LOST- Season 4 Opener

Ummm...thoughts?

I'd like to think I have some brilliant new ideas and theories to give to you all, but I've got nothing. Except of course that Jacob is Jack's dad. But I think we already knew that from last year.

Also, in the last scene, was it just me, or did anyone else say ELLLLEEEEOTTTT!!!

Finally, something to watch that isn't affected by the writer's strike. Thank goodness this was already written and filmed before the money mongers took over. Fight the power, writers!

How to get a reputation for being the bad seed in the family:

Step one: Smack unsuspecting cousin in the mouth.


Step two: Steal his toy.


Step three: Play with his toy in front of him, while he looks on
in anguish.


Step four: Taunt suffering cousin while smirking at the camera.

Evie's new crawling method

Evie and Mamaw

I know I'm her mom, but how cute can she get?

I can sit up all by myself

The Mucus is Here

101.8 F. That was her temperature at 5:00am.
This may not seem high in the grand scheme of life, and I know that it really is not. But when your husband comes rushing into the bedroom with a naked, squirming baby, and screams, "she's freaking burning up!!!" you tend to take notice.
I reached out for my little wriggling bundle, and indeed, she was quite warm. And naked. "Why, again, the nakedness?" I asked. "Because!!! She's freaking on fire!!!"
Ahh, yes. The fire. I see, now.
So I held her, and we administered Tylenol, of the cherry variety. This required me holding down her arms, and her head against my chest, whilst she wriggled and squirmed and tried with all her might to turn to goo in our sheets. Of course, half of the Tylenol went all over her face, and my hands. Because even though they say it's "Cherry flavored," it in fact tastes like some kind of diseased rabid cherry left in the field to die, covered in filth. I know this because I've tasted it.

After the Tylenol wrestling match, we had to get the mucus. The mucus that was preventing her from breathing. The mucus that had caked her entire face. This required a little more finesse. Skill that would have been found with a cup of coffee or some more sleep. But we had neither the coffee or the sleep. Just the little green snot monster from the hospital. And so it began. She screamed, and thrashed. I held her down, but not too tight, in an attempt to prevent a complete and total freak out. Bryan tried to get the mucus. After a minute, we switched. I'm much better with the green thing, this skill comes with the uterus. That and the eyes in the back of the head. And the ability to multi-task.

It's been a couple of hours, and really, nobody has slept much.
She seems to be feeling better. Her fever has finally broke, and other than some explosive poopy that required a full wardrobe change and full-body wash, she is un-phased. Bryan has gone off to work, and Evie is playing in her command center.
I'm drinking my coffee, and Mamaw is in the shower. Did I mention Mamaw, Bryan's grandmother? She flew in from Florida to visit for the week. She arrived yesterday, right about the time the baby started getting sick and the snow started falling.
I'm sure she's thrilled.

A Little Self Loathing

Do you ever have a day, (or month) where you mind and your brain are not on the same page? Where intellectually, you know one thing, but, you feel or think something totally different? As of late, I have been riddled with angst over the most ridiculous and insignificant. Laying in bed at night over-analyzing conversations, my behavior in social situations, feeling completely inept when around other humans. Wishing I hadn’t said certain things, or acted certain ways. Questioning my responses to the behavior or statements of others.

I know intellectually, empirically, that I shouldn’t worry about the thoughts of others, “no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” said the great Eleanor Roosevelt. And yet here I am, sleepless, riddled with angst, wondering whether I should have handled things differently. I feel like I’m back in high school, worrying about what everyone else thinks about me, worried I’m going to get in trouble.

It doesn’t help that I just returned from being at a family function where I felt completely insecure about my social abilities, as well as my physical appearance, knowing I had become the person that people talk about later, the one that is gossiped about, and not in a good way, but rather for how they’ve “let themselves go.” I tell myself it’s okay, I’ve had a rough last few years, and I did just have a baby a few months ago, after all. But then my cousin walks in, two weeks post partum, looking lovely and adorable, and I want to crawl under the rug and hide.

And then I mentally slap myself in the face, and tell myself to "shut up, and stop it. This is not important; this is ridiculous; you are just fine the way you are. Don’t buy in to the crap that you hate. You aren’t 12 anymore, you know better."
I tell myself all the things I would tell my students, or my own daughter. "You are good, and intelligent, and beautiful. There is no one standard, and we are just kidding ourselves if we think that we would want to be homogenized."

And just when I start to feel a little better, my demons come back and start haunting me. “Okay, but then do you remember how rude you were earlier today?” I am reminded of the time I was snippy to Bryan. Or the time I was talking with some friends and, as always, shared perhaps too much. And then I do something really stupid like, forgetting keys, or losing my phone charger, which only adds to the problem. Because, really that is something that happens to everyone, but to me, that becomes, "YOU IDIOT!!! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN, SEE? YOU ARE A MORON!!!"

And so, more angst, more analysis. And more self-talk.

I know that it is all silly, and then I feel all the more ridiculous. Who is so vain to sit here and stew over their own conversation, to analyze every word, every behavior? It must surely be a bi-product of boredom. Certainly the women of the depression, working hours and hours a day didn’t have time to sit there and analyze whether they were or weren’t socially acceptable.

And so, I remain feeling ridiculous, and self-loathing for having these feelings in the first place. A vicious cycle indeed.

Welcome to the world, baby Henry!

My cousin Jon's little son, Henry Jonathan, arrived, January 17. He weighed in at 6lb’s 13oz and was 20” long. He is named after our great-grandfather Henry, and of course, his daddy, Jon.
Everyone is doing well. Congrats Jon and Emily!

A Political Rant...you may not like it.

Okay, neither Bryan nor I have decided who we are voting for yet. We are not working on any of the campaigns, and neither he nor I are a spokesman for any of the candidates, obviously.
However, there are some troubling emails circulating, and I've had a few discussions with some folks as of late, and I feel the need to say something:

Barack Obama DOES salute the flag, and he DOES say the pledge of allegiance.
Barack Obama was sworn in on the Bible, not the Koran.
Barack Obama, is not, nor has he ever been a Muslim; he is a member of the United Church of Christ, a non-denominational Christian Church.

Now here's the deal folks, you may not like what I have to say. Why would being a Muslim make someone incapable of being a good president?
Muslims are not the enemy. The Islamic Fundamentalists who are members of Al Quaeda, the people who flew airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the people who we are fighting in Afghanistan now, they are the enemy. Their interpretation of the Koran could be compared to the KKK's interpretation of Bible.

Faithful Muslims, who are the VAST majority, are not terrorists. And when I say vast majority, compare this to how many Christians in America are not members of the KKK...then multiply it by, oh 1000. At least.
(I'd love to take credit for this analogy, but in fact, it comes from "The West Wing, Abraham & Ishmael")

Furthermore, (and remember, I am a Christian) we have in this country a thing called the separation of powers. You are allowed to use whatever basis upon which to judge how you will vote, that is the beauty of living in a free democracy. But when you are evaluating the candidates, please remember that there is a reason we have a separation of church and state, and it is a very good one. For the same reason that you don't want someone telling you which God to believe in and when and where you can and cannot pray, no more should we be doing that to our leaders in government.

Also, if we are going to take a hard-nosed stand on the whole "saluting the flag" business, then let's get all the facts out there. The phrase "Under God," was added by Congress at the urging of President Eisnhower in response to fear of a Communist threat, it has not always been there.

Commandment Four of the 10 in Exodus 20 says "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth below. Thou shall not bow down to them or worship them..."

I'm not saying we are bowing down to the flag. But we are "pledging allegiance" to it. One could argue (and many have) that to pledge allegiance to the flag, a symbol of American Nationalism is the same thing as bowing down, and in essence, those who are followers of both the Christian and Jewish faiths would be, in essence, breaking the fourth commandment by pledging allegiance.

I cannot tell you how many times we went 'round and 'round in my political theory classes at college, discussing this very issue.

Now, I salute the flag. Some don't. And they have that right, and to exercise that right is the very foundation of what it is to be American, thanks to the First Amendment.

Choosing to not salute the flag does not make you a bad American.

Finally, our forefathers were not all devout Christians; Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were Agnostics. Thomas Jefferson, for example, actually re-wrote the Bible, taking all miraculous events OUT. I'm just saying.

Sorry my panties are all up in a twist. But when people start calling me and telling me things that are just plainly un-true, I have to respond. I may be home on poopy patrol right now, but I am a history teacher after all.

Okay, I'll get off my soap box now. I promise to return to much friendlier topics tomorrow.

Attack!

Sometimes you just need to cry it out

Until you realize you're being photographed...

The Coin Star Machine is my new favorite thing.

This evening I took my jar full of change down to the coin star machine to cash it in. I've been wanting to purchase some children's music for Evie, but we're on a spending freeze. However, change sitting in a jar doesn't count, I decided. Especially since it was my change that I've been saving, in my jar, on my dresser, I could do with it what I wanted.
When I got to the coin star machine, I learned that not only could I cash in my jar o' change, I could do so at no charge if I converted it to a gift card, instead of into cash. Woo hoo! As my intention was to use the money to purchase a children's CD, I selected iTunes credit, and pushed "count." The big green machine whirred to life and started devouring my coin into it's belly. As it counted, my excitement grew. I thought I had around $20, but the number got bigger and bigger. After a few minutes, it told me: $63.25! I couldn't believe it!
"Would you still like to use this for iTunes?" it asked. I was torn. I could instead get credit at Eddie Bauer, or Borders. Amazon.com or JC Penny were also options. I need some new clothes, I could get myself something to wear, I thought. What to do, what to doooo?
But I remained firm. I was here to get money to buy a children's CD for Evie, and so iTunes it was. I didn't have to buy $60 of music for her, after all. It's not like she really has a clue what it is.
And so, we came home and I bought her some music. Lots of music. The kid now has three Raffi albums. Oh, how I love Raffi. I played him for Bryan tonight, who kept referring to him as "Ralphie." The poor lad.
Raffi is wonderful and soothing, and talented. And tolerable for parents ears, unlike a lot of the kids music out there.
Oh, and for Bryan and I, a folk album and a 90s #1 rock hits compilation, so that we could feel nostalgic for our college days.
A night well spent. And it's like it was free.

I know I don't usually talk about young hollywood, but...

I logged on to MSN today to check my email, only to have a huge headline scream across my screen, telling me that actor Heath Ledger was found dead.
I am not going to begin to try to pontificate on the reasons why Heath Ledger is dead, even though early reports state that there were " no obvious signs of suicide."
I didn't know him, just as I don't know anybody famous.
What I do know is that there is an insatiable appetite for gossip about anyone in the public eye. The media is constantly inundating us with what they deem as "news," pictures of stars and starlets, taking their kids to school, eating a hamburger, exiting a night club. There is an entire channel dedicated solely to celebrity gossip that airs every weeknight at 10pm, not to mention the scores of entertainment "news" shows and channels that flood the cable networks.
Granted it seems that a lot of these people bring a lot of their problems on themselves, (Paris Hilton,) but I think we need to remember that as exciting as it may be to watch these bigger than life personalities self-destruct before our very eyes (Britney Spears,) these are still real people with real struggles and real lives.
Most of them are kids, raised in a sick and twisted world with little if any guidance or direction from responsible adults.
I have no idea as to why Heath Ledger has passed away, but I know that he has a baby daughter who will now grow up without a daddy. She will grow up in a world where her father will be remembered for his untimely death, instead of for his family and his body of excellent work.
He will be just another name in a long list of hollywood disasters, and I find this very tragic.

Overkill?

My brother called on Sunday; he was in town and wanted to come over. We opted to meet somewhere in Tacoma instead. We had a gift card, so we went to Red Robin for dinner, however I had limited choices because of the wheat allergy. I ordered a cheese burger with no bun or seasoning, which threw the waiter for a complete loop. They brought me a gluten free menu, which I thought was pretty cool, and it said to order a cheese burger with no seasoning or bun. Since this was an option on the gluten-free menu, I was a little unsure as to why they were so confused. This is what the receipt read when we got the check, I thought this was a bit much:



Also, I'd also like to say it's a good thing we used a gift card. Since we're on a spending freeze, we haven't eaten out in a few months. I had forgotten how expensive it is; $24.22 for two burgers and sodas? And that's before the tip. I can buy a lot of groceries for $30.

Fixing the ceiling

Finally...no more raining in the kitchen...

She shall now be called Napoleon

She is tiny. She is powerful. She has an attitude. She has declared war on her parents.
I think if she were able, she would, in a tiny French accent, tell me to go away, and then very casually, take a slow drag from her cigarette.
I told her she should probably hold off on any invasions of Eastern Europe until the spring, but you know how the French can be.

Saturday Night's Alright for Fightin'

Last night was fun. Evie screamed every time we put her to bed. We let her go for a while, but after 25-30 minutes, we'd go get her, only to be greeted with smiles once we'd pick her up. We'd hold her for a while, rock her, make sure there was no diaper issue, and then put her back in bed, only to once again hear blood-curdling, I'm-being-strangled-in-my-crib screams. She would not relent.
It was after 1am before we finally got her down.
She was back up at 6:30 this morning, and although I changed her, fed her and put her back to bed, she has yet to go back to sleep. She just crawled around in her crib gooing and talking and then yelling.
We finally got up. She's now crawling across the living room floor, beating on her "leap frog" piano, which is currently singing a song about cows, throwing in a few moos for good measure.

Yummy

Puck just walked up to Bryan and had a large gooey blob stuck to his neck. Bryan investigated further, concerned he had rolled in something in the back forty. What Bryan found was a slimy green gum drop, stuck to Puck's fur.
I think that's all I need to say about that.

Sicko

We received a bill yesterday for my ambulance ride way back in November. The bill was for $611. I called the fire department billing department, and asked if they had billed my insurance; we have full coverage with Blue Cross- Blue Shield, surely an emergency ambulance ride in the middle of the night should be covered.
They told me that the insurance company paid $17, and that my copay was $611. So I called Blue Cross- Blue Shield and very politely asked them if they had mixed up my copay and their payment. They told me no, the fire department was an "out-of-network provider," and as such, not covered under the almost $3000 deductible we had paid last year while I was pregnant. As such, I would be required to pay for all but $17 of my ambulance ride. Apparently, while I was having a seizure, unable to walk, talk or control my body in any way, I was supposed to check with the fire department first, to make sure they were part of the Blue Cross network. God Bless America.
Speaking of which, Bryan and I watched "Sicko," this evening.
I don't care if you are a conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat or completely uninterested in politics altogether, but you really should watch this film. If nothing else, it will make you think about the American health care system and just how absolutely ridiculous it really is.
Meanwhile, Bryan and I are investigating moving to Europe.

Growing

In the spirit of purging, I went through Evie’s clothes yesterday. She has more clothes than any person I have ever met, except for perhaps my mother. Now THAT woman had more clothes than anyone I had ever met. Until now. Evie could totally take her. This is one of the many reasons they share a name, but I digress.
Since it was announced that the tiny person within my womb was a girl, boxes upon boxes of clothes have poured into our home. Being a new parent, I did not know how many we would need. Excited to welcome our new baby girl, I accepted every hand-me-down offered, until the closet door could no longer close under the pressure of pink fabric bursting from within. Hand-me-downs are one thing, but new clothes are an entirely different matter altogether. Onesies and dresses and little pink sweaters have been flooding our mailbox with a voracity unrivaled since Imelda Marcos discovered Jimmy Choo.
Dilligently, I have been sorting and folding and putting each item away, according to size. 0-3 months: tags removed, washed and placed in the dresser. 6-9 months: tags kept on, placed in the top clear Rubbermaid storage bin, 9 months and up, in the bottom clear storage bin. Dresses and sweaters hung in the closet.
In the last few month, my little tiny girl has finally progressed past the 0-3 moths clothing and has graduated into the 6 month apparel. As such, I had to readjust my organizational system. 0-3 month clothing was to go in the bin, 6-9 month clothes were to have tags removed, be washed and placed in the dresser.
The problem was, she has so many clothes, there wasn’t enough room in the bins. Something had to go. My sister is having a baby girl in May, so I decided that we could send some things her way.
As I sat on the floor in Evie’s room last night, going through the clothes that no longer fit, deciding which we would pass on, and which we would save, (those items we just couldn’t bear to part with,) I held up a little newborn-sized creeper, the one that we put on Evie when we brought her home, the only thing that fit her tiny little frame, and I was overcome.
I looked over at her, crawling across the floor, toy in hand, line of drool running across her chin, look of determination across her face as she went for the diaper champ for the 11teenth time in as many minutes, I realized how much she has grown.
She is still very tiny, by most standards. She can barely crawl, she is still mostly helpless, and relies on me for everything. But compared to 6 and a half months ago, she is a completely different person, and for that matter, so am I.
No longer am I gripped with fear that she is going to stop breathing while she sleeps, and subsequently, no longer am I running over to her bed every 20 minutes to check and make sure she is okay. No longer am I afraid to carry her across the floor, certain I might drop her little tiny body and break it into a million tiny pieces. She doesn’t seem so very fragile now.
Now she’s crawling and cooing and screaming and shouting. She can laugh and giggle and bounce and hit and pinch and kick and make all sorts of ruckus. She can make her needs known and all you have to do is look at her little face to know that she’s up to something. I guess we knew all along that she was a little pistol, but now she’s really able to show us, and we are having so much more fun with her now. We feel so much more comfortable as parents, so much more confident.
I looked back down at the little striped creeper and I put it in the save pile. It's really not a very cute one. It’s not pink, it doesn’t have flowers or animals on it. It’s just a yellow and blue striped pajama creeper. But when I look at it, I see my tiny baby girl sleeping in a bassinet, finally home after years of trying and months of agony and illness. So that outfit is staying. We’ll send a bunch of other ones to my sister.

Well, that was a waste of time

After two hours of having food chemicals and allergens jabbed into my skin and then sitting and waiting for the little spots to do something, I had negative test results all across the board. The doctor said that the skin tests only work for some people, and that it is still very likely that I have a wheat allergy, as well as a milk and perhaps even a corn allergy. He recommended going wheat, dairy and corn free, and then re-introducing each one at a time, all the while keeping a food diary. I've done this all before and have already concluded that wheat is the enemy, as well as milk.
So, I guess I got an afternoon away from the house.

Because, well, that's what happens

The dog just puked all over the floor. I made Bryan clean it up; I think I've cleaned up enough dog puke in the last 6 weeks.

Tomorrow I go to the allergist for my marathon testing session. Bryan is taking a personal day so that Evie doesn't have to sit in the stroller and watch while I get poked and prodded for several hours.

How ridiculous can this get?

Bryan got home this afternoon, walked in the door looked at me and said, "Ummm, honey? You're nose is crooked." I had looked in the mirror and thought it looked a little puffy, and perhaps was slightly askew, but thought I was probably just imagining things, and didn't want to be one to over dramatize the situation. I mean, yes, it hurts. But it's not like I have black eyes or anything. You can't really tell, until you really look closely, or apparently, you look at my face every day.
He is insisting I go to the doctor to get it checked out. In fact, he wanted to go the moment he walked in the door, certain the pressure was causing brain damage. I was certain I had survived the day with little negative effect and many a prize fighter have suffered far more serious afflictions.
I am currently watching my neighbor's kids. One is doing homework, the other is reading Dr. Seuss. When they are collected by their mother, we may or may not go down to the local Urgent Care that is open until 10pm. Although I am sure all they will do is tell me to take some ibuprofen and watch out for dive bombing babies.

***UPDATE***
We went to the doctor. My nose is too swollen to do anything at this point. And really, there's not much they can do, anyway. The crookedness is most likely caused by the swelling, and we need to wait for the swelling to diminish to re-evaluate. If it is still crooked after the swelling, then they will go in and re-adjust. They don't want to move it now, and then have the swelling go down and have it pointed the other way. I concur. So now we wait. I am told to anticipate a kaleidescope of colors on my face.

Leroy Brown has got nothin' on Evie

Who knew that the soft, delicious little head of a baby could be hard enough to cause damage to an adult face? I am here to tell you all that it is.
I had brought Evie to bed for her morning breakfast, and after she finished her bottle, she was using me as her own personal gym. Laying on my side, I was blocking her from crawling off the bed, I had the comforter wadded up on the other side, serving as a soft wall to block her that way. She's not old enough to realize that she can just crawl over it and I'm not going to tell her.
Anyway, she was scooting and crawling and climbing and generally squirming around between the comforter wall and me, having a merry time. As it was sometime around 7 am, I was a bit groggy. At one point, she was standing with her bum against me; I was holding out my arms to keep her from falling forward into the mattress.
Suddenly I saw a blinding flash of light and felt searing pain shoot from between my eyes. I then realized that the bridge of my nose was inside out...Evie had done a swan dive backward and, using her head, landed directly on my nose, hitting it like a very tiny, very cute, but very hard sledgehammer.
Not wanting to scare her, I just sat there, eyes watering, holding on to her with one hand, other hand gripping my face. I took her back and put her in her crib, and then went to assess the damage. My nose was immediately starting to swell, I could feel my heart beating in my face. Within 30 minutes, two tiny little blue lines started to appear under my eye lids.
It's been a couple hours since she beat me up and I can no longer breathe from my nose at all. It hurts to put on my glasses, but as I have no other way of seeing, I must wear them regardless.
My nose is not obviously swollen, just puffy and the bruising is slight, but still there. Amazing that such a tiny person can already beat the crap out of me.

Evie has a new best friend

I have trained Portia to stay on her bed while Evie is scooting around on the floor. I can't keep Evie away from Portia, however. She is in love.

Sweet Potatoes

Here we go, Seahawks, Here We Go!

I was never a cheerleader, obviously.
But I am wearing my Matt Hasselbeck jersey today.
Yes, I own a Matt Hasselbeck jersey. You do not need to submit me to "What Not to Wear," I only wear it on game day, and I never wear it out of the house, unless I am actually going TO THE GAME. Which I am not, because the game is in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is too far to go for a football game. And it is cold, and I don't like being cold. And I can't afford to fly. And I have a baby who relies on me for things like food.
I am happy to say that even though we now have $20 cable, we still get pretty much all the channels we watched before, including FOX...which is the channel the game is on. Hooray for me.

Props to Kitchenaid!

Let me tell you a tale of good customer service.

Three and a half years ago, a pair of newlyweds decided to use their wedding gift money to purchase a professional-grade Kitchen Aid stand mixer from Costco. From breads to cookies to shredding cheese with the fancy attachment, this couple used their stand mixer with joy and gladness.
This Christmas, the woman pulled out her beloved Kitchen Aid yet again. Batch after batch, the Kitchen Aid purred gently as it whipped frostings and mixed the cookie batters into submission. On Christmas day, the Kitchen Aid was commissioned one more time. As the woman put in the ingredients for a small batch of sugar cookie dough, she smiled, so happy to have at least one thing in the house that works consistently. She flipped the switch, the machine whirred to life, the beater spun happily. The woman petted the top of the mixer and walked over the stove to stir some sauce, while the mixer continued to do its work.
Suddenly, disaster struck. The woman heard a groaning, and smelled smoke. She turned, to see the beater stuck in a locked position, white smoke billowing out from the mixer, filling the kitchen. NOOOOO!!!! She cried. Not my Kitchen Aid! She ran over, turned it off, and unplugged the machine. Then she looked to see what went wrong. The dough wasn't too tough, nor was it all crammed in one place to get the beater stuck in the bowl. Smoke still billowing out, she opened a window, and put the mixer out for a while, while her heart broke just a little.
After the holidays, she contacted Kitchen Aid, and told them her sad story. She told them that she was only making a small batch of sugar cookies when suddenly the thing started groaning and filled the kitchen with white smoke.
Low and Behold, Kitchen Aid emailed her back the very next day, apologizing for the trouble. They asked for the serial and model number of the unit. Once they received the information, they wrote back explaining that the model had been discontinued, but that a new upgraded model would be sent, free of charge, to the family's home within the week.

This story is true people. This evening, a brand-new 12-cup Kitchen-Aid Professional Stand Mixer arrived on my doorstep. It's far bigger and fancier than my previous mixer, and I am most pleased! (I of course sent back the old one in the box provided.)

It is so uncommon to receive any customer service at all, and to receive such good customer service, no questions asked, is amazing. So to Kitchen Aid, I say THANKS! I highly recommend you!

Update

Ok, so I called the cable people. Because Bryan works from home, the phone and internet are paid for by work, and it's a better deal if it's in the "triple play" bundle with cable included.
We are now down to basic el-cheapo cable however, because we still wanted to have the news and basic network TV.
We have also canceled netflicks, and am embargo has been placed on all gourmet items like Bryan's beer, and ice cream. This will help both with the budget as well as the waist line.

Not drastic in the real world, but drastic for me.

I'm thinking of giving up cable, and subsequently, (gasp!) the DVR in an attempt to save some moolah. Bryan thinks this is far too drastic and unnecessary. I think it just may be the right thing to do.
Without the ability to fast forward through the commercials, we will be forced to turn off the television all together. Which I think, could be a very good thing.
I'll let you know what happens.

Missing Daddy

Bryan left at 4:30. Evie cried as he walked out the door, and continued to do so for quite a while. She's been in a foul mood ever since, and refused her afternoon nap, although I tried my darndest to get her to take it. At 7:15, I decided she would just go to bed early. Well, it's now 8:07pm and she's been crying for about 5 minutes. I'm sitting in the living room listening to the baby monitor, hoping she is going to go back to sleep, but all evidence points to the contrary. I think it is going to be a rough night. We are both missing her daddy.

It was probably the bread

I conducted an experiment today.
I ate a turkey sandwich for lunch. I didn't make it through the sandwich however, there were still a few bites left when I started feeling gross. It's been about an hour and I feel absolutely awful. I think we can now safely say that it was the bread that made me so sick this weekend.

As of late, aside from the digestive issues, I've also been dealing with agitation, severe headaches, joint and muscle aches, and anxiety. It turns out these are all symptoms of wheat allergy. While I was found to not have celiac disease, there is a chance I may have a wheat allergy. Like I said yesterday, I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to get a consult to an allergist. I think in the meantime, I'm going back off wheat to see what happens.

Bryan is getting his stuff packed up and will be departing for Los Angeles shortly. This does not help with the crankiness, I must tell you.

Was it the bread?

So the test results came back. I don't have any infection, or bacteria. My potassium levels are still really low. Not sure what we're going to do about that yet.
I have an appointment with my doctor on Thursday to go over other options. It looks like my food allergies have come back to bite me once again, and it may have been the wheat toast I had for breakfast that made me so sick this weekend. Once I was pregnant, foods I could never eat weren't bothering me, and I was suddenly able to eat things I hadn't been able to touch in years. Well, I stopped breast feeding 6 weeks ago, and now it seems all the gluten issues and allergy problems are back. Hooray.
I'll be getting referrals to an allergist and a nutritionist; who knows how long it will take to get in to them.
Meanwhile, I'm still feeling fairly crappy, but am doing better. I've been able to hold some fluids in today and ate some pears and rice.
Bryan leaves for L.A. tomorrow, can't tell you how thrilled I am about that.

Also, recently my memory of hyperemesis had started to fade as I was starting to think that another baby would be something we'd like to have next year. I'd like to report that once I started puking up my internal organs this weekend, vivid memories of 7 months of violent illness and bed rest came flooding back and I realized that there would be no real way that I could care for a busy toddler and a newborn baby. So, although I'd love to be able to give Evie a little brother or sister, I was reminded this weekend that there is no way I could care for her properly if I were to be as sick or sicker as I was when I was pregnant. So, I think we'll be waiting until she's a little older before we think about adding to the family.

Evie did two new things today-

She ate sweet potatoes.

She scooted forward (instead of the usual backward and "rocking" positions.)

Tomorrow, we'll learn how to mix drinks and talk back to our parents.

We interrupt your regular blog reading...for a trip to the ER.

It seems we can't even make it a week into the new year without a trip to the hospital. All week I've had a very upset stomach. This is nothing all that unusual for me however, so I just ate a bunch of Immodium, and hoped it would eventually pass. By Wednesday, things had progressed to a whole new level of sickness, however, and by Saturday, I started throwing up, every 20 minutes without relief. By Sunday afternoon, after spending all day Saturday, all night, and all day Sunday in the bathroom with the bucket, not even able to hold down ice chips or sips of water, and watching as internal organs started appearing, "hello spleen!" I called the on-call nurse hot-line to see if they had any suggestions. They told me to go directly to the hospital.
I didn't think I was all that serious so we went to urgent care instead.

They took my blood pressure: 70/54. They took my temperature: 101 degrees.
They hooked my up to an IV, took a bunch of blood, which took two tries, because apparently this was a difficult task and required two arms. While we're on the subject of IVs and blood draws, can we just take a moment and discuss the phrase "just a little sting," as they slammed the giant steel rod into my arm, only to miss and have to do it all over again, while my husband looked on wide-eyed and pale-faced? When all was finished, he looked at me and said something about the lady needing to go back to IV school, and "did that hurt, because it looked like it hurt." For the record, yes, it did smart just a bit. But in fact, not as much as it did the 3rd and 4th try later that night.

They pushed on my abdomen, which made me scowl and grunt, and watched as I continued with my own personal pyrotechnics show. After a few hours of continued sickness regardless of the medications they threw at me at urgent care, it was determined I needed to be seen at the hospital; because of the place I was hurting in my abdomen, there was also concern that my colon was infected, or worse, rupturing, because of where I was having pain, and when they would push and let go, I wold get very, very cranky with them.
So, the hospital is where we ended up.

I would like to take a small break here for a moment and ask the following question: why is it that regardless of the time of day or week, people cannot shower when going to the hospital? Here I was, sick for a week, puking my guts out for over 2 days, but I was still showered. I may have been in lounge pants and a hoodie, but I was clean and un-stinky. My clothes were washed, had no rips or holes, my hair, grease-free. I think it says a lot that I, wearing lounge pants, a t-shirt and a hoodie, was the cleanest, best-dressed person in the waiting room of that packed ER, because I felt like a scrub. But I digress.

At the hospital, they took a lot more blood, gave me several injections of anti-nausea meds., discovered that not only was I severely dehydrated, but that my potassium levels had also plummeted to dangerous levels. They subsequently filled me back up on potassium, and fluids. They were able to get my fever down around 8pm. Blood work came back and showed that there wasn't any serious infection. I finally stopped puking after the second injection of meds. at which point they sent me home. I am now waiting for test results, but the current diagnosis is a nasty case of gastroenteritis. So ridiculous.

Oh, and Evie was with our wonderful neighbors during this entire ordeal. We didn't want her to be sitting in the petri dish of infection. She played with the Shultz girls across the street from 2:30-7:30, then Bryan came home, put her to bed, got himself some dinner, checked on the dogs etc., and then our neighbor Sara (from next door) came and hung out so Bryan could go back to the hospital to bring me back home, once it was determined that I was being released.

A great idea.

This is Chris, She has seven children. Although she has seven children, and six of them are boys, she seems to still manage to keep her house and her life organized, or at least she plays an organized mother online. I read her blog everyday, and am constantly reading it aloud to Bryan, cracking up at the anecdotes, and stealing her ideas.
The other day, she started another blog, and I thought I'd share it with you all because I think it's such a great idea, and her take is so hilarious. Instead of just buying more stuff, she's resisting buying anything unless it's an absolute need (food, underwear, heat etc.,) and then she's writing about it and keeping a running tab of the things they wanted to buy, but didn't. She's also purging the things they have accumulated, but no longer use.
I have been in the same kind of mood as of late, and will be joining her crusade. Wednesday, I cleaned out the closet under the stairs and purged 4 boxes of school and office supplies, where I found over 10 unopened boxes of Crayola markers, crayons and colored pencils. I have since donated them to the local after school program. I also found several hand-me-down toys that had been given to us by friends and family members that were already or have since been broken or have missing pieces by visiting children. These toys are now gone from the bin.
As many of you know, we have a ton of junk accumulated, and I just can't take it anymore.
So, I'm following Chris. No more buying, and whether Bryan likes it or not, the purge is commencing. If there is a pile, or a drawer of junk in my path, I will be going through it, and unless the contents qualify as an heirloom or something that we use regularly, chances are, they're getting donated or tossed. We'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Next stop, Evie's closet. That kid has more clothes than any person I have ever met. She could easily outfit an entire orphanage for a year, just in the hand-me downs that we have accumulated, alone.

By the way....someone turned 6 months old!

Evie turned 6 months old on the 1st! I knew this, but failed to post a blog in her honor. I was so busy posting about the stupid book. Bad mommy!
She ate rice cereal for the first time, it was....yummy.

Atonement

Have you either read the book or seen the movie? A few weeks ago, I saw a preview for the movie, "Atonement" and I became giddy with excitement, certain this was a movie for me. But, being a bit snobbish when it comes to movie adaptations, I needed to read the book first. I promptly called up my husband and said, "if you're in need of a stocking stuffer idea, (and I know that you are,) I'd like the book Atonement."
Low and behold, there it was Christmas morn. I finished it this weekend, and the story has been vexing me ever since. I called my girlfriend Melissa on Monday to see if she'd like to go see the movie, thinking perhaps that seeing the screen version would help me digest the content, but alas, she has already seen it, and was not a fan. Bryan is resisting the film as well. While I was reading (he's a non-reader, so I knew it wasn't like I was ruining it for him or anything,) every once in a while, I just had to discuss what was happening, so I would give him a play by play of the story. When I finished, I was most distressed and told him how it ends, to which he replied, "um, yeah, no thanks."
Now I can't decide how I feel about it, and am in need of debriefing. It was a very gripping story, and there is one scene that was quite steamy, (and when I say steamy, I mean, whoa nelly, steamy, steamy, but I digress.) So I come to you, dear friends. Surely someone out there has read the book or seen the movie. What did you think?

Christmas @ Grandma Janet's

More pictures from Wenatchee

The snowy pass


Evie in Papa Mike's hat


Evie "snuggles" with Grammy Nancy



Dads videotaping their babies


Baby Caid in the Exersaucer

Evie torments her boy cousins

Thursday morning we went to Wenatchee to attend the graveside funeral for my Auntie Joy; a memorial service will be held later this month. The family just wanted to take a moment to mark the day, and that is what we did. After which, we went back to Nancy and Mike's to spend time with family. My cousins Jordan, Jeremy and Ragan were all there, and Jordan and Jeremy have little boys. This was the first time all the little kids were together, and it was really fun for the grandmas to see their little grand babys all together. Evie thought everyone was there for her, and thus took the opportunity to be social. The other little boys weren't sure what to do with her, and there were several times when we had to pick her up and remove her so she'd back off, especially from little Caid, who is actually 3 days younger than she, but quite a bit larger.
Regardless of this fact, he was overwhelmed by Evie and would start crying when she came at him. I think next year, when they are both 18 months old, I'm going to have to play referee, and teach her to leave the boys alone.

Evie rolls over, and proceeds to eat Caid's foot; Caid screams in protest, don't worry, Bryan took this picture about 1 second before I pulled her off him


We try to take a picture with the boys, Caid cries, Evie grabs him


Evie holds Caid's hand


Evie and Zachary check out the mirror


Noah and Zachary check out Caid, while Evie rolls over to get in range

Christmas Day

We woke up to Evie with a tooth, and one leg and arm tangled in the crib rails.
We had a pretty quiet morning, and did stockings and the tree. We gave Evie a little Evie-sized soccer ball and a "fill and spill" flower pot, which is like a shape sorter but it's made out of fabric flowers and she puts them in a little pot instead. The flowers are colorful and each makes a different crinkly or squeaky noise.
The other exciting things at the Scott house were a bike trainer (for me) and the James Bond collection (for Bryan). I'd like to say, James Bond movies are loooong, and 21 of them is a bit excessive, no? ;)

The Scheers and the Downeys came to visit; the Scheers were leaving as the Downeys were pulling in the drive, which was kind of funny. We had a marathon session of Scrabble and poker with the Downeys and they stayed and played with us until Thursday morning.