Basil's Llama Farm

Meanwhile, Back in KaycieLand...

2012-01-20T17:48:00.001-06:00

I haven't mentioned a whole lot about what K is up to over the past couple of weeks. I've been a bit distracted. Let me take a moment here to point out a couple of things.

She hasn't done well with all the craziness of the past week. She's hanging in there, but her schedule's off and she's had grandparents here a lot. Greg has been home, which is weird for her, but we were gone for three days at the hospital and since then we've been coming and going a lot. This is not part of our normal routine, to say the least. She had gotten to where she loved going to school and would basically kick me out of the classroom if I stopped to chat with her teacher when I dropped her off. The past couple of weeks she hasn't wanted to go and this morning she actually cried and clung to me for dear life (which, of course, set me off as well). Hopefully we'll be able to get her back into some type of routine and provide a little more consistent environment over the next few weeks. She needs it.

Meanwhile, she's starting to scare us a little with her crazy intelligence. I can't speak to what two year olds are supposed to do, but she seems to be making some pretty big leaps with her abilities. In addition to figuring out that she can climb just about anything, including the wall, she has suddenly started coloring in a more focused manner (scribbling over individual objects instead of just across the entire page) and drawing "people." I wouldn't have known they were people if she hadn't pointed to them and told me they were Mamaw and Papaw. She's also started asking to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - but requesting specific episodes. And the kicker - she can use our Android tablet. Things we never taught her, like how to turn on the video player and watch MMC. I downloaded a few toddler games for her a few weeks ago but she's had trouble playing some of them, like the letter puzzles. Then one day this past week she started doing them with very little trouble at all. Now she can find the aps, start them, select which game she wants, and play them. Then she'll exit it and turn on a tv show. Seriously. I'm a little freaked out by this. Partially because it seems weird to let her use our phones and tablet, but she's pretty careful with them and I figure in her world using electronic devices is a skill she's going to need early on anyway.

I read a thing in Parenting Magazine the other night that said the average two year old should be able to make simple two word sentences. Ummm. My kid is making 5+ word sentences and combining them into conversations. She's very opinionated and likes to share those opinions verbally. She's also learning multiple-syllable words. Like chandelier. She learned that one in the lobby at the hospital. She also remembers songs, loves to sing them, and sometimes makes up her own songs and dances. And did I mention she's reading books to me? She can look through several of her favorite books and recite them to me, especially if they are rhyming books. The magazine also said she should be able to count up to three objects. She can get to ten, and sometimes higher although she tends to stall around 14. One of the toddler games she likes is connect the dots, and she can complete the ones with up to 23 dots.

This afternoon she had been playing puzzle games on my phone and apparently figured out how to send a text to my dad and emailed Greg...

And in the time it's taken me to type this she's taught herself how to adjust the volume on the videos on the tablet and downloaded two games from the market. Sigh. Hope they were free!

Anybody out there with a two year old know if this kind of stuff is normal? I really don't know...

A Brief Update on Luke

2012-01-20T17:28:00.002-06:00

I know most of you have followed the updates on Facebook, but I wanted to post something just so I'll have the info later.

Luke's done great over the past few days. Wednesday night he got moved into one of the "private" little rooms in the NICU. Can I just take a moment and have appreciation for the fact we're at Baptist where they have private little rooms in the NICU, along with an awesome staff, calm atmosphere, and respectful policies? I love that we can visit any time around the clock except shift change (6:30-8 morning and night) AND that they will close the NICU to visitors if they have a new admission or any serious problem with one of their babies. A couple of times we've gone up there right as they were closing for an admit, and my mother-in-law had to leave once because they were admitting a baby. I'm ok with that. And if they have a serious complication they need to deal with, I totally respect the fact that they don't want visitors back there getting in the way. I'm sure we disrupted things quite a bit the day Luke was born and I'm glad they closed it so there weren't distractions while they got him stabilized. If it inconveniences me a little to have to wait or come back later, I'm ok with it.

Sorry for the little detour there. Anyway, since they put Luke in a room we were able to let Kaycie back to visit with him for a minute. She wanted to hold him but had to settle for holding his hand and helping me hold the bottle to feed him. Then she wanted to go back to the waiting room to play, because that's just way more fun. :)

He had an MRI on Tuesday and the word from the neurosurgeon was that he wasn't concerned by the size of the clot and didn't think it would have any long term effect. He couldn't tell if there was any subdural bleeding (inside the brain instead of on the perimeter) but if there was it was minimal and shouldn't cause any additional problems. He wants to do a follow up MRI in a month and will be seeing Luke for additional visits after he is discharged. I feel good about that.

Since then he's gone two nights without any major breathing episodes requiring oxygen, so today the doc said we could start the countdown. Today is Day 1. He has to have five good days before they'll send him home, so if all goes well we're looking at next Wednesday, exactly two weeks from when he was born.

I'm pretty excited about that.

Today he weighed in at 8lbs 13oz. He's a growing boy. :)

Earlier this week the we began discussing the financial issue of this little emergency detour. It won't be cheap, but we'll find a way to deal with it. The part of the discussion that hit me pretty hard was when Greg pointed out that it's a really good thing we didn't buy the house we wanted a year or so ago.

We were very, very, very close to buying that house. It was a little over our budget and it would have made things pretty tight, but we could have managed. It was a great house. Perfect for what we wanted, really. The layout. A big extra "office" area. Large living room. Big master bath. Awesome deck off the back. Great neighborhood... But we just couldn't get comfortable with buying it. When the guy who had a contract on our house kept having to delay because he couldn't get his financial records in order, we took advantage of the opportunity to back out of both contracts. It was so hard to do at the time, because we wanted that house and we really really wanted out of this one. But it just. Didn't. Feel. Right. I've never regretted making that decision, but it always seemed weird that it felt so wrong when everything was perfect. I think I'm starting to understand. Now we're facing some monster bills, but we have some extra savings and a little extra room in our budget. We also have a paid for house that we can refinance if we need to. Medical bills of this nature can bankrupt people. I know that too well. But right now it's not real high on our list of priority concerns. We will take care of it one way or another. I can't tell you how nice it is to not have to freak out about that.

Rain, Rain Go Away

2012-01-17T15:08:00.003-06:00

I'm listening to it pour down rain outside. Normally, a nice rainy (tornado-free) day is very pleasant for me. I like the white noise effect of it. Today it's just dreary, which matches my mood perfectly.

I talked to Dr. Miller on the phone this morning and didn't hang up feeling encouraged. The truth is, I'm running out of things to be positive about. Every day I've made a big effort to focus on the good things that happened - Luke started taking a bottle, he got a tube out, a test came back negative, he was taken off oxygen... There's been little things progressing each day, culminating with getting him off the warmer table and in a portable crib yesterday. But he still can't go 24 hours without an apnea spell.

Today Doc basically recounted what we already knew, what wasn't wrong, and brought up some things that might or might not be going on. The neurosurgeon he is consulting said he couldn't determine if there was any bleeding actually within the brain or if there was any brain matter affected. He said we wouldn't likely be able to see that until the clot around the brain dissolves. He also mentioned the possibility that there could be an unusual cluster of blood vessels in that area of the brain that caused the bleed. The neurosurgeon did request an MRI which they were going to try to schedule for today. They won't have results from that until tomorrow at the absolute earliest, since the neurosurgeon reading it is at another hospital.

The problem is, of course, he's still having episodes where he isn't breathing very well and his oxygen saturation levels drop dangerously low. And he doesn't always recover on his own. He can't go home while he's still doing that. I asked the big question today - are we looking at days, weeks, or months? The answer was what I expected - they don't know. BUT, he really didn't anticipate it to be months. Which leaves us at weeks. One? Two? Three? Dunno.

The Good, The Bad, and The Awesome

2012-01-16T22:41:00.003-06:00

Sigh.

It's so nice to have Luke off the warmer table and into a crib. We can just grab him and pick him up and snuggle without a production of carefully detaching and reattaching tubes and wires and having to be careful not to pull anything out... I could have held him all day. Greg got to hold him for the first time (they took him so fast after delivery that I was the only one who got him, and only for a very few minutes) and my mom got to hold him. AND I got to change two diapers and feed him his dinner! A good day, indeed.

The bad - he had five episodes last night where his breathing got low enough to require significant oxygen intervention. The doc is concerned that he's still struggling at this point. He should be recovering on his own, and he does for the most part all day. He only appears to be slipping while he sleeps at night. We left a message for Dr. Miller to call us sometime tomorrow, since we'll never catch him doing rounds, to get an idea of where we are and what our expectations should be. People keep asking when he'll get to come home - no idea. We'd originally hoped for tomorrow, then Wednesday, then the weekend... We just don't have a clue at this point. He's doing awesome in all aspects except the nighttime apnea. I told him today that if he'd start breathing right and come home I'd give him a honeybun. I don't think he was buying it.

For a random Kaycie story today... two hours after I put her to bed she was still in her room jabbering about something. I went in and asked her what she was doing:

Me: What are you doing, baby?
Kaycie: Reading books.
Me: What?? (Walking to her bed)
Kaycie: Kaycie reading Green Eggs and Ham.

Sure enough. She was sitting up in the bed in the dark reading Green Eggs and Ham. Alrighty.

What Day Is It?

2012-01-14T17:00:00.001-06:00

I sat down at my computer last night and realized I'd started two different blog posts over the past few days but got interrupted so much I never finished either. I gave up on those and started over, although I only have a few minutes before I need to eat/rest/pump/go to the hospital/play with my toddler.

Meanwhile, we've had so many different up and downs over the past two days that I don't even know where to start. One question we've gotten a lot is about why we haven't been able to really touch Luke or interact with him. The bleed leaked into the spinal fluid surrounding his brain which caused serious sensitivity throughout his body. Not to mention that when you feel like crap you just don't want people messing with you. I can sympathize with that. The nurses said it's a lot like the preemies they get, they're just super sensitive in general. Light, noise, touch, any of it can agitate them. Being able to touch him a while yesterday afternoon was awesome, but the next visit he was very agitated and wouldn't let us touch at all. We were really discouraged last night because he wasn't tolerating anything. Today we went in and much to our surprise he was doing well enough for me to hold him. AND he took two feedings by mouth today, after having to have an NG tube put in yesterday because every time they tried to feed him he would try to stop breathing. I guess eating and breathing at the same time was too much for the little guy yesterday. Today he gobbled his food in no time.

I have no expectation for what we will find when we go back tonight. None. He may be awesome and let us hold him again, he may be upset, not breathing well, and not even let us whisper around him. Every visit is a whole different world right now. On the bright side, they took away the nasal oxygen tube. They're still having to assist him every now and then when his breathing gets shallow and he gets distressed, but he's done well without it so far today. If he can just start eating consistently and stop the shallow breathing and distress, we could bring him home middle of next week. I'm not harboring any real big hopes for that, he's got a long way to go, but anything is possible. This afternoon is the first time I've really though it might happen sooner rather than later.

Oh, and he's gained a couple of ounces. I know newborns are supposed to lose weight the first few days, but not my little guy. I call him the giant 8lb elephant in the room. His neighbor is 2lbs 3oz. The kid closest to him in size that I've seen so far is about 4lbs. Yesterday a lady was taking one home after 2 months that was less than 4lbs still. Seriously. I have a giant among tiny babies in the NICU. The nurse today said they were going to have to hunt him up some big boy diapers because he was quickly outgrowing the newborns one they had! Can't imagine they keep very many size 1's in stock!

Update on Luke

2012-01-12T22:42:00.001-06:00

Today was a good day.

Luke is off the vent AND off the nasal oxygen tube. He's resting well and let me touch him earlier today. He'd been getting very upset and having minor episodes with his breathing with any stimulation last night and this morning, so letting me touch him without freaking out was a big deal. After all he's been through the last 24 hours, I can't blame him. I wouldn't want anybody touching me either.

As we've mentioned on Facebook today, after having a CT scan of his brain last night they found that he did have a bleed. The doc believes it is between the brain and the skull and not IN the brain, which is good. They also said his blood count hadn't changed today, leading them to believe it's clotted and not still bleeding. They will be doing another CT to confirm that, hopefully that will be tomorrow. The doc also said he wanted to consult with a neurologist to make sure they were on the right track and a hematologist from UMMC to see if there were any other tests they should be running to look for a possible blood condition that could have caused the trauma.Both of those will hopefully happen tomorrow. Right now they have no idea how it happened. Normally they only see this kind of thing with difficult deliveries or situations where suction is needed during the delivery, all of which would have applied to Kaycie and none of which apply to Luke... Neither the neonatologist nor my OB can explain it; they're a bit baffled. Nothing happened during the birth that should have caused a brain bleed.

So now what? Well, we wait. I'm hoping they'll get to talk to all the consults tomorrow and let us know what they think before I'm discharged, but preliminary discussions lead us to believe they haven't seen anything that would provide any additional answers yet. If he's tolerating stimulation a little better tomorrow I should (fingers crossed) get to hold him. Hopefully by Saturday they should have the cultures back on the infection tests (precautionary) and be able to rule those out and take him off antibiotics. Eventually they will be able to take out his IV and other tubes and move him to one of the glass rooms so we can be a little more comfy. They're still waiting for him to show an interest in eating so they can try to feed him, but he's getting what he needs through his IV in the meantime. He has to figure out the feeding thing before he can go home, but that's not a major concern right now. He's resting well which is more important for the healing process right now. The best news from the doc today was that as long as the bleed has stopped and dissolves itself, we shouldn't see any long term effects.

Meanwhile, I'd like to point out that my son is already acting like his Uncle Bill. He was more or less arrested by the cops for mischief last night. When they took him to the CT they forgot to remove his security band (which we call the LoJack) and set off the baby-theft alarm. Security ended up having to escort him all the way to the CT, wait on him, and escort him back to his bed before they could turn the alarm off. Yes, this started at 11pm and took about 40 minutes. I'm sure the other guests here were loving us last night!

I'd also like to say that the staff at Baptist has been awesome. They've taken excellent care of me and Luke. The first person to come in and tell us there was a problem was the nurse from the transition nursery. She walked in and immediately remembered us from when she had us in childbirth class two and a half years ago when I was pregnant with Kaycie. She was concerned but calm as she told us that there were some issues and he had been taken to the NICU. This morning we found out that after she went home she called back up here to check on him a couple of times and had gone to see him before she checked on us first thing. We also found out that Luke had her in tears when he kept having episodes and they were having trouble reviving him. Three more times last night we had an update from either the NP or the neonatal doc, who they called to come back in and stayed to check on Luke's tests. From the time they told us there was a problem, around 7pm, it took about 4 hours for them to run enough tests and come back to us with a probable cause and a plan. And when we went in to see Luke this morning they told us that my OB had already been by to check on him as well. My poor nurse today was very concerned and checked on him numerous times. These people have been seriously worried about getting my little boy better!

Welcome, Luke! (Updated)

2012-01-11T20:39:00.003-06:00

Baby Luke is here! He arrived at 2:08pm weighing in at 8lbs 5oz (one ounce under Kaycie's birth weight) and 19 3/4 inches.

Kaycie was fascinated by Baby Luke. She wanted to hold him. She wanted to touch him. She said he's "MY baby Luke!" I suspect this fascination will last exactly until we get him home, and then she'll change her mind!

Unfortunately, he was having some issues breathing when he arrived. They thought he had some fluid on his lungs but while the nurses were monitoring him in the transition nursery he turned blue. Three times. So he had to make a little trip to the NICU. We're waiting to hear from the NP about exactly what they think is wrong. Could be that he is just big and moving his head around sometimes blocks his airway. Could be his little lungs aren't quite fully developed. Could be an infection. Could be a dozen other things. I refuse to panic until we know more. I can't freak out over so many possibilities, so it's better to just wait. They said it would probably be close to 9 before we talked to anybody, so I'm trying to kill time on my computer. I'll update this post when we know something. In the meantime, if I'd know what was going on I would have declined the percocet. I'm getting woozy and need to keep my head clear.

UPDATE:

Soooo...

We still don't know what's wrong, but we have some guesses and are working on getting it figured out. They are taking precautionary measures against infection because his white blood cell count was high, although the ratio of immature to mature cells wasn't really out of wack. They did a lumbar puncture to check for meningitis and will be putting him on antibiotics until they get all the cultures back in a couple of days. During the lumbar puncture they found blood in the fluid that didn't clear out, so the neonatal doc was concerned about a possible small brain hemorrhage. He's getting an echocardiogram as we speak and is being scheduled for a CT to look at the brain and check for bleeds. Doc said that can cause irritation including the breathing problems he's having.

Meanwhile, he's on a ventilator to help him keep breathing due to a bit of a panic in the NICU when they couldn't get him jump started earlier. The plan right now is to keep him for five days after he's off the vent and not having episodes. We haven't seen him since 3pm when they took him to the transition nursery in a bit of a rush because of the concerns about his breathing. Waiting and waiting and waiting for them to finish the tests so we can go see him in NICU.

This is going to be one hell of a long week.

Letter to Kaycie on the Eve of Big Sisterhood

2012-01-10T13:23:00.000-06:00

Dear Kaycie,

Tomorrow's a big day, but you don't realize that yet. Tomorrow you'll be the big sister of a little baby brother named Luke. You're not going to know what to make of this little guy (much like we didn't know what to make of you when you were first born!) but eventually you'll come to find him ~~loud annoying~~ ~~frustrating~~ fascinating. In a year or two he'll be big enough to play with you and talk to you and you'll have all kinds of fun together. In the meantime, yes, he will cry a lot. And as he grows and learns he will take your toys and stick them in his mouth or throw them. You'll get mad at him, but there comes a time in every little girls' life when she has to learn to share. This is your time.

It's my hope that you'll be friends and playmates and defenders of each other. It's my hope that you'll learn to help each other and find joy in each others company. As a little sister to a big brother, I know better than to think you'll always like each other, but I know you'll always love each other. You'll learn to have each others backs when things get tough. Because you're family, and that's what family does. You'll learn what "unconditional love" really means as you support each other through bad decisions and stupid mistakes. And you'll fight, and scream and look forward to time apart. You'll be jealous of each other and scream unfair when you think you're being treated differently. But in the end, you'll always know that no matter what, you have somebody else in your corner.

We're going to have a rough few weeks ahead, Baby Girl. Bear with us as we learn to be a family of four. Thankfully you'll have grandparents here to help out. Mom will be out of commission for a while, unable to play and give you the attention you need, but Dad will be here for a few weeks to help pick up the slack. You'll have to learn how to be nice to baby Luke, which won't be easy for you right now. But trust me, some day soon you'll love him and think he's the greatest new toy ever.

No matter what happens over the next few months, know that we love you just as much as ever. Having a baby brother doesn't mean that you have to share our love, just that we'll have more of it to go around.

I love you sweet girl. And I love the girl you're learning to be.

Mom

What I've Been Reading (or not)

2012-01-06T21:42:00.001-06:00

I've been putting this post off for a while hoping to finish one more book before I did it. Reality check - not gonna happen any time soon. That said, there's not much on the list but it's what I've been reading since Thanksgiving!

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman - This was what I call a "Southern Women" novel. It's about a young girl born in Ohio to a disturbed mother from Georgia. She ends up going to live with family in Georgia and learns about what good, strong, old fashioned Southern women are like. This type of novel really needs a genre of its own. That said, it was a fast, easy read and enjoyable, if a little predictable overall. I started it and finished it Thanksgiving weekend, courtesy of having plenty of family around to entertain my child.

Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins - Technically, these are considered young adult novels since the main characters are all teenagers and it deals with a lot of teen-related themes. That aside, they were pretty good. I liked the earlier books better than the last, but if you start them you will read all three. They take place in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic America that has been whittled down to 12 districts along a stretch of the midwest. As a reminder of the war that destroyed our society, the governement instituted the Hunger Games, where one male and one female child age 12-18 from each district is chosen by lottery to represent the district in a highly staged fight survival. The last one alive wins. It's a brutal system, and the games get a little graphic at times, but I thought the characters were well developed, the plot was interesting (until the last book, where it struggled a bit) and the relationships are complex. It's been a while since I've really enjoyed any YA lit, but this one didn't read like a teen book. It was good. (And I have all 3 on my Kindle, if anybody wants to "borrow" them. I just have to figure out how to lend things!)

That's it. That's all I've read. Sad. I have Cutting for Stone (and a couple of others) on my bedside table but haven't gotten past page 5 yet. Maybe when I have two kids that nap reliably I can try again. I also have at least 15 books on my Kindle to read. I'll get there one day, right?

Resolutions

2012-01-06T16:43:00.003-06:00

I was reading through a backlog of posts on my Bloglines feed today and noticed a lot of "New Year's Resolution" posts. I can honestly say it's January 6 and I haven't put a lick of thought into resolutions. Then again, I rarely do. But this year, naturally, I've had other things on my mind and frankly I know better than to think I'll be able to stick to any kind of plan over the next few months.

If I were inclined to resolve to do something this year, it might look something like this:

1. Sleep. Eventually.
2. Make a point to give Kaycie special attention, in spite of the newness and demands of MicroTot.
3. Give MicroTot special attention, in spite of the second-child-syndrome.
4. Give my husband special attention, in spite of the insanity of having two kids under 3 in our house.
5. Make waffles.
6. Survive.

That's all I've got. Sure, I need to eat better, but I know there will be a lot of white bags in our house over the next few months, like it or not. I'd like to think I could work in an exercise routine, not to lose weight (apparently I'm on the pregnancy diet again) but just to be healthier. Not likely to happen any time soon. I dream of getting organized and clearing clutter out of my house, but at this point that's laughable. At this point, I want to make it to next Christmas alive and fairly healthy and be able to say my kids are not only still alive and fairly healthy, but happy and developing on their own schedule. That'll be enough this year.

Fair Warning and MT's 38 Week Update

2012-01-05T20:00:00.001-06:00

There will be no more coherent posts between now and MT's birth. And there likely won't be many after for a while. Not that I won't try to post, just don't expect any that make much sense.

I have really made an effort to start this year with less whining and a more positive attitude. Except now my kid has bronchitis, a sinus infection, and an ear infection. And I'm right behind her. I feel like death, I'm giving birth to this kid in less than a week, contractions are getting stronger (although not consistent) and if it's not hard enough trying to sleep and function at 38 weeks pregnant, I can't breathe and wake up coughing half the night. Seriously. Ok, I'm done whining. I'll keep the rest to myself.

So this week was our last OB appointment. I can't say I'm sorry to see those go. Going every week, especially during December when the clinic is packed and it takes forever to get in to see the doc, was wearing me down. The sonogram suggested MT was weighing in at 8lbs 2oz, but I'm going to point out that we had a different tech this time and it was the same one that measured him so big the first time in December. We think she tends to measure them bigger than the other one. It's all a guess anyway. I had progressed to a whopping 1cm. Woo. Most importantly, I got the trifecta of sinus ickies defense - decadron, rocephin, and a Z pack. I was hoping it would have helped more by now, but not so much. I have a ton of last minute stuff I want to get done and it's just not happening when I feel so awful.

I also got my reservation for next Wednesday at the Hospital for Women. We have to be there at 5:30am and I'll be under gremlin rules - no food after midnight. Here's hoping my ickies are totally gone by then, or else this is going to be way worse than I anticipate!

Gaaahhhhh!

2012-01-01T13:11:00.002-06:00

So I mentioned in yesterday's post (and on FB) that I'd been getting "the look" and comments from people who fear that I will go into labor in their presence. We call this the "Brian Effect," since when I was pregnant with K I was forbidden to continue our Wednesday Lunch tradition at about 7 months because our friend Brian was afraid I'd go into labor. Specifically, he was afraid my water would break and it would get on his shoes. I'm not making that up. Anyway, hold on to that thought for a couple of paragraphs while I explain why it's relevant...

The plan for this weekend was that my brother and future SIL was going to pick up K on Friday, take her to my parents for the weekend, and drop her off on the way home today. Last night Greg made the suggestion that instead that K stay at my parents and we'd go get her later in the day or early Monday morning. Since my mom has to work on Monday I thought going tonight was the better plan. We can spend the night and come back in the morning, making the drive a little easier on me. I swore at Thanksgiving that I wasn't going to travel any more until after MicroTot arrived, and I haven't, but the lure of a few more leisurely hours to finish up a couple of things, eat a nice meal, and do a little more last minute errands in the Dogwood area (on the way to my parents' house) seems worth the couple of hours of discomfort during the drive. Plus hopefully she'll still be preoccupied with her grandparents tonight and I'll have one more night of not having to sit in the floor (ouch) playing whatever or being used as a jungle gym. Seems like a worthy trade to me.

My mom called a few minutes ago to make sure I still felt up to it. My brother and Brooke hadn't left yet, they could still drop her off, and apparently my dad was concerned about me coming.

Yes, my dad gave me "the look." He's afraid I'll go into labor at his house. Or that we'll break down on the side of the road. Sigh. Apparently I'm the only one not concerned about really going into labor. Yes, I've been having some random contractions most evenings, but not consistently or often. Yes, they are getting stronger, I woke up from one last night for the first time. But even if I did start having regular contractions, I'm pretty sure I could make the hour and half drive to the hospital. If my water breaks, I'd have even more time since they'd probably have to induce contractions at that point. The hospital in Philly, where my parents live, doesn't even have OB, everybody who lives there and has a kid has to drive somewhere else to do it, usually Meridian or Jackson. It'll be ok. I can't believe my dad is worried about me going into labor at his house!

That said, you all know that I hate packing. My mom has been on me for a week or more about packing a hospital bag. Ummm... I currently have two pair of pants I can still wear with some small level of comfort. I only have a handful of long sleeve shirts. If I pack myself clothes, I'll be pantless a few days a week between now and then. Of course, that's assuming I'll be wearing the same pants when I leave the hospital. I probably won't. But what will I be wearing? Who knows. Last time I couldn't wear my pre-pregnancy pants; not because I had extra weight but because I had different proportions. Despite leaving the hospital weighing 10lbs less than I did when I got pregnant with Kaycie, I had more width in the hips and thighs. I have no idea what to expect this time. I've been outgrowing my maternity pants despite only gaining 11lbs total. I'm considerably larger than I ever got with Kaycie. Like, seriously larger in diameter. I have no smaller clothes that are stretchy or particularly flexible. I've been wearing Greg's elastic waist athletic shorts around the house and will likely be wearing those in the hospital, but that leads to my next question...

Something I had to deal with before that I didn't anticipate having to think about this time is the weather. Having Kaycie in November meant I wasn't surprised to go into the hospital on a nice late summer day and come out to a brisk, chilly early winter environment. That's normal over 48 hours in November. But January? This one should be easy. It's cold, right? Except I was in shorts yesterday and still debating the pants/shorts decision today. Anybody want to tell me what the weather will be like in a week and half? I did pack some baby things last night, but ended up with like 9 outfits because I don't know what to expect! Greg would be easy to pack for, but he'll be coming home to shower and check on Kaycie anyway, so he probably won't need extra clothes.

My current plan? Pack for the trip to my parents tonight and deal with the rest next weekend. Enjoy my last few hours of leisure time. Go get my baby girl, who I have missed. I haven't been told, "Shhh, Mama! Don't do that! Be nice to Kaycie!" while being shown the hand in two days. She sure is a sassy little thing. Wednesday I'll take her back to school and head back the doc. Friday I'll take her back to school and hit up the semi-annual sale at my favorite local consignment shop. Then over the weekend I'll schedule some time to freak out over going to the hospital Wednesday morning and coming home two days later with a new little potamus. Whooooboy.

Mash Up - Year End Edition

2011-12-31T20:35:00.002-06:00

None of this has to do with the end of the year, it just happens to be New Year's Eve.

I told Greg earlier tonight that if I went into labor tonight I wasn't going to the hospital until the Christmas tree was down. Boom. Tree is nicely tucked away and ornaments are packed up. Not like it matters, but just in case I guess!

That came on the heels of all the people giving me crazy terrified looks and making comments about me going into labor while we were out in town today. I know our waiter from lunch was glad to see us go, because he was a little freaked out when he asked how much longer I had and I told him a week and a half. I really think he was afraid I'd go into labor in his section and have the baby in five minutes or something.

I can't believe I'm going to tell this next story.

Kaycie is spending the weekend at her grandparents' house so Greg and I could have a nice quiet weekend off before MicroTot arrives and everything crashes for a while. Being two young, energetic, fun loving people with no toddler to tie us down, how did we spend our Friday night of freedom? We went to bed before 8pm and watched some movies. First up was Cowboys & Aliens, which we turned off an hour in. We were both expecting something more Independence Day than Alien, and I don't do well with the jump out and grab you thriller kind of stuff. So instead we turned on Warrior, which is a very long, somewhat depressing, but quite good movie about estranged brothers who face each other in a big MMA fight. After that it was getting late and Greg said something about turning on the Smurfs movie because he was pretty sure it would be bad and we wouldn't care if we fell asleep during it.

At this point I'm not paying a lot of attention to what he was doing. He turns on a movie, which opens with a guy selling pot to a police officer and some foul language. I looked up and say, "Did they just say "sh*t" in the Smurfs????" Greg nearly died laughing. It wasn't the Smurfs, it was My Idiot Brother (which is most definitely not PG). For the rest of the movie there were assorted comments such as "Did they just show a naked woman in the Smurfs???" It even carried over into today. This wouldn't have been nearly as funny except I didn't even blink at the fact the guy was selling marijuana to a cop, just at the language!

Greg is not allowed to pick out the movies tonight. I can't decide between Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Thor, or Water for Elephants. How much should I make him suffer?

I miss my baby girl, but it's nice to have some down time where I'm not being told "Sit DOWN, Mama," "Play trains!" or "Cook with Kaycie!" It was nice to have a meal at a restaurant that doesn't have a mascot then do some browsing type shopping at more than one store. Kaycie, meanwhile, hasn't missed us at all. She's playing with her BFF Robin at my parents' house and getting spoiled rotten. Instead of my future sister-in-law bringing her home tomorrow I called Mom earlier and told her to just keep a while longer and we'd come get her. We should be able to work in another late-sleeping morning, another meal at a restaurant, and a little more shopping at Dogwood before we head up there tomorrow night. Here's hoping the labor thing doesn't start during the brief time I'm two hours from my hospital! That would be a very uncomfortable drive back.

Happy New Year, peeps. I need to ring out 2011 by organizing a few more things in the nursery and cleaning out some boxes stored in the bedroom. Because we're wild and crazy party goers without our kid this weekend. Greg did mention we could probably go to Walmart at 11:30 and not have to fight a crowd...

MicroTot Update - 37 Weeks

2011-12-28T15:37:00.001-06:00

I've dilated to half a centimeter. It's a personal record for me...

What does it mean? Not much right now. He's got his head down, which is good, and Dr. T said that dilating on my own would make it easier for me during delivery. If I actually make some reasonable progress then I won't have to be admitted to the hospital the night before they induce, which would be super awesome since I do have a 2 year old at home to deal with. The fewer overnights at the hospital, the better.

As for everything else, the little guy appears to have gained a few ounces, up to 7lb 6oz (we were right at 7 last week, all just an estimate) and passed all of his sonogram tests easily again. He was practice breathing the whole time. And right about the time Dr. T asked if I'd had any contractions I was having one, so at least that's happening a couple of times a day (happened with K too, so I don't get too excited about it).

Where does that leave us? On track to induce on Jan 11. As much as I wold have loved to have given birth today, it's not going to happen and that's ok. That was a fairly selfish dream involving insurance deductables, tax deductions, and my own level of discomfort. The important thing is to have a fully baked kid. Two more weeks.

Memo

2011-12-28T10:29:00.001-06:00

Dear Medical Assistant in Charge of Taking OB Vitals:

I'm 37 weeks pregnant with my second child. Not only do you not have to give me directions to the potty, I don't need detailed instructions on how to pee in a cup. I have that figured out.

Thanks.

Post-Holiday Mashup - Best Gifts Edition

2011-12-28T08:33:00.000-06:00

We didn't do a whole lot of giving and receiving of material stuff this year. We didn't have the extra cash, and a lot of the people we normally exchange gifts with didn't have a lot of cash. I made some things for some awesome people and of course we bought for the kids in the family, but that was about it. Frankly, I was ok with that arrangement. It took a lot of stress off of me in a year I couldn't handle much to start with. And we've all kinda gotten to a place where if we really want something we buy it for ourselves, so I really didn't need anything.

But material stuff aside, I got a lot of great gifts. Mainly, help and rest!

Last week my mom came to visit. She was planning to stay one night, keep Kaycie during our doc appointment on Wednesday, and help me straighten up a little around the house since we were having our family Christmas here on Friday. Clearly she didn't realize how much help I needed with that, because by Wednesday afternoon, when it was time for her to leave, she called and told everybody she was staying another night to help me get a little more done. People, my mother cleaned my bathrooms. I've gotten big and uncomfortable enough that cleaning the tub and floors is nearly impossible, and I'm not happy being surrounded by bathroom cleaner fumes anyway, so the bathrooms haven't gotten a good cleaning since before Thanksgiving. I was afraid I was going to have to rent a port-a-potty for our guests. Between cleaning the bathrooms, helping me organize a few things in the kitchen, and entertaining Kaycie, it was a very awesome gift.

Meanwhile, Wednesday afternoon I get a text from Greg that his 2pm appointment was a setup. His office threw him another diaper shower. You know what the only really big things we still needed for MicroTot was? Diapers. I unloaded everything yesterday and couldn't believe how many there were. We're pretty set for a little while. Whew. Merry Christmas to us!

Friday night my family all converged at my house for Christmas. Now this may not sound like a good thing, but I declared myself unwilling to travel after Thanksgiving so not having to drive two hours and spend a weekend away from home was fantastic. It was just my parents and my brother with his family, so six adults and four kids total. The kids had a fantastic time and everybody was perfectly happy to eat take out BBQ and pizza, so no cooking and very little post-celebration cleaning for me. Whew. Very low stress holiday.

Saturday Greg's parents came. Again, you'd think this would create more stress, but ohhhh no. They're awesome. Terry brought all the food for two days, cooked dinner, and cleaned the kitchen while Don played with Kaycie and then helped Santa get everything put together for Sunday. Sunday morning they were there for the big Santa reveal, Terry made breakfast and lunch. We spent most of the day either eating or opening gifts and then I got to take a nap while Terry cleaned up and put all the food away. By this point I'm getting a little spoiled.

So yesterday I had to get back in the groove. Everybody was gone, the holidays over, and it was just Kaycie and I all day. School doesn't start back for another week. We had made the best of it and I was just getting into my afternoon funk of discomfort and pain when my phone rings. It's my brother's fiance with a proposition. They're going to my parents' house this weekend and want to pick Kaycie up on the way and take her to spend the weekend with her grandparents so Greg and I can have a couple of days to rest up and spend together before MT arrives.

Seriously?

The gifts just keep coming...

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T14:26:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas from the Hall Family!

Crazy Things Keep Happening...

2011-12-22T13:20:00.004-06:00

So yeah, post number 3 today. Because the day gets weirder as I go along...

First I'm having a generally crappy day, then I feel bad about whining because my cousin died and frankly that sucks for her family a whole lot more than anything else that's happened to me today.

So I end up up in Home Depot with my whiny kid, late for lunch and naps because I wanted to pick up a couple of things I needed to finish some projects while she napped. The plan was 10 minutes or less in Home Depot, grab some lunch on the way home, feed the kid and put her down for naps hopefully no more than 30 minutes late.

Except I ring up all of my stuff at the self checkout and realize I don't have my wallet. I stuck it in her diaper bag yesterday when we went to the zoo so I didn't have to take my purse in. And of course I didn't grab her diaper bag when we left today because I was going to spend less than 10 minutes in Home Depot, grab some lunch and run back home.

Let's add in the whiny toddler who MUST HAVE the new measuring tape I had to pick up because she broke my other one yesterday. Except now I can't pay for it, so I have to take it away from her and she is already hungry and tired. You can picture how well that went over.

Anyway, I walk up to the attendant to see if she can clear the register where I rang everything up and hold my stuff until I can run home to get my wallet and come back, whiny toddler and all. Frankly, all I wanted to do was sit in the floor and cry with my kid.

While I'm waiting the attendant is having a conversation with the woman in line who apparently has become a regular since her house burned down earlier this year. She's waiting on something so I butt into the conversation, trying to talk over my crying child, to explain what happened. In the middle of that the desk phone rings so the attendant asks me to wait and the lady in line starts asking me about my little predicament. I explain what happened and why my child is screaming and that I just need to run home and get my wallet.

Yes, the lady in line in front of me, whose house burned to the ground earlier this year, paid for my $20 worth of stuff that was so very much not urgent so that I wouldn't have to go through the inconvenience.

I insisted that it wasn't necessary, but she said she'd been blessed by other people when her house burned and wanted to share with others.

So, I'm bummed because I'm at the end of a healthy pregnancy, my mom is awesome and alive, and I have a perfectly good house that's still standing? I think somebody in this house needs an attitude adjustment, and I think it's me.

To make it better, the diaper bag with my wallet was in the van the entire time. We never took it in yesterday. Ever feel like God puts you in a place to learn a lesson?

Did I Say That Out Loud?

2011-12-22T10:34:00.001-06:00

Ummm. You know how in my last post I was whining about inconsequential things and started out saying I knew things could get worse?

I just got a message that one of my cousins, a breast cancer survivor who had battled metastasis to her brain and bones for more than ten years, died last night.

I last saw her at her son's wedding in Memphis this summer and she was carrying an oxygen tank and looked terrible. I guess it was a matter of time, but days before Christmas? That hurts my heart for her husband and kids.

Technical Difficulties

2011-12-22T09:32:00.003-06:00

I'd ask if this day could get worse, but I know it can.

I'm a wee bit frustrated today. First, my mom left this morning after staying an extra day to help me clean house and chase my kid. She's awesome. As in "cleaned our bathrooms while we were at the doc yesterday" awesome. Cause I can't bend over enough to clean the tub or the floors and both bathrooms were beyond the point where I'd want anybody to walk into them.

Did I mention I'm hosting Christmas for both sides of the family this year due to my decision to not travel anymore until the baby arrives? Yeah. That would not only my parents, but my brother, his fiance, her three kids on Friday; then my inlaws who are spending the night on Saturday to be here for Christmas on Sunday, along with the return of my parents on their Santa-Tour Sunday. That's a lot of extra people visiting my nasty bathrooms/kitchen/living room this weekend. But Mom hooked me up, which was beyond the call of duty. Just saying.

Anyway, that wasn't the point. Mom left very early this morning, which left Kaycie very very sad. Add the nasty weather to the mix and I knew she was going to have a rough, whiny day. Indeed, she cried because she couldn't get the Christmas tree lights on, then cried because I helped her turn them on. Sigh. She's refused to eat and wants to do nothing but watch Curious George. Whatever.

Next, my Yahoo mail account was hacked last night and lots of emails went out that may contain a virus. Lovely. I've been meaning to ditch that account anyway due to Yahoo's desire to make me completely reset my password every two weeks by telling me that I "forgot" the password that I'd had for six years and had saved in cookies (GAH!). However, I've the account so long and had so many other accounts linked to it to that it seemed like a daunting task so I kept putting it off. Today was the last straw, so I started moving stuff to Gmail. That was frustrating in itself. Then I realized my Flickr account is a Yahoo product, so I can't exactly 'move' that (although I moved the notifications). Then I couldn't get my new Google account to sync to my phone (still not working). Then I had to reset some other log in info on my phone to reflect the new email (Facebook...) and then... Well, it's been a pain. Add a grumpy child to the mix and it's been a bad morning.
ho
So I give up for the moment and decide to finish up the very last of my Christmas baking. I have everything done for gifts for tomorrow night except the truffles. Knowing I had saved the recipe here on the blog, I pulled it up and searched for "truffles." Apparently I'd disabled the search feature on my blog. What???? Ok, fine. I dink with it a while and get it tuned back on. I search for "truffles." No posts found. Now, not only did I know that I posted it, but I knew I tagged it as truffles and as gifts. So I searched for "gift." Nothing. I finally start scrolling back through my posts, knowing it wasn't far back, and find it. The word truffle is not only tagged, but it's all over the post. Why the heck wouldn't it find it??? I dunno. But I'm frustrated with the blog now.

With that said, I've got the first step of the truffles done and chilling in the fridge until nap time. I have most of my accounts moved from Yahoo, although I can't actually get the emails on my phone. I can't actually delete my Yahoo account because of Flickr, but at least I can ignore it. Now I have to figure out what to do with the whining kid on a yucky day when I need to be finishing up the cleaning and running a couple of errands. Sigh.

36 Weeks - (Not So) Shocking Developments

2011-12-21T13:51:00.001-06:00

So today I went back to the doc for my weekly appointment and they were not only doing a sonogram but "checking" me for the first time.

Sonogram shows he's about 7lbs, which is right on track. He passed all his tests during the sonogram (movement, practice breathing, fluid, etc). The movement test wasn't a problem, he was fighting the sono tech the whole time.

Turns out my doc was delivering her second baby of the day and it had turned into a C-Section, so we were given the choice to wait forever or to see one of the other docs that I didn't know. I chose the other doc. He checked and me to see if we had made any progress at this point.

Anybody want to guess on how that turned out?

I suppose to put a silver lining on it I should say that I'm dilated as far as I was when I was admitted to the hospital with Kaycie.

On the down side, that would be exactly zero centimeters.

I told Greg that my hopes for Dec 28 were dwindling and we might as well suck it up and accept the fact that we'll be having this kid on January 11. Which is fine. He'll be pretty much fully cooked by then and at least we'll have the plan in place for somebody to take care Kaycie and everybody else who plans to be there can make arrangements.

But I was really really hoping to have this kid in 2011 and be home before the new year.

Honey Glazed Roasted Almonds

2011-12-19T17:28:00.002-06:00

I found it. The roasted almonds I'd been looking for. These are going in my Christmas goodie boxes for my mom and sister-in-law-to-be. If there are any left. And I apologize to those I've already given stuff to that didn't get any. You really should have, because these are awesome.

Honey Glazed Almonds

2 c. whole almonds, skins on
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp cinnamon or chili powder (optional, depending on the flavor you want!)
2 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. water
2 tsp. almond or vegetable oil

Spread the almonds in a single layer in a shallow ungreased baking pan and place in a cold oven. Bake at 350 degrees, stirring occasionally, until the internal color of nuts is tan (12 to 15 minutes). Remove from oven and set aside.Thoroughly mix the sugar, salt and either cinnamon or chili powder (if you choose). Stir together the honey, water and oil in a medium size pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir in the roasted almonds and continue to cook and stir until all the liquid has been absorbed by the nuts (about 5 minutes or less, don't let it burn). Immediately transfer to a medium bowl and sprinkle sugar mixture over all and toss. Spread on wax paper and cool.

Nom. Nom some more. Then nom again... Make more. Nom...

Nursery Revisted (and a Blog Exclusive)

2011-12-16T16:09:00.002-06:00

Lest you think MicroTot is being totally neglected, based on this post of his nursery, I wanted to assure you that I've made some progress and he's getting his own home makeover. Instead of the bright flowers and colors of my shower curtain art for Kaycie's nursery, MT is going to get to live in a jungle. Which I find nothing short of appropriate. I haven't finished everything and I'm not sure what else to do with some areas, but here's part of what I've got done:

Decals around the crib and the lion mirror attached. I haven't moved the mattress up yet, but it has monkey sheets on it instead of being full of Christmas gifts and junk! :)

MT's new chest of drawers (which is FULL) and his Mickey Mouse car seat, which obviously won't be staying in the nursery! There's also a closet full of his new clothes instead of stuff Kaycie has outgrown. Ignore everything else in the closet, I'm still working on some storage issues for the stuff in the floor and the shelf.

Didn't find any shower curtain art this time, but my mom bought me some canvas prints for the wall! I've also got to find a lamp for his shelves, but I'll get to that eventually. Would love something else to go on the wall (above the line of decals) on both this short wall and above the crib, but I don't know what that'll be.

And because while going back to get the links for the top of this post I realized that I did a blog exclusive at 35 weeks with Kaycie, I figured it was time to go ahead and do one for MicroTot. I may post some of the other nursery pics to FB, but this one won't be revealed until after he arrives. We've already told quite a few people who've asked, I just haven't offered it up to the general public yet!

Countdown

2011-12-15T14:54:00.001-06:00

So I figured tomorrow I would start the 1 month countdown to MicroTot's due date, January 16. But yesterday Dr. T informed us that due to my age she didn't want me to go full term and we should go ahead and look at dates to induce the week before. We settled on January 11, so I guess the countdown is already underway. Less than a month to go.

We also talked about the fact that the nausea has returned, although not as bad as usual for me. She mentioned that this was usually a sign of "the end" and suggested I may go before then.

The next question of course is whether or not I'll dilate on my own this time. She'll start checking for that next week which will give us a better idea of what to expect. Thankfully I made a big dent in getting the nursery ready this week, so if he does get a wild hair to come earlier than the 11th I'm slightly more prepared! Now if I can just get the rest of my house cleaned...

A Little Pre-Christmas Sanity Check

2011-12-13T16:40:00.000-06:00

Yes, I said I wasn't going to be posting much more this week, but this ten minutes of peace were brought to you by a new wooden train set that my little curly headed kid thinks is awesome.

What? I was supposed to hoard all new toys until Christmas???

Nah. To be honest, Kaycie is only getting a couple of things from us this year, and one bigger things (a play kitchen) from Santa. But she'll get plenty from grandparents and other assorted family members. She'll get bombarded with toys over a 2-3 day period and will probably be too overwhelmed to figure out what to play with as it is.

Today we picked up this little inexpensive off brand wooden train track set because she's really digging the trains around our house right now (and I had a $5 coupon). I asked Greg if he thought we should save it for Christmas or go ahead and get it for her. His response? "Is she going to have a shortage of toys at Christmas?"

Nope.

But I may have a shortage of sanity in the meantime.

Poof. That's when the brilliant plan hit. Give her the train today and use it as a tool to get some things done over the next two weeks! I can make fudge without help because she's choo-chooing. I can blog because she's choo-chooing. I might can sort out some baby stuff and wash some new baby clothes because she's choo-chooing. I can sit and breathe without being used as a Mama-gym for a few minutes... because she's choo-chooing. That's worth way more than what we paid for the train. And it'll get more use in the next two weeks than it would after Christmas when it's competing with a dozen other shiny new things.

Meanwhile, I'm having some seriously freaky flashbacks to the days when my godson Edwin was about her age and totally Thomas the Tank Engine obsessed. He played with a very similar set (only with the very specific Thomas character trains!) for YEARS. I wonder if this is a point in his favor as to which of the Emmer boys she'll end up marrying. Ian has been in the lead for a long time...

Mash Up - Mocha Monday Edition

2011-12-12T11:31:00.000-06:00

I really need today to be mocha Monday. I keep falling asleep on my feet. Damn you, sugar restricted diet.

Last Thursday when I talked to my mom and told her what we still needed for the baby I told her I had 3 0-3 month footie pajamas. Last night after I finished going through all the hand me downs and stuff I pulled out of storage from Lauren, I have 14 footie pajamas in 0-3 months. I went from no blankets to 7 fuzzy blankets and 8 receiving blankets. I went from no bibs to half a dresser drawer full of bibs. My current list of things I need has gotten very, very short.

My kid is walking circles around the kitchen singing Twinkle Twinkle. It's hysterical. I need to get that on video because she sings way better than I do. And her rendition of Jingle Bells is awesome. And the ABC song. And Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" is pretty entertaining.

Speaking of my kid, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that her favorite food at the moment is ramen noodles. I don't know how that happened. She'd never had any until a couple of weeks ago and now she loves it. She ate next to nothing all weekend so I made us both a pack of ramen to share this morning and she ate most of it. I dunno.

My mom is at her oncologist as we speak getting her last PET scan read and (fingers crossed) being told she doesn't have to come back every six months anymore. After 5 years, that's some serious good news to get. And then we're going shopping to whittle a few more items off that list I mentioned earlier. She's been very anxious to go shopping for the little guy!

My sweet husband, who was so supportive of my sugar restricted diet when I was preggers with Kaycie, looked at me yesterday and said, "It wouldn't kill us to have some chocolate in the house..." HA! So I bought him some chocolate and the last ingredient I needed to make him some fudge. And I splurged and bought myself some almonds to roast and some Chex to make party mix. Figure if I have some reasonable seasonal snacks I won't be quite so tempted by the chocolate!

Speaking of my husband, we had this conversation over text this morning:

Me: My flat iron died. I'm planning the memorial service right now.
Greg: Stay calm. Do they still make the one you use? We have a $10K emergency fund for times like these.
Me: I have no idea, I haven't had to look at them since before we were married!
Greg: Do I need to come home?
Me: YES! And stop by Walmart to get me a flat iron. I have to go shopping with Mom this afternoon...

I need to go get some things done before my fam arrives. I know I've been a posting fool this weekend, but don't expect that trend to continue. :) Have a good week, peeps.

Holiday Happys #4 - Spice Mixes

2011-12-11T19:16:00.000-06:00

Last one! This was a special gift I made just for my BFF Sharonda. She's recently discovered how easy it is to make taco soup. It seems like every time I've seen her in the past two months we've been in the store getting taco seasoning and ranch dressing packets to make soup! So, for her special Christmas happy, I made her some homemade seasoning mixes of each. I love these recipes because I can use considerably less salt than the store bought mixes and with the taco seasoning I can control the heat by keeping it pretty mild in the mix and adding a little red pepper or chili powder as I use it (or not, depending on who I'm feeding!). The taco mix is the one I've been using for a while at home.

I haven't actually used the ranch mix before, so I can't promise it's good (Update - Sharonda said it was yummy and she used all of it over Christmas!) If it's not I found at least a dozen different versions I can try. This one was a combo of some different ones, and it makes a lot. I filled that jar and another smaller jar. It would be easy to half or third this recipe for a smaller amounts. You can get close on the amounts that don't divide equally.

Ranch Dressing Mix

1 1/3 cup dried parsley
5 Tbsp garlic powder
3 Tbsp onion powder
2/3 cup dried minced onion
1 Tbsp dried dill
1/2 tsp black pepper
2/3 cup buttermilk blend powder

Mix everything but the buttermilk powder together and run through a food processor or blender (I used my little mini-chopper) to make a more powdery consistency. Add buttermilk powder and stir together. Store in air tight container.

3 Tbsp = 1 packet of mix

Salad dressing - In a small bowl, whisk 1 cup mayonnaise, 1 cup plus 6 Tbsp buttermilk and 3 tablespoons mix. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Ranch dip - In a small bowl, combine 2 cups (16 oz) sour cream and 3 tablespoons mix. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Taco Seasoning Mix

1/4 cup onion powder
1/4 cup chili powder
3 Tbsp salt (feel free to use less, I usually do)
4 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp red pepper flakes or 1/2 Tbsp ground red pepper
2 tsp beef bullion
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano

Mix, stir, store in air tight container.

2 Tbsp = 1 packet of mix

To make taco meat - add 2 Tbsp mix plus 1/3 cup of water for each pound of ground beef.

I bought the jars at Kroger on sale for like $1.50 each. I had some other spice jars I'd planned to use but the mouths were too small to actually dip a tablespoon into them, so I decided to get some wide mouth jars. Since both recipes call for measurements in tablespoons, I included a Tbsp measuring cup from the sets I got at Fred's. I printed the tags with the amount to use and the recipes I included under each mix. I also put the ratio to make 1 packet on the label for easy reference, since I knew she'd be using it to replace "packets" in the taco soup recipe.

Whew. I think that covers everything I've made (so far) for this holiday season. I'd love to fill up a dozen tins with fudge and spiced almonds and caramel filled truffles... sigh. If I start making that stuff I'll go broke and then scarf half of it before it ever sees a tin. Maybe next year I can do a combo of gifts in a jar and baking. I'd like to try some soup mixes in a jar next year too!

Christmas Happy #3 - Apple Butter and Dessert Sauces

2011-12-10T18:32:00.000-06:00

I really shouldn't give away all my secrets. The people I gave these little gifts to today are totally going to feel cheated when they realize how easy they are to make...

First up, Apple Butter. This was actually my second batch and I won't lie, it wasn't as good as the first. This goes to show how flexible you need to be for this recipe. I did mine in the crock pot, no mess, no burning, crazy easy.

The hardest part of this recipe is figuring out the apples. I try to use three different types to get a better flavor, but you also have to understand that even the same type of apples will have different levels of sweetness at different times. The first batch I made was made mostly from some awesome Fuji apples along with about three or four honeycrisp and a handful of red delicious that were hanging out in my fridge and needed to be used up. This was during peak apple season and they were fabulously sweet and crunchy and yum. The apple butter was declared perfect tasting by my in-laws, who should know considering they are experts.

The second batch I decided to do the same routine, but found the apples a little hard to locate. Apparently peak apple season is short or I just had exceptionally bad timing at Kroger, but they had no Fuji apples out in the bin. I did grab a couple of honeycrisp, a couple of ambrosia, and found the very last 5lb bag of Fuji in with the bags of red delicious. Unfortunately, as I started chopping and sampling I quickly realized that none of these apples were anywhere near as sweet and tasty as the previous batch. I ended up increasing the sweetner but the butter still turned out not quite sweet enough for me. I should have added more honey. You just never know, it depends your apples. Based on that, here's the best I can do for a recipe.

5-6lbs apples (different kinds)
1/3- 1 1/2 cups honey (depending on sweetness of apples, you can taste it toward the end and add more if necessary)
1 Tbsp ground cinamon
2 tsp allspice
optional - nutmeg and cloves can also be added, I think I used nutmeg in the second batch

Peel, core and roughly chop apples into your slow cooker until full. For my 5 quart cooker this took about 5 1/2 - 6lbs of apples. Smaller cookers will require less. Add all other ingredients, stir as best you can. Cook on high for 1 hour then turn to low for 9-11 hours. Stir occasionally (or not, whatever) Remove lid and cook for an additional 1-2 hours to thicken. Stir with a whisk periodically to break up the remaining bits. For a smooth butter, process in a blender or food processor in batches. I canned mine in half pint jelly jars (sterilized and hot on the counter) to seal. It's fine in the cabinet but refrigerate after opening.

I made labels, printed out a couple of recipes I found online that used apple butter (in case people didn't want to eat it like jam on toast or biscuits) and attached with a ribbon.

YUM.

I'll be honest, part of this project was simply to stay away from baking things I'd want to scarf that aren't on my low sugar pregnancy diet. But at the last minute I tempted myself with hot fudge and a caramel sauce. I did lick the spoon right before I dumped it in the sink with the hot fudge. That was it. I got the rest canned before I could stick my face in it. Here is the link to the original caramel sauce recipe that I ended up using (the one I had planned to use involved the mixer and I didn't feel like digging it out) and the hot fudge sauce which was super easy. I made of few adjustments, of course, so here are the final versions I used. However, the caramel sauce link is very very important because she makes some important points about why you should use a big, heavy bottomed pot and how to adjust for other types of pans and the fact that melting sugar is hotter than boiling water so be careful and don't do this with a toddler under foot!

Caramel Sauce

2 cups sugar (I used an organic granulated cane sugar, but white or brown works fine)

12 Tbsp butter (1 1/2 sticks)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tsp vanilla

Get all ingredients together, ready to use and close to the stove. The process moves fast and the sauce will burn. Have hot pads close by too. Heat on medium high heat in a 3 qt saucepan. You need a big pan because the sauce will bubble up when add colder ingredients. As the sugar begins to melt stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. As soon as the sugar comes to a boil stop stirring. You can swirl the pan, but don't stir! As soon as all the sugar melts and is a dark amber color add butter to the pan and whisk until butter has melted. This is one of those times the mixture will bubble up on you. The longer the handle on the whisk, the better. Once the butter melts take the pan off the heat. Slowly add cram to the pan and whisk until smooth. Add in vanilla and stir in. Let it cool in the pan for a few minutes then pour into glass jar and let cool to room temperature. Store in refrigerator. Heat before serving. This made three 1/2 pint jars (3 cups) of sauce.

Hot Fudge Sauce

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 cup sugar (I used the cane sugar again, but white or brown is fine)

1/2 cup cocoa

1 stick butter

2 tsp vanilla

In medium saucepan, stir together everything except the vanilla. Cook over medium heat until everything is melty and combined. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. If you're going to use it soon, let it cool then store in an air-tight container and refrigerate. If you're going to can it, pour into jars hot and put the lids on so it'll seal. Even sealed, store in the fridge.

I didn't add any kind of tag to these jars, just the labels and ribbon. If you can't figure out how to eat dessert sauces, you probably don't need any. :)

Holiday Baking Treats

2011-12-10T17:26:00.001-06:00

This has nothing to do with the stuff I made as gifts this year, but I did a ton of holiday baking last year and just realized I posted zero of the recipes. That makes me sad, since several of the things I made were big hits and I would love to scarf some this year if I wasn't on a sugar restricted diet. Thankfully I think I remember where I found most of the recipes, so I think I'll go ahead and post them so I have them next year!

Graham Cracker Brittle
1 box of graham crackers
1 cup of chopped pecans
2 1/2 - 3 sticks of butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1 T. vanilla

Place graham crackers on large cookie sheet - wax paper helps with clean up. (You'll break them later. Leave them together as it's easier to transfer from pan.) Sprinkle with pecans making sure each cracker is covered.

In sauce pan, melt butter, vanilla, and sugar. Boil 2 minutes. Then, cover crackers and pecans with butter mixture.

Bake for 10 minutes in 350 degree oven.

Cool in pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to wax paper or aluminum foil They will stick to pan/paper if not removed relatively quickly!!

Chocolate Kiss Truffles

28 Hershey’s Kisses
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons whipping cream
10 Hershey’s Caramel Kisses
1 cup ground pecans (or use powdered sugar, crushed graham crackers, other ground nuts, anything that cam be used as covering for the top layer!)

Place regular chocolates and whipping cream in medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at medium 1 minute; stir. If necessary, microwave at medium 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chocolates are melted and mixture is smooth when stirred. Cover; refrigerate 4 to 6 hours or until firm.

Using about 1 tablespoon of milk chocolate mixture for each truffle, shape chocolate around each caramel chocolate piece; roll in hand to make ball. The heat from your hands will mold the chocolate Be sure to cover each chocolate piece completely. Roll in pecans or preferred covering; refrigerate until ready to serve. For best chocolate flavor, allow truffles to soften at room temperature about 5 minutes before eating.

And the "creme" of the crop... Fantasy Fudge. This is off the back of the Kraft Marshmallow Creme jar. I made a TON of this last year and it was devoured.

Fantasy Fudge
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine
1 small can (5 oz.) evaporated milk
1-1/2 pkg. (12 squares) semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 jar (7 oz.) marshmallow creme
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional, I ground some in the food processor as well)

1 tsp. vanilla

Line a 9-inch square pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides. Bring sugar, butter and evaporated milk to full rolling boil in 3-qt. saucepan on medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook 4 min. or until candy thermometer reaches 234°F, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and marshmallow creme. Stir until melted. Add nuts and vanilla, stir. Pour into pan and let cool. Take out using the foil handles before slicing into squares

I'm still looking for a tasty roasted almond recipe, which is about the only thing I could make and actually eat this year, but I haven't found the right spice mixture yet. And I can't afford almonds this year. Sheesh. I'd also like to make some chex mix, which I do every year, and some puppy chow, but that may not actually happen, since we all seem to be getting sick again. BLAH.

Christmas Happy #2 - Sugar Body Scrubs

2011-12-10T15:13:00.000-06:00

I did a lot of experimenting with this homemade gift. There are dozens of ways to make a sugar scub! A lot of them used ingredients that weren't easy to find, a lot used ingredients that required them to be refrigerated (which would make them useless to me, as I'd never remember to take them out and use them). But there were a few basic similarities and ingredients that served a purpose, so I made up a few different varieties and used them until I decided what I liked. Those were the ones I made as gifts.

First, even the brown sugar scrub includes half brown and half white sugar. The brown sugar is more abrasive than white, so the white keeps it from being too abrasive. I ended up using safflower oil in these, although olive oil works too. Safflower is cheaper and has no smell or color to interfere. You can use coconut oil or a variety of others, but this worked for me. I also bought a small bottle of Vitamin E oil from the vitamin section at Walmart and used a little in each one. While the safflower oil also works as a moisturizer, the Vitamin E oil also works as a preservative, which keeps these from having to be stored in the fridge! I also used honey in both because it also provides moisturizing, acts as a preservative, and I just like the hint of honey smell. And the lemon juice in the last one is also great the skin.

Here's the recipes I used.

Brown Sugar Scrub (Approx. 1 cup or 1/2 pint jar)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 Tbsp safflower oil
1 Tbsp vitamin E oil
1 Tbsp honey

Lemon Sugar Scrub (Makes more than 2 cups, closer to three 1/2 pint jars)
2 cups white sugar
1/3 cup safflower oil
2 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp lemon juice

For each recipe, combine in a bowl until well mixed, then store in air tight container. I used 1/2 pint canning jars in the "gift jar" collection.

I wanted to fancy up the jars a bit, but didn't have the materials I needed (fabric, fancier ribbon, wooden sticks for stirring) on hand and didn't have the opportunity to hike across town to the nearest craft store to get some, so I made do with what I had. The tags for the scrubs:

The liquid in your scrub will separate.Just stir before use! To exfoliate dry areas or face, massage about atablespoon onto skin and rinse well with warm water. Cleanse or washas normal. Pat Dry. Moisturize with your favorite lotion.

For a dryer scrub, add 1Tbsp of whitesugar and stir. To make a wetter scrub, add 1tsp at a time of eitheroil (olive, safflower, vitamin E, coconut) or honey.

More Than a Lunch

2011-12-09T20:36:00.001-06:00

I promise all my homemade gift instructions are coming up by the end of the weekend, but first I wanted to give a shout out to some of my dearest friends who are totally awesome.

Today I went to lunch with five of the most wonderful and inspiring women I know. I looked around the table and realized that these five women have all come to me at different times in my life, but at the right time, and all of them have stuck around. One of them since we were 12. One since college. A couple since my banking days. One more recently, via this blog. But every one of them means so much to me and has helped me through some rough times. And I can honestly say that each one of them has helped me down a spiritual path over the years that's brought me closer to God and given me a greater understanding of faith. Thank you ladies. You're awesome.

And for the record, the enormous pile of baby stuff I came home with was also seriously awesome. This is the only "shower" we've had, and it was literally the six of us sitting around a table at Biaggi's for lunch. Yet I came home with exactly the stuff we really kinda needed - crib sheets and blankets and diapers and clothes and bibs... These ladies knew what we needed and that's what they gave us. And three garbage bags of hand me down clothes, some of which I handed down from Lauren to Nicole before her now-two-year-old was born. It's awesome to see how we can keep the clothes train moving for each other! Some of these clothes (and some of the ones I got from Sharonda a few weeks ago) will be on their 4th owner. Call me crazy, but I think it's great to know we've helped each other out that much. And for the record, I can remember the days at the bank when Nic would bring me bags of clothes after her sister cleaned out her closet. I stayed in a nicer wardrobe for years thanks to her!

All of that to point out that I have awesome friends. And those are just the ones in close proximity. I'm still using gear and clothes (and a crib!) passed on from Lauren who is ten hours away. I'm totally beyond blessed to have such great women in my life! Now I have to go dig through the bags of clothes I pulled out of storage tonight to see what I can pass on to Melanie for her 1 year old...

Christmas Happy

2011-12-09T11:02:00.001-06:00

I've been busy.
This is part of the stash of homemade Christmas Happy Gifts that I've made lately. We didn't really buy gifts for the adults in the family this year, but there were some people I wanted to do something nice for, so I came up with a few ideas.

I wanted to try out some different things to see what worked best and what I might want to repeat in future years. With that in mind, I took pictures of everything before I took a box to lunch with some of my dear friends today and will hopefully post instructions for how I made each item over the next few days. This way when I get ready to make stuff next year, I'll remember!

I'll start with the easiest one, the vanilla.

Homemade vanilla extract. I started this particular project back in August. I posted how I started it here. I let it steep until, a couple of days ago. Once a week or so I'd give the bottle a good shake. That's it. That was all the prep. Meanwhile, a few weeks ago I bought the special amber bottles, eight of the 4oz bottles and two of the 8oz bottles, from Specialty Bottle Company. Vanilla will degrade in clear bottles if it's exposed to light, so the amber bottles are the best way to go.

A couple of days ago I was ready to bottle up my vanilla. First I sterilized my bottles in the dishwasher on the sanitize setting. Then I strained the vanilla through a mesh strainer with a coffee filter, which sorta worked, and some cheese cloth, which sorta worked, and the very last bit I put through a paper towel, which also mostly worked. The idea is to get the biggest part of the bean scraps out, although there will be some specks left. All that was left was to pour up the liquid into the bottles (using a funnel, of course), add a bean or two to each bottle and seal up with the tops.

I'm giving away all the 4oz bottles, but kept the big 8oz bottle (and another partial 8oz bottle of what was left) for myself. I wanted to package them nicely, but had limited supplies. I bought the labels at Office Depot and was able to use them on all my projects with some sheets left over. I used ribbon I already had to pretty them up. And I had a set of measuring spoons in pretty colors that I'd picked up for $2 at Fred's, so I divided them up and tied one onto each bottle with the ribbon. I also printed out a little tag for each one. I saved all my tags on my computer, but in case I lose the file I'll post it here:

HomemadeVanilla Extract

Yes,there are beans in your vanilla! The beans keep the vanilla “brewing”to make it stronger as it sits in your cabinet. The dark specks inthe vanilla come from the bean and are normal. Shake before use,unless you are using in a light colored dessert where the shakingwill stir up the specks.

And that's all there was to it. I gave out four bottles at a lunch time baby shower some friends had for me today and I have more to give to some of the family for Christmas. I'm not torn on what to do with my leftover beans. I think I'll probably dry some and grind into powder, or make some vanilla sugar to use in the sugar scrubs I like. But sugar scrubs are a post for later...

Doing the Math

2011-12-07T20:10:00.001-06:00

So I had my doc appointment for MicroTot today. If you're friends with me on FB you already saw the result and my obvious fear.

I can't birth a 12lb baby.

Here's the math. Sonogram estimated MT at 6lbs 11oz at 34 weeks, 2 days. That's 97th percentile. He measured big on everything else as well, landing at 85th percentile or greater in ever category. The tech said if I had come in today with no prior prenatal care, they'd declare me 37 weeks along and set my due date at December 27.

She also said that at his current rate of growth we could expect half a pound or more each week, landing us at an additional 4-5 pounds if he goes full term.

On the low end, he's closer to 6lbs now and gains 4. I'm giving birth to a 10lb baby.

On the high end, he's over 7 already and gains another 5. I'm looking at 12+lbs. Either way, that spells C-section, which really wouldn't make me happy. I liked getting to hang with Kaycie for a while after she was born instead of spending an hour in post-op. I liked the relatively short (5-7 days) recovery, even with a pretty bad episiotomy. I liked not having to pay for a C-section. BUT, Kaycie was just shy of 8 1/2 pounds, and they had to vacuum her out. I'm not sure how much bigger I could go and still push one out.

All that said, we asked the doc how for she'd let me go. She kinda shrugged and said she really, really wanted to see me get to 39 weeks.

Seriously????

Yes. Apparently (and I learned this from BFF Sharonda when baby Mason was early) white male babies are slow to complete lung development. Her comfort zone with his lungs is 39 weeks. That puts me in a really bad place. How do I sit on the line between not wanting to have a 12lb baby and wanting to make sure he's totally fully cooked? Of course I'm going to fall on the side of fully cooked, but Mason had perfect lungs and he was like 5 weeks early. That would be like having MT in the next week. Surely by 37 weeks he'd be ok, right? I dunno. But I do trust my doc, and that's important. I'm going to do whatever she says, no matter how crappy I'm feeling already.

She did have the nerve to ask if I felt bigger or heavier. Um, yes. And incredibly uncomfortable. Thanks.

On the bright side, we get sonograms once a week from here on out so we should be able to keep an eye on his growth. Here's hoping this all turns out best for MicroTot and I survive until he arrives...

Progress

2011-12-04T21:20:00.001-06:00

I pushed though last week and got some things done. Things like shoveling out most of the junk in the nursery. Not all of it, but most of it. I even got Kaycie's old clothes that were still in the closet packed up and taken to storage, so I was able to hang up and inventory what I have for the little guy and determine where we have gaps (i.e. we need pajama gowns/footies but have 5 coats and enough short sleeve onsies to wear three a day). I finally set up a baby registry at Babies R Us, online of course. Because I'm scared to even think about driving out to Dogwood in December, although I really really need to make a trip to Hobby Lobby/Michaels and BRU. I also set up a wish list on Amazon with some decor ideas that I may or may not actual use but wanted to keep in mind and possibly order if I can't find stuff I like locally. I decided to go easy with a jungle animal theme - monkeys and giraffes and elephants and lions. I should point out that neither of these lists are for soliciting gifts, as we aren't planning on showers and stuff this time, it's just so I remember what we need. And because BRU gives us a discount on unpurchased registry items after the little guy arrives. Useful. The truth is, we don't need a lot, but it'd be nice to have some things that aren't pink. Thankfully I picked out a whole lot of gender neutral stuff the first time around so I'm pretty well set on big stuff. Anything else I need can be picked up at Walmart on the way home from the hospital if it comes to that!

Still left to do - picking up the new chest of drawers on Wednesday so I can start putting things away. Ordering a couple of decor items tomorrow so I can get started and see where it goes. Still have to clean out a spot in our bedroom for the pack and play so he'll have a spot to sleep the first few weeks. And of course pulling the bassinet attachment for the pack and play out of storage, along with a pile of other baby gear currently living there, and putting it all together. Getting ready for Christmas. I'm pretty much done shopping but have to sort and wrap and finish up a little shopping that other people have asked me to take care of (and by "other people" I almost always mean my mom). Shipping a couple of gifts to Greg's sister and nephew. Then we decided this weekend that we'd have my family's official Christmas get together at my house this year for the first time ever, since I'm done with the traveling until after the new arrival and it'll just be easier to meet up here. Which means some cleaning and decorating needs to be in my future. Finally, a small group of awesome friends are throwing a little lunch for me on Friday and I had hoped to take a few little home made happies to share with them, but right now that may or may not happen. I just don't know how much I'll get done this week. I've got some of it started but only one thing actually finished. And I don't know if I can be trusted to make fudge and not eat it.

If you haven't noticed, I'm starting to get a little panicked about getting stuff together. For some reason I've got it in my head that he's coming a little early. Not a lot early, but I'm thinking right after Christmas, maybe the first week or so of January. Ironically, I said the same thing about Kaycie and we all know how that turned out. Greg says it's because a woman in Big Lots a couple of weeks ago took one look at me and informed me he'd be early because I'm huge and carrying so low. I think it's mostly wishful thinking because I've felt so bad during this entire pregnancy that I'm just ready to be done.

The good news is that I know I'll get done what needs to be done and he'll arrive when he's ready or when Dr. T makes him. Hoping we'll get a clue after our sonogram on Wednesday. In the meantime, I'm taking a lot of deep breaths...

Here I Go Again

2011-12-01T08:53:00.001-06:00

What the heck. I've been tired and uncomfortable every day of this pregnancy, but starting this past weekend I've all of the sudden become incapacitated tired. There hasn't been a moment since Sunday that I didn't feel like I could lay down wherever I was and fall asleep. Yesterday I had a doc appointment and I fell asleep on the exam table waiting on the doc to show up. No, she wasn't really late. I was only waiting about 10 minutes. I fell asleep again after Greg got home last night. I couldn't hold up my head any longer.

Poor Kaycie is the one suffering from my sudden exhaustion. I had no problem with her going outside to play yesterday, but after about 8 minutes of trying to blow bubbles and play chase with her I was afraid I was going to fall down in the yard and pass out from exhaustion. How can I play with my kid when I can't stay awake? I fell asleep on the couch this morning while she was watching Mickey Mouse. When that went off I turned on another one and continued my nap. This went on from 6:30 until 8. Seriously. I'm going to turn my kid into a TV zombie just because I can't function. It's going to be a long six weeks from here out unless something changes.

On the bright side, my appointment yesterday went fine, except for the part where the scheduling/checkout lady was so irritating I nearly lost it. But other than that, we're all fine. Going back every week now, and I'll be getting sonograms starting next Wednesday. Granted, things will get more complex now because it's December and the clinic is swamped with people trying to work in annual exams before the end of the year and Kaycie will be out of school for two weeks which means we'll probably be hauling her to a couple of appointments this month. That's always a nightmare, it'll be worse when they're backed up. We usually go in the mornings and it's not so bad, but so far the next two appointments are in the afternoon. Thankfully I have awesome inlaws who have agreed to drive over an hour next week to pick Kaycie up at school at 2, since the only open time they had was at 1:40 and we'd have been picking her up in the middle of her nap! Heaven help us.

How I Stumbled Into a Brilliant Chili Idea...

2011-11-28T12:39:00.001-06:00

Several weeks ago my in-laws were coming to visit so I made a big pot of chili to feed them. I used a new recipe (because I have never managed the "perfect" pot of home made chili and am still searching) that I found here. Knowing my MIL can't tolerate spicy, I cut the pepper and chili powder in half, but otherwise I mostly followed along and cooked it most of the afternoon in the crock pot. It was still too spicy for me, which meant my MIL wouldn't be able to walk past it in the kitchen. I decided to start over and made a quick, new, very mild pot of cheater-chili on the stove. It was tasty and we all enjoyed it. But I had this crock pot full of too-spicy chili waiting on my kitchen cabinet. What was I going to do with that???

I'd read a brilliant idea on Pinterest a week or two before regarding freezing soup in small portions using a muffin tin. I knew that a regular sized muffin tin would freeze about 1/4 cup of liquid in each muffin cup (that's how I freeze chicken stock/broth) so I decided to use the too-spicy chili to make chili starter for the winter! I let it cool then scooped it out into lightly oiled muffin tins, covered in plastic wrap then aluminum foil, and popped them in the chest freezer over night. The next day I popped them out, put them in a couple of freezer bags and threw them back in the freezer.

Today I really wanted a bowl of chili for lunch. It's cold and wet and nasty outside and I know we're having Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, so chili was a no-brainer. But I also had to fix something quick for my toddler to eat and then get her down for a nap and my nap time to-do list is overflowing, so I was in a hurry. I grabbed one round of chili started, a couple of small cans of tomato sauce, half a pound of ground beef (already cooked and frozen in my freezer, I used half a one pound serving) and a small can of red beans. I threw all of that in a saucepan with a dash of beef bouillon and let it go while I fixed Kaycie's lunch, got her to eating, grated some cheese to go on top, and took care of a couple of kitchen cleaning items that needed to be done. After about 20 minutes of simmering I fixed myself a bowl and left the rest to keep simmering away to tasty goodness. Perfect.

I was concerned that one round of starter wouldn't be enough seasoning, but it was pretty spot on. If it hadn't been, I could have easily thrown another one in the pot to defrost or added a dash or two of whatever I felt was lacking. And if I was making more than a medium saucepan full, I'd definitely start with two or three. But since I'm the only one eating it, I figure it's just enough. I've already scarfed two bowls and there's enough for maybe half a bowl left.

So, for the extra effort of opening three cans instead of one, I had a tasty home made chili instead of a tolerable bowl of canned chili that I probably wouldn't have eaten half of. Now, what else can I freeze in a muffin tin...

A Holiday Top Ten List

2011-11-27T20:00:00.001-06:00

Ten Things I Was Thankful For During Our Thanksgiving Travels

1. Having two excellent Thanksgiving meals, at two different places, both of which involved my in-laws and my parents because they like each other enough to invite each other over. That's awesome and I couldn't have requested a better family situation. Most people aren't that lucky.

2. Having a "hall pass" from Dr. T to cheat on my low sugar diet for Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure she didn't realize that I define "Thanksgiving" as Wednesday night to Sunday morning, and if she doesn't ask for details I don't plan on enlightening her.

3. The lemon pie Kaycie (with help from my mom) made for me. Because it was sooooo good and I haven't had one in ages and thanks to #2, I could actually eat it. Unfortunately my mom sent the leftovers home with me and now I have to face it every time I open the fridge, knowing that my hall pass expired and I'm making weekly trips to the doc now so I really do need to be good. But I WANT IT. Maybe Wednesday after my appointment I can sneak another slice...

4. I slept until 9am three of the four mornings we were traveling. Could have easily slept late the fourth morning, but MicroTot was abusing me to the point that I figured getting up was easier than staying in bed.

5. Live-in child care. Grandparents are the best. thing. ever.

6. This:

Because that's just hysterical. My mom took the pic. I can't take credit, I was at Walmart when it happened, courtesy of #5.

7. The extreme discomfort I was in courtesy of MicroTot. No, it's not fun. And no, I don't enjoy being poked and pummeled and squished from the inside, or serious leg cramps or heartburn or waking up 14 times a night to go pee. But I know he's active and every time he pummels me I'm reassured that he's ok. Even though I'm sure it'll just get worse over the next six weeks, I'd rather be uncomfortable than not.

8. I read a book, cover to cover. Granted, it was the shortest of the three books I took with me, but I started it Wednesday night and finished it Saturday. I feel like I've accomplished something (courtesy of #5, again).

9. Having a video player in the van loaded with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Soooo much better than listening to Kaycie whine and fuss and cry and b pitiful for hours.

10. Having safe travels every step of the way.

Honorable Mention - coming home not only with edible leftovers, but with 5 gallon bags of poultry bones to cook up for stock. First batch of chicken bones is in the crock pot as we speak and should be ready to strain up for freezing tomorrow. I'm curious to see how many batches will be required to use up the bags of turkey bones from two big turkeys. AND I got a ham bone to use in ham and potato soup. I'm probably the only person you know who was stoked about bringing home a cooler half full of bones.

And for the record, I could make a list six times this long and still not cover everything.

Mama, Kaycie Made Mess!

2011-11-21T18:20:00.001-06:00

So Kaycie has started really trying to use sentences. Which is all good until the sentence is, "Mama, Kaycie made mess!" Especially when that sentence comes on the heel of her spending nearly an hour in the kitchen by herself being perfectly quiet...

Ok, a couple of disclaimers. Yes, the being in the kitchen by herself and quiet part is screaming a warning signal. BUT, and this is the second disclaimer, I did know what she was up to and made the decision that the 10 minutes it would take me to clean it up was worth the hour of peace I had while she was doing it. I even left the bowl of flour out on the counter on purpose. Sometimes a girl's just gotta make a mess.

This is the face that came to tell me she'd made a mess. Take a look at that shirt, which by the way isn't actually supposed to be white:

Here's what greeted me when I peeked around to the kitchen floor...

I'd also like to point out that when I left the kitchen, there was no flower on the blue cutting board. I had used it to cut up an onion, that was all. Kaycie was kind enough to demonstrate for the camera exactly how she made her mess:

I should also point out that as I type this she's sitting at the kitchen table with her dinner plate pulling bites off her biscuit and throwing one small piece on the floor to her left, watching the pup run after it, and as soon as he gets to it throwing the next small piece as far as she can to her right, then giggling as he runs back and forth. She has made a huge mess in the chair, although the pup has successfully cleaned up the floor. On the bright side, at least this one will be even easier to clean up. I can just dump the crumbs in the chair out on the floor and let the pup clean that up too. I've gotten a little lazy on the back side of this pregnancy.

MicroTot's Nursery Pictures! (Updated)

2011-11-21T15:19:00.001-06:00

I'm like 7 weeks away from giving birth. Holy smokes people. Where'd the time go??? As I recall, at six months I had Kaycie's nursery cleaned up, decorated, furniture in place, ready for my baby girl. With seven weeks to go, here's MicroTot's nursery:

Yes, that's an elliptical machine in the front. We're doing the nursery in a gym theme. What's that you say? It's ok, he really only needs a place to sleep at first? Yeah. Here's his crib:

That's how I organized baby stuff from the storage stuff I moved out of Kaycie's room. The baby stuff (and now a lot of Kaycie's Christmas stuff) are stashed in the crib. Until it overflowed. To my credit, I took these pics yesterday right before I started tackling parts of the mess. I managed to clear a path to the closet and haul a van load of stuff to our storage unit. The elliptical is hopefully moving itself to my parents' house this weekend, if it'll fit in the van with all our junk while traveling for the holiday. A chunk of what's left is clothes Kaycie has outgrown or toys that are currently "out of rotation." The clothes I need to pack up and take to storage, I have no idea what I'm going to do with the toys at this point. Guess I can't have everything planned out in my head to never actually get done...

And I'll give you a little teaser for things to come (hopefully before we go on interweb hiatus for the holiday - neither set of parents have decent access) - I do have birthday party pictures to share (there are a few new things on the photo blog, which also needs a couple of updates this week) and the story of today's exuberant announcement by my child - "Mama, Kaycie made mess!" Yes, I got pictures of the aftermath of that one, too. :) But first, I have to coerce her back into clothes (the previously mentioned "mess" required stripping her down) and let her outside for a few minutes before the crazy early dark arrives.

UPDATE: Ok, I actually went back and checked (thanks to having blogged about it!) and while I did have the nursery cleaned out for Kaycie by the end of July, I didn't finish decorating it until the end of September. That was 34 weeks. I'm 32 weeks today, so if I can get everything cleaned out, decide on some decoration, do some shopping, buy a chest of drawers, and get everything put together and decorated within two weeks, I'll still be on the same track. Right?

Coincidentally, I'm glad I looked that up because I mentioned in that post that I'd been having the BH contractions at night. I started having those with MicroTot last night, but Greg made the comment that it seemed like it was a lot earlier than last time. Not really. At most a week or two, since I didn't say exactly how long I'd been having them in the previous post. That makes me feel better. I met a little old lady in Walmart last week who proclaimed that I would have this one early since I'm carrying so low. While I'd be absolutely fine with December 30, for financial purposes, I'd be happier with waiting long enough to make sure he's a good sized healthy little dude!

Sigh

2011-11-02T12:23:00.003-05:00

I keep thinking I'll sit down and write one of the dozen posts on my mind lately but it just never seems to happen. I'm tired, people. Tired. And sick. Had my OB appointment today and the doc referred to my respiratory infection as "not quite pneumonia... yet." I've been some level of sick, along with everybody else in my household, for six solid weeks. And I'm tired.

On the bright side, I'd gained 4 pounds putting me at +8 after 6 1/2 months. For once I didn't get in trouble for anything at my appointment. Sugar was fine. Iron was fine (it was low last time). Weight was good. She even said she was fine with the total of 8lbs since she already knew I was capable of growing a good sized kid regardless. I was even in and out of the office in record time. They had me in a room checking the heartbeat five minutes before my appointment was scheduled to start. I was out the door 20 minutes later. That never happens.

Did I mention we had a whopping three tick or treaters and now there's a big bowl of chocolate at my house that I'm not allowed to eat and I WANT IT. I also want to drink a big vat of hot chocolate. And drown in the bag of candy corn on my counter. And go buy all the half priced Halloween candy I can fit in the van. And I want ice cream in a waffle cone. And I want to start making fall treats like fudge and truffles and little acorn candy out of Hershey's Kisses... I never crave sweets until the doc says I can't have them. For the record, I have been stellar at laying off the sugar. But it's requiring a large percentage of the small amount of energy I have.

Meanwhile, I have a whole post in my head about the kid that's currently residing outside my womb. She's amazing. Not that she's any more brilliant than anybody else's kid, she's just more brilliant than she was two weeks ago and I love watching her develop her little brain and motor skills. It occurred to me last night that if she'd been born on time her birthday would have been yesterday. Thankfully, I have another week and a half before facing that. Not that I've wasted much stress on it, we're doing a small family-style party at the park in Philly the Saturday after. No big guest list. No big decorations. Getting a Mickey Mouse cake, because my kid has a Mickey Mouse addiction (which is totally genetic). She's getting a swing set that should be put together this weekend and a couple of other toys and that'll be it. I've also got the vast majority of her Christmas taken care of already, because I'm just on top of things like that. And because I one of her bigger Christmas item was on sale last week and I had a coupon that expired at the end of October. And I bought a couple of things for her birthday before we decided to go with the swing set, so I'm pushing those back to Christmas. And poof. Done.

And now I have one hour before I need to leave to go pick up my antibiotics and get my kid from school. I could go clean up the kitchen. I could go sort through all the junk I've stashed in the nursery that needs a new storage home. I could clean the bathrooms. I could do the laundry. I could start the rolls for dinner tonight. I could... I could lay on the couch and read the book I took the doc's office but never had time to get out of my purse. I'll let you imagine whichever answer you think is best there...

Just the Facts, Mam... A Non-Bias Answer to Amendment 26 Questions

2011-10-21T09:52:00.001-05:00

I've noticed an exciting trend of Facebook over the past few days. People are asking for facts. They are turning away from the propaganda and looking for unbiased research on proposed MS Amendment 26. AWESOME. I respect that so much that I took the time to do find some non-biased links for some people to help them answer their own question. As long as I've put in the effort to get the links, I thought I'd share. My personal opinion is nowhere in this, these are resources I found to answer specific questions I've seen from individuals by using third part non-biased websites.

1. The big question - What does proposed Amendment 26 actually SAY? The text direct from the Secretary of State:

Be it Enacted by the People of the State ofMississippi: SECTION 1. Article III of the constitution of thestate of Mississippi is hereby amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEWSECTION TO READ: Section 33. Person defined. As used in thisArticle III of the state constitution, "The term 'person' or'persons' shall include every human being from the moment offertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof." Thisinitiative shall not require any additional revenue forimplementation.

*Just a note, the term fertilization in the amendment is key in to the rest of the links.

2. Why is birth control being brought into this debate? The pill stops an egg from fertilizing in the first place.

From this page, which is the fact sheet on drugs.com for Ortho-Cyclen, one of the most commonly used birth control pills on the market, describing how it actually works:

It works by increasing levels of estrogen and progesterone, which inhibits ovulation, changes the cervical mucus (which makes it more difficult for sperm to enter the uterus), and changes the endometrium (which reduces the likelihood of implantation by the fertilized egg).

The fact sheet for Minera IUD states the same basic use.

3. Why are people talking about IVF?

This one is hard to find a good resource for, since most of the good resources about IVF go into way more detail than necessary to explain how it's linked to this bill. Here's the link to an information sheet from the MS IVF Clinic, which explains the process. It's actually a better link than the one I originally offered, as it's less complex. The bottom line, not all eggs fertilized in the lab will be used, they fertilize more than one or two in case the first round of treatment isn't successful and they need to try again.

4. What is an ectopic pregnancy, anyway?

A couple of resources - from Wikipedia and for those that dislike the Wiki, one from medicinenet. From the Wiki article (imbedded links are theirs, not mine):

An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis , is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity.^[1] With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable. Furthermore, they are dangerous for the parent, since internal haemorrhage is a life threatening complication. Most ectopic pregnancies occur in the Fallopian tube (so-called tubal pregnancies), but implantation can also occur in the cervix, ovaries, and abdomen. An ectopic pregnancy is a potential medical emergency, and, if not treated properly, can lead to death.

5. Are there other proposed amendments on the ballot in Mississippi this year?

Yes indeed. Two more, and they deserve your attention as well. One is Voter ID and the other involves Eminent Domain. Both links are to the Secretary of State website and has a ballot summary for each as well as links to the brochures that have the full text of the law.

I hope this helps somebody understand what we're voting on before they cast a ballot. And if anybody has better NON-BIASED information they'd like to share, please do.

Sleep Training

2011-10-15T10:02:00.001-05:00

One thing I've read over and over again about raising little people is that sleep training is a process. It doesn't end when they start sleeping through the night as infants; they regress, they change schedules, you have to retrain them over and over again...

Last night I put Kaycie to bed at 7. Her normal bedtime has been 8 for a while now, but for the past few nights we've bumped it back to give her a little more rest. A week or so ago her internal alarm reset itself for 5am. My internal alarm is set for something closer to 8:30 or 9. This is a problem. Five in the morning is not a reasonable time for anybody in my household. Even the dog is asleep at 5am. But not my little doodle bug. No, she's taken to climbing out of bed, sneaking quietly into our room, climbing into our bed, and bouncing up and down yelling, "Mickey Mouse!"

Um, no.

Going to bed at 8 and getting up at 5 was leaving her a bit... Grumpy. Eight to nine hours of sleep wasn't cutting it for this little almost-two-year-old, she needs at least 10-12 to be a happy camper. She hasn't been a very happy camper lately. We tried keeping her up later in hopes she'd wear out and sleep later. No dice, just got less sleep overall. Thus, pushing her bedtime up to 7, giving her an extra hour of rest.

This actually started a few weeks ago with her getting up at 7. Then 6:30. Then 6. I was tolerant, just because I like to sleep late doesn't mean my kid does, and if she is going to be an earlier riser then I'll have to adjust. But not to 5am. I started putting her back to bed and telling her she had to stay in bed until she could see the sunshine coming through her window. That should be around 6:30 or 7, which is reasonable. I thought we had worked that out, but this morning I ended up putting her back in bed 4 times before she finally fell back asleep. That extra hour or so she gets after falling back asleep helps a lot, too. Unfortunately, the falling back asleep part hasn't been so easy for me.

Shocking as it may sound, I haven't been sleeping well anyway. Pregnancy and all. Having a 30lb jumping bean on my head well before dawn hasn't helped any. This week I've been tired like I haven't been since Kaycie was a newborn. Exhausted. Last night I had planned to run to the store for some emergency groceries (we're one sippy cup away from out of milk!) but no sooner than I put her to bed at 7 I laid down on the couch and fell asleep. I woke up a little later and took myself to bed. I slept until she woke me up at 5:15. Today has been a much better day! Unfortunately, going to bed at 7 every night isn't really feasible. I'd like to see my husband at some point, and I had things I needed to do last night. But for right now, getting 10 hours of sleep was exactly what I needed. Now if I can just figure out how to get my kid to sleep until 7 or 8, life will be excellent.

Mash Up - Of All The Things I've Lost Edition

2011-10-12T17:19:00.001-05:00

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most...

This morning I had a plan. Take Kaycie to school, come home to wash the pup, then put myself in the shower before running a handful of errands across town and having lunch with my hubby. Instead, this morning I took Kaycie to school, came home and put on a load of laundry, sat on the couch sucked into Pinterest for 45 minutes, got in the shower nearly an hour later than planned, then looked at the dog and though, "Dangit."

I forgot bread at the grocery store. Bread. Yes. One of the staples that everybody buys every time they go. I forgot this two days ago, and just got around to realizing it this morning. I then forgot to get it while I was in Walmart on one of my errands. So instead of going back to the store with Kaycie for one loaf of bread, I broke out the bread machine. It really seemed easier, and took less time than going anywhere with Kaycie this afternoon. Except as soon as I pressed the start button I couldn't remember if I'd used warm water to kick start the yeast. I still don't know if I did, I'm waiting for it to finish cooking and see how it turns out. (Update: Turned out perfectly. Whew.)

Speaking of bread, the reason I desperately needed bread was because yesterday I made apple butter in my slow cooker as part of my attempt to make gifts for a semi-homemade Christmas. (Along with vanilla extract. And a couple of other things I have in mind if I can make them work.) The problem is I've never had authentic apple butter. I don't know what it's supposed to taste like! Luckily, my in-laws are apple butter experts. I'm planning to take them a jar and have them taste it to see if it's close to right. If not, I have a dozen other recipes I can try. Then I have to figure out how to actually can them. There's a reason I'm starting this early... Anyway, once I get it finalized I'll post the recipe (mostly for myself, so I don't lose it!)

A series of texts with my husband this afternoon (paraphrased):
Me: Why is Kaycie outside with my swiffer? And why do I ask these questions?
Me: And why is the back door rug in the hallway?
Me: There are two piles of grass in the dining room! I was only in the potty 45 seconds!
Greg: 44 seconds too long...

Menus - Because Allison Asked!

2011-10-04T14:55:00.002-05:00

I'm a posting fool this week. But this time it's because Allison commented that she was amazed that I could plan 4 weeks of menus at a time and when I tried to respond it became way too long for a comment, so I thought I'd make it a post! Let's start with my new meal plan center:

I set this up Sunday for about $8. The board - a combo cork/dry erase/magnetic board was $7 at Walmart and the yellow folder was like 68 cents. I could have spent twice that on the fancy plastic or cloth organizer doohickeys, but my goal here was to spend less money, not more, and the folder worked just fine once I cut it into two pieces! It's not exactly beautiful, but it's functional for me.

On the right is my envelope of coupons. I used an envelope from a box we already had, but return envelopes out of junk mail work great for these types of things, too. :) Above that is a magnetic note pad I picked up for 25 cents when Fred's had their clearance. I bought a bunch of them. Below the envelope is half of my folder, held up with magnets, which contains my list of go-to meals I know my family will eat once or twice a month and in front of that is a stack of new recipes I want to try out in coming weeks. On the left side is my 4 weeks of menu sheets tacked up on the cork board (I use one of the printable templates from this post, but there are a million of them online). Under that is my other folder pocket with the recipes I need to reference for this week. I keep my grocery list on ColorNotes on my phone, but I can use the note pad or dry erase board for that if I need to.

That said, here are my suggestions on menuplanning - start small. Do two weeks. Make a list of go-to meals yourfamily likes and start with those. Or make a list of what you actually cook each night over the next two weeks. Then grab a stack of recipesyou've been wanting to try and sprinkle in a couple of those. Thenfill in with simple things like sandwiches and breakfast and tacos. And planfor leftovers when it's feasible. For example, this weekend I'mmaking lasagna Sunday night. I know that with only 2 of us we can eaton that for 3 nights, so I scheduled it Sunday, Monday, andWednesday. Figured I'd skip Tuesday so we wouldn't be totally tiredof it. Boom. That's nearly a full week. I do have a backup plan forWednesday if we just can't eat it again. :) I don't bother planning breakfast or lunch, since those don't tend to be bigger family meals, I just worry about dinner.

Frankly, if I'm going to sit down and write out menus, I'd rather do four weeks than two so that it's done and I don't have to think about it again for four weeks. And I can start looking for sales on the groceries I'm going to need down the road. One thing that's helped is keeping myhandwritten menus from past months. Doing 4 weeks at a time is easierwhen you have 6-8 weeks worth of past menus to pull from. When wechange the plan at the last minute I try to write it in so I can spottrends if something isn't working. I also use my freezer. Anything I can make a double batch of and freeze, I do, then that becomes part of future menus. And I tend to be super easy andsuper flexible with the weekends. We plan to eat out on Fridays and Ipencil in any days I know we'll be gone out of town or whatever. This weekendwe're having rotel and chips for lunch on Saturday and possiblySunday, if we're in town (we may be helping my in-laws move!). Last weekend we mostly ate leftovers at lunch then I made pizza for dinner one night and we were out with my in-laws the other night.

I was thinking I'd post a list of samples menus I've used, but now that I'm all organized I can't seem to find my big stack of past menus. Figures. But here's a made up list of what we might eat over 4 weeks, starting with my plan for this upcoming week, including the new things in my new recipes pocket:

Week 1:

Sunday - Lasagna with salad and cheesy bread (sauce in freezer from last double batch)

Monday - Leftover lasagna

Tuesday - Rotisserie chicken or roasted chicken with salad (or, chicken salad!)

Wednesday - Last of the lasagna

Thursday - Sloppy joes (already in the freezer from last time I made them) and chips/fries

Friday - eat out

Saturday - Rotel/leftovers?

Week 2:

Sunday - Pizza

Monday - Saucy Chops with green beans, brown rice and bread

Tuesday - Cajun chicken pasta (New, using leftover chicken from last Tues, in freezer)

Wednesday - Steak fingers, fruit salad/green beans or corn

Thursday - Breakfast

Friday - eat out

Saturday - leftovers/brats on grill

Week 3:

Sunday - leftovers/Tacos

Monday - Hamburger steak with gravy, green beans, rolls, brown rice

Tuesday - Catfish nuggets with hush puppies, fries, maybe some extra shrimp from freezer

Wednesday - Slow Cooker Whiskey Steak (New) with ???

Thursday - Spaghetti with salad, bread

Friday - eat out

Saturday - Breaded pork chops with mac and cheese, bread

Week 4:

Sunday - Pork steaks on grill with potatoes and veggie

Monday - Enchilladas (in freezer from last time I made a double batch), chips and salsa

Tuesday - Stuffed shells with salad and bread

Wednesday - Crock Pot Ravioli (New)

Thursday - Pulled pork sandwiches (in freezer) with baked beans, veggie

Friday - eat out

Saturday - Pizza

There you have it. Four weeks worth of food (and flexibility) for a household with a really picky adult eater. If I had a less picky eater you'd see more things like Taco Soup and casseroles and fun pasta dishes. This time of year you can also get away with using things like soup and stews and chili as your lasagna of the month, cook once and eat on it for three days! I wouldn't try to pull that off more than once a month, or else the other people in your household might get grumpy.

And now it appears I have next month's menus ready to go... I also have to say this makes me look at the overall picture of what we're eating from a health standpoint. We need to do better. It's kinda hard when salad and green beans and the occasional potato are the only veggies I can get my husband to eat. I can sneak nutrients into other foods from time to time but we're eating too much bread and meat and pasta. That's something I need to put some thought into.

All Signs Point North

2011-10-04T13:46:00.000-05:00

You may recall that on Sept 22 we left for our fabulous 9 day beach vacation to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary on Sept 30. You may also recall that that vacation was cut short when I got word that my grandmother had died about 5 hours after we arrived at our beach house. Our 9 day vacation was more like 18 hours.

If I'm to be honest, there were half a dozen (or more?) things that happened in the weeks since we booked the trip that made us think maybe we should not have booked the trip. Like the stream of medical bills and the discovery that we'd be paying our insurance deductible twice, thanks to the planned January birth of MicroTot. Maybe we shouldn't have spent the extra money on the vacation...

Then Grandma fell. But that was a full month before we were supposed to leave. Then her rehab didn't go well and she got discharged to the nursing home unwilling to even try to walk. Then the night before we're supposed to leave she is taken to ICU with more heart problems. I won't lie, I freaked out that night, not knowing what to do. By morning she was better and Mom told us to go ahead. They would still try to come to the beach house on Saturday. We'd invited both sets of parents to stay with us for the weekend, since we had 3 bedrooms anyway. So we went.

We should have known. There were other minor things... We were all sick the week before and Kaycie was still a bit sick when we left. We joked that the salty air had 9 days to get us all well. Ironically we ended up at the doc with Kaycie on Tuesday anyway. Guess it's good we weren't at the beach. And my BFF Sharonda's baby, who I had forbidden to arrive during that week, arrived on Tuesday morning. I didn't make it back from Mom's house in time for the birth, but I did get to visit with him in the hospital Tuesday and Wednesday.

Did I mention that this time around we did something we almost never do? We took out travel insurance when we booked the house. We were thinking that with me being pregnant and having a toddler our chances of using it were probably higher than usual. That insurance also happened to cover vacation interruption due to the death of a family member. We should be getting the entire amount of our beach house rental back. Just in time to pay the hospital for MicroTot. Sigh.

Eating Away At The Budget

2011-10-04T10:07:00.000-05:00

October 1. A new start. For our budget, anyway.

Sigh.

The most immediate problem with me getting pregnant again has been money. No, not because I feel the need to go out and spend a pile on new baby gear and stuff. I've spend a total of less than $140, and $100 of that was on the new car seat we had to get. Is it the pile of medical bills we're now getting to pay in advance? In truth, that doesn't help. Especially since the little guy is due in January. We'll get to top off this year's insurance deductible but then the actual delivery will fall on next year's deductible, so basically we get to pay it twice. Ask me if that makes me happy... BUT, that all comes out of savings, not our month to month budget, so that's not really the issue.

The monthly budget issue is the same one we had when I was preggers with Kaycie. And, to be honest, before. And after. It's food. We eat out too much. I spend too much at the grocery store without a good plan. And while I'm in the first half (or more, this time) of pregnancy, I can't muster up the energy to cook much. So we eat out even more. And I don't have the mental capacity to pay a lot of attention to what I need vs what I actually buy at Walmart. We end up using the debit card more and more often. And the budget spirals out of control. Cash really is key to our household budget.

The nausea part of this pregnancy eased up greatly about a month ago. My energy level hasn't gone up much this time, but I'm having to chase a toddler this time around. Still, it's time to get things back on track. A few weeks ago we sat down and reevaluated the budget to come up with a new plan starting October 1. Last week I sat down and made out 4 weeks worth of menus (including some leeway for eating out once a week or so for dinner and a few times each week for lunch) and the equivalent grocery list. So far so good. Granted, it's only the 4rd of the month, but we only ate out once over the weekend (while we were out of town visiting Greg's parents) and I have something planned every night this week. I feel like I have some control over our food spending, which is a good thing since next week we cut our weekly cash withdrawal for food and household stuff by $50. Gulp. BUT, I should have $50 left over this week, so maybe that's no so beyond reasonable.

I had gotten really good at doing this before I got pregnant, so hopefully I stay on track. At least for a while. Until MicroTot arrives, then it'll all spiral again for a few months while we enjoy sleep deprivation and a lot of fast food. But at least I've come to accept this in advance, so we can prepare for it! Maybe I should take the extra $50 from this week and start a "Food Fund" for January...

Funny Things We've (Inadvertantly) Taught Our Kid

2011-10-03T13:54:00.000-05:00

I have at least 3 other long posts I need to write, but for right now I'm taking the easy route. It's a gorgeous day and I'm sitting on my back patio watching Kaycie chase Casper (or Capber, as she calls him) around the yard and creating messes with the water from her water table. It's just too pleasant to write about serious things...

So, on to my list. First, new things Kaycie is saying that we find hilarious:

"Hi, everybody!" She started this randomly Saturday night while visiting with my in-laws. It took me a few minutes to realize it's the opening to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She says it with much enthusiasm, and at totally random times. Like while we're riding in the van.

"OH NO! Train tracks!" This started with a particularly rough crossing near our house that's on the way to school, but has expanded to refer to any bump on the road.

"Red Line bus! AAAHHHHH!" This one she learned today, and it's in reference to the new shuttle system at UMC. The Red Line bus goes through the traffic circle at the School of Nursing and is a little scary if you're in front of it about to get run over. She said it over and over all the way home, with much enthusiasm.

"Applenuts!" No idea what that means, but she's said it several times this weekend. It's not apple juice, she says that clear enough.

"Ta Da!" Greg taught her this during the few hours we were at the beach. She's clung to it mercilessly and it has kinda become her motto. She pokes the pup with a stick, "Ta da!" She throws dirt on something I told her not to, "Ta da!" She climbs up on something that she will inevitably fall off of and bust her head, "Ta da!"

I had to go back and edit this post because I left out her favorite word of the moment - "BLOCKBUSTER!" It's also her favorite place. Don't even ask. But Saturday when I went to put her down for naps and told her we'd go on an adventure when she woke up her first response was, "BLOCKBUSTER!" (No, dear, we're going to see your grandparents...) And any time we leave the house as soon as we pull out of the driveway she yells, "BLOCKBUSTER!" Sigh.

She will also randomly break into song. She can sing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme, which sounds something like, "Mick Mouse... house! (mumble mumble) side! (mumble mumble) side!" as well as the Elmo's World song. She can also sing her version of MMC's Hotdog Dance song, but it's totally incomprehensible unless you recognize the tune.

She's also found much use for the word "no" of late, but that's not nearly as funny.

She's recently developed a great love for rocks. Not fancy rocks, plain ordinary gravel. Or asphalt chunks. She's started hiding them in her carseat and around the house. I can't tell you how much driveway gravel I've thrown away lately.

She's also discovered a love for the crane games at Walmart. I totally blame her father for this, as he's been obsessed with them for much longer than I've known him. Together they are 100% when it comes to getting little plastic balls out of the ball machine. He'll line up the claw and she'll push the button. This didn't work so well for me this morning, and she pushed the button as soon as I put the money in. But thanks to her dad, she expected a prize to appear!

I'm sure there are half a dozen more things I'm not thinking of at the moment, like her love of hopping instead of walking, but my kid is now soaking wet from the water table and covered in dirt after finding my bag of potting soil and deciding to refill (by hand) the pots of now-dead petunias we planted in the spring. It's all good. My kid's adorable.

Omens

2011-09-23T07:39:00.001-05:00

So, for as long as my kid has been able to say "Mamaw" and she's been known to run around the house calling for her Mamaw, but she has never once specified which of the three she wanted.

Last night around 5pm she started running around the beach house calling for a mamaw, but this time she was saying "Mamaw Reesie," her name for my Grandma Reese. I looked at Greg and he just shrugged, she's never done that before. And Grandma Reese is the one she'd be least likely to call for, since she's the one she's spent the least amount of time with. It was just plain weird.

I sent my mom a text to tell her about it, since Grandma was still in ICU but doing better and I figured that might give her a giggle. She always thought it was funny that Kaycie called her Mamaw Reesie. Mama responded a few minutes later that she was with Grandma and that Grandma smiled when she told her.

The next text I got was 4 hours later, from my dad, telling me that Grandma Reese was gone. She'd had another erratic heart episode like the one the night before but didn't recover this time.

My Traditional Packing Post With a Twist

2011-09-21T23:12:00.004-05:00

So I'm in panic packing mode tonight, trying to get not only clothes but toys, child safety devices, and a box of food items packed, as well as cleaning out the fridge, running the dishwasher, and blah blah blah when I get a text from my dad saying that Grandma is in ICU.

They think it's heart issues. Next text says things aren't looking good. Do I need to go there tonight? No, let's wait and see. A little while later I get another text that they were able to medicate her and she's doing better. Meanwhile I'm trying to text my cousins to keep them informed and keep up the crazy packing pace, wondering if it's all in vain.

But I keep packing because it's better than worrying. Right now, at 11pm, I have all our clothes packed, the dishes washed and the food box packed. Some of the toys and gear are packed. Everything else will have to wait until tomorrow morning. Greg has spent the entire night trying to figure out a way to fix some issues with Kaycie's video player and load videos onto our tablet for her to watch during the drive. He's still working on that. It's been a bit frustrating. Right now he's talking to himself. I fear he may be losing it.

I haven't heard anything else from Dad so I'm hoping that means she's somewhat stable. He and mom (as well as my in-laws) are supposed to join us this weekend at the beach house. I really hope they make it, but right now I'm afraid if Grandma is still in ICU they will need to stay home. My mom had a rough week last week and was desperately looking forward to the break. I was looking forward to having them around and introducing them to some new seafood places, since my dad is a huge fan and has talked constantly about the place we ate last time they stayed with us at Ft. Morgan.

MicroTot Update

2011-09-21T15:22:00.001-05:00

Forgot to mention that I had a doc appointment this morning. I gained six pounds, which is good because now I'm at +5 total. Sigh. Amazing how much I can gain when I stop throwing up. Anyway, next visit we'll have another sonogram and do my glucose test (BLAH!) and that kind of stuff. Which means I really need to desugarfy over the next 4 weeks. But not until after vacation! And I'm stoked to be getting more pictures on the next visit. With Kaycie we didn't get any after 20 weeks. This time I'm old, so I get bonus pictures!

Magical Update - I'm a Shark!

2011-09-21T15:21:00.001-05:00

"I'm a shark. Aren't I awesome? " (From I'm A Shark! by Bob Shea)

After reading that quote two hundred times in Kaycie's favorite book, we now use "I'm a shark," as a synonym for "I'm awesome," in everyday conversation.

I'm a shark.

And it accidentally ended up being 15 things for Kaycie and 15 for MicroTot. Fair and square. And now I must quit procrastinating and start packing. I have to leave in 25 minutes to go pick Greg up from work, then make dinner, then put Kaycie to bed, then it's going to be so late I don't want to think about packing, but since I haven't started...

Finding My Magic?

2011-09-20T16:08:00.001-05:00

It was 3 years ago that I first wrote this post about Mom-Magic, and how I didn't have it.

Now that I am a mom, I think I might be finding it. And I was right back then, I think I'm developing the sale magic!

I've mentioned before that we picked up quite a few things as Borders went out of business at pretty good clearance prices. That was great. And I always hit up the semi-annual sale at my favorite consignment shop, but that's not magic so much as scheduled six months in advance. Then I mentioned yesterday that I stumbled into a huge clearance sale at J. C. Penney. Literally, I was walking through the kids department just to glance around on my way out of the store into the mall when an employee called out to me saying, "We're marking things down right now, lots of stuff for less than $2!" As it happened, I was on the way to Gymboree to look at their clearance rack because Mom and I had found some steals at the Vicksburg Gymboree outlet store on Sunday. But even those prices weren't as good as I got at Penney's yesterday.

Today I ran by Toys R Us in search of one specific thing. A Melissa and Doug latch board that I've had on Kaycie's Amazon Wish List for a while but was waiting on a special occasion to buy because M&D specialty puzzles can get a little pricey. Today I had a $5 off coupon, so I figured it'd be a good vacation fun box toy. I like to throw in a few new things she's never seen before to keep her occupied in a new house and in the van. Anyway, I went to buy the puzzle and discovered that they were having a buy two get one free sale on all M&D products. Have I mentioned how much I love Melissa and Doug? We have a ton of their puzzles and wooden toys and art supplies and they are consistent favorites. And awesomely educational as a bonus. Anyway, I went ahead and picked up 3 items, the vacation latch board that I had gone to buy anyway, some magnet alphabet letters for her birthday, and a set of lacing beads that will be for Christmas! All were on my list to be bought at some point, AND I got to use my $5 off coupon! I need to update her wish list. I've bought several things off of it now!

Moving on, Kaycie and I walked over to our neighborhood Dollar General (aka DG) to pick up a box of band aids this afternoon. That was all we were going to get, one box of $1 band aids. Uh huh. They were having a sidewalk clearance sale! Kaycie gravitated to the rack to I went over to see if any of their summer outside water toys might be good for the vacation fun box. Everything was half off AND buy one get one free. I let her pick out a couple of $1 items, which ended up being 25 cents each. We went inside and I found a table of more clearance, where we nabbed a couple of PBS character coloring books (Curious George and Cat in the Hat) and a couple of other clearance items. All in all I got my box of band aids, a pair of shoes for Kaycie, 2 coloring activity books and 4 vacation fun toys for $6. That's less than $1 per item. I did walk away from the half off giant set of sand bucket toys. It was $6 and more than we needed. It would have doubled my tab and thrown my average.

So maybe I can find a sale or two after all. Maybe. It could just be residual magic from being with my mom on Sunday.

To Do and Do and Do

2011-09-19T14:49:00.001-05:00

We leave for the beach on Thursday to celebrate our 5th anniversary the next week. Normally by this point in the preparations I have list after list after list made - things to take, things to do, things I know I'll forget (like electronic chargers or laundry detergent!). And I've inventoried our clothes and determined if anybody needs new socks or whatever. And I have a box of snack food and other non perishables put together over the past few weeks of grocery trips. And the van cleaned up and out. And our mail hold set up. And check to see if we need the oil changed in the van. And... Sigh. I've done nothing.

Between being so sick the past couple of weeks and so busy getting ready for BFF Sharonda's baby shower this weekend that I haven't even started thinking about the trip. Right now I'm not even 100% sure what we're doing with the dog. I think he's staying with the in laws, but I'm not sure if that's been confirmed or when we're dropping him off. I haven't picked up any new car toys or made a vacation fun box for Kaycie. We haven't loaded the portable hard drive or the tablet with movies and tv shows to take with us (I refuse to go on a week and half long vacation without s stash of Mickey Mouse Clubhouses and Sesame Streets!). I haven't started my pre-vacation house cleaning. I haven't even looked too see what amenities our beach house has to see if there's anything else I need to plan for (it's 2 stories, so I need to contemplate Potamus-boundries). AAARRRGGG!

So I need to start making some lists. I tried to do some shopping today but failed pretty miserably. J. C. Penney is having a crazy clearance sale and I wanted to pick up a couple of extra pair of cheap shorts for Kaycie, since she's been outgrowing her summer things pretty steadily over the past few weeks. Despite racks of clearance as far as the eye can see, I bought nothing for Kaycie. I did grab a few things for the baby at less than $2 each, but Kaycie started grabbing handfuls of clothes and flinging them, then planting herself in the floor when I held her hand and fought me like a banshee when I tried to pick her up and hold her. I miss the stroller days. Sigh. I'll try to go back Wednesday while she's at school, but I have my OB appointment that morning and don't know how much time I'll have after.

Right now I guess I need to go start making some lists. And start dinner. And work on some laundry. And start thinking about clothes to pack. And did I mention I've lost a pair of Kaycie's shoes that I bought a couple of months ago and put away until fall? Her old shoes broke last week and she needs sneakers for school. Before Wednesday. Guess that'll be on tomorrow's list.

Updates and Controvery

2011-09-15T15:57:00.000-05:00

You may recall that my grandma fell a few weeks ago and had a spiral fracture in her leg. She's been in swing bed rehab at the nursing home since her discharge from the hospital. Yesterday Mom got her 3 days notice that Grandma was going to be discharged from rehab due to lack of progress/participation. This wasn't a shock and Mom had already made arrangements for a permanent room in the regular nursing home. It's been obvious since she arrived at rehab that Grandma doesn't really have any faith that she'll get better, and isn't interested in doing the work to get there. I get it. She's been a seriously strong independent woman for 85 years and she's tired. She's never going to live in her house again, and she's depressed. It makes me sad to see it, but it is what it is. Her fracture is healing great, but she doesn't even want to try to walk on it. The PT people have been making her walk some but she fights it. At this point she will likely not walk again, even assisted, and won't even try to build the strength to transfer herself from the bed to the wheelchair. I'm hoping she'll do better once she gets settled, but I'm not holding my breath.

In other news, remember how we moved Kaycie to her new room and I was having major regret about doing it so soon because she wasn't adjusting well? Well, she's doing better. She's going to bed with a minimal of fuss now and there's no more screaming for hours. However, she's still getting up anywhere from 1-3 hours earlier than she used to. This is killing her mama, who isn't sleeping well due to a number of factors including but not limited to being sick and coughing myself awake multiple times a night. And despite the bed situation improving, she's going through a thing. I'm guessing it's a massive developmental leap, because she's showing the classic signs - crying for no reason, uber-clingy, and basic regression in any number of areas. I suspect when this works itself out she'll start doing multiplication tables.

And I recently mentioned my BFF Sharonda was having yet more issue with her pregnancy. This week she'd progressed a bit further despite the meds and bed rest and the doc said she hoped to get another 1-2 weeks before Baby Mason arrives, but she's made it to 34 1/2 weeks now so it's not quite as panicky as it was. All I know is that I'm leaving for the beach next Thursday, so Baby Mason has 7 days to arrive or else he better make himself at home for another week! Meanwhile, we're having her shower on Sunday and I'm stoked about it. I kinda like baby showers when I'm not the guest of honor. And she's getting some good stuff, just based on what's piled up in MicroTot's room right now!

And finally the controversy. I should start with a disclaimer - I don't watch Dancing With the... er... Bumping and Grinding with the Stars. Never have. Won't start this season. When I have 2 minutes of uninterrupted adult time in front of the TV, I'd rather work through season 4 of Battlestar Galactica on Netflix streaming or playing Monopoly on the Wii with Greg. But whatever, people like the show and more power to them. But with the recent Chaz Bono controversy I find myself fascinated; not in the story itself so much as the public responses. I saw this article posted on Facebook today and after seeing a couple of the public comments I felt compelled to read the article. And I won't lie, I agreed with it. If you have a problem with your kid watching it, don't let them watch it. But if you have a moral problem with Chaz being on the show, how could you stomach the Kardashians? Or the outfits? And isn't there an openly gay man on there? And the "air sex"? THAT's ok to have your kids watch, but not a somewhat overweight man that is trying his hand at physical activity? 'Cause let's face it people, most kids won't know who Chaz Bono is any more than they know most of the so-called celebrities on the show, unless somebody explains it to them. And even then, saying, "His mom was a singer about 164 years go," would probably be enough for most kids if the rest of media would let it go. I'm still now sure how Chaz or the Kardashians became celebrities in their own right, but apparently they did.

I did find one of the comments on FB quite telling. In the middle of a religion/hypocrisy debate one woman pointed out that Jesus would probably be found hanging around with Chaz. He was almost always hanging out with the underdogs. Now, I'm not sure that "hanging around" is the best phrase, or "underdog" for that matter, but the overall idea is pretty spot on. Jesus didn't hang out with the "right" people. He hung out with those that needed him the most. Perhaps we should stop slapping people around for their sins and be a little more accepting. Leading people to Jesus does not mean we wash them of their sins, it means we help them get to a place where they ask God to do that. So with that in mind, I don't care if Chaz is on TV or not, but I do hope he has some strong people around him helping him find his way.

Things I Wouldn't Post On Facebook

2011-09-11T22:24:00.001-05:00

Men and squeamish women who don't want to hear about the yuckier parts of pregnancy can turn away now and come back for the next post.

Shortly after I put Kaycie to bed tonight I had a bought of yuckiness that resulted in me being sick. While I had my head in the toilet my first thought was - it's kinda nice to throw up without an audience for a change...

Speaking of vomiting, there's just about pregnancy and post-childbirth that gives uncontrollable acts that cause abdominal spasms - such as sneezing, coughing, and vomiting - a whole new twist. You would think the having to pee 487 times a day would leave my bladder empty enough for it not to be an issue, but no. With the bought of sinus ickies I've had this week, I'm glad I bought a new pair of underwear last weekend.

Speaking of underwear, last weekend I was at Target and bought three things, one of which was a new pack of comfy pregnant-sized undies, because my old ones were, well, old. I got home and discovered that I had somehow managed to purchase the one pack of underwear in the entire store that had been opened and had one pair stolen out of it. How did I not notice that? How did the cashier not notice that?

Furthermore, who would open a pack of plain Hanes cotton underwear and steal one pair? Oh wait, a desperate pregnant woman who accidentally sneezed while shopping at Target. Guess I'll forgive that one.

Apocalypse Now

2011-09-11T12:19:00.001-05:00

Kaycie just grabbed Greg's hand while he was sitting on the couch and told him to, "Up." He asked where they were going and she replied, "Nap."

This was over an hour before her usual nap time war was scheduled to begin. I suspect the world has indeed stopped turning.

FYI - Day 2

2011-09-09T14:36:00.000-05:00

And if you were thinking Kaycie's school day #2 might be a little harder than the first (particularly considering that she's been on sleep strike this week), let me assure you it was full of awesomeness. This morning I got her dressed and told her it was time to go to school. She grabbed her lunch box and ran to the door. Woo!

When I picked her up I was expecting to find a very tired baby girl who had refused naps again and was on the verge of major grumps. But no. She was happy girl. I asked her if she'd napped and she even said "Yes." That's not a word she uses often... Turns out she'd napped for an hour and a half and was the first one to pass out! She was kinda happy to see me, told me hi, but wasn't ready to leave. I had to coerce her out the door. Ms. Jill said she'd been her big helper today and was a bit clingy to her most of the morning. Not surprising, she gets a bit clingy when she's tired, but she helped Ms. Jill a lot and was very proud of herself for being a good helper. All that aside, based totally on how filthy she is, I'd say she had a good day. Somebody needs a bath!

It Does A Body Good

2011-09-09T09:22:00.002-05:00

File this under Little Details I Should Have Remembered From the Last Pregnancy (But Forgot in the Subsequent Sleep Deprivation of Caring for a Newborn)

Milk.

That's right. Moo juice.

I thought I had bad heartburn with Kaycie. Frankly, I'd never had heartburn before I was preggers with her and it took me a while to figure it out. This time around it's about 50 times worse. Every stinking time I lay down, somebody flips the switch on the flame thrower in my chest. I've been popping antacids like they're jellybeans. I'd wake up 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night thinking the bed was on fire. Nope. Just my digestive tract. It had gotten so bad over the past few weeks that I would sit in bed, so tired I could barely hold myself up, look at my pillow, and want to cry. It was hard enough to get to sleep with my knees and ankles hurting and causing major restlessness; every time the heartburn woke me up I'd have trouble getting back to sleep all over again.

Then a couple of nights ago I saw something randomly online or something (I don't remember...) and it hit me.

Milk.

Last time around this block I had a lot of luck drinking milk to calm the fires. Ironically, that same night Greg suggested the same thing. I drank a small glass of milk before bed and BOOM CHICKA BOOM. No heartburn. All night. Tried it again the next night. SHAZAM. Granted, I still have trouble sleeping because now I can't breathe, but that's a whole different can of beef jerky. It's frustrating, but not so much painful (except when the stuffy nose and drainage triggers my pregnancy gag reflex and makes me nauseous, but that's a different post I hope I don't actually write.)

So last night I drank my milk, got to sleep eventually, and slept pretty good from 1am until my psycho kid woke up at 5am. I put her back in bed (which didn't last long) and decided to go ahead and take a Claritin D so hopefully by the time I got up the next time it would kick in and I would feel remotely human. I took it with small glass of tea, maybe 6 ounces. I piddled around a little while, got back in bed, laid down, and within three minutes I shot up in bed looking for a fire extinguisher to swallow.

Seriously. Less than 6 ounces of tea triggered it. Come on.

So I got up again and drank the same small glass of milk. Sweet relief. No more heartburn. Miracle juice. I laid back down and listened to my kid reading to herself in her room, apparently by the light of her nightlight (sound familiar, Alison?). I started dozing off and of course 45 minutes later I had to get up to pee because I'd drank more than 6 ounces of liquid at that point.

And 30 minutes after that my kid decided she was done reading and wanted up. NOW. So we got up for the day and eventually I got her dressed and dropped her off at school where Ms. Jill can deal with her crazy sleep deprived mood swings.

Now the only thing between me and a coma is the decongestant, which has only had a marginal effect on my stuffy nose but has given me a fake wakey. Woo.

Mash Up - Bizarreness

2011-09-08T22:17:00.003-05:00

I've been sneezing and stuffy for 2 months. I'm tired of it. It freaking summer. I've never had the ickies this long during the summer. And this week it's getting to the point of actually being sick. Grrrr.

My brother is officially getting married. They set a date and his fiance has ordered the dress. It's going to be a really really really cold March, people. Like, snow in hell cold.

In even more bizarre news, my future sister-in-law has in all dead faced seriousness asked me to photograph the wedding. Clearly, she's never seen my photography! I'm going to do it, because they asked and why not, but seriously, I'm not a pro. I don't have pro equipment. I don't have pro skills. I've never really photographed adults before... Deep breaths...

I haven't mentioned this here because it's not so much my thing and I don't like to discuss other people's personal stuff in a somewhat public forum, but my BFF Sharonda has been having some complications with her pregnancy. As in, she went into labor a wee bit early. Like, 32 weeks. She's already further dilated and effaced than I ever was with Kaycie (until they forced her out). She wasn't able to take the shots to help the little guy develop his lungs because she had an allergic reaction to the first shot, which doesn't help without the second shot. She's on meds to stop contractions and so far they're helping, and is on total strict bed rest for the duration. She has to get to 34 weeks to breathe a little easier on the lung development, preferably 36-38. She'll be at 34 weeks on Monday. For those of you so inclined, she could use some extra prayer to get her through the next few weeks. This pregnancy hasn't been easy from the start. She's already been hospitalized 4 times! Hopefully there won't be any more drama before Baby Mason arrives, much closer to full term.

With my luck, that "much closer to full term" will land smack in the middle of the week we're going to be at the beach, which we scheduled around her original "we won't let you go past X weeks" date. I'm just saying, she better keep her legs crossed that week!

I need to go to bed. Not that I'll sleep, because that's something I don't do much these days. It's not for a lack of desire or need, I'm just usually in too much discomfort from a variety of pregnancy and sinus related issues. Like joint pain in my knees that only shows up when I lay down. And massive attacks of heartburn that wake me up in the middle of the night. And of course there's my kid that woke up at 6am this morning. Again. And appears to be on a nap strike, which means I don't get naps either. Tomorrow she's back at school, and my big plan as of right now is to crash and get a nice, long, uninterrupted nap! (No, I don't really expect that to work out.)

First Day of School

2011-09-07T14:59:00.002-05:00

So Kaycie spent her first day at Mother's Morning Out today. I was a bit concerned about how this would go over, but she enjoyed being there during open house yesterday, so I was hopeful that today would go well.

When I dropped her off this morning we were a few minutes late (in part due to a parking issue that resulted in us having to walk a bit) so we walked into chaos. The kids in her class were already dancing and playing and getting ready for snack, so I kinda tossed her into the fray. She smiled at her teacher, gave me a wave, and that was it. Really? Yep. She's awesome.

I probably had a rougher day than she did. I had planned to run some errands but frankly, I didn't sleep much last night (pregnancy heartburn and joint pain will be the death of me, if from nothing else than sleep deprivation) and woke up with a sore throat, so I was feeling pretty yucky. I ended up resting for about an hour and then going to lunch with Greg and our friend Melanie. I also had a nasty headache for part of the day. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried about how she was doing, or that I didn't feel like I was betraying her by going to lunch with Daddy without her. But I made it until 1:30, then headed over to get her.

And here's where the delima starts. When I picked her up she was laying on her nap mat, but she was wide awake. Ms Jill said the only time she cried was at nap time, and that she hadn't slept despite being so tired she could barely walk. By the time we got home she really didn't want to go to bed, having been laying down on her mat for the past 2 hours, so I let her watch a Sesame Street. She was pretty zombied. But now it's too late to get a nap, and I don't think she'd take one anyway. No nap makes for a long evening and early bedtime. We have to figure out a way for her nap at school. I'm not sure what that's going to be.

But that aside, she'd had a good day. Ms Jill said her favorite part was playing outside (of course) and her note home said she was sweet to others who were sad and she likes to be lovey. Heh. You should see her when I'm sick with my head in the toilet. She's nothing if not compassionate! I'm glad she was a sweet girl. And she didn't really want to leave. She wanted to stand in the hallway and count the fishes in the fish tank. She would have stayed another half an hour to say bye bye to everybody. I didn't think I'd get her out to the van.

So I think she liked school. And I think she'll be happy to go back on Friday. We just gotta work out the naps.

What Have I Done?

2011-09-05T21:04:00.002-05:00

I'm at a loss.

My kid is usually quite adaptable to new situations. With that in mind, we decided that we needed to get her transitioned out of her crib and into a big girl bed before the baby arrives, preferably by her birthday in November.

After mentioning that, my mom borrowed a toddler bed from my brother's fiance and for the last three trips to Philly Kaycie has slept in it. The first night was a disaster, but she's been find in it ever since. We decided, based on that, to move forward with the transition at home.

In hindsight, this was not a good plan. This was a bad plan. An awful plan. We had sleep down to a science in the crib. She went to sleep happy, woke up happy, napped for two hours every day... WHY would I mess with this? Why? Did I lose my mind? Yes. I did. And now I'm paying for it.

The first attempt at sleeping in the bed was a disaster, and I ended up putting her back in the crib. We bought a rail to put up on the bed to help her feel more secure, waited a week, spent a weekend at my parents (with her sleeping in the toddler bed there) and then decided to move her for real that Sunday night after we got home. That was one week ago tonight.

We haven't had a peaceful bedtime or naptime since. As a matter of fact, I'd say half of the days we haven't taken a nap at all, which has made for some really nasty evenings.

We were leaving the door to her bedroom cracked (because the HVAC system in our house is so wonky that you have to leave all the doors at least cracked for it to work right) and she would spend hours "peeping" out at us. Toward the end of the week she got brave enough to come out of the room and down the hall, until she saw one of us and then she'd go racing back to her room and close the door. We were putting her back to bed four or five times in a two hour period. I finally started closing the door and waiting until she was good and asleep before cracking it for the night. This resulted in big fat meltdowns when she couldn't peep. We were still having to put her back to bed multiple times, but now she's screaming and crying for two hours instead of peeping.

Tonight we gave her the option of sleeping back in her crib and she opted not to. We put her in it and she screamed. I rocked her for a bit, then put her on the floor and told her to go to whichever bed she wanted to sleep in. She went to her new big girl bed. I read her one more story and the minute I put the book down and told her it was time to sleep she started screaming again. I told her goodnight, closed the door behind me, and let her scream. She tried to get out the door, she screamed. At some point I'm hoping she gets back in the bed and goes to sleep. As of right now she's still crying and whining.

Did I mention she's woken up screaming twice this weekend? Yesterday morning at 6am (she always gets up at 8:30, like clockwork) and then after a short nap this afternoon. That's never happened before. Ever. It took me a while to calm her down both times.

We've tried leaving her lamp on low (she has a dim nightlight). We've tried taking her books away and letting her sleep with them (and she does, literally, sleep with her books). We've given her any stuffed animal she's asked for (there's barely room for her in there at this point). I've taken away the comforter and given her the crib blanket she likes, which helped for approximately one bedtime. We've tried putting her down less sleepy and more sleepy (more sleepy actually tends to be more intense screaming, less sleepy tends to last longer).

In hindsight, we should have waited. But she did so well at my parents' house that I thought it would go smoother. There's no going back now, she's refused to go back to the crib, so we'll just have to see how long it takes her to adjust. I'm terrified of what's going to happen on our beach trip at the end of the month. We rented a house with a bed for her, but I'm questioning whether or not we should take the pack and play just in case. I just don't know what to do with her at this point. Sleep was going so well for so long, and now I feel like I'm the one who screwed this up. And she's starting a Mother's Day Out program this week, which will probably traumatize her even worse and that will be my fault too, so be prepared for me to have a big fat mental breakdown later this week. It's coming.

MicroTot will be staying in his crib until he's four. At least.

I Love My Kindle

2011-09-03T09:26:00.001-05:00

I don't think I ever posted here that I got a Kindle for Greg's birthday. Don't ask how that works, it's because my husband is awesome.

I was informed that once I had a Kindle I would never use Paperback Swap again. Or go to the library. Having owned it for a little over a month now, I can understand how you get sucked in. But they were wrong.

Don't misunderstand me. I love the Kindle. It's surprisingly easy to use and feels "right." It's way better than reading from the Kindle app on my phone or our tablet. I have no problem reading on it and if the download's free, or cheaper than I can buy it, or not available without a long wait on PBS, then it's perfect.

But I'm still getting books from PBS. You just can't beat free, especially if it's something I can repost and send out quickly for another credit. I've checked a couple of books out of the library, including Ready Player One. It would have been $8 to download and that seemed silly versus FREE. And when I was reading the Song of Ice and Fire series, all of which have long wait lists on PBS, I found the paperbacks were cheaper at Walmart than you could download, by about $2.50 each. I didn't realize this until I was on the 4th one (and they only had 2 of them in stock anyway) so it was the only one I bought in paperback. I've already shipped it out on PBS and got a credit back for it, so double bonus.

The last book in that series is only out in hardback, which is where the Kindle was super awesome. Instead of spending $25-30 for it, it was only $16 to download. Normally I wouldn't pay that much for a book anyway, but when you're 4 books into a 5 book series, you're going to get the 5th book. And thankfully I had $15 in Amazon gift card credit from SwagBucks, so I actually only paid $1 to download it. Score.

In short, I love my Kindle, but I hate paying for books. I have been keeping an eye on the Pixel of Ink blog/FB page to catch free and cheap downloads, but good ones have been a little rare. But if they're free, it doesn't hurt to download some that sound interesting and see. And if they aren't free, I can always download a sample and then buy it if I like it. Amazon has also started a new Daily Deal thing, which POI has been posting about, that I'm hoping will mean more quality books at under $5 prices. I'm all over that.

Summer Reads

2011-09-01T17:49:00.005-05:00

I've done quite a bit of reading this summer, considering how bad I've felt. There have been five or six fluff books in between that I won't even mention, but here is the main body of what I've been reading:

(And as a side note, most of my links are to the Paperback Swap listing. If anybody wants to join Paperback Swap, my ID is Casper803, feel free to use me as your referral or just friend me when you get there! Lately I've been using my credits to build Kaycie's library. I'm also on Swapacd.com with the same nickname, but the rules there are a little different so be prepared to pay a 50 cents fee per request if you sign up there. Sending them out is free and you can transfer credits to PBS or swapadvd.com after your first request.)

One Day by David Nicholls - Yes, this is the book that they're making the big movie out of that should be out later this year. I'd had it on my wish list on PBS since last year and finally got it early this summer. One of my friends recommended it to me because she thought I'd appreciate the unique concept. In short, the first chapter is the story of how two people met on a certain day as they graduate college. Each subsequent chapter picks up their situation/relationship on the exact same day X number of years in the future. I was intrigued by the concept and was excited to get the book. Then I read it. You see, my love of books often centers around strong characters that I want to learn more about. Halfway through this book I simply didn't care what happened to the two main characters anymore. The characters don't really grow. I got tired of reading about the male lead's constant self centered addiction-laced celebrity. Tired of the two characters constantly being in conflict. I just got tired of the story. It's rare for me to abandon a book halfway through, but I put this on down on the plane on the way home from Tampa back in June and was done. I have no idea how it ends, and I have no intention of watching the movie to find out. I just don't care.

The Help by Katheryn Stockett - I know I'm officially the last person on Earth to read this one, so I won't go into the plot. I will say that I thought it was very well done and showed a wide variety of characters instead of stereotyping Southerners of either race. I also appreciated the fact that that the author is from Jackson. You can tell she had some experience with the subject. I liked this book enough to pass it on to my mom, which is saying something because we don't normally have mutual appreciation for books! She loved it too.

And if you'll indulge me, I'm going to put my geek on now...

Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin - FYI, that link isn't to the book but to the Wiki page for the series which does a much better job of summarizing this very complex series. This is what I call medieval fantasy series, even though I'm not sure that's a legitimate genre. The first book in the series is Game of Thrones, yes that's the same book that the HBO series is based on. It's about a mythical realm of kings and knights and treachery and deception and heros and dragons... well, all that stuff you normally find in a good medieval fantasy novel. By the end of the first book there are five different kings claiming the throne, and by the later books the plot is as twisted and complicated as it can get. But it's a good series for those into fantasy. And no, it's not as sexually graphic as the HBO series, but the violence may be a little worse in the novels.

There are currently five books in the series, although Mr. Martin has said there will ultimately be 7 books in the series. So far each book has averaged around 1,000 pages, which means I invested time into reading six thousand pages of this epic. Wow. But once you've read the first few, you kinda have to finish because you've already invested a chunk into it. That's all that got me through the fourth book, to be honest. The first book was good. The second was pretty good but war-strategy heavy. By the third book I began to realize that there are a LOT of characters in these books. So many that the fourth and fifth books were supposed to be one, but had to be broken into two parts to cover all the characters that needed to be covered. The appendix lists all the characters, organized by house/location and is 80 pages long. By the fourth book I was more than a little confused, but I pushed through and was rewarded in the fifth installment, which was just released this summer. It's going to be a loooong wait for books six and seven.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - I geeked out again, but this time it's Greg's fault. He picked this one up at the library and enjoyed it so much I kept it to read myself. If you're into the geekdom of the video game culture of the 1980's, you'll love this book. It also tips the hat to the music and movies the era, just not quite as heavily. In this futuristic look at America society is perpetually plugged in to the virtual reality world known as OASIS. People work, attend school, and play inside this programmed world. When the OASIS creator dies, he leaves his billion dollar fortune and control of the company to whoever can solve his quest inside the OASIS, which is based on clues found within his obsessiveness of the 1980's. It becomes geek vs bad corporate entity as the race is on to find the three keys that open the three gates (think Dungeons and Dragons influence here). I'll admit, it's not the most poetic writing ever. And it does at times become a bit predictable, but it was an entertaining book for those of us who have a little geek in us and loved the 80's. I finished it in about 3 days but would have finished it in one back in the good old days before I had a kid that sucked up 97% of my time and energy. It was a nice fluffy romp after six thousand pages of medieval fantasy!

This post reminds me that I've been meaning to write a post about my Kindle and how much I love it. And why I don't always use it.

And I need to go back and tag my older "What I'm Reading" posts so they're easier to find. There's been quite a few, and if you search for "books" on the blog you might just find a few more posts. I really need to do some blog maintenance in all of my masses of free time.

Awareness

2011-09-01T10:54:00.002-05:00

I'm totally laughing at some people on Facebook today.

Last year's campaign about women posting their bra colors to raise awareness for breast cancer was a bit silly. I never really understood how posting a cryptic message on FB that only a handful of your friends understood would promote awareness for anything. I believe it was Stacey who pointed out that if you wanted to do something to defeat breast cancer, make a donation. Or talk openly about your experience or the experiences of people you know. Posting a cryptic message isn't really going to accomplish anything.

This year it's worse. I got a few messages this week about the new campaign involving a number system where you post a number relating to the month you were born and a food your "craving" based on a chart corresponding a food with the date, so that mine would read something like, "I'm 4 weeks and craving creme eggs." Um. I'm not sure how making people think you're pregnant when your not has anything at all to do with breast cancer.

Furthermore, in a lot of ways this goes beyond last year's silliness. First, you're about to start some rumors about yourself that you're going to have a hard time clearing up. I've already seen a couple of status updates this morning stating "I'm not really pregnant! It's about breast cancer." Um, no, it's not. Really. Bra colors had more to do with boobies than making people think your pregnant. And I suspect some people won't see the updated message and will continue to think you're preggers. Good luck with that. And talk about confusion, can you imagine me posting that, with the world knowing I'm actually 20 weeks along?

The bigger issue for me is the fact that pregnancy is a huge sensitive issue for millions of women. I can't tell you how many women I know who have battled infertility. Or lost a baby during pregnancy. Or who had unwanted pregnancies that ended either in abortion, which has it's on repercussions, or adoption. There's just too many major issues surrounding pregnancies to ask women to make a joke of it. You want to find a ridiculous cryptic message to post on Facebook for awareness, post the number of women you've known who were effected by breast cancer. Post the amount of money you want to raise this year to put towards research. Do something useful, not damaging.

Funniest Kid Ever

2011-08-28T21:11:00.001-05:00

So we made our second attempt to transition Kaycie to her big girl bed tonight. I put her In the bed, read a pile of books, sang 10 verses of the "Mama Loves Kaycie" song, and left her screaming.

By the time I got to the living room she was quiet. Big faker. I sighed in relief, waited a few minutes, then got in the tub.

It took her less than an hour to discover she was now free to escape.

By the time I got out of the tub I saw a little face peeping out from her door. As soon as she spied me she closed the door. Every minute or so I would hear the door crack open fir a few seconds then close. If she didn't see me she might stick her head out or whisper to the pup who was guarding her door. If she did see me she'd close the door quickly.

I finally went and got her, put her back in the bed (after cleaning every book she owns out of her bed), told it was time to sleep and that I would see her tomorrow. She said, "Tomorrow. BYE." Not 30 seconds later I heard the door crack open again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Greg is now taking his turn putting her back in bed. It's going to be a long night. I'm curious to see where we find her in the morning. She may never take another nap again.

Meanwhile...

2011-08-21T20:46:00.002-05:00

And during all the commotion today, my child chose to be about as difficult as I've ever seen her. Geezum. Peetes. Just a sample from this evening:

Me: Kaycie, do you want to go get in the tub with the bubbles? (One of her favorite things in the world, by the way)
Kaycie: No.
Me: You sure?
Kaycie: No.
Me (baffled): Ok then, we can do it tomorrow.

Half an hour later...

Greg: Blah blah blah pajamas blah blah
Kaycie: Bubbles?
Greg: You didn't want bubbles tonight, remember?
Kaycie: Bubbles?
Greg: Not tonight, it's too late.
Kaycie (with pitiful face and lip tremble): Bubbles?
Me: FINE. But this will be the shortest bath ever. Greg, will go dig her some pajamas out of the dryer while I put her in the tub?
Kaycie: NOOOOOO!

Kaycie runs down the hall, finds a pooh book and forces it in Greg's hand.

Greg: I thought you wanted bubbles?
Kaycie: Book.
Greg: You're about to get in the tub.
Kaycie (crying fit in progress): Boooook.

Greg sits on the couch and reads her a book while I go grab her pajamas. After the book, he starts undressing her and putting on her pajamas.

Kaycie: BUUUUUBBBBBLLLLLEEEESSSSS!

Insert crying fit. I take her down the hall, read 3 books, and put her in bed, which is usually routine and she tells me bye and everything is fine. Tonight she says, "UP?" and starts another crying fit as I leave.

Did I mention that this was not the first (or the worst) tantrum of the day? The first one came at nap time, while I was trying to get her to sleep in her new bed while my mom was sending me texts and I was trying to update my cousins. She ended up in a screaming fit, so I put her back in her crib. She screamed harder. I put her back in the bed. She got even louder. I put her back in the crib and put myself in my bed, where I curled up in a ball and had a minor meltdown. She also went batty at dinner and was flinging herself at me. Seriously. I think she's been possessed today. And of all days, today was bad enough without it!

A Little Bad News Goes a Long Way

2011-08-21T20:35:00.002-05:00

My day started with a text from my Dad. That's never good. As a general rule, he only texts me when it's bad news. If he calls it means somebody died. Seriously. The last time my dad called me was when my uncle died. Before that it was when my grandfather passed. Thankfully, today it was just texts.

Apparently my Grandma fell this morning around 3am on her way back from the bathroom. My mom called her this morning to see if she was feeling up to going to church and didn't get an answer, so she and Dad went to check on her. They found her in the dining room on the floor.

They took her to the hospital in Meridian (about an hour away) with fears of a broken hip. Turned out to be a humerus fracture (??) just below the hip spiral. Tomorrow they will get consults from Grandma's cardiologist (she has a heart murmur and congestive heart failure) and an orthopedic surgon. From there the docs will decide what to do about surgery. Mom is anticipating that they will want to put a rod in her leg. Did I mention that Grandma is pushing 86 (if she's not there already, I'm trying to remember if last December was 85 or 86...).

So much of my day has been spent recieiving and relaying text messages. Since my Uncle Lacy died several years ago I've kinda been in charge of keeping his kids in the loop on family emergencies. My cousin Lynn mentioned at one point today that she was afraid a fracture would mean that Grandma won't get to go back home and live by herself anymore. Frankly, Mom's been worried about her ever since she nearly died from the heart failure a year ago. We rallied the troops then thinking she may not make it out of the hospital, but for the 294th time, she proved us all wrong. She's a severe insulin-dependent diabetic and we've been saying forever that we didn't know how long she'd be around, or how long she'd be able to live by herself. She has basically laughed at us for a couple of decades now.

This time, I dunno. I'm not as worried as I was with her prolonged hospital stay last year, but I do fear going home may not be an option. We'll see.

Feeling Blue

2011-08-16T20:50:00.002-05:00

Today's appointment went perfectly. Doc said he saw nothing of concern and our chances of having an undetected chromosomal anomaly are about 1 in 500.

I told Greg that meant we shouldn't have 500 babies.

On about the third picture the doc took she was like, "I SEE BOY PARTS!" This means I have to do some shopping, because I have a storage unit full of pink stuff. For the record, very little of the pink stuff was purchased by me! Most of it was gifts. I was pretty careful about buying neutral colored gear and toys for the most part. But alas, there's a lot of it.

And now I have to name a boy. Sigh. I could name 15 girls, but naming one boy... I dunno. It's a hard one. But we have some time and we'll figure something out. We had a good girl name picked out already, pretty much by accident, but that's kinda useless now! We'll probably use William, since it's a big family name for my family, but I'd rather use it as a middle name which
complicates things. We'll see. Nothing is finalized or eliminated yet!

And finally, my favorite part of the doc visit -

Nurse taking medical history: "Are you and your husband related in any way?"
Me: "Only by marriage."

Pink or Blue

2011-08-15T20:04:00.004-05:00

So Tuesday is the big day. We'll have our hour long high risk anatomy scan with Dr. Perry in the morning. His scheduler called me today and said they were having to reschedule because he had to do a procedure in the morning. I freaked out. Seriously. Not while I was on the phone with her, but right after. I had to all but bend time to make arrangements for this appointment. Greg's taken off work. My sweet, sweet mother took two days off work, kept Kaycie all weekend, brought her home today and is spending the night so she can keep her tomorrow morning so we don't have to wrangle a toddler during the sonogram. Every time we've taken Kaycie into a sonogram room she's freaked out on us, so I really, really didn't want to deal with that tomorrow. Furthermore, she wanted to reschedule us for Thursday at 2. Kaycie goes down for naps at 1:30. Not only do I not want to wrangle her in a sono room for an hour (at least, if there's no delay), I most certainly don't want to wrangle a very sleepy Kaycie in a sono room for an hour!

I explained all this to the scheduler lady. I told her that if nothing else, I needed to reschedule for a morning time, because I absolutely cannot deal with my toddler during nap time. She said she'd call me back. Sure enough, within 30 minutes she called me back and said to show up at 9:30, they'd go ahead and take care of me. Turns out she has a 1 1/2 year old granddaughter. She didn't want Kaycie up there either!

Sooo... tomorrow we should find out what we're having. I consulted two different websites with the Chinese gender prediction calendars, one said girl and one said boy. Useful. I asked for predictions on Facebook and got a tie. We started to buy one of the gender prediction kits you can buy at Walgreens just for fun, but it was $40 and we decided it wasn't that much fun. It's ok. We should know tomorrow.

More importantly, we should know if there are any issues with physical development. That's not something I worry about, mostly because there's nothing I can do about it and there's no point in worrying about it, but it'll be a relief to know nothing's wrong. I've refused all other genetic testing they've offered, because it wouldn't matter. I'm not willing to terminate regardless, so if there's any genetic issues we'll know about it when MicroTot arrives.

Now we just wait...

2011-08-15T20:04:00.001-05:00

Taking a Break

2011-08-11T12:11:00.003-05:00

This weekend we're dropping Kaycie off with my parents and running away from home.

What am I most looking forward to during this break? Is it the trip to Memphis with Greg? I am looking forward to that, but it's not #1. Getting some much needed sleep? That's a close second.

The number one thing I'm looking forward to is not changing diapers for a few days. Seriously. I don't generally have a problem with changing diapers, but with Kaycie every diaper change is a battle. Flat out rebellion. Running away until I chase her down. Fighting, screaming, kicking. And as a pregnant woman who is having periodic nausea issues, stinky diapers are not my friend.

Speaking of TMI, I sent Greg a text today that said, "Just once I'd like to throw up without an audience." He replied "Just give it 12 years..." Sigh. At least Kaycie's nice about it. She'll stand next to me patting me on the back and saying, " 's ok, Mama. 's ok."

So anyway, yes, that's what I'm looking forward to. I just hope these stupid allergies go away and I feel human in time for our trip.

There's a Bean in My Vodka!

2011-08-06T12:15:00.004-05:00

I've probably lost my mind, but this just seemed like fun.

I've been contemplating this since last summer when I read about making my own pure vanilla extract. I never did because it seemed silly expensive for something you can buy for $3 a bottle at the store, but that's imitation vanilla flavoring, not pure vanilla extract.

And it just sounds like fun.

So I ordered some vanilla beans from Amazon.com, made Greg go buy me a bottle of cheap vodka, and viola, in 4-6 months I'll have vanilla. Maybe even in time to give some away for Christmas.

I still have to buy the special amber bottles, but those are kinda cheap, like $1-1.50 each, depending on the size and style. Wonder if I need dropper bottle or regular bottles...

So I don't forget next time, I started with the instructions found here. But when I ordered my beans the best deal I found was for 27 beans, so I ended up using about 2 1/2 quarts of Vodka and all 27 of my beans. I measured out all of my vodka, poured 2 1/2 quarts back in the bottle, split my beans in half with kitchen shears, and shoved them back in the bottle. I have about 3/4 pint of vodka left over, with no idea what I'd do with it. Any of you lushes need a bit of cheap vodka? Free to good home or it goes down the drain!

Now I just have to shove it in a cabinet for a few months and not forget about it when it's done (if I come back to read this when I forget, it's in the corner cabinet under the bar!). And order jars and a couple of fresh beans when the time comes. I read that if you stick a fresh split bean or two in the jar before you give it away, the recipient can add a little vodka as they use it and it'll keep steeping. Since you use approximately half the amount in each recipe, it should last a really long time. Now I want to make a pound cake. But I have to wait 4 months!

AND, I did some googling and found many, many uses for used vanilla beans, so once I get done making the extract I can rinse them off, dry them out, and use them for a variety of other purposes! I'm rather stoked about that, because vanilla beans are not cheap!

On a slightly different note, I felt human enough to break out my dehydrator again on Friday and Saturday to deal with some garden goodies we brought home from Philly last weekend. My stash of seasoning/powders and things that need to be ground into seasonings and powders currently looks like this:

That doesn't include the other fun stuff I've made, just the veggies - tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, celery, jalapeno peppers, celery root, and mushrooms!

More on Food (Red Beans and Rice)

2011-08-02T16:54:00.002-05:00

I'm in the middle of an experiment.

That's pretty impressive for me right now, as I don't really have the energy to do anything. BUT, I've been wanting a good bowl of red beans and rice and Greg has been wanting Chinese (which I have NOT been wanting since getting pregnant, MicroTot doesn't even want to think about it) so we compromised. I'm cooking up a pot of red beans and Greg's going to get Chinese take out! Win-win!

I've never made red beans and rice before. Ever. I've eaten it everywhere in town that serves it, but since Greg won't eat red beans OR rice, I've never bothered to make it at home. I got some suggestions on FB last week, and some advice from my mom over the weekend, and took a stab at it. I put my rice on to cook (I prefer brown rice, which takes 45 minutes to cook anyway) and started sauteing some diced onion in my pot while I sliced up half a package of link sausage to toss in with the onion. When that was about done I tossed in a small amount of garlic (I buy garlic chopped in jars, because I don't use it often enough to keep whole garlic). A lot of the recipes I've seen call for diced tomato, celery, and bell peppers too. That's an awful lot of chopping for me right now, and there was no way I was putting in that much effort, so I just opened a can of red beans and tossed it in the pot with the onions, sausage, and garlic. (Mom had suggested chopped ham, too, but I couldn't find any at the grocery store that I'm allowed to eat right now. Deli meat has too many nitrates and chemicals and pregnant people are generally forbidden from eating much of it.)

As I was stirring up my pot and adding a little water I spied something on the corner of my cabinet. I'm brilliant and didn't know it. Back before I was preggers I did a lot of playing with my food dehydrator and sitting on my cabinet was a jar with dehydrated bell peppers and celery. And I happened to remember that I had a jar of dehydrated ground tomato powder in my spice cabinet! I didn't want a LOT of any of it, just enough to flavor, so I added in a just a little of each.

I haven't eaten it yet, so I can't say if it's tasty. I did a taste test a few minutes ago and the sausage wasn't as strongly flavored as I'd like, so I added a very small dash of creole seasoning. Not much at all. The last time I ordered red beans at a restaurant it was so spicy I couldn't taste any actual flavor, so I wanted to make sure I didn't overpower mine with spiciness.

I should point out here that in a perfect world I'd use dry beans, soak them overnight and it would be a good bit healthier. But I'm not perfect and didn't have that much notice!

Meanwhile, my mom sent home a bag of garden pickings this weekend, which means I need to get off my rear end and do something with a bag of roma tomatoes, bell peppers, and okra. Figure most of that will get dehydrated or frozen (except the okra, of course), because that's the easiest way to deal with it right now, but I will have to prep it all first and that's going to take some effort and a few days. I also want to dehydrate some onion into flakes, but that's going to require finding a home for my dehydrator outside so it doesn't stink up my house. I also have two big watermelons Dad grew for Kaycie that need to be eaten!

But first, I can't wait to dig into my red beans tonight. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Lasagna

2011-08-02T16:43:00.002-05:00

First things first. I've been meaning to post this recipe for over a week. Greg's favorite thing in the world to eat is his mom's lasagna. I've tried to make it half a dozen times and can't get it right, but Sunday before last I put Greg in the kitchen and I assisted while he made it and I actually wrote things down. It was so good we ate it 3 nights for dinner. So, before I lose it, here's the recipe:

Lasagna

5 small cans tomato sauce
1/4 of an onion, diced (to taste)
2 lbs ground beef (use one for a less beefy sauce)
onion powder
oregano
garlic powder
1 large tub small curd cottage cheese (ricotta if you prefer)
2 cups mozzarella cheese
6 lasagna noodles, cooked (I cook 7, just in case one falls apart)

Brown ground beef an onion together. Drain. Add tomato sauce and seasonings to taste. Simmer. Layer in a greased 9X13 casserole dish as follows:

Thin layer of sauce on bottom to keep it from sticking
3 noodles
1/2 of sauce
1/2 of cottage and mozz cheese
3 noodles
remaining sauce
remaining cheese

Cover with foil and cook @ 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Uncover and broil for 4-5 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown. Let it sit for a few minutes to thicken the sauce.

Failure

2011-07-29T11:04:00.002-05:00

So, after a week of not having the energy to even admit it, I finally posted to my photography blog today that I'm a big failure. I made it 208 days into my 365 project, then dropped the ball. I just plain forgot to take a picture last Sunday. I was beyond tired. I was hurting. A lot. (My shoulder and neck pain has been awful this week). I barely crawled through the day then went to bed as soon as I could.

I've spent a few days wallowing in my failure, wondering why it's so dang hard for me to even do the things I enjoy during this phase of pregnancy. I know it's normal to be extra tired, but I'm exhausted to the point of not functioning, and this time around is still better than last time! If I can't even manage to continue a photography project that I've deeply enjoyed over the past seven months, how can I do anything???

I put a little thought into it and I really think my ADD has a lot to do with it. It takes me longer to work out my photography shot every day because it just takes me longer to think. Coming up with a shot, setting it up (or getting to a good location), getting my camera settings how I want them, and then processing and uploading the pictures takes twice as much energy for me as it would for most people. And that's extra energy I simply don't have right now. Any energy I produce is being sucked up by a rapidly growing MicroTot, and I'm ok with that. The little potamus-to-be needs it more than I need to take pictures. And hopefully I can get back to taking pictures again before long, I just have to remember that it's not as important as taking care of myself and my family. And anything extra I have right now needs to be used in that direction.

The Blahs

2011-07-27T08:57:00.003-05:00

What do you mean it's been a week? Oh, I see. Well, cut me some slack, I'm feeling like slug slime these days.

Based on history and Greg's memory, I have about 3 or 4 more weeks until the 2nd trimester energy surge kicks in. Based on my current situation, that's not soon enough. Most days by noon I'm too tired to move. After naps I'm still exhausted. By Kaycie's bedtime I just want to collapse. Last night I did. I crashed for 2 hours, woke up for about an hour and a half, went back to bed, and slept like the dead. Woke up exhausted. Now here we go again.

Did I mention I have over 1,000 blog posts in my bloglines that I haven't gotten around to dealing with yet? Today's the first time I've turned on my computer since the weekend.

Thankfully we're planning to go to my parents' house this weekend, which means my mom will swoop in and take over my child while I lay on the couch and die. Sounds heavenly.

Yesterday I saw Dr. T for a tot check. Everything was fine. I was too tired to even call my mom and tell her we went, but it was one of those check ups that I really felt like we could have had over the phone. They didn't take any blood, didn't do any tests, just looked at me, asked me how I felt, called in some Claritin D, and sent me off. I'm not sure dragging myself and my kid to the office was worth it.

Our next visit in 3 weeks, however, is worth it. We've even made childcare arrangements already, because we know we'll be there at least an hour if not more for the high risk anatomy scan. That's when we should find out if everything is ok with our little MicroTot, and if we're hitting pink or blue. Kaycie has always been a little freaked out by the sonogram room anyway, so we decided not to take her this time. My mom doesn't know it yet, but I'm about to see if she wants to make a weekend of it and keep Kaycie from Friday until that Tuesday afternoon after our appointment.

I also had a dentist appointment yesterday during which I had to tell Dr. B that I hadn't had my tooth extracted in June like I was supposed to (although Greg had already told him). Our plan had been to have it taken out before I got preggers to prevent any potential problems it might cause during pregnancy. Whoopsie. Meanwhile, he found a cavity in tooth we'd been watching for a while. The conversation went like this:

Dr. B: It started out as a stain, but now I can poke my instrument in it. We'll take care of that after the baby is here.

Me: If you'd quit poking that instrument in my teeth I'd quit having cavities! Why do you keep poking holes in my teeth? Guess you need the money for the twin's college fund???

Dr. B: (laughing) I didn't cause it! It got soft!

Me: ... And you poked your instrument in there and made a hole! You're the reason I have cavities.

Thankfully Dr. Boswell has a great sense of humor. And knows better than to really argue with a pregnant lady.

I have a recipe I need to post. Maybe later today. Or tomorrow. Or whenever I'm awake and not trying to read a book about purple things to my kid at the same time.

Mash Up - Post Ebola

2011-07-19T16:43:00.002-05:00

Playing catch up here again. Had a bad weekend. A really bad, yucky weekend. I felt yucky Friday, took a decongestant at 6PM (STUPID) and didn't sleep at all that night. Saturday morning was awful, but Greg sent me back to bed to get some sleep and I woke up feeling well enough to go ahead and go to Morton to have Greg's birthday dinner with his family at Lee's in Sebastapool. I felt ok when we left home and pretty bad by the time we arrived in Morton. I made it through dinner and felt a bit better. Eating has been tricky. MicroTot wants food every couple of hours but you know how yucky food is when you have the sinus ickies, but it does usually make things better. After we got home Saturday night I took some Tylenol and went to bed to watch some TV. I started feeling worse (naturally!) and hot. Yep. Running a slight fever. But I had just taken a Tylenol so it shouldn't last, right? Took it again, it was going up. Took it again... and again... and again... An hour after taking the meds my temp was nearly 101, the point at which I should probably call the OB nurse on call. Thankfully it didn't quite get there and once the Tylenol kicked in it dropped pretty fast and I was able to sleep. I've been gradually getting better since, but you know how these things linger.

Enough pitifulness.

Saturday was also my Godson, Edwin's, birthday. He's 9. I'm old. And I miss my little big guy.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is my dear sweet husband's birthday! WOOO! He's off the rest of the week, because you really shouldn't have to work on your birthday, and I'm really excited. I like it when he's home.

And speaking of my dear sweet husband, I absolutely love how much Kaycie adores him. When I went to get her out of the bed this morning her first word was, "Daddy?" No, baby girl, he's at work. "Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?" Um... No. He's at work... We did this all morning. At one point I put her in the van and as soon as we pulled out she started yelling "Daddy!" She was so disappointed when we turned into Walmart. She loves her Daddy. She'll be happy to have him home the rest of the week.

I'm glad Kaycie enjoys watching Sesame Street, but I'm telling you now, if you haven't seen the Elmo's World segments with Mr. Noodle and his brother Mr. Noodle, you can't possibly understand how annoying it is. And today they had his sister, Miss Noodle. I really wanted to beat my head against the wall. I'd rather watch Super Grover every single episode than ever see the Noodle family again. However...

I'm sorely tempted to go to Walmart and buy 6 more pair of pink Elmo pajamas. The only time I don't have to go 4 rounds of wrestling with my child to get her dressed for bed in the nights I put her in Elmo pajamas. She will bring them to me and help me get them on her. Earlier this week we put her to bed and she basically screamed for an hour, requiring 3 different interventions. The next night I put her in Elmos pajamas and the only peeps I heard from her were her talking to Elmo. Have at it, baby girl.

She's sitting in the floor singing the Elmo song now and saying, "Bye Elmo!" to the TV. I love that girl.

And finally, something I was discussing with Allison on FB about last night - I think I want a Kindle. Which is crazy because I don't buy books, but I really do like the convience of being able to read books electronically when I want to. I can either save up to buy one or wait and ask for one for Christmas. I get $20 a week "stuff" money to spend on whatever I want. So maybe in a couple of months. Unless I can find some stuff to sell!

Quotes

2011-07-16T22:18:00.001-05:00

Me: I may be the most pitiful thing you've ever seen if I don't feel better tomorrow.

Greg: you've been the most pitiful thing I've ever seen for the past two weeks.

For the record, he declared it OK because I'm pregnant and now I'm sick too. And because it's still not as bad as last time.

In totally unrelated news, Kaycie stole a big rock from the parking lot of the restaurant we ate at tonight. She insisted on taking it with her and played with it pretty much all the way home, including taking off her own shoe and putting it on the rock. On the bright side, she didn't throw it through the van window like I thought she would.

Paci-pocalypse

2011-07-11T15:23:00.002-05:00

For the past year Kaycie has been down to one paci. We've limited paci use to the crib since she was about 4 months old, so it wasn't a big deal and never really got lost. But this morning I discovered she'd chewed it to the point where the tip was ripping away from the base. Can you say choking hazard? So I went ahead and tore it off, showed her it was broken, and prayed we'd make it through the next few days.

She looked at the broken paci, tried to put it back together, then put the hard part back in her crib and handed me the tip. ??? I dunno, but I hoped it was a good sign.

Then came nap time. The top part was still in the crib when I put her down, so she picked it up, examined it again and then instigated this conversation:

K - "Paci?"
Me - "It's broken, baby, remember we talked about that this morning?"
K - (confused face) " Paci?"
Me - No, baby, it's broken. I'm sorry.
K - (shaking head) "Paci?"
Me - Sigh. "No, baby, your paci doesn't work anymore. I'm sorry. You're going to have to nap without it.
K - "Paci?"

Ok, so I was a little wrong about the "gonna have to nap without it" part. She didn't nap. She's not napping as we speak. After an hour of alternately whining and getting mad, then crying, I went in and rocked her for a bit and put her back in the crib. She was content for about 5 minutes. Half an hour later I'm about to go get her, sans actual nap, and pray the next hour and a half goes by quickly because my life will be hell until Greg gets home and can take up some of the sleepy-tired girl slack.

Why am I wanting to do this now? Because it's time. It has to go before MicroTot arrives or else we'll have paci-sharing/jealousy issues (may have those anyway). Actually, it needs to go before we move her into her new room and big girl bed, which will probably happen in October, because we won't be able to keep up with it if it's not within the boundaries of a crib. Actually, it needs to go before she starts Moms Day Out in September, because I'm not sending it with her to be lost at the church.

Kids don't actually go to college with a paci, right?

Anyway, she has a lot of changes coming up in the next few months and this is the the first. At some point I want to seriously start the potty training, but to be honest I'm waiting on my second trimester of energy to come back before I jump in. I don't have the energy or brain cells to get her to the potty every twenty minutes right now. And I can't night train her until she's out of the crib anyway. Getting out of the crib will require cleaning out the guest/storage room so we can move her in there. That all has to be done well before MicroTot arrives, so she doesn't think the baby is stealing her bed.

Can somebody else come and deal with all of this over the next few months, please?

Godspeed

2011-07-08T13:32:00.003-05:00

Today four human beings, three men and one woman, left the confines of this Earth and traveled into space aboard the Atlantis Space Shuttle, STS-135, the final flight of the shuttle program.

If you've been around the Farm long, you know I'm fascinated by the space program. Do you know what STS stands for? Space Transportation System. The 135 is the mission number. It's the 135th, and final, mission into space for the shuttle program.

And with that I start tearing up again.

I'm afraid that my generation is the last to appreciate the space program. As I wrote in a FB comment earlier today, I fear NASA failed to capture the imagination of the younger generations of dreamers for whom the shuttle program going to the space station is routine, something that's always been done (during their lifetime). They think Transformers 3 had better CG than a shuttle launch (I'd argue THAT to my grave!). When the program began it was more amazing than anything you could see in the movies, but it didn't keep up. What's so special about sending a shuttle to the space station? They do it all the time.

We do it all the time. There is awe in that. The idea that sending people beyond the confines of this planet, beyond our gravity, into outer space is incredible. It's not CG because it's real.

You know what I think spelled the beginning of the end for our space program? International cooperation. Sadly, when space flight and reaching new horizons quit being a competition, America lost interest. If we're not beating somebody in a race, we just get bored with it. We need an enemy, somebody to defeat, a chance to get the best of another nation. Instead we let the world get smaller, we started building a space station together. We shared flights with astronauts from other countries, combining resources to make the most of the opportunity to do something great. And Americans moved to more exciting things.

Well, many Americans anyway. I think those of us who recognize the name Christa McAuliffe, those of us who understood the significance of seeing her walk up to that shuttle wearing a jumpsuit and then sat in shocked silence when she died, we still appreciate the feat that was accomplished today. Those of us who sat in front of the TV and watched the beautiful blue sky waiting for a glimpse of the Space Shuttle Columbia on the horizon, slowly realizing that it wasn't coming home, understand the significance of sending people into space and bringing them home safely. But for too many people that's the only part of space travel that's interesting. If it doesn't blow up, it's not so impressive. Sadly, that's what we've become.

Too many people don't appreciate the awe of LAUNCHING HUMANS INTO SPACE. Nor do most people realize the incredible discoveries NASA has made with unmanned rockets and satellites throughout the galaxy. But NASA got behind. They didn't upgrade, update the technology. They focused on completing the space station and lost track of other possibilities for manned space travel. For 30 years it became routine. Thirty years ago people expected us to have space ships that can leave our galaxy by now, yet we haven't even been back to the moon.

Why haven't we been back to the moon? Is there nothing left to see there? President Obama canceled a plan to return to the moon for a more ambitious plan to go to Mars. Except we can't get there from here with current technology, we have to find a pit stop in between. I suspect without the momentum of other productive manned space flights, the funding won't last to get to Mars. Or anywhere else. We can do so much with unmanned rockets now, why take the risk of sending humans?

Because humans are what make up the space program. Human space travel is what captures the imagination of people. It's not "safe." It's exotic. And incredible. And inspiring. Of all the "not safe" things our country asks it's people to do, space travel is the one with the most positive reward!

I hope Kaycie sees a new and better space program during her lifetime, but so much depends on a political climate that changes with every Congressional election. I suspect the loss of momentum from the shuttle program ending will be the death knell for future manned flights. But I hope I'm wrong.

Godspeed, Atlantis. I pray you come home safely and to a hero's welcome.

Mash Up - Holiday Weekend

2011-07-05T10:13:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of noise, folks, but I was out of town and without particularly good interwebs over the weekend. I did, however, have an abundance of family and barbeque, which more than made up for it! We even got to spend some time with my brother and his girlfriend, which is a rare treat.

Today I am officially 3 months and 1 day preggers. If I'm not mistaken, that means I'm solidly into my second trimester. I'm waiting not so patiently for that second trimester energy boost. I was hoping it would kick in yesterday, but no. So far, not today either. I'm not exactly holding my breath for this afternoon (or this week, or this month) but a girl can dream, right?

Speaking of MicroTot, we have a date for our big "advanced maternal age" anatomy scan (i.e. gender discovery). August 16 we will hopefully be able to start using gender specific pronouns. This one isn't going to be like the last one. Last time we had a slightly more detailed ultrasound in Dr. T's office to which we invited both grandmothers and lasted about 10-15 minutes. This time we'll be seeing the high risk doc, Dr. Perry, for approximately an hour, get some genetic disorder counseling before the pictures, and if they see anything alarming we'll have to have more counseling after. I'm not anticipating anything alarming, I'm just saying we'll be there a while. As Kaycie is a little freaked out by the ultrasound room, we've already made arrangements for my mom to come visit that day and hang at home with her while we go get the news. We have one more visit with Dr. T before then, at the end of July, but it should be routine. Unless they throw in another surprise ultrasound like they did last time. Apparently on the first u/s they saw a cyst of some sort and needed to take another look, but it was fine.

I'm pretty sure my little mischief maker has crawled up into her rocker and is reading herself books, based on the rhythmic thumping sound coming from her room. I adore my kid, by the way. She had an awesome time with all her family this weekend. Sunday my mom took her to church by herself, since I was feeling kinda yucky and didn't think I was up to going. Apparently Kaycie didn't sit with Mom during church. She sat in the pew behind Mom with another family who thinks she's the bee's knees and played quietly with their (somewhat older) kids the whole time. She's just the best thing ever.

It's 10:30am. I guess I should go put pants on.

My new couch that arrived with a rip in the cushion is still here. Furniture people should be picking it up tomorrow. Maybe. That was the last I heard when I talked to them last week, but I haven't heard back from them with an actual time. I may be calling them again this afternoon. They've been very nice, if not exactly on the ball, about the whole thing. But I'm starting to get a little frustrated. I'm trying to keep this one clean until they come get it, and I have a toddler and a pup...

Yummy In My Dutch Oven - Updated

2011-06-29T18:38:00.004-05:00

I must have been smoking crack last night when I posted this, because I left out half the instructions. MicroTot is stealing my brain cells.

When most people hear the word etouffee they think of a seafood concoction with a tasty sauce over rice. Or they think, "What's that?" I will confess - I'm not a fan of seafood etouffee. It's just not my favorite. However, many many years ago my mother and I discovered a recipe in an ancient, falling apart Justin Wilson cookbook that was probably published before I was born for a beef etufe. It's one of my favorite things in the entire world. And it's simmering in my dutch oven on my stove RIGHT NOW.

Ok, it's actually our version of it, but it's pretty close. The original recipe looks something like this.

My version is actually kinda close, but a little different. It looks something like this:

Beef Etouffee

1 - 1 1/2 lbs beef steak, chuck, round steak (I use whatever's cheap, it'll braise tender)
olive oil
1/2 - 1 cup onion (to taste)
1 small jar pominter (optional)
1/2 tbsp dry parsley
1/2 tsp celery seed
2 cans mushroom steak sauce (you can use one can for less sauciness)
1/2 cup cooking wine
1/2 tbs soy sauce
3 drops hot sauce
1 clove garlic, chopped
1-2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
rice, cooked (I use brown, but whatever)

Chop the meat into bite size pieces. Brown with onion in a large cast iron skillet or dutch oven with a small amount of olive oil. Don't cook it, just brown off each side. If you cook it through it has a bigger chance of being tough. You want it to cook in the liquid (braise) so it will be tender. Add all other ingredients except the rice. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat for at least 25-30 minutes. Or longer. Let it sit as long as you dare to let the flavors get all yummified. Serve over rice.

Now, this is a very adaptable recipe. As a matter of fact, it's all kind of an estimation, Mom and I aren't big on measuring exactly. This is a half recipe version of what we used to make, because the original makes enough to feed a starving hoard. If you have a starving hoard to feed, feel free to double it, although you probably won't need 4 cans of steak sauce, 2-3 is fine.

I can't wait to eat this for lunch tomorrow. It was very hard to nom on spaghetti for dinner tonight while smelling it cooking in the kitchen! Greg won't go near it, but I'm hoping Kaycie will so that I can make it for lunch more often. I'm also going to see if it freezes. If it freezes ok, I can make a full recipe for the starving hoard and eat on it for a couple of months.

The Debate: Why I Hate AT&T

2011-06-27T18:08:00.004-05:00

You know how sometimes I post stuff about a company and somebody from that company find it on a Google keyword search and responds?

AT&T
U Verse
HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE

Wonder if any of those will pop. Actually, that would suggest that somebody at AT&T gives a damn enough to see what people are saying about them, which based on our recent experience, isn't likely.

I've known enough people with AT&T cell service to know better than to expect really good service. Most people I know who have them and have had to deal with customer service have had bad experiences. I was hoping for at least adequate. I didn't get it.

You see, 3 weeks ago we ordered U Verse plus internet service. I've talked about this before - our DirecTV reception has gotten kinda bad. Our only option for high speed internet has been Comcast, which hasn't always been dependable. We were hoping for a solution for both problems from AT&T service. We scheduled installation for last Thursday, two weeks out from when we ordered it.

The day before we got a call that they couldn't install on Thursday because of problems in our area. They were getting an engineers report and needed a couple of days to fix the problem and would call us back to reschedule. Honestly, I could live with that. Technical problems happen and I was glad they wanted it working before they started charging us for it. But...

No, they didn't call us back. On Saturday Greg called them to find out what was going on and the lady says to him, "Oh, I see you where you called us last week and canceled your installation date. Did you want to reschedule that?" Greg, being nicer than I am, didn't bite her head off. Instead he explained that THEY canceled our installation and yes, we needed to reschedule it. Fine. Monday afternoon, between 1-3.

So we clean out the corner of the bedroom they'd need to get to, dig a piece of furniture out of storage, and clean out our entertainment center with a plan to start over with all our boxes after we get the new one. Then Greg rearranged his entire world at work to come home early to be there when the guy came.

Monday at 3:45 we got an automated call from AT&T saying our installer would be there by 3. Seriously? It's 3:45. I figured that one out. They said he would be there by 5. And by 5 they mean just barely, as he rolled in about 4:45. Now I'm irritated.

He stayed less than 5 minutes. He took one look at our phone box and informed us that the "outside tech" hadn't done the blah blah blah to our phone box, so he couldn't do anything for us today. I'm sorry, what???? He made a call and said the tech had been out but he reported something about our box (it wasn't on their list or something blah blah blah, he wasn't making a lot of sense and I was pretty ticked by then). Sorry. No install for you today. Somebody from AT&T should call you in a few days to reschedule.

For real, people.

Our initial reaction was screw it, cancel the whole thing. I'm mad. Greg called 3 times to try to cancel but stayed on hold until his pager went off/somebody else called/we needed to go get dinner. The problem is we really were looking forward to the service improvements over what we have now. And we're out of other options. There are no other high speed Interweb providers in our town. We've tried Comcast cable and the reception was beyond horrendous. According to our neighbor, it still is. Soooo, what do we do? We talked about it over dinner and are contemplating whether to tell them to stick their service, since they clearly don't want our pile of money, or to just suck it up, try to reschedule again, and hope that we never ever ever ever ever have another problem that requires dealing with AT&T customer service, in the hopes that we actually get the TV and Interwebs we want.

I'm also debating writing them a nice (not nice, but nicer than I'd be on the phone) email of complaint. I don't think it'll do a lick of good, but it might make me feel better. The reality is, they need to understand that their lack of communication between departments in their own company is going to cost them business from potential very long term customers (I've had Comcast for over 10 years!). But is an email from me going to get their attention? No. Is it going to fix the problems we're having locally? Not likely. I dunno. I'm so frustrated I could scream.

It didn't help that my new couches arrived and were slightly different colors. And one had a 3" rip in the seam of one of the cushions. And my mom didn't get turned loose from her oncologist today, they want to do one more PET in six months. So much of my good news today has been tempered with "buts."

The Wait Is On

2011-06-27T12:59:00.002-05:00

Today has been rather busy.

Doc appt this morning, where we were pleasantly surprised to get another ultrasound. Seems last time they saw a cyst on an ovary so they wanted to look again, no big deal. Everything looked fantastic and we'll go back in July. After that we met my parents for a late breakfast since they were in town anyway. Mom had her six month PET scan at 6:30 this morning and sees her oncologist, well, right about now. There's usually enough time in between to get together, which is nice. It will be nicer to never get to do it again!

What??

If today's scan is clear, she is anticipating her doctor setting her free. No more six month checkups. Official cancer free for enough years to be deemed recovered. I'm waiting on that call right now. Ya'll just don't know how long we've waited for that or how incredibly happy those words will make me!

And if that's not enough going on today, our new couches are being delivered this afternoon, between 1 - 3pm. Except we were only able to move out one of our old couches last night so one of the new ones is going to have to hang on the carport until my father-in-law comes over after Greg gets home from work and they move the old one out. I'm a bit useless when I'm not lifting for two. As it is, there was no way Greg and I could get that couch moved out of here.

AAANNNNDDDDD...

Because I'm not getting an afternoon nap anyway (even though I could really use one), AT&T has there second and final shot at installing our new internet and Uverse television this afternoon, also between 1 - 3pm. They were supposed to come last Thursday but called Greg on Wednesday to say they couldn't install that day because of problems in our area. They were supposed to call back to reschedule, but by Saturday we hadn't heard anything. Greg called them back and they were like, "Oh, I see you called us and had to cancel your scheduled time last week..."

They are so lucky that Greg is nicer than I am, because I would have lost it right then. Anyway, after sorting out the problem they rescheduled for today. We'll see if they actually show up! Once they do it'll take a couple of hours so I'm not anticipating getting any rest at all.

And if they don't, I'll have not taken a nap for no reason and they don't want to incur my sleep deprived wrath.

So, I'm sitting on the one piece of furniture left in my living room waiting on all kinds of phone calls and visitors. La dee da dee da...

A Terrible Awful No Good Very Bad Day

2011-06-23T10:00:00.002-05:00

Yesterday sucked.

I haven't had a day that bad in a very, very long time.

And it bothers me that I can't pinpoint why. I didn't sleep much the night before. I had a mildly chaotic morning with a bit a of stress. And my sinuses were hating on me big time. By nap time I was exhausted, so as soon as I put Kaycie to bed, I put myself to bed and passed out. I could have slept with my neck at a bad angle. I could have been grinding my teeth and putting pressure on my jaw during the stressful dream I had (that I woke up from gasping for air). I dunno. But I know that I woke up from my nap with a screaming headache.

I took some meds and ate something, hoping one of those would make it better. Turns out I was in so much pain I wasn't paying attention and took the wrong med. No big deal, Tylenol instead of Ibuprofen, but I'm not supposed to take Tylenol while pregnant. Great. Regardless, neither helped.

By the time Greg got home he found me laying on my back in a warm bath, with Kaycie pouring water over my head and piling toys on top of me. It had gotten so bad that I couldn't stand up without crying, so I got in the tub to help loosen up some of the muscles in my neck and shoulders. That helped. Marginally. Greg went to get us food (because cooking wasn't an option) and immediately after dinner I abandoned my family and went to bed. That was shortly after 6pm. I was done.

Thankfully Greg took care of all the necessary nightime/bedtime activities for Kaycie, banished the dogs from our bedroom and apparently threatened the evil spirits at the other end of his pager. I slept last night. Really, really well. I felt better this morning, but yesterday was so bad that I was afraid to get out of bed for fear something would trigger and I would start hurting again. So far so good, let's hope it lasts past naps. Because I'm not sure I can survive another repeat of yesterday. I don't think I'm as strong as I used to be when it comes to pain management.

Overheard On My Couch

2011-06-23T09:50:00.001-05:00

Kaycie is sitting on the couch sorting things. Here's what I just heard,

"A shoe. A shoe. A shoe. A shoe. A DUCKIE!"

This came after she counted her shoes. 1, 2, 3, 4. Then she started over, 5, 6, 7, 8!

That kid loves to sort and count.

I broke down and ordered her a potty chair. She's not ready to train yet but she's ready to learn about it and this will help me judge her level of interest going forward. If I'm ever allowed to open the box.

Mash Up Father's Day Edition

2011-06-20T13:54:00.002-05:00

Yes, I know it was yesterday, but the first two topics on my list involve Greg so I can call it a Father's Day edition if I want to.

My favorite phone-game at the moment is Fruit Ninja. My husband is a little competitive, so we play against each other each week. (The scores reset on Sunday.) As is to be expected, he's better than I am. I can usually score in the 400's, he normally scores in the 500's. Last week I managed a 560, which was the highest score either of us had ever gotten. I was FRUIT NINJA! I even sent him a text message (to the old Dr. Pepper commercial tune)-"I'm a ninja, she's a ninja, wouldn't you like to be a ninja too? I'm the ninja, I'm Fruit Ninja!" I shouldn't have gloated. He worked for DAYS to beat my 560. But of course he did. By Saturday night he'd managed a 610. Dang it.

That aside, I still have the best husband ever. Why? Let's discuss how did we spend our Father's Day weekend. Being bums. With the exception of the occasional need for take out food, we didn't leave the house for two days. It was nice. Saturday I didn't even get dressed, I was still in my pajamas at dinner. And Sunday, the actual "Father's Day?" Greg got up early with the baby girl so I could sleep until 10. And when she took a short afternoon nap (meaning I was getting no nap at all) he made me go to bed while he went and got her and played so I could nap and get rested up. He spent Father's Day being a great daddy so that Micro-Tot and I could get some rest. Because he's awesome. (And really, who wouldn't want to hang with the baby girl? She's hysterical.)

Speaking of my hysterical little potamus, she has two new obsessions. Counting and shoes. Not counting shoes, however, as that would be silly. But she loves to put her shoes on. And take them off. And put them on. And take them off. And she does not want any help, because she's a big girl who can do it herself. Today in the van she had a sandal on each hand and was clapping with them. Because she's a hoot.

As for the counting, it's mostly because of this silly book at got her on PBS called the Fisher Price Little People Number Circus. Now, we've been reading counting books since before she could walk, but for some reason she's gotten attached to the number circus. I think I'm about ready to run off and join the number circus. Regardless, she can mostly count to 10 now. If you ignore the pesky 4, which she doesn't care for and often skips. I find it funny. And more than a little frightening. I'd rather she know her alphabet before her numbers, just because it would give me an upper hand over her daddy, who is a geek and likes to count by 8's.

Meanwhile we have a bonus pup at the house this week. Miss Molly is back while her family takes a trip to the mountains. I think she thinks she's being punished. Casper has long learned where to hide when Kaycie is in a chasing mood. Molly just think the little hairless pup has lost her mind.

I'm cutting this short for two reasons. One, my laptop battery is about dead and my charger is down the hall. Two, I'm thiiiiis close to being done with a book and I want to go try to finish it. Or nap. One or the other.

The Wedding Recap

2011-06-17T14:40:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe I didn't get a picture of the shrunken head.

And that I didn't make that up.

Last weekend we went to my cousin's wedding. Technically he's supposed to be a distant cousin, as his dad and my dad are first cousins, but his dad has been in and out of our lives since as long as I can remember, often living next door to us when I was growing up, so we don't really stand on ceremony when we label his kids as cousins. They are. They now live in Minnesota, although one kids lives next door to my brother in Vicksburg and the one that got married just graduated from Mississippi State and will be in med school at UMC in the fall. I had a feeling there wouldn't be a lot of people from our side of the family there, since the wedding was just outside of Memphis, so I talked my mom into going. (That was real hard. I said, "Hey Mom, wanna go?" and she said, "OOOOOHHHHH!!!!! Let's go!!!!!!") I'm glad I did, as we were one of very few people there for the groom and most of those were from his mom's side.

The wedding itself was incredible. I wish I had a recording of the service because the minister talked about the mystery of marriage and used passages from Song of Solomon and I wish I could remember everything he said because it was awesome. One of the things I love about weddings is how I usually feel a renewed sense of purpose in my own marriage after the service. I sent Greg a text right after and told him we should go to church there. It's only a 4 hour drive!

And right outside the church there was this old train that you could climb on. So of course we did. Because what else are you going to do when you're all dressed up and waiting to go a reception?

They had the reception half an hour away at the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis. What a bizarre place. I don't know how to describe it, and we only saw the main hall. Most of the museum was blocked off. There were all kinds of taxidermied animals and birds, artifacts from all over the world, including a shrunken head in a glass class as the center display.

How did I NOT get a picture of the shrunken head?

The light was awful so I didn't get to take many pics at all, but I did get one of the outside of the building and the polar bear. Yes, they turned the polar bear exhibit into the gift station. How awesome is that?
And here's a picture of the happy couple, Sam and Ashley.

A Mash Up of Other Items I Missed This Week

2011-06-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

Last Friday was my mom's 65th birthday. I'm glad I got to go on a road trip with her for the occasion. We never get to do that, just the two of us, and we had a BLAST. Trying to use Dad's GPS unit alone provided enough laughs to fill the weekend. I adore my mom. She's so much fun!

Sunday we went to Morton to see Greg's sister, Misty, and her son, Randy, who drove over from Texas on Saturday. We celebrated Randy's birthday and the fact that he's staying in Morton for a while with my inlaws this summer. I hope he has a great time, and that Misty managed to get some relaxation in at home while he's gone! I'm looking forward to seeing him a little more often too. As it is, we've seen him about once a year since we got married.

Yesterday was my BFF Sharonda's birthday. I'm such a slug I didn't even get a card in the mail, even though I thought about buying one every day for an entire week and half before. Sometimes I kinda suck. I'm just saying.

Meanwhile, yesterday was also the anniversary of the day my Uncle Lacy died, I think it was six, possibly seven years ago. I can't miss that one, as it falls on Sharonda's birthday. I really miss my uncle. He used to take me fishing when I lived in Philly. And he adored his kids, one of whom is my BFF Lynn. She and I grew up as best friends, and her parents were always awesome to me. I remember the year we drew names for Christmas (his last Christmas, now that I think about it) he got my name. We had a $10 limit on gifts that year. He bought me a set of pearls - necklace, earrings, and bracelet. He never was one to follow rules! I wore them to my wedding, hoping in some way he would know. He meant a lot to me and I would have given anything for him to know Kaycie. He would have though she was made of nothing but awesome, just like his own grandkids. He's one of those rare people who I knew loved me, not because he was family and had to, but because he liked me and cared about me. I hate that we lost him so soon. And I know that for as much as I miss him, Lynn misses him ten times more.

I told you I had a lot to talk about this week. And I'm sure I'm leaving something out whatever it is, I'm sure it'll wait, because right now I need a nap. Who am I kidding, I always need a nap.

A Post In Which I Sound Grumpy and Judgemental

2011-06-16T14:12:00.003-05:00

I'm tired.

But I love ya, and I feel bad about not being in touch this week, so I'm postponing my own nap to post. And to run through 6 of the 755 blog posts I currently have to read in Bloglines. And I'm not exaggerating that number.

My schedule this week has been like this: wake up 8:30-9. Run around like crazy to get Kaycie fed, dressed, read to, and to music camp by 10. Spend an hour running around like a crazy woman keeping up with my kid at camp. Go do _____ (grocery store, lunch with Greg, whatever else I needed to do that day). Get home either to make lunch or right after lunch. Take naps. Wake up around 3:30, make snacks and start dinner...

Normally, the "take naps" part of that routine is when I clean house, make dinner, take pictures, and blog. Not lately. Too dang worn out. I blame MicroTot.

So let's start by talking about camp. I want to tell you about the wedding I went to last weekend, but camp is fresher at the moment so here we go...

I've never really felt like I fit in with the other mom's in Kaycie's music classes, but until this summer I never really felt like I was way out of my league. There are two nannies that come to our class. Really. I don't have a problem with people hiring nannies, but both of these situations are weird. The first one has a 3 year old and a set of 2 month old twins, so I totally get the need. What I don't get is why the nanny and twins come with them to class. These people live in Madison, so it's a hike. And the 3 year old in the class acts like she's pretty desperate for attention that she's not getting from her mom who likes to stand in the back of the room and chat with the other mom's until the teacher has to ask them to be quiet because the kids can't hear what's going on. That's happened at least once a day this week.

Sadly, I've met this woman before. She was in Kaycie's first music class at Galloway and had the same problem there, before she was pregnant with the twins. I wasn't real thrilled to see her in the class.

The other nanny situation is even more bizarre. This family has one child, age 2 1/2. Both of the parents AND the nanny come to class. The poor kid doesn't know who to play with and the adults are almost constantly struggling to get her attention away from one of the other adults.

Sadly, I know these people too. The dad used to be one of my clients at the bank. I know ENTIRELY too much about this man to be hanging out with him in a casual camp situation. And it's brought back some of the trauma of that job for me. He was in my list of top 2 craziest people I ever met (#1 on that list was one of his relatives...). I've started having the weird working at the bank dreams again this week. And the first day I saw him there I had a serious emotional reaction after we left. It kinda freaked me out. There are things I don't ever want to have to put thought into again, and my years at the bank are pretty high up on that list.

Meanwhile, the other mom's are all chatting during class, comparing locations of their beach houses and how often they go and trips to Hawaii and dress their boys in matching outfits with embroidered animals on the smocking. I will admit, there's one mom there that I really like, despite the fact that they also have higher class tastes than I do, but she's very cool and I've enjoyed talking to her. She's also the only one (other than my former client's wife) who has said one word to me. Am I wearing a sign that says "I don't own a beach house" or "I'm not rich enough to be your friend"?

Perhaps I'm simply over tired and mornings haven't been my best time of late. Not throwing up, but feeling yucky most mornings. Not to mention I'm having pregnancy hormone related emotions weirdness. I'm sure I'm overreacting. But as much fun as Kaycie has had this week, I'll be really glad when tomorrow is over and camp is done.

Not MIA

2011-06-14T16:09:00.001-05:00

Sorry for being delinquent of late. Had a wild weekend and Kaycie has music camp every morning this week, leaving me exhausted. But I also have so many things I need to talk about! I'll get to it. Eventually.

Reason #847 Why My Hubsband Rocks

2011-06-09T14:06:00.002-05:00

I'm so irritated with the world today that I thought I should post something positive just to move on.

A couple of nights ago I had this conversation with Greg:

Greg: Did you get a nap today?

Me: No. I rested a bit but never fell asleep.

Greg: You really need to start sleeping more in the afternoons...

I would like to point out that this was right before he unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it, and ran it so that I wouldn't have to deal with it the next morning.

And yesterday we had this conversation via text:

Me: I just had a dream that we were texting about whether or not to go get salsa tonight.

Greg: LOL

Me: For the record, in my dream we decided yes.

Greg: That sounds good to me!

I have the BEST. HUSBAND. EVER.

Did I mention that he's taking off work tomorrow to hang with Kaycie while I drive to Memphis with my mom to attend a cousin's wedding? We were originally all going to go and make a weekend of it, but some other things came up and we need to back home Saturday anyway so... We decided not to torture Kaycie with the long drive (I'm picking Mom up in Philly before heading up to Memphis, adding a couple of hours to my trip each way) Greg suggested they stay home and Mom and I go. Because he's awesome. He also suggested I go ahead and drive up to Philly tonight so I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, but I'd rather wait. I really don't dig being away from my little family any more than necessary!

And, to top it off, I casually mentioned that I couldn't decide what to make for dinner tonight, so he immediately informed me that we had $15 of food money left for the week (we get cash tomorrow, so the week ends today) and if I had another $3 we could get pizza and wings so I didn't have to cook.

Now if you'll excuse me, Kaycie is asleep, so I need attempt to get some rest myself. :)

Lions and Tigers and Bears and Giraffes and Rhinoceroses

2011-06-07T13:59:00.002-05:00

Back in April I got this brilliant plan. Kaycie was really getting into animals so I signed up for an annual zoo membership. Our zoo membership is stupid cheap. I didn't even go for the least expensive one, I got the companion membership, so me (or Greg) plus one other person can go for free (well, $1 for parking each time) all year. And that's an extra person, because Kaycie is free until November. After that I think she qualifies as my extra person and then MicroTot can be free until age 2. For $30 a year. Awesome. Mostly because I really don't enjoy going to the zoo and spending all day, which I always feel compelled to do when I'm paying per trip. Gotta get that money's worth! Plus our zoo isn't fabulous. It's... well, I'll be kind and call it adequate. They've updated some parts that are better than the old areas, but they have a loooooong way to go. Some areas are seriously inadequate. But anyway, with the membership we can go, check out two or three animals, and leave. Or just go to the petting zoo part. Or hang with the otters in their nice new air conditioned space and then bail. We can do that once a month and it would be well worth it, considering adult admission is $9 a pop.

So when I signed up for the membership in April it said it could take up to three weeks to get our card. Dang. But ok. I wanted to get in some trips before the oppressive heat set in, but that should leave me some time.

Four weeks later, I still didn't have a card.

I contacted the membership lady at the zoo, who said they'd mailed it April 7. Crap. But the nice lady said she'd glady get me a new one printed and ship it off. This was the first week of May.

Four weeks later, I still didn't have a card.

I contacted them again on Monday and the nice membership lady no longer works there, but a new nice membership lady told me they had indeed mailed it. Twice. ????? But being the nice membership lady, she printed me a third one and left it at the ticket window for me. Thank you, nice membership lady!

Except now it's June. And I'm pregnant. And while it's June, it actually feels like August, which is a valid complaint for people who understand the subtle differences between 90, 95, and 100 degrees. And being pregnant, I feel that subtle difference even more than usual. I suffer.

But we trooped on. This morning we picked up our card, paid our $1 to park, and skipped off into the zoo. Where we stayed 20 minutes. We didn't actually see any lions. Or tigers. Or bears. We did see the giraffes, which Kaycie found fascinating. They had the mama and the daddy (who happens to be named Casper!) an adolescent, and the baby! We also saw the brand new baby tapir, and assortment of swans, ducks, and flamingos (who Kaycie wanted to climb in and join), and the rhino. I was looking for the elephant but never found him. We were both about to pass out by this point so that was all we took in today.

And that's ok. Because we can go back next week if we want and look for the elephant. Except we won't because Kaycie has music camp next week and we'll be at the church from 10-11 every day. But the week after that, we can go on a safari in search of the elephant! They also have a story time on Tuesday mornings that we might check out at some point. And the Discovery Station play area was closed today but I'm hoping that'll be open soon and she can go through that and the petting zoo. Overall, I think it'll be worth the $30. Especially if I still feel like waddling through in the fall when the weather becomes bearable again.

First Look

2011-06-06T20:54:00.003-05:00

In all the insanity of the past few days I didn't get to blog about our first doc appointment for MicroTot.

We went last Thursday. In truth, there wasn't much to say. We saw pictures. The little MTot heart was pounding away at 141bpm. They confirmed my suspected due date of January 16. Greg requested Dec 31 for the tax deduction. I requested a duplicate of our original Tot model. Dr. T basically said she couldn't help with either of those requests.

Dr. T also told me to gain 25-35 pounds. I asked her if the 20 I'd put on since Kaycie was born counted. She said no. Drats. Although I don't think I'll have much trouble this time, as I've been eating six times a day.

We go back the last Monday in June for a regular checkup. Don't expect any more pictures until we go for the anatomy scan at 18 weeks. That's when we should find out the gender. Due to my "advanced maternal age" we'll be seeing the high risk doc, Dr. Perry, for that visit. I've been told the high risk scan takes about an hour, which means it's considerably more detailed than the one we got last time. I'm ok with that.

Today was a rough day. I felt... yucky. All day. I was very tired but didn't get to rest during Kaycie's naps because I had so many things I needed to do. By the time she went to bed I was beyond exhausted and still felt yucky. BUT... Despite feeling like slug slime much of the day, I still felt better than I did most any day of the first trimester with Kaycie. So for that, I'm still going to be thankful.

Jumbles

2011-06-06T15:34:00.002-05:00

No, I wasn't abandoning you on purpose. I've been sans-webs since Thursday. It's a hard life when all your family lives in the boonies.

So I'm pretty much tired to the point of falling over. Let's recap the last few days:

Thursday - doc appointment at 8:30am. Took the potamus. Was there forever. Got home at 11:30, had lunch plans with BFF Sharonda at noon. Got home at 2:30. Had to pack and get on the road between 4 and 4:30 for a funeral visitation in Forest. When that was over we drove to Philly to drop off Kaycie then drove back to Morton to spend the night.

Friday - Drove to Hillsborough for a funeral. (Greg's Uncle Butch, if I hadn't mentioned that before. Lung cancer. Very sad.) They had a grave side service at the church cemetery. Yes, that is outside. It was hot at 10am. I got dizzy and nearly passed out halfway through the service. After that we went to the traditional lunch at a relatives house nearby, then back to Morton to get our stuff. Then we drove back to Philly, where we'd left Kaycie.

Thankfully we were done with the driving for a bit. We decided that as long as we were there we'd spend the weekend with my parents. Except Saturday we ended up going into town (about 10-15 miles away) 3 times. I was worn out. Sunday we drove home via Morton again, where we'd left the poor pup so he wouldn't be out in the heat all weekend.

I took a monster nap Sunday afternoon. I needed it.

Meanwhile, Greg's cousin is doing fantastic. They were supposed to move him to Methodist Rehab today, which is amazing. He's standing on his own a little bit, walking with help, and eating real food. Dude. Amazing.

And one of my dearest friends found herself in a similar spot, as her father fell and had a brain bleed last week. They were also in ICU waiting for a neuro bed with her dad in a coma. But they didn't make it. Her father died Sunday morning. I can't even begin to guess at why one is miraculously saved and one is not, but it's not for me to know. Breaks my heart though. Such a sweet family. She has a kiddo two weeks younger than Kaycie.

And on a final, totally unimportant note, after a year on the wish list at PBS, I finally got a copy of The Help this week. Now I have to find time to read it.

Update With Good News

2011-05-31T13:33:00.002-05:00

I just want to offer a sincere thank you to all of you who took some time to pray for somebody you've never met this weekend. It's working.

Benji's is doing great. Updates from his family have been so encouraging over the past two days! They took out his breathing tube and he's able to suction himself. He's alert and seems to have better use of both eyes and can answer yes and no to questions. He was able to tell the nurse his name and tell his wife he loved her. And got them to turn the TV to ESPN, which is pretty typical! This morning's update was that he has some movement in all four limbs and was able to pull his knees up to his chest. That's fairly amazing 48 hours after a brain stem stroke, people.

If there's anything I've learned over the years it's to try not to question the "why's" and be grateful for God's willingness to answer when we pray.

Benji's wife posted two this as her FB status earlier:

Faith is the refusal to panic. I just remember Phil. 4:13

Phil 4:13 is the classic "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

If she can remember that right now, we should be able to remember it too.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

2011-05-29T12:21:00.004-05:00

Most of you know that I don't publicly ask for prayer for other people often. When I do, it's usually something big. And if you are friends with me on Facebook you may have seen that I did indeed ask for some prayers last night.

Greg's cousin, Benji, had brain stem stroke yesterday morning. He's 35, a few months younger than me. He just celebrated his first wedding anniversary earlier this month. He had recently gone back to school and just finished his degree. He was looking for a teaching job. He works as a ranger at Roosevelt State Park. For those of you who attended the MRBA picnic last year, he was at the guard shack taking the entry money. Greg and I stopped and talked to him for a while that day, which was probably the last time I saw him, although Greg's seen him since and we always enjoy some online trash talking during March Maddness.

It was several hours before his wife found him and a couple more before they got him to UMC. Yesterday he couldn't move the left side of his body, this morning he could use the left but not the right. He's having trouble breathing, one of the involuntary functions controlled in the brain stem. He's in the ICU. Nobody seems to know what to expect from here.

I didn't sleep much last night. I kept waking up and praying some more. This morning I woke up pretty mad at God. Benji is too young for this. He'd finally found some real happiness, was making some positive changes in his life and was ready to move forward. Why does this have to happen to him. Why now.

Part of that anger is fear. It could have been one of us.

When these things happen it's hard to remember that God isn't the only force at work in this world. He doesn't cause bad things to happen to good people, but he doesn't always stop it either. We don't know why. Sometimes there's no reason, it's just failure of the human body. Our bodies aren't perfect. Our choices aren't perfect. Those things aren't God's fault. And we never know how he's going to use the things that happen to us. I saw that when my mom had cancer. It was awful, but she stayed strong and came out of it a better person.

And that's all a nice way of saying that this sucks. But it does me no good to get angry at God. Not that He minds. He has an infinite store of forgiveness and understanding when it comes to these things. And I certainly won't stop praying for healing and restoration.

12,000

2011-05-27T14:34:00.002-05:00

So Greg just informed me that after revising our expectant budget we need to save $12,000 by the end of the year.

And then I passed out.

Ok, so that's not "in order to eat" money, it's the extra stuff that isn't in our monthly budget. Insurance, taxes, my IRA, Kaycie's college fund, paying for Micro-tot...

I think I need to work on a big post about our budget. It would make more sense.

Sometimes I wonder how in the world we paid off so much debt so quickly. Then I remember that we had twice the income at the time.

In the meantime, we need to find a way to come up with about twice as much each month as we're currently saving. On the other hand, we have until April to make the contributions to my IRA and Kaycie's college fund, so we'll have a few extra months for that. Of course then we need to fund two college funds next year. And if Micro-tot doesn't arrive until January, we won't get the extra tax deduction this year. Think we can get an SSN before the baby actually arrives? Or talk Dr. T into inducing Dec 31??? My luck she'd induce but I'd have a really long labor and M-T would arrive after midnight Jan 1. Not even early enough for all the "first baby of the year" freebies.

We'll figure it out. We always do.

Graduation

2011-05-27T13:55:00.002-05:00

I bought a graduation card for a special young lady this week and I was surprised to find the perfect sentiment on my first try. That never happens, and it always takes me forever to pick out a card for anything. Frankly, I wish it wasn't a graduation card and was just blank inside because I can think of a dozen people I could send this to just as a little happy. Since many of you are on that list, I thought I'd share:

'The future doesn't lie ahead of you, waiting to happen... It lies deep inside of you, waiting to be discovered."

Clarification

2011-05-26T09:51:00.003-05:00

It occurred to me last night that I didn't word that last post right. I don't have a problem with people giving advice. I have a problem with people being arrogant about giving advice. Especially when they don't really understand what they're talking about.

You see, last time around some people didn't really think I was that sick. They had never had a pregnancy or hadn't had one that bad and therefore seemed to think I was either a) faking it, b) exaggerating it, or c) a big wimp.

I knew I wasn't faking it. I knew I wasn't exaggerating it. That left me feeling like I was a wimp for taking it so much harder than everybody else. Now, I've been though some painful stuff (like 9 years of chronic back pain) and I never though of myself as particularly wimpy. That's one of the things that had me almost scared of this pregnancy. I didn't know how I was going to un-wimp myself enough to deal with it. Because clearly everybody else knew more than me, right?

This time around it's so different that I'm beginning to understand that it wasn't a matter of being a wimp, it was a matter of being really really sick. Not as sick as some people have been, but certainly sicker than I think is probably considered normal. It frustrates me to think that people who didn't know any better seemed to think I wasn't. They made me feel worse about myself because they didn't understand that I was having a harder time than they did.

I don't think it was intentional, I think it was just a lack of understanding. And that's what I was trying to say yesterday. If you don't understand, don't try to make it better.