Ramblings

My computer time is so limited now that Dusty works from home. Its awesome having him here, but I'm going through computer withdrawls. I have to surf the net from my iPod and blackberry. If I have a very short response, you can bet that I'm on one of those devices.

Dusty's income got cut by 2.5% permanently and then for the month of April (so they say) it will be cut another 10%. It's better than getting laid off, obviously, but it scares me too. Will it be just for the month of April? May it be made into a permanent cut? Will it go lower? It's not like we can't pay our bills or anything, we are just working our way out of credit card debt and that makes it harder to do! But like I said, it could be worse. So I'll take it over layoff any day. It's actually the first time we have been affected by this whole economic mess personally.  Well, besides our 401(k) being worthless right now but that should be temporary and it's not like we're close to retirement, so we have plenty of time to bounce back (which the economy always does)

So, to celebrate our lowered income, I've decided to spend lots of money! lol I just bought a Dyson vacuum yesterday. We've been in need of new vacuum for awhile. We have a Kirby vacuum (bought by Dusty pre-Cynthia) it's a piece of junk and I loathe it! I've done a ton of research on vacuums and it's been the best reviewed one there. I've always wanted one since seeing the commercials a few years ago. I never could justify the expense but then seen it on Macys.com (while looking at Coach bags.. hey..my b-day IS coming up) and saw it on close out price. Not too shabby.. oh and free shipping.
Last night I went out with my best friend. We had a nice dinner and margaritas. It was nice to get away from the chaos and relax with a friend and have a couple drinks. I hadn't had a real drink since before the girls were born. I was feeling good after one but then decided one more would do the trick. and it did. lol

Today my bff and I met at Target to get some swimsuits for the kids. I got my first two piece! Before you start hurling at your computer screen, don't worry, it's a full length top and skirt bottom. I'm not going for the sexy look; I'm going for the comfy and well covered up look. I think I succeeded. I got the girls cute NON matching swimsuits (GASP!)
Oh and the reason I bought us all swimsuits (the guys can still wear the ones they have) is because we signed up all the kids for swim lessons. It works out great because the older kids (Josh and his g/f are 6) have their lessons from 10-10:45a and the little kids (15 mths and 6 mths) have their lessons from 10-10:30a on the same day. We don't have to be with the older kids but we do have to be with the babies. So it works out wonderfully. So we get to take care of 6 swim lessons all in one trip! (her 3 kids and my 3 kids)

More talk of money. I have been babysitting her baby 4 days a week. She (bff) had her gall bladder out a couple weeks ago, so I haven't been babysitting in a while. Next week she goes back to work. It's conveniently on the first day of spring break for all of our kids. So, if you thought my afternoons were busy with my 2 girls and the baby before.. now throw in two 6 year olds that get bored easily! I guess it will be a nice trial run for the summer.. holy crap.. the summer! AAAHHH Lots of kids.. hopefully lots of nice weather too. My SIL lives about 10 minutes away and has a huge pool. As long as I have a couple other adults to help, we should be able to go swimming a bunch. That will be nice.

Oh and more on the spending money we shouldn't.. we are going on a mini family vacation in a few weeks to Chicago. We'll meet up with Toni and Vanessa and the kids. It should be awesome! I've been wanting to get out of town and we love Chicago. I've loved Chicago since a few years ago and a bunch of us online girls met up. I've actually been back there every year since (except for the year I was preggo- and believe me, it felt like I was preggo for an entire year) We'll do the Navy Pier, swim at the hotel, and even order room service! I also consider this trip to be a mini preview of how well the girls will travel. In July we are driving down to Alabama to visit my Memaw (that’s grandma for you non-southerners) The trip usually takes about 12 hours. With babies, I travel overnight. Much easier. I have a lot of practice with Joshua. It's worked well for us, so hopefully the girls will cooperate and just sleep (or at least be quiet!). We'll only stay for 3 days. I think that's a good amount of time for a non baby proofed house.
The dieting is going really well still. We love and hate cheat days. Love the food, hate the heartburn. We both slacked on our working out this past week so Dusty only lost a pound and I stayed the same. But I also started cramping and spotting, so I'll blame the female stuff. Oh and speaking of female stuff. Don't you love it when you're wearing a big pad and it shifts out of place and you fix a wedgie or try and resituate and you give yourself a mini wax job from the sticky side of the pad that SHOULD be stuck to your panties? Love it.

I got my hair cut and colored. I loved it the first day and now I look at it and I'm disappointed. I didn't ask for highlights and I got very obvious stripes in my hair. I asked for long bangs (really long- like chin length) and I got this chopping crap on the side. ugh. I'm never happy about my hair when I have it done. I haven't gone back to the same hairdresser in the past 6 years because I'm never happy with the work. Although my bff does agree with these two points (the stripes and blunt chopping), I think it's ultimately because I'm just unhappy with myself. At the salon I just see my face and hair in the mirror. Looks great! Get home and my full length mirror reminds me that I'm still fat and in my lighting at home, I'm still my ole ugly self.

So, I guess I'll leave you on the low note.

15 month well baby visit

Another pretty good well baby visit. At this point, any appointment that doesn’t end up in the ER, is good by me.

They both got prevnair and DTaP shots. We are on a delayed immunization schedule. Nothing fancy. Our doc is wonderful and is supportive of what we want to do. As I’ve probably mentioned in previous entries, I just hate how so many shots are given in such a short amount of time. The girls aren’t in daycare and don’t get exposed to much outside the house. Their big brother brings home illness from school but I’m not really concerned with him bringing polio home in this day in age.

Anywho…

Addison’s stats

24lbs, 29inches

She was such a good girl. She did well with her shots too. One thing I mentioned to the doc, that I have been concerned about is Addison’s lack of words. She doesn’t say any. She babbles like crazy and “talks” to us but nothing “real”. She also seems to ignore us more than half the time. She understands a lot and can follow simple instructions, I’m just a little worried about her speech and the fact that she seems to ignore me. I usually have to get out 3 or 4 “Addison's” before she’ll look at me. The last Addison! Is loudest. Doc set us up with an ENT and we have her appt on April 8th. This is to rule out excessive fluid in her ears and possibly slight hearing loss. We’ll see.

Now on to Samantha

23lbs 31.25inches

She was her normal emotional self. Scared of everything going on. She did pretty good during the exam. I held her for moral support. Then shot time came. The doc had me leave the room with Addison so she wouldn’t get worked up before it was her turn. In the hall I heard an excessive amount of screams. I was concerned. It turns out that the nurse (both nurse and doc administer the shots together to get them over with) had Dusty hold her legs down. In the middle of the shot, Samantha grabbed one of the syringes and it moved- thus the extra screaming (and blood!) the nurse yelled at Dusty and told him to hold her arms (ok.. wasn’t he directed to the legs?) Anyway, apparently the doc gave the nurse a stern look. Luckily Samantha calmed down quickly afterwards.

Here is a picture of them today. It’s from my cell phone, so it’s pretty crappy quality. They were cute in their St. Patty green dresses!

First day of workouts and weigh in day

My alarm was set for 5:50am. Unfortunately the girls decided to get up at 4am. Although they did eventually go back to bed, we did not.

I stuck to my plan and got on the treadmill at 6am. I did 31 mins of walking/jogging. It felt great! Came home, showered and here I am. I’m exhausted though. I know that has everything to do with being up since 4am. This stinks!! I know the minute I lay back down, the girls will wake up so why bother, you know?

On another good note.. today was weigh in day!

 

AND…… another 2.6lbs lost!!

That brings me to :   

Diet Update

We have been doing fabulous! Except for the once a week cheat, we have been sticking to it! We give ourselves one day a week to cheat but with the extra weekly points that weight watchers gives, we don’t exactly go over our points anyway!

Our next weekly weigh in is this coming Monday. But as of right now, Dusty has lost 7+lbs and I have lost 5+lbs!!

Monday morning we also start the treadmill. I plan on getting up at 6am and working out till 7am and then Dusty’s turn from 7-8am. This should work out well for our morning routine of getting Joshua up and ready for school.

More updates to come on our WW journey!! So far, so good!!

6 places I would like to travel…

6 places I would like to travel to if I had someone trustworthy to watch my children (and if money was no object!)

Nothing too exciting. Just places I hope to see someday.

HAWAII

CABO SAN LUCAS

CRUISE

HOLLYWOOD

NEW YORK CITY

AUSTRALIA

Happy Heavenly B-Day Baby Bailen! (pics includ.)

It's hard to believe it's been 9 years since I gave birth to that precious little creature. Bailen Joseph would have been celebrating his birthday today. Unfortunately he was taken from this earth way too soon. He was only 3 mths 11 days old.


Birth/Death 3/2/00-6/13/00
Birth Weight 3lbs 4oz & 14.25 inches

Here are some pictures of him.

I have typed out a quick story of what happened. I am just copying and pasting it from 2004, when I originally wrote it.

My pregnancy was textbook perfect up until about 28-29wks. I started showing signs of pre-eclampsia. I was put on full bed rest and written off of work. I was going to my midwives every other day for NST and monitoring. On 3-2 (33wks 5days) my NST was not good, the baby didn't move during the whole test. They just happened to of had a potluck that day and had food in the break-room so the nurse made me a plate in hopes to get the baby active. It didn't work. The brought in the office OB to perform an u/s and she determined I needed to go straight to the hospital for a c-section. (he was breech)

Got in my room at the hospital. Everyone and their cousin showed up I swear!! Anyway, had the c-section. Bailen was rushed out of the room immediately following delivery. They stitched me up and back to my room we went. They came in and said Bailen weighed 3lbs 4oz. They said other than his size he looked perfect. He was only on the vent for 20mins and they said he pulled it out!! Stubborn little guy. He was hooked up to an IV and they had an oz tent over the upper half of his body. He seemed perfect to us. Over the next 40 days of his hospital stay we found out how bad things really were. He was diagnosed with a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. We were also told he had agenisis of corpus collusom (missing the part of the brain that connects the left and right side together) We had a cold hearted asshole of a dr. that told us this information. I asked him what it meant and he said that the baby would not be able to do anything. He would be stiff as a board, blind, and deaf. We were devestated! He seemed so perfect.......

April 10th, 2000 he got released from the hospital. YAY!!! He had a home nurse that visted every other day. She would come and weigh him and basically check him out and ask me how he was doing. After I believe 10 days the nurse admitted him back to the hospital. His weight had gone down. We spent the next week and 1/2 or so in the PICU. This time we were discharged with oxygen tanks, pulse ox monitor, gavage tubes for feeding and I forgot to mention we already had an apnea monitor. He didn't stay home for long. His pulse ox monitor constantly went off. Because of his heart condition anything over a 75 was good. A regular person runs about 97-100. He was way below the 75 mark. I called his ped and he had us come right in. Instead of admitting us to our local hospital he called an ambulance from Detroit Children's hospital to come and transport him there. I ran home and called Ronnie to come home from work.

After a day at DCH they decided to do a heart catherization. Its a very routine procedure but not for a 5lb baby. Bailen didn't do well with it at all. He required many blood transfusions. Afterwards he was so pale so cold. It was horrible. It took him about a week to recovery. We were sent home. Not even a week later we were back again. This time they decided to go ahead with his open heart surgery. They really wanted to wait until he was at least 10lbs but he couldn't wait, he was getting really bad. He only weighed 6lbs at this point.

He went thru surgery fine but afterwards his heart rate was over 200 for many hours. They said they were trying everything they could to bring it down. They said when the heart over works it can damage the other organs. The next day he was getting so much better. Because of swelling they had to leave his chest open for a couple days before stitching/stapling it back together. He seemed to recovery very well. His surgery was on May 19, 2000 and he was released on June 6th I believe (I would have to check my records) anyway he was off the gavuage feedings, oxygen and pulse ox monitor. He only required his apnea monitor.

On June 11th a friend and I went to Farmer Jacks (grocery store) to pick up some food. When I took Bailen out of the car he was white as a ghost. I told my friend, I don't think he is breathing. She said of course he is Cynthia, he is just sleeping. I shook him and he didn't respond. I RAN in the grocery store and scream to call 911. I was in a panic. I took Bailen out of the car seat and layed him down and started infant CPR (we had to learn it before bringing him home the very first time) then this off duty cop came up and introduced himself and took Bailen from me. He asked what happened to him (from the scars on his chest- it was like 90 degrees and I just had a little onsie on him) I told him "open heart surgery, please help him" He said I can't do CPR on him then. I screamed at him to fucking do something or give him back to me. Finally the paramedics got there and worked on him. By this time it was a good 10 mins from when I noticed he wasn't breathing (too long.....) We were rushed to the ER where the dr. said it wasn't good. I could tell it wasn't. Bailen was very cold ....so cold. After 2 EEG's showed no brain activity, we decided to turn the machine off on June 13, 2000 (6 days before Ronnie's first father's day) We had all of our family and friends there with us. I held him till he stopped breathing. It was the worst day of my life.....and now I am bawling like crazy.

LOVE YOU SWEETHEART!!!