Because we aren’t sick enough

I received a call from daycare yesterday. Lily had a fever of 102º and wasn’t acting her normal, playful self. Throughout the day her temp remained above 100º but she managed to play for a short time. She napped very well but was slightly irritable when awake. She let me hold her for a long time, which doesn’t happen when her toys are in sight. Before bed her temp spiked to 103.8º which is the highest ever. Tylenol and Ibuprofen were rotated and did seem to work. I did touch her ears and she barely responded to the right side, not too much at all. Randy stayed home with her today. He called me at work to say her temp was 100º but she was playing like a crazy baby. Even though her reaction to my ear prodding wasn’t significant, it bothered me so we scheduled an appointment. Yep, she’s got an ear infection. Just what she needed. Mother and daughter are both on Amoxicillin.

There might be a few of you that think I’m a bit neurotic about illnesses and germs. Well you’re correct, I am. Why would I want to put Lily in a situation where she could be exposed to these significant bugs? She already attends daycare and is constantly exposed to their germs. Why would I expose her to more germs, sicker germs?? She’s had her share of runny noses/coughs/fevers so she is building up her immune system. But just a warning, our family might not be seen again before springtime.

For some crazy good reason, Randy has survived our bugs without much problem. He suffered 2 days of a head cold but for Randy, this is absolutely crazy! He is the sick one, he got mono like a gazillion times in high school. If he’s around someone that has a bug, he is going to get it. It’s no surprise to us; we’ve come to accept it. Whatever reason Randy is escaping this season of bugs, it’s great. Lily and I need someone healthy to care for us.

My grandma and cousin Cody were involved in a car accident last Saturday. Both of them are doing well but my grandma did suffer a fractured sternum and possible index finger fracture. Yes, say it with me...ouch. As I was talking with my grandma while she was hospitalized she said she understood why children aren't supposed to ride in the front seat. That's what got me thinking again about car seat safety and that lead to my blog entry about it. This is a photo from their accident....
















My cousin, Cody, was driving and I know he probably feels horrible. He has a huge heart. You don't frequently hear of teenage boys taking their grandma grocery shopping. Cody and Grandma...I'm thinking about you and hope you are both feeling better soon!

Boy??? Girl???

Like I said before, it's starting to drive me crazy. I canNOT wait to know this baby's gender. So I did some searching to pass the time and to entertain my craziness about finding out the gender. Another blog listed 6 different gender charts and i tried them ALL (work is pretty slow today). According to all 6 charts we are having a BOY. Not a one chart said girl. I know the Chinese gender chart was wrong with Lily and my family also did quite a few other gender predictor tests on me but I think they were mostly wrong too.

Sometime in March my craziness will stop.

My other job…

If this position was a real position…I would be it. It would be a car seat safety officer. I would have a car seat safety badge and pull over parents that were incorrectly using a car seat or not using one at all. I get pretty worked up over car seats. I am completely amazed (in a negative way) but the number of parents that use car seats incorrectly. This quality of mine existed long before I had Lily and likely began when I worked at the hospital. I would frequently escort parents to their cars with their newborns. I had to ensure the baby was safely and correctly placed in the car seat and that the car seat was appropriately secured to the car. The hospital I worked at was in a nice community with a majority of highly educated people. You cannot imagine how many people didn’t know how to use a car seat or knew about the laws but totally disregarded them. One family just had their first child. Before escorting them to their car I asked about their car seat. They didn’t have one. They honestly thought and said the mom would hold the baby during the car ride home. This was the most shocking to me…because of all the car seat laws and well, it’s not 1970. Because I couldn’t legally and wouldn’t let these people hold their baby on their laps in a car ride, this ordeal turned into a few hours. The father eventually brought back a huge car seat with a mess of straps that he had no idea how to use. After I managed to thread the straps correctly we got this huge seat into their small car and off they went. I could only cross my fingers they continued to use a car seat. Another family just had their 3rd child. They were around my age and we got along very well. When I escorted them to their truck the father tried to put the car seat in the front seat. Again, this is a no-no (they had a back seat in their truck). It took a while to get across to the parents I couldn’t let them leave with the seat in the front and finally they put it in the back seat. I knew it wouldn’t be long until they changed it back.

Other times I get riled up about car seats is watching a baby story. These people are so clueless about properly restraining their children. The straps are very loose or the seat easily rocks sideways. One morning while I was driving to work I spotted a car seat in the car ahead of me…this car seat was actually swaying sideways. As I pulled up next to the car I could see a child, around 5-6 months old, actually leaning halfway out of the car seat. I used my fake car seat badge and honked at the mom. When she looked my way I pointed to her child and she immediately pulled over to the side of the road. I felt better that she took action but she clearly drove for a while without noticing a very obvious and critical issue.

Being the car seat safety officer I am I took Lily’s car seat to the fire department to make sure I was using it correctly. To toot my own horn…they actually said it was installed properly and they don’t see that often. Yay. Also I posted a video of Lily laughing a few months back and she was in her car seat. I got a message from some random person complimenting me on the correct way to use a car seat.

With all the recent talk of car seat safety and the retraction of a published report saying most car seats were unsafe, buying a car seat takes time and effort. Research is very important. When we purchased Lily’s toddler car seat I had pages and pages of research. I went to Babies R Us and Target and examined each car seat, taking off the cover, checking the EPS foam, etc. I can’t tell you how many people were asking me questions. And yes, I was more than happy to answer!

Wanna know a secret???

We are pregnant with #2! I am almost 11 weeks. Due August 18th, 2007. Now that you all know, it makes it easier to blog! I’ve wanted to say so many things about this pregnancy but didn’t want to say anything too soon. I had an OB appointment yesterday and they did an ultrasound. I got to see our little baby moving around, his/her heart beating. It was beautiful!

Randy and I have decided to find out the gender. We chose not to with Lily and it was fun to wait. Since we decided from the very beginning it wasn’t hard to not find out. Now that we are going to find out…I can’t wait! 9 more weeks seems like FOREVER! I honestly can’t say if I prefer a boy or a girl. I want a healthy baby. If it’s a girl—Lily gets a sister, close in age, hopefully to share stories/fun times with. I never had a sister and always wanted one. I was putting away some of Lily’s smaller clothes and thought to myself that if I never got to use these clothes again, I would be sad. If we have a boy---that would be great. I think boys are so fun-wild and crazy. Then we wouldn’t have to “keep trying” for a boy, although we plan to have at least another one, maybe more. We are taking it one pregnancy at a time. Although Randy has mentioned having 5 kids once, which is crazy talk. I guess as long as they fit in the mini-van it works for me.

So far so good with pregnancy symptoms. I occasionally have bouts of nausea when I don’t eat often. This is hard to fix cuz by the time I get nauseous nothing sounds good to eat. If I remember to eat something small every 2ish hours I am fine. With Lily, I had a lot of “kicks” like a Lucky Charm kick, a chocolate milk kick, etc. This time…my first and so far, only, kick is salad! Not any salad but specifically iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing, maybe a grape tomato. I’ve had a salad for over a week straight, everyday. I couldn’t be happier! I’ve never been that good with eating salad! I also have a box of chocolate that my boss bought back from Paris. I had a few pieces and it was delicious, maybe the best I’ve ever had. After the first day of eating it, I haven’t had anymore! It’s sitting right next to my keyboard and nothing, haven’t wanted to eat it. That is so cool.

Here is your first glimpse at baby #2…

Older Brothers

Today is my older brother’s birthday. I always, always, always have to throw in “the older brother.” Jay is a little over 3 years older than me. My first memories of sibling rivalry came when my little brother, Brian, was born. We have these wonderful family photos of all the kids together on the day Brian came home from the hospital. Except I have big teary eyes and Jay is tending to his own arm wounds. Yes, we fought for first dibs on holding the new baby. For the most part, probably due to the 3 years between us, we did our own thing and got along pretty well. I was the dorky little sister that tagged along to his birthday parties with all his cool friends. When we lived on the pig farm (did ya’ll know that about me??) I recall one birthday party where all the cool boys and myself ate mom’s homemade pizza. I also recall another birthday party at Burger King. We wore the awesome paper crowns. Before he sounds like a really nice big brother I need to paint the picture of one eventful day…the day I thought I was going to die… at the hands of my brother. It was a beautiful day and Jay and I were outside playing on my grandma’s farm. Jay climbed up on the shed and decided to shot his bb gun. When I refused to throw rocks for him to shot at, I turned to walk back towards the house, when all of the sudden I hear the bb gun fire and then I see my own blood. My brother shot me…in the head. Okay, it was just the ear and it just grazed my ear but still. I was only 6 or 7 so I totally thought I was going to DIE. To this day, Jay claims he was just trying to scare me by firing his gun AROUND me. Whatever.

Jay was pretty good through high school. He was Mr. Sporty and on the honor rolls. He didn’t get in much trouble (yet) so that set the expectations of me a little too high. Once he got to college he taught me some life lessons. I got to go visit him at college. He was dating his girlfriend, Cheri (now his wife and mother of their beautiful boy) and they had a party. I drank too much. I was only 16ish. The next day, on the 2 hour drive home, I found a crumpled paper cup on the floor of the car…ya know the kind from the water cooler that look like a cone. That paper cup was my friend. Between bouts of nausea I would occasionally spit in that little cup. I didn’t drink another beer for close to 8 years.

When I graduated college, Jay and Cheri were there. I know a lot of people were proud of me but I think Jay was the proudest.

A year after Jay and Cheri got married, Randy and I got married. I can’t put into words how much Jay and Cheri did for me, especially on the day of our wedding. They drove me to the hospital to see Randy’s grandpa, they took me to get my hair and make up done. They were with me the entire day, taking care of me, and I will always cherish those memories.

Jay has always been an amazing person. He found an amazing partner. They created an amazing little boy. I enjoy being around them and we have so much fun together. It is tough living apart but we make the most of time when we are together. Happy birthday older brother.

Sinus infection=antibiotics=feeling better

After feeling good enough to return to work Thursday and Friday I woke up Saturday morning at 6AM and couldn’t return to sleep secondary to extreme pain and pressure in my face. My eye sockets hurt. My ears hurt. My jaw hurt. I was also annoyed I was wide awake (in pain) at 6AM on a Saturday. After an early morning bubble bath, I spent the remainder of the day in bed. I did phone my Dr. who decided to prescribe an antibiotic. Hallelujah! By Sunday morning I was starting to feel better. I even “tried” to make a homemade breakfast for Lily while Randy slept in as a way to thank him for all his hard work while I’ve been a sicko. My elaborate French toast, scrambled eggs and bacon breakfast in bed didn’t fall into place cuz he woke up and took over cooking duties. The change in event was nice since I was already feeling weak from rushing around the kitchen preparing breakfast and trying to please a 15 month old that recently learned the word please (Lily translation=dez) and said it for everything in sight.

Enough of the sick talk. I’m sick of talking about being sick and I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about me being sick. Enough.

For the 2nd weekend in a row we managed not to start any cars and leave our house. Of course for a few obvious reasons but also cuz it snowed again. I really don’t mind this snow. We didn’t have any place we HAD to go and well, we live in CO, where it does actually snow. We have been pretty lucky since moving here 6.5 years ago and have become spoiled by relatively mild-moderate winters. If we lived in Texas we might have something to complain about…but we don’t. When the temps go a little higher we plan to put Lily’s new snowsuit and baby sled to use. While some might envision us whisking her down a steep hill, this is not going to happen. Although it sounds pretty fun…for adults.

Feeling like crap=no wanting to blog

Sick. Sick. Sick. This is my 2nd bug in the past 2 weeks. Felt well enough to care for sick daughter for 3 days and sick husband for 2 days until it hit me-again. Lovely. Now I’m back at work and determined to beat this damn thing. I feel better but still have a runny nose that tests my typing skills before I have to blow my nose AGAIN and I type as fast as I can before my snot reaches too far past my nose. I was tempted to stuff my nose full of Kleenex but opted not to since I only reside in a cubicle and have a lot of co worker traffic. Maybe my germ spreading cough will keep them on the other side of the building.

Lily is doing better—fingers crossed. She came home Tuesday night with a fever (after being sick last Thursday-Saturday). The next morning she was back to enjoying life as a 15 month old. So it appears we have passed it back and forth, back and forth. Now if Randy doesn’t get sick AGAIN then we truly have a miracle.

I’ll write more some other time when I can actually think past how raw my nose feels and that I just ran out of Kleenex.

Kind of funny that just last night Randy was trying to guess my favorite hottie (movie star, sport star, singer kind, you know the kind that your spouse doesn't have to feel threatened by at all). In the almost 13 years we have been together we have guessed each other's hottie maybe twice, just not something we do. He did not end up guessing the correct one but threw out a few names such as Ewan McGregor (ewwww, don't know where that came from), Ralph Fiennes (an old hottie, not so interested anymore), Zach Braff (again, ewww!) any of the Jackass guys. None were correct and we both got side tracked so he never finished and I never told him.

Today, in headlines on my MSN home page, there it was. He's coming to America! David Beckham. Oh boy. I have to get tickets to the Rapids when they play the LA Galaxy. No, I haven't seen a Rapids game, but I did play soccer in high school and consider it my favorite sport to play. Not only am I a soccer fan but I am a Beck fan. Randy already knew DB was considered one of my star hotties so this won't come as a surprise. Plus I think his wife, Posh Spice, is absolutely beautiful and they make a gorgeous couple and have gorgeous kids.

The first time we talked about our hotties, guess who Randy said. Pamela Anderson. Now she's beautiful and 10 yrs or so ago she was in her prime but I still laugh at that. Not exactly the person I would have guessed.

I did it!

I got a friend to start a blog! Check Pamela out and leave comments if you can. She's new to the blogging world so we all should welcome her.

When the father dresses the baby

My husband is a very good dresser. He's stylish and is more of a trend setter than a follower. He's very good with layering and putting pieces together. But...when it comes to dressing our daughter he freaks out. After he returned from launching his rocket, he re-assumed morning duties of dressing, feeding and dropping child off at daycare without any help from me since I leave for work before lil wakes up. For as long as I assisted he would plead with me to pick out Lily's outfit before I left in the morning. Now this seems like an easy enough task for normal people, but for someone who can't manage getting herself ready it's not easy. Most times he would ask when I was already 5 minutes late and running around like a nut. A few days went by when I didn't pick out her outfit and he was left alone. These days when I picked her up from daycare she would be dressed in a cute pink flowered top and pink bottoms with yellow socks. Or a purple outfit with bright green socks and a yellow onesie. I could only laugh. And I could only laugh last weekend when he picked out this ensemble. Unfortunately, the pink and blue NASA onesie underneath isn't noticeable.





















In Randy's defense, I have to say that she has been dressed super cute the past 2 days. He recently bought her some clothes at H&M (super cool store)and has enjoyed dressing her in the super cute outfits.

Does anyone notice what Lily is hanging onto? Those...are plastic totes to begin my organization! That damn green exericse ball is still in the hall closet but someday all my organization will be complete. Yeah right.

Lily Pictures

She loves, loves, loves her baby dolls.
















Mom, does the basket look familiar?

















Miss independent has to hold the banana all by herself.


















It's not a booger on her nose, just a green bean.
















Check out her teeth.

1st Blizzard Pictures

Okay, I'm a bit behind since we've had 3 snowstorms already. With the holidays things like pictures are put on the back burner.

This is from our front door, about 12 hours after the blizzard started.



















Lily and Max watching as I scoop a path in the backyard for the dogs.















The next day I had to start scooping the driveway and walk so we could get out of town when Randy finally made it back to Colorado. I scooped while Lily slept and when I was done my middle finger was twitching sideways. Fun.















Cali enjoying her nicely scooped path.

Recent Wells Fargo experience

While standing in line, man gets in line behind me and is standing too close (so close I can smell his gum). When man starts shredding the edges of his check and dramatically tosses the pieces of paper on the floor this is what unfolds...

me- "That's not very nice"
man- "No hablo ingles"
me- I turn away, shaking my head
man- "If you have a problem with it, then you can pick it up" --in clear English
me- "WhhhaaaaTTTT????" still shaking my head
man- "Then stop crying about it"
me- "You've got to be joking."
man- "I will litter in here and I will litter outside"

Like the M&M's commerical...these people DO exist.

ORGANIZATION

This past Saturday we helped our friends, Nathaniel and Staci, prepare to sell their house. In hindsight, this was totally stupid. I should have staged an intervention or found a way to sabotage the whole house selling thing. We actually assisted with them moving away from us…out of state even. Should have packed their bags and drove them to NE.
I’ll get over it…someday.

I have witnessed that preparing a house for sale is NOT an easy task. I know that Staci has been crossing things off her list for months now. When I got home I decided that I needed to start preparing my house to sell…even though we won’t sell it for a few years. Better to start now, right? We have a decently large basement that is unfinished (aka. dog house) and can store lots of boxes and junk that shouldn’t belong in our spare bedroom or any other place the public could view it. But…for some strange reason our spare room has become the unloading dock for all of our crap. You can tell my in-laws or my mom haven’t visited in sometime…otherwise it would be in tiptop shape. Not only does it house a bed, tall bookshelf with books falling out of it, a tall (pretty ugly) filing cabinet, my old dresser from the 1980’s filled with my sewing materials, a round end table, a computer chair, a small desk with a computer on top and my sewing machine underneath, Lily’s old swing and bouncy chair, and a stuffed full cedar chest with piles of picture frames and magazines on top. I didn’t even mention the closet but it has about a million pictures between 2 storage containers and 102 sofa pillows. You would think our spare room is HUGE, but it’s not. It’s just stuffed full from wall to wall. Needless to say…I need to organize. Mostly because, although called a pack rat almost daily while growing up, I don’t like clutter. I like to live an organized life and I feel much better without having piles all over my house. I like free space. Yesterday afternoon I mustered up some energy and starting the tedious, but rewarding process. Lily helped and was quite entertained by all the fun, new things to explore. Who knew she could have so much fun with a glass jar and golf ball? I only got about 1/3 of the way done but already feel much better. Even though when Randy came to view my progress it looked like I had thrown papers/pictures all over, re-arranged the piles of junk and scattered the 102 sofa cushions all over the room. To me it was an organized mess…I knew exactly where I would start the next time I found the energy.

Other areas in my house that I will organize in the next few months include:
--my side of the closet (randy will be thrilled). That way when he walks by and creates a very mild breeze piles of my clothes won’t fall on the floor. I still say he bumped into them cuz it never happens to me. Plus I’m really good about shoving them towards the wall when the top of the pile starts resembling the Tower of Pisa.
--bathroom closet. First I need to save money cuz I’ll need to spend about $300 in plastic bins to organize all my hair products & other knick knacks (including my crimper from 1987—okay I am a pack rat but Lily might get a kick out of crimped hair someday AND it could come in handy for Halloween).
--coat closet. Right now it’s about knee high with shoes and that damn, HUGE, green exercise ball. Why? Why? Why, is that still in there? On the top shelf there are hats, gloves, scarves, etc. Plus, do 2 people really need to fill up a large coat closet? Every morning I battle with finding 2 shoes that match. Usually I find one right away and spend another 7 minutes searching- tossing boots, tennis shoes, slippers, dress shoes-- when, of course, the missing shoe always ends up right in front of me.

As I type this I’m really excited to get home and continue my organizing but, reality is, by the time I pick up Lily, get her dinner and feed myself, I won’t have that same excitement. Maybe with the pending blizzard (yes, #4) I will cross items off my list.

Resolutions...anyone, anyone?

This entry is in honor of New Year’s Resolutions. Some people feel the way my friend Heather does and that appears to be complete annoyance for people to wait for one day to change their lives. Other people see a new year as a fresh start. I tend to fall into the second half. Sure I’ve had the same resolution for many years which was to become healthy (i.e. lose weight) and this resolution tended to repeat itself year after year. But I’ve also joined many gyms/weight watchers during months/days other than January 1st. My resolutions last year actually made it into my bio on my blog. I can almost proudly say I completed them all. I only had 3. Almost proudly wasn’t fully proud cuz I don’t regularly volunteer. I have given myself to a few different causes throughout the year which I feel very good about—participated in the breast cancer walk and raised a few hundred bucks, signed up to renovate a home for an elderly person and had every intent to follow through but it was with my last job and well…enough said, sponsored a needy child for the holidays and went above and beyond with seeking and providing extra clothes/blankets/toys, etc., and finally volunteered happily (when no one else could imagine doing so) to be the story reader for our Christmas dinner. My other 2006 resolutions were fully met and those included cooking and cleaning more. For some time I prepare weekly meals on Sundays and this really works well for us.

A past resolution that I really, REALLY wanted to fulfill included sending birthday/anniversary cards on time. On time…not days or weeks later…or in some cases not at all cuz too much time already passed. This was about 2 years ago. I was determined. I got all important dates belonging to my aunts/uncles/cousins/nephews/nieces/parents/in-laws/etc. and organized my calendar. I didn’t make it past January. I could keep it simpler and just send out cards to my immediate family/in-law family BEFORE their actual birthday or anniversary. But that’s going to have to be next year’s resolution cuz I already messed up and forgot to call my sis-in-law, Stacy. My excuse is that her birthday was on January 1st and that was a very busy day full of football…PLUS…when we did think to call her she was at dinner with the rest of our family. Okay, okay, maybe to make Heather smile and not totally throw me into the group she discussed in her blog I could vow to make that my resolution, starting January 4, 2007. I better get card shopping.

I'm back.

Sorry for the long absence. Two days of blizzard meant no work, followed by 1 vacation day, followed by Christmas break, followed by week off from Christmas to New Years with my company=2 weeks of paid time off. I had mixed feelings about returning today. I was excited cuz I do like work and it’s therapeutic to actually get out of the house BUT I was hesitant cuz I like not having to wake up at 6AM, dress up and leave my little girl. Anyhow, I’m here, Lily’s at day care and everyone is just FINE.

Our Christmas vacation was supposed to begin on Thursday, Dec. 21. We planned to surprise my mom-in-law with an early visit for her birthday on Dec 22. This didn’t happen. In case you didn’t see an ounce of news in the past 2 weeks we had a large snowstorm that caused a rift in our travel plans. First my husband was stranded on the east coast and told he couldn’t get home until Dec. 24. So he traveled to St. Louis and drove. I won’t go into detail about how his flight was diverted back to Indianapolis for a night where he sat on the plane for hours to be let off the plane to sleep on the airport floor---all before leaving AGAIN for St. Louis the following morning. Okay, so I did go into detail, but it was much deserved. From St. Louis he drove approximately 12 hours, arrived around 10PM, slept till 4AM, returned the rental car, shoveled out our car at the airport and then we left for our 9 hr drive to IA/SD. That was just the start of a crazy run around visiting everyone and cut our visit short to return to CO before the next big snowstorm. Wow.

No wonder we celebrated New Year’s Eve alone in our house without much excitement. We had been through all we could handle. We did ring in the New Year’s with a kiss and fell asleep not long after. It was perfectly quiet and peaceful.

Lily has been going through a lot of changes lately. She doesn’t throw many fits anymore. Overall, she is a very happy child and lately a sleeping champ. Her bedtime is 7PM and the past week she has slept in past her normal wake time of 7AM to wake up between 8-9:30AM. We are getting spoiled! She has been taking great naps, anywhere from 2-3 hours. Likely she is going through a growth spurt and this may not last but we are enjoying it. Lily is saying 2-3 syllable words. Her first was around her birthday when she said balloon. Now she says turtle and even said elephant. She has found interest in a basic sign language book and loves when we sign/read the book to her. She even signed eat and apple all by herself! During her breakfast yesterday she kept waving to the TV and we finally understood why when we realized everyone was waving at her during the Rose Bowl parade. Lily has taken fondly to shushing the dogs. When they start to get noisy she is quick to shush them and sometimes gets her index finger to her mouth region. Occasionally the finger has gone into the nose but its part of the shushing and not discovering a new area…yet.