her a pretty dress. As I turned around and noticed the dresses in the store, I suddenly and inexplicably had a tiny panic attack. Dresses hadn't even crossed my mind. Yet, my darling young man had considered it. Oh hell.

We had to leave immediately. too much stress for me at the time.

Next time, I'll talk about my foray into girls names. makes me think my migrane is coming back considering that one.

525,600 Minutes

How do you measure a year?

This has been a rough one for us - loosing Gramma in March, watching my older sister disappear into the deep south, and finally, my sweet hubby losing a job due to trying to HELP someone out the week of Christmas.

On the positive side, we did get to play with a litter of puppies and found excellent homes for ALL of them, I got Little Dona going OK under saddle - I'll feel better when we can have some good solid trail time. My big boy is doing well in school, and my little boy is 100% on his potty training now. So, I guess in the end, with the exception of loosing Gram, it's been an OK year.

I am watching in trepadation as to what this year will bring. The first songs I heard on the first were 'Sweet Emotion' (Aerosmith), 'I won't back down'(Tom Petty), 'NO, You Don't'(NIN) and 'Love you Just the way you are'(Bruno Mars).

Selection of bands aside, interesting message in all 4 of those.

So to those I know, and those I don't, Happy New Year. My hope is that this will be a year of luck, love, optimism, financial gain, and familial & equine induced happiness.