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Friday, March 28, 2008

Let's see what else I can get into

Oh...my little man. He's growing up so fast. It seems like just yesterday that he would quietly lay on the floor and entertain himself with his toys.



Or he would sit in his swing until it put him to sleep.


Oh...those were the days. The days when I could get at least a few things done before daddy came home from work.

Now...not so much. Little man is all over the place. Just a few minutes ago, this is where I found him.




And usually, my house looks a little (ok, a lot) like this...










If I didn't know there was a toddler living here...I would probably call the police and report that someone broke in.

On days like this, little man sometimes ends up in jail...




I hope this doesn't give him a complex later in life!!!
Ahhhhhh....motherhood.....who could ask for anything more?

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

My bad mood

How do you deal with anger? I'm not usually an angry person, but this week that emotion has brewing right under the surface quite a bit. I don't know what to do about it. There are some people I usually talk to about my problems, but I feel like they are getting tired about hearing the same old, same old from me. Almost a feeling from them like "if you aren't going to do anything about it, then stop talking about it." The problem is that I'm not a confrontational person. Especially when it comes to people I am close to. How do I tell them what they are doing is really bothering me without totally hurting their feelings? To me it's sometimes better to just let it go because you know anything you say is just going make them angry. But how is that helpful to me? Why do I have to keep my emotions in check? Why can't I tell them what's on my mind? This week I start to feel these emotions coming to the surface to only have to push them back down again. I get really quiet, and so people get offended by that. How do I tell them the real reason? "Sorry, I can't talk right now because I just might start yelling at you and never stop!" UGH. I need to stop keeping this bottled up inside. The really sad thing is that as I'm typing this, I could just burst into tears and have a good cry. I won't let myself though. I think I'm just going to go home and sit and play with little man for a while and realize what a blessing he is to me....sometimes the one bright spot in my day.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Easter

My post earlier covered the birth of baby girl, so I didn't get to talk about Easter. With little man being so young, we didn't do too much for him. My hubby and I went to Target on Saturday, and we were really amazed to see what other people had in their carts....Guitar Hero, big toys, video games. When did Easter become as big as Christmas for presents? When I was I kid, I remember getting a basket fiilled with candy. And if were really lucky, we might get a cassette tape. I never had expectations of anything more than that. I think we may have spent $10 to get Easter Bunny things for little man...he has so many toys already!!!



The last picture is of little man trying to get open the box Mr. Potato Head came in....not to play with the toy....he just loves boxes. Typical kid!!!!

Dinner was supposed to be easy, but it didn't turn out that way. We were going to do scalloped potatoes and ham in the crock pot, but I couldn't find a recipe I liked. I ended up making a white sauce....the whole nine yards. Hubby really helped out a ton while I was putting together dinner. He always says he wants to learn how to cook, so I took him up on it!!!

This is before cooking

Just out of the oven....
I know, they don't look much different...but it tasted good.


The complete dinner. We went the easy route this year. I can remember growing up and spending hours in the kitchen cooking with my mom and sister for many holidays. I'm all about easy and simple now...well, kind of!!!

Finally here's little man enjoying his Easter dinner....mainly the rolls!!!
Hope everyone had a happy holiday!

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was an interesting day. Besides being Easter, my sister called me and wanted to know what it felt like when started getting contractions. Seeing as I was induced, I couldn't really tell her what she was feeling wasn't the start of labor. I did tell her that it could be the start, but they should wait before rushing to the hospital as they may just get sent home. The contractions went on all day at varying times. I finally got the call (from my sister) around midnight that they were leaving to go to the hospital as the contractions were 4 minutes apart. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well last night waiting for the call. We finally got the much awaited call around 8:50 this morning that baby girl entered the world at 8:12 am weighing 7lb 10oz. Mommy and Daddly are doing ok....very tired from the long, hard night. Here is the first picture. It's from a camera phone, so I apologize for the fuzziness!! Welcome to the world baby girl....and congrats Mommy and Daddy...the best is yet to come!!!


Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Easter

Here's the picture from the Easter Bunny yesterday, and last year too!



What a difference from last year!!! His reaction to the Easter Bunny was a lot better than Santa....thank goodness!!!

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!


glitter-graphics.com

Saturday, March 22, 2008

I thought it was spring?

I'm sitting at my computer, not tired. Maybe it is because I am so cold. Outside the temperature is 23...but on weather.com it says it feels like 15. Yippee. Spring officially started on Thursday. I'm longing for warmer spring days, when you can go outside without your bulky, winter coat on. I want sunshine, flowers, and birds chirping. But where I live, you don't always get those things. It seems like winter has been 100 years long this year. Maybe it it because we are in a new house, and I want to start doing things outside. Maybe it's because little man is old enough to go out and play. I don't know?!?! I lived in Virginia for a year, and the weather always seemed to be beautiful. We went to Virginia Beach around Christmas....in shorts!!! So when my hubby says he wishes all days could be sunny and warm, I always tell him we could move south. Who knows if it would ever happen, but it is always nice to dream!!!

Busy Saturday

It's only 8:30, but my boys are still sleeping. My hubby will be getting up in a few minutes, as he has to take the car to get inspected. Always such fun. Little man is still sleeping. After the craziness of yesterday, who could blame him? I've already been in to check on him. He's sleeping on his belly with his little tush up in the air. How I absolutely love seeing him sleep like that! Altough I don't really understand how that can be a comfortable position!! After my hubby gets home, we have some running around to do. I really want to take little man to see the Easter Bunny. We already had his picture taken with real bunnies, but I want to do this too. I'm also interested to see how he reacts. Last year with the Easter Bunny, he was fine....but he was only 3 months old. Sants Claus.....now that's another story. He cried and cried. He did stop long enough (like two seconds) for them to get an ok picture. If we get a decent picture, I'll have to post it here! Other than that, there is a ton of laundry to do, some grocery shopping to be done, and maybe a little Easter Bunny shopping along the way too!!! I know...such a procrastinator!!! Well, my hubby's alarm just went off...I best go make sure he gets up and out of here on time.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Scary Morning

Well, as I was typing my post earlier, little man was still asleep. I didn't think that was unusual because he was up until after 10:00 last night. I had checked on him earlier, and he was sleeping away in his crib. I covered him back up, and slowly walked out of his room. Around 10:00 I finally heard him cry. I went in and he was standing in his crib with his arms up. He still seemed a little sleepy, so I brought him out in the living room with me and we cuddled on the couch. He will usually only do this for a couple minutes because he is CONSTANTLY on the go. Well, he just laid there...not trying to get up, not trying to play with the cat when she jumped up, nothing. I finally decided to try to put him down to see if he wanted to play. Nothing. He actually started to cry and wanted to come back and lay down. I changed his diaper and he just laid there. Being the first-timemother that I am, I started to get a little worried. Since he hadn't eaten yet, I put him in his high chair and went to make him breakfast. He started to cry. His hands seemed like they were shaking and seemed a little blue. Being a heart baby, it made me more than a little nervous. I called my hubby and asked him to come home. I called my mother (who lives downstairs) and asked her to come up. He just wasn't acting like himself. On top of the shakiness and blue-looking hands, he seemed very lethargic. I decided to call the pediatrician and see what they suggested....bring him in there or go to the ER. The last appointment of the morning was at 11:20 - it was 11:10. She wanted to know if I could make it in for that or we could come in at 1:20. There was no way I could wait that long....so I rushed and got dressed and we were out the door. Luckily the office is just up the street from us. We got there and got in pretty quickly. When the nurse practitioner saw him....you wouldn't know it was the same boy we had at home. He was smiling, laughing, playing, everything!!!! Why does that always happen? It makes me feel like an overreacting, first-time mother!!! She was very nice though and looked over little man very thoroughly. She said his heart sounded fine, his lungs were clear and his coloring was fine. She actually said she was glad we were cautious and came in. It definitely made us feel 100% better!!! It was one of the scariest moment I have had since I became a mother!!! He is usually so full of energy...even when he's sick!!!! As I type this, he is happily playing in the living room....it's music to my ears!!!

It's hard to be a single parent

This was a hard week. My hubby has been looking for a new job for a few months now. He currently has a job, but he would like to find something where he has an opportunity to move up (and a little extra money always helps!). Where he is now, there is not really much room for that. Unfortunately we have put a ton of resumes out there....and no one has called. So we sat down a couple weeks ago to decide what we should do. It's not an option for me to look for something new because we have our health insurance through me....and there are some benefits that I don't think I would get anywhere else. After much consideration we decided that one of us would get a part-time job. Since I don't drive (long post for another day), my hubby said he would do it. He started the part-time job this week. Well....it has definitely been a hard week. When you are so used to having someone help you with taking care of your child, it is definitely an adjustment when you start doing it on your own. Our after work, making dinner, feeding the child, playing with the child, bathing the child, dressing the child, feeding the child a bedtime bottle, and finally rocking and putting the child to sleep routine has been hard!!!! I have never been so busy the whole time since little man was born. Having two hands to take care of all of this stuff is so wonderful. Single parents are awesome!!!! How they do everything in their day is baffling to me. Do they even have a minute to do something for themselves? If so, I don't know how they do it. My three-hour routine has left me exhausted!!! As soon as I put little man down to sleep, I sit on the couch to wind down myself! I would look over at the computer and attempt to come over to put up a new post, but I was stuck!!! I didn't want to move!!! My hubby is a great husband....this week has really shown me how much he does and how much I appreciate everything he does for me and little man. So...thank you hubby for allllll you do for us!!! I don't know what we would do without you here!!!

On a side note....my hubby got called for an interview for one of the jobs he applied for. He goes for his interview on Tuesday....keep your fingers crossed that he gets this job!!! He said, after he got off the phone to schedule it,"It figures. The week I go get a part-time job, is the week that someone calls me for an interview for a full-time job!!" Isn't that always the way???

Thursday, March 13, 2008

New Pictures

(Suck a simple pose, background, etc....I fell in love with it!!!)

Along with my little seeing the cardiologist yesterday, we also had his Easter pictures taken. In the past we have gone to Walmart, but we decided to try another studio. My hubby's work had given us a booklet of coupons before little man was born, so we figured is was about time we used them!!!! Nothing like waiting a whole year and a half!!! : ) We even went out last minute and bought him a new outfit. I figured it would get dual purpose....new outfit for pictures and he can also wear it for Easter. Hubby kind of bought my reasoning. It was originally $29.99, but with 50% off and an extra 10% from a coupon, we only paid $13.49. A heck of a deal for a 3-piece outfit!!! Anyway....I got off topic. The place we got little man's picture taken is the same place we had our engagement pictures taken....plus my family has used them quite a bit over the years. They give you a ton of poses and a variety of packages to choose from. I always have such a hard time deciding what pictures I want to order......how could I possibly live with pictures using just one pose when he took sooooooo many cute pictures? Little man did really well. They even included a real, live bunny in some of the picturss. He did really well with that....but he has had a lot of practice with his three kitties at home!!! Sitting at the computer and sorting through all the pictures was soooo hard. I don't even know how many pictures they took, but I loved them all. I was good though. I made a list of the pictures I really liked. then went through each pose to find which one I liked best, and then chose from there. We actually got three poses....and a free CD with all the pictures they took. It's a low-resolution CD, so when you pull up the pictures one by one they are really kind of fuzzy. BUT....today when I put in the CD, I figured out they had done a slide show with all the pictures, full size, great resolution, set to music. Now I can't print these pictures or anything, but it's a great memory to be able to pull up and look at. As I watched the slide show a couple times today, I realized there are a couple poses that I really want to go back and order. The nice thing is that they keep them on file for a year...so any time I think I want to order something, I can. We'll see though.....I need to consider how much we paid for these and go from there. Well, I think I've babbled enough. I'll close with some of little's man poses. Enjoy and leave some comments if you'd like!








Wednesday, March 12, 2008

It's always a scary day.

(Little Man - the day he was born, in the NICU)

Today my little man had to go to the cardiologist. As I wrote in my very first post, little man was born with a congenital heart defect. Unlike some parents, we actually found out about it when I was 36 weeks along in my pregnancy. It was very beneficial because the doctors could prepare for the care little man would need once he was born. He spent the first 5 days of his life in the NICU in the hospital where he was born and the next 16 days in various areas in the hospital where he had his open heart surgery. It was such a scary time for me and my hubby. While I was optimistic, I often wondered what our life would be like in the future with little man. Flash forward 14 months to basically his one year, post-op cardiology appointment. One of the first questions the cardiologist always ask is "If you didn't know little man had open-heart surgery, would you know there was anything wrong with him?" We always answer no to that question, and today was no different. Little man is your average 14-month old little boy. He plays, he crawls, he chatters quite a bit, he eats...and eats....and eats. You would never know there was anything wrong with him. Even so, I worry whenever I have to go to an appointment. It always starts out with the doctor examining him, checking his heart to see how it sounds, and checking the pulses in his legs. That's a funny thing about little man. O.K., maybe not funny, but definitely interesting. When they fixed his heart, they had to use the arteries in his arms to fix it. Now the interesting thing about that is he no longer has very good pulses and they wouldn't be able to obtain a good blood pressure using his arms. Whenever we go see someone new, we have to tell them to obtain proper readings by using his legs. This will be a vital piece of information we need to tell little man when he is old enough. Therefore when someone new goes to check these things, he will be able to tell them how to do it properly. O.K., I've kind of ventured off the topic. Anyway....everything with the doctor's initial exam was excellent. Another thing he checks in the appointment is to give little man an EKG to see if there have been any changes since the last one....and again, he is doing excellent. The nurse was a little worried as little man is getting a little older, and he has a tendency to move around....ALOT. He actually was very good and sat in my lap, very still, until the EKG was done. It is actually a very quick test....so we lucked out!! The last thing that needs to be done is the echocardiogram. Now if anyone has ever had one of these, they take a little bit of time. Now making a 14 month old lay down for any extended amount of time (other than bed time) is very difficult. Little man only took a short morning nap, so we were hopeful he would be extra tired and fall asleep during the test. No such luck. He did good for probably the first 15 minutes. We would distract him with different things....a Blue's Clues video, the overhead mobile, and especially daddy's cell phone, which he loves. After 15 minutes he wanted none of it. The nurse decided to give him a break and wait for the doctor to come in and finish the test. It gave us about 10 minutes between my hubby and me to get little man to sleep. When he finally fell asleep, we were able to set him down on the exam table. Just then the doctor came in and finished up. After all the tests, the doctor was very pleased with what he saw. The main concern with little man is if one of his valves becomes blocked. Fortunately right now it looks just as it did when he had it repaired. The doctor always qualifies it with "that could change in a year, ten years, when he's in high school, or it may never change." So I am remaining optimistic at this point that little man is a healthy little boy....and I'm still going to continue to enjoy every waking minute with him!!! He has been my little miracle baby since the first day I found out I was pregnant....and he lives up to that every day. Well, this post has gotten much longer than I intended, but I guess I just needed someplace to talk about all of this.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

I need to get this going....

Well, I really need to get this bloggy thing going. I started it last summer with good intentions of doing it fairly often, but it didn't work out so well. I've written here and there, but I've never really gotten into the groove of things. This is very reminiscent of my journal writing skills when I was younger. I would write in it for a week, then I would forget about it for a month or two. I would find the lost journal when I was finally cleaning my room and would always start off those journal entries the same. "Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I've written in here. I really have to try to keep this thing more up to date." Then the cycle would start all over again. I really want to use this (as do a lot of parents) to keep family and friends up to date on my little man as he grows and changes. He's now 14 months old, so I have a lot of catching up to do!!!