Turning 38, Milford Memories

On Sunday, Ruby and I enjoyed some alone time while everyone else was at church. Apparently it was quite the testimony meeting I missed- Tyler even bore his testimony. Grace's family came over that afternoon to meet Ruby- sans Etta, apparently she was sleeping. Grace brought some apples with caramel- perfect snack! They all took turns holding Ruby and seemed properly smitten by her ;) She did have on a super cute outift.

On Monday my friends- Caroline, Melissa and Grace- came over to do an early celebration of my birthday. It was a nice gesture but my ability to socialize these days is a bit impaired due to lack of sleep. They did most of the talking though so I suppose that was good. They brought gifts- a succulent candle holder from Caroline, a blanket and candy from Melissa (she is always giving blankets, maybe I should give her a blanket?) and Grace gave me a month of Audible (I think maybe she knows me best). They also brought mini bundt cakes and chips and salsa. It was nice to be thought of.

Tuesday was my official birthday but with a brand new baby, I couldn't exactly do much to celebrate. My favorite thing to do on my birthday is day trips but I definitely was unable to do that. Instead I had to settle with good food. Tyler made me crepes for breakfast. And since a sit down place wasn't really an option I got Jimmy John's for lunch and Arby's for dinner. Tyler also bought me a bundt cake and mini bundlets from Nothing Bundt Cake so along with what I got the day before-- we have a lot of cake! However, Tyler wins the prize for cutest because his had llamas on them. And my big gift from him was a new car radio which is quite amazing. It has bluetooth so it can connect to my phone and get Amazon music, google maps, audible, etc. So we will finally be able to listen to stuff again since my old radio had lost it's ability to connect to my phone.

Ruby also turned 1 week old on my birthday so we had to utilize her blanket where we can mark her age. The kids got in on the action too ;)

On Wednesday Julie came over in the morning with her 4 boys to meet Ruby. Her baby was a bit fussy and her triplets were a bit of trouble but I am glad she came over. I still feel like she is the one person I can best relate to these days- with her also being an older mom with a huge age gap between her other kids. I enjoyed her visit but ooof- I cannot imagine having 4 boys. Afterwards, Caroline came over so her kids could meet Ruby. David held her for a second, Andrea was not interested in holding her at all (what's with these teenage girls?), but Peter and Lizzie were very excited to hold her. It was sweet. Later that day we did an outing to Target so I get another nursing cami- they are great for night time- and my mom got me a game for a belated birthday gift, The game is called Ransom and I had fun playing it with the kids after we got home. You have a bunch of random magnetic words and you have to use them to make sentences based on what a card is asking- for example "write a diary entry for Batman". It wasn't perfectly family friendly- I had to take out some inappropriate words and cards- but the kids and I had a lot of fun. That evening Ashlee brought us dinner. It has been so nice to not have to cook and I am grateful for all my helpful friends. With the freezer meals, Ashlee's meal and my mom- I have not had to cook since having the baby.

On Thursday Grams took me shopping at Kohl's so I could try to find some things to fit my postpartum body. I am having a hard time with this postpartum belly- I'm not sure I have ever retained quite this much weight (about 20 pounds). I still look very pregnant. I managed to find a couple shirts that hide my belly and some nice stretchy, wide leg pants. That was pretty much it for my day. Mariah's family was going to come over to meet Ruby but apparently they are all passing around a cold. Instead we gave Ruby her first bath. She rather seemed to enjoy it...until I took her out of the tub. Pretty sure the other kids were the exact same way.

On Friday we decided to venture out to Milford Memories. I was still not quite 100% healing wise but Milford Memories is a tradition I just can't miss. Gratefully, Max's parents let us park in their driveway so I was nice and close to the event. Once there we headed right for the park so I could find a shady place to nurse Ruby and the kids could go do the crafts and games at the kid's tent. They came back around the time I finished nursing and then we got some of our favorite treats-pretzels and snowcones. Lucy went strange and licked all the salt off her pretzel and then didn't want the bread. Then she seemed irritated by my irritation- she is pretty teenagerish these days. The snow cone turned Ben's lips and mouth bright red- that was a creepy look for him.

After that we strolled the booths and Ruby slept the rest of the outing. I found it interesting that no one was really interested in my baby (which was good, no germs being shared) but their were a lot of people with dogs in strollers and boy did all those dogs get lots of attention. Does that tell you something about the world today? I didn't end up buying anything besides more food- cotton candy and roasted almonds for Tyler- but it was a good stroll. The kids all got a free balloon- which Penny was insistent that she had to get her traditional free balloon before we could leave. Unfortunately she lost it the sky shortly after getting home...And the kids did one more craft and got kazoos to annoy us with all the way home.

Friday night there was a big storm and we had some thunder that shook our house. Lucy, of course, did not handle it well. She does ok when she can listen to the weather reports on Tyler's HAM radio but when he went to bed and put away, apparently she ended up in our room- must have been during one of Ruby's sleeping stretches because I had no idea she was there.

Saturday my mom drove us girls to Dick's so Lucy and Penny could get new soccer cleats. It was a pretty painless process. They have a kiosk where you scan in the shoes you want to try on and then someone comes out with them. The line was long leaving but Ruby behaved herself. In fact she did so good that we ran a couple more errands. I had to make an Amazon return at Kohl's. I got a shirt that did not hide my postpartum belly but rather accentuated it. After Kohl's we went to Joann's so grams could get some yarn. They already have their Halloween decorations out and I was real tempted by the giant skeletons. Is it weird that I have always wanted one so I can dress it for every holiday?

Saturday afternoon Lucy had her friend Claire over so Claire could meet Ruby. She stayed for a bit and we played Ransom again. Then the girls drew some pictures using Youtube tutorials. Then Claire's mom picked them up and took them to the park and beach. Claire's mom has been so good to Lucy. Honestly, she has been a lot more fun and I think Lucy is beginning to wish they would adopt her *sigh*

Anyways, it's been a fairly low key week with Miss Ruby and she is still fairly unpredictable. Sometimes she is a super happy, chill baby and other times she is pretty fussy. We have had a few rough nights but the last few have been fairly good with some longer stretches between feedings.  She takes a bit to get back to sleep- she needs a swaddle, some music and lights from her teddy bear and a pacifier but after about 30 mins she is usually out and stays out for 2-4 hours. I just keep reminding myself when things are hard that this is my last baby and I will never have this struggle again so I might as well just have a good attitude about it, right?