Road Trip

On Thursday we are embarking on a road trip to London.. with 2 toddlers and a 4 month old... I think we are bit crazy to be honest.

In some ways I am dreading the drive. Normally, without stops it is about a 15 hour drive. We three small kids we breaking it down into two days. Manageable right? I hope so. I am praying that we don't encounter too much fighting. Julius likes to pester Elisabeth, which results in screaming. Elisabeth is also not too fond of her car seat... which results in screaming. If I have to listen to constant screaming I am going to go a bit nutty!

But we have a plan. Endless movies for the kids. Perhaps not the healthiest thing for them, but then again sitting in a car for 10 hours probably isn't healthy either. We of course will make stops along the way. I will have to feed Olivia after all, but we are hoping that they are just quick stops. I would rather get to the hotel quickly then drag the day out longer.

In other ways I am looking forward to it. It all goes to plan (it rarely does with 3 under 3) the kids will zone out on cartoons and we will have a somewhat relaxing day. I can crochet a bunch of things for the photogragphy business.. relax... maybe read a bit. I can dream right?

It's going to be a busy week. Thursday we are driving through Denmark and Germany. Friday we will hit The Netherlands, Belgium, France and then arrive in England by ferry. We are then in London until the 5th, then we drive home again.

It's been a while since we have gone on a trip. I am excited to see some new sights. I have never been to London, and I really don't remember the scenery from the last time we drove to France. So it will all be new for me. That is exciting.

One thing that is on my mind is what to do for snacks. Do any of you have any good ideas for road trip snacks that are toddler friendly?

Battle of the bath

(I know I know... I still haven't got my navigation bar and pages up yet....)

I always look forward to bath time. I know, strange right? But seriously, it is one of my favorite times with the kids. You see, we have made bath time kind of special. It is our one on one time with the kids.

We don't just sit there and watch, we get right in there with them and enjoy the time together. It is where I get the most cuddles out of my toddlers. We lay back, at the beginning and relax for a few minutes. I often get hugs. I wash the kids hair, then we usually play until the water starts getting cold.

It is the one thing about our apartment I am going to miss the most. Our new house only has a shower. Anyways I am getting of course here...

If you have toddlers, then you will know that once one thing starts going smooth, they throw a curve and mess the whole system up.

This is Julius right now. He declared war on bath time. He decided he wants nothing to do with it. In general we thought it was gonna be a momentary thing and we didn't push. But after a few days and one stinky little toddler boy I dragged him kicking and screaming into the bathroom, stripped him down and got into the bath with him. He kicked. He punched. I some how managed without and bruises. He screamed bloody murder (what our neighbors must think...). It was such an event, and he was already tired and cranky, he promptly fell asleep in my arms. All that fighting wore him out. Huge bath failure.. I couldn't even wash his hair.

The next time, same scenario but without the tired boy. There were bruises that time. And I was at a loss for what to do. Our special time was no longer special.

Wanna know what the answer is? The white flag to the battle of the bath? LEGO.

Picture from Flickr. Click for Original source.

All little kids (well most I assume) love LEGO. So I grabbed a bucket full, headed to the bathroom and started filling the tub with water.

I did not ask my son to join me. I just made sure that he saw me take the LEGO.

Within minutes curiosity got the best of him and he made his way to the bathroom to see what I was doing with his beloved toys.

As soon as he got in there I dumped the bucket of LEGO into the tub. Julius was thrilled and started to take off his clothes, excited to play with his LEGO in the bath.

We have not had a battle of the bath since. Thank goodness for that!

One a completely different note.. want the free valentines printable that you see below? Head over to Sommerfugl Design today to download it.

Moving

We are moving in about a month. We have yet to start packing, and probably won't until after our trip to London the first week of February  I am excited to be moving to a new place. More excited that it is a house with a yard for the kids to play in, with apple trees (free fruit!). The house is also being renovated a bit with a new kitchen, some new floors and fresh paint. I can not wait to see what it looks like once it is finished.

There is a big part of me that wishes we could afford to ditch our old second hand furniture and buy some new stuff. For example I would love a reclining leather chairs from gowfb. Or a big comfy couch like this:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="333"] Image from Pinterest. Click to see Pin.[/caption]

Some day we will get new furniture. Once we get caught up on other things I think. We have discussed that our plan is to do one room at a time completely. But I think that some day will more likely be will be when we actually buy a house. That could be a long way off, so I guess until then I will have to settle for dreaming in Pinterest.

Still moving day is soon! I can't wait for it. And even more exciting is being able to get started on my studio as well. So much work and fun in the very near future!

I also have some more moving news. Not only am I moving in real life, this blog is also moving. Over the next week or so I am shifting the blog back to a blogspot blog:

The new address will be http://notsouglyducklings.blogspot.dk/ and I am having my good online friend Sarah Halstead design it for me to help her get to Blissdom and she is doing an awesome job! I think I may have helped create a pretty strong competitor in the blog design department. But seriously, if you are looking for a quick re-design she is doing some design work to help pay for her trip to Blissdom (so jealous!) and you should check her out.

Okay, enough about Sarah and back to me. So why am I moving to blogspot? Well, I have decide to change my photography business name from Sommerfugl Photography to Desirae Rasmussen Photography. It is just easier and better for business. This means I need to free up my enitre desiraer.com domain for photography instead of purchasing yet another domain (I am up to 3 right now!).  So that is why I am moving. If you follow by RSS, I don't think you will loose your subscription, as I will just move that over. If you follow me in other ways, you should be fine as well. And there will be a new way to follow... GFC.  I am hoping to make the switch next week, and my next post will probably be there. So see you at the new Not So Ugly Ducklings :)

Test

Testing

The Movie Collection

When I was young, one of the gifts that I would look forward to receiving was my Disney movie. Every year I got a new one for Christmas. It was probably one of my favorite gifts each year. Unfortunately, these movies are pretty useless to me as this was the time before the dvd player. It was in the time of the VHS, and if you don't know what that is, then you are a young reader, or I have just started to become old.

This was a tradition, however that I wanted to share with my children. I want them to have all the Disney classics. So each Christmas, I have bought the kids a Disney DVD, and well as put them on the wishlist for others to buy them as well. So far our collection is small.

When I was in Canada last year,  I noticed that some of my brothers DVD's and Blue Rays came also with a digital copy. One that you could put on other devices such as your laptop or phone or whatever. I thought, what I great idea!  Do you think I have found a DVD or Blue Ray with one here? Nope. So frustrating. To add even further, I probably couldn't play it on half of our devices anyways (although there is software out there to help with this kind of problem, i.e. Cyberlink).

The digital world is such a great one, one where I can share some of my Christmas traditions with my kids with movies. On the other hand it is so frustrating with all the different  options, systems that don't work with one another. And this is not really where I wanted to go with this post!

Don't you just love posts that start as one thing, and end up something else?

Do you have a movie collection? Or whats your favorite Disney movie?

Favorite Time of The Day

Do you have a favorite time of the day?

I do. 5am.

You are probably wondering why on earth would I choose 5 am as my favorite time of day. No mother in her right mind would want to be up at such an early hour.

Well, for me it is really simple. This is the only time of day where I get true uninterrupted 'ME' time for at least an hour (most days). I love my family, but I also love to have a moment to myself. One where I am not hearing 'please, please, please,  please, please', crying or having a babe attached to my boob.

I try to enjoy a quite bath each day, however it is usually cut short by a babe wanting food or a toddler wanting to join (or screaming at the door because I locked them out.....), so there is no chance for a moment then.

But want about after the kids go to bed?  Well, Olivia usually isn't in bed until around 10 and if she does go to sleep before then, this is time spent with my husband usually watching some tv show so we can actually hear what words are being said (toddlers are really loud). This isn't Me time... its me AND husband time.

So 5 am it is. And it is wonderful. It is quiet. It is the calm before the storm of the day and totally worth getting up early for.

Whats your favorite time of day?

(PS... The Blogger Design eCourse for the Decemeber class is only $10, sign up before the 15th and learn how to design your own blogger design and pick up some other tips as well! )

 

 

 

Goodbye Inspired Tuesday... for now

So, I just have not been able to keep up with putting up a link up every week. I love the idea of Inspired Tuesday, but I honestly don't have the time at the moment to carry it out as I want it. So for the moment I am ending it. Perhaps I will start it up again in the new year. Thank you to all those who linked up regularly. It was greatly appreciated!

And with that comes a regular post. I really love reading Toddle Along Tuesday with Growing Up Geeky, so today I am going to play along and list some confessions.

Confession Number 1:

My kid fell out of the bath tub and on his head. I honestly thought he broke his neck by the way he landed on the hard concrete floor and other than wailing did not move. You may be wondering why this is a confession. Stuff happens right? Well what if I said I was in the bath with him. Yep.

Confession Number 2:

I brush my hair like.. once a week. It has gotten really long as I refuse to pay the large amount it costs for a hair cut here in Denmark. Brushing it is just so much work, which takes too much time. Time I don't have. So I wear it up every day. But it's okay.. see next confession.

Confession Number 3:

I only get dressed like...  once a week. In May I became self employed. I started up my own Blog Design business (Sommerfugl Design), this meant that most of the contact I had with people was through email. I didn't need to leave my house  other than to pick up my kids from daycare. Why bother getting dressed when I could stay comfy all day. Now that I am starting up my photography business I am actually having to get dressed more than once a week.

Confession Number 4:

I let my kids draw on the furniture. The kids furniture that is. To be more specific, their plastic table and chair from IKEA. It is super easy to clean up, and the love it. Plus it saves the grown up furniture.

Confession Number 5:

I breastfeed Olivia when I smell on of the toddlers poopy diapers so my husband has to change it. Hehe.

Those are my confessions. I could probably come up with a lot more, but I am too tired. What confessions do you have?

 

He Calls Me Moo

I have to admit something.

I need/want a break from my children.

Things have been a bit rough in the toddler department these days. I hate to say it, but so far the 'terrible twos' have kind of been terrible. I was really hoping that it wouldn't be that way. But for the last few months much of our days are filled with screaming children.

At first we understood the screaming. At first it was mostly due to misunderstanding her. Now however, screaming is just part of her language. Add crying and whining and repeating to that list. It is enough to drive anyone batty.

We have temper tantrums because we do not allow our children to jump off the back of the couch (or climb up the back of it in general). We have tantrums because we are not allowed in the knife drawer. We have a tantrum because she doesn't want to wear a diaper and use the potty instead. 10 minutes later is is because she wants a diaper. She has a tantrum over everything and believes that she should be ruler of the house.

The tantrums are not because she can not communicate with us anymore. We tell her that we don't kick cups around, or bang glasses on the table. She tells us to wait until she is done... I could not wait for her to start talking with us... now she is talking back to us... sigh....

We have tried to keep our cool, we have lost our cool with her, we have tired time outs, we have tired calming trying to talk to her about it, we have tried ignoring it, we have tried standing her in the corner. Nothing works. She just doesn't listen to us.

Before she started talking, our daycare actually asked us to have her hearing checked, because she couldn't figure out if E could not or would not listen. We were also refereed to a speech therapist. Then suddenly E started talking, we it was just she wouldn't listen.

We have even though that perhaps she was just not getting the attention she needed. Last week, she had to stay home for the week. We spent each day with her, doing things that she liked. Other than the 24 hours were she was throwing up, tantrums continued. We try and do one on one time with each kid every day. She is just a hard headed, stubborn little girl. In some ways, this is a good thing, but it sure doesn't make parenting any easier.

Add this to a new born and a one and half year old who cries and has tantrums because he can not complete communicated his needs yet, our house hold is a bit stressful at the moment. It is, for the most part, just me and my husband. We have no close family or friends that live in our city, which means no breaks for us. We are tired. We are frustrated. We are so very ready to be past this stage in our daughters life.

Some days I wonder why on earth did we decide to have 3 under 3. It feels like insanity. But then we have moments like these:

1. My children use the danish word for mother for me. It sounds like the word more. My son can't really say it. He calls me moo, which is both very cute and a tiny bit insulting.

2. Most nights the oldest two, just before bed time run around the apartment laughing and playing together. It is beautiful when the get along and like each others company.

3. Having E tell me she loves me melts my heart every time.

4. Olivia really saves the day lately, she is one smiley baby.

5. Toddler dancing. It's adorable.

It is those moments that make all the tantrums, screaming and tears so very worth every moment.

The Great House Debacle

If you are a long time follower, then you will know we had tried to buy a house last February. That fell through, so we decided to rent a house. I even wrote a nice long post about it.

Now, we did get an offer to rent one of the houses. BUT, then... I decided to start my own business. Part of this decision included accepting that we would have to make things work, and not move into too much bigger place, as we just could not afford it.

So we put our names on a list for a slightly bigger apartment. And we got offered one, but then the house thing came up again. So we decided to go that route again, and turned down the apartment (and another, and another house to rent... and one other apartment).

We spent our summer going back and forth with a realtor, and 3 different banks. We found a house that felt 'right'. Finally, after months and looking down every ally, we got an answer. We just can not buy a house right now. No way. Period.

The whole process was emotionally exhausting for me. We were kind of stuck in this limbo, as if we bought a house, we would be moving to another city. It is kind of hard to start up a business (Sommerfugl Photography), if you don't know where you are going to be living.

There were many tears and heated conversations over the whole process. I just wanted to decide one way or another and move on.

After we got our final answer from the bank (which they made us wait weeks for!), we made a decision. A final decision. We decided to stay in the city we were in and get and put ourselves back on the wait list for a rental house and be poor until my photography business picked up. This decision felt great. It was decided.

At least I thought so.

Either the same night or the next morning (I can't remember) we got a phone call from my husbands uncle. He informed us that him and his sons where going to try and buy a house that was for sale on their street. He wanted to know that, if their offer went through, if we would like to rent it. He invited us to come down and look at it before any decisions were made (I should point out, they had not had their offer accepted yet, but we were able to look at the house since they knew the people selling it).

The next day (or same day) we went down and looked. It is about the same size as our place, but with 3 bedrooms. It has a huge yard. It has a storage shed and a garage. It would be a little cramped, but we decided manageable for a few years. AND I could use the garage as a small studio for photography.

So we said yes, we would rent it if they bought it.

We were now waiting on that whole house buying process again. That night we got a call saying that their offer was accepted, and that they just needed to get the loan from the bank. We would have an answer by the 24th of November.

Last night we got good news. They bought the house, the loan went through. This means we are moving! We have the house from March 1st. Time to start slowly packing I guess.

Its just a little house, but it is a house, with a yard. The kids are going to love it. And see that garage. That is the future home of Sommerfugl Photography.

Friday's Letters - Nov. 16

I think it has been a couple of weeks since I did ones of these. I think it is time for another one. So here it goes.

Dear Flu: You are not welcome here. You have made my husband sick, which does not happen often. It seems you have decided to start getting chummy with me as well. Not cool.

Dear Husband: I hope you feel better soon. Also thank you for driving me around and supporting all the purchases I made yesterday to help get my photo biz up and running.

Dear Children: I love you.

Dear eCourse Students: I am so excited to be starting the Blogger Design eCourse with you this week! I am so excited to be working with all of you and teaching you how to design your own blogs.

Dear WordPress users: I am hoping to make a eCourse for you as well.

Dear Texture lovers: I have a new free texture on sommerfugl design today.

Dear Family in Canada: I miss you all very much.

Dear Facebook: Please stop messing around, or at the very least, update its users when you make changes so that they understand why they are no longer seeing posts from pages. You used to be such a great place for blogs to reach their readers. Now you have made it pretty difficult.

Dear Readers: I hope you all have a great weekend!

Breastfeeding Olivia so far

So if you read my blog regularly, you probably noticed me dropping hints that breastfeeding has been a bit of a up hill battle for us this time around. I don't think I have fulling blogged about it yet, so here it is.

Olivia latched and started nursing within the first 30 minutes of being born. It was so important to me that we get off on the right foot that I requested to be helped moved into a better position so that I could nurse her before then even stitched me. There was a moment of struggle, but she grabbed on right away and it seemed like all was good.

By the next evening I was in pain, my nipples were cracked and I knew something was not right, but I wasn't sure what it was. Olivia seemed to latch well, but it didn't feel quite right. It felt like she was chewing on my nipples. That night we noticed it looked like she was tongue tied. We had that looked at, and yes, she was very very tongue tied. Got it clipped, and it seemed we were on the right road.

That first week kind of sucked, as within those first 24 hours she had done a lot of damage, so I had a nipple shield because of the pain, and boy was it a pain. But we managed to get Olivia off that without too much trouble by the end of the second week. However I did end up with a painful plugged milk duct, which some sessions with my breast pump cured.

Then I got thrush. If you have not had thrush, it feels like tiny needles coming through your nipples when you nurse. It is very unpleasant. Me, not being a fan of my doctor, took a more natural route in curing the thrush. I used soda water a number of times a day as well as applied natural yogurt once a day and was pretty much topless to avoid moisture build up. This solved that issue. I think I had caught it just in time.

It had to only go up from there right? At this point I was pretty over the whole breastfeeding thing. I was tired, and tired of it being unpleasant. However, besides a few hiccups here and there Olivia was doing great. She was growing, and latching fine, and even though I was hating breastfeeding, it was still our 'thing', something that I was only sharing with her.. so I pushed on.

Then I has a small bought of mastitis. Having had it with Julius, I recognized the symptoms right away. I loaded up on garlic (my body does not react to antibiotics well, so again went more natural), and went to bed. I forced myself to stay in bed for at least 24 hours. This is a very difficult thing for me to do. I had stuff to do! But getting some much needed rest made a big different, and we got over that.

Since then breastfeeding has been okay. Due to my fybromyalgia, some days it is painful to feed Olivia. I also have painful letdown, which although painful, it is more annoying than anything. I always notice when my boobs leak, which is pretty much every 1.5hrs.

Speaking of leaking.. it just flows out of my right boob. Like soak my entire shirt regardless of how many nursing pads I have in there. I don't know how many times I have had people awkwardly try and tell me that my boobs are leaking. I just shrug my shoulders. There really isn't much I can do about it, and honestly I don't feel like having to change my shirt 10 times a day, so I just wander around in a wet shirt. When we are out and about I try to wear a sweater, but that usually gets soaked as well.

So other than the painful let down and the  painful days of feeding, breastfeeding is finally starting to go smoothly.

I don't know how long I will breastfeed. I think, as long as Olivia continues to grow, I will do it for as long as she wants to. I don't really have any specific goals other than to make it to 6 months. We will she how it goes though. I have some things coming up that require me to be away from her for a couple of hours, so we will be introducing a bottle to her, and that is a whole other story!

Letters To My Children - Nov. 11th 2012

Dear Elisabeth

I will admit, we have been having a rough go with you the last couple of weeks. You have been cranky. You have screamed. A lot. You have been a little rebel doing everything you are not supposed to despite the amount of attention we give you. You just have not been listening. Even daycare has noticed this little period of rebellion. You were even not sleeping through the night, often crying for your dad to come sleep with you (which he did, every night). We were all getting very frustrated with you.

Then, during on of yours screaming fits I noticed that you have teething coming in. And it all made sense. You have never been a good teether. New teeth has always made you a poor sleeper and a little monster when you are awake.

I can not wait for your teeth to finish breaking through. Seriously, I want my sweet little girl, that kind of listens to me when I tell her to stop and not run away from us in the parking lot. Or to stop hitting your brother, or to stop standing on chairs. Really kid.. we allow you to do most things, unless it is dangerous. Our patience is also wearing thin on your scream fits, where nothing stops them.

I sure hope it really is the teeth.

All this being said... you have also become a lot of fun lately. You really beginning to talk with us, and it is fun having little conversations with you. I have even noticed that you are able to separate English and Danish a bit, and will switch to English when talking to me if you feel I am not understanding you. I feel like we are right on the edge of a language explosion and I am just waiting for it to go. I can't wait to talk to you more!

I am also enjoying that you will model for me a bit when I take pictures. And I think it is adorable that you have become obsessed with dresses and skirts. I am not sure why, as we have never really dressed you in them, but you want to wear them all the time.  I am pretty sure it is because of the way the flow, since you call them dancers.

It is both a very frustrating and exciting time in your life for all of us.



Linking up with The Super Sunday Sync

A Wordfull Wednesday

So I have been a bit quiet these past couple of weeks. It's because I have been super busy, but In a good way. First of all, in the beginning of October we welcomed another babe into the family. My brother in-law and his wife welcomed their second child and I gained a nephew. I was also honored that they let me take their newborn photo's. This was kind of my first 'official' newborn shoot and it turned out well I think. Here are a couple samples:

This was really encouraging so I have been slowly getting things set up to finally launch my photography business here.

The other big that I have been putting many many hours in is my Blogger Design eCourse, that is set to start next week.

The eCourse got it's own homepage (you can check it by clicking the above image), and I am just about all set for the start of the first class next week. I am so excited about it! If you are interested in learning how to design your own Blogger blog, you should totally consider the course. My testing girls did a great job on their sites. There are still spaces left in the November class (which is running an extra month long due to all the things happening in the US right now), and the December class is also open for registration. Also, if you use the coupon 5off you can get 5 dollars, meaning it will only cost you $20. For more info on what is included in the eCourse, check out the website HERE.

So that is what I have been up to :) Happy Wordless Wednesday Everyone.

Linking up with: Sarah Halstead Photography, Project Alicia, Live and Love Out Loud, Wittle People Wednesday, Jenni From The Blog, Yee Wittle Things, Like Me on Facebook

Goodbye Co-Sleeping

There are a couple of different ways co-sleeping is defined. Some say it is when the baby sleeps with you in the bed. Others say the babe just needs to be in the room. In my mind, co-sleeping is baby in bed.

We co-slept with my son for 6 months. We have co-slept with Olivia since the day she was born. It has been awesome, and I am sure it is one of the major reasons I am surviving. It is so easy to just pop a boob in her mouth when she is hungry and doze off until she fusses at me to move away from here (she does not like to cuddle until the morning).

This morning, while sitting and eating breakfast, my husband asks me if I remembered sitting up then kissing Olivia on the head last night, waking her up. I have no memory of this what so ever.

My has been hinting the last week or so about moving Olivia out of the bed. He thinks she will sleep better. Apparently, this morning he worked up the courage to tell me the reason why Olivia is not sleeping longer than 1.5 hours is because I do things like kissing her in my sleep often.

This kind of freaks me out. Sure, it is sweet, I am giving her kisses. In the process I am disturbing her, waking her up, which in turn wakes me up. Not only does this not sound like a good cycle, but in some ways I think it may be a bid dangerous that I am doing these things in my sleep without any memory of it.

So as of tonight, Olivia will sleep in a crib. This has meant a bit of a rearrangement of our room, as there is no way I am dragging myself out of bed to go to another room (which we don't have anyways) to get her. She will probably still end up in the bed at some point in the night, but hopefully we will both get a better sleep.

I am a bit sad about this. Even though she is not a cuddler, I like co-sleeping. I like having her close. I was expecting 6 months of it. It has only been 6 weeks. However, if anything were to happen to her after knowing that I have been doing these things in my sleep, I would never forgive myself. Honestly I don't think anything would ever happen to her, but my husband showed concern, and he is also in the bed with us, and he does get a say as well. We decided together that we should at least try the crib, so we are.

We needed a crib to put her in, so this also means the older kids have a rearranged room as well. Olivia got Julius's crib. Julius now has Elisabeth's crib, which has been put into the toddler bed. Elisabeth for now, has a mattress on the floor. Yep.. this means tonight, we will have two loose toddlers in their room.

I have a feeling we may be in for a long night...

Anniversaries and writing

Three years ago today, we made it official. We got married:



And what an amazing 3 years it has been. We now have 3 amazing children. I graduated from University. I started my own business. We moved to a new city. It has been a busy 3 years. It has been 3 years of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade a moment away. I look forward to many more years together.

On a completely different note, but some what related. Tomorrow marks the start of NaNoWrimo

I had been debating whether or not I would participate this year. I am very very short for time and have a lot going on. But you know what, I love NaNoWrimo, and even if I only get a couple 1000 words, I always feel so accomplished. In 2010 I actually wrote a whole novel. It felt awesome. So again, I will try to reach that goal of 50 000 words. How is this related to my anniversary you ask? Well the first time I did NaNoWrimo was the year we got married. That's right, I spent part of my first morning married, sitting at my laptop in the hotel room writing. Romantic right ;) ?

Fybromy-whats- a?

This is something I have not really blogged about. Most because it has been a somewhat dormant issue the last few years. When I was in high school, I was diagnosed with Fybromyalgia. At that time, I was treated with a heavy dose of drugs, which resulted in two things. One I spent some time completely high in school, and two, the lining in my stomach was damaged and I couldn't even handle taking Tylenol and was in considerable pain for a few days.

Since that experience I have for the most part sworn off drugs. The pain meds I was on stopped working after a few doses ( this seems to be a normal trend for me with pain medication) and they did more damage than good. I decided to just deal with the pain and push through it. There were days that I did not get out of bed. There have been many tears out of frustration from feeling anywhere between achy to upright pain on a regular basis. But I learned my limits, and for the most part was able to manage the pain.

Fast forward to 3 years ago when I got pregnant. Some times, those with fybromyalgia gain relief from their symptoms while pregnant. I was one of those people, and since I just had 3 children next to back to back, I have been for the most part, symptom free. It has been wonderful.

I was completely unprepared for the flare up that happened and is still happening about a week after Olivia was born. Everything hurts and I am extremely tired. Granted I know these two things come hand in hand with having a baby, but this is different, this is fybro pain.  I am stiff and I feel like an old woman.

Another symptom of fybromyalgia is something called brain fog. This is something I have been experiencing a lot lately. It makes it hard to even put a sentence together. So focusing on work as been an interesting task. Actually, it has been down right frustrating as everything has been taking me twice as long.

It has also made breastfeeding a huge challenge. If I am having a really bad day, then breastfeeding hurts. It hurts when she latches and sucks. It hurts to be sitting or laying in one position too long.

I also have to really manage stress, as stress makes it much worse. Stress also hugely affects the quality of my milk, so it is important that I keep stress down for Olivia.

And all I can do is laugh at this.. As I am writing this, Olivia is nursing, one toddler is freaking out beside me because he can't get my now trashed sunglasses on, and the other one is freaking out at her dad for getting her dressed. Low stress environment? I think not.

The Art Of Baby Laying

You would think, by my 3rd child I would have mastered this. You know, the very special art of transferring that adorable.. quiet.. sleeping baby from your arms to anywhere else. AND have them still sleeping for more than say 2 minutes. Say long enough to do something, like shower, or brush your teeth.. or just sit there sans baby.

I have a confession. I am horrible at this. I always end up with my hand, arm or whatever stuck, resulting in way to much movement, resulting in waking sleeping baby. Every.Single.Time.

After 3 children I still can not manage this. It is a bit pathetic really. It's not like I can't say I haven't had enough practice. I practice this art multiply times a day. I fail this art multiple times a day.

Oh well, I guess I will just have to deal with this: