The Keith Family

I'm baaaaaaaaack!

2011-06-03T20:35:00.003-04:00

So so so very much has went on in the last almost 10 months!

School was hectic, the holidays were crazy busy, we moved, the girls have grown so much, and most recently. We found out we are expecting again!

Little E is due in January(tickers updated on the side). It seemed to be a very long road to pregnancy. We decided back in October that we were ready for #3 and preferably the sooner better. It took 8 months from the time we wanted to start trying til we got the positive test. But trying to make a baby takes a lot out of you when months in a row it doesn't happen. And even worse when we kept it mostly to ourselves except a few close friends. But we are all more than thrilled. I'm only 8 weeks today but it seems to be flying by already. The morning sickness is horrible some days and not so much others.

The girls are doing wonderfully. Aria had to get glasses in Jan. and Cora is completely potty trained except for an accident here and there. Our new apartment complex has a swimming pool so we have already spent a handful of days out in the pool. Aria is a natural little fish.

Also, we have another new family member to report. We adopted a kitten a few months ago. Her name is Gypsy and she is super snuggly.

Ahhh!!!!!!

2010-08-11T03:08:00.003-04:00

Ok, now that I feel better. A little update.

We have been crazy busy around here. I have been getting things in order for me to start school later this month. Aria finished up speech. We have had dr's appointments and dentist appointments. Trips to the Childrens' Museum and trips to the zoo. And lots and lots of outside time later in the day because its been crazy humid here. And now I am in the midst of preparing for Cora's second birthday party which is in 3 days...THREE.

Hopefully next week(After the party, before her birthday trip to the zoo, because i don't forsee time after that trip) I can hop on here and post a bigger update. But for now we are all still alive and well and busy busy busy!

A Bittersweet Day.

2010-07-09T23:12:00.002-04:00

A little over a year ago Aria went for her 2 year well baby check up. Main topic of concern? Aria didn't talk. She had a little baby babble, and I could understand a little bit of what she said, naturally, since I spent the day with her every day. Appointments were made. Hearing was tested. Speech was evaluated. Turns out her hearing was fine, but she was considerably behind in her speech. So we started a year long adventure of twice weekly speech therapy visits.

Aria started out with a therapist named Laura. Soon after starting Laura was offered a position she couldn't refuse and moved out of state. Aria started seeing Rachel. Over the last year Aria has completely fallen in love with her. We hear about her ever day, she gets excited to go see her and is upset when its time to leave.

Today when we arrived, they told me Aria would be reevaluated, then she would be on hold for one week while her evaluation was wrote up. But that's not the case, Aria did so well she won't be going back. Shes above and beyond where she should be for her age. I'm so very proud of her. We have come so far in a year. I don't think Aria understands that she won't be going back and that makes me sad because I know in a few weeks it will probably hit her when we aren't going back. I cried on the way home. On one hand I am SO happy she is caught up, but on the other I hate to see someone she really cares about taken from her.

After we left speech today, we had a small family celebration for her. We had some cake, daddy played a little music while the girls danced, Dave's brother and a friend joined us and the 3 kids played, it was a wonderful end.

I might post pictures tomorrow, but for tonight I'm going to go snuggle with my big girl, who has accomplished so much in the last year.

I'm not happy.

2010-07-03T02:11:00.003-04:00

So things must change. I stepped on the scale tonight, we won't discuss numbers, but I was very displeased.

I HAVE to change my life, For myself, for my children, for my husband.

First things first. Monday morning I need to go get the application to get some kind of health insurance. I know I already have Hypothyroidism and that is not helping with this weight gain. Then we AS A FAMILY need to be healthier.

Luckily, Grocery shopping is only a few days away so all of the JUNK here can GO!

I have to do this...hold me accountable! I know you people are reading!

So I have this thing...

2010-05-29T21:48:00.002-04:00

...I like to call her my 3 yr old.

I have heard a MILLION times that terrible threes are FAR worse than Terrible Twos. Let me just tell you right now...It's the truth!

Aria has always been the "good" child. From a rather young age if she was expected to do something(be it not touch the cords, or more recently, pick up dirty clothes) she did it. Not a fuss, not a whine. She was wonderful. She would sit in time out, silently crying knowing that mommy doesn't let her out of time out if she is talking and being loud. That's just now how I roll.

Then...She turned Three. Oh yes, she has only been three for 17 days, But let me tell you, that is 17 too many...Lets skip to 4 please?

In 17 days Aria has peed on her sister, BIT ME!, sits on Cora daily, throws toys, doesn't eat, screams endlessly in time out, won't do her "chores"...I could go on, but i won't bore you with all of that. I love her dearly, but I am SO glad she is sleeping better, I'm not so sure i could handle an extra 6 hours of her games each and every day.

Oh how you were missed Mr. Sleep.

2010-05-21T22:28:00.002-04:00

Some people say 'you don't know what you have til its gone'. Well, I am now a firm believer in 'You don't know what you are missing til you have it back!'

I posted last time that Aria doesn't sleep. She went to the dr this past Monday and this was our main topic of discussion. This was probably the longest talk we have had about one child to date. We went through the never ending list of things we had tried and came to a not so great conclusion. Odds are Aria has ADD/ADHD, granted it doesn't matter at this point. It's something that runs in both families and was kinda inevitable. We will deal with that problem when we get to that bridge.

Sooo we talked about how to get her to sleep, she is only three, sleep aids for 3year olds are virtually nonexsistant. However i had done some research of my own and wanted to try melatonin before we went to something that would drug her.

I must say BEST CHOICE EVER! It has been 5 beautiful nights of glorious sleep.

Just a quick run down...

2010-05-12T03:17:00.002-04:00

...At 3am while I sit here and watch the weather and keep hoping that the weather man is WRONG!

Aria

She is OFFICIALLY THREE. Man this birthday has me more emotional that the past two.
She has the attitude of a three year old.
She is completely day potty trained. We put her in panties under a pullup every night so she feels wet when she pees at night but she still has about one wet pullup a week.
She still doesn't sleep. By doesn't sleep what I really mean is I don't sleep. Aria is often up til 2 or 3 am EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT.We have tried all those tips and tricks on getting your kid to sleep yeah...they don't work for her. Next stop? Talking to her dr about natural sleep aids before mommy loses her mind!
That evil toe fungus has reared it's ugly head again. She goes to the dr on Monday for her well baby check. We will be having a nice long heart to heart about Aria and her constant can't-kick-this-whatever issues. No one else here has the fungus and I am a tiny bit OCD about how clean my bathroom and floors are. So what is the deal here man?
Aria is also still HAPPILY rear facing. She is plenty big enough to forward face so she has on a few occasions(but NEVER before two years old) and she very much prefers to rear face, which is ok with mommy, Id rather her be safer anyway.

Cora

Cora is almost 21 months old. I can't tell you how big she is because she isn't due for any shots right now so she doesn't need to see the dr until she turns two.
Cora is most certainly almost two. She pushes our buttons daily getting into stuff she knows better than messing with.
Cora has an amazing vocabulary. Maybe this is partly because Aria was slipping behind at Cora's age and maybe Cora really is saying a lot but it just AMAZES me house much she learns every day.

Dave
Is doing well. Currently he has a little bug that kept him home from work yesterday but he seems to be feeling MUCH better as the day progressed. His diabetes is COMPLETELY under control. When I look back to how worried we were when we found out, I feel silly. I felt so overwhelmed with the idea of having to learn to cook differently, but things are going so well with him that he has a lot more freedom than we originally thought he would have. Which also leads to me having my freedom back in the kitchen.

Myself
I'm doing well. Only sleeping 5ish hours a night is really starting to wear on me.(Aria goes to sleep between 2 and 3am, Cora is always up between 7 and 8am) I'm getting rather excited to start school...as long as we get a handle on Aria's lack of sleep.

Now, I'm going to go back to looking at the weather every 5 mintues. We had big plans to take Aria on her first trip to the zoo for her birthday...and of course its going to rain...stupid mother nature!

The time has come...

2010-04-13T13:40:00.002-04:00

to potty train Aria. We have tried a handful of times previously with little or no success. So each time we had backed off hoping that in another few months she would be ready.

This time. I think she's got it. I dont want to jinx us here but she is doing SO well. Now back to trying to figure out what kind of cake to make her for her birthday. She wants Dora, idk if i want to make a dora cake.

But before I'm done for the night...

2010-04-09T01:04:00.002-04:00

...I see you all! So many new readers, I promise to try and post more as things pick up around here again. So don't forget to follow us and leave some comments, I love comments!

You'll have to forgive me.

2010-04-08T23:52:00.003-04:00

Well, you don't HAVE to forgive me, you could simply stop reading and walk away forever and never come back.

I have an excuse this time though, a good one I promise!

I had planned to post a blog about our Easter, and how things have went since my last post...IN FEBRUARY!!!! (why don't you guys send more hate mail about me not posting?) But Friday before Easter we went with my mom to a free concert(the girls' first!!!!!!) And I hurt my wrist trying to keep some guy from sitting on Aria. So typing or anything computer related has been a little slow going. No way could I have poured out everything that is to be shared without having to stop a million times.

So go grab a snack, and get comfy. Today will have LOTS of pictures to share along with all the other good bits you are waiting to hear about us!

In March, we continued to battle Aria's fungus on her feet. We had a few drs appts. about it and in the end found a cream that kicked it and we won that battle. After a looooooong 7 weeks, we were not sad to see it go. March also brought with it Aria's first illness of the warm weather. Actually, she got sick the day before my birthday, which started out thinking she MIGHT end up admitted to the hospital for breathing issues. Thank you bronchitis and double ear infection, way to make my birthday a stressful one!

March also included our second trip to the Children's Museum. The girls had a BLAST. As did Dave and I. I love that place, SO glad we bought a membership! The following are pictures from that trip.

Cora was very happy to be there.

Aria working in the ice cream shop.

Picking a "Flavor of the Day"

Trying the ice cream, which was shortly followed by an "ewww that's icky and has germs" speech.

Brushing the Dinosaurs teeth and learning about healthy habits

Cora was IN LOVE with this flower, We had to pry it out of her hands to leave it behind.

Then we saw a HUGE crocodile...

And Fed Cora to it.

After that we headed home. While there is TONS to see there, they girls are young, they get overwhelmed pretty quickly and I personally prefer to get out of town before rush hour, so I'm ok with them getting tired early on. It means that we typically get home in time to have a nice dinner rather than eating out.

In March we also did some other fun stuff, we had some nice warm days which led to days at the park, and also some cold evenings which led to adventures in finger painting(more on dad than on paper)

Our first trip to the park was a complete bust. Cora screamed about EVERYTHING, Dave was at work. So I was alone with both girls and we ended up cutting that trip short, for my sanity and for the sanity of the parents around us. Luckily the second trip(which was just out to the play ground here) was MUCH easier. Cora was ok with swinging and was perfectly content doing so the whole time we were outside.

Finger Painting on Daddy!

Stay tuned for another blog post in a few days about other things that have been going on. But for tonight, my hand is hurting and i need to give it a break.

I've been busy...

2010-02-25T12:27:00.002-05:00

...Nothing out of the ordinary or extra. Just the typical stay at home mom of two toddlers busy.

Since Cora has learned to run and climb, I spend my extra 20 minutes a day taking a shower while she naps and Aria watches spongebob. And the rest of my day is spent doing all that motherly stuff.

Aria's toe is FINALLY looking like we may cross into that healed area here soon. I swear, this has been the longest battle of toe fungus I have ever seen! If it's not 100% come Monday she will be going to the dr with her sister.

The girls both had WIC appointments on Tuesday. Aria was 25.6lbs 31 inches tall. Cora was 21lbs 6ozs 29inches tall. It seems as if Cora is fast approaching her sister, but if shes like her sister shes going to slow down A LOT.

I found out last Friday that I was accepted into school and will be starting come the Fall semester! I am WAY excited. I hope to do a lot of my first semester online and then we will go from there. It will take some juggleing on Dave's work schedule once I start real classes because with as easy as Aria gets sick we would REALLY like to avoid day care while I'm in school. But I think with some help from family, we will do JUST fine!

Just Stuff...

2010-02-13T20:00:00.002-05:00

...Lots of stuff!

Go grab a snack and a beverage, Today's post will not be a short one.

First off, I have been horrible at the Project 365. I have lots of pictures taken, but none of them past week two put into a template. That is why you aren't seeing them...LOL

Aria's toe is FINALLY looking MUCH better! We tried the antifungal cream for one day, after listening to Aria scream like we were killing her I decided we had to try something else. So i put my handy google skills to use and discovered that Gentian Violet(commonly heard of among moms to treat thrush) will kill fungus. So I promptly sat her in the bathroom and painted her feet purple. I don't mean like a pale purple, we are talking BRIGHT Barney purple. Within just 24 hours, her feet already seemed much better. The dead dried skin was falling off and her skin was healing, no more cracking and bleeding. And more importantly no more screaming when we put the medicine on her feet.

My poor husband is currently hurting pretty bad. Cora, who is normally such a sweet little girl, decided yesterday morning to headbutt Dave when she was mad. Within the hour, he already had a horrible black eye and its just gotten worse since then.

We got our tax check last Friday. I had our tax money budgeted down to the penny. Thanks to some awesome deals I was able to stretch that money even further. Dave got his new computer that had become more of a necessity than a want. His old one was FAR beyond any amount of help. But because of awesome sales not only did he get a new tower, he also got a spiffy new monitor as well. We both love it and his computer runs far better than this stupid laptop. I also have a HORRIBLE reputation with hand mixers. I can kill them without even touching them. So I finally decided it was time to get something other than the cheapest hand mixer in the store. Now I can love to bake even more! I also found an awesome deal on a camera. I had a 2 yr old kodak easy share. It worked still but had seen its days. It has been dropped, kicked, tossed around, chewed on by kids, had things spilled on it...we were LUCKY it still worked. So I decided it was time to upgrade to a new camera. It wasn't anything special or fancy. Just a newer Kodak easy share.

Out of our tax check we also got a dining table and a mini van. The table is a beast. It fits out needs and space but oh man, it was heavy. It really hurt my back, arms, and legs to carry it upstairs and then assemble it. I'm regretting that today. Unfortunatly since I hurt so bad I have pictures of neither. It made my back hurt even more trying to put carseats in the van today.

I had lots more I wanted to add, including some pictures, but I seem to have lost my train of thought and my camera cord. Both of which will surely reappear when I hit post.

And the Toe Diaries Continue...

2010-02-10T20:28:00.002-05:00

...Unfortunately *sigh*

So if you aren't up to date on the whole toe situation read here annnnd Here

You go read, I'll wait.

Anyway. After waiting another 9 full days we returned to the dr today. Her toes were starting to look even worse. After a rather horrible drive to the dr. We found out that now she has fungus issues on her feet too. We are guessing it sneaked in since she had some broken skin and all that jazz. Hopefully this clears up soon, I really hate hearing her say how much she hurts.

A Trip To The Dentist.

2010-02-09T20:11:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Aria had her first dentist appointment.

I'll admit, I was nervous....VERY nervous. It took her 2 years to warm up to the idea of her regular dr. It took a good while for her to be comfortable with her speech therapist. Needless to say I was worried what yesterday would hold.

Turns out, I had NOTHING to worry about. We walked in the door and she was immediately in love with their huge salt water fish tank. So much that I couldn't even get my normally well behaved child to sit still while I filled out her paperwork. I was VERY pleased with the experience. First off both the nurse(is that what they are? maybe she was a dental hygenist) AND the dentist knew how to pronounce her name. They actually asked me THREE times when I made the appt. and apparently took notes since NO ONE mispronounced it. Then we get back to the room and notice right away that they didn't take her to a big scary dentist room. Instead they took her into a bright, cheerful room complete with a disney movie playing on the TV and even animals on the lights above. They then informed me that they do not want to scare the kids and that I would hold her throughout the whole visit.

I have never actually taken my kids to a pediatrician or anything specifically for children. They go to a family dr and we love him to bits. But after taking Aria to a pediatric dentist I must say that my opinion has changed drastically.

We got some great news, some ok news, and some not so bad news. The great news? Her teeth are in great shape. No cavities and her obsession with brushing hasn't effected her teeth at all(but the dentist did encourage us to try and make her stop that)

The ok news? She has an overbite. This we will see how it plays out over time and there is the small possibilty that she may not grow out of it but at this point its just a wait and see situation.

The not so bad news? The frenulum of her upper lip is attached WAY too far down. It's actually attached between her front two teeth. The dr suspects that we will have to have that clipped at a later date. He won't do it until she is more comfortable at the dentist. Now there is a chance it will never need clipped. She is still young and very clumsy, she could fall and cause it to seperate on her own. There is also the small chance that it could move up on its own but the dentist said that is a SLIM chance. If neither of those happen, she will have to go in to have it clipped.

And There Went Another Shred of My Sanity.

2010-02-05T00:09:00.002-05:00

I made it 2 years 8 months 3 weeks and 1 day as a parent, before I had to make a call to poison control.

Today we bought some new stuff for our bathroom. So i had spent the day on and off cleaning and rearranging things on my counter in there. I went back in there to do something and smelled a funny smell. I thought at first i had maybe knocked over the finger nail polish remover, but upon a quick look discovered it was still sitting up against the wall in its normal spot. I walked back out into the hall and the smell got stronger. I immediately freaked out wondering who had fingernail polish. I get to the girls' door to see Aria feeding Cora fingernail polish!!!!!! My first reaction was to get through the baby gate and get it away from her, however baby gates don't react well to frantic moms. After I got the fingernail polish taken away I realized I had my cell phone in my hand and immediately called my mom. In a rush of words I asked if ingesting fingernail polish needed a call to poison control. She was frantic and said YES!!!!!!

So i hung up and went to the kitchen to look for my handy magnet with poison control's number on it...it was gone. Of course the one time in almost 3 years i NEEDED it, it would be missing. So I jumped on the computer and looked it up real fast. Dialed the number with record speed and they answered super fast(not sure what else I was expecting from a number that was for emergencies).

The lady on the phone had to calm me down so she could understand me. Turns out, at Cora's age and weight with the amount of finger nail polish that was missing from the bottle she was in the clear. We just had to clean her up and push a few cups of juice. It turns out that the alcohol content in finger nail polish could have caused her to have a dip in her blood sugar.

I'm pretty sure that I gained a few dozen gray hairs tonight. We had to have a chat with Aria about NEVER EVER EVER eating or feeding her sister something other than food.

Now I am VERY MUCH ready for a good nights sleep, and no more crazy incidents.

Twenty Six Pounds

2010-02-01T19:38:00.002-05:00

Aria and Dave had doctors appts today.

Aria is officially 26lbs. This is big news for us. We have had to say she is 23-25 pounds for MONTHS now. Now that she isn't sick all the time and going a week+ just trying to stay hydrated, she is FINALLY gaining weight again. Aria had to go because of her toe. It didn't seem to be getting any better. Her toe kept peeling and looking worse and worse. The good news? It is healing. She likely had a staph infection that caused a pus pocket that got too big for her skin to handle, then when it ruptured the skin started peeling away. The bad news? its going to keep looking worse before it gets better.

Trip to the dr....Avoided.

2010-01-27T20:30:00.002-05:00

If you follow me on twitter(you can find the link on the side over there >>>) you would know that last night we were contemplating taking Aria to the dr today.

So here is what happened. 3 nights ago we got Aria dressed for bed in some footie Pjs. Not 10 minutes later she started crying that her toe hurt. After checking her pjs and eventually changing them we sent her to bed. That was the last we had really heard of her toe hurting. She went to bed no fuss and was fine for a whole day after wards.

Then yesterday she mentioned off and on that her toe hurt, but we didn't think much about it. Til i sat her on the bathroom counter to do her hair and she showed me her toe. It looked all red and angry and you could tell it was infected. So we cleaned it and we about getting ready to leave. Later in the night she didn't even want to walk on it and it had me worried since it looked even worse than before.

Luckily, we woke up this morning and the toe looks MUCH better. It's still pink, but its significantly less angry looking that yesterday.

SLACKER!!!!!

2010-01-20T20:12:00.002-05:00

Not you guys of course. I'm talking about me. Things like this tend to happen when there isn't much going on other than normal life.

Aria is doing fantastic. Can you guys believe she hasn't been sick since the end of Oct.?!?! Yeah, me either. She has made it almost three full months without so much as a sniffle. I'm shocked. This has meant we haven't made a visit to our dr since November 30th when both girls had well baby checks. She is still a little dare devil though. Last week she decided to climb on her big outside ball and stand there holding onto her dresser to watch tv. She fell and smacked her head pretty hard on her dresser. She made her head bleed and everything. Scared the crap out of me but she is fine.

Cora is also doing wonderful. She is running all over the place and starting to talk with very noticeable words. She was 17 months yesterday and can say: Bye bye, night, Mama, dada, nana, jump, no, gink(drink), and a few other words that she has said here and there. She is far ahead of Aria in that dept. We do need to find a balance about bed times however. If we put Aria to bed first, Cora wakes her up. If we put Cora to bed first, Aria wakes her up. If we put them to bed together they try to play for HOOOOURS. It's rough. It seems like no matter what we try to do we end up with either a kid up FAR too late, a kid on the couch, or a kid in our bed.

Dave is doing good. His diabetes is under control VERY well. Tomorrow is his birthday but unfortunately he has to work all day.

I'm doing well. Just the same old stuff with me...cleaning, cooking, sweeping up no less than 5 million cheerios a day.

And now(since I'm horribly late) Week 2 of Project 365.

Today's post...

2010-01-10T14:32:00.002-05:00

...Was supposed to be about the super cool cake I made for my sister's birthday. However I made the HORRIBLE mistake of decorating it while Aria was still awake. She tried to "help" when she saw me cutting cake away and grabbed a big chunk of cake off the top that should have stayed. Then it wouldn't work and I was out of cake mix to make a new top layer.

So you won't be seeing said cake.

My creative friend, April, got me started on Project 365. We are taking pictures every day and then putting them into scrap pages. So far I have made it 10 whole days without forgetting to take a picture.

Now you should know I have never done anything of much importance with paintshop. So I am rather proud of what I have done. Hopefully throughout the year I can teach myself SO much more!

Week 1

Nothing to blog...

2010-01-07T00:44:00.003-05:00

Aria hasn't been sick in TWO months. While this is WONDERFUL news, there isn't a monthly post about Aria being sick. Maybe she has hit a point where she has out grown the being sick every month of her life stuff (Hey a mom can hope right?) This is actually the longest we have went between dr's visits since Aria was born. We had some issues with weight gain in her first few months, then she started getting sick consistantly. Then once Aria's dr's visits slowed down Cora was born and she too had weight gain issues.

I feel like after 2 1/2 years I should invited their dr over for dinner with as much as we have seen him.

We have finally caught up from Christmas. The house is back in order to my satisfaction and the girls sleep schedules are back on track.

In other news...I CANNOT wait til tax time. Dave and I have been together for going on 4 years and in that time we have NEVER had a kitchen/dining room table. We eat dinner around our coffee table every night and at tax time we are FINALLY buying a table. So we can sit and eat as a family. This pleases me greatly. It's also going to make big family meals easier as well. I CANNOT wait. There will be pictures.

Now i need to move Aria from the chair to her bed and hope she sleeps well. Assuming the snow stops early enough tomorrow we plan on taking the kids out to go sledding and play in the snow. Hopefully its warmer tomorrow than it has been the past week or two.

An All Day Adventure.

2010-01-04T16:22:00.002-05:00

Cleaning the girls' room that is.

I got a little behind around Christmas. We had family coming over Christmas Eve so we didn't bother with the girls room, we worried about the more important parts of the house. Then After Christmas we relaxed for a few days and then focused more on the important parts of the house(after all the girls will just destroy their room in 30 seconds flat anyway).

This is what it looked like when I started*

I emptied out the toy box. Along with a million toys I found...A receipt(dated 7/17/09), 3 dum dum sticks, approx 10 outlet covers(atleast we know where they go when the girls steal them now), 1 spoon, 2 empty sippy cups, and 1 full juice box(still sealed thankfully)

Now normally cleaning their room isn't an all day adventure, but with Christmas plus the purchase of a new toy organizer(thank you Craigslist!) it needed a good cleaning and organizing and removing of some outgrown toys.

This is how it turned out.

I rearranged their room so they had more play space and less "wasted" space. This also moved their beds away from their door and will allow us to open the door at night without waking whoever slept in the bed right next to the door.

*Some work was already done at that point, thus the toys on the beds and Aria's beloved cardboard house on the table.

Sledding

2009-12-30T22:18:00.002-05:00

We got a decent amount of snow here...roughly 6 inches give or take. So my mom bought the girls a sled. Dave works tonight, so we were going to take them this afternoon.

We got everyone bundled up in two layers plus coats, got the carseats back in the car, and were just MOMENTS from walking out the door. My mom scared Flossy causing her to pee on Aria when my mom picked her up. Since that was Aria's only coat we had to cancel sledding. Aria was devastated. She was really looking forward to going out and playing in the "no".

So we sat here and listened to her cry for about a half hour about it. We sent the coat to dave's mom's to be washed while he was at work tonight. Maybe we can make it outside tomorrow to play in the snow...maybe.

Finally

2009-12-29T10:51:00.002-05:00

I have some time to sit down, write a blog, upload some pictures, and catch my breath.

What a busy week I have had. Last Monday my Nana came to drop off gifts and hang out for a little bit. Christmas Eve my mom, Dave's mom, and Dave's Brother came over for dinner and to exchange gifts. Then Christmas morning Santa came, we opened our gifts, then went to Dave's mom's house again. Annnd then Saturday we went to my Nana's to see my aunt and uncle and exchange MORE gifts.

All of this pushed Aria over the edge. by around 5pm every single night she was ready to have a mental breakdown, the fits came fast and furious and bed time was near impossible. The holidays are NOT toddler friendly. It's just too many places to go with too many people who want to love and kiss on them...all in all FAR too much unusual stimulation all packed into a few days.

Anyway, the girls got TONS!!!

Santa brought them both a kitchen with food and dishes and a ball pit. Then Aria got a fur real kitty and some books And Cora got some wooden puzzles and books plus a Wubbzy movie.

Cora never opened a gift, not a one of them. She was just completely uninterested. And Christmas day she just walked around shaking a candy cane shaped tube of M&Ms.

Aria however had a BLAST tearing into things.

The Christmas post...

2009-12-27T12:41:00.001-05:00

Is coming...but first I MUST clean my house.

It drives me a bit crazy to have a dirty/cluttered house.

Can I be 2 for a moment?

2009-12-17T10:44:00.002-05:00

I do NOT want to go to the store again!!!!!!! *throws fit* *cries* *throws cup across the room*

*whew* Now that all of that is out of my system....I still don't want to go to the store. There is only ONE week until Christmas Eve. Naturally this means that EVERYONE(and all close and distance relatives) are in the stores. And not only are all these people in the stores, but they have ALL also lost any sense of manners that they may or may not have possessed at one time.

Two weeks ago we went to do our monthly grocery shopping and start Christmas shopping. It was HORRIBLE!!!!!

We hit Sam's Club first. Normally Sam's Club is a pretty un-busy place being that you actually have to PAY for a membership to go in. Not in December apparently. Being that I am only 5'2" I have a hard time seeing prices sometimes. Mainly when they have a high stack of things and the price sticker is barely visible above said stack. I looked behind me, no one was there, so i backed up far enough to see the price of a HUGE Mr Potato Head set I wanted to get for Aria. Just to hear "COULD YOU MOVE???" Excuse me...I was unaware that we left our "excuse me" and our "sorry about that" at the door.

A little annoyed at our Sam's Club adventure I tempted fate and went to Walmart anyway. Once in Walmart we were hit with NUMEROUS carts, backed into by people who apparently lack the common sense to check behind them BEFORE backing up(all without appologies) Needless to say, after getting some of the girls Christmas gifts, I left. I sent Dave back later in the evening to do grocery shopping(he has more patience for the crazy people this time of year brings out)

However, Tonight, i have to go back. I didn't get everything that we wanted to get the girls for Christmas annnd somehow at this point Cora has FAR more than Aria does. Hopefully the people tonight have a bit more manners in their system.

2 year olds will scare you on a daily basis

2009-12-08T05:33:00.003-05:00

You have been warned!

Every parent of a toddler(or two) will tell you that atleast once a day you hear *that* cry. The one that makes you jump out of your skin to ensure that they are in no immediate danger. Then by the time you get there you realize that it wasn't a big deal it just scared them.

Today was no different. The girls' room is technically baby proofed. I tend to put them in there with the baby gate up for a period of time each day to play while i get the apt picked up and dinner started. Around 4pm I was picking up the living room and heard *that* cry...only much MUCH louder than normal. I run down the hall to discover that Aria had fallen off her little table and landed face first on a block.

She was drooling and bleeding, which at the time, seemed like a HORRIBLE amount. Then i realized that not only was her chin scraped up and bruised pretty bad but she had split her lip. That explained the blood, she was just sobbing SO hard it was running down her face like someone had severed an artery in there.

So I got her cleaned up and she seemed ok for awhile. Then around 5 i noticed she really still seemed to be in pain. So we gave her some motrin and figured that in a bit she would feel atleast a little bit better.

That, however, was SO not the case. She screamed every time she tried to take a bite of her dinner. She had tears running down her face and you could tell she was just in a great deal of pain. She wouldn't talk to me, she wouldn't open her mouth hardly at all, and the swelling had gotten pretty bad. So we ended up calling the nurse-line. A nurse called us back IMMEDIATELY. She advised us to have her seen ASAP. So we called Cody(my brother in law) over to watch Cora and we headed off to the ER.

She was still obviously in pain at this point, she was hell on wheels in the waiting room. The dr did however order x-rays just to be on the safe side because even he noticed she didn't act herself.** That was an adventure. She was scared of the x-ray machine and screamed and flailed around. All her x-rays have someones finger in them trying to hold her head still. LOL

This was taken after we got home from the ER. As you can see she has swelling even up into her cheeks and shes got a nice set of fat lips as well. However, I do know this won't slow her down one bit.

**How sad is it that she goes in so often that a dr in the ER even knows what is or isn't normal for how my kid is acting? We really love this ER dr and request him EVERY time we see he is one of the attendings. He is amazing with the girls and tries his hardest to ensure we get in and out without any messing around. But still...its sad an ER dr can even say one of my kids isn't acting normal.

Seriously, I am NEVER doing that EVER EVER again.

2009-11-30T18:17:00.002-05:00

Aria had speech today from 1:00-1:30 THEN I had scheduled dr's appts for Dave, Cora and Aria from 2:10. Did I mention it's a 20-30 minute drive to the dr's office?

We made it with just a few minutes to spare. Got everyone signed in and waited for a few. Then TWO nurses called us back. Nurse 1 took care of Aria and Dave, while Nurse 2 took care of Cora. Thus started the screaming. Cora hates the dr. in a previous trip she bit a nurse, kicked a nurse(with shoes on) and made a pregnant nurse cry. Needless to say I was nervous taking her, let alone all three of them. The dr was ready immediately but Cora cried, with these huge tears, the whole time we were in there.

Everyone is in good health. Aria escaped with no shots and no tears. All in all a good visit for her. Once she was done she was ushered out to the waiting room to sit with my MIL.

Cora weighed 18lbs 15ozs. She got one shot and screamed like her skin was being peeled off. **No Nurses were injured during the shot process.**

The dr took Dave off the med that was causing such horrible lows but put him on two new meds just to help protect things.

All in all it was a good visit. I just felt too rushed and all disorganized.

Oh yeah...

2009-11-28T23:05:00.003-05:00

I kinda forgot about this...well not really "forgot" but just been too busy.

Thanksgiving was wonderful, yet tiring. I made EVERYTHING. And now a few days later, I'm still in need of a nap.

Dave was able to eat to his stomachs content and had NO issues with his sugar being high. Which was a wonderful feeling.

Cora is a BIG fan of Thanksgiving. Well, Cora is a fan of ALL food. Shes a little piggy. She's been cutting teeth the past few days. I must say its a pretty exciting event around here being that she only has TWO teeth. Now shes got SIX cutting. She's downright angry at the world.

Aria was sick...AND it was just your average, every day, run of the mill cold. YOU HEAR THAT!?!??!?! A COLD. It's exciting around here when she gets sick and DOESN'T need to go visit her dr.

I'm doing wonderful. The Christmas tree is up, the blog is in full Christmas spirit.(now noone let me forget to change it after Christmas LOL)

Two year old= easily entertained.

2009-11-13T19:15:00.002-05:00

Dave's mom got the girls a play kitchen for Christmas. I decided that it would be a good idea to put it together early. Thus leaving us with a HUGE empty box in our living room.

It's amazing what fun a 2 yr old can have with a box with a few strategically cut holes, junk mail and old bills.

We cut out windows, a door, and a mail slot in the box. Taped up junk mail as curtains and resealed old bills with a bit of tape to use as bills.

Granted the box will probably only last a short time before its completely trash but why not have fun with it while we can?

Kids and their Curiosity!

2009-11-12T11:47:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I wonder what runs through a kid's head.

Yesterday I was cleaning while Aria was sitting on the couch playing. I sit down and she yells "hewp me it stuck" with her finger in her nose. So I got look AND THERE IS SOMETHING IN HER NOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was juuust inside her nose.

While looking for something to pinch it to get it out. It disappeared. Called the drs office and they said to just take her to the ER because if it was that deep only they could remove it.

The ER doctor took a look and said that he can’t see it. he said either it fell back far enough for her to just swallow and it would pass just fine, she sneezed it out, or its stuck up too far for them to see and she would need to see an ENT to have it removed.

Hopefully it came out...one way or another.

I promised you pictures...

2009-11-08T12:37:00.002-05:00

...so you shall get pictures!

Halloween was short around here. Aria had spiked a fever just a few hours before trick or treating was supposed to start. We broke the fever and decided she could only go out to a few houses, then we had to come home. We ended up hitting about a dozen houses or so then came home.

At house #1 Aria FREAKED. She did NOT want to knock on a random door. Luckily there was a nice older lady there who came out saying "Oh don't worry hunny, we are going to give you some candy!" Aria still wasn't so ok with that, but she did say thank you.

At house #2 Aria walked up all confident about getting some candy, then decided she also wanted some of the lady's gravel from her driveway.

At house #3 Aria decided she also needed some twigs from the ground.

A few houses later she picked some dandelion stems from the yard.

At the last house they had some talking Halloween decorations...Aria jumped out of her skin and was VERY over everything.

Now I don't have pictures of them out actually out trick or treating. But here are some pictures of them in their costumes.

The weekend before Halloween we went to the pumpkin patch. We had a BLAST!(But you already knew that so I'll just show you the pictures:P)

Aria found a cute little caterpillar. She stopped dead in her tracks and HAD to pick it up. She was petting it and loving on it...When she was done you ask? She flicked the poor guy across a few rows of corn into a mud puddle. Poor little caterpillar.

Aria playing Mini-golf at the pumpkin patch. She didn’t do too bad for being two and not understanding she had to hit the ball with the golf club and not just roll them around.

About the best picture we got of Cora.

Now just some random Pictures.

Cora

I went to check on Aria after she had fallen asleep the other night. Apparently she fell asleep reading!

Everybody Happy Dance

2009-11-04T20:45:00.001-05:00

I got a new laptop...thanks to the warranty...now I just have to come up with $80 in 14 days to cover a new warranty.

Lots of pictures to come!

(Not So) Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T15:33:00.002-04:00

Yesterday Aria woke up and was in a WONDERFUL mood. She ate her breakfast no problem. She didn't fight getting dressed. Lunch time wasn't a fight either. At this point I should have known something was wrong.

At 1:30 yesterday Aria went to speech. She did great. No fit when it was time to leave, no fighting about getting in or out of her car seat. Again...I should have known something was wrong.

Let me take a moment to say that Aria isn't a horrible child, but she is 2 with a pretty significant speech delay. Fights about things are a normal day around here. Something is always not up to her liking. It's just something we deal with and ignore until she can calm down and use her words.

Anyway, after speech Aria comes home and puts herself down for a nap. At this point I KNEW something was wrong. Nap times around here are a rare occurrence. She certainly NEVER puts herself down for a nap. She woke up around 4:45 and just laid there for a few. I went over to give her a kiss and SHE WAS ON FIRE. Ok so not really on fire but she was far warmer than normal. We hunted down the thermometer and she started saying her throat hurt. Took her temp. It was 99.9. So not terribly hot but you could tell she was miserable. So we gave her some Motrin and hoped for the best.

She was fine til about 10pm. Then the fever came back with vengeance. She was already at 100.8 and it wasn't even time for motrin again. At 11pm she got another dose and we waited. By midnight she was at 101.2, by 12:30 she was at 102.6. We loaded up and headed to the ER.

She gets there and her temp was 103. They ended up giving her a second dose of motrin to break her fever.

Turns out...she has tonsillitis again.

She can go trick or treating tonight...IF she wears a mask, not contact with other people(meaning she can't touch anyone) and we utilize lots of hand sanitizer provided she feels up to it.

Hopefully she is feeling well enough to go...I searched EVERYWHERE to find her a costume.

I'm off to give her some more motrin and antibiotics and hope for the best.

GAH!!!!!

2009-10-30T13:41:00.002-04:00

I have so many pictures to upload to my myspace and to put up on here but I can't *cries*

Now that my little temper tantrum is out of the way...lets get on to more interesting stuff!

Tuesday my mom and I planned on going to see the "Move That Bus" here. Monday night we listened as the first bus of spectators got moved sooner and sooner. So we decided, after hearing that they expected atleast 30,000 people, to head out at midnight to wait in line. We got there...and there was no line. We got on the first bus and there were only a dozen or so people on it.We waited for hours while they were finishing the house, doing some shots they didn't think they would get otherwise and then after dealing with people who thought they knew EVERYTHING(but were wrong about half of it) and people who had NO respect for anyone, we left. It was cold and rainy out and we were over it. We were tired of the pushy people and the person next to me that kept damn near knocking the fence down. Guess we will see it all come Jan. when it airs.

Once i get MY computer back ill be happy to post some pictures of the house and the famous people that were there.

Pumpkin Patch Fun!

2009-10-25T20:23:00.002-04:00

Today we took the girls to the pumpkin patch. It was LOADS of fun!!!!

Last year we didn't do anything like this. Cora was only a few months old so planning an outing like this a few weeks in advance wasn't really an option since Indiana has about 3 seasons all packed into October.

This year I had hoped to take the girls to my favorite Orchard/Pumpkin Patch as a kid...only to discover that there was no corn field this year, they had planted soy beans and because of that hay rides were hit and miss since there wasn't as many people coming out this year. So I went on a hunt to find a place reasonably close and fairly cheap. And I succeeded!

We took the girls to Russel Farms about an hour south west from us(Noblesville, Indiana). If you live in this part of the state and are looking for a great family friendly place to take the kids(of all ages) this place is great! It's $5 admission meaning it cost us only $10 to get in since kids 2 and under are free. What they list on their site is just a fraction of what they really do have there. They had tons of stuff that was right in Aria's age group. A small assortment of farm animals: Sheep, Ducks, Pigs, Miniture horses, chickens, and peacocks. The had a child sized corn maze where you find 3 seeds and turn them in for a prize. Aria did WONDERFUL at only getting one seed at each bucket and then keeping them in her pocket to turn in.

Then we went through the big corn maze. We got all turned around and about about 45 minutes just went out the entrance...that we kept finding...LOL.

The snack shack had a nice variety of food for a quick meal if you got hungry and it wasn't crazy priced either.

Aria also got to try out some Mini-Golf She didn't do too bad but eventually just had more fun rolling the ball around than she did actually playing.

Then we went on the hayride to the pumpkin patch and picked some pretty pumpkins. Aria was dead set on some huge pumpkins that no one who wasn't the hulk could pick up. We finally got her to settle up on one she could carry.

We had a BLAST. I can't wait til next year to go back and have tons more fun!

Never Fear...

2009-10-24T10:41:00.002-04:00

I'm still here...just without my laptop.

A few weeks ago it started making this odd noise when I would start up a new program. I had this feeling that the hard drive was going out on me again.

Then Thursday night it just started restarting like mad. I thought that maybe it was because the fan was dirty and it was over heating. But even after removing the dust it still wouldn't stay on. Eventually it progressed to the blue screen of death. We tried to reinstall windows thinking that maybe a nasty virus had made it past my anti-virus software. And no luck. It restarted multiple times while trying to reinstall windows.

Now my laptop is sitting at best buy waiting for the hardware diagnostic to finish. Hopefully they call me today to let me know whats wrong with it and how long its going to take to fix it.

Until they get it fixed I'm using Dave's computer. It's old, it's slow, its a Frankenstein computer, and it hates me with a passion and likes to freeze up half the time.

In other news the EMHE(Extreme Makeover Home Edition) people are just 20mins north of us. I signed up to be a volunteer and got an email saying I was On-call. Last night we watched some TV then went to bed. I woke up and realized that I MISSED MY EMAIL TO GO HELP!!!!!! *cue crying* I REALLY REALLY wanted to help. I'll make VERY sure that I check my email before i go to bed tonight so i don't miss another one!

A Day at the Park and Other Stories.

2009-10-19T19:03:00.003-04:00

Today was a wonderful day. It felt lovely outside and here in Indiana everything looks VERY much like fall. I have been dying to take the girls to get some pictures before it gets too cold. Today I accomplished just that...with Aria anyway. Cora was anti-camera today and i didn't get many good pictures and NONE of them together:(

In any case we had loads of fun playing in the leaves and then taking Aria on the big slide no less than 300 times.

My favorite of Aria.

Completely unamused with being outside in the middle of a pile of leaves.

Mr. Angry Squirrel. He kept throwing nuts on the ground every time we walked by.

Another trip down the slide.

It was a wonderful day and I only hope we can do it again sometime soon. Next weekend we are going to the pumpkin patch, hopefully we get better pictures of Cora then.

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I'm accident prone. I have had so many injuries over my short 20 years that i can't even name them all for you. I sprain things frequently, sometimes break bones and I am ALWAYS stubbing my toes on something(the size 12 shoe doesn't help that one bit either)

So today Dave and I were cleaning. I went to vacuum the hall and living room and Dave thought he was being helpful and put the coffee table up on the couch. I wasn't really paying attention while I was right up next to the couch. Pulled back on the vacuum and then went forward(apparently with some force) and jammed my middle finger right into the coffee table. Right between my 1st and 2nd knuckle(if counting closest to wrist to finger tip). It looks like I have an extra knuckle there now. How I managed to hit it THAT hard...I don't know but man it HURT. It doesn't hurt so bad now but its certainly not the most comfortable thing in the world.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So to really get into this story you will have to understand the layout of my bathroom.

There, Understand now? Ok I'll explain. Our bathroom is set up as basically 3 little rooms. Room 1(far left) holds the sink, Room 2 holds the toilet, and Room 3 holds the tub. Room 1 has a door that goes to our hallway, between Room 1 and 2 there is a door that slides into the wall, between Room 2 and 3 there is a door that swings into Room 3, and then in Room three there is a door that opens to our bedroom. I think its actually nice. If someone is in the tub and someone needs to use the bathroom, no problem, just shut the door.

Anyway, a few days ago I decided to move our laundry sorter in there and next to the door that goes to our room, we hardly ever use that door so it wasn't a big deal...so I thought.

Today, Aria went into the bathroom, locked herself in, then went into the far end and shut that door as well. She couldn't get back to the first door to unlock it so we could let her out and the laundry sorter was infront of the other door. So we squeezed Aria out of the little space we could make at the unlocked door and got her out. So I just said No big deal, I'll just take the doorhandle off. Just as I take the last screw out, Dave unlocks the door and walks out. He had squeezed back through the space we had made to get Aria out.

Let's Talk About Carseats! (Part 3)

2009-10-18T17:08:00.001-04:00

Different Carseat Types:

Infant Carrier
Convertible
Forward Facing Only
Combination
All-in-one seats
Booster

Infant Carriers:
Typically these seats hold infants to 22-32 lbs depending on the model. These seats are REAR FACING ONLY. They tend to recline just a bit more and cradle the child in a more natural position for young infants.

Convertible Seats:
These seats Rear face AND forward face. Typically starting at 5lbs all the way up to (now) 45lbs rear facing. They also go from 20 all the way up to 80lbs forward facing. Convertible seats do NOT allow for a booster mode of any kind.

Forward Facing Only Seats:
These seats only have one mode to use and that is as a forward facing only, harnessing seat.

All-in-one Seats:
These seats all claim to be the "only" seat you will ever need however these seats are typically not so great. They only harness to 40lbs(sometimes 50) and make very poor booster seats.

Combination Seats:
These seats forward face only and turn into boosters. Most of these seats make very good boosters.

Booster Seats:
Booster seats are technically made for children from 30-100lbs however you should always take into account the age and maturity of the child. If the child cannot or will not sit in a booster properly EVERY SINGLE TIME they are NOT old enough for a booster.

We have been busy busy busy!

2009-10-17T22:51:00.002-04:00

Well maybe no more than normal but it sure seemed like it.

Cora and I are still sick-ish. Just some congestion we are still trying to shake.

They have Dave working weird hours at work this week.(Days 1 day, evenings 2 days, nights 2 days, and two days off) Him working like that just really throws off our schedule. The girls get grumpy because dad isn't here to give them baths and put them down for bed. Dinner ends up getting made in the middle of the afternoon so he can take it with him to work. And everything is just generally all screwed up.

Aria has speech Friday and Dave's mom was busy so she didn't watch Cora. Oooh man. Cora HATES strangers...with a passion. So I had her in her stroller eating her lunch(she's used to just waking up from a nap and eating lunch while Aria is at speech) and every time someone walked by her...she would scream her little head off. But Aria did great Friday. BIG, HUGE contrast from the previous Friday. Which I don't think I blogged about. Anyway...Last Friday. Cora and I felt like death warmed over. We both kinda laid at home and tried to not move. So Dave's mom took pity on us and took Aria for the day. However, Aria wasn't feeling so grand either. She wasn't really sick(or she would have stayed home with us) but she wasn't feeling her best either. She fought EVERYTHING with Dave's mom. She didn't want to get dressed, she didn't want to eat lunch, she didn't want shoes on, she didn't want her hair done...and then she did NOT want to cooperate with Rachel at speech. She actually ended up leaving early because she just cried and cried and cried...maybe she would have felt better if she stayed home.

Dave is doing wonderful. He seems to have escaped the wrath of the flu that plagued us for a WEEK AND A HALF NOW! His sugar levels are doing wonderful and he just had his meds adjusted a little bit so we don't have to deal with lows...which we did the other day. He takes a pill in the AM if his sugar is below 90. A few days ago his sugar was 98. So he took his pill and ate breakfast. About an hour later he said he felt horrible and he looked HORRIBLE. So just out of curiosity i told him to take his sugar...it was 55 too low...even out of the normal range low. Then we spent the next half hour or so getting him in a normal range and getting him some lunch so he felt better. Now he doesn't have to take that pill unless he is higher than 110.

So most of the week was pretty good...til today. Aria has played in our ottoman practically since we got it last Feb. No injuries have ever occured because of it. She climbs in, closes the lid and laughs and giggles while saying "hewp mommy, I stuck!" Today...she smashed her finger:( It's pretty puffy and we took her to the ER. However after like 3 hrs still in the waiting room, with people still in front of them, AND an ambulance coming in Dave decided to just head home. If its still red, swollen or bruised come Monday we will just take her to the dr and have them x-ray it.

Let's Talk About Carseats! (Part 2)

2009-10-11T08:04:00.001-04:00

Buying and Selling Car Seats: Things every parent should know.

1) Car seats expire! Most seats expire 6 years from the DOM(date of manufacture). There are a few that last longer, these are specified by the manufacturer. So do your part. Never sell a seat, loan a seat, or give away a seat that is expired or is close to it. Not everyone knows seats expire.

2) NEVER buy a seat or use a seat from someone you wouldn't trust your child with. Many people are unaware that seats should be replaced after an accident or if they are mishandled. But if you say trust your sister and she loans you her old infant carrier there is no reason to not use it unless you are uncertain if you can trust her.

3) Car seat replacement is not a "conspiracy" or a "way to make money" for the car seat makers. Plastic DOES break down over time and you do not ever want to put your child in the position to be a test dummy to see if the seat does infact last longer than the recommended time frame. Let's look at it this way...Your kid all have toys that get left out in the sun...there is obvious sun bleaching and weak points after awhile. Now yes carseats are made from stronger plastic however they endure MUCH different extremes in vehicles. They are meant to with stand the hottest temps in cars and the coolest.

Stay tuned next Sunday for another post on carseats. Next week I'll go over different types of seats and placement in the car.

If it's not one thing...

2009-10-09T11:54:00.002-04:00

...It's another.

Aria just got to feeling better. Then Cora and I came down with a horrible case of the flu. Thankfully it seems to be passing through and not hitting anyone else here!

My little girl is growing up.

2009-10-08T12:44:00.002-04:00

She doesn't look like a baby anymore. She's starting to look like a little girl.

Let's Talk About Carseats!

2009-10-04T20:12:00.004-04:00

I mentioned in a previous post that I'm rather picky about my car seats and proper usage. Now I know I have a lot of return visitors. I can only imagine that most of you are parents...otherwise what interest would you have in a parents blog about their day to day life? All the links I include today I'm going to put into a list on the side bar to be added to as the blog grows.

First off lets start with some basic tips.

1) The straps should be flat, untwisted against the child's body. This disperses the force of the crash along their whole body and not just parts.

2) The chest clip is just that...a CHEST clip. It should be armpit level. It is not a belly clip. Having the clip too low can cause damage to the internal organs that are not protected by the soft tissue of the belly.

3) The straps should be tight enough that you can only fit a finger between the strap and the shoulder of the child. You want your child to be secure in the seat. If the straps are too loose the child could slide out of the seat and be ejected from the car in an accident.

4) Strap placement. If your child is rear facing the straps should be at OR below the shoulders. If your child is forward facing the straps should be at OR above the shoulders.

5) You seat should be install firmly. No more than 1 inch of movement at the belt path...meaning where the seat belt or latch belts go through the seat for installation. Not sure if your seat is install right? Find a local tech for them to check your seat!

6) No bulky clothing or winter coats while in the carseat. It can interfere with how tight the straps are. Thick puffy clothes can compress in an accident leaving the straps far too loose.

7) Laws regarding car seats are MINIMUMS! Many places the law states that a child must be 1 year AND 20lbs to be forward facing but with so many seats that rear face to 40-45lbs why turn them around before you have to?

8) and probably the most important...READ YOUR CAR SEAT MANUAL! It has very useful information in it.

Many people also do not realize that there are seats that accomodate a rear facing child other than the infant carrier. These seats are called convertible car seats. They typically rear face and then forward face. You should stay away from the 3 in 1 seats however. They typically have a lower harness weight and make poor boosters.

Now for some videos.

and here is a crash test with 5pt. harness vs. booster

and another

Stay tuned for a part 2. I have hardly brushed the surface of what I would love to share with you guys!

Updates on Everyone!

2009-09-30T01:27:00.002-04:00

Aria is starting to feel MUCH better. Her speech is improving SO much and even when she is sick and misses appts I make a point to sit down with her for atleast 30 minutes and have her point out things in books and interact with her one on one. Now that's not to say we don't interact with her on a daily basis but I make a point to really work with her. Something we want to get tips on from her therapist to do every day with her. We want to see her start to talk at an age appropriate level.

Cora is doing GREAT as well. She has two teeth finally and has been teething hardcore the past few weeks. I forsee many more coming in, in the VERY near future. We are slightly worried about her walking however. Shes 13 months old now and does not walk. She stands but is VERY wobbly still and has been standing for a very long time now. She doesn't cruise either. When she tries she falls. I'm concerned. The dr wants us to wait til 15 months to see what she does. At that point we will pursue it further.

Dave seems to be adjusting very well to being diabetic. He isn't very into the reading up on it but I'm pushing him to learn EVERYTHING he can. Knowledge IS power. You cannot control something that you know nothing about. But he is very receptive to what information I share with him and is starting to warm up to different reading material for the time being. His sugar levels have been well within the normal range for about a week and a half now with the exception of tonight.

I, well, I'm hanging in there. Somedays I feel like ALL of this stress is on MY shoulders. Stress is very tiring and staying home 24/7 isn't helping much. With fall hitting us full force here leaving isn't much of an option. September hasn't been a good month for anyone in my immediate family it seems. Not only have with dealt with Dave's health but then last week our car broke down when Dave tried to make it to the drs office to get a replacement insulin because he broke his. Turns out it was our serpentine belt. Thankfully Dave's mom was able to help us yet again. I do not know how we would survive if it wasn't for her. Then we found out that even after Dave's insurace assured him that his test strips for his meter were covered they were infact not. So he had to get ANOTHER meter and all the stuff for that. Turns out the meter AND the strips are going to cost more than the old one...how that even logically makes sense to them i will NEVER know. His insurance is shitty but he has to keep it for what it does cover for now.

Hopefully October will be a far better month for all of us.

Good Bye Summer

2009-09-28T22:47:00.002-04:00

Now we all know that the "official" end of summer was a few days ago. However, I was holding out hope that maybe it would last just a bit longer. We have had a fairly mild summer here in Indiana never reaching our normal 100+ even once.

Today it didn't even hit 70. As I type this its only 58* outside. I'm going to love the dramatic change in my electric bill but I'm really not going to love the cold weather. Guess its time to make sure I have coats in the trunk again along with a few other necessities juuuust in case.

While we are on the topic, and before someone asks, yes I did say coats in the trunk. We don't wear coats in the car and the girls most certainly do not wear coats in their car seats. I'm not a picky person but my girls and their car seats and my one overly picky thing. I'm VERY anal about how they ride in their car seats, VERY VERY anal(just ask Dave) I don't even let them ride with someone unless Dave or myself puts their seats in. So I keep the coats in the trunk and the girls have "car blankies" that they use to be moved from the apt to the car. I think Cora needs a different one though now that shes older and a little bigger...Hmmm maybe Thursday I'll go pick a new one out for her.

And the Verdict Is...

2009-09-23T20:52:00.002-04:00

...Tonsillitis again. She had it not even 7 weeks ago.

So the dr said that if she gets 3 more cases of Tonsillitis before March/April he is going to refer her to an ENT to have them removed.

Hopefully she starts feeling better in the next few days.

In other news...

I just might love my MIL to death. She offered to watch Cora for the afternoon for us so we could all get a nap. When she found out we only had 3 hours of sleep last night she decided to take Cora for the night instead. Little things like that are GREAT when you have a sick kid and the other one loves to wake up at 7am.

One day...

2009-09-23T02:49:00.002-04:00

...You will get sick and tired of seeing these posts just as much as I am sick and tired of writing them.

Aria is sick again. High fever and the usual crankiness. It has only been SEVEN weeks since she was last sick..and not even a full seven weeks.

Shes going to go to the dr later today if i have to sit with her all day and force them to see her. She is just miserable...and this time we NEED some answers!!!

Dave Update.

2009-09-22T20:49:00.000-04:00

Dave went to the dr this morning. Even after staying home with the girls I am NOT fond of his dr and he will be switching to the other office and out to see the girls dr.

Two weeks ago the dr prescribed him something for his constant heart burn...Dave’s insurance didn’t cover it because it was over the counter. Well being that we can barely afford the meds he NEEDS on a daily basis we decided to just wait and have him ask the dr for a generic. What did the dr do? prescribed SOMETHING ELSE over the counter. He also didn’t tell Dave exactly what he was looking for for his carb counts and stuff and told him "oh just wait til that diabetic class" Seriously? way to use your medical degree dude. So yeah Dave agrees and wants to see a dr that is going to help him and not tell him to ask someone else.

Anyway his test results say hes been diabetic for about 6 months. He said there was some blood in his urine and thought there was some damage to his kidneys because of it but once Dave mentioned that he has kidney stones they can’t know if it is that he passed a stone and thats what its from or if there is damage to his kidneys but the dr said as long as he takes care of his self they will heal if there is any damage.

The dr also told him if his sugar levels were 90 or lower in the mornings to not take his pill but that he does need to keep taking the shots at night no matter what his levels are and if they are too low to just eat again.

Neighbors

2009-09-19T20:11:00.002-04:00

Do I just have the world's worst luck when it comes to neighbors or are ALL neighbors this bad?

At our out apartment we dealt with some HORRIBLE neighbors. Multiple horrible neighbors at that. We had an older lady that lived down stairs from us and was just bitter at life. We tried our hardest to befriend her. We would sit and have chats and what not. But eventually it got to the point where i could not even make dinner without her yelling and screaming in the hall or banging on her ceiling.

Then the people across the hall from us had to be the most ill-mannered people I had ever met. THey had NO regard for the fact that we had one young child(at that time). Being that it was only a 1 bedroom we moved Aria to our room and moved out bed to the living room and it was incredibly hard to sleep.

I was rather pleased to move some place else. However, now we have more people who do not understand the concept of WALKING down the stairs. They moved in just a week or so after we did. EVERY SINGLE MONTH since we have been here they have gotten a 3 day pay or vacate notice. A few months back you could even hear mom outside talking to her dad about wanting to go to vagas for 3 weeks. uhh HELLO! pay your RENT first lady. And her son...well hes a little brat. Honestly he is around 5-7 years old and has thrown all out fits in the hall way kicking and screaming, even kicking my door.

I seriously cannot wait to hit the lottery and move far far away from town...one day i tell ya.

whew What a Day.

2009-09-18T01:54:00.002-04:00

If you Follow me on Twitter you already know that today was certainly not the greatest day. Dave over slept but we still had plenty of time to make a hot breakfast...or so we thought. Dave started breakfast and he no more than gets the egg pan on the stove and the sausage BARELY starting to change colors and the power goes out...twenty minutes early. Now Dave HAS to eat breakfast and there isn't much he can really eat that isn't eggs and stuff for breakfast and not be hungry long before lunch rolls around. So Dave went out and basically told the guys that they had two choices either A) turn the power back on for twenty minutes or B) there WOULD be reports made about this. Before he gets back upstairs we had power back on. In twenty minutes I had time to finish breakfast AND the girls had finished eating. Obviously we still had plenty of time.

After breakfast we attempted to get the girls to take a nap. That adventure took FOR.EV.ER...no joke. After nap time we made the girls a gourmet lunch of sandwiches and other things of that nature that required no power. Then I powered up the laptop to let Aria watch some Dora. All was great until the laptop died. Then the rest of the afternoon I dealt with Aria hunting down the DVDs and trying her hardest to put them in the DVD player. You cannot reason with a two year old who wants to watch "melmo" or "dora dora" or "wubbwe pweese mommy"(Wubbzy please mommy for those of you not up on your hip 2 year old lingo). Finally I distracted her with some presents from Cora's party that had accidentally stayed in the trunk for the last month(oops).

After that things seemed to get better. Roughly 5pm Dave called the office and asked the landlord if she had heard anything about the power just out of curiosity. She said then that they were waiting on the inspector and it should be on very very soon. At 6:30(yes we happen to be patient from time to time) we still had no power. Dave went to take the dog out and noticed that there was NO ONE out there working still...translation? they forgot to turn our power back on and NO ONE bothered to go door to door to make sure everyone had power. So we called the emergency maintence number and the guy said the power would be back on soon. 45 minutes later...still no power. We paged the Emergency maintence number again and within a few minutes the power was back on. Yet no one ever came back to make sure of this.

I'm rather ticked off about all of this. Why did no one go and make sure that everyone who had power actually had it ON? the maintence people DO have access to keys to the apts here even if people weren't home they could have unlocked doors and checked for themselves. But no instead we sat here for who knows how much longer than everyone else without power and with two very annoyed children by that point. Needless to say one or both of us WILL be at the office when they open. That is completely unacceptable in my book. Way to do your part to keep the tenants happy huh?

This displeases me!

2009-09-16T20:53:00.003-04:00

Dave and I had big plans for tomorrow. Due to his unexpected new medical condition we have both been under a lot of stress. I have been SUPER worried about how to change my cooking habits and make sure that he gets his fill and stays within his carbs. Did i mention that we are just winging all of this? Oooh yeah. Dave was diagnosed with diabetes a week too late for the classes here in town. So until next month I'm just doing what I HOPE is right and what I have found online.

Needless to say that with all this stress and this learning a new way to cook things have gotten a little behind...mainly the cleaning around here.

So tomorrow we planned to bust some ass and clean. Mop floors, clean carpets, PUT AWAY CLOTHES. However, apparently this is not in our future. We got a notice on our door today. Apparently the electric company has some work to do updating some equipment outside. For us...this means NO power for 12 hours. TWELVE hours. Now I know most of our cleaning is still possible tomorrow but there is this big tree outside our window it tends to block the light and force me to keep the lights on all day or atleast one of them.

Plus now I have no way to distract the girls for short periods of time so we can clean.

Tomorrow is going to a LONG LOOOOOOONG day.

Oh and did I mention that Aria is cutting all 4 of her second molars and Cora is getting her other 3 bottom fronts(shes got 1) and her two front top teeth(no others there). What a fun day tomorrow should be.

Speech Therapy-Day13

2009-09-12T09:53:00.002-04:00

Aria has been in speech for 8 weeks now. From my perspective she has been doing GREAT! She has started talking more, even if it is just a bunch of unrelated words. She interacts with her morning cartoons even more and has started asking for things instead of crying.

I did remember to ask which goals they were working on and what she had accomplished. They are:

1. Imitate animal/environmental sounds with 50% accuracy.
Accomplished! In her last 4 visits she has done this with 90%, 80%, 90%, and 80% accuracy.

2. Imitate single word labels/requests with 50% accuracy.
Accomplished! In her last 4 visits she has done this with 60%, 80%, 70%, and 80% accuracy.

3. Make choices between 2 activities 3 times per session.
Accomplished! In her last 4 visits she has done this 3 times, 2 times, 3 times, and 4 times. So they still have a teeny bit of work to do here but her therapist is considering it accomplished.

4. Place items on/off with 50% accuracy given cues.
Accomplished! In her last 4 visits she has done this with 70%, 60%, 60%, and 50% accuracy.

5. Answer yes/no questions with 50% accuracy.
Still working on it. Aria seems to think that "uh huh" is the answer to everything unless shes mad...then she screams NOOOOOOO.

I am SO proud of her. Hopefully we can make loads of progress in a short amount of time and can be done with speech therapy.

Let us welcome another medical issue into our family.

2009-09-08T16:20:00.004-04:00

The past few ~~weeks~~ months Dave hasn't felt too great. But being the man he is he brushed it off as a certain little person in our house that seems to think that 7am is the bestest time to wake up and him staying up to late.

Well on a whim he tested his blood sugar at his moms house. It was 425. For those that are unaware 150-185(depending on who you listen to) is high. 425 is EXTREMELY high.

Well we decided it was probably best that he go to the ER. We get there, wait, make fun of some idiots in the ER waiting room(seriously do you ever realize how many odd people there are in the ER waiting room at night?). Well they finally called him back then we waited some more. Finally they took his sugar level again. It wast still 282(still way too high but better than 3 hours earlier). They sent him home with instructions to make an appt with his dr ASAP.

He made an appt. and was seen today at 10:30am. His sugars were so high that he came home with scripts for pills and insulin shots along with all the other fun things he will need.

So now we have a whole new road to start down. I have already looked up some stuff about meals I already make and the big issue he will have is portion control.

This is going to be a learning experience for the whole family.

I have some AWESOME news!

2009-09-04T19:17:00.003-04:00

When I found out I was pregnant with Aria I was worried about bedrest so I never finished my senior year. When I moved back here I had the option to do a study at home program. I would have done all my work at home, a tutor would have been available to me when needed and I could have just went to the school for tests unless I ended up on full bedrest in which case my tutor would observe all testing from my home. Unfortunately my mom never helped me get enrolled in the program and at 17 I couldn't do it alone and it would have taken too long to get emacipated to enroll.

So last year I started with GED classes online. July 28th and 29th I went and took my test.

I got my results in the mail annd I PASSED with flying colors I might add. I am SO proud of myself. I was really worried about my writing part and turns out it wasn't even my lowest score.

Speech Therapy-Day 12

2009-09-04T19:13:00.002-04:00

I received some very exciting news today when Aria finished her therapy today. Rachel said that Aria has reached 4 of her 5 goals and now they are going to start challenging her more.

Now I'm a bad mommy and completely didn't think about asking which goals she had reached, but I'll find out Friday when she goes back.

No speech on Monday so there won't be an update for Monday.

Flossy

2009-09-01T23:21:00.002-04:00

Poor Girl.

We took her to get fixed today. Now I fully understand that getting her fixed is for the best but man my mommy side is sad. Shes sleeping peacefully, no whining or whimpering. But you can tell she is certainly uncomfy. Hopefully she will feel a little better tomorrow.

Aria did NOT tolerate Flossy being gone all day today very well. Dave said she was fine til my mom and I got back home. Then she walked around with this sad voice and kept saying "floffy gone...go bye bye" trying her hardest not to cry:(

Then I took them with me to go get her. Aria saw the dogs from the shelter out walking and playing and Aria had tears streaming down her face and said "No dog, want floffy". She was damn near hysterical before we even got to the door. But when I went up to the window I took her with me and told them "We are here to pick up Flossy" The look on Aria's face was PRICELESS!

I think if she had been able to cuddle with flossy all the way home she would have. I'm glad this is just a one time deal.

Speech Therapy-Day 11

2009-08-31T14:42:00.002-04:00

I feel much better.

When we went to speech today I met Allison. Last week I had expressed my "issues" with everything that had went on the past few weeks.

So before Aria's appt. Allison came out and talked to me. She let me know that Rachel's client load is just TOO much for one person every week. So two days a week Allison comes from their other office and helps. One of those day's is Mondays. So Aria will see Allison on Monday, Rachel on Friday.

I'm much happier with things when they get explained to me.

What a long morning.

2009-08-28T11:28:00.002-04:00

Please remind me to NEVER schedule a Dr's appt at 9am. It's FAR too early for anyone in this house to be up, ready to go, and to the drs office.

Cora is 17lbs 7ozs 26 1/2 inches tall. Just 3 ozs smaller than her sister was at a year. That puts Cora at between the 5th and 10th percentile for weight and less than the 5th percentile for height.

Aria is 23lbs, 30 1/2 inches tall. That puts her at less than the 5th percentile for weight and far below the 5th percentile for height.

Both teeny little things.

Aria just went in for a chat with the dr. about why she is always so sick. We are going to try some regular childrens vitamins before we try anything too drastic.

Cora went in for her 1 year well baby check. She HATES the exam, with a passion. Then I brought up to the dr that her Hemoglobin was low at wic and asked if we could go ahead and check it there. We also talked about her not walking nor cruising the funiture. The dr isn't concerned at this point and we will see how shes doing at her next appt. at 15 months.

Little did I know that a hemoglobin test at the dr is NOT a finger prick, its a full blood draw. Two sticks, one nurse with a bite mark, and one who got kicked in the chest they finally got the vile of blood that they needed to test her hemoglobin. Then she needed one shot today. The poor nurse...She's pregnant, VERY VERY pregnant. Well in a sudden bout of pregnancy brain she went to reach for something mid shot letting go of Cora's leg which of course Cora took as an opportunity to jerk her leg back...I'm sure that's going to make a nice pretty bruise.

All in all everything got accomplished with on VERY angry 1 year old.

Starting to get annoyed(Speech Update)

2009-08-25T01:01:00.002-04:00

Ok so I never got around to blogging about Aria's speech appt. from Friday. So here goes....

Friday we were SUPER busy getting ready for Cora's party. Because of this we were a few minutes late for Aria's speech appt. and by a few minutes I mean like 5 tops. So I told the lady at the window that she was late and to page Laura. At which time I was informed that Larua no longer worked there and was offered another job and that from now on Aria would see Rachel.

Well we go sit down and wait...and wait...and wait some more. Finally they came out to tell me that her appt. was at 1. Well DUH! I knew that, I TOLD her we were LATE. So then they tried to find Rachel. She was nowhere to be found. They called her and found out she was at HOME. Apparently there was an issue with the scheduling from Laura leaving so fast. In any case we didn't have the time to wait so we left.

I was ASSURED that she would see Rachel from here on out.

Well today(Monday) I woke up with a KILLER sinus headache so I sent Aria with Dave's mom to go to speech. Only she didn't see Rachel today, She saw Allison.

I'm rather annoyed with this. For many reasons. I should be notified about the fact my daughter is seeing another therapist BEFORE she shows up there. Also she is TWO she HATES strangers and its just going to take us two steps back for her to see ANOTHER differen't person.

I think tomorrow I'm going to call and get some answers. I do not know how Aria interacts with this lady and I'm not so keen on her being bounced around from person to person.

We have another option available to us here and it is REALLY starting to sound tempting. They would come to us and medicaid won't have to pay $112/ session. That is DAMN NEAR $900/month.

I'm just not sure what to do at this point. Any opinions?

What a horrible day.

2009-08-22T20:50:00.002-04:00

Today was Cora's birthday party. We had issues with location just FOUR days ago, but we got that figured out and things seemed to be going smoothly.

Til today. It rained at 11am. No big deal. We(meaning my mom and I) decided that it would probably be ok and dried out by 3.

So we get everything ready and things seem to be going great.

Til more clouds rolled in. Then everyone kept saying "Oh it's going to rain, it's going to rain!"

I decided at that point we would do presents and then cake and it would be fine. When i went to grab the presents everyone decided to help me load everything up in the car...But it wasn't a big deal I could just do Cora's cake and presents here at home and then she could go straight to the bath.

Then someone in their infinite wisdom decided it would be a good idea to pour water on the coals in the grill causing ashes to go EVERYWHERE. It ruined not only the big cake but Cora's little cake. They were both almost gray from the ashes.

So i just threw them away...7 hours of working on cakes straight into the trash. SEVEN.

Not to mention i didn't get but ONE picture of Cora and she looked pretty pissed off.

So at the end of the day I wasted 7 hours making cakes, damn near $20 worth of chicken because only a few people got to eat, and all those decorations were for nothing.

Maybe next year I won't do anything for the girls for their birthdays and just have something small with Dave and I...I can't get upset then can I?

One Year Ago Today!

2009-08-19T00:00:00.000-04:00

On Aug. 18, 2008 we had finally got things straightened out about my planned c-section for Cora. It was planned for Aug. 20th. I had had contractions off and on for a few days but never anything regular mostly just annoying.

Aria and I took Dave to work and hung out for a bit. Around 2am Aria and I headed back home. Once I got home I realized I was CERTAINLY in labor. I couldn't just ignore my contractions and they HURT. At the time we were driving Dave's Mom's car. It's a little 2 dr sunfire. It was hard enough to get Aria in the backseat being 38-39 weeks pregnant let alone being in labor and in pain.

So I loaded up the car, called Dave, and headed back to steak n shake. All while trying to get ahold of my mom. She was supposed to watch Aria while I had Cora.

I got back up to SnS and continued to labor there while Dave desperately tried to find someone to come in for him so we could leave.

Around 6am he finally found someone to come in early so he could leave. We called the dr to find out which hospital I needed to go to.(i wanted to deliver at one but my c-section was scheduled for another) He said that if I still hoped to have a VBAC i HAD to be across town at the other hospital.

So after REPEATED attemps we ended up getting ahold of Dave's Mom to watch Aria.

By 7:10am we were at the hospital. I got changed and did the usual stuff. They hooked me up and the nurse said "Doesn't look like you are in labor" Uhh yeah lets just forget the tears streaming down my face each time I have a contraction...They really mean nothing.

So they get me checked in and check my. I was only at a 2. After about 20 minutes they still couldn't keep Cora on the heart monitor so they chose to put a monitor on her head.

When they tried to put the monitor on her head my water popped...and black water flowed EVERYWHERE. In less than a blink of an eye the emergency lights were flashing, a nurse was preping me for surgery, one nurse was starting an IV, and yet another nurse was trying to get a good vein for a blood draw for the blood bank. Then there was one nurse trying to force me to wear Oxygen.

I was upset. There was no doubt about it but I knew that a c-section was best at this point.

They rushed me to OR and the last thing I remember hearing was "Just remember, this baby may not cry"

I woke up what felt like minutes later asking for my baby. It was like no time had passed. The nurse said they were still looking her over but she had cried and that was a good sign.

Dave then informed me that because of the meconium in my water they only allowed him in the nursery for a few moments to take two pictures.

Roughly an hour later they brought me Cora. She hadn't even had her bath just like i had requested no matter the way she was born. She was just fine.

We had a rough few days in the hospital. Cora battled Jaundice and possible infections.

I cannot believe that today I have a happy Healthy 1 year old who has had NO ill effects from being born with meconium in her water.

She's after my sanity!!!

2009-08-16T19:22:00.002-04:00

Cora woke up at 5:30 this morning. Never went back to sleep. Dave went to work at 7 and she was STILL awake.

She took a total of a 45 minute nap.

She's mega super tired and does NOT want to sleep!

Stupid Foot!

2009-08-12T19:25:00.003-04:00

2 1/2 weeks ago my mom and I took the girls to walmart to get pictures taken. When we were done we needed to grab a few things so i went to get a cart. When i went to bring it in it hit something and stopped and I stepped on the wheel. I knew it hurt but didn’t think to much about it..til i tried to take another step. Then i felt shooting pains go through my foot but i still managed to walk on it.

I got back to the photo studio and my mom asked what was wrong because it was pretty apparent i had hurt my foot or something and i told her what happened and looked down...my toe was purple and HUGE already. Then I realized my toe was bleeding.

I ended up with a pretty deep gash on the bottom of my little toe and a rather sore foot/leg/toe.

Now I don't have any insurance so I decided to just deal with it. I have had a tetanus shot recently so I wasn't too concerned with the fact that I cut my foot on a shopping cart.

Now 2 1/2 weeks later...my foot is still having issues. My mom is urging me to go to the ER because the pain in my foot from just a simple trip to walmart is almost unbearable.

I'm not sure what to do. At this point if they could do something about my foot it would likely result in rebreaking whatever was broken so it heals right and that just sounds like a whole lot of no fun.

Hopefully this pain goes away shortly. Turns out I kinda need that right foot of mine.

Speech Therapy-Day 5/Aria Update

2009-08-10T14:25:00.002-04:00

Aria had a REALLY good day today. She talked up a storm for Laura.

Every week Panera Bread donates bread that they have left over to the speech center. Its all fresh bread that they don't want to go to waste. Well when they have too much left over they send it home with parents. Aria, who loves bread more than anything else in the world, decided she WANTED bread. She wanted it so much that she blurts out "Bread, It's up there, want some." My non-speaking child blurted out a WHOLE sentence...Granted its not the correct way to say it but hey...its a start! Then after she had her loaf of bread she looked at me and said "Let's go!"

Im telling you speech therapy does WONDERS for this child! Now if only she would talk like that about EVERYTHING.

Aria Update
Aria is doing MUCH better her meds have certainly helped and shes actually eating again. I intend on talking to her dr about a few things that may make her healthier in the long run.

Family

2009-08-10T10:43:00.003-04:00

I grew up not knowing my father. I have met the man once, when I was 10.

I did, however, grow up knowing that I had a younger brother. He is just MONTHS younger than I am.

I longed for the relationship that most girls have with their fathers. Yet the whole time I was there he tried to send me home.

I got in contact with my brother right after I had Aria. We planned to meet up then at the last minute he decided that I was worth nothing to him.

Now years later i decided to look his page up again. Now not only do i have brothers but i also have a neice AND a nephew. And not only that but my father who wanted NOTHING to do with me is very much a part of his grand kids lives.

Little does he know he has two other grand daughters that he chose to write out of his life.

It makes my blood boil to see that they care about them more than their own kid.

Maybe one day they will all wake up and realize what they are missing out on.

Another...

2009-08-07T11:22:00.003-04:00

Another Fever. Another missed speech therapy visit. Another visit to our favorite Dr.

Wednesday we had a pretty uneventful day. Aria and I went shopping with my mom. We hit a few stores then went to lunch. Aria got a bit grumpy during/after lunch so we brought her back home. Throughout the night she increasingly got crankier and crankier. By 6pm we sent her to bed and she immediately fell asleep. We didn't think much about it. Kids get overly tired and fall asleep early all the time.

Then around 2am Aria woke up practically screaming for "waaa-der" as she calls it. Dave went to hand it to her and she was BURNING up. She got some motrin and a bath and cooled off enough to head back to bed.

All day yesterday she was up and down in the fever department. All she did was slept. Around 1:30 I called the nurses to ask for some advice about how to break her fever. They wanted us to up her motrin frequency and if she kept on this path bring her in in the AM.

By around 8pm her fever was still high. like 102.7 high with no signs of breaking. So i called the drs' paging service and the on call dr called us back. He said to keep her comfy and bring her in today.

Sooo at 8:30 this morning Aria had a drs appt. 20 minutes away.

Turns out shes got a nasty case of Tonsillitis...hopefully no one else gets it*crosses fingers*

Speech Therapy-Day 4

2009-08-03T15:24:00.002-04:00

We were all pretty stuffed up with runny noses last Friday so we canceled her appt. But she did go today.

Aria was devastated. Little E had another appt. today so she pushed her therapy session back some.

Laura said that Aria didn't talk much at all today.

It never ends!

2009-08-02T11:30:00.003-04:00

NEVER EVER EVER!!!

The cleaning that is. I swept the kitchen floor last night so I could wake up and mop...Then Aria decides she does NOT want cheerios and throws the bowl over the baby gate spreading approximately a bazillion cheerios all over my floor. I'm sure I'll be finding cheerios in various places for the next 6 months.

So I get the cheerios cleaned up...just for Cora to toss her cup on the table and the lid pop off.

Oooh the things I would do to have a maid...Just for ONE day.

No Bottles-Day 4

2009-08-01T17:21:00.002-04:00

Day 1 was HORRIBLE. Absolutely down-right horrible! Nap time consisted of a 4 hour scream fest resulting in no nap. Bed time? Yeah not much easier.

Day 2 was surprisingly easy. Maybe she was just exhuasted from the first day or maybe she was ok with this whole no bottle thing.

Day 3 was a piece of Cake. Cora was glingy and wanted to cuddle all day but it went fine.

Day 4...well its going. Cora is just fussy today...there is NO other way to put it. Shes cranky and tired but shes doing fine on only sippy cups.

9 pounds of Cantaloupe

2009-08-01T10:05:00.002-04:00

Being on WIC we get Farmers Market Checks. The past two years I haven't gotten them for one reason or another. This year however I did and may I say that after just ONE trip to the farmers market I may be hooked.

I didn't go as my foot is hurting pretty bad, so I sent Dave. He told me prices and such over the phone and I will admit I was a bit worried about what he might come home with. I asked him to get cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, watermelon, and cantaloupe. They also tossed in a green pepper just to make sure we got our checks worth.

He comes home with THIS!

THAT^ my friends is a NINE POUND cantaloupe. Now maybe I have just only seen the cantaloupe they sell in the stores but THAT is not a cantaloupe...that is a monster.

And the watermelon he got?

Yeah...bigger.

Looks like I need to figure out what to do with some fruit!

Any suggestions?

What a good day!

2009-07-30T21:58:00.001-04:00

I finished my GED test this morning, should have results in 4-8 weeks.

I came home and raised some hell with the food stamp people, got transferred a few times and should have food stamps within 10 days tops in the amount of $1763 or something like that on my card because they owe me from MAY!!!

Then i went to help dave clean the kitchen and the fedex man shows up WITH THE REPLACEMENT CARSEAT!!! (for those that dont know) my infant seat had some issues with white spots and obvious weakened plastic so i called and raised some hell and now i have a new seat that isn’t even a month and a half old!! which means we have an extra seat for cora til she hits 22lbs which will be awhile since Aria JUST hit 22 lbs within the past few months.

And the UPS man is also due to be here today to drop off some party supplies we ordered for Cora’s party.

I can’t imagine how today could get much better:D

Tomorrow is the day...

2009-07-28T20:20:00.002-04:00

The day I go in to take part 1 of my GED test! Then I go back in Thursday to finish it up!

I'm nervous...way nervous.

I did FANTASTIC on my practice test and passed by nearly 300 pts or something insane like that. The only section I'm the least bit concerned about is the Essay. I only passed that section by 30 points.

For those that are new to the blog and don't know me through myspace. I (obviously) never graduated. I got a positive pregnancy test right after school started my senior year. The whole first semester I battled HORRIBLE morning sickness and high blood pressure. There were talks then of bed-rest so i opted to try and do my last semester from home but my mother was totally unsupportive. So I didn't fight it. With the blood pressure issues I didn't need more stress. 6 weeks before Aria was born I was put on modified bedrest. I could still get up as needed but most of my day I HAD to stay in bed. A week later I was put on full bed rest. I was only allowed up when absolutly necesary and i could only take short showers every other day, no trips out unless I was going to the dr. It certainly sucked but ANYTHING for my baby girl.

Then Aria was born by emergency c-section a few weeks before graduation. Turns out i wouldn't have graduated that year anyway. I would have missed almost half of second semester and likely would have failed.

So I started my GED classes online through the local school here after Cora was born. I did great and aced every test. Hopefully thats a sign of how tomorrow and Thursdays tests shall go!

Blog Hop- Favorite Kid Photos

2009-07-27T22:07:00.002-04:00

Before I start this weeks blog hop I want everyone who hasn't already to head on over to The Riggs Family Blog Their little girl Abby is in the hospital again and could really use some prayers and good wishes tonight! (This is mostly a note to my non-blog hop friends as most of my myspace friends are being redirected to this blog rather than my myspace blog now)

Now on with the blog hopping!

This first picture is of Aria, Christmas '07. She was 7 months old and we caught quite a few priceless pictures that day under the tree. By far one of my most favorite pictures of her to date.

Another one of my favorite pictures. Aria and Cora together when Cora was just DAYS old. Aria has been the bestest big sister since Day 1.

Some of my other favorites all include the same thing...Sweet, sleeping babies. Something every mother loves to see!

Cora this month.

Aria, Aug. 08, Waiting for daddy to come home from work is obviously a very hard job.

Aria, today at nap time. Aparently the phrase "get up on the couch and take a nap" escaped her...or maybe she was really THAT tired.

Aria, Oct '08 right after we first moved into our new apartment.

It appears I should take more pictures of Cora sleeping!

Speech Therapy-Day 3

2009-07-27T17:55:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure how today went. Because of my foot hurting I decided to try and see how Aria would do without me. She walked away with Laura like it was no big deal. Seriously! My kid who hates people she KNOWS, screams at strangers, and will cry if someone touches her...she just grabs her hand and walks off.

We saw E again today. Both Laura and Rachel said that they are AMAZING together and encouraged us to keep them coming at the same time.

As we all walked out together, Aria, E, E's grandma, and I, E grabbed Aria's hand and they walked to the cars together. Then they gave each other a hug and said good-bye, completely unprompted. These girls will do great things for each other...I guarantee it!

I have been slacking

2009-07-26T21:09:00.002-04:00

Its been busy around here. Atleast it has seemed busy.

Friday I took my mom to Indy to get my brother and sister. My mom has a car but its, for lack of a better term, a POS. We get there to discover that the kids father will not let my mom have them for visitation. Things were said. My sister accused my mom of not spending time with them. Personally I think my sister was being a teenager. shes 14, spent all summer thus far with my mom. She obviously wants to see her friends down there.

So I wanted to stop at baby's R us. I LOVE BRU, mainly because I love carseat shopping but its not in the budget so carseat window shopping it is. And by window shopping I mean trying my girls out in new seats.(I'm slightly obbsessed and not afraid to admit it.) My mom picked up some super cute outfits for the girls and said she wanted to take them to get their pictures taken.

Then we went out to dinner and headed home. It was a long day and traffic was about as bad as it gets.

So Saturday we got up with Dave, made an appt. to get the girls pictures done and headed out. I dropped Dave off at work and went to pick up my mom.

We went out to breakfast and Aria ate like a pigglet. Despite already eating breakfast she still ate over half of her own breakfast THEN finished mine.

After breakfast we headed to walmart to get their pictures done. They turned out great and once they are online ill post some here to show everyone. After they were done with pictures I ran out to grab a cart. I turned it around and went to push it inside. It went fine then stopped as i was in mid-step. I stepped down hard on the wheel but didn't think much of it. Til i tried to walk...the pain was HORRIBLE. But i kept on and when i got inside i realized i was bleeding pretty bad and it still REALLY hurt. it was obvious this wasn't your run of the mill stubbed toe. I got it clean up some as my mom went to get some bandaids. Once i was home and able to properly clean it i realized i have a gash approx. 1 inch long that is extremely deep on the bottom of my little toe. I'm also pretty sure that its broken. Cold and hot bothers it and makes it hurt. Still two days later it hurts like you would not believe. This is what happens when you have size 12 feet!

Speech Therapy-Day 2

2009-07-25T01:03:00.004-04:00

Today was a rather quiet day for Aria. She didn't want to talk to Laura(Yes that is actually her name...LOL). She had more fun ignoring her completely and running from her if she talked to her. Today she met a little girl, E, she LOVED her. E is 6 and about the same place in speech as Aria is. E, too, hates new people but Aria and E got along GREAT!

Today we were introduced to a new part of their program. Aria technically has two speech therapists. Laura and Rachel. If one of them is out of the center for any reason the other takes their case load that day/week. Meaning that Aria will encounter some speech therapy visits with another child. On Friday's this will be E.

Aria did have a minor meltdown while we were there. She had found these little blue and white balls to play with. Well Laura took her to the toy closet to pick out some more toys and Aria dropped the balls. Before we left she grabbed one of them. We get half way down the hall and she freaks out because shes missing her balls and would not settle down til we went back to get them. Then when it was time to leave Aria insisted on trying to take them home. We got them out of her hands and out to the waiting room and she found another one. We came home with a blue and white ball...LOL

A Very Important Topic!

2009-07-23T14:36:00.002-04:00

As mothers, and parents in general, we strive to do the best for our children. Many parents are concerned about things like when to start solids, how to baby proof, is circumcision a good idea, and breast feeding or bottle feeding. But one thing that so often gets over looked may very well be the most important!

Car Seat Safety!

Before I get started I wanted to let all you readers know that I am FAR from perfect. I knew only the basics when I brought Aria home. She came home with the padded head inserts, I thought it was something that she NEEDED.

Sleepless nights, wet beds, and toe nail polish.

2009-07-22T23:01:00.002-04:00

Dave worked third shift(11p-7a) til a month or so after Cora was born. Aria went 16 whole months with just mommy home at night, while Cora doesn't even remember him being gone at night. Now Dave works one night each week(7p-3a). This works out great for us. It gives us two days a week as a family. It allows him to attend scheduled drs appts and have fun days out of the house.

The girls are both ready for bed by the time he leaves for work. All that is left to do is snuggle them and put them to bed. However EVERY SINGLE WEEK we have the same issues. They go down easy as pie. Then 20 minutes later one or both are wide awake, cranky, and won't sleep.

Last night for example both girls were in bed by 8pm. by around 8:30 they were asleep. By 9 Cora was up. Since she was calm I just turned her tv on in hopes she would soon fall asleep. 10pm comes and goes and Cora is still awake. Then comes 11 and 12, still awake but increasingly getting louder about being in her crib. So around 12:30 I went in supplied with a fresh bottle and hopes she would soon fall asleep. She was calm...til I walked away. Then she cried. Obviously tired. Obviously just wanting daddy.

Now lets take a moment here to say that I am 110% against crying it out til near a child's first birthday.

Anyway...So I let her cry. Nothing I was doing was helping. Not holding, not rocking, not singing...nothing. Around 2:15 or so she finally fell asleep.

Dave came home from work about an hour later. At which time I went in to retrieve the previously mentioned bottle. I was met with a HORRIBLE smell. It was pretty obvious that someone had pooped since my last peek in an hour prior. So I checked Aria only to discover she had peed through her diaper and everything on her bed was wet and she was soaked from head to toe. Cora was the poopy one. So both girls were woken up to fix the situation. Aria ended up sleeping in the Living room on the futon and I joined her to get her to sleep. Cora on the other hand thought it was a GRAND idea to stay up til well after 5am.

Needless to say everyone rolled out of bed at noon today.

On a completely unrelated topic Aria and I had some Girly Time tonight. I painted her nails and let her do the same to me.

While she is certainly not going to win awards for her painting yet I must say for a 2 year old she did a pretty good job!(you know...if you don't mind having your whole toe painted)

Blog Hop- Favorite Recipe or Dish

2009-07-20T22:55:00.002-04:00

Cake-y Chocolate Chip Cookies.

* 1 cup butter, softened
* 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/4 cup white sugar
* 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant banana pudding mix
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 cups white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add pudding mix, eggs and vanilla. Combine flour and baking soda; add to creamed mixture and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

These are WONDERFUL. They never last around here so I suggest making a double batch!

Speech Therapy-Day 1

2009-07-20T17:49:00.003-04:00

I am ABSOLUTELY amazed with this place. When we got there I was informed that Aria actually qualifies for for First Steps. First Steps comes yo your home to do the therapy. However, I really had a good feeling about Homefront where she went for her speech eval. and was supposed to go for her speech therapy. They would see her there if that is was I felt comfortable with so I decided to atleast try a few days there to see how things went, and how comfortable Aria was.

There isn't a doubt in my mind about this place. I love it. More importantly so did Aria. Every single person who talked to Aria got down to her level to talk to her. She fell in love with her therapist within the half hour and even gave her a hug when we left. That alone speaks volumes. Aria does NOT like strangers. Not one single bit. She Cried the whole time we were in Washington, she screams when people talk to her in walmart, but she LOVED this lady.

Today was just play time as will be the next few visits. They call it pairing. They want the child to be 110% comfortable with the people who will help them learn. She will have the same therapist on mondays and on Fridays. She(i think her name is Laura but don't quote me on that as I am HORRIBLE with names at first) had a son who had the same issues Aria does and I think this will help tremendously.

Aria was unhappy about leaving at the end of the half hour.

What a great day.

2009-07-19T13:09:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was the Circus City Parade in Peru. This past week they celebrated 50 years of the circus.

I always remember going as a kid. Getting up insanely early, waiting for hours in the heat, and watching another parade and wandering through the fair. Some years, money permitting, we even went to the circus.

Last year Dave and I took Aria. This yeah Dave had to work so I took the girls and went with family. The girls had a blast despite the fact that it was barely 65 degrees at 10am.

The girls were excellent and loved going SO much.

What is this thing on my nose?

Watching intently.

Clowns!

Clown in a car.

Silly Girl! That's not how you do it!

50 years of Circus City Days Queens

Gimme that camera!

So Pretty!

Tigers.

Notice the little car following behind!

Elephants!

Tired after a long parade.

Teething Hell...

2009-07-17T14:20:00.003-04:00

Aria was a late bloomer in the tooth department. She went her first year except for TWO WEEKS without teeth. Not a bump or small break through to be seen. At 26 months she has JUST cut her eye teeth and her 2 yr molars are still somewhere in the distant future it seems.

So it has not suprised me one bit that Cora, who will be 11 months on Sunday, has yet to cut a tooth. She, much like her sister, doesn't even have so much as a bump on the edge of her gums to suggest a tooth may pop in...Til today. Her gums are red and swollen, she mega grumpy, and nothing is helping. Not tylenol, not teething tablets, not wash rags(and we do not use oragel here)

All she has done today is look at me and scream. Shes not hungry(or atleast won't eat), shes changed, and the temp in here is perfect.

These teeth need to hurry and make their appearance before mommy goes nuts!

Accomplishing the Unthinkable.

2009-07-15T13:09:00.002-04:00

Soo the movie last night was great...No worries I won't spoil it for anyone.

We got there just over an hour early. We are not stupid...the seats fill up fast and there were 5 of us who wanted to sit together. Around 11:15 they started letting people into the theater. When we got our seats there wasn't many people there. Empty seats all around. These two ladies chose to sit behind us. For the following 30 minutes all I heard from them was "I hope those babies don't cry through the whole movie!" I resisted saying anything at that point because Cora had never been to a movie and it had been awhile for Aria as well so I had no clue what to expect.

The movie starts and these ladies decide that its a wonderful idea to just talk through the first half of the movie. By this point I REALLY had to pee. Something about those large drinks.LOL

So I get up and decided that I was VERY over them talking over the movie. I leaned over their seats and said "Well looks like a 2 yr old and an 11 month old behave better in a movie than you two ADULTS huh?"

We didn't hear a peep from them for the rest of the night. Now don't get me wrong I understand a little whispering during a movie but these ladies were having a long drawn out conversation. That, my friends, does not fly in my book.

The girls were EXCELLENT. The movie STARTED 4 hours past bed time. Both stayed away for about 2 hours of the movie. Cora cried twice when something loud scared her but I gave her, her bottle back and she was fine. I must say I am VERY proud of them. Now we can start trying to make it to the movies just a bit more!

Harry Potter...Here We Come.

2009-07-14T18:54:00.002-04:00

I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. I have every book. The pages have now become dirty and worn. Some are water damaged for whatever reason. Others have tears stains from the more emotional parts of the book. Each book has been read approximately 4 million times. Corners are now worn down from being folded down repeatedly over time.

My sister has even read them. Then inspired her to push harder when she has had so much difficulty learning to comprehend what shes reading.

Every movie that has come out i have seen the first day it was in theaters. I remember sitting out in the cold for HOURS the day tickets went on sale waiting for the ticket office to open. Rain or Shine. Even in the snow and cold once as we all took turns keeping our place in line and rotating back to the car to warm up for a few.

Last movie Aria went with me. She was just a teeny little thing at the time. She still sat completely enthralled in the movies. Tonight we are also going. I have a ticket for the 12:03am showing. Thankfully the girls are both free as they are under 3 still because I'm sure they will sleep through part of it. Or they may suprise me. In any case i don't think I have been this excited about a movie in awhile now. I can't wait to see it!

Introducing...

2009-07-13T14:23:00.003-04:00

Our newest family member...

This is Flossy.

She was my aunt/cousin's dog. They have been trying to find her a calmer home for awhile now. Now I'm sure most of you are thinking 'How is a house with a 2 year old and an 11 month old calmer' Well first off there are 3 other small dogs, 1 large dog, and a cat at my aunts house. Then There is my aunt, her husband, their youngest daughter, their adult daughter, her two children, my mother and every other weekend my brother and sister in one house. Needless to say a circus would be calmer.

Flossy is 5.6lbs. She is full grown and is just about 2 years old. Next month we are taking her to get fixed and get her shots but we wanted her to be a little more at ease before we took her for all of that.

The picture is from her first few days here so she was pretty nervous and didn't move from the back of my chair. Now she is running and playing like she's always been here.

In other news...
Cora has mastered standing without holding onto anything. Often times she just stands up in the middle of the floor without any help.

She is about as happy as can be about all of this!

Sick Kids

2009-07-12T21:54:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we woke up and both girls were sick-ish. Runny nose, congestion, a little coughing and the smallest touch of a fever.

Today when we woke up Aria seemed MUCH worse. Running a fever of 101-102 all day even with baths, motrin, AND tylenol. She hardly wanted to eat or drink but i did manage to get a few bites of hot dog in her at lunch time just for her to get coughing so hard she threw it up. After that any food or drink passing her lips was a miricle. Around 7pm both Dave and I started to get a bit worried since she was going on atleast 12 hours of this fever with absolutly no sign of breaking and it was steadily climbing higher. So Dave took her to the ER. Turns out shes got an Upper Respitory Infection. Just like that. One day of the sniffles and shes got another infection. I swear this kid got the short end of the immune system stick.

Cora on the other hand, is doing fine. Shes still got a little runny nose but for the most part shes her happy, playful self. She was even enjoying pestering her sister as Aria just laid on the floor and slept all day.

Hopefully a few days of antibiotics and she will be as good as new.

Soo tired

2009-07-11T10:44:00.000-04:00

I hate gray and rainy days. They always make me so tired and completely unmotivated. After this past week with my mom being sick and having my brother and sister plus my two girls and the repeated trips to the hospital I am just beyond exhausted. It certainly helps that the girls are both tired today as well since their allergies are acting up...Hopefully its a nice, peaceful, lazy day.

Just Getting Started

2009-07-10T13:12:00.000-04:00

I normally just blog straight from my myspace but follow quite a few blogs on blogger, however most of those people cannot read my blogs because my myspace blogs are set to friends only for various reasons.

With this new blog i plan on joining in on all of the fun bloggy things the other people i read do. Within the next few weeks I also intend on moving most of my blogs from Myspace here.

I'm not a mechanic...i just play one on the interwebz

2009-07-04T22:09:00.000-04:00

Soo Today was a rainy day. But most places hadn't canceled fireworks by the time we had gotten ready so we got together and headed out to go see them with Dave's mom.

We get down to the intersection and i had no turn signals. Now any other day i may not have cared and just dealt with it later but it was rainy and there are lots of turns on the way there. So we turned around and came back home. Now about a week or so ago i took dave to work and realized that my turn signals would come on but not flash.

SO i came in and looked up why they would be doing that. Turns out our turn signal flasher had went out. I knew the turn signals had been a little off...they didn't click like the did when we got the car and i had even mentioned it to dave but he just gave me funny looks.

So i looked up the price and called AutoZone. They were open til 8 so we loaded everyone back in the car and decided to atleast go get the part since it would put us clear across town and then head out to see the fireworks.

Dave was able to fix it when we got home and they now work good as ever:D

The girls did very well for seeing fireworks for their first times. Last year i was hugely pregnant so we didn't bother to go and sit in the heat plus i *think* dave had to work. Neither of them cried...but Aria lost interest once they passed out glow sticks.

What a day.

2009-06-24T22:08:00.000-04:00

The morning started out pretty calm. Dave had to work tonight so there was none of the usual rush in the morning to get everyone up and moving to get the day started.

Around noon we decided to go to the library not knowing how hot it was outside. We got out there and the heat just hit us like a ton of bricks and the humidity was thick enough to cut with a knife. So we decided to continue our journey to the library knowing it should be cooler inside.

When we parked Dave started laughing uncontrollably. He then pointed at this.

That my friends is a van. A van packed from floor to ceiling with TRASH. In the front there was enough space for a driver and a passenger(we think we didn't peek through the window) with a wall of more trash to keep the two from ever touching.

So we get inside to discover that it is waaaaaaay hotter in there than we expected but we spent an hour and a half there anyway.

We came home and cooled off. Enjoyed a nice peaceful dinner.

Then just as Dave was getting ready to get Cora from her high chair to clean her up there was a loud *bang* then the power went out.(around 5pm or so) Dave had to be at work at 7 so we were trying to hang around long enough to see how this would all play out and how long it would take to fix things. Around 6 it was damn near 80* in here and still 90* outside. So we packed up the girls and headed to Dave's mom's house. Dave got ready for work and we headed back over here to see if they electric company knew anything.

They did. The apartment complex blew TWO transformers. One they were able to repair and get working before 7pm. Great news for Building A and Building C's hallway. Bad news for Building C's actually apartments which run from a different transformer entirely. For those that don't know we live in Building C. They said that it appeared that the second transformer was blown beyond repair but they were waiting on another guy to come take a look. Unfortunatly they no longer install the ground transformers that they have in the apt. complex here so they would have to rip out the old one and rewire everything from the ground up. He estimated that if that was the case it could take anywhere from 4-6 hours. That time frame put us at getting power back around 11pm-1am. Did i mention it was HOT in here?

I took Dave to work and opted to stay at his moms for awhile longer. Then around 9 i decided that even in the heat the girls would certainly sleep better in their own beds at their own house.

Since it was already darkish they both went to bed without so much as a fuss.(and are still sleeping)

So here i was sitting here expecting power to be out for HOURS longer. Then i decided to get online for a bit. I knew my laptop would have a decent amount of battery life left to it and there are a few people around here with unsecured wireless internet so i hopped online. The internet was rather in and out so I called April instead.

Then suddenly out of nowhere the power popped back on ATLEAST an hour before the earliest expected time. I was thrilled. I don't much like sitting in the dark when i can't reach over and flip a switch and turn on the light.

Oh and lets not forget on the way back to daves moms from dropping dave off at work my damn turn signals stopped blinking. Turns out that was just a loose fuse and all is well in that Dept. now.

I must say that i am SO ready to get to bed and sleep. I feel like i have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off in this damn heat!

In other news i got my nose pierced last week. I had some issues with swelling and some other minor things but now its not painful and the swelling is only bad when i take it out once a day to clean the crusties off of it.

Aria's speech evaluation.

2009-06-16T22:08:00.000-04:00

Aria had her speech eval. this morning. We actually just got home so I'm going to post this before i forget anything.

Aria is normally shy. She doesn't like strangers and hates new people so I was rather concerned about this since it's a bunch of new people. However, in true Aria fashion she shocked the shit out of me. After about 5 minutes she was more than ready to talk to this lady and do what she asked.

Aria pointed to some of the pictures and completely ignored some that i know she knows. The rest of the time she just sat there and played. Stacking blocks, matching colors, and even finishing a puzzle unassisted. Shes obviously a smart little girl.

The lady, who's name I *think* is Melissa(but if not it is for the sake of this blog), said she IS behind in her speech but she doesn't think it's that severe. She suggests that she does come in for speech therapy and we will hear more about that come next week after she finishes her final report and they get the info back from her hearing test(which was fine if you didn't read the last blog).

Melissa(or whatever her name really was) did notice however that Aria uses the wrong words for things. For example...Aria knows what a piece of bread is and calls it bread but she also calls a plate and a bowl bread. And she knows that sissy drinks milk from a bottle and she knows what a cup is but a cup of milk was a bottle. And the pictures of babies were all sissy but the baby dolls were babies.

They also said as part of her speech therapy they are going to teach her some basic sign language to help bridge the gap between what she knows and what she wants to help relieve some of her frustrations when shes talking and trying to communicate. They also mentioned that since Cora is starting to babble and communicate with us that the sign language will also benefit her and she may very well pick it up since Aria, Dave and I will be using it to help Aria learn to talk and communicate.

It also seems that if i have ANY hope of finishing Aria's baby book i need to get on it. Part of the papers i had to fill out had a BUNCH of milestones on it that kids reach and i could only fill out about 10 of them. However sitting here with all the pictures of the girls I could have filled out TONS more. Guess i better get on that before i completely forget who did what when.

Can you hear me now?

2009-06-12T22:07:00.000-04:00

Eh maybe you can't...i don't type THAT loud afterall.

However Aria CAN!

She had her hearing test today and other than getting shitty that she had to be held she passed within the 'normal' range. The Audiologist said that anything between 0 and 20 on her little graph was normal. Now aria did have quite a few 20's but she is still within a normal hearing range. Her ears passed all the little tricks they had to do as well. They tested to see if her cochlea sent out a normal response sound when a sound was sent in and she did great there. Her ears even passed the test that would suggest she may have fluid in her ears that's trapped.

Now we just have a speech eval. ahead of us and possibly speech therapy ahead of us.

The only news I wasn't too fond of was that the Audiologist thinks it is probably in Aria's best interest to get tubes when/if she gets another ear infection. We know she has had quite a few and i can't say i disagree with this. But it will just have to be discussed with her dr the next time an ear infection should arise.

I'm praying that doesn't happen. *crosses fingers*

When you are bored...post a blog

2009-06-09T22:06:00.000-04:00

Dave works tonight. Aria doesn't do well on these nights. I find this shocking since her first year and a half he worked ONLY nights. But now she wakes up. Hes been gone a total of MAYBE a half hour and shes already woken up twice and had to be put back to bed. Last week she woke up around 10 or so and stayed up til he came home. She obviously doesn't like daddy not being home just like me.

I, too, hate these nights. I'm not sure why. I stayed home a great deal while dave worked thirds but i just can't sleep when hes not here and in the off chance i do fall asleep its from pure exhaustion.

The girls both had drs appts on the 27th. Wait...did i blog about that already? *goes to check*

No, no i didn't.

Anyway. The girls both had drs appts. on the 27th. 9 month for Cora, 2 year for Aria.

Cora's went fine. She was 15lbs 10ozs. 25 inches long. She got some shots. Bled all over the nurse. Screamed when the dr touched her. You know, the usual.

Aria's appt was also 'fine' for lack of a better term. She was 22-23lbs(they weight her on the big scale which i HATE being that shes so damn tiny. 30inches tall(pfft i never thought we'd see the day) They have her scheduled for speech and hearing testing. She has a vocab of MAYBE 17 words. id say atleast 12 of those words are more like "mommy interpertations". Mostly baby babble. Even Dave has to look at me a good portion of the time to grasp the idea of what is coming out of her mouth. She goes Friday (6-12) for her hearing test. Then Tuesday(6-16) she goes for a speech eval. After that it's back to the dr to figure out where we go from here.

Cora had a wic appt today. Almost two weeks since her drs appt. She weighed 16lbs 3ozs and was 23 inches long. Huh...that can't be right. In 13 days she gained 9 ozs but shrunk 2 inches...someone can't measure me thinks.

Anyway, the idiots who make Enfamil thought it would be a brilliant idea to stop making Lacto-Free formula. Supposedly there wasn't enough of a market for it. However Enfamil is the only name brand formula that even made a lactose free formula. Stupid in my opinion. So they want us to try her on the Gentlease formula. It has 1/5 the lactose of reg. milk based formulas. This is kinda our only option now. She won't drink soy. She would throw it up. Soo yeah not going that route.

My laptop died. This makes me sad. I'm stuck using Dave's computer until its fixed. What a HUGE difference. He needs a new computer. His is just...ancient. I tripped coming into the bedroom to sit it down. The travel swing was in the middle of the room and i didn't see it. i was ALMOST to the laptop table to sit it down so when i fell forward thats where it landed. We are talking a fall of MAYBE 12 inches and BAM instant hard drive failure. However the good-ish news is next time it fails they have to completely replace my laptop. At this rate i don't think it will be too long before that happens. I lost some pictures but thankfully i'm pretty diligent about uploading them to myspace as soon as they get put onto my computer. But there are still some i don't post. Silly ones of me and the girls mostly. They said it should take two more weeks to fix...i may go nuts.

I cannot believe that our two year anniversary is coming up. No way its really been that long. The past 3 years have FLOWN by. We are actually going out for our Anniversary this year. It will be our first real date ever. We have never went out without the kids. We mostly stayed at home before Aria was born. I'm kinda excited.

I think thats enough of my randomness for now. I'll post a new blog after Aria's appt on Friday.

Spring Cleaning Fail

2009-04-30T22:05:00.000-04:00

Ok so Spring Cleaning wasn't so much a fail the few days/weeks after it was done.

Then Cora thought it would be a FANTASTIC idea to get sick resulting in 6 ER visits, 2 xrays, 3 rounds of blood work, 4 shots, 1 catheter, 1 suppository in the hospital, 1 allergic reaction to medication, and 6 fabulous days of cleaning up puke and holding a crying baby. Oh and lets not forget 3 drs visits with 1 more on the way...Yeah its been that kind of week.

So needless to say things around here have been lacking. Dave would work and come home and take over on the baby holding so dinner could be made. We would switch so we could eat. Then it was practically bath and bed time. By the time we actually got to lay down we were exhausted not to mention we had specific orders to give her liquids EVERY hour round the clock.

I spent today bleaching every hard surface in their bedroom. Crib, toddler bed, toys, every single ball in the ball pit. This was a HORRIBLY nasty bug that needs to NEVER EVER EVER come back. Tomorrow i plan on doing the same in the living room.

I have tons of laundry to do...literally...its insane how much one child can puke in a week and it didn't help that aria joined in for two days.

I also need to clean my room as it was kind of forgotten about.

Guess i know how we will spend this weekend.

Update on Cora

2009-04-28T22:04:00.000-04:00

So this is going to be long...just a forewarning.

Friday
We woke up. Dave mentioned that Cora hadn't woken up at all throughout the night. Dave checked on her and she slept for a few hours longer. So around 9am I had him wake her up. At some point during the night she had thrown up, lots of bile all over her sleeper. When dave brought her to me she was waaaaaay lethargic. She wouldn't crawl, She wouldn't sit up and she wouldn't hold her head up at all for us. She continued vomiting as well so we took her to the ER. They gave her some zofran for the vomiting and did a few tests and sent us home with specific instructions to return if she continuted vomiting throughout the day. He said she would likely need an IV because she was already dehydrated.

Friday Night
Around 11pm she started throwing up again despite still being on meds for it. So by the ER drs request i took her back. There was a New dr there since there had been a shift change at 7pm. This dr ordered some more tests. And also said that she was dehydrated but not enough for an IV and to return the next night for a followup and to get the results of the blood culture that he had done.

Saturday Night
Dave took her up this time since it was just to reevaluate her. They said then that she kinda looked better but there was some bacteria on her blood culture that they couldn't identify. At this point it looked like she might have a blood infection. She had also had some diarrhea. We were told to return sunday night because they needed to let the bacteria grow to find out what bacteria it was to be treated accordingly.

Sunday Night
We returned, with a much weaker baby. She was OBVIOUSLY more dehydrated. The dr did not want to "torture her with an IV". He told us that the bacteria found in her blood turned out to be bacteria from the skin, a contaminated blood sample. The dr turned her around to look at her while she was asleep...it took her a few minutes to wake up and look at him. He still said that she wasn't that dehydrated and sent her back home.

We did not feel comfortable with this at all. We wanted a second opinion. She was FAR too lethargic to be well enough to go without IV fluids in my opinion.

Sunday Night Hospital Two
We took her to the other hospital across town. They looked her over and put an IV in immediatly. Drew some blood work which came back to say that she probably should have had an IV atleast 24 hours prior. They had us hang out for a bit with her on an IV and then sent us home.

Monday Afternoon
We were told to take her to see her family dr the next day to keep an eye on her and all that fun stuff. He told us that she did look just a teeny bit dehydrated still and since she was still vomiting prescribed her some phenergan suppositories. He wanted us to return the next afternoon to see if she was improving.

We filled her suppositories. Gave her the first one and started seeing great improvements. Around time for the next one she started puking again so we gave her the next one on time. THis time she kept throwing up. So time for the third one and it was given to her(after talking to the dr on call just to be on the safe side). Roughly 20-30 minutes later her tongue started to swell. She couldn't close her mouth. Her tongue was dry as a dessert in a drought. She was super irritable and couldn't sleep. She was having an obvious allergic reaction to the meds she was given.

So we took her to the ER again. Im not going to mess around with allergic reactions that are causing the tongue to swell. The dr said that he didn't think it was a reaction and sent us home.

So we sat up with her a good portion of the night to keep a close eye on here since we had a return drs visit tuesday.

Tuesday
At Cora's drs appt today she appear more alert. She has gained back 3ozs since yesterday. And my gut was right. She had an allergic reaction to the suppository she was given. Which is why she continued vomiting. Once we stopped giving them to her she showed some improvement within a few hours.

The swelling in her tongue is almost(if not completely) gone now. Shes keeping things down. Shes far more alert.

The phenergen allergy makes a ton of sense though. 6 days before my due date with Cora i was rather sick. I couldn't keep anything, including water, down. My OB prescribed phenergen to help with the vomiting. After a few doses it still didn't help. Cora was born with meconium which could have been beacause she was in distress from being exposed to a medication she was allergic to.

The dr did warn us that we have to be absolutly sure she never receives this medication again. The next time things will likely be far worse.

All in all Cora seems to FINALLY be better-ish. Shes holding things down. And shes actively getting up and playing lots more.

Updates

2009-04-23T22:03:00.000-04:00

Soo it's been awhile since I have posted a good update here.

Aria
She is FINALLY starting to somewhat talk. Like she would say things before but it was pretty limited and we had certainly noticed that she had regressed in her speaking. Mostly reverting back to baby talk. She goes next month for her 2 year check up and I will be asking the dr then about having her hearing tested just to rule out any problems.

She is a FANTASTIC big sister. She really likes to try and feed her sister...more often than not its something Cora shouldn't have yet(today it was a PB&J sandwich). She also likes to tell Cora "no NOO" when shes doing something she shouldn't do.

Aria has gotten to be a picky eater, which i figured would come soon enough.

She's also starting to show more independence. She likes to test the waters with Dave's mom. She likes to try and blame it on Aria "getting to that age" but i think most of it is because she refuses to say no to her.

Cora
WOW! She has gotten big. I cannot believe that she is EIGHT months old already. Before we know it we will be planning her birthday party too!

She is still a great sleeper and normally wakes up around 5 or so for a bottle and then normally goes back to bed.

She is crawling all over the place and is starting to pull herself up on EVERYTHING.

She is taking to a sippy cup EXTREMELY well even though we haven't even really offered it to her. She likes to copy her sister it seems.

Dave
He's doing good. He's working days now which still seems really odd to me, but they FINALLY have his hours somewhat in order.

And as for Myself, I'm doing fine. I go in next monday and either tuesday or wednesday to take my GED practice tests and then the GED test will follow shortly after. Then i can start filling out the forms for school and hopefully start at the beggining of next school year.

Update Time

2009-01-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

It appears that having two children allows NO time to post blogs

Its been over a month since I last posted since then LOTS have happened.

Cora is rolling now...like a crazy person:P She scoots ALL over the place ALL the time non-stop unless shes sleeping. It gets to be a bit of a handful because she will get herself up next to stuff and gets mad. Still no teeth but i kinda expected that. Shes gaining fabulously on the Lactose Free formula...i just wish it was cheaper like the regular stuff. She weighs 11lbs 13ozs as of a few weeks ago and is 21inches long. Another tiny kid:P

Aria is growing to be amazingly smart. She know a few body parts and know her ABC's from A to E and know a few others in there as well. Shes a great big sister and stops in her tracks if Cora cries about anything.

Dave is doing well also except for his "guy moments" and him being on days now is FANTASTIC!!!

We had a nice "first" new years eve together last night. I wish we had been together the last 2 rather than him working thirds.

I am doing fine as well and don't have much else to say

I breed lactose intolerant midgets...what’s YOUR superpower?

2008-11-11T22:00:00.000-05:00

Cora went to the dr this past wed.(11/5) and we discussed formulas. My instincts were telling me that she NEEDED lactose free and the dr said either that or soy but to try which ever first.

So shes been on lactose free since then(she gets the parents choice sensitivty right now) but shes doing FANTASTIC!!!

we had to give her some Karo for a few days in her bottles to help loosen things up because she was horribly conspitated but now shes doing great with no help.

Her weight gain improved last week and we go back tomorrow to see how its done. and Aria has a dr's appt tomorrow as well. I cannot believe that shes 18 months old already!!!

Secret Molars

2008-11-03T21:48:00.000-05:00

Aria now has FOUR molars cut through. She showed NO signs of cutting them. No fussiness, No crankiness, No fever...Nothing

Im Amazed. Now if only that last front one on teh bottom would cut:P

Cora is 12 days old...

2008-08-31T21:46:00.000-04:00

...And she lost her cord stump today.

Thank god.

they always make me so nervous.