What I Think About Your Boobs.

I keep seeing all of these blog posts about boobs. Boobs everywhere. I feel like my head has been spinning about all of this and I have so many thoughts about it all. So I'm going to share them with you. Not because my opinion matters, but because this is my blog and I can write about whatever I want. Including boobs.
The first post that was posted in my newsfeed was from a woman pleading with other women to stop posting their bikini pictures on Facebook. Do you want to know what stands out to me the very most from her post? The part where she says she is fighting for her marriage. 
I don't know anything about fighting for my marriage because Clayton and I haven't been through that. My guess is that most people read right past that part because they were too busy chastising this woman for writing a blog post telling women that her husband didn't need to see their boobs. 
She says she's not insecure, but if you were fighting for your marriage don't you think you would feel just a bit insecure? Don't you think you would subconsciously pick yourself apart and wonder what your husband no longer loved about you...even if the reason you were fighting for your marriage had nothing to do with your physical appearance?
Don't you think you'd be constantly wondering if he was looking at other women thinking about how you don't measure up?
I understand the point the woman was trying to make, but I also understand why it got people so upset.
All of that being said, I don't expect women to stop posting pictures of themselves in their swimsuits on social media. I trust my husband. But let's face it, we're human. If there's a picture of a woman with a great body in a swimsuit, do I naively think he just averts his eyes? No. Is it sinful? Yes. But not anymore sinful than the mega-overeating-binge eating myself into a coma-fest that I may have gone on the night before.
Now, the next post I read. This is the one that really gets me. I just read this one yesterday. I probably couldn't even find it again if I tried, nor do I want to. This one was in response to the original post. 
This girl picked apart the blog post sentence by sentence and repeatedly chastised this woman. It instantly made me sick to my stomach and broke my heart. I had to stop after something along the lines of "you are a terrible, miserable woman who will be cheated on in no time." Wow.
Instead of berating people, why not lift them up? Why not pray for them?
Everyone has an opinion, and here is mine. 
Do I care what kind of swimsuit you wear? No. Do I care if you post pictures of yourself on Facebook in said swimsuit? No. Am I going to judge you based on your swimsuit? No. Unless it's ugly. Then I might. (kidding.) Am I going to wear a bikini and post pictures of myself in it on Facebook? No.
As a married, God fearing woman (who also happens to have a not so rockin post baby body) I personally feel like it's disrespectful to my husband, to myself and to Jesus to do so. But like I said, that's my personal feeling. And it's okay if yours is different. This isn't about you. It's about me. And my world doesn't revolve around your beliefs and feelings.
But even more near and dear to me (and the point I'm trying to make), I feel I would be doing my children a disservice. 
Yes, I'm raising boys. With that, comes teaching them about relationships and about women. More importantly, SHOWING them about relationships. 
I want my boys to respect modesty in a woman. I want them to fully grasp the concept of the body being a temple. I want them to love women who respect themselves.
That looks different to everyone, and that's okay.
To me, that looks like wearing a more modest swimsuit in public. But it doesn't even stop there. It looks like wearing age appropriate clothes that aren't super revealing. Even when I workout. 
Does that I mean I go out covered head to toe? Heck no. It's too hot for all that.
As much as I feel like this is for my children, it is also out of respect for my husband. Why would I want to run around town in clothes that show off parts of my body that are meant for no one but him? What is the point in that?
Do you want to know the craziest part to me? It wasn't until I read those two blog posts that I realized it, but this has all just come naturally. If you know me well, you know I am not a modest person. I guess it's been a gradual change. I didn't wake up one day and think "I'm going to stop wearing two piece swimsuits and low cut shirts today."
God has changed me and molded me into a woman who respects modesty and wants her children to do the same, and for that I am thankful.  

Gavin's Birth Story

Now that I've shared Knox's birth story with you, it's time to document Gavin's! Since his is more recent, it may end up being a lot more detailed long. Bear with me. I wasn't as good at keeping up with his pregnancy as I was Knox's, so I guess this makes up for that? (you know, just trying to justify it for myself.)
At the end of my pregnancy, I was D O N E. I loved every single second of being pregnant with Knox. I didn't necessarily hate being pregnant this time around, but it was certainly not as easy. Chasing a two year old around while pregnant is, honestly, quite miserable less than enjoyable. When I started my weekly appointments at 36 weeks I was dilated to maaaaybe one centimeter (I think she was just trying to make me feel better) and about 50% effaced. Same at 37 weeks, same at 38 weeks. At my 38 week appointment we had this conversation:
Dr. M: What day will you be 39 weeks? Me: Next Wednesday. Dr. M (looking at computer): Hmmm...I could do next Wednesday. Want to schedule it?
Hallelujah, praise Jesus....I'm pretty sure the heavens opened up and the angels sang. YES I want to schedule it. And so, we did.
At that point, I really wanted Gavin to just hangout for one more week. I swore I didn't want to be induced this time around, but that all went out the window about 32 weeks. Especially with Jessica's wedding ten days after my due date. Being induced a week early gave me 17 days until her wedding, which was doable (if you know me well, you know I went back to work when Knox was two weeks old. I'm not much of a homebody.). This time around we also had Knox to think about, and going into labor in the middle of the night was less than ideal. I get really tired of hearing people say "babies aren't meant to be born at your convenience. You should really let them come on their own." Yes, well in a perfect world that would be great. But in MY world, a scheduled induction was perfect because we didn't have to freak our toddler out in the middle of the night. 
And so, he did. My children are happy to stay in my belly as long as they possibly can. It's warm in there. According to my mom Gavin was "happy in his cozy cabin." You're so clever, Mom.
We were scheduled to be at the hospital at some ridiculously early hour before the sun was even up 6am. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep a wink the night before and I'm pretty sure Clayton didn't either. Knox's Auntie Jess stayed the night with us so that we wouldn't have to wake him up early and he wouldn't even know anything was amiss when he woke up. I went in to kiss him before we left and of course, I cried (I cried pretty much every night when I put him to bed after we scheduled my induction. Hormones are no joke.) He had such a fun day with Jessica and she was able to kind of prepare him for his brothers arrival!

We got to the hospital, filled out all of the paperwork (because I forgot to pre-register this time. Oops.) and got into our room. We had this massively huge room with a bathtub, which Clayton immediately started making rude, crude and socially unacceptable jokes about. I'll leave those to your imagination. I, once again, got into my lovely hospital gown and crawled into bed.
The nurse that came in to do my IV...well, I'm pretty sure she was trying to kill me. I hate having an IV in the top of my hand anyway, and this one was terrible. She apparently got it right next to a valve. Which means nothing to me, except that I thought I was dying. Okay maybe not dying, but I was sure I was going to pass out while she was drawing blood, which by the way, took like fifteen hours. Or at least it felt like it. Once she got that in, the very best labor and delivery nurse there ever was (whose schedule I may or may not have planned my induction around) came in. We talked game plan, started pitocin and waited for the doctor to get there. 
Dr. M came by first thing and went ahead and broke my water to get things going. My nurse was shooting for one centimeter an hour and the plan was to have a baby before 5pm. Remember that time when I told you my babies are happy to stay in my belly?
The morning was pretty uneventful. My parents came that morning and the plan was for my mom to stay the day and to be in the room with us again. Clayton's philosophy was that everything went great with Knox, so why would we do it any differently this time?
This time around my doctor told me I could get my epidural just as soon as I wanted it. I am no hero, so I got that bad boy around 10am just as soon as I started to feel my contractions. 
A couple of hours later the nurse came in to check me and laid my bed flat. I don't really remember what happened, but all of a sudden I was super light headed and felt like I could fall asleep in an instant. I vaguely remember hearing monitors beeping and Clayton and my mom freaking out a little bit. I remember another nurse coming in and asking my nurse, "is that her heart rate or the babies?" It was Gavin's and it had dropped drastically. I have these stubborn kids. Once I was sitting back up and on oxygen everything started evening out and I was fine. I think it was scarier for everyone else than it was for me because I really had no clue what was going on! After that I just wanted to nap, so I did for a bit.
A little later I could tell my epidural was wearing off on one side because I could freely move and lift one of my legs. The nurse called to have it re-dosed and the guy that came to do it wasn't messing around. I felt like each of my legs was the size of an elephant and as heavy as two! My progression was slooooow, but that was fine because I was comfortable and just hanging out. Every time someone came to check me I'd think surely I had made at least a centimeter or two of progress, but no such luck. A little before 5 my epidural was wearing off again, so we had it re-dosed before all of the anesthesiologists left for the day.
Best nurse ever left at 7pm at the end of her shift and I was still just hanging out around a 5-6.
A couple hours after she left, I once again felt my epidural wearing off and my contractions were BAD. My nurse wasn't taking me very seriously, and come to find out, they didn't think they were getting a very good read on my contraction monitor. I had been comfortable all day and at this point I was absolutely miserable. I asked her to please call someone to come re-dose it and instead she decided to try to move me into different positions to see if we could get it working again. I finally made my mom go tell her that if someone didn't come fix it, it was not going to be a good night (I'm certain those were the EXACT words I used. I would have never ever threatened to punch someone in the face)! 
My contractions continued to get worse and I was starting to feel a little bit of pressure and all I could think was "sweet baby Jesus if the anesthesiologist gets here too late and I have to feel this baby coming out, I may never recover." Thankfully, that's about the time he showed up. We got it re-dosed, and right about the time it kicked in, I told my mom and Clayton that I felt like it was time to push. My mom grabbed the nurse and sure enough, it was pretty close to time. She had my push a few times just laying in the bed to kind of check and see how we were doing. She told me that he was crowning, and so it shouldn't take very long to get him out.
She got all of the carts in and everything ready to go and then called the doctor. She had me start pushing, and I felt like he was going to come any second. I told her that if she didn't want a baby born before the doctor got there that we needed to wait, so she told me to start breathing through my contractions instead of pushing. Oh man, talk about torture. All I wanted to do was push!  Dr. M got there pretty quickly and started getting her gown and glasses on. She could see the misery on my face and said "I'm here! Push if you feel like you need to!" And so I did. One time. And out popped my sweet baby boy at 10:33pm! She was caught so off guard and wasn't even totally dressed yet! We all started laughing and couldn't get over the fact that he just kind of shot right now (sorry for that visual image).
I was so thankful to have not been on Stadol this time around. While I remember Knox's birth, I was so much more aware of what was going on with Gavin's birth. I was able to see Gavin as soon as he was born and I remember EVERYTHING. His lungs were clear enough that he started crying immediately, so they brought him over for Clayton and I to see. 
I never worried too much about how I was going to love two children equally, but in that very instant I completely understood how it is possible. My heart was bursting with love for this tiny boy that I was meeting for the first time. And once again, our family was complete.
He was 8 pounds even and 20 inches long. Almost the exact same size as his big brother, and equally as perfect.

We finally got into our postpartum room around midnight, and I immediately sent Clayton for food. I hadn't had a single thing to eat since the night before, and I was starving. Pickings are slim at midnight, so we settled for Jack in the Box. A hamburger and curly fries has never tasted so good!

They brought Gavin to us for just a little bit so I could feed him and love on him and then we took him back to the nursery so we could try to get some sleep.

The next morning, all I could think about was getting Knox up there to meet him. We decided to let him go on to school so that we didn't totally disrupt his day and Clayton would pick him up and bring him to the hospital. We had visitors throughout the day, so that helped to pass the time.

It was finally time for Clayton to get Knox and bring him to meet his brother and my heart literally felt like it was going to burst. I could not wait for Knox to get there! And instead of telling you how it went, I'll just let you see for yourself. These are unedited (because who has time for all that with two kids), so you get the whole three minutes of video!

This semi-sweetness also took place.

And then there were four. And our hearts were full.

 

puj Splash Review

When I was pregnant with Knox, a friend recommended the puj tub to me as an alternative to the traditional bulky infant bathtubs. Before I even got my hands on one, I fell in love with the sleek, compact and portable design of the puj tub. Once I did get my hands on one, it was all over. I was obsessed. When Knox outgrew it, we stored it for our next child and two years later when I got it back out for Gavin, it was still in perfect shape! That’s what we’ve been using for Gavin since he was born.

One day I was perusing Instagram and saw that puj was looking for product testers for a new product, the puj splash. Being the puj addict that I am, I of course applied. A week or so later I received an email that I had been chosen! Eeek! I was so excited and watched every single day for that FedEx package full of goodness. So that being said, here is my product review of the puj splash.

Out of the FedEx box came this super sleek box showcasing what the puj Splash has to offer, which is: a how-to guide, one puj Flyte tub, three Fresh washcloths, one Hug hooded towel and three Nubs hooks. I was immediately drawn to how the box is laid out. I think it’s very appealing and well designed. The box itself has a handle, which makes it easy to transport.

We have very small bathroom sinks in our house, so our original puj tub has always been used in the kitchen sink. When I saw that the Flyte was a little more compact, I got excited about the prospect of it fitting in our bathroom sinks. When we are trying to bathe both kids at once, we usually just put Gavin in the bath seat in the tub with Knox. I bet you can imagine how well that goes. As soon as I opened the box, I immediately had to see if it fit in our bathroom sinks. And voila! It fit! It was a tight fit, but it fit nonetheless. I couldn’t wait to get Gavin in to try it out.

To get started, I hooked the Hug towel around my neck with the easy to use silicone tabs. The whole purpose of it is that you can hook it around your neck to keep yourself dry hands-free while bathing your baby. You can then wrap your baby up in the towel easily at the end of bath time. It is so easy and very convenient, but probably not something I will remember to use all the time!

Like I said, the Flyte was kind of a tight fit in our bathroom sink. A tight fit mixed with a massive baby isn’t a great combo. BUT I did like having the option of bathing him in the bathroom while Knox is bathing. It’s super easy to setup. It folds in half, so all you have to do is unfold it and put it in the sink. The drain at the bottom works perfectly to get excess water out of the tub.  I LOVE how soft the Fresh washcloths are and they are a great size for a big baby in comparison to a lot of the washcloths I’ve had in the past. Bath time was quick and easy in the Flyte and I found myself really wishing I had one when both of my babies were newborns! It’s more compact and a little more stiff and supportive than the original puj tub.

After his bath, I wrapped Gavin up in the Hug hooded towel. With it already being around my neck, it was super easy to just pick him up and wrap it around him rather than having to lay him down somewhere else. Talk about super soft. I wanted to wrap myself up in it! He usually fusses when it’s time to dry off, but he just laid there wrapped up in this towel for a few minutes, no problem. It’s made of thick, ultra-soft cotton, so I think it made him feel more secure than any of our other towels. Or maybe he just likes how soft it is. Who knows! All I know is, he looks adorable.

 I think my very favorite part of the whole Splash set are the Nubs. They are just small, grippy hooks that you can hang anywhere, but they are a genius addition to the set! I chose to hang mine in the boys bathtub. The silicone tab on the Hug towel fits perfectly onto one of them, which is so convenient. The other two are now home to my TWO puj tubs. The original tub is magnetic, but I’ve never had anywhere to hang it, so it just ends up in the boys bathtub to dry. Now I can hang it on one of the Nubs to dry, and you have no idea how excited this makes me!

All in all, this puj enthusiast is a fan. I think this is a great combo of items that would make a great gift for new parents! It is convenient and easy to use, and let’s face it, who needs anything more complicated when running on a couple hours of sleep?

If you want your own puj Splash set, you can get one here AND you can get it for 20% off using coupon code SPLASHTESTER20 through July 31,2014. Enjoy!