The girls are sleeping!

As a mother of two, I have learned that sleep is a precious commodity, meant to be treasured to the nth degree in all it's various forms. So I am taking this rare moment in which my daughters are both sound asleep to blog. Or something like that, anyway.
The girls are awesomely amazing and awful at the same time. If one is upset, the other is too. Faith has finally decided to have bouts of jealousy which manifest as fits of screaming and bursting into tears at the least provocation. Fun on so many levels, that! But they also get along famously. Faith will talk to Abby and Abby beams out of her little eyes all the love she has for her big sissy. So adorable! And Faith is constantly kissing her on whatever body part she can reach.
Oh, and Mr. Dustin Ryan Pedretti produced some gassy girls, let me tell you. It's horrible and cute at the same time. Must be some kind of mother madness! LOL

*BTW, as I finished typing the last line of the first paragraph, I heard the unmistakable sounds of Abby awakening. Which actually sounds quit creepy!

Been a While

I hate that life itself takes money. Its depressing on so many levels that I have to get a job. I'm hoping that Walmart or someone will hire me for a few hours a night, four or five days a week.

I did try to sell blankets on Craigslist to make money, but apparently at this time of year the only people interested in anything I'm selling are spammers. The jerks!

Abby is nursing really well. With Faith, I had such a hard time. Not with getting her to nurse, but with the pain. Not to mention the surface infections she lovingly bestowed on me constantly. Plus the first night she was home, she had to have a bottle of formula to calm down and go to sleep. Abby has been so different. She nurses like there's no tomorrow. Literally. When that child is hungry, the whole world knows about it until she is satisfied! Sunday night, Dustin and I went and saw the new Transformers movie (Awesome!) and Rebecca kept the girls. I should tell you that Abby has a grace period. You can do whatever you want, shopping, eating, housework, whatever for about two hours. Sometimes a little more. At the end of that time, you had better get her what she wants, quick, fast and in a hurry. Well, it just so happens that the movie was almost three hours long, which was about 30 minutes longer than her grace period. Poor Becca was texting us frantically asking what to do because she had tried everything. Even the bottle of formula I had made up for her. My darling child gagged when she tried to get her to drink it. Gagged. Obviously Abby is as given to drama as her big sister. Of course, all I could think when Rebecca said that was "That's my girl!" Any sympathy I had paled in comparison to the pride that my baby is ONLY satisfied with her mommy! She finally calmed down when Rebecca rocked her in the rocking chair. We finished the movie and came home to immediately nurse.

Dustin has been working crazy hours. Leaving the house at 5:30 in the morning to come home after 5 at night. Been a bit tough on all of us. Now he has to work on Sunday and Rebecca and I are driving to Houston by ourselve. Since I haven't driven in Houston at all, he's making us meet my parents at Loop 336 and HWY 45 and one of them is going to drive the rest of the way. Sweet, yes, but irritating, too. But since he's now officially in charge of the pre-fab area/workers/whatever, he can't miss a single day. Really bites!

Hey, if you guys know of anyone having a girl in the winter months, I have a bag of warm baby girl clothes. There are some regular clothes, too, but a lot of it is warm clothes. There are different sizes, too. I think they cover 0-6 months in sizes. Not a total wardrobe, but a good start. Let me know.
Later, ladies!

A Mother's TRUE Revenge

I am not so naive as to think that I will not miss changing their diapers. I will, I know it. Just like I miss nursing Faith even though nearly every second of it was filled with almost excruciating pain. However, I wish to say this one thing and mothers world-wide will acknowledge it as truth.
I will never EVER miss dirty diapers. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.
In fact, I look forward with GREAT relish to the day I can hold my grandchild, smile sweetly and hand him/her over to their mother with a diaper filled to the brim with horrible grossness. Then, and only then will they have repaid me for any of the diapers I have changed in the last fifteen months or any of the ones that I will change until Abby is potty trained.

Family stuff

So, it's been a little while since I posted. Been a little busy!
Abby's a month old now and Angela is in the States on leave for 15 days, give or take. That's the news and not what I wanted to write about.
I've been thinking a lot about my childhood and family life. Partly because of my children and partly because of this show I found on TLC called Kids by the Dozen. I did watch a couple of the 17 and 18 kids and counting about the Duggars, but frankly, I found them quite weird. (No offense to any of their admirers, just an opinion)
But Kids by the dozen was different, they seemed more normal somehow. I could relate to them more.
Like the Heppners. Not a fairyale love story by any means. They didn't just meet and fall in love and live happily ever after, popping out kids as they went along. They had very real struggles and issues and managed to make something good out of them. I had fun watching them.
The Arndts made a business out of their family, but in a good way. They have a ministry and they are all involved in it in a different way. One of the boys, I think the oldest, was talking about being in the midst of a big family and what it was like growing up with that many kids and all. It reminded me of a conversation, Dustin and I had once about my family. I said that it was easy to look at it from the outside, now that I have some distance on the whole thing, and think, Oh my gosh, there are nine of us! But when we're all together, it's not the same, it's just us. As a kid, it seemed strange that other people thought that we were strange!
Anyway, been thinking about htis for a while now and its nce to have it out.

My Sweet Husband

So, before Faith was born, Dustin was really worried. Not so much about having a baby, but more about bonding with a baby. He wasn't sure how he would respond to her in an emotional way.
Flash forward to last night. Faith was on the bed with him and Abby. I was getting ready for bed so I could nurse the baby and we could all relax. Faith was crawling near the edge and he grabbed her shirt and said, "You're going to fall off." And she did. Right out of his hands and smack on her face. I saw the blood and ran to get ice. When I got back, he was cradling her and she was screaming into his shoulder. He was so upset, he was almost in tears. There was so much blood in her mouth that it looked like she had knocked out her new tooth on top. He ordered me to make an appointment with the dentist in the morning. I calmed her down and cleaned her up and thankfully, her teeth were fine. But he was still so upset and nearly in tears himself. It took him longer to calm down than it took her. He said that he'd had no idea that his heart and his feelings would or could hurt so much when she fell down. Even when it's a little spill, he still hurts for her.
God blessed me` with a `man` w`ho `has more heart than I do.
**Faith 'helped' me type that last line**

Abigail Irene

Well, she's finally arrived. Abigail Irene Pedretti made her debut on this world at 10:17 am on Wednesday, April 8, 2009, a mere four hours after we arrived at the hospital for my induction. 8 pounds and 1 ounce, 20 inches long, she is adorable and so very tiny!
We had a great experience at the College Station Medical Center. The nurses, my doctor, everything. Too bad the epidural didn't get a chance to fully kick in before the birth! You have to have a full bag of fluid before they'll let you have an epidural and I was ready to go before that happened. Thank heaven it was able to take the edge off, but trust me, I had enough pain that I almost ALMOST never want to do this again!
The day nurse from today and yesterday was really old. I would say at least sixty and I felt bad everytime I needed to ask for something. She was really nice, but that thing in my head that is conditioned to respect my elderly elders kept trying to convince me that I didn't really need anything! I'm glad I was abe to get up and around before she was on duty. I might never have gotten up out of bed!!
Anyway, I'm glad to be home. More another day!

April Fool's Day

Faith took two steps without prompting last night. The she took four steps toward me while I was encouraging her. She did that twice. So ten steps total! I'm so excited!
Of course, it also opens up another million worries for me. She's already discovered the joy of being higher by standing on something flat, so the next step is climbing. Which she has already tried to do on the baby gate that stops her from crawling around the less than clean livingroom.
I have an appointment tomorrow. On my due date. Again. The kid just doesn't want to be born yet. On the bright side, they'll have different birth months.
Oh, and Faith has two new teeth she started cutting on her birthday. One on top and one on the bottom beside the other two. So it looks really goofy when she smiles. It's so funny!
So, it's the first of April and no baby. I guess the joke's on me......