Happy Halloween

No rest for the weary

Happy Monday, the day before Halloween! I spent this weekend trying to get everything done. I won't bore you with all the details. Grandfather is doing better. He was moved from ICU to a regular room yesterday, so hopefully he will be able to come home on the next day or so.

My sister is still in jail. My mom went to see her Saturday and take her some things. My mom said she was pitiful and making all sorts of promises to change and do better. She begged my mom to get her out, but my mom is trying the tough love approach and she left her there. I know that had to be hard. I am so proud of my mom. My mom told her that we all love her and we just want her to be a part of our family again and to get herself together. She pleaded with my mom to please get her out so she can spend Thanksgiving with her family. I am pretty sure that my mom will get her out soon, at least by then, unless of course she goes to trial before then and she gets sentenced to more jail time. Things in the legal system are usually slow and tend to drag on, so she will probably be home for the holidays. I hope this is the eye opening experience that my sister needs to get it together. I miss her being in my life.

Speaking of legal system, I have been selected for Jury Duty! I am a little excited, I have never been selected for jury duty. I probably will not be picked to serve, but still it is exciting to me. Everyone thinks I am crazy, oh well, what's new? It isn't until December, so I will definately let you know what happens.

If you have a cough or minor throat irritation Ricola is awesome. I just got the original, and they really seem to help. I hate cough drops, but these aren't bad.

The babe's first birthday is next Tuesday! I cannot believe that he will be one! Anyway of course with birthdays you have to have a party. I have opted for a small family party. He really
hates crowds of people and I felt that he would enjoy it more if it were a smaller event. We are having 2 parties actually, one for my family and one for my hubby's family. Hubby's family's party is this Friday night at my MIL's. We are having dinner and then cake and presents. I am a little disappointed now because the lady that we were going to get to make his birthday cake can't because she is going out of town. Honestly, I am so disappointed that I cried when I found out. She makes the BEST cakes ever and that means now that his cake will have to come from Publix. I like Publix cakes too, but they are nothing compared to this lady's cakes. My family's party will be the weekend after Thanksgiving, when we all get together for Thanksgiving. I thought that would be easier on all of them since we will all be together anyway. So no big fancy birthday party with clowns or big bouncy things or fireworks, just somthing small and simple.

The time change this weekend has my babe waking up at 5 and 5:30 instead of 6 or 6:30. I hope he gets used to the change soon. Good news about him waking up that early is that I just go and get him and snuggle with him in our bed until he goes back to sleep. I love to snuggle with him!We are still weaning, we have cut out all breastfeeding except the night time one. It really has been smooth, much better than I imagined. He loves milk in his sippy cup, so as long as he is happy, so am I.

Now a picture of my sleeping babe after he went back to sleep in our bed this morning. He was snoring! The lighting is really bad, but you can still see him snoozing.

Friday Funk

I am in a funk today. It is gray and rainy today and I want to be curled up on my sofa sleeping the day away like I did on Wednesday. Unfortunately I have to be at work today so that ain't gonna happen. Anyway I have so much going on that it is just dizzying.

I started coughing and getting a little sore throat last Friday, a week ago. I still feel like crap today. I cough so hard at night I nearly throw up. I have taken so much medicine in the past week, I am amazed that I can keep my eyes open. The babe also has a minor cough and runny nose, but nothing like me. The stuff in my chest is finally breaking up and is starting to come up when I cough. Lovely, should I go on describing it? Okay, I will stop there, just know that I have not felt good all week, nor have I slept good. I have even resorted to taking the babe's Tylenol with Codeine at night because it knocks me out and I don't care if I cough.

On my way to work yesterday, my SIL called to tell me that MIL was taking her father (Hubby's Grandfather) to the hospital. He was spitting up blood and could not breathe. I was still about 10 minutes away, so by the time I got there they were calling an ambulance to come and get him. MIL is my babysitter, so I was kind of screwed. SIL stayed at home from work for a little while until MIL got back from the hospital. MIL was just going to bring the babe to me at work at 1:30 and I would just keep him at the office until time to go home. My boss is out of town, so this would have been okay. I received a phone call from my SIL a little before 1 that the doctors said they did not think that Grandfather was going to make it and I needed to come and get the babe NOW so they could get to the hospital. I immediately started crying and rushed out the door to get the babe. Grandfather has pneumonia, he is 88 and he has lung problems among other ailments, such as heart problems. Anyway his oxygen level was non-existent and it just wasn't looking good. So my afternoon consisted of me trying to keep the babe from unplugging all the electronic stuff in my office. Trying to keep him from typing on my keyboard. Trying to keep him from crying when I had to talk on the phone. Trying to get him to go to sleep already, you are so ill because you are tired, just close your eyes already. Trying to do all of this without the help of the Wiggles, or Blues Clues, or Barney or any toys to distract his attention. I was fried by the time work was over! As soon as we got in the car, he went to sleep!

I called my Mom yesterday because I thought something must be wrong because I had not heard from her. My sister has been arrested. I am not going into detail here now. This is a story that deserves its own post. Maybe one day I will sit down and write it. Just know that I think it is a good thing, possibly an answer to many, many prayers. God works in mysteroius ways. I have that on my mind though, even if it is a good thing, it isn't an easy thing to think about.

This morning, after a long night of coughing and then just when I would get back to sleep the babe would be up crying. Hello, why are you awake, you sleep through the night now, go back to sleep, I had to get ready for work. I had not heard from any of my in-laws to know what to do with the babe today. So I prepared for the worst, 8 hours at the office with me! I put the pack 'n play and TONS of toys as well as food and milk in the car and drove on in to the office. About 30 minutes after I got here MIL called and asked if I was brining him this morning. Well I explained to her that I had not heard from her and I knew that she spent the night at the hospital so I did not know if she felt like keeping the babe or not. She immediately came to pick him up and here I am in my nice quiet office ALONE! He might have to come back this afternoon, but I can deal with that.

Grandfather made it through the night. They have managed to get his Oxygen levels back up, so it is just wait and see now. Please keep us all in your prayers, we all need it.

Fall memories

Our first cold snap is here and it has been nice wearing warm clothes and not sweating all the time. The change in the weather means drinking more hot chocolate and hot teas and coffee. It bring back memories of my childhood spent in our too small farm house that lacked proper insulation. Just let me tell you if it was 30 degrees outside, it felt even colder inside. We had small gas heaters in each room and a fireplace in the living room to help keep us warm. My dad always kept a roaring fire buring. It would be so warm in there sometimes that we would have to open the front door to keep the heat from suffocating us. Everytime I smell a woodburning fireplace I am instantly transformed to those roaring fires from my childhood.

My dad had his many shortcomings as a father and husband, but he played with us and let us do many things to him that other people would not let us do. He would play doctor with us and let us put medical tape on his hairy chest and rip it off. I am sure that it did not feel good, but he did it anyway. He would let us put mom's pink sponge curlers in his hair and leave them there. He would let us paint his toe nails! He would pretend to eat our play doh food that we so lovingly prepared for him. He would let us dip our toast into his coffee and never complain of the crumbs that it left behind. I just hate that I was so young when he died that those few precious memories get a little more faded every year.

Pictures as promised

Squirrels in our yard. They are cute, but they make such a mess.


So many pumpkins, so little time!




















2 hour nap in the car!

Weekend in review

We had a good weekend. Nothing too exciting, but it was nice. We had a busy day Saturday. My day started at 6:15 am. My daughter had to cheer at a 9am football game, so I went ahead and got up and got myself ready so that I could help everyone else get ready and out the door on time. I got everyone up and dressed and were there on time! The babe went to sleep during the game, so he was easy to deal with. Hubby had to get a haircut and so our daughter went with him. The babe and I had to go to the bank and then to Toys 'r' us. They were having a great sale. Their Little Tykes stuff was buy one get one free! With Christmas and birthdays coming up I could not miss out on this one. I went and bought one thing and got one free and got a couple of things that were on clearance for the kids for Christmas. As I was pushing the babe out to the car in the cart he turned and tried to stand up and jammed his foot down into the side of the cart and began to scream. All these things kept going through my head as I tried to unjam his foot from the cart. I was able to get him free without having to call the fire department to bring the jaws of life.

Then after lunch we went to the Pumpkin Patch to get the perfect pumpkin to carve. This is the babe's first halloween and he really loves pumpkins. Anything with a pumpkin on it excites him. So you can imagine his delight at the pumpkin patch. I took pics, but left my memory card at home this morning so check back tomorrow for pics of the babe and the pumpkins. He played with some of the BIG pumpkins, but then we took him to the area with the baby pumpkins and he was in heaven. He took several of them and played with them. We sat him in the middle of a pallet with LOTS of baby pumpkins and he just loved it. They also had some of those wooden cut-outs that you put your head in and have your picture taken and we took pics of the kids with their head in them. We found the perfect pumpkin to carve and the kids each got to pick out a baby pumpkin.

On the way home the babe went to sleep in the carseat and slept for 2 hours, in the car! I parked in the shade next to our backdoor and I left him buckled in and left the doors open on the car and I sat in the swing and read a magazine and started supper and just relaxed while he slept. Hubby took our daughter to play tennis at the local recreation center and I had a nice, quiet couple of hours to myself, something I rarely get!

Saturday night we got out our home movies. We have not watched them since we videoed them. The tapes start last year while I was still pregnant. Let me just tell you that I was HUMONGOUS! I was huge. Everything about me looked fat. I really did not look happy. Then there was the day that the babe was born, me before we left for the hospital and then after the babe was born. He was so little. I cannot believe how much he has grown. He enjoyed watching the videos too. There was video of him scooting backwards on the floor before he could crawl and of him sitting in his bouncy/rocking seat watching TV and the Christmas tree. His arms and legs were just going crazy. I had forgotten how active he was even at just 6 weeks old! No wonder he is so active now.

Sunday was mostly spent at home. We played and just hung out. I cleaned off the deck and patio and bagged up some leaves and pinestraw. Then hubby asked if I wanted to use the blower to blow off the remaing stuff. Yeah I would love to use the blower. So he got it ready and handed it off to me and I gave the backyard a good blowjob! It looks so much better. I have never used the blower before and after I was done I could not feel my hands and they were very swolen. Let me just say that blowing is not something that I would want to do everyday!

Something I did not do this weekend was go to my sister's for my family's get together for the October birthdays. When they told me when it would be I asked if we could change it to Sunday because we had a lot to do on Saturday and Sunday would really work better for us. Well apparently my sister did not want to change it, so we just did not go. If she lived a little closer we might have gone for an hour or so, but it is an hours drive to her house and then another hour back home and then you have to stay and visit for an hour or so and honestly we just had too much to do at the time that they planned the party. I have mailed my neices and sister their birthday cards and apologized for not being able to come to the party, but it just did not work out. Was I wrong to not go? Should I rearrange my life and my plans to suit them? Anytime I plan anything I try to keep everyone else in mind. They just expect me to drop everything and be at whatever they plan, whether or not it is convenient.

Should you worry about a panda attack?

Apparently Pandas are very dangerous animals. Who would've imagined it? They look so sweet and innocent. Check out this story:

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2006/10/19/panda_bites_off_part_of_womans_thumb/

Be careful next time you go to the zoo!

Drowning

Have you ever been in a situation that you just can't seem to get out of, no matter how hard you try to dig yourself out if it, it only gets worse. I am there now. It's financial, of course. I try not to post too much about money, but lately that is all that I can think (worry) about. The cost of having a baby has been far greater that I imagined and without getting raises or any extra money from anywhere to cover the differences it has really taken its toll on our finances. We are broke. There is no money in a savings account for a rainy day. There is no rich relative on their death bed. There are no raises in our immediate future. There is however both kids birthdays, Christmas, property taxes, etc. on the horizon. We have already bought some Christmas and birthday stuff for the babe, but we have gotten the daughter very little so far. She is older now and it is increasingly expensive to buy nice things for her. It also makes it harder to buy for her because her mom and step-dad are made out of money and they spare no expense when buying stuff for her, so we feel that we have to try to keep in line with them. I am sure that hubby and I won't be getting each other anything for our upcoming anniversary or Christmas and that is fine with me. I can do without as long as my kids are happy.

I cut corners everyway that I can. I stock up on groceries and non-perishables when they are on sale. I try to cook meals that are inexpensive to make and go a long way. I eat a sandwich everyday for lunch at work, rather than eating out. I don't buy myself anything that isn't a necessity. I have let my hair grow out because the monthly haircuts to maintain my short hair were just not affordable anymore. I shop second hand stores for our clothes. Gas is so expensive we certainly don't make any trips that don't have to be made. We don't spend any money that does not have to be spent. Yet we can't get ahead. We did not take a vacation last year, we needed one, but we just didn't have the money to go anywhere. MIL even offered to pay for the place to stay, but we would have to pay for our food and activities and we just didn't have it. I don't like this feeling. I feel like it is smothering me and the stress of it all is really getting to me.

I hate to post such negative things here. I try to be upbeat and positive, but I am drowning and sometimes it is hard to keep a smile on my face. Just please keep us in your prayers as we go through these struggles.

I am a weaner

I started weaning my sweet little angel boy this weekend. I read all about the best and easiest ways to do it and decided on a plan of action. So Sunday I cut out the afternoon feeding. Yesterday when I picked him up after work we did not stay and play and nurse like we usually do at my MIL's. I grabbed his bag and got him out to the car before he could realize that it was time to nurse. MIL has started giving him a snack and some milk about 30 minutes before I get there in the afternoons so maybe he won't miss it too much. He seemed okay yesterday. I am going to try to cut out one feeding a week until he is weaned.

I will miss breastfeeding him so much. I never thought I would say that, but it has been such a bonding experience for us. It was something that only I could do for him. I think the time has come for us to end that part of our relationship though. I have for the past few months become increasingly irritable and stressed out (since the return of my periods). I feel it may be the time to go back on my happy pills, before I go back into that horrible place that I have been in before. My periods are BAD and the mood swings are awful. It is affecting everyone around me at home and work. I can't control the mood swings, but medication can. I know many people take happy pills and continue breastfeeding, but I have some questions that no one has really been able to answer regarding the side effects to my child, so I would prefer to wean him before I start taking any mood altering drugs. Also when I stop breastfeeding I can go back on regular birth control pills and hopefully make my periods lighter and make the cramps not as bad.

I know all of that seems so selfish when I read the reasons. I fear that if I don't do something for my mental health soon it could have bad results for me. I have very little patience lately and it is making me raise my voice more and have some irrational thoughts. I know I can hang in there until we are done with the weaning which should be in about 4 weeks. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I just keep reminding myself of it. I have surpassed most people's expectations on breastfeeding anyway. Once he is weaned we will have been breastfeeding for a little more than a year. That in itself is something to be proud of.

I am so glad that it is Friday. I have to go to a friend's son's wedding tomorrow. Hubby isn't going with me, he is gladly keeping the babe. He does not really care for this friend or her family so that works out great. The wedding is about an hour from our house, so I will have like 3 hours to myself tomorrow. I will have some "me" time, even if it is at a wedding. I have not seen my friend in quite some time. We were very close at one point in our lives, but as friendships tend to do, we drifted apart. We went to college together and she was my study buddy. I spent many days at her house studying and just hanging out. She has kids almost as old as I am, but she does not act her age.

**I am not a good friend. I HATE talking on the phone, so if you don't like to email and visit with me in person you will never hear from me. I do occassionally talk on the phone, but not often. I have to talk on the phone as part of my job and I don't want to talk on the phone when I am at home. That is just who I am, my real friends know that and love me anyway.

I did talk to her on the phone today and she updated me on some of the drama in her life then we got interrupted by work and I have not been able to get her back on the phone. I left her a message and told her that I was trying to call her back. Oh well, I will see her tomorrow.

I will also see my best friend tomorrow and I am so excited. She has finally started writing on her blog again. I would link to her, but I don't know how, so if you want to go visit my real life best friend she is BettyCrockerSyndrome in my links. She moved away and left me in this unfriendly town that I live in. She moved to the country, a farm in the middle of nowhere to be exact. It isn't close to anything major and it isn't on the way to anything. She has really surprised me at her ability to adjust to farm life in the middle of nowhere. She is now raising chickens, yes you read me correctly, chickens. As a matter of fact she just had 5 baby chicks hatch yesterday. She emailed me pictures and they are ADORABLE, all cute and fluffy! She will be in town tomorrow so I will get up extra early (like the babe lets me sleep late anyway) to go see her before the wedding. She is the reason that I started a blog. Before she started her blog I had never heard the word before. I am technologically challenged to say the least. Anyway she is an awesome writer and an awesome friend and I am glad that she is back among the bloggers. I missed her! Welcome back girl!

Happy (late) Blog-iversary to me

Oh no I missed my 2nd blog-iversary. It was on October 1. I tell you since I have become a mother I can not remember ANYTHING. It is awful. I no longer send cards or thoughtful little notes, not because I am not thinking about the people, but because I just have so much going on I do not have time anymore. Oh well, forgive me for not sending cards and thoughtful notes. How can you expect me to remember your important dates like birthdays and anniversaries if I can't even remember my own. Anyway Happy blog-iversary to me, even if it is late. If you have time go back and read my first post from October 1, 2004. 2 years, I can't believe that we have been together that long. We have come so far since that first post. Thank you all for reading.

Cutting it off

I have a tendency when people do me wrong to cut them off and be done with them. I harden my heart against them and try my best to forget them. It is easy to do as long as that person just stays away from me. It makes it harder when you have written someone off and then you see them, especially when they are a relative. I saw someone Sunday that I have written off and tried very hard to forget about. This person did not see me, but I definately saw them and my heart broke a little. That is a wound that will probably never completely heal. Who knows maybe one day this person will be in my life again, but now because of decisions that have been made it is not possible.

Fair fun

We went to the fair Saturday. Hubby and our daughter went earlier than we did and then the babe and I met them there a few hours later after his nap. Then MIL and SIL met us there a little later. I had so much fun, probably the most fun that I have had at the fair since becoming an adult. My daughter is finally old enough to ride the grown up rides and she needed someone to ride with so hubby and SIL and I took turns riding with her. It was so much fun. We rode so many rides that I hadn't ridden in years. I can definately tell that I am not as young as I used to be though. My body ached so bad yesterday after riding all those rides. Also the food did not excite me like it did in my younger days, all I ate was a corndog and a few bites of a funnel cake. The babe enjoyed it too. He got to ride the Carousel with us and he liked all the lights and loud music. He took a nap in his stroller among all the noise and people and then when he was ready to go to sleep for the night he just closed his eyes and off to dreamland he went. Maybe I need to install a really LOUD stereo in his room and some blinking lights.

He has had 2 good days in a row so maybe he this virus is really gone. He was back to his normal self yesterday. This morning in the car he was dancing in his carseat to the radio and I changed the station because I did not like the song. I looked at him in the mirror and he had gotten still, so I changed back to that song and he started dancing again, complete with arm motions and then he started doing his hand motions for the Baby Bumblebee song. It was so cute. I was laughing so hard! I am so glad that he is feeling like himself again. I feel like I finally have my baby back.

What would you do?

Let me give you a little background on the situation. I work for a small company that has a lot of clients. Earlier in the year a lady that works for one of our client's got pregnant. She and I talked on the phone a great deal then and so I offered to let her borrow some of my maternity clothes, since we wore the same size. She came over to the house and went through them and picked out some things and off she went. Well I was more than happy to let her borrow them because I had to pretty much buy an entire wardrobe when I was pregnant because I did not know anyone that still had any of their maternity clothes. During her pregnancy she called me less and less and occasionally I would email her to see how she was doing. I ran into her a few times at the mall and we talked, but not like we used to. She had her baby in July or the beginning of August, not really sure since she did not even let me know that she had the baby. I called her work and found out and they emailed me some pics. She is back at work now and I still have not heard from her. Anyway, I would like my maternity clothes back, although I pray that I never need them there are some charities here that could really use them to help those less fortunate and I would like to donate them. What would you do?

As promised, a post not about sickness

No this is not a post at all about sickness. I thought I would share a recipe with you today. As I sat at my desk late in the afternoon yesterday and pondered the ago old question, "What's for supper?" I decided to let the internet help me find something good and quick to cook. So I went to the Campbell's Soup website because I had some boneless skinless chicken breast thawed out and I knew I had some sort of Cream of Something soup in the pantry. Well they have a cool search thing on there that lets you choose which soup you have and then you choose some other ingredients and then like magic recipes for the items that you already have on hand are there before you. So I printed out a couple or 3 of them and figured that I would let my family choose which new meal we would try that night. They picked the one that I thought sounded best, which made me very happy.

From the time I walked in the door until I put the food on the table was only 40 minutes and that included prep time and cooking time. The food was delicious! My hubby and daughter are very picky and both of them cleaned their plates, hubby even ate seconds. It was so good even my sick baby ate some, and he liked it! Hubby then remarked that he liked it better than the frozen Zatarain's meal that I sometimes "cook" for us. It was a good night. I love when I can actually cook something wonderful and yummy for my family and get it done with out it taking so long. Here is the recipe for those of you who would want to try it. I am posting my version because of course I changed the original Campbell's version.

Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo
1/2 pkg. egg noodles (8 ozs.) *original recipe called for linguine
1 cup fresh (yeah right) or frozen broccoli florettes
2 tbsp. butter
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup *original recipe called for Cream of Mushroom
1/2 cup milk
1/2 grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. black pepper
*Garlic Salt
*Ms. Dash

Cook noodles according to package directions ( I like to add some salt to mine). Add broccoli for the last 4 minutes of cooking time. Drain.

Heat butter in a skillet. Cook chicken until browned, stirring often. *I like to sprinkle my chicken with garlic salt and Ms. Dash for some added flavor!

Add soup, milk, cheese, and pepper. Simmer over medium heat until everything is hot and bubbly.

Put noodle and broccoli mixture in a bowl and top with the sauce.

You see that was so easy and it really is good. You can change it around if you don't like broccoli, just leave it out or put cauliflower in it's place. Anyway I just wanted to share. I was so excited about it I made a copy of the recipe for my co-worker!

**Just an update to let you know that the babe is feeling better today. He has not had a fever all day! He has been eating and drinking and sleeping and playing at my MIL's all day and when I went to see him at lunch he was into everything. It looks like things are getting back to normal. I am so glad too!

Another post about sickness

Yes my sweet angel is still sick. The medicine that the doctor recommended on Friday didn't agree with my baby, it gave him diarrhea, so we stopped it on Sunday. It also did not seem to be helping with the pain. My babe would just gag and cry everytime we had to give it to him. He still was not eating much and drinking even less over the weekend. So yesterday it was back to the doctor. The blisters in his mouth and on his gums do not seem to be getting better, he was up ALL NIGHT on Sunday night and hasn't really slept well since this whole thing started 9 days ago. Anyway the doctor re-examined him yesterday and the babe has lost 9 ozs and this is the worst case of the virus that our pediatrician has ever seen. He prescribed some Tylenol with codeine for the pain and to help the little one get some sleep. We took a nice nap yesterday afternoon and slept last night with minimal interruptions. I slept with him on the floor in the den, so hubby could get uninterrupted sleep (he took him riding in the car at 3am Monday morning for 2 hours so I could get some sleep). I also did that so I could keep an eye on the babe to make sure he wasn't having a bad reaction the the medicine or choking or any scary thing like that. This illness has really taken it's toll on all of us and I am ready for my little boy to be healthy and happy again. Thank you to everyone for your well wishes. I promise a post this week that has nothing to do with sickness, but an issue that I really need your opinions on. More later... maybe tomorrow.