Thursday Thirteen #17-13 Things Kayla (Happy Birthday, Baby) LOVES…

In honor of my baby girl (Kayla’s) 3rd birthday which is TODAY I am doing this week’s TT on Thirteen Things Kayla LOVES! 1. Favorite foods: Ramen noodles, hot dogs, cereal, eggs, cheese, bologna, Popsicles, bananas, and olives! 2. Favorite Colors: Blue and Purple 3. Favorite movies: Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas (yes, still even into April!), Monster’s Inc, Happy Feet, Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo, and Dora the Explorer: Dora’s Halloween (Yes she is a very big holiday movie fan)! 4. Holidays! Christmas is her favorite holiday and not for the reason’s you’d think a toddler would. Her favorite? The Christmas tree! She loves decorations of and kind. She is one big celebration packed into the form of a child, why wouldn’t she love holidays? 5. Favorite inside activities: Coloring, jumping on the bed, hide and seek and tickle time! 6. Favorite outside activities: Swimming, drawing with chalk, going to the park, watching kids play (I know, she’d rather watch then play). 7. Bath time! She loves bath time, especially if mommy, daddy or sissy get in with her (and yes, we’ve all gotten in at the same time!) 8. Favorite books: Any of the Olivia books by Ian Falconer, Elmo: Babies, any book about animals 9. Favorite toys: Blocks, squirty bath toys 10. Favorite thing to do EVER: GO TO GRANDMA AND PAPA’S!!! 11. Favorite songs: Anything on Yo Gabba Gabba, Ring Around the Rosie, Wheels on the bus, Head, shoulder’s Knees and toes 12. Favorite thing to do with her sissy Ava: Tickle her, push her nose, hug her 13. And talking on the phone to grama, papa, uncle Chris or Auntie Nini!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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WW #16-My baby is 3 tomorrow!

 For this weeks edition of  Wordless Wednesday…

Your 3(!) big years of life in 15 little pictures.

You started out life so rough. Sometimes it’s hard to believe you are still here with me. I’m thankful every day for you.

I loved you from the begining, with a love so strong it sometimes suffocates me.

I never wanted to put you down, you were always in my arms. My little ladybug.

I loved your baby rolls, those chubby cheeks I loved to kiss.

I am so proud of you, baby girl.

You’re the best of both worlds; so gentle and so sweet with so much energy and spunk.

I wish I could see the world through your beautiful brown eyes.

You make me want to be a better person.

You always make me smile. From the inside out.

You’re so goofy. Just like your mommy.

You have your father’s will.

We’ve been through some tough times, angel.

I’ve been there through every tear.

And every time we’ve laughed together.

You Are My Sunshine
My “little” sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
You’ll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away

I love you, baby girl. Happy early birthday to my everything.

Blah, blah, blah…

So today I think I drank 2 TONS of water. Needless to say, my toilet has never had so much company. I also did squats while cooking dinner, push-ups while Kayla brushed her teeth and a few crunches while holding Ava in airplane position (an have completely convinced my children that I’m one screw loose). I didn’t have time to get a walk outside today, Kayla had occupational therapy and we had to finish cleaning up after the mess we made while spring cleaning (yes, somehow cleaning made our house messier then before…NEVER MESS WITH THE SHIT IN THE CLOSETS!).

I felt kind of sad today, saying goodbye to a lot of our old baby stuff. A lot of those items hold so many precious memories. We gave Kayla’s favorite swing to my bro and sis-in-law. Ava never really cared much for swings but Kayla LOVED hers. I remember seeing her little baby chubb all tucked into it, fast asleep. I used to put her in it and set in in the bathroom while I took a bath. She would coo and babble at me and every once in a while I’d splash a little water at her and she’d laugh.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to realize that the objects don’t hold the memories, I do.  Perhaps why I’m still holding onto the burned chandelier from the dining room of our old house (It burned down in the San Diego wildfires last October-if you’re new to my blog). It’s terribly charred and distorted and looks nothing like it used to when it hung over our dining room table, but every time I see it, it’s feels as though I’ve lost this huge chunk of me. The hubbs was trying to convince me to throw it out yesterday while we were doing our spring cleaning, but I just don’t think I’m ready for that. Maybe next Spring.

I guess another reason it was so hard for me to part with all our old baby stuff is it just seems so final. Like this means for sure I am not having anymore children. If we did then we’d have to go out and buy all new baby stuff! I don’t want to be done having children. I loved being pregnant, I love kids! I just can’t have anymore right now. Now, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d be singing a different tune! I’d be knocked up by summer! But sadly, due to money problems (and the fact that I already have my hands full with a disabled toddler and clingy 7 month old) we just can’t live out our dreams of having a large family now.

I loved that baby stuff, but it’s just stuff. And even though I could still smell what Kayla smelled like as a baby on it’s cloth, that doesn’t mean I can’t smell it forever in my mind.

Okay…I’ve gone and made myself cry over a baby swing now. What a turd. Anyway, moving on…I know it’s going to hold my little baby niece or nephew in a few months and I know all of it will be appreciated. Then one day when their little one has grown and they have to get rid of it, they’ll know what I’m talking about now and won’t think I’ve just completely lost it!

Blah. What a weird post this is. Now going to get back to watching my Tivo’d shows like “The Bachelor.” Don’t be jealous. Haha!

Spring Cleaning

The Hubbs and I are spending this Saturday Spring cleaning. We have moved almost every box out of our closet and sorted through bags and boxes of various things we have decided to keep for some unknown reason.

*coughs* Pack-rats! *coughs*

Most of it is old clothing of mine. A collection that has objects dating back to high school. Also, bags of ‘skinny clothes’, ‘fat clothes’, maternity clothes or any other kind of clothes I hang onto because “You never know, one day I could be really skinny again! Or maybe I should hold onto these for the next time I get pregnant!”(…however far off that is, something I don’t even want to think about at this point.) But I have decided all of them are going BYE BYE. I also strangely encountered several bags of damn near brand new baby clothes (some of them have never even been worn) that had once belonged to Kayla. Unfortunately, most of them were sizes NB to 6 months. If I had only done this half a year ago, there would have been a lot more clothes for Ava to wear, but apparently we missed our opportunity. Damn!

While sorting through various things in our storage we came to the realization that we have enough baby equipment to start our own daycare. Baby equipment in our possession follows (but is not limited to):

• Three fullsize CRIBS (only one is assembled and in use by Ava)
• 2 play yards/pack n’ plays
• 2 mini cribs/travel cribs
• 2 high chairs
• 1 toddler booster chair
• 3 baby bouncers (one pink, two blue)
• 4 baby swings (one new boppy brand, one winnie the pooh, one with bumble bees, one tall swing with rotating ducks)
• 1 changing table (that we never ended up using because it’s quicker to change them without it)
• 1 large box of baby boy clothing (we never used because we DON’T HAVE ANY BOYS!)
• 4 boxes of baby girl clothing
• 3 boxes of toddler girl clothing
• 12 teething rings (who needs 12 teethers???)
• 4 infant car seats
• 2 toddler car seats
• 1 bassinet
• 1 full size tandem stroller
• 1 full size regular stroller
• 1 umbrella stroller
• 2 baby slings/carriers (one of which looked brand new and I had NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE)
• and about 789,650 billion toys (I may be exaggerating one that one…but that’s what it feels like.)

For one, where did all this stuff come from?? Some of it I didn’t even recognize and told hubby that perhaps there is a baby *crap* fairy out there and every once in a while she drops by our storage closet and deposits various objects while we’re sleeping.

Not only that, but many of the things we own we rarely used because our children disliked them. i.e. Swings and bouncers, Ava has a serious dislike of being out of my arms for longer than 30 SECONDS AT A TIME, so obviously swinging or bouncing is out of the question. We also never used the pack n’ plays because our children refuse to be enclosed in any contraption. We actually only started using one of them in the last three weeks for Ava to sleep in while we are visiting Grandma and Papa.

Many of these objects we will be so gratefully donating to my expecting brother and sister-in-law. (Thank god!) Who I am pretty sure do not know what they have gotten themselves into by agreeing to accept some of our baby hand-me-downs.

Now before my husband flicks me in the head for taking a break mid-cleaning to blog, I must get back to work.

Next stop? The top of the refrigerator! Old prescription bottles, here I come!

 

 

 

Thursday Thirteen #16-13 Things I’m thinking about right now

Thirteen Things I’m thinking about right now 1. We took Kayla to her speech therapy evaluation today and it didn’t go as well as I thought it would. They said she had severe receptive language impairment and moderate expressive language impairment. She will now be starting individual speech therapy twice a week for the next 6 months (for a total of 48 visits), then they will re-evaluate to see if more sessions are needed. They also referred me to get a developmental evaluation again because her cognitive abilities are very behind and she has a very bad attention deficit. On top of her occupational therapy. They told me she has to get in as much therapy as we can if we plan on enrolling her in “regular” school come time for kindergarten. I never actually thought of the fact that she may not be able to go to regular school. 2. I need to send in the forms CCS sent me to help me cover the co-pays for Kayla. We are spending roughly $45 dollars a week in co-pays now and lots more therapy is needed. We are also spending a lot in gas getting to all the appointments so we need to finish applying for her state disability to help with all the costs. 3. I talked to my gram earlier and she is going to be sending me her old palm pilot to help me get a little more organized with her appointments. Sweet! 4. The show Best week ever is funny. 5. Why is Tom Cruise so weird? He makes the most awesome movies yet he is so freaking bizarre. I think he is from another planet. 6. Kayla’s 3rd birthday is coming up VERY soon! My little girl is going to be three. WHERE DID THE TIME GO?? It’s too bad so many people can’t make it to the party. 7. My hubby bought me flowers and Starbucks the other morning for no reason. Isn’t that the nicest thing? I love him! 8. We are in desperate need of a second vehicle. Dang. 9. I gave Ava a haircut tonight. Her first one! I still have yet to take the kids anywhere to get their hair cut, I always do it myself. It looks fairly good. Maybe her hair won’t get matted in her sleep anymore. 10. David Cook should SO win American Idol. He is really good. It kind of bugs me that he looks like he might be balding and trying to cover it up by bushing forward his hair but that doesn’t change he fact that he is very talented. My favorite song he did so far was Eleanor Rigby. I just like his take on the song. 11. I can’t believe people would be stupid enough to think that a whole household of valuable items were theirs for the taking because of a craigslist ad. (Click here to read the article) 12. I wonder what little babies dream about. I would love to be in their heads for a night just to see the cute little baby dreams. I just went in to check on Ava and she kept smiling and giggling in her sleep. She’s probably dreaming about boobs! 13. Speaking of dreams, I had pretty much the most bizarre dream ever last night. I dreamed that I found out that Charles Manson was Ava’s real father. I know! WTF? I dreamt that I was going to visit a friend of mine and while I was waiting for her to answer the door Charles Manson came up behind me and handed me a pamphlet for something, then he asked if I remembered him. I was like, “uhh, no…” So I went inside my friends house because he was creeping me out. I told my friend about what happened and how weird it was and she said, “Don’t you remember him? Don’t you see the resemblance between him and Ava? He’s Ava’s real father!”  I was like “Riiiiiiigggghhhhtt. Okay, this is a dream.” I woke myself up right then. I realized that I had that dream because the hubbs and I were talking about Charles Manson and how creepy he is right before I went to bed last night. I told my mom about it over the phone and she almost died laughing. She almost had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on my father who was eating a piece of pizza when she told him. She says she sees the resemblance, I, however, do not…

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Wordless Wednesday #15-My favorites from Easter

 

My poor neglected blog…

Alright, I haven’t blogged since Thursday, I know! I’ll give you a run down of what’s been happening and make up for it with cute pictures including matching Easter dresses! We had a very busy weekend, coloring eggs and celebrating and such…we also had an inspector coming today to inspect our apartment, so we had to clean, clean, clean! Our apartment was already fairly clean but our carpets were in desperate need of a good steam cleaning and we needed to better organize the toys in Kayla’s room to make it look less cluttered.

We went to my parents house on Saturday and colored eggs. Avalynn decided to sleep through the occasion (which made me sad because I wanted to see her at least look like she was trying to drop eggs in the dye). Kayla had lots of fun dying her hands blue and eating the eggs but there was really very little actual egg dying. We also went out on Saturday to Target and got their Easter presents. I knew we were supposed to get them some outdoorsy type of stuff but it was very slim pickings in that section by the time we got there. That’s okay, though, because the toys we did get them were a huge hit.

Sunday morning they got there presents. Kayla got Squakers McCaw the Fur real Parrot and various other little toys and puzzle boards. Ava got the Amazing Animals Musical Activity Barnyard and some other stuff. Let me tell you, that parrot is CRAZY. It also scares me a little. Someone (I’m guessing either my husband or my father) trained it to say myname and it picks THE MOST random times to say it. Like when the house is quiet after everyone has gone to bed and I am turning off the lights. I’ve tried to change it but I can’t figure out how! But hey, I guess it could be worse. We could have bought this frightening doll for her and I may have had to secretly dispose of it in our dumpster while everyone was away. If it didn’t kill me in my sleep first.

After presents we took a trip to a pretty field by our house to take Easter pictures of the girl’s. Who, if I do say so myself, are extremely photogenic. I loved the pics. I’ll put them at the bottom of this post.

We had a great day over at my parents after that, Kayla played with some of the neighbors and drew with chalk. She even went swimming in their pool! And didn’t have a seizure! (Body temperature changes are one of her triggers for seizures)

I also took some pictures of my beautiful younger sister in her Easter dress.

At the end of the day, a couple of the neighbor kids came to the door and asked if Kayla could play. At the time she was taking a nap so we had to say no, but I almost burst out into tears because no one has ever came to the door an asked if she could play before! My little girl is growing up! Make it stop!

They hunted for eggs, but Kayla refused to hold any of the eggs in her basket and went around picking up eggs and depositing them into other peoples baskets. Ava was only interested in LICKING THE OUTSIDE OF THE EGGS.

Today we had our home invasion apartment inspection. I swear, the lady that did it was soincredibly rude I almost slapped her. We received a notice last week stating that all of the apartments in our building were going to be inspected today. They said they would arrive any time between 9am and 5pm. Well sometime around 10am Kayla woke up. She had a really long day the day before and was exhausted so I let her sleep. I woke up around 9:30 and cruised some blogs and decided to get something to eat. Around 11am I woke the hubbs up (he works nights so he usually sleeps in later than that) but I wanted him to watch the kids so I could jump in the shower. I went into the bathroom to, well, go to the bathroom, when I heard a POUNDING at our door. I told the hubbs to tell them to come back in a few minutes because I was in the bathroom. As he opened the door, some lady we had never seen before demanded “Let us in, apartment inspection!” Before my hubbs even had time to reply, she and the two men accompanying her shoved the door open and barged into the house. My hubby didn’t even have a shirt on. They didn’t say a word to him. They quickly walked from room to room turning on light switches and turning on and off faucets. All of a sudden I heard some voices from the bathroom. One of the men with her looked my husband over and said, “Were you sleeping??” and quickly motions his head towards Kayla who is playing on the floor in the living room. My husband, understanding what he is implying, snaps back “Yeah, I was, my wife is in the bathroom.” I wish he would have said something about how he works nights so they wouldn’t just assume he sleeps all day. Them barging in at 11am is the equivalent of us barging into their house at 5am. But, whatever. Then the lady comes over and starts banging on the door of the bathroom I am currently occupying. “Are you gonna be out soon?” What the hell, lady? I come out, towel in hand with a very angry look on my face. I know if this lady even looks at me wrong, I might that I might fly off at her so I head back to my bedroom to look for my make-up. Ava is in her bed taking a nap in there so I try to be quiet. As I’m going through my drawer, I look up to find her standing behind me pointing at a window in our room. “You can’t have access to that window blocked. I’m going to notify the office that you have that window blocked.” I look over and see three small laundry baskets filled with clothes waiting to be folded. Not blocking any window, barely even taking up any space on the floor. “Whatever. You woke my seven month old up. Thanks.”

I don’t think they acted in any way respectful of MY HOME or MY THINGS or even myself or the hubbs. It didn’t go anything like I had expected it to. I expected a knock on the door, them to ask if it was okay if they came in and did the inspection. If they noticed I was in the bathroom, maybe asked if they wanted me to have them come back later. Ask before they enter ANY room especially my room. Where my child is sleeping. The whole thing was pretty ridiculous. My blood is still boiling over it, as you can probably tell.

After that we took Kayla to occupational therapy where she slid down a ramp on a scooter board, worked on drawing circles on a chalk board, and strung beads on a string. They are mostly working on her fine motor skills and trying to build up muscles in her back so that she has better trunk balance. She loves it though because as much as they are trying to make her work, she just thinks it’s one big play-date.

I don’t know why I am not writing very well tonight. I feel kind of frustrated and just want to get this blog entry over. I think I’m just stressed out a little. So sorry!

Anyway, here are those cute pictures as promised!

Thursday Thirteen #15-13 Pics from the Beach

Thirteen Pictures from our trip to the Beach The nice thing about living in Southern California is even though there is still snow melting in many states, it’s nice and warm here. We took the kids out to the beach yesterday. It was Ava’s first time and she absolutely hated it. We still had a great time, and Ava was fairly content as long as NO PART OF HER BODY TOUCHED ANY SAND. The water was still freezing, but Kayla insisted on going in.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Today we took Ava to her 6 month check up and got her shots, she was thrilled about that. I am so used to taking Kayla to the doctor that when I signed in at the front desk I wrote Kayla’s name instead of Ava’s. The lady called me up and was like, “Uhm, Kayla doesn’t have an appointment today…”  I turned bright red and replied, “Oh sorry wrong kid! I meant Avalynn!”

After that appointment we got some lunch and headed out to Kayla’s Occupational therapy appointment. She was pretty excited bout going because she gets to color and play with toys. It’s a pretty far drive for us, about 28 miles, so you can imagine my frustration when we got there to find out that the therapist had called in sick (either that or enjoying some corned beef and cabbage). I guess they tried calling us, but we were at Ava’s appointment and apparently we are almost down-right disgusting (according to the look on the secretary’s face) for NOT OWNING A CELL PHONE. She acted like she was annoyed with me because they couldn’t get a hold of me. I almost wanted to scream, “I’M the one that jut drove 28 FREAKING MILES to find out I’ve got to drive another 28 miles STRAIGHT BACK HOME! Oh and maybe I WOULD own a cell phone, but I can’t afford one due to the fact that I PAY YOU 30 dollars A WEEK!”

Anyway, the Hubbs has to work tonight. So I will be enjoying the St. Patty’s Day festivities by myself. With some Mango Margaritas. They’re Irish enough right?

Designate a driver if you drink! Drive safely everyone and have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Gracias Dora

Kayla has had a lot of problems with her speech since she (finally) started talking, for that reason we decided not to push the teaching of any Spanish phrases. We decide to hold off on that until she had started getting the English language down to avoid any confusion.

Today we were visiting grandma at her new house and I gave Kayla a cookie from the cookie jar.

Kayla: Gracias, mama!

Me: Uhhh, your welcome, Kaymay….

I was a little shocked by that, but we do live in southern California so I just chalked it up to her having heard it somewhere.

Later on Kayla brought me a picture she had drawn with her Auntie Nini.

Me: Oh, Kayla, it’s so beautiful! Thank you very much!

Kayla: De nada (pronouncing it Ne dahdah), mama.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later it came to me…

Someone’s been watching quite a bit of Dora the Explorer.

So, I just want to say, Gracias Dora…

WW #13-Congratulations! It’s a Jellybean!

Ha! I had you fooled there for a second, huh? No, it’s not mine…This is my good friends ultrasound she got done on Monday. It’s a Jellybean! She is probably around five-six weeks preggo now. He guesstimated her due date to be around Halloween. The baby is so small now that he couldn’t get a real accurate idea as to her due date so she goes back towards the end of the month to have another ultrasound done. I’m totally thrilled! Can’t wait for fall, I will be an auntie! (2x over thanks to my sister-in-law and now my friend!) Yay!

We be brawlin’ and bawlin’

I’m back! Okay, where to start? Well, we helped my parents and brother and sister-in-law move on Saturday. It’s been freezing all month here but on the day we choose to carry heavy objects up and down stairs San Diego decides,

“Hey, how about 85°? Does that sound like fun? I think that would be awesome! Your air conditioner in your car broke a few months ago, right? All the better! Oh and your driving around two hot cranky kids that aren’t having any fun at all? Sweet!”

It was about as un-fun as things can get (But is moving ever?). It was, however, pretty exciting to see their new place. Once we were done with my bro and sis we headed over to my parents to help them. We had helped them take one load early in the morning, but the rest of the day had been consumed by my brothers stuff, because HE HAS A LOT OF STUFF. Once we were finished they were pretty much almost done (for the day) and so we decided to help by providing a whole bunch of KFC and some strawberry champagne for celebrating. No one had eaten all day so they were very grateful. I just wanted to eat KFC.  Everyone is extremely relieved to get out of there. They can finally live like tenants now and not prisoners of war. They have a toilet, two actually! And heat! Hell, they can even hang things on their wall if thy feel so inclined! I know my Aunt and cousin read our blogs (old landlords captors) so I have a little message for them.

Dear Asshole and Asshole Jr,

You will have to find someone else to control now. I know you want to play it off like you gave them a place to stay to be helpful but you really just wanted one more thing in your life you could control. A helpful relative doesn’t charge an arm and a leg for rent for a TRAILER.  A helpful relative fixes toilets when they break. A helpful relative doesn’t tell you when you can or cannot hang things on your walls, yell at you for hanging up a wind-chime on the patio, whether or not they can collect their OWN mail out of the mailbox or not or how many things they can have plugged in at one time, etc. No one believes you were trying to do anything nice for them. So give it up.

The end.

Today Kayla had her first Occupational Therapy appointment. She loved it! She now calls it “the fun doctor”or “the toy doctor.” They therapist noticed her “tics” right off and said she would probably need physical therapy as well. It’s still not known whether or not they can do anything for them. They’ve decided she is a “Sensory seeker.” I could have told you that. She prefers bright colors, smears food all over herself at every meal (still at almost three), would rather be upside down, spinning, etc. at all times and things to that nature. Hopefully we can work on those things as well as her letting us know when she has gone to the bathroom (and possibly even help with potty training) and learning how to dress and undress herself. It’s pretty strange that she still can’t even take her own pants or shirt off. But it’s soon to get better! I am so, so, SO proud of all the things she CAN DO. She has gone well above everybody’s expectations as to what she would be able to do. She has much less than half a brain left and somehow she can manage to say things like “It’s dark in here.” That’s my girl.

Sunday night (I know, I kind of went out of order) we ended up having to call the cops on some guys out front of our apartment complex. We secretly watched from our balcony as two African American guys came up and started beating the crap out of three other guys. Another guy that happened to be driving by got out of his car and tried to help stop the fight. Instead of stopping, they decided to jump him instead. About four more African American men came out and the all six of them were beating the crap out of this guy that was just trying to help. This is when I decided to call the cops. While I was gone the hubbs said one of the guys looked like he pulled out a gun. All the girls that were around watching started screaming and some guy was yelling “Put that away! Put it down!”

Operator: 911, what is your emergency?

Me: Hi, I’m at ************* St. There are about six African American males beating up a guy in front of our apartment complex. (I didn’ know about the possible gun at this point)

Operator: Yes, someone has already called and the police have already been dispatched.

Me: Okay, thanks.

We live about one full mile from the police department. It took them about an hour and fifteen minutes to get here. I think, even if they had walked here the entire way, it wouldn’t have taken over an hour. That’s pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, shortly after I called, someone yelled to everyone that the police were on their way and everyone took off. Me and the hubbs were like, “What the heck just happened?”

Have I mentioned we are moving? Oh, we are sooo moving.

By the way, my pregnant friend had her first appointment today. He gave her an ultrasound and she has a dot baby. She called me to tell me about how much she loves her little dot. It’s not quite bean sized, just a dot. So she is probably around 4-5 weeks pregnant. He wasn’t sure about the due date but decided it was probably somewhere around Halloween. She goes back closer to the end of the month to get a better idea of a due date. That way the baby will be easier to measure.

Tomorrow I am participating in Sarcastic Mom’s breastfeeding carnival. It sounds like an awesome idea. Everyone blogs about their breastfeeding stories. So look out tomorrow for that. I promised myself when I heard about it that I wouldn’t ait until the last minute to start writing the post but just like high school, it’s tomorrow and I haven’t started yet. So that’s what I am going to go do now. See you tomorrow!

Click here for details!

Long week…

I haven’t blogged much this week and I am starting to feel guilty. That ever happen to you? The Lexapro has been doing great for my mood and overall outlook on everything, but it makes me so dang tired all the time! The last time I felt this tired I was pregnant!

Things are going pretty good here. Kayla starts her Occupational therapy on Monday, my parents and brother and sister in law are moving, so that is what we will be doing all weekend, helping with the move(s). They are all pretty excited. I am excited for them.

My friend that I mentioned last post, about finding out she was pregnant is going to go to the OB that delivered my last daughter. I ❤ him. My second delivery went SO smoothly and he was always willing to listen to my concerns and help me out in any way he could. I am glad she is going to him. She called today and scheduled an appointment and they even got her in for Monday, which when it comes to OB appointments, you know is awesome! He will probably give her an ultrasound and find out how far long she is. I can’t wait to find out the due date. It’s going to be so weird having two of the closest people in my life having babies at the same time. I had children early and didn’t have a lot of friends my age with children. It kind of made me feel like an outcast. When the people your age are still out partying and don’t quite grasp the fact that it’s different for young parents it was hard. It’s good to know I will have a few more partners on the parenting front. Now when I talk about poop and tantrums they won’t look at me like I’ve lost it.

I probably won’t have time to blog a all this weekend seeing as how we are helping 6 people move into 2 different places, but I will mot definitely blog Monday to let you know how Kayla’s first Occupational therapy session went. Have a good weekend everyone!

OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH!

Well there must be something in the water. It was only a few weeks ago that I posted about how my brother and sister-in-law were expecting there first child and I was going to be an auntie. Now, my best friend since high school is pregnant as well! This comes to her after many many months of trying and worries about infertility. I couldn’t be happier for her! Plus, I am going to get to be an auntie again! What are the odds? Twice in one year! Yay! Yay! Yay!

Busy past few days…

It has been a busy past few days here. I feel accomplished though, by getting a lot of things done. So I thought I’d let you know what I’ve been up to an give a little update.

Friday I made about a billion phone calls including;

• Calling to find out when Kayla’s next neurology appointment is. It still isn’t until May, even though were are on the cancellation list. For some reason, the neurology appointments at Children’s hospital are booked out in advance at least six months at all times. Highly frustrating. I really want to know what this new neurologist thinks of Kayla’s ‘ticks.’ (I’m not really sure what they are, this weird arm flapping, jumping motion she makes that seems to only get worse with time. They seem to occur more and more frequently. The nurse practitioner we saw at the neurology office last time said it may be a movement disorder of some sort.)
• Set up an appointment to get Kayla state disability checks. I don’t know why I didn’t do this when she was first born, I guess I wanted to prove so badly that we didn’t need any ones help to take care of our daughter. But with the medications, occupational, speech and possibly physical therapy she is starting now we just can’t afford it. The co-pays alone are $15 dollars per doctors visit with our insurance. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but factor in the fact that she will have a MINIMUM of 3-4 visits a week, we will be paying $45 + plus a week for her treatment. And I don’t work so I can stay at home and take care of her. And we live in San Diego (holy cow it costs an arm and a leg to live here!)  We barely make it by most months, so any help we get will be heavenly.
• Set up Kayla’s occupational therapy appointments. Every Monday, for the next 24 weeks, we will be doing occupational therapy. I am extremely excited to see how much progress she makes! I can’t wait!
• Talked to my psychiatrist about the medication he prescribed. I was supposed to have an appointment today with him so he could find out how the medication was working for me buu-uut I hadn’t actually been taking it. He told me what all he other doctors had pretty much told me, about how there aren’t a lot of other options out there for breastfeeding mother’s with Bipolar disorder. He decided to prescribe Lexapro to at least help with the depression and anxiety, but he wanted me to double check with Ava’s pediatrician to make sure he thought it was safe enough to take. Her pediatrician told me it was not recommended because it hadn’t been studied enough. So I didn’t take it. But I forgot to call the psychiatrist for a week to let him know. When I did call him, he stressed the importance of me taking the Lexapro. He told me discontinuing the nursing would probably set off hormones to spiral me into a deeper depression and that wouldn’t be good for me or the kids. His recommendation; don’t stop breastfeeding, take the Lexapro in an extremely low dose. He also told me he had consulted with two other doctors about it. He told me that her pediatrician was covering his butt, that he doesn’t know the benefits to risk factor, and told me that the studies had only found high doses of the medication to cause drowsiness in infants. So my low dose should not affect her, and if it does, he told me to discontinue it.
• So I started taking it on Friday and I swear, I feel better already. I know, it has to take a couple of weeks to build up in your system but I think it’s working already. Maybe it’s just that I want it to work so badly that I’m working it up in my head with kind of a placebo effect, but I don’t care. Whatever it is, it’s working. Although side effect wise, it makes me feel like I’ve had six cups of coffee, a little shaky, but I’ll deal. Ava seems to not be affected at all by it. She seems they same as she did all week before I started taking it. She was teething before I started, though, so it’s hard to judge.
• I got car insurance…YAY!
• I also paid the gas and electric and the cable bill. Blah.

Saturday we went to visit my parents and we played some guitar hero and Wii bowling. The mood is pretty heavy over there (understandably) due to the fact that my Great Aunt decided to evict them from their house. I kind of want to kick some butt over that. Oh! I also got to feel the baby belly of my little future niece or nephew. I have a feeling he’s a boy. But, of course, I thought both of MY girls were boys.

Sunday we relaxed around the house a bit, went to Sears Essentials and bought new car seats for the kids. Kayla had outgrown her car seat and was ready to move to a booster type seat. We bought a bright pink one and it’s so cute! We decided Ava needed one to match, also hers was dirty beyond belief. I figure car seats are not really one of those frivolous things. They are kind of a necessity. So no splurge there.

This has turned out to be quite a long post an I still have a bunch more stuff I was going to type but I guess I will get to that later. I probably lost most of you by bullet three, but the caffeine overdose effect these pills are giving me is kind of making it hard to write, or stay on subject for that matter.

Off to take a nap (I hope!), I finally got the kids to go down at the same time and I am going to take full advantage of it.