Dang scissors

Yeah it's not the scissors fault but blaming them is easier than admitting how I dumbly jabbed a pair of scissors (with a lot of force I might add) into my hand trying to open a toy up for Ruby. Smooth move exlax.

So we went to the ER because my hand was completely numb and I couldn't move most of my finger. Kind of scary. So after a morning in the ER and then a few days later I went to a hand surgeon, it has been determined I didn't severe my tendon (my big fear b/c then I would of probably had to have surgery) but I nicked it and have some nerve damage. It's not too painful mostly just annoying. The hand doc said I just had to not put any weight on it for a few weeks. Um yeah that's a tall order for a mom of a newborn. So that weekend Andy had his work cut out for him that weekend but then he had to go to work so we called in for reinforcements...

Thank goodness Annette was able to come down here and help out. I really don't know how we would of made it without her. She even got up with me in the middle of the night to change Ruby's diaper. That's love.


Then when Annette left my BFF Sara and Drew came down to spend the weekend with us. I may or may not have told her before she came down that I wasn't able to change diapers ;) Needless to say they stepped up and were just awesome to help. They even baby-sat one night so Andy and I could go on a date. I love Sara and Drew and am crazy excited they will have their own little one next year!



So it's getting better slowly and I survived yesterday and so far today on my own. I can move my fingers a little bit more each day and hopefully will be back to normal before too long!

Attempting to give a thumbs up!

Happy 29th Birthday to Andy!

Today Andy begins his last year of being a 20 something- next year is the big one! I'm so proud of the man he is and just wanted to take a second to brag on the birthday boy.

I fell in love with Andy a long time ago. I don't know if what I felt 15 years old was love but I knew he was something special. He was different, not in a weird way, okay a little bit in a weird way, but definitely no one else like him. He was both super intense and focused but also really silly and fun loving. And talk about hard working, he was the only 17 year old I knew that had a work beeper because he was assistant manager at Kinkos, regularly working overnight and then coming straight to school. Also, it didn't hurt he drove a crazy nice 1956 Chevy pick up truck that was so loud I could hear when he turned onto our street, yeah, he was crush worthy for sure.

Now let's fast forward about 12 years. Here we are...married, house, kid, the whole dream we use to talk about when we would have our 6 hour phone calls that went well into the night (that undoubtedly ended with "You hang up", "No, you hang up" Gag..). When I stop and think about it I am really living my 16 year old dream. Now getting back to Andy what I want to say is that I am living this life because of sweet Andy and his loving, forgiving, gracious heart. He has supported me in every way possible over this last decade of my life and I don't know where I would be without him. He makes me laugh, think, love, and smile like no one else can. Just when I thought it wasn't possible to admire and care for him any more, our sweet Ruby comes along and to see the love of your life so tender and sweet to the new love of your life. Well it's enough to make you wonder how your heart can contain that kind of joy.

So here's to the best person I know- Edward Andrew Luksys- you are wonderful and I love you a ridiculous amount.

Ruby Fix

This post is for the grandparents (and Ruby enthusiastic) , I have heard from both sides just today needing a Ruby fix so here you go guys...












And just to keep it real....don't forget this face either....

Practically a teenager

Okay, not quite, but it's crazy how fast she is growing. All those cliches that everyone tells you about them growing up so fast, well come to find out, it's so very true. On the one hand I get really sad about one day not being able to smooch on those precious little toes or have her tiny little hand wrap around my finger but I am so excited to see her grown up and experience all her crazy stages. And yes, I realized I'm being a bit dramatic lamenting her growing up so fast since she is only one month old but comparing these pictures just really makes me realize how quickly all this is going...

Newborn Ruby


Just 4 weeks later....


Okay, I have to go kiss some teeny tiny toes now before they're gone!

Man Bites Dog

I'm about to blow ya'lls mind in two way....first way is that I'm not blogging about Ruby. I know! It's wild. Don't worry we are still way obsessed and will continue to torture anyone that will look at the copious amounts of pictures we have of her. The number two way I'm going to blow your mind is showing you the most beautiful hot dogs ever. Okay, maybe that doesn't fall into the mind blowing category but for a girl that has spent the past month inside with a newborn attached to her it was pretty stinkin exciting.

Saturday we ventured about of the house and did a little shopping at our favorite thrift store and then walked next door to a place called Man Bites Dog. They have gourmet hot dogs, delicious, ginormous, mouth watering hot dogs.

We started with what I would argue is one of the greatest combinations of food that ever was and I will dream of this for a very long time.... pulled pork macaroni and cheese! AMAZING. The picture doesn't do it any justice, in fact the picture makes it look kinda gross but holy (pulled pork) macaroni it was awesome.


Andy had the Danger Dog, it was a bacon wrapped beef frank, deep-fried with queso fresco, jalapenos and danger sauce.


I had the Mexcian Angry Bird, it was chicken sausage, jack cheese, southwest corn salsa & chipotle mayo.



On a related note, the pregnancy weight isn't coming off anytime soon :)

Life at home with Ruby

Since Ruby has been home for two weeks now and I am just getting around to blogging about it, obviously life with our little girl has been busy busy busy. When I was pregnant and trying to imagine what life would be like with Ruby here I kept going back to "how much work could something be that sleeps 18 hours a day?", I would like to thank my friends that already have children for not strangling me when I asked that question. I also asked them "what do you do all day?". Seriously, you guys showed some serious self restraint in not smacking me. It would of been totally justified.

So, let's see here. Let my sleep deprived brain attempt to capture the first few weeks of taking care of a newborn. It's hard. Thank goodness she is kinda cute ;) For real though, that bond between mother (and father) and child is so important for so many reasons. If I didn't love her a ridiculous amount I can't imagine how much harder those 3am scream-fest would be. The fact that I am completely exhausted and overwhelmed but yet still her little gummy mouthed wails melt my heart and I don't mind (too much) sitting and rocking for an hour speaks volumes to that bond that God gives us to our children to endure some of those tough times.

Example:


So let's talk specifics. She eats about every two hours during the day. After feeding, burping, changing diaper, and then holding and calming down that leaves me about an hour (if I'm lucky) between feedings. Not a lot of time to do much of anything, which has been fine because we've had family in town helping out (I will blog about that next!). Something happens around 9pm and her little eyes just pop open and she is wide awake. The last few nights that has lasted a few hours, then she allows us to sleep for up to 4 glorious hours at night which is just such a treat. Also the last few days she has been more alert and we've gotten to have some fun with her being awake and seeing those beautiful blue eyes. She loves to be rocked and sung to as well.

Alright, no one cares about sleep patterns, let's get to the cuteness eye candy








Ruby and Molly's big introduction. Molly was interested, Ruby was not...

I've had lots of couch time with my girls


On her 2nd day home she helped dad install a new showerhead! We had to start to start early with our DIY ways...


So, there it is. We are home. We are a family. It is hard. It is the best.

Ruby Ann Luksys Birth Story

The due date had come and gone. We did everything we could to get her to come out, she wasn't budging. I so desperately wanted the labor you've see on tv and bad movies, you know the one- oh my goodness my water broke, then scrambling to get everything packed, Andy weaving in and out of traffic to get to the hospital, huffing and puffing in a wheelchair while I got checked in, then flash to me sitting in the hospital bed with perfect hair and make-up admiring my perfect angel. Yes in my fantasy none of that cumbersome labor was a part of what I imagined, I was trying to forget the whole "there will be a person coming out of me" thing. Well, needless to say the reality did not match my completely unrealistic fantasy and that is just fine because Ruby made her fashionably late entrance into the world exactly how she was suppose to.

So the plan was for me to go to the hospital Sunday night at 6pm so they could start me on a medicine that would get my cervix ready to go into labor and then Monday morning at 6am they would start the pitocin to bring on the contractions and start the labor. Sunday was such a strange day, knowing that we would become parents the next day, just the weirdest, most wonderful, most crazy thing, most scary thing. There was lots of praying that day, and lots of tears (from me) being on the verge of such an exciting time. We were late to the hospital because half way there I realized I had not packed anything for Andy to wear. I thought it might be nice if he wasn't naked the duration of our stay in the hospital so we had to go back home.

Me (very obviously) before the contractions came on.


So they started the cytotec Sunday night and it started my contractions. The nurse decided to go ahead and start the pitocin early since I was progressing. Around 4am she started me on the pitocin. Almost immediately I started having CRAZY strong contractions. She upped the dosage every thirty minutes and around 6am I thought I was going to die. The contractions were bad. I couldn't talk, I couldn't barely hear what was going on around me, I just grabbed a hold of the bars on the bed and tried my best to do my deep breathing. I never asked for an epidural because in my mind labor had just started and I didn't want to do it too soon and the nurse never mentioned it to me so I thought this was just how labor was suppose to be. Poor Andy tried to help but I was in my own little world of pain and didn't want to deal with anything other than just getting through those contractions.

So around 7am the new nurse, Pam, came on shift and became my new favorite person in the world. She looked at my 10 minute contractions, with 1 minute in between and just bombarded the night nurse with "Why are you still giving her pitocin? Why does she have no pain meds? What are you thinking here (my favorite question of them all) ". The night nurse slunk away.

Very soon after that the anesthesiologist was administeding what I will forever refer to as God's gift to woman- the epidural. Insert the heavens opening up and a bright light shining down with angels singing. IT.WAS.GLORIOUS. Seriously, I went from a pain level of 10 to a 1 or 2 within 15 minutes. I was in love with a drug. I went from 4cm dialated at 8am to 10 cm dilated by 11am and didn't feel any contractions at all.

So from the time I got time I got the epidural I felt nothing. Couldn't even tell when I was having contractions. Seriously, it was amazing. After a couple of hours of just hanging out the nurse informed me I was 10 cm dilated. SAY WHAT? I was shocked. The labor (after the epidural) was so easy I was convinced that the pushing was going to be really awful. I kept asking the nurse if I had pooped on her yet and apologizing for when I just knew I was going to. I had both Pei Wei and Kerbey Lane for dinner the night before in anticipation of not being able to eat till baby came. Probably not my best idea. Luckily it wasn't an issue, I was proud of that. Okay, nobody cares about that, back to the story.

I was 10 cm dilated for over an hour but Ruby hadn't come down far enough yet for me to start pushing. They could see her head though and the nurses just went on and on about how she had beautiful, thick, long, red hair. That made it so real. This thing that has been kicking at me, causing me to go to the bathroom 17 times a day, that I knew was there, was a real baby, my baby, that I would be meeting soon. Bring on the pushing! I was ready to see my girl.

So I pushed for a little bit over an hour and she came. And it was the best moment ever. We cried. We were in awe. It was just awesome and of course so very surreal to see a teeny tiny baby and know that it is yours. Magical.



Ruby's first picture, not so happy to be in this big, cold world!



We spent two night in the hospital and had lots of visitors, it was so fun to show off our little girl and just get some loving from our friends. We missed our family, but because we really wanted to have some time to ourselves to bond as a family we requested that we not have any out of town visitors for the first week. That was tough but there were lots of emails full of pictures going out every day to keep them satisfied.



First family photo



Hanging out at the hospital, falling in love with our little girl



So, there is the story of how our girl made her entrance. Nothing too wild thank goodness. I am a stronger woman because of it and just like my mom told me after giving birth I feel like I can do just about anything. Pretty cool experience to say the least. Just in the two weeks we've had with her she has changed us so dramatically and we are just so in love with her.