Cheerleading

Today Ruth Ann and I made another girls only trip to watch my neice Madison compete at a cheerleading competition down town. Let me say I have tons of respect for the cheerleading nation...I spent a short amount of time in high school as a cheerleader myself, so I understand the dedication and hard work it takes to succeed. Madison is a sweet, smart and well mannered soon to be teenager and I would be thrilled if Ruth Ann was 1/2 the girl she is right now. Madison began cheering about a year ago and has been teaching Ruth Ann a few moves since starting last summer.









Now that being said...I was completely shocked at how young some of the little girls were at this competition. As we walked into the arena there were girls dressed in cropped tops, short skirts and full on make-up that I knew were not much older than Ruth Ann. Luckily Madison's team is more modest and they were dressed in uniforms that fully covered the tummies. Sure enough, my sister-in-law told me some of these "Mini Teams" had 3 year olds on their teams. First I was shocked that anyone would try to get a group of 3 year olds to do anything in sync and then I was shocked that inorder for Ruth Ann to possibly to be a cheerleader one day we were going to have to start cheerleading practice next year...which we won't be doing by the way.

As a nation our children may rank last world wide in math and science...but apparently we're leading the way in cheering...unless you count toddlers who can dance in sync to an 8 count beat...but atleast that means they can count to 8!

Could you drop some hints for me...

If you or someone you know is looking to buy me a Valentine's Day gift...here's a hint at what I would like...


Click HERE


Click HERE


Click HERE


Click HERE

Any one of these would do just fine. They can be found at www.etsy.com and to make shopping even easier I've included the link to each below each picture.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Highs in the 60's!

Finally, a warm & sunny day! It's funny how the last few weeks of bitter cold weather will change your perspective on what constitutes a "warm" day. In June, July or August 60 degrees feels like a frosty day in South Carolina...but we'll take a 60 degree after all the snow and ice we've seen here in recent weeks.

Ruth Ann & I planned a trip to the park to get out of this house we seem to have been trapped in for the last 4 weeks. Tripp stayed home with Arch...girls only this time!

Ruth Ann checked out most of the slides...



On this slide she came down head first...only once since her hands hit the dirty and got a little muddy. This slide looked alot like the slide at the pool at Disney and she came down that slide head first more than one time...innocent mistake.



Can you tell she was having fun??

Then we headed over to the swings where I divided my time between pushing Ruth Ann, taking pictures and playing defense to keep all the stray children from getting hit in the head by Ruth Ann as she was swinging. Special thanks to the group of irresponsible parents who decided to sit and watch their children walk in front of all the swinging children...why don't all parents understand the swings are a danger zone!!

And I'll point out that getting a motion shot with my camera is surprisingly difficult...



But I managed to get a few..





Then we headed back to the slides for a few more minutes. As we were walking back to the slide are we saw the cutest little puppy...



For just a minute it made me want a puppy again...but we've had a newborn and a puppy before so I quickly changed my mind and off the slides we went. While I was watching Ruth Ann I noticed another mom carrying around a very small baby. Being the mother of a 4 week old I was curious when it would be socially acceptable to bring my newborn to the park, so I asked this mom how old her baby was...I couldn't see him clearly because he was all bundled up...her response...9 DAYS OLD!! I told her she must have been itching to get out of her house...what other reason is there to bring a 9 day old infant to the public park? And she had a toddler Ruth Ann's age...maybe I just have an active toddler, but you would have had to sedate me following a trip to the park with both my children right now...I would have never been able to watch Ruth Ann and take care of Tripp at the same time. I feel like it will probably be the summer time before I could possibly do this outing to the park all by myself.

P.S. Please forgive the lack of a monogram on Ruth Ann's shirt...I feel like a monogramming failure by letting her wear this shirt without some kind of embellishment...it's on my list of things to do!

America's Most Wanted

Be on the look out for this little criminal...



Don't be fooled by her blond hair, blue eyes and charming personality...she's a self professed bully!

Last night as I was getting Ruth Ann ready for bed we started talking about going to school the following morning and how much fun it was going to be to see her friends. Then out of no where she confessed she had been "knocking her friends over"!! I don't use the phrase "knocking someone over" so I knew she must be telling the truth, she had to have picked this phrase up somewhere other than home which meant someone had scolded her for doing such a thing. We had a long talk about not pushing our friends and what the consequences would be if I found out she was pushing her friends at school. However, I can't be too upset with the toddler...it's the toddler's father who I should be most upset with. You see a few months ago I was keeping church nursery and a little boy in Ruth Ann's class was pushing all the little girls over...including Ruth Ann. As a mother I wanted to string the little boy up by his toes, but I remained calm & impartial but reported the story to Arch when I got home. He then thought it wise to advise Ruth Ann, a toddler, to push this little boy back...do you think that lesson hit home...nope. Guess who was the bully the following week in church nursery...Ruth Ann. My fear is that she has taken this lesson to heart and is now pushing kids down right and left! However, when I dropped her off at school I asked her teachers if Ruth Ann had been pushing other children and they assured me she had not and they thought she was too smart to do something like that. They felt she would think it through before pushing...yeah right, they're giving her too much credit! This girl may look sweet, but keep an eye on her...she's just as mean has her momma!!

Auburn Pride

You may have been able to tell in past posts that I LOVE Auburn. Not only do I love Auburn, but I LOVE Auburn football. To me, football games at Auburn are the threads to bind my love for Auburn. I grew up in SC and never once cheered for the Auburn Tigers until 1995 when I visited the campus for a college tour and attended my first Auburn football game...which happened to be the Iron Bowl (Auburn vs. Alabama...which is the best rivalry game in college football...that's the one thing both Auburn and Alabama fans can both agree on). I may have arrived on the Plains with little knowledge of Auburn but I left an Auburn fan for life. Later as a student I would eagerly look forward to home football games and the explosion in population that each home game would bring. Auburn's average city population is around 57,000, but on game day that number goes up...way up. You see our stadium holds 87,451 so the population of Auburn swells to around 140,000 to accomodate the entire Auburn family. Friday nights before home games offered many different options for a fun time and Saturday's were all about tailgating. It didn't matter if the game was at 11:30am or 7:30pm...tailgating started with breakfast and continued until 2 hours before kick off when Tiger Walk would begin and the Auburn family gathered around our football team to cheer them on as they entered Jordan-Hare. Then you needed to head to the stadium yourself to get a seat in the student section...unless you had someone kind enough to save a seat for you. Now Auburn football games are a time for me to see old friends who live too far away and I don't get to see often enough, to introduce my little Auburn Tigers to the school I love and to remind myself of the 6 years (4 years undergrad, 2 years grad...I didn't waste my time & money) of fun times I had on The Plains. Don't get me wrong, I love my life now and enjoy every minute with the family Arch and I have created...but I also love the family of friends I created while I was a student at Auburn. I love being a member of the Auburn family...I love that when I wear an Auburn t-shirt another member of the Auburn family will greet me with a heartfelt "War Eagle", I love that I can go months without seeing friends from Auburn and we always pick right back up where we left off, I love to see my children playing with the children of my friends from Auburn and I really LOVE to hear Ruth Ann say "War Eagle, Hey!" and think about how much she is going to enjoy her time as an Auburn student...if I have my way. When I'm in Auburn now I have to fight the urge to shake every student I see and lecture them on the importance of enjoying every last minute of their time at Auburn. Those 6 years went by in the blink of an eye and there are times that I wish I could turn back time...just for a little bit...and be a student at Auburn once again.

So what prompted this essay on my love of Auburn?? After doing a little catching up on some of my favorite blogs I stumbled across the following video...thanks Tara Roney. I watched it and got chills and a few tears when I started thinking about all the fun times I had at Auburn football games. In 2004 we were denied...or rather robbed...of the opportunity to play for the national championship. But the taste of an undefeated season with the hope of a national championship was still fresh in the mouths of all members of the Auburn family. Although this season did have some "low-lights"...that many are all too eager to point out...I choose to post about the high-lights. I have some Carolina friends who follow my blog and I want you guys to know that Cocky & the Gamecocks do make an appearance in the video so you may enjoy watching too :)

Enjoy!!! War Eagle friends....WAR EAGLE!!

What we've been up to...

I feel like I don't seem to have a free minute between feedings, bathing, rocking, & changing diapers...but I also look around my house I am very aware that I've gotten a whole lot of nothing accomplished in the last 3 1/2 weeks. Don't worry, I'm not giving myself a hard time about it...I'm just saying our days here are boring and event-less!



This was Tripp's 1st bath and although he was jaundice he wasn't really this yellow...I blame this on poor bathroom lighting.



It's hard being a baby!



I'm holding out hope I may have a child who will look like me & my family. More and more people are telling me they think Tripp looks like my dad & brother. I'm convinced he has my eyes and right now he has my dad's skinny legs, but I'm hoping those will plump up soon!



And Ruth Ann is exhausted too. She usually opposes a nap, but on this afternoon she crawled up on the couch and put herself to sleep. Curling up with a kitty always makes me sleep better too!

Does this make anyone else laugh?

Our church announced Tripp's birth this past Sunday in the church bulletin...



Did you notice the typo??

Arch may have won the the first name debate, but apparently we've taken on my maiden name as our last name! What makes this even more funny is this is how we were presented at our wedding reception too...Mr. & Mrs. Arch Becker.

A first for Ruth Ann

Last week I made a delicious dessert for our monthly supper club. I was making whipped cream using my hand held mixer and realized when I finished I've never let Ruth Ann lick the beaters...



She took the beater from me and cleaned it off like an old pro!

Year of the Tiger

I don't follow the Chinese calendar, but I happen to know that 2010 was the year of the Tiger...perfectly fitting since the Auburn Tigers finished their perfect season last night by winning the BCS National Championship!!

Besides Glendale, this is the other place I would have like to have been last night...



Toomer's Corner! Instead, I was feeding Tripp as Auburn kicked the game winning field goal. One day when Tripp is a student at Auburn, he'll be able to say he was alive when Auburn won the 2010 National Championship...9 days old, but alive none the less!

Tripp had a bad night on Sunday night/Monday morning and kept us up from 12:30am-5am...it was rough for all those involved. Looking back I'm not sure whether he was excited about the pending snow or the football game we would be watching later Monday night. When the snow & ice set in I started to get worried about the possiblity of losing power but thankfully our power held out and I didn't fall over from exhaustion so I could watch every nail biting minute leading to Auburn's VICTORY!! I actually got to watch some of the game again at 5am when I woke Tripp up to feed him...it was a just as exciting the 2nd time!

There's only one thing to say friends...IT'S GREAT TO BE AN AUBURN TIGER....WAR EAGLE, HEY!

Now we'll ride out a nasty basketball season at our house and the McCarty family will looked forward to the Gamecocks baseball season.

One Week

I was on the phone with my friend Erin Saturday afternoon at 5:13pm when I realized Tripp was officially one week old. Saturday was easily one of the longest days of my life...living with excruciating pain will do that to you. But the other 6 days of the last week have flown by. Tripp is sleeping great & eating great and has fit right into our family. Ruth Ann is the anti-snuggler and I had hoped Tripp would be my snuggly child...I think I may have gotten my wish! He rarely cries, but I kinda think he's still in that sleepy newborn stage and just hasn't woken up yet...I'm enjoying these first perfect newborn days and doing all I can to try to remember this phase. As Ruth Ann got older I felt like I forgot these newborn days...I want to avoid that with Tripp since he'll be the last newborn I ever have. I'm also enjoying my days of hibernation since it's so very cold here right now. Arch says we're summer people or lake people and that is why we don't enjoy the snow...we're also completely unprepared for snow...there aren't even a pair of snow gloves in this whole house. Because we want Tripp ready for the summer, here's how Tripp has spent that last 2 days...



Sunbathing...just kidding. Tripp, like his sister before him, started to get a little bit jaundice. Not nearly has bad as Ruth Ann's but enough for our doctor to ask us to put him in the sunshine for a few hours. I think this will prepare him for summer days at Grammy's pool!

Things are going well

4 days at home and so far, so good. We settled on a name for Baby Boy prior to leaving the hospital...Archie Bruce McCarty, III...but you can call him Tripp. I had another name in mind, but Arch really, really wanted a 3rd. I fought the good fight, but I just couldn't look at my newborn baby any longer and refer to him as Baby Boy...so I conceded and we settled on Tripp. He looks so sweet in pictures...here he is coming home from the hospital...



And he's even sweeter in person. Ruth Ann was a good baby...but Tripp may have her beat. He's sleeping great and nursing like a champ. Ruth Ann never nursed successfully, so because I really wanted to her have that liquid gold (ie, breast milk) I pumped for 5 long weeks. Dirty bottles + dirty pump shields = lots of dirty dishes to wash. Having this chore removed from my list of things to do makes a world of difference this go around.

Ruth Ann is also settling in nicely to her role as big sister. Ruth Ann has never been very demanding of my time or attention, so she doesn't seem to mind that Tripp is taking up most of my time right now. She seems content to hang out with Grammy or watch Nick Jr. She has been acting more silly than usual and I told Arch it seems like her vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds. I fully expected to bring Tripp home and feel like Ruth Ann would physically grow into a little girl but she also seems more grown up in the way she interacts with each of us.

I think I'm adjusting to the role of mother of two nicely as well. I keep looking at Tripp and thinking I was just becoming a mother of one and I was living all these same moments with Ruth Ann...but now I'm the mother to these two sweet children...





And as much as I would love to think they'll always be as sweet as this to each other...



I know there will be more days like this than I would like...

1-1-11

Happy New Year's & Happy Birthday Baby Boy...still not named as I'm writing this post...



Born 1-1-11, 5:13pm, 6 lbs 6 oz, 19 1/2 inches long

So here's a rough time line of the events leading up to Baby's arrival...

Friday Night/Early Hours of Saturday Morning:
I can't sleep. I'm up about a million times during the night with contractions. I'm strep B positive and I convince myself my water will break during the night and I won't get to the hospital in time for the antibiotics needed during delivery and something terrible will happen to New Baby...you can see why I didn't sleep well.

6am: Done trying to force myself to sleep, I get up to pack my bag, Baby's bag and Ruth Ann's over night bag. Go to the bathroom and see some obvious signs that labor is upon me. I take a shower & start timing contractions.

7:30am: I call doctor on call and discover my least favorite (this is putting it very mildly) doctor is on call, but she tells me to meet her in triage.

8am: Arrive at the hospital, go to the bathroom, signs of labor even more obvious, I'm hooked up to monitors and told I'm 3cm dilated...that up from 2cm on Wednesday.

10am: I'm checked again, no change and I'm told the doctor will be asking me to go home. I explain the contractions I'm feeling are same as the labor contractions I had with Ruth Ann and I don't think I should be having these contractions at home. The doctor comes in, tells me I'm not in labor, I've not progressed since Wednesday and I could stay in the condition I'm in for 3 more weeks before delivery. I very boldly told her I didn't feel like she was listening to me, I had progressed from 2-3cm and I was bleeding for goodness sake...she got very defensive, offered to keep me for 24 hours, but I very much wanted to run from the hospital at this point, so we packed up and left.

11:30am: Back home, Arch is cooking lunch and I try to lay down to rest but can not get comfortable because I'm having contractions again. But now I'm not sure if these are contractions or just figments of my imagination since it was exactly what I was experiencing in the hospital and told to go home.

1pm: I call my mom and start crying. I'm in terrible pain and she was on her way to our house. I wanted my mommy and I wanted her now!

1:30pm: My mom arrives and starts timing my contractions...1.5 minutes long, 3 minutes apart. She tells me to call the doctor, who then tells me to go back to the hospital.

2pm: Arrive back at the hospital...I couldn't walk into the building I was in so much pain...my mom wheeled me via wheel chair. We check back in, I'm checked, I'm now 6 cm and am being admitted. I start to cry again, out of pain, and fear I'll not be able to receive the precious drugs I know I'll need to make it through delivery...I'm a whimp!

2:15pm: IV started, heading to labor and delivery. Arrive at L&D and am checked again...8cm! The doctors arrives and congratulates me on being in labor...guess how much I want to resort to violence at this point??

2:30pm: Antibiotics in, epidural started (PRAISE JESUS!), and I'm given Nubain...ahhh, relief. I'm back in my right mind and can't feel a single thing! i heart IV drugs!! I'm told we'll wait 4 hours to let antibiotics get into my system before we'll talk about delivery.

5pm: Baby's heart beat drops following a contraction, they try to shift my position but can't keep his heart beat on the monitor well, so the doctor says he's coming out now.

5:12pm: Water broken, 3 pushes later...

5:13pm: Baby Boy arrives!

So I beat my previous record of 9 pushes with Ruth Ann...good thing this is my last because there is no telling how quickly a 3rd baby would arrive! He's doing great. He's a much better breast feed baby than his sister was...at least so far. I'm hoping we'll get to go home tomorrow, but it will depend on the pediatrician's visit. I'm hoping our friendship with our ped will help us get out of here a little bit earlier. So far Baby Boy looks just like his sister...much as I expected...and is unbelievably sweet...I'm in LOVE! I'll leave you with a few pictures and then I'm going to rest a little...





Ugg...I can't believe I'm going to share this picture...but I'm keeping it real folks...here's what I looked like after progressing to 8cm without any drugs...