Homemade Goodness!

We have the greatest friends! We've gotten so many sweet baby things! I must admit my favorites are the homemade things! We've gotten tons of yummy homemade meals (of which I didn't take pictures). Thanks so much for those! We've also gotten some fabulous hand crafted baby items! Take a look at this precious stuff!

My cute cousin, Teanna, sent us these. I love them because they're tall and they stay on when most tiny lil booties don't! They're like bootie boots!

These precious hats were a gift knitted by Cora's teacher! I love them! I love them so much I enlisted her to make Cora some hot pink leg warmers which are also adorable (pictures to come!)

Are these not the cutest? My friend Tracey has an online business http://www.tinysprouts.com/ and hand embroiders all her stuff!

This is what I like to call Malena madness! My cute friend, Malena, left a GIANT sack of monogrammed stuff on my front porch one day! Tons of monogrammed stuff that she did herself! Bibs, sheets, pillows, changing table covers, onesies, nightgowns, the girl is crazy! These two matching swim suits and cover ups for the girls are my favorites! Malena's opening a lil store in Savannah soon and it will without a doubt be DARLING!

Thanks friends for everything!

Third time's a WHAT?

Whoever made up that saying third time's a charm...lied.

i think it should read something like third time's less of a surprise, or by the third time it's easier to deal with drama. Maybe even third time's more interesting, but I definitely would NOT call it a charm! At least not when you're talking about having 3 children!

I guess I was feelin' a little cocky about this whole baby thing about a month ago. I figured, I'd done the newborn thing relatively successfully twice before. I'd done the whole getting up at night thing, nursing a newborn, and even dealing with a toddler and a newborn before. I figured that the baby would be the EASY part! I thought it would be the other two that would make things harder. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. Remember baby Clara weighed 7 lbs 12 ounces when she was born. A nice strong, healthy weight! We went to her one week check up and she was down a bit to 7 lbs 1ounce, normal still! She was nursing frequently, but seemingly well. She was peeing, pooing, and sleeping with a little fussiness, but overall, a normal babe. Well, this past Monday we went back to the pediatrician for a check. She was 17 days old and still weighed 7 lbs 1 ounce. The pediatrician said, "not good!" (note to health care workers...do not tell the mother of a child who has cancer "not good" about anything that can be remedied! love ya, Dr.S!) He asked about her nursing to which I said, "ya! She's great! I nursed the other two for a full year, I'm sure it's going well!" He then sent us to the lactation consultant at the hospital for an appointment. They weighed her, I fed her, then they weighed again. Long story short...she wasn't nursing correctly, she has some wierd tongue thing she does and she wasn't even getting half of the milk she should have been getting. I was starving her and didn't even know it! The good news is that she can suck a bottle correctly. So I spent the week worrying, pumping bottles of breast milk, supplementing with formula, and feeding this baby every two hours without delay. Our house is full of "feeding equipment!" Cora put it best yesterday, "Mommy's with tiny baby's are BORING, because all they do is pump bottles and make bottles!" It has seriously consumed me! I'm a huge breast feeding advocate. It's better for the baby, less fuss, and easier. However, I'm an even bigger advocate of sanity and in the words of a very wise man, you've got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run. I'm giving this crazy pumping, nursing, formula concoction one more week and if it doesn't work out more easily, I'm throwing in the pump for a giant supply of enfamil with lipil!

The good news is that the hard work has paid off!!! Today we weighed in on the Dr's scale at a whopping 7 lbs. 8 ounces. Still not up to birth weight, but gaining 7 ounces in 5 days is very good! We have an appointment tomorrow (yes Saturday) morning with an ENT just to be sure baby love's tongue thing isn't an indicator of another issue. She also has this congested nasely gurgling sound when she sleeps. So we'll be sure to let you know how that goes. But today I am sticking by the guy who said, "Two's Company, three's a crowd! " He could teach the "third time's a charm" guy a thing or two! I bet the latter didn't have 3 kids!

Cora Funny Moment of Sunday

Cora and I have taken to calling the baby lil peach, sweet peach, or sweet baby peach because Cora thinks her hair looks like a fuzzy peach and we live in GA, so it fits!

I am in the bedroom and Cora runs in.

Cora : mama is there such thing as a gum tree?

Me: yes!

Cora: what grows on it?

Me: gumballs, but not like the gum you eat, the pokey brown gumballs that fall to the ground.

Cora: hmmmm. Daddy told me he got his gum from a gum tree. I fink he was trickin me!

Me: yes, lil peach, I think he was tricking you!

Cora: I'm not lil peach, the baby is!!!

Me: Well then who are you?

Cora: big apple!

Funny Cora Moment from Saturday

Rob's mom (Abuela), Cade, Cora, and myself were sitting in the family room.

Cora cleared a spot on the floor and announced, "I've got a great idea. We're gonna have a ball and you get to watch me dance, and dance, and dance! But first we've got to play a game. If you can guess what color my ball gown is gonna be, I'll give you a prize."

Mommy: "yellow"
Cora : "nope"
Abuela: "pink"
Cora: "nope"
Cade: "blue"
Cora: "YES! Cade! You hit the nail on the head! You're exactly right! You're gonna get the prize an it's to DANCE WITH ME!!!" (she runs off to go put on her ball gown)

Cade mumbles under his breathe, "I wish I would've said purple!"

Jedi Love

I wanted to post this picture because it cracks me up! Yesterday Cade and Cora went to play at our sweet friends' house. These 4 are cute together because the boys birthdays are within a month of each other as are the girls. The girls started out in their girlie dresses (note that Cora found the dress up clothes within seconds of entering the house) but ended up Jedis by the end of their visit. Please make note of the precious blonde on the left in a pink dress, tights, and bow armed with a machine gun and Cinderella on the far right armed with a princess beauty kit (never leave home without one) and a faux nail gun as her weapons of choice! Don't mess with little girls that have big brothers! You'll never win!

Playtime

div>Baby Clara is doing so well! Cora still LOVES her and wants to constantly help with her. Cade still isn't sure about the belly button, but is slowly and gradually becoming more interested in her. Today I even caught him laying next to her and petting her head. :) Clara's sleeping well at night and wakes up only to eat. As my post c-section recovery gets easier, we're returning back to life as normal, but a way more fun normal because we have this precious baby girl!

our lil sweet peach

two scurvy pirates

costumes+ an upside down coffee table = a pirate adventure (look at Cora's face, I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley!)

the girls catching a cat nap!

Cade dressed as General Oglethorpe for the SCPS Georgia Day Parade

Clinic Day!

Today was a clinic visit complete with Lumbar Puncture and a spinal injection of methotrexate. Cora's protocol includes and LP every fourth month. I always dread it because she can't eat beforehand and I hate when she gets put to sleep. So I was dreading today and it was my first day being a mom of 3 all alone! (but not really cause I've got great friends two of whom have insisted on taking Cade to school for the next month!!!) So off we headed to clinic, Cora, Clara, and mama. We got there almost on time and from the get go Cora was a champ!!! I feel like I say this each time lately, but it was her BEST VISIT EVER! She was sweet, cooperative, well-mannered, and perfectly behaved. She was very excited to introduce Clara to her clinic friends. Clara slept the ENTIRE time we where there (whew!) and we were in, juiced up, and done in two and a half hours! Cora's counts were great and her immune system is functioning beautifully so Dr. J actually increased her medication dosage to 87% of her original dosage. We had to decrease it because of low counts before Christmas. We're slowly increasing as her body seems to tolerate more. So we are hoping this new increase won't bring any major changes to her blood counts. We also noted that Cora is picking up weight quickly and I asked Dr. J to chart her on the growth curve to make sure it's normal and this year Cora has grown FOUR inches! Normal growth for someone her age is 2 or so inches per year, but chemo slows growth and many times when kids finally reach maintenance their bodies play catch up for the past several months of strong chemo! Not only is she feeling great, but she's catching up as well! So yay! yay! yay! Cora! Now we have 5 days of crabby Cora on steroids and then we'll get our sweet girl back! Oh, the best part of today was after clinic in the car I was praising Cora for doing such a great job at clinic and she said, "mama, you know why I did so great at clinic today?" I replied, "why?" She said, "because I wanted to show my baby that going to the doctor isn't scary!!!" And that is exactly what she did!

all my babies!

clara cade
cora
cora
clara

cade

Sweet Baby Clara

We're home! And so glad to be here! Baby Clara is doing great! Cora is in love with her and Cade likes everything about her except her belly button. He says he'll hold her more when the black part falls off! She's so tiny and sweet and looks EXACTLY like Cade and Cora when they were born. She has features exactly of both of them so much so that I already feel like I've had this baby before! Her mouth and hair look exactly like Cade's when he was born and her nose and cheeks are exactly like Coras. I will do some picture comparisons later this week to show you just how much they really look alike as babies. In fact, my OB/GYN delivered all 3 of them and when he held Clara up his exact words were, "Yep! She's a garola!" These 3 are so stinkin cute together I could post 1 million pictures, but I'll limit it for your sake!

She's Here!

Today at 7:47 am we welcomed the newest member of the Garola family, Clara Kay. She weighs 7 lbs 12 oz and is 19 inches long. She is healthy and precious! We are so thankful for her and what she will bring to our family! Cade and Cora met and loved her today. Cora however got very upset when she heard her cry! More pics coming soon. The hospital wireless is not very dependable!

sometimes...we do get along!

Yesterday afternoon we went to a birthday party. Anyone who has kids has been to one of those giant inflatible indoor bouncy places where kids loose all sense of direction and discipline and pick up a very wide range of germs on every inch of their little bodies. I have been able to avoid places like this for the past 14 months. This is the only positive I can think that a chemo compromised immune system has to offer. But baseball season is days away and daddy has been spending time prepping the field and players, so off we went to the germ cess pool; myself, Cade, Cora, and one of Cade's buddies. Cora was so excited to be included in this adventure she could barely stand it! I pulled into the parking lot and little did I know that everyone in Savannah who has kids was spending their afternoon in this building! Standing room only!

After spending 2 hours watching my kids have the time of their lives in this crazy mess of a place, and visiting with the parents of Cade's classmates, I realized that somewhere between one and almost 3 children something is lost. Cade has two precious little girls in his class who are only children. They are both always perfectly groomed, perfectly behaved, prefectly prepared, and perfectly supervised. When I used to teach these were totally the kind of parents that I loved! Now two kids later, they're the kind of parents that make me feel like crap! No, not really, they are LOVELY ladies and GREAT moms! They never once let their 6 year old girls out of their sight at this birthday party, and spoke of things like the cleanest area beach (of course it's not the one we go to), their apprehension about road tripping without their husbands (I've done it at least 10 times),and the impending evils that the Disney channel is thrusting upon our children (and to think all this time Disney has been my 2nd favorite babysitter next to pbs kids!)BUT I am not judging these moms. In fact, I found myself agreeing with everything they said! I am actually jealous of these moms. Jealous that they have all the time in the world to devote to, protect, train, and invest in one little person. Iused to be like them. For the first two and a half years of Cade's life he was barely let out of my sight, I followed him on playground equipment, was leary of letting him ride in cars with other people, kept close tabs on his sugar intake, viewed TV as the enemy, and thought he'd fail out of preschool if we didn't read at least 5 books together each day. Then something happened....Cora came along. And the minute she did, Cade became a big boy. That fast, that's all it took, one little baby sister and POOF! he was big! Yesterday at the inflatible playground I only saw Cade and his buddy (for whom I was additionally responsible) maybe 5 times. Once when we gathered for cake, and the other 4 as they zoomed by pretending to be tazing each other with invisible guns and I yelled, "hey Cade!" These mom's didn't let their 6 year old girls out of their sight because of the fear that someone would grab them and run out the doors. Me, I was placing all my trust in the matching digits on our orange wrist bands as well as the 14 year old girl dressed in a referee suit standing near the exit. Now Cora's a little more reluctant around crowds by nature (and she's 3) so she didn't leave my sight, but poor Cade is pretty much on his own by now. It made me wonder if this is what is about to happen to Cora as well? Is she about to be big in 4 days and expected to work for her keep?

So all night I pondered on this and wondered if I should feel guilty or liberated? Then I decided there's no right way to raise kids. These little girl's who are in Cade's class are GREAT little girls, but Cade is a GREAT little boy! He's responsible, he's mature, and he helps me out all the time. Not to mention he has a little sister (soon 2) to share adventures and experiences with. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but I still feel a tad bit guilty that he doesn't get total devotion all the time, so if anyone out there has grown kids or no kids and wants one to devote every minute to, I'd LOVE for you to come and spend a day with one of mine and make me feel a little less guilty!!!