Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Normal? Normal...

Today was a full day. We ran lots and lots of errands. Usually we can only make two or three stops before something goes haywire. We managed to get away without Yates' flip flops, but lucky for us we store no less than 10 alternative pairs of shoes in our car. We were able to adjust and wear our fireman boots all day instead. This was great because they matched his pajama shirt he chose to wear today so well.

I don't even think I can remember what all we did today because we did so much. I do know that we made some returns, some purchases, handled some franchise tax issues, went potty lots of times, had lunch at Cafe "Buffetts" (Express) which ended abruptly by Yates throwing up in his bowl of macaroni, sat on the phone with Canon... twice, sat on the phone with the Texas Controller's office... twice, went to the bank, shipped a package, ordered some gifts, went to try on new swimsuits for mommy, cleaned up Sasha pee, stripped and washed some cushions she tee teed on, made dinner, picked up the house, bathed 3 babies, brushed some teeth, cut Stella's hair, rescued Rex from sucking on a battery, put all three babies to bed, and of course I got pooped on. Now I am waiting on Michael to get home. I guess it was just a normal day ; )
If I ever do have a real normal day again, there is no telling what I will do. I'm vacillating between writing a book and becoming a full-time-crazy-cigarette-smoking-up-all-night-artist. Fortunately for my family's sake, I don't have time to succumb to either of those urges.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

my little baby

Rex is 6 months old today!!! And I must say, he is one good lookin' kid.
For some reason he decided to be fussy today and he is never, ever, ever fussy. I thought it was odd that he picked his very first 1/2 birthday to fuss.
Other than today, Rex is still so happy, so easy, so calm and compliant. He loves watching Stella and Yates and he has the most amazing laugh and precious smile. He smiles all the time and rarely ever cries. The only times he cries are for the obvious reasons... hungry, dirty, sleepy... pretty straight forward. Lately, he has been loving playing on the floor. He rolls and rolls around and scoots backward. He isn't crawling, but he can really move.

Gearing up for his 1/2 birthday Rex tried some banana baby food, teething biscuits and stars. He liked all of it. He didn't wince, or shiver or make a face like Stella and Yates did. He just ate. I pretty much wet my pants the first time S and Y tried food b/c their reactions were so hilarious and dramatic.
He is officially not allowed to sit in his bumbo any more. He has jumped out of it several times and this morning he jumped out of it as soon as his bootie touched the bottom of the seat. He jumps out and lands in a belly flop/ sky diving sort of position. So safe. Rex is my constant companion. He goes everywhere I go. I'm surprised we haven't glued together somehow. He literally cries if he can't reach me. So, I just wag him around all day, every day. He doesn't sit on my hip very well for very long. He always corkscrews in my arms until I let him sit facing out on my hip. He loves it, but my arm is so tired by the end of the day.
Six months is our official co-sleeping cut off, so its time for Rex to make the big move to his crib. By 6 months I think we are all ready, but its so sad to have to end it. I will not be sad to say goodbye to the crick I've had in my neck since he was born, but I will miss his sweet little face sleeping next to me.

I still have a blog to write about our fabulous vacation, but this one had to come first...

Thursday, July 01, 2010

All together now...


Countdown (countup) to vacation... Is it just us or does everyone get sick or something when its time to go on a trip.

#1 Sasha Louise
Poor Sasha has been "sick" since the beginning of May. Stella, Yates, Rex, Sasha and I have probably spent 12 hours together lately at one vet or another. With my mild case of germophobia and 30 little fingers to watch this is great. Anyway, Sasha's ordeal started one night while Michael was out of town. She was sleeping on her bed and started to whine, then she barked, jumped up ran and stood in an awkward place in our bedroom. It worried me, so I got up and checked her out. She was limping but seemed to be fine, so we went back to bed. After that night her limping kept getting worse and worse. At her worst she could barely raise herself up off the floor and would lay around on the floor all day crying loudly. It was so sad. She would wail if we went upstairs because she couldn't. She would cry so loudly that most days I would have to carry her up and down the stairs. This is bad because I fall down the stairs about once a week alone. Carrying a huge brown dog doesn't make it any easier for me. We just kept taking her to vets and trying different drug combinations. Finally, four days before we left for our vacation, a specialist diagnosed her "lameness" as an immune mediated arthritis most likely caused by a tick bite. What I understood is that she contracted rocky mountain spotted fever from this tick bite and her immune system went into overdrive trying to heal and began to attack her joints causing pain and "lameness."
Poor baby has had 2 rounds of antibiotics and is on prednisone and pain medication. She seems like she feels much better and is able to get around now. But now we are dealing with side effects from the medications. The prednisone is making her unable to "control her bladder" to put it nicely. She just lays down, totally pees everywhere, doesn't even know it and lays in it. Its awful, sad and a huge mess. I've been following her around with a towel and sneaking it under her everywhere she lays down.

#2 Yates Meredith
One afternoon (3 days before vacation) Stella, Yates, Rex and I were getting ready go to swim with the Belf girls. Stella was sitting on the bathroom counter, Rex was in his bumbo, I was sitting on the floor pumping (gross, I know, but I'm just saying my hands were full) and Yates was playing around on the floor. Yates decided that he wanted to get up on the counter where Stella was sitting and was trying to climb the drawer fronts and knobs to get up there. Stella did not want him up with her and pushed him. In a split second, his toes slipped off the knob he was perched on and his top teeth hit the countertop breaking 3 of them!!!!! He was screaming, crying and bleeding. It was terrible. He calmed down quickly considering and I immediately called my mom. One of his front teeth was bleeding around the gum and was very loose. The bloody one and two others were broken. Of course I had visions of all these teeth falling out in my hands.
Stella got a serious reprimand and Yates said he still wanted to go swim. It wouldn't have done any good to sit around and think about those teeth, so off to the pool we went.
The next day, I took him into the dentist and had his teeth checked. His xrays looked good other than the fact that the teeth had been pushed up a bit, no serious damage. We will go back in a week or two to recheck everything.
For now, Yates has 3 messed up teeth and our marble counter top has 3 teeth marks in it. He is one tough little guy.

#3 Stella Jane
We're off. All packed up in the car, headed to Florida for a week of beach and sun. Everything is going great, we hadn't forgotten anything and we are so looking forward to some time to relax. It was Saturday evening, about 3 hours into our 12 hour drive to Florida and we were in East Texas nearing the Louisiana border. I looked back at Stella and she had full out snot running out of her right eye, worse than I have ever seen! Great. We're stuck in this car, on a Saturday, in the middle of no where with a serious eye infection. I get on the phone and start calling doctors to call in something for us along our route. Simple enough, right? Wrong. No one will prescribe a medication for an eye infection without seeing it first to determine if its viral or bacterial. Also, we had about 45 miles until we were in Louisiana where no Texas doctors could help us. Ok, no big deal. We have a family friend ENT doctor in Louisiana. We'll try to call him. Called and got some suggestions from him to help us limp along until we could find someone to see Stella. Michael and I almost wore our iphones out looking for 24 hour clinics on I-20. Here's a hint... THERE ARENT ANY! There are, but "open 24/7" means 9-5 Monday - Friday to them. Stella was getting worse and worse. Her eye was swollen shut and she had an inch wide glob of goo running from her eye all the way down her cheek. This was not going to wait until Monday. We stopped at an emergency room in Monroe, but they had a 4 hour wait. Not going to work. They suggested a pediatric after hours clinic that we could try to make it to. It was 9:45, the place closed at 10:00 so we raced to find it. We made it with 4 minutes to spare. I ran up to the door... they close at 8 on Saturdays... Back in the car. Back on the highway. Back on the iphones. Finally we found a clinic we thought would work in Jackson, MS. We had planned to drive through the night, but stopped, got a hotel room and packed all 5 of us in there. Poor Michael slept with Stella with a pillow in between them and I slept with the boys, hoping to keep them from getting sick too. Yates and Rex, slept against me so close that when I got up in the morning leaving them asleep, the spot left between them was about 6" wide. Anyway, Sunday morning, Father's Day, we unglue Stella's eye, grab some breakfast and head over to this clinic. We spend about four hours total, waiting and getting prescriptions filled. Stella got a shot and three medications that she had to take throughout the entire vacation. Poor thing.

A few of our normal moments:

Yates tells us that when Rex gets bigger he is going to teach him "bulldozer stupff, dump truck stupff, man stupff." Lesson one: chain saw stupff.


Several days a week S and Y play in our shoes. Usually they are "cleaning them" for us. This day they were so proud they told me to go get the camera.

Yates has a lot of work to do. Cape, swim suit, flip flops and his "weeder," Cape, underwear, and remote control bullozer. Work, work, work.

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