Three?

A little over a year ago, I wrote this post, and talked about being a complete family. Lately though, I've been having these nagging thoughts about one more. The time surrounding Elodie's birth and the first six months of her life were traumatizing. I feel like I missed out on so many things I had hoped to reexperience. I wanted to nurse longer, relax more, and relish the newborn stage. None of that happened. It leaves a bit of a wound on my heart. Part of me feels like having another baby could bring a lot of healing, although there is no guarantee of a healthy baby or any of my wish list coming to fruition. So I'm not sure if I actually want another baby, or if I just need to work through some of the lingering grief. There are other reasons another baby sounds appealing as well. We are pretty isolated in Colorado, being so far away from family, so having a bigger family of our own sounds nice. Our kids really only have each other, with just one cousin who lives 900 miles away, and that's not how I envisioned things. I grew up with big extended families! And I really feel like being a mom is my calling in life. It's the most rewarding thing I'll ever do.

When I mentioned this to Brian, I was shocked that he didn't immediately call the hospital and schedule the next available vasectomy. Our biggest concern is financial. While I do plan to go back to work in the future, kids are crazy expensive. We would have a lot more money if we stick to just two. I know money isn't everything, but the stress of barely making it each month is very real. And of course, there's the question of whether this is even possible. Multiple doctors once told us we would never conceive on our own. But we've had two miraculous conceptions, one which gave us Elodie. So was she truly a gift from above, or did we somehow overcome our issues? One thing is for sure, we will never seek fertility treatment again. 

I am content. I love our kids. I am happy with our family. I feel blessed beyond my wildest dreams. But still, my mind is going there. For those who have been lucky enough to even have this choice, how did you know that you were done?

What Do Doctors Know? (And Halloween)

On October 26th, at 14 months and 10 days, Elodie took her first steps! She did two in a row, and then a couple single steps. Since then, she has upped her record to about 8-10 steps in a row. Brian is predicting that she will be fully walking by Thanksgiving. I think that's a fair prediction. Take that perinatologist! My daughter is not only going to walk, she's going to walk well within a typical time frame!

Hey, I'm walkin' here!

We were all sick for Halloween so we kept it pretty low-key. Brian took us to his school's Trick-or-Treat Street event and Noah scored a ton of candy. Then Brian took Noah to the only local neighborhood where houses are close enough together to actually make trick or treating possible. We carved pumpkins the night before as well, but Noah still finds it completely disgusting so Brian did all the work.

My "super" awesome kids!

I will admit, it was never my dream to dress up my daughter as a male sidekick for her first Halloween costume (she only had pjs last year), but none of the other infant costumes spoke to me. And it was cute anyway. She has the rest of her life to dress as a princess or a fairy or something else girly, if that's what she chooses. 

In other news, Elodie continues to get more verbal. She says yay, tickle, doggy, head, light, all done, all day, and uh-oh. She might also say daddy, mama, and hi. She's pointing like crazy, which is always accompanied with something that either sounds like "shky" or "da-ee." She's amazing. Noah is continuing to do well in Kindergarten. He loves to sound out words and spell them on paper. He makes me so proud.

I am so lucky to call these two beautiful children mine.