Well - she's off to a better place

My grandmother's (father's mother) health has slowly been declining these last 10 months or more. She would've been 89 in November.

Unexpectedly, her death has made me sadder than I thought I would be. I don't know if it's because she was my last grandparent or if it's emphathy for my dad. You see my dad's father passed away 14 years ago, and his only sibling almost 7 years ago. He's not close to his extended family so his immediate family was all he really had. In my communication with him last night and today he's been very mater of fact, which I know is his way in dealing with his grief. But I'm at a loss for what to do for him. A big batch of chocolate chip cookies just doesn't seem like enough.

For those that care I wasn't very close with my any of my grandparents except my maternal grandfather. I've always felt a little cheated in the grandparent department 'cause none of my grandparents were the ideal grandparent - except my Grandpa Clary.

So, the service will be Saturday at 2pm. Just a small grave site, and family only. That's what she wanted.

School lunches sure are better.....

....than when I was kid. Seriously here....no joke.

This week is my last week to drive myself to work so I thought I'd take the opportunity to go have lunch with S at school. (He's in all day kindergaten.) Plus they were having pizza - the boy's favorite.

Oh, if you care I start taking the bus next Tuesday. Figured out I could save approximately $300/mo if I rode the bus vs driving myself.

What was also weird is that they basically have the kids serve themselves. No longer does the lunch lady populate your tray with the various menu items for the day, but you get to choose!! They have 3 choices of the main entree (today it was salad, pizza, or sandwhich) and then you choose your three sides (carrot sticks, cooked veggies, and/or applesauce). Plus you get not only chocolate and plain milk, but strawberry....AND you can choose a juice drink as well.

Also, it was nice to see that my little monster is one of the tamest of the bunch. No joke - there were a few kids there that I thought could benefit from a few doses of S's ADHD meds. However, it was nice to see my kid is normal....even if his parents are not.

I think I'll pull my hair out!!

Wait a minute I don't need to.....it's all falling out on it's own!!! Seriously - is this mother natures sick joke....once all hormone levels are back to normal after pregnancy a woman gets to lose her hair?? It's not like I had a lot to begin with......I guess I should look on the bright side: the grey hairs are falling out like all the rest!!

Curious George watch out!!

T will give you a run for your money. We've been our new house for little over two weeks. As you can imagine most things are still in boxes, and only recently have we been able to get the boy's room somewhat unpacked and organized. Until then this is what T has found to entertain himself.

1. Inflatable ring for the pool - he loves to step into this and pull it up to his waist and bump into things as well as put it around his ankles and shuffle around the floor.
2. Toothbrush - he's going to have the cleanest teeth
3. Sippy cups - they're great to stack and unstack
4. Boxes - of course empty ones are every where
5. Floor tile - we're tearing up the laminent floor in the basement and T's been helping.

He's also been getting into everything, and taking his clothes off. (He's the poster child for the toddler nudest colony.) Unfortunately we can only keep him clean for about an hour at best.

However, he's cute, he's entertained, isn't causing much more of a mess than what was already there - so why not let the boy have some fun.

Why now does he want to be a father to the boy ? ?

Is it because he'll be 6 in October? Is it because he can just sit the boy in front of the TV, computer, or video game all day? Why? I seriously want to know.

Even though he couldn't take care of him for the 2 years he was unemployed, and had me put him in daycare. As well as, made me use all of my sick/vaction/paid-time-off to care for him when he was sick for 3 years. He thinks he can now be a father?? Or does he just want to be "fun daddy"?

I unfortunately gave him the door with which to open up the issue of custody. The last 2 times I've moved and the last 3 times he's moved neither has required the 30-day written notice be sent via registered and certified mail. However, I move out-of-state (40 miles away) and all hell breaks loose.

Not only did he file a motion to get immediate full custody of Stephen while we wait on a custody evaluation, but he got the judge to sign a restraining order against me from removing the child from the state of KS. All of this the Friday we moved and a week before S was to start school - more specifically Kindergarten.

Luckily my parents were kind enough to keep Stephen from Friday August 10th through Monday August 20th as we'd already moved 75% of our junk by the time I was served with the restraining order. The 20th of course being the first day of school. Our lawyers were able to meet with the Judge on the 20th and got things temporarily straightened out. Basically I get S throughout the week so that he can attend school, but he gets to spend all of his weekends with "fun daddy" until our Dec 13th court date.

My lawyer told me I was being punished by the Judge for not filing the 30-dy notice as required by KS law, and I was being made to be the authoritarian figure. Well, shit.....I'm that already....no big punishment there.....except I do miss out on the quality time of every other weekend.

So after everything's said and done I got the boy back the night of the 20th and he started school on the 21st. Now I just sit back and wait for ex-H to do something stupid and for the custody evaluation to start.

Dec 13th can't come soon enough.

Good News

Baby A still fights it, but she'll take the bottle!!!!! Weird thing is she prefers one bottle with Daddy and another with Mom.....each bottle has different shaped nipples. At this point we're not going to question it and just go with it.

As you can guess this has made my week at work a little easier.

Food Allergies & School

S has a Tree Nut allergy.......more specifically to Walnuts (Black and English) and Pecans. So, not only do we avoid food with Tree Nuts but Peanuts as well for the boy. We also spend $110 every fall for his EpiPens, Albuterol inhaler, and Zyrtec....enough for four seperate emergency packs. One for the school nurse, one for mom's house, one for dad's house and one for his back pack which goes with him everywhere.

Now for those who are wondering we didn't know he had an allergy. It took him eating a chocolate chip cookie with a few English Walnuts in them and vomitting immediately for us to figure it out. (BTW - it's the Black Walnuts he'll have the most severe reaction.) This was a year ago........and so far so good.

FYI - the reason for the EpiPens is because up until the allergy was discovered he was on meds for asthma (aka Reactive Airway Disease)....which he has out grown TG......and if he has Black Walnuts most likely it will be an anaphalactic reaction.

S does know to ask if a new food has nuts in it, and I, his grandparents, and dad all know to read the labels carefully. So before you complain about what you can and can't bring to school for your kid's parties.....just think it could be worse.....it could be your kid with the allergy.

FWIW - here's a great article on Food Allergies:
http://www.babble.com/content/articles/features/dispatches/Martini/foodForThought/

It's official.....we bought a house

However, I'm not excited as I should be. You see....there's some strings attached (which I've already made it perfectly clear to K that should his grandparents get too involved in our lives we're making other arraingments). First, K's grandparents are buying the house so they can reinvest the money they received for selling some land. Should mention that we are thne paying them a monthly payment....more than they could rent it for but less than a house payment for us. Second, due to the first we bought in a city we weren't excited about but decided that we could suffer for the 2-3 years it'll take for us to get some equity and buy a house on our own. Third, K's grandparents have reserved the right to come and stay in the spare bedroom as needed. This is the one item I'm not sure about....they spend about 8mos outa the year in Phoenix AZ so hopefully this won't be too bad.

Oh, then to top it off Stephen starts Kindergarten Aug 20th.....we're hoping to be all moved by Labor day. So - not only do I hafta get all of the paper work together for his current school I've gotta get everything together for his new school. Then to top it off we're moving from KS to MO....that's just a whole nuther set of issues: driver's licenses, registering the cars, etc.

And the best is that I start back to work on the 14th of August.....and A won't take a bottle.

Starting to feel like I've lost control over everything........stay tuned to see if I lose my mind next.

3wks Left

:( I only have 3 weeks left of ML......guess baby A needs to get used to the bottle. Hmm...on the bright side I might ween her off me as her pacifer....doubt it though.

Ugh - Car Repairs

Okay - really shouldn't complain, but still we had to shell out $450 for a new alternator for my '99 Nissan Maxima. More than half of that was for labor as the alternator is on the bottom of the engine, not the top like American cars. However, I still LOVE that car.....even if K and/or my dad can't do all of the repairs when needed.

Anyhoo - luckily I'm on maternity leave and K's grandparents have been borrowing it as it gets better gas mileage than their truck, otherwise we'd have had to play musical cars as well.

Funny thing - K's grandfather thought he'd left the lights on and ran down the battery.....I kept trying to tell K and his grandfather that that wasn't possible as the car was equiped with a sensor that when it sensed a drain on the battery it would shut off whatever was causing the drain. They of course thought I was full of it.....got the last laugh in the end didn't I?

Crying, Crying and more Crying

I don't know who's been crying more: me because she's crying so much and I don't know what's wrong or Baby A.

Seriously folks, I think she has colic. But rather than crying 2-3 hours at a time she cries pretty much anytime from 8am to 5-7pm unless I'm holding and/or nursing her. The gas drops do help, and I have noticed that after she has her 2-4 good daily poops is when she well craps out.

I've given up all Mexican (too spice), all caffine (including my beloved morning cup), most Chinese food (brocoli, etc seem to upset her), and have severly limited my intake of chocolate. These have helped, but she still just gets pissed off for a lack of a better term and the only thing that seems to settle her down eventually is nursing.

Basically I'm the human pacifier again. Not bad at night as A and I sleep together, but during the day it sucks big time. Especially since I had to send the sling I ordered back as it was too big. Trust me the new one in the correct size can not come soon enough.

Then to top it off I think she's going through her 6 week growth spurt early.....at least there I can help and once she does fall asleep (for a good 3-4 hour nap) I can get in 2, sometimes 3 small pumping sessions to help boost supply.

Hope this ends soon.......

Finally an update

Tomorrow Baby A will be 4 weeks old. Hard to believe ain't it? What's harder to believe is that my maternity leave will be over in 6.5 weeks.

We're adjusting......I can handle all 3 for a few hours at a time if needed, but we still haven't gone anywhere further than 1 hour from our house. And even that trip we had to stop on the way home 'cause Baby A was hungry.

Am I the only one that sees traveling with an infant who is breastfeeding as a disadvantage? Seriously here....if she was bottle fed you can just keep driving and plop a bottle in her mouth...not so when breastfeeding. Well, guess I could but then I'd have to pump in the car and that seems just as annoying as stopping and feeding her straight from the boob.

I'm very surprised how well breastfeeding is going this time around. Seriously folks.....yeah we've got our latch on issues, but I actually seem to have a pretty good supply going. The only thing that has me worried is that she'll be up for 3-4 hours at a time (taking maybe 2-3 15 min cat naps in there) crying acting like she's hungry. I get her on the boob - which lasts just until letdown starts and then she pulls off and doesn't want it. Mostly does this to the right boob.....but will do it to the left as well. She does this about 3-4 nights a week.

I'm just afraid she's still hungry or has gas or something else weird is going on. We have her 1 mo check-up next week so I can ask then, but until then I'm trying not to worry as she's still having the recommended number of wet/dirty diapers a day.

Now I just need to start working on getting her days and nights in sync with the rest of the known world and all will be good. Having her sleep in her own bed at naps and night time would be nice too, but right now not having her awake for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night is all I'm asking for.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER!!

Day late.....but better late than never....plus his party isn't until this coming Saturday.

Can't believe the biddy boy is 2 already. It's only really hit me since A's birth how much of a big boy he really is.

LOVE YOU T-MAN!!

HOLY COW!!

Okay - embarassed to admit this but I started my pregnancy with Addison weighing 237lbs. By the time I was diagnoised as gestational diabetes I'd only gained 7lbs....244lbs. Well by the time I gave birth I was down to 233lbs. Now, I was not trying to lose weight, but I was strickly sticking to the diet so Addison would have less blood work done once she was born.

Well - now that most of the swelling is gone I decided to weigh myself this morning.......the scale read 211lbs!!! Yes!!! I thought I'd eventually weigh in around 225lbs....never did I dream of 211lbs.

I'm still sticking to the GD diet (have been horrible about checkin my blood sugar levels) as my hormone levels are still elevated as I'm breast feeding, but hopefully this will help me lose all this extra weight I've been carrying around the last 3 years. Anyhoo - my goal by the end of my maternity leave is 200lbs and by my birthday in March I want to be down to 180lbs....and eventually I'd love to be around 160lbs. This would put me about a size 12-14.

Cute Stories

T: The day of A's birth I couldn't have anything to eat until I could stop throwing up. Finally I was able to get a nice liquid dinner. K & T were there, and when the nurse came in with my meal he started clapping. It was the cutest dang thing and the nurse said she wished she'd get that kind of reception from all of her patients.

S: Informed me the day before A's delivery that he wanted to see her being born. I had to tell him that they only allow K in there, but he will come up with Grandma Sue later in the day to see her and me. Oh, and when I call A Addy I'm informed that her name is Addison, not Addy.

R: Kept asking her name, and when we'd tell him he'd repeat it and act like he got it.....but then 5 minutes later would ask again. He'd also would tell anyone he say that A was his baby.

Things I've learned you can do while breastfeeding

1. Goto the bathroom....this includes pulling my pants up and down and yes, even wiping myself
2. Getting T outa his crib...helps the side does go down
3. Playing WoW....hard to do one handed, but it can be done
4. Writing posts on my blog and a bb that I read
5. Along with #4 - answering emergency e-mails from work
6. Fixing a basic lunch for either myself or the kids or both
7. Reading a book, magazine, or other reading material
8. Trim the baby's finger nails
9. Pump one boob while the baby feeds on the other
10. Give/receive a hug from one of my boys


There's more, but sleep deprivation is making it hard to think. Now once I get my sling ordered all of this plus more will be a little easier.

Well - I survived.....

.....this weekend with out K. He left Friday morning at 5am to go race his R/C cars about 2.5-3hrs away for the whole weekend. He won't be back until this afternoon (Sunday) until 3 or 4pm. He didn't carpool with the other guys he went with just in case he needed to come home in an emergency so at least he was realistic about that aspect.

I should mention that S & R are at their other parents house, so that only left me, A and T this weekend. Grandma Sue and Poppie were great at taking the boys (S & T) on Friday afternoon, and yesterday Grandma Sue helped out for most of the day. She'll be over around 10am today and will head home once T's down for his nap.

Also helps that most of my swelling is gone in my feet, and my incision doesn't hurt as much (just down to the ibuprofen as needed). However, I'm in desperate need of sleep. Little Miss A has decided to be picky about which boob she wants, and when......apprently during the middle of the night the left boob just isn't good enough. Mom and K both asked me if they were different flavors or something.

Oh well - at least I survived without breaking down in tears, and it has been nice to have the bed all to myself (well A slept with me most of the time) for the last two nights.

1 week old

Yesterday we had A's 1 week check-up. Already back-up to birth weight which means Mommy's producing enough breast milk to get A fat & happy. She was down to 6lb 15oz when she left the hospital.

S, of course, is doing great with her and has stepped up to the plate to be an even better big brother to T. T is being surprisingy gentle with her, and only really gets upset when Mommy can't hold him. That's more to do with the incision pain than me holding A all the time.

Overall the first week has gone pretty good.

The smallest things that can make you happy

In my case....it's Addison not having that tarry poo....but cottage cheese poo.

For the uneducated....now that her poo looks like cottage cheese it means that the billirubin is out of her system and we won't need to go get blood work on Monday.

The details

Mom made it to our house at 5:20am, and we were off around 5:40am. Got to the hospital around 6:15am. Around 7:30am they had me walk over to the OR. Got my spinal and they got me situated before having Keith come in a little before 8am.



Took them a few good pushes on my belly to get her out, but out she did pop. She was bloody and blue - which kinad freaked me out, and I think that's why Keith had to leave. He felt sick to his stomach - and having very little sleep, no food, and only coffee probably didn't help either. The Nursery Nurse took her to get her warmed up and suctioned out, and they continued to put everything back and due the tubal. Most of the OR staff thought it was funny I thought at 7lb 8oz she was small......until my doc informed them that until her my smallest was 8lb 8oz.



I was back in my room at 8:45am, and as soon as I was comfortably in bed they brought her to me. Took her a few tries, but she latched on and wanted the boob. Unfortunately none of my kids latch on correctly, so we're working on that. For those that care we're using a nipple shield until the owies I have heal and we can wean her off of that.

Due to my gestational diabetes her blood sugar levels were low, but after 24hrs she was within normal and no more tests. And just so she wasn't out done by her brothers she decided she wanted to be jaundice as well, and spent a good 24 hrs under the lights. I got up every 2-2.5hrs to nurse her whether she was hungry or not, and after 24 hrs her levels went from a high 13 to a low 9. Only needed it under 12 to go home, but the lower the level was when we went home the less likely we'd have to come back in for more blood work on Monday.

I really need to send up something nice for the nursing staff at the hospital. They all were great, especially when she was under the lights and knew I just wanted someone to talk to. I'm thinking we're (aka my mom) gonna make up some cinnamon rolls, etc and take up there next week.

Almost forgot - the boys (all 3) were able to make it up to see me and Addison. We did it in shifts, and it worked out great. S & R are pretty excited to have a new sister, but T's still making up his mind. I do know he's not happy that mommy can't pick him up whenever he wants....but that's more because of the surgery not the fact that he has a baby sister.

Overall we're getting settled. It may take most of my maternity leave.....but we'll get there.