Epiphany

Oh so so much to catch up on.  I'm a terrible blogger, but am feeling the need to write ... to do something cathartic.  For me, writing brings renewal and is my way of "sharpening the saw".  Right now, my life lacks balance.  This lack of balance sneaks up on me every time.  One day I might be thinking everything is great and in perfect harmony.  But give me a couple of hard days and I come to the realization that I am in fact lacking said harmony.

We now live in Arvada, Colorado.  After a long period of trying to decide what to do at the end of the term at LDS Business College, we decided moving back to Colorado was the right thing.  The plan was for Mike to become a real estate agent and work in tandem with his step dad, Steve, who has been an agent for a long time at ReMax.  Long story short ... after 6 weeks of living with Mike's grandma, she decided to sell her house before leaving on her mission to Nauvoo.  We packed up again, found a loft condo and moved within the span of 2 weeks.  This changed our plans considerably.  Mike would no longer pursue real estate, at least for now.  He continued to work remotely for the property management company he worked for in SLC while figuring out what to do next.

On Thanksgiving of 2013 (just a week or so after moving into our new place), Mike developed compartment syndrome in the arch of his foot after playing basketball with cousins the night before.  One emergency surgery later and his foot (and life) were saved.  Compartment syndrome is kind of scary if not caught early enough.  Christmas Eve of the same year proved equally eventful.  After a quick visit to the ER for what looked like an infection in the incision site, Mike had an anaphylactic reaction to the antibiotics he was given there.  This reaction happened while we were attending a family Christmas party.  He was given a blessing after which I rushed him to the hospital.  We spent the night in the ER for the most part and spent Christmas Day in Intensive Care.

We celebrated Christmas at our house in January.  It was a rough couple of months for us here in Colorado and I felt pretty lonely.  I missed my family somethin' fierce and wondered when things were going to work out.

Mike worked the summer for Edge Pest Control.  They sell pest control door to door all summer long.  Again, a rough few months.  He now manages a cell phone kiosk inside a Costco and is killin' it!  Nice.  We like our loft but now feel we are busting at the seems again.  That might be due to the fact that we have also had another baby.  Yep, Samuel Gray Reintjes joined our little family on Oct 12th of this year and is just perfect.  I had a super hard pregnancy during which I babysat our 2 nephews.  They are cute and I love them to pieces, but I was ready to be done by mid August.  Our condo is on the 3rd floor and I'm not an energetic pregnant person.  Most of the time during this pregnancy, I felt I could either fall asleep or burst into tears at any moment.  I was HUGE at the end and had more than one stranger tell me I looked tired and ask me if it was "just one baby in there?!"  Ugh.  Sam weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. and was 20 in. long.  I had fantastic midwives and a better, although still long, labor.

So now here we are, the parents of two boys.  I'm learning how to go to the park, grocery shop, etc. with two.  I'll get better at the logistics.  I'm completely enamored with little Sam and despite fears that Will's allure would lose something with the birth of his brother, I still can't get enough of him either.  So why the lack of balance you ask?  Will decided to stop sleeping through the night shortly after we brought Sam home from the hospital.  He refuses to let Mike comfort him in the middle of the night.  All I hear is "Mama!" in the monitor again and again.  I have no trouble at all getting up with Sam.  He needs to eat and honestly, he sleeps better than Will!  Sam sleeps about 4 hrs at a time.  Fantastic for a newbie.  I am however, increasingly frustrated with Will's nighttime antics.  I'm beyond exhausted, don't really interact with friends that often (old or new), am still in a lot of pain from labor and delivery which causes me to feel emotional and frustrated, and sorting through all the "you know what you need to do ..." advice has left me feeling really low and even more confused and tired.  As I drove home from Halloween festivities last night, I felt strongly that I need to circle the wagons so to speak.  I need to reconnect with old friends, write my thoughts and feelings out, take time to go out for a smoothie alone every now and then, give myself a pedicure, reach out to new friends, read the scriptures, take time to ponder during the quite moments.  In short, I am in need of finding myself again and reconnecting with Kristy.  It is easy to lose yourself in motherhood, but in order to be a better mother, I need to just be me sometimes.  I need to listen to my favorite music more often instead of watching TV.  I need to take a dance class.  I need to get out and walk everyday so I can enjoy the sunshine and teach Will and Sam the beauty of taking things slowly.  I need to go on dates with Mike, and just be his for a while.  And I need him to just be mine for a while too ... without distractions.  I feel badly for him because for the most part, I'm "Mom" not "Kristy" and when we talk about how our days went, all I have to talk about is the kids.  Don't get me wrong, this is great too.  And he likes being in the loop about all their happenings, development, etc.  But I miss being able to share more than this too.  I need to be able to share more than this.  I need the balance of being both "Kristy" to him and "Mom" to Will and Sam.  To do that I must sleep more.  That's where it needs to start.  I have a tendency to lose my personality when I'm pregnant or otherwise stressed or hurting for prolonged periods of time.  I'm working on alleviating these things so I can get myself back.  And no this is not what they call postpartum depression.  It's a sleep deprived girl who now knows what she needs to do to get back on track and she's determined to do it.

OK, now on to other things of the day.  Will write again soon.  I'll leave you with a couple pics ...

Wit you

My email to Mike: I was reading an article called "How to Raise a Happy Baby" (on thebump.com) and this was first on the list.  Crying it out is not good.  I knew it!

Respond to Her Cries

Sounds obvious, right? The trick is to create a pattern so baby knows you’re predictable and reliable. This doesn’t mean you have to jump up every time baby makes a peep -- there are going to be times when she cries and cries and cries, or when she soothes herself -- but it does mean attending to her needs more than the majority of the time.

“Babies go through these tsunamis of emotion,” says Harvey Karp, MD, professor of pediatrics at the USC School of Medicine and author of The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block. “For babies, it’s contentedness, serenity and security that make them happy. Twenty times a day, something upsets them, and magically, arms pick them up and they’re fed, or someone comes and rocks them.” (So, um, we can relate. It sounds a little like PMS.)

“Babies quickly learn, ‘I like this place and these people. I trust them. People take care of me,’” says Karp. “You’re building a sense of confidence in your baby that things will work out. There’s optimism in predictability for them.” And that can pay off for life.

“It becomes the basis for the other relationships they’ll have -- they'll build on that intimacy from the first nine months of their life,” he says. “It’s not to say a child can’t have a happy life if they didn’t have that. It would just be a whole lot harder."

Mike's email to me:  That's for girl babies.  We have a boy baby.

Land of the living

I'm officially rejoining the land of the living.  Well ... technically I already have I guess, but now I'm going to write about it.  I've been a blogging slacker to put it lightly.  Pregnancy and working full time throughout pregnancy sucked every last ounce of energy I had so when I did have a couple of minutes to sit and rest, I did just that.  I watched all 4 seasons of Cake Boss, about 7 seasons of the Biggest Loser and a few other things here and there.  This, however, was not without effort.  That TV time was used to fight the wonderful nausea that comes with a little person growing inside.  The postpartum recovery time was when I got hooked on Lost and watched all 6 seasons.  Most recently, Mike and I got into Friday Night Lights and watched all 5 seasons.  Could this TV addiction have a positive spin?  Maybe its an indicator that I don't do anything halfway.  It's the whole series or nothing at all!  Perhaps.  However, I guess that means its back to The Biggest Loser to polish that one off.  It's good, it just doesn't have that "pull me in, have to watch it right now" quality.

OK, this is exactly why I need to rejoin the land of the living!  Here's a quick little "catch you up" on the Reintjes life ...

We left our beloved Belvedere apartment in early May (yes, a month before I was to have a baby ... ugh).  In preparation for the impending financial responsibilities of our little one, we found an apartment manager gig that came with free rent and a stipend.  Score, but this meant we had to move to the Millcreek area - pretty far south.  No more walking to work/school for us and we are juggling the car on a daily basis, but so far so good.

Our goal was for me to quit my job and do the apartment managing full time from home.  Long story short, that plan changed and I'm back at work at Charles River Associates part time (with Will in tow) and Mike handles all things apartment managery as well as full time school.  Busy busy!

Will was born on May 30th - 1 week past his due date.  I thought he was never going to come!  He had some complications upon delivery and spent about 5 days in the NICU, but is now doing great.  He's a calm little guy who loves smiling, being hung upside down by Dad, watching Bubble Guppies and playing with his toys. He makes our hearts burst with joy and I can't imagine life without him.  It kind of feels like he was in a hidden room in my heart all my life and now that door is open.  Mike and I spent the first month or so of his life staring at him, watching him sleep, holding him, telling him stories about how we met and got married, teaching him about Jesus (although I'm sure at this point he still remembers), and showing him pictures of all of his relatives.  We cried tears of joy often as expressions of, "I love our little family." and "I just really really like him." were uttered.  I felt the holiness of his innocence and new life.  I felt the great responsibility of parenthood and divine help from Heavenly Father.  I felt a renewed purpose in my life, greater than anything I'd ever felt before.  I knew that every experience I'd had up to this point had prepared me for this very thing ... motherhood.  This is it.  This is the good stuff.  Taking care of my boys leaves me feeling more fulfilled than anything else.  I can't imagine anything else being this good.  That's not to say we aren't struggling to figure things out.  We are.  But even that brings joy.

Mike is enjoying another semester at LDS Business College and we are already examining options for the next phase of his education/our life.  In the running - Boise State, BYU (all of them) and Weber State.  Within the next few months we should know where we'll be headed next.  This is both exciting and scary, but Heavenly Father has led us here and taken care of us so well, we know we are not alone in this next step.  We are being carefully guided to where He wants us to be.

As for right now, we are excited to be heading into the holiday season!  I've been having warm fuzzy Christmasy feelings for a month now and our tree will go up in just a couple of weeks!  One of my "happy places" during labor was Mike and I decorating the lit tree with Will sitting in his bouncy chair watching as Christmas music played in the background and we sipped hot chocolate.  I can't help it if this sounds a little June Cleaver-ish ... it helped me get through the hard labor and now it is going to be reality.  Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday.  For me, Halloween is just a necessary day we have to endure to get closer to Christmas.  Can hardly wait!

Well, that's enough for this post.  I'll post pics of our new place/Will soon!

Much love :)

Wit you

Kristy: I didn't know they had Sharp Provolone. Where does Provolone come from anyway?

Mike: ... Cows.

Wit you

Mike: I may or may not have had some Nutella today.

Me: Oh yeah? What did you have with your Nutella?

Mike: A fork.

Wit you

Here's another one. I'm giggling out loud at my desk at work as I write this ...

Mike: Look outside!

Kristy: What does it look like? (As I slowly move my pregnant body around so I can see out the window)

Mike: Cold ... SNOWPOCALYPSE!

Wit you

There are too many funny conversations/things Mike says not to post some of them. I'll call the series "Wit you". Here's one from last night:

Kristy: You know when we have kids, they'll probably look Japanese.
Mike: (said very matter-of-factly) Good. We'll get 'em some scholarships.

I'm constantly entertained.