Bittersweet

Hooooney! There’s a half naked man on our couch….

I didn’t expect to see someone on our couch this morning. I’m not too surprised I guess, although it’s never happened before.

Daddy’s friend from out of state came to visit his family and called Daddy yesterday afternoon to get together. As far as I know, Daddy has seen his friend only once in the last ten or so years. They talk on the phone, but that’s about it. I’ve talked to the friend a time or two, but never met him. Well, they made up for lost time. Oh boy did they make up for lost time.

They stumbled home the first time about 8:30 or 9 pm.  I was already having a hard time getting the girls to sleep, but when they heard Daddy come through the door, that was it. They were excited that Daddy was home and then the friend. The girls fell in love with the friend. Bug at one point even said, “I love you!” to him.  We gotta watch out for those girls, especially if they are falling in love with tall, dark, bad boys already!  After a short time with the friend, he convinced the girls it was time to go to sleep so they could grow up tall and strong.   They went to sleep fairly easily after that.

Daddy and his friend weren’t done yet and off they went, taking taxis here and there.   I don’t know what time they finally came home, but it wasn’t last night.    I hope for Daddy’s sake that the friend doesn’t come back for another ten years because it may take Daddy that long to recover!

Needless to say, friend stayed on our couch last…er….rather this morning instead of driving home.     Daddy wasn’t in any shape to take the girls to “school” so I went to work  late.   It’s not very often I get to drop them off, so it was kind of a treat for me.  

Just another day in paradise.    Life never gets boring here.

Think of Littlest

November is Prematurity Awareness Month and today is the Fight for Preemies.    Click on the badge above to learn more.

Without the March of Dimes and their continuing efforts to fight prematurity, our Littlest wouldn’t be the wonderfully, stubborn, healthy little girl she is now.   Even the efforts to save our Sweet Baby Boy wouldn’t have been available.    They also helped us in the NICU with a bag of necessities (toothbrush, disposable camera, etc.), a book for Bug, food,  gas cards so we could keep coming to visit Littlest, as well as emotional support. 

Anxiety

I was browsing through the pictures on my computer, trying to find the one I wanted to attach to an email.   I came across some that gave me instant, massive anxiety.

 

These are the pictures of the house when we first purchased it over four horrible years ago.   What a nightmare.   We tried though. 

Notice the hideous color on the walls

Horrible tile job and peel and stick linoleum tiles on the floor, walls not painted, barely patched.

Backyard looking in the yard of the vicious pitbull (and the fence that she jumped over to attack Big Yellow Dog).

Back yard looking over the soon to be Lake of Fire.

The next picture is about a year after we bought the house.

This wasn’t our final product, but it was what I had on my computer.    More painting, new fence, the roof redone (getting rid of that stupid thing on top and fixing the multiple leaking areas), flooring, septic system.   Then started the failures - mold, electrical failure, septic system still not working well, impossible to keep clean, mice in the garage, bad neighborhood, nobody wanting to go outside.  It was a  cold and uncomfortable house. 

This is our nice, stress free home now.

The only thing I don’t like is the white rock, but you know what?   I can totally live with it!

Ahead of her time

When Daddy picked up Bug from daycare one day last week, the teacher was all excited about Bug’s work.   They were learning about body parts.   Each child had an outline of their body on a large piece of paper.   Each day they talked about a different body part.   The teacher was excited because Bug, at age 2-1/2, drew/scribbled in the proper location where the eyes, nose and mouth were supposed to go.  She showed Daddy the other children’s examples and they had scribbled all over the body, but not where the face should be.  The teacher said that is usually a skill acquired after the age of 3.   I even tested her on it on the magna-doodle and sure enough, she did a crude face - eyes, nose, mouth in all the right spots.    Shoot, we already knew she was smart.  

Littlest is coming right along as well.   She says A-B-C-D (and sometimes E), but won’t go further, but loves the ABC song.   She likes the “puppy song,” which I realized was counting to 15.   When we count to 15 we go, “1…..15, 15 puppies!” from 101 Dalmatians.  Then Bug always says, “Puppies Gone!  OH NO!   Puppies back.  Cat got them.”    It’s quite dramatic, but because of the puppy part, Bug can easily count to 15 now (we are working higher).  Littlest has picked up on the OH NO part of the count, though last night she said 7, 8, 9 out of the blue.     It’s so fun to watch them learn new things.   The Magna-Doodle is a great help with shapes, letters, numbers, and even crude drawings of animals and dancing people.   Bug loves it when I draw a pig face.  Not sure why.   Last night she had me drawing every family member dancing.

The reason I was forced to draw dancing family members was because we were watching Dancing with the Stars, which Bug loves.   She loves to dance throughout the show and has learned some flourishes and dramatic dance moves.   I was laughing so hard watching her.   Littlest loves to dance too, but has an earlier bedtime, so doesn’t get to watch the show when it’s on at 8.   Last night Bug was perfecting her jitterbug.   We need a video camera (do you hear that Santa). 

Finally, last night we splurged and went to a Chinese buffet for dinner.  It was almost cheaper than all four of us going to BurgerBills.   The young lady seating us wanted to know Bug’s name because I had called her Bug-Bug.   I spelled her name and told the young lady that everybody calls Bug that.   Then she wrote it in Chinese on the receipt for us to see.   She asked how far apart the girls were and because she spoke broken English, it was quite a discussion.   All through the meal various women who were working there came by to see the girls and all their hair.   Daddy had several discussions about Littlest and the fact she was a little over one pound when she was born.   The girls loved eating there.  Bug had wanted “rice,”  not Mexican rice or teriyaki rice, just “rice rice.”   They had rice, jello, plus a variety of other things.   Finally Daddy got them each a swirl ice cream cone.  Littlest was in HEAVEN.   With her eyes half closed in pure enjoyment, she lovingly ate that ice cream cone to the very last drop (that hadn’t dripped already).   When we left, the girls were waved goodbye to and our first server gave us probably about 10 fortune cookies!   Littlest’s fortune said, “Time heals all wounds.   Chin up.”   Very appropriate.    I hope they welcome us back to that place (it was good) because, even though I tried to clean up after the girls, we left a mess (and a good tip).  

Every day is always an adventure!

Children being abducted

If you were in Toys R’ Us yesterday, I’m sure that’s what you were thinking. Nope, it was just two parents trying to take their tired, hungry, cranky children out to the car.

I certainly didn’t win any parenting awards this weekend, not even a wife of the second award. It was just an all around cranky weekend. As always, we had a bunch of errands to run and one was Babies R’ Us to look for a child safety lock for the sliding closet doors. Of course since we were there and Toys R’ Us was attached, we did our normal play time there. It was fun for a while. Then when the two kids riding scooters were whizzing around after being told by a store employee to stop, and almost hit Bug, I lost IT! I yelled at them. I pointed and told them that they had been told before to stop it and that they had better stop it NOW. Then something about almost hitting my child. The boy just looked at me without emotion. That really ticked me off. Daddy was kind of taken aback at my outburst. We did notify another store employee and they went searching for them. Excuse me, but where were the parents? Probably watching us and laughing. We made it to the front of the store when all Hell broke loose. Both girls ran to the back of the store. I heard Daddy yelling at them (I had paid attention to the videos one minute too long). I ran to the back of the store and we frantically searched for them. We could hear them giggling.  We each picked up a child once we caught them and carried them back to the front.   Of course there was sobbing, crying, kicking, screaming, lots of loud, “no, no, NOOOOO!”   Everybody was staring.   I would stare too, but I was too busy trying not to be beat up by a 22 month old.   They both had short naps and snacks before we went in, but obviously it wasn’t enough.   We made it out of the store without security stopping us.   Whew!

Weird thing about the day was earlier when we were at Goodwil, Bug was wearing a pair of purple wings just following us around.    All of a sudden this little girl comes over and starts ripping the wings off of Bug.  Daddy yells, “Hey, that’s my kid and you better leave her alone” and starts walking to the child who was the same size as Bug.  The girl left and Bug stayed between us.   Not 10 minutes later, the same girl comes back over and starts shoving Bug and trying to rip off the wings again.   I went over and physically separated them.  Bug was so shocked she just stood there taking it.    About that time, some adult relation or friend or whatever started walking towards the girl, but didn’t say a word.   Not one reprimand, nothing.   This girl was aggressive!   Fudgesicles.     Then awhile later, Littlest was playing with some little rubber stamp things on a little table when a little boy comes over and scatters all the stamps off the table.   I sternly told him that was unacceptable and he better leave my daughter alone.   Luckily his parent picked him up and put him back in the shopping cart.    So why weren’t my kids in the shopping cart?  Because they were behaving and not running around wildly.     So you see, by the time we got to Toys R’ Us, I’d had it with unruly kids trying to hurt mine.  

I was cranky all weekend.  We had to carry crying kids out of another store on Saturday.  I was bossy, nit picky, and unbending.   It wasn’t a full moon and it wasn’t “that time of the month.”   I just wanted a bit of time to MYSELF, but it never happened.   Just five minutes even.   I love my family dearly, but I wanted a little bit of me time that never came.   I’m not bitter about it…nope, not at all.    HA!

This former King has lost her crown

When you have a tendency to clench your teeth constantly, teeth crack.  When teeth crack, you have crowns.   When you have crowns, you probably should avoid certain delicious treats.   Bubble gum, taffy, and….carmels!   I had eaten some carmels last week without adverse effects.   Yesterday, I found a carmel I had put in my pocket and thought, “yeah!” and popped it in my mouth.   Chew, chew….CRUNCH!   Oh dear, there must be something wrong with this carmel.  I pulled it out of my mouth and what should I see, but the oldest crown in my mouth was now in my hand.    Fudgsicles!    I couldn’t get into the dentist after work because of my doctor’s appointment, so I had to wait until today after work.   It looks ugly, but you can’t really see it.     I only hope they can glue it back one until after January 1 when I will have the money to replace it and the other tooth that needs to be crowned.   I can’t leave the space it left alone.   I keep putting my tongue in it.  I’m going to have it all irritated if I’m not careful!

Christopher Walken incarnate

I have decided that Littlest sounds a little bit like Christopher Walken when she talks.   Unfortunately I can’t post a link to YouTube at this computer, but if you look up Christopher Walken there are several clips of him doing the three little pigs and Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.    Daddy laughed when I told him this, but he had to agree. 

We did manage to get Littlest and Bug to the doctor yesterday.   They put her on a super powerful antibiotic since her ear was still draining lots of pus after four days of antibiotic ear drops.  The doctor also thinks her rash is perioral dermatitis and it is hard to remedy, but the super antibiotic should help it.   The doctor was estatic that Littlest’s lungs were clear and thinks all the coughing is from the draining ear.    Bug had the ugly bump on her checked and got her  H1N1 shot.   She gave the nurse the stink eye after the shot.   Dad rewarded her by letting her pick out a bunch of stickers…say, oh about 15 or more!!!   Then Daddy got 4 for himself and Littlest got 2.   Daddy got a little lecture from Mama about having a bit of dignity  and less greed when it comes to getting stickers.   Hopefully now everybody is on their way to health again. 

Later in the evening, Bug found the stethoscope that I used when I put the NG tube in Littlest when she first came home.   Bug was being the doctor and checking everyone.   I was deemed sick while the others were fine.    It’s probably true.   When I was trying to put on Bug’s jammies, she kept telling me to be “careful Mama” because of her bandaid and her shot.   I showed Bug where I got my H1N1 shot and my Daffy Duck bandaid.   Then I told her it was all better and took off the bandaid.   She kept saying, “All better Mama?”  I’m trying to get her to understand that just because there is a bandaid, it doesn’t always mean that it still hurts.   If I put a pretty bandaid on her just for fun (because she asks for it), she treats it as if she has an owie and won’t let you touch it.  She’s my little hypochondriac.   But then again, that means lots of extra hugs and kisses.

I’m thinking…..

I should re-title this blog to “Diary of a tired, frumpy, overwhelmed Mama.” That’s how I feel. I am so far behind on laundry. The girls’ clothes are piled up on one of their beds and I mean PILED high! Their room is a mess. Everything is a mess it seems or is messy as soon as it’s cleaned up. Today I almost resigned from everything. I spent quite a bit of time trying to make an appointment with Littlest’s ear doctor. I also spent time getting myself a doctor’s appointment because my sinus infection is coming back full force. Daycare calls me and says that Littlest started acting really grumpy and then had a bad coughing fit and threw up a huge chunk of phlegm. Plus her rash will not clear up. I then spent 20 minutes on hold trying to talk to the advice nurse. When I finally did talk to her, she sounded a bit concerned and so we have an appointment for later today. Then I decided to go on break. I no sooner get down there, when my co-worker comes down and says daycare called and Bug fell down and hit her head. They applied ice and they thought she was okay, but just wanted to let us know. I started to cry. I couldn’t get in touch with Daddy, I couldn’t just up and leave work because it would be without pay…I just wanted to take care of my babies. About the time my break was over, Daddy showed up and said he was going over to give Littlest a nebulizer treatment and check on Bug. Later he called me to say he had picked them both up and Bug really needed to talk to her Mama. She sounded so sad, “Mama, I fell down…sob…I running….fell down…head…sob!” I felt bad for her. She has such a sensitive soul. I felt better that Daddy had picked them up and we have a doctor’s appointment for later today.

In other breaking news, I got my H1N1 shot today.

Now for a Littlest moment. Last night Littlest found Daddy’s belt. It looks kinda like the collars the dogs have. Littlest decided that she needed to find the dogs and put their collars back on. She calls both dogs “Missy” no matter how many times we tell her the other one’s name. She started walking through the house saying, “Missy, Missy…..MISSY…..MISSY!!!” Now remember, she says this in a deep, gravely sort of a voice. She went into the living room, kitchen, bedroom, look outside the patio door, and everywhere else looking for MISSY! We were laughing so hard. She sounds like she should be a hit man for the mafia or something.

Trick or Treat!

This year both girls went Trick or Treating in our new neighborhood.   Auntie Auggie came over for dinner and to go out with us.   I put Bug in her outfit first.  The first signs of trouble came when I removed the pink cowboy boots she had  been wearing for the past several days.  I put on black tights and a black shirt along with the ladybug top with black shoes.   Oh my gosh - a fit was thrown at the fact the pink cowboy boots were not going back on.   Next thing I know, she has maneuvered out of the ladybug costume and put the pink boots back on.  Now she’s all in black with bright pink cowboy boots - it actually was quite cute.   It wasn’t worth the fight, so we just sat down to dinner.   When the first Trick or Treaters came to the door, Bug helped hand out candy.  She saw that if you wore a costume, you got yummy chocolate.  Suddenly the ladybug costume  was what she wanted to wear, including the black shoes.    Littlest didn’t mind her costume because it was more like wearing pajamas than a costume. 

We headed out about 6:30.  The first house we went to was a mistake.   The homeowner popped out of the door dressed as a clown with a really scary face.   It made both Bug and I jump back a bit.   We grabbed our candy and high-tailed it out of there.   The rest of the houses were great and fun.   It was good to see who our neighbors are.    Once Littlest realized that if  you stood in front of a door you got something in return, she wanted down and started walking and telling us which house to go to next.   At one point, the girls were told to grab a handful of candy.   Littlest grabbed a handful that was bigger than anything I could have gotten.  She is a tiny girl with a big grab!   It was fun to see what our neighbors decorations and lights and it felt good to know that other people were coming in car loads to Trick or Treat.   Before we hit the other side of the neighborhood, we dropped off Daddy and Littlest because the cold air was affecting Littlest’s asthma.   Bug wanted to go to “one more house Mama!”  We kept going and going until she was dragging her bag and her feet.   There was a tiny hole in her bag by the time we were done.   

One house had a fog machine, lights, all kinds of scary things as well as music.  Bug wasn’t too sure about going there until suddenly a little guy dressed as Buzz Lightyear came running out and gave her a huge bag of candy.    She also fell in love with a little elephant.  It was the cutest costume and I’m not sure if it was a boy or a girl, but Bug wanted to follow it everywhere.   She was determined to keep going.   I had to trick her into going home.  I told her that there was one more really great house with two cool pumpkins.  We walked up to the door and knocked.   Who do you think should open the door?    Daddy and Littlest!   Bug still expected her candy though!   She wasn’t too happy that we had to go inside and take off the costume.   Each girl got one little sucker (carefully supervised thank you very much!) and the rest of the candy was hidden.   It was more the experience than the candy I wanted them to get out of it (even though they got a ton of candy). 

(Littlest has an allergic reaction on her face, so it’s kinda blotchy)

As for carving pumpkins, we did it last minute.  I spent at least 1-1/2 hours carving a cat face into a pumpkin.   Never again!    Daddy did a traditional type one.   We decided the other two pumpkins were just harvest pumpkins and didn’t need faces.   Next year I’m getting the carving kit.  

*Pictures courtesy of Auntie Auggie.

Graduation Day

Yesterday, Littlest graduated from the early intervention program with the school district.   She has caught up with other “normal” kids.  In fact, in some areas, she’s doing a bit better than the norm.   It will be sad to no longer see the people who would come over to play with her, but it’s a huge step.  

One of the areas they said she was a bit behind on was 2-3 word sentences.   That night, Littlest said, “Misssy…..are you?”  (Both girls say “are you?” instead of “Where are you?”)   I guess that’s a non-issue now.   That girl can talk up a storm, most of the time, it doesn’t make much sense though.  

The therapists even worked with Bug every time and they said she is doing very well and her speech is very good (aside from the fact her teeth are a mess and affect the sounds of some words).   It’s a comfort to know she’s doing well.   They even praised us as parents - that’s a huge boost since there is always that bit of worry that we’re ruining them somehow.

From the blog