Some of you who saw the title of this post either sighed and said, “heck yes it is” and others of you may have laughed and said, “just wait…”.

A few weeks ago I posted something on my Facebook wall about how parenting can be so challenging and how I just wanted to crawl in the bed and suck my thumb…  And yes, me with my three kids under four…I’m getting mine.  Whatever it was I did to my parents as a kid, is coming back ten-fold.

Or whatever it was Andrew did to his parents…  That’s probably the more accurate statement.  {Love you, babe! haha}

I love our kids.  All of them.  Each of them individually.  But y’all with kids, you know there are some really hard days.  REALLY.  Hard. Days.

And the “terrible twos” is a joke.  I’m going to go with the “Frightful Threes”.  And honestly so many friends told me that the age of three was much more challenging than the twos.  I’m siding with them.  To those of you who dealt with the drama, the screaming and fit-pitching at two, lucky you because it came and went sooner.  At three, it’s been building since like 18 months.

What is this behavior.

And I don’t want this post to be all about how terrible our kid is because he’s honestly not a bad kid.  He’s got the kindest, sweetest heart and he is simply wonderful.

Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one moment he’s great – playing with his sister, kissing his brother, being just the sweetest kid and then like the flip of a switch, someone does or says something {or he’s told “no”}, and he goes completely bizurk!

That’s when the challenge starts.  Disciplining him in a way that is loving but firm;  That doesn’t break his spirit but shows him that we mean what we say.

I had lunch with a friend last week, who has a son the same age as Reynolds.  I sat down and my opening question to her was, “Does ___ act like a lunatic at times?!”  Because we’d had two – what I call – episodes – in the last 12 hours, and it’s completely exhausting emotionally, mentally…probably even spiritually.

She grinned and confirmed that her son acts much the same way as Reynolds.

Praise.

But not really a praise…I don’t mean to say that I’m excited that her son acts like a maniac like ours…but honestly, I sighed on the inside…it’s not just us.  Which, I knew in my mind and heart that there were other kids out there giving their parents a genuine run for their money {and everything else}…we weren’t alone, but I wanted to know who else was dealing with the “crazy.”

We had a real mom-to-mom talk and though it’s not completely relieving {we still have to deal with the tantrums when they happen}, it is relieving to know that there are parents all over the place with kids going thru the same stage.  {Raise your hand if your son/daughter had a fit tonight at bath/bed -time!}

I ordered Dr. James Dobson’s book, The NEW Strong Willed Child a few weeks ago after several recommendations.  Of course I haven’t read much of it, but the few chapters I have read, the words have resonated with me and our current situation of life with a young person.

So these frightful threes…the parenting stakes are high.  He’s in it to win it…which means I have to be also.

 

I would love to hear from my mom friends out there – who has a strong willed child and how are/did you handling the terrible twos or frightful threes?

Our sweet Emory is now a month old!

And it’s about time I shared with you his birth story.

Some of you know that we went in for our check on November 9th and were told that he was “a big baby” and our doctor recommended a growth check for the following week’s appointment.

On Wednesday November 16th we had an  ultrasound done and he was weighing in at 7lb 2oz.

That part was fine.  What the doctor wasn’t as comfortable with was the fluid in his little kidneys.  Since the first ultrasound where we found out that “Almond” was a boy, we knew there was fluid in his kidneys.  Something we were told was “typical of little boys” and to not be worried about it.

Well, in this ultrasound, his left kidney seemed to be holding more fluid than it should.  We found that out when sweet Dr. Wilcox walked into my room and promptly said, “Well!  We need to get this baby out!  Tomorrow or Friday?!”  You see, they were only comfortable with about 1 cm of fluid in those kidneys and his left was well over that limit.  This was her way of saying it’s time.

Huh!!!?

I’m sure she loved the stupid /stumped look on my face.

Say What?

Excuse me, “M’am?!”

I think Andrew and I laughed nervously a little.

And then I said something really dumb like, “This literally is the busiest weekend of our lives!”

Of course, she inquired.

Thursday we had our annual oyster roast.

Friday night was our annual Festival of Trees, of which I had ordered a GORGEOUS dress from rent the runway…and also Andrew was to be a greeter for an hour…

Saturday the Lucas men were planning to go the USC football game.

Sunday was to be our anniversary.

Monday night we also had a dinner to attend.

So you see, the timing here was not perfect.

Ha.  Is it ever?

So we contemplated.  Andrew even asked if we could wait until Monday to induce.  She stated she would go check the schedule and let us talk while she left the room.

We both sort of stared at each other.  And laughed.  We weren’t prepared for what we had just been told.

When she came back we asked if this was something urgent or something that could wait…  I said, “I’m the type of person where I just want to be told what needs to be done.  Do we need to do this now, or not?

Her response?

“Let’s have this baby on Friday.”

She was on call that Friday and I think she secretly wanted to be the one to deliver him :)

So…as you can imagine, the moment we left the office, it was on to get everything ready for what Friday would entail.

 

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Friday…Emory’s Birth Day.  November 18th, 2016.

We were told to be at the hospital at 7:30 a.m.

As we drove through the parking lot Andrew saw something that made him say, “Thank you for not wearing your pajamas this morning.”

Your welcome, my love.

We got out of the car, left our bags and he took a picture of me.  The last one of me with a pregnant belly…

We walked straight in and up to the maternity floor where the nurses greeted us and took us to our room.

My nurse was Jill.  A wonderful lady, who was such a blessing to me that day.

She got me started on the fluids and such.  We turned on the tv…and waited.

Around 1:15 p.m. my contractions were picking up in length and frequency…but still not enough that baby was moving towards coming out.

At 3:15 I asked about an epidural and Jill told me I could get it whenever I wanted.  I was confused because with Reynolds I had to be so far along before they would let me get it.  Not the case with this one apparently – I could get it now.

I contemplated as she left my room to get something and as I labored through the next contraction I panicked thinking about how I might miss my opportunity of not getting my epidural.

“Go! Go now and tell her I want it!”  I almost yelled at Andrew.  I needed him to understand the urgency of the issue at hand!  He practically ran out of my room.

Meanwhile, Jill had told us that “there is no room in the inn” and that we would be staying in our delivery room overnight because there were no other rooms available for us to move into.  She secured me an egg crate for my bed and extra pillows for Andrew {I told you she was amazing}.

After my epidural I came back to smiling again and as I replied to Facebook and text messages one friend said, “aren’t you in labor?!”

It’s a waiting game.

Finally at 6:15 in the evening Dr. Wilcox came in and said that she wanted to break my water in hopes that that would get things moving along a little faster.

Jill was only working 7a – 7p and as she came in at 7 p.m. I asked her if she was leaving me.  She said yes, and that she wasn’t happy about it. “I’ve been telling everybody out there how sad I am that I don’t get to meet this baby!” She was wanting to meet Emory as much as I wanted her to stay with us.

She sat down and said that she had handpicked my next nurse, but was sad because apparently we knew each other.  My sweet friend Abby from our Sunday school was working that night.  When I found out it was her, I was totally in for her to be my nurse.  Jill said, “as long as you’re okay with it, she can be your nurse!”  Done.

Abby came around the corner and they talked all the things that nurses talk about during shift-changes.

Abby was wonderful to have by my side.  Somewhere around  7:45 or so I realized that I could feel the contractions on the right side of my belly and I could feel my right leg and foot.  The left leg and foot, on the other hand, no longer were attached to my body.  They were dead.

Since I was laying on my left side, Abby said, “Sometimes gravity has something to do with the epidural.  Let’s move you to your right side to see if that helps any.”  So she and Andrew worked on flipping me to my right side.

Once she got me there she looked at me sort of funny like and said, “I’m just gonna go ahead and check you.”

“His head is right there.  Like, RIGHT.THERE.” she announced.

HA!

I think I said something like, “Seriously?”

Because her reply was, “So, we’re gonna do a lot of things really fast right now.”

She walked over to her computer, called something and gave some directions…  Then two nurses showed up in my room.  They talked about where Dr. Wilcox was {in the ER} and other things, to which Abby said in my direction, “Don’t push, Michelle!”

“I’m  not trying” I laughed….nervously.

The gal working on getting the table set up with all the instruments and things said to Abby “Is this her first?”

“Third!” Abby replied.

“Then I’ll move a little bit faster!

A few moments later Dr. Wilcox walked in and said, “I hear we’re ready to have this baby!”

I told her to tell me “when” when she was ready for me to push.

I pushed three times and then Abby yelled, “OPEN YOUR EYES MICHELLE!”

It was 8:06 p.m. And there he was.  Our little miracle.  And he was mad.

haha.

Abby was holding him, wiping him off when she plopped him on me and said, “Look at these CHEEKS!” as she played with them.

He was absolutely beautiful and he looked just like Reynolds.

I was amazed once again at the miracle of a baby.  Life.  It’s truly amazing.

He was here and we were officially new parents again.  And a great big family of five.

These two are pretty happy with the newest addition. 

{Pictures by my sweet friend Ashley-Nicole Photography}