sick

I'm sick. I hate being sick. I need to go out and run errands and it's snowing. I'm feeling very sorry for myself. I'm lucky to have a wonderful husband who let me sleep in though!

Xs

Yesterday, I told Tom that if he survived the dentist, that we could go out to Don Pablo's for dinner, because I had a $5 off gift card. I was out running a bunch of errands when he got home, so I came back to meet him and we stopped at WalMart to pick up pictures (I promise I'll upload them soon, OK?) Anyway, I realized that I had forgotten the coupon, so we went home to get it and I couldn't find it ANYwhere! So we decided to go for sushi instead, after we went to the co-op. Geez, it's nice to be able to shop with ONE child and another adult along!

So, we got to the sushi place and I was getting Jude settled at the table, when all of a sudden, Tom says "Kelly," in this weird tone of voice, so I turn around and he says, "this is Wendy." Ack! Of all the damn restaurants in this city, she was there!

It was kind of funny actually. We both looked each other up and down, and were both quite obvious about it ;). She was very polite, but I thought she was going to ask to have dinner with us with her friend and I quickly did some very obvious body language that that was NOT Ok with me. So, we survived that and she'll be gone soon. We were both a bit freaked out by it, but we had a great talk about how
happy we are and how our first marriages affected us. It's been a full week!

While I was in Lancaster, Tom got an email message from her that she was in Rochester just to pack up her mom to move her to AZ with her, so that's a relief. It's a weird feeling to meet someone who had the same kind of intimacy (on some level anyway) with your spouse. I'm sure Tom has the same feelings about David.

Speaking of David, he got the apartment he wanted near our house and moves in next week! So he's going to come to Rochester on Sunday to pay the landlord, so I don't have to pick the girls up at the state border on Sunday after all. I'm anxious/excited/nervous about how this will change things. We will have a bit of negotiating to do I'm sure, but I love how well we're getting along, and I'd like to have things be pretty laid back.

Anyway, this is apparently the week of the X.

Trippy

We logged about 700 miles in 3 days.

First we drove from Rochester to Lancaster to visit with Laura and her family. Beanmom and her kids were sick :( so we didn't get to see them, which sucked.

The hotel was great fun. A good deal, which included the room, dinner and breakfast and they had a water playground for the kids (they even had floaties available!) and 2 indoor pools with a game room.

It was so wonderful to see Laura and her beautiful kids again. C. is just amazing and adorable, and was very good natured even though she had a cold. She thought Jude was the coolest thing :). A. is just cuter than ever - he has the most amazing eyes, and B. is great - he is way into knock knock jokes and just slayed himself ;). And those cheeks...kissable!

We were sad to go, but Jude hates to drive at night, so we drove to PA to my mom's and Jude slept most of the way therem, which was great.

I was at my mom's less than 24 hours. She was driving me absolutely out of my gourd, so I fled yesterday afternoon and drove back before dark. again, Jude slept the whole way! 3.5+ hours. Sadly, he hasn't been sleeping so well at night! Tom got up w/ him at 6:30 a.m. so I could sleep for a couple of hours. He hadn't slept well at my mom's either - he had me up 6 times to nurse between 9:30 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. He had his first little taste of solids (aside from the celery stalk I let him chew on one day.) He had a tiny little bit of soft pretzel and then some applesauce on the tip of a spoon at my mom's. He liked the first taste but when he actually got a bit that was a little more than juice, he actually shuddered! He didn't spit it out though. I guess we'll wait a bit longer, which is fine with me.

My mother and I had another huge fight about Soren's dairy allergy. she is constantly trying to feed her foods that make her sick and it makes me SO angry. And she was being so judgmental about everything - Emma's manners, Soren's food issues, Jude's sleeping, or lack thereof. I wanted to kill her. You'd think I'd be immune by now to her, but I was so stressed by the time I left. I was still a wreck when I got home. We had dinner at my MIL's and she could even tell I was stressed.

It is GREAT to be home. We rented a movie last night and watched about half of it. It's very very quiet here and I miss the girls a ton. They are staying with their dad and we are picking them up Sunday afternoon at the state border. I can't wait! It's nice to have some downtime, but not worth missing them so much.

I have a ton to do today. Banking, photos to develop, snacks to buy for LLL tomorrow, glasses adjusted, dog bathed and nails trimmed. It will be a full day!

Woot!

Emma took 3rd on vault, 1st on bars and 4th all around for the 6-8 yo group :). I'm Soooo proud of her! I've never seen her look so happy as when she got up on that stand in first place :D.

David was there; our friends Danielle and Mike and their boys; and my friend Lauren with her kids Nat and Audrey, my kids' best friends. Soren was there too :). It was so much fun; a small and quick meet.

We're supposed to go to Lancaster tomorrow but the weather is frightful, so I'll have to see :(

Jude's fever broke right after I finally took him to the doctor on Thursday. BUT, he is still miserable. I want my happy baby back :( He was either screaming or sleeping yesterday and last night was awful. Tom had him from 2:30 to 5:30 a.m. and then he was latched on for the next 2 hours. He has never been a comfort nurser and I just don't know what's going on with him! Residual exhaustion from being sick maybe.

David is coming this morning to look for apartments. He's going to stay here with the girls and we're going to a friend's house in Naples, NY until tomorrow. Emma has a meet tomorrow evening, so we have to be back for that. Then I'm trying to figure out if Jude will be well enough to travel to Lancaster to visit with some friends (waving at Beanmom!) or not and then to my mom's so she can visit with the girls for a day or two. We have to be back in town on Thursday to watch my friend's kids so she can go to the dentist and I'm hosting the LLL evaluation mtg. at my house Friday morning and Emma may or may not have her mother's helper gig that morning as well.

We went to my BIL and his new wife's house last night - they got married yesterday at the courthouse and then had a party. There was THE most annoying person in the *world* there. I couldn't restrain myself and kept making comments under my breath. Tom was in stitches. This guy was drunk, loud, full of himself and stupid to boot. There was quite an interesting crowd at that party anyway.

The most interesting thing that happened was that Tom's friend Kevin saw Tom's ex-wife, Wendy, at Gold's Gym. She recognized Kevin although he didn't recognize her at first and asked him how Tom was doing. He told her that he was happily married and had a kid. He said he wished he had had a camera phone to take a picture of her face. He couldn't have gotten a better reaction if he had hit her on the head with a 2x4 ;). Serves her right! :::meow::: Her loss.

Anyway, the annoying guy will probably live on as the inside joke of the century. There was a psychologist at the party too and this guy, "R," kept talking to him about how psychology was dying, and all sorts of ridiculous theories about the Iraq war and unions and anything he could talk about. He's apparently a (bad?) musician to boot. This psych probably is having a field day at work today! You know it's bad when you feel embarrassed for someone else's behavior. I don't know how his girlfriend stands it.

Anyway, enough about R. We're off!

FTTS

Soren and were talking about how she is afraid of monsters in the toilet, so I started saying that she should flush it, so they go down in the sewer because there is a trap to keep them from coming back up. somehow we started talking about other things that may or may not be in the sewer, and one of them was piranhas, which she then said were in Africa (too much Disney Tarzan!), so I told her they were in South America in the Amazon river. She immediately ran off to write this down. When I asked her why she had to write it down, she said it was because she wanted to remember to never go to the Amazon river!

ick

1. Jude's still sick. I'm *still* waiting for the doc's office to call back as to whether they think he should be seen or not. He's starting to spit out the motrin, and his fever is still around. He also has gone through 5 diapers this morning. He's gotten to the crabby, lethargic phase too. Emma now has the same thing, sans fever.

2. The hamster, may she RIP, met an untimely end last night. I discovered her at about 2 a.m., not my best time in any circumstance. I will have nightmares about it forever. 'nuff said.

3. It snowed, slushy, wet crap that isn't worth a damn.

4. I can't go to my mom's group this morning AGAIN b/c the kids are sick :(

5. I had to call off work again so I can stay home with Jude.

6. My MIL's back from FL. Yay! We had dinner with her last night and just cuddled Jude and welcomed her home. i missed her!

7. I had to cancel Sully's vet appt. this morning too.

8. I am tired and haven't had a shower yet.

9. The damn thermometer switched itself from fahrenheit to celsius somehow. I had to go online and find the directions for how to switch it back, because I'm hopeless at converting and have no idea what a fever would like like in centigrade ;).

10. The good part of the day was that I got up early and went to the co-op *by myself* and got groceries and the equal exchange coffee that I love so much. I am so spoiled. speaking of which, I can't wait until my tea stuff from Adagio comes!

11. The dog isn't eating. WTF? Most dogs scarf their food right away. This guy is a grazer and it's driving me bonkers, because then he has to keep pooping all day, rather than getting it out of the way all at one time.

12. This is a rather negative post. My apologies.

why?

did everyone have to post a link to Adagio teas? Now I have had to go and get a sampler, and I'm not even a big tea fan. But my kids are. So I'm justifying this as a late Valentine's Day present, since I didn't get them one, because I'm being anti-commercialist ;). Not. Mother guilt. Wonderful thing.

sickies

Jude is still running between 100 and 102F fever. He has diarrhea, poor guy. He's fussy. He's miserable. I feel awful for him. The only upside is that he actually slept last night, which means I got some sleep, which is good, because I haven't been getting any, and I'm starting to feel sick too. Emma's complaining of a sore throat, but she doesn't have a fever.

I sent Tom out for baby motrin last night. I've lost my faith in Tylenol. It just doesn't do anything! the motrin worked great and gave Jude some rest and reprieve from feeling like crap.

we've got a ton going on today, but I'm going to try to bow out and let tom do most of it. He's taking the day off from remodeling a bathroom so he can help out and run errands. His mom is coming back today too! Yay!! I've missed her - 2 weeks felt like forever.

I actually took a day off work yesterday to stay home with Jude - I haven't had a sick day in ages! I felt so guilty. It's hard to find subs, but I'm glad I did, as his most miserable time yesterday was right when I would have been teaching. I was glad to just be with him. He's nursing well still, so I'm not planning on going to the doctor.

the weekend

We survived travelling with 3 kids and a puppy ;). Sully was GREAT in the car and behaved himself quite well all around. He piddled a bit on Erica's carpet once :-/, but we got that cleaned up, and he didn't have any more accidents. He even stayed in the car and let Tom and I shop at the mall for some PJs for Jude.

Speaking of Jude, yep, he's scooting, even on his back! He has to be closely watched now. Sadly, he has his first real fever. He woke up in the middle of the night w/ a 100F fever. I gave him some Tylenol - he felt hotter than that to me. I don't trust the thermometer very much I guess. I held off again until just a bit ago. He doesn't seem particularly bothered by it. He just feels like a little furnace.

I called off work today in case he gets worse. I don't want to drag a sick baby to the gym in case he feels horrible later today. I really need to get to the co-op though.

I noticed that the van lady didn't beep again today ;). Woot! Someone did though - at 7! Damn lazy people who can't walk 10 steps to ring the doorbell.

the van lady

So in the ongoing saga of the lady who picks up the developmentally disabled woman next door every day, and drops her off...

You may recall that in the autumn, I asked her to please not LAY on the horn every morning at 8 a.m., because I had a new baby and would like to sleep. Well, and I work evenigns anyway, so we often don't get to bed till late, and sleep till 8:30 or 9 if possible.

So, lately, she's been honking longer and louder again. Yesterday, she honked very loudly - 2 blasts, 3 times. I had had very little sleep. We've been having some rough nights with Jude lately. I actually got up and started to put my boots on to ask her to chill out, but Tom was already outside.

Apparently, he really bawled her out...she insisted she wasn't allowed to get out of the van to ring the bell, which is crap. The guy who subs always does it and never beeps, and the neighbor told me she is actually *supposed* to come to the door and help her get her granddaughter into the van.

I guess Tom put the fear of God in her though. she didn't beep ONCE this morning :-D. I love my husband.

ack!

Jude just scooted/crawled backwards halfway across my bedroom! He's out of control ;). Not even 5 months old and he's going to be crawling in no time!

Emma is at her first gig as a mother's helper. Hope it's going well!

Soren did 2 funny thigns this week. I was working on balance beam with her and she wobbles when she stands up, so I told her to squeeze her butt (meaning the muscles), so everytime she started to fall, she grabbed her butt with both hands!

The other funny thing was that she took a cheerleading class (ick!) last night and they count everything to 8. So there's a rythym that they learn. So on 8, they go to 1 and PUSH for their back handspring - well soren is delayed in her reaction to this counting thing. Her coach finally asked her - "Soren, what comes after 8?" and she looked at him very seriously and said, "nine." LOL! She was waiting for 9, not 1 ;). So he explained it to her again. Six is such a wonderful, literal age.

yay

Jude rolled over today! Now he can roll from front to back and back to front :). He'll be all over the place before I know it.

Sullivan hasn't had an accident in the house in 3 days!

The girls had their well child checks today. Emma was 43 lbs, and 48 inches tall. She is back on the chart, around 3rd percentile for height.

Soren was 44.5 inches tall and 34 lbs. She is in the 40th percentile for height! She had a huge growth spurt and so did Emma. I knew I was buying tons of clothes!

slacker

I haven't been blogging much this week.

I went away over the weekend with Emma for her meet (of course I took Jude) in Binghamton, NY. Their team took first place again! They are the top Level 4 team in the state right now :). It's their 4th top place in a row! Emma didn't have a really stellar meet personally. I'm starting to wonder if she has ADD or something. She just can't focus on anything for any length of time, in any aspect of her life, let alone gymnastics. She used to have such a great attention span, but not anymore. The owner of the gym talked with her tonight about her focus and they are working on a plan to try to create some better habits. Hopefully that will help and will spill over into other areas too!

It was good to have some space from Soren and the constant conflict that has defined our relationship lately. I came back feeling a lot more refreshed and ready to try some new things with her. That's a good thing.

Jude has his 4/5 mo checkup today. He was 15 lb. 2 oz and 26.5" long. Everything checked out fine!

Soren and Emma have their 6 and 9 yo checkups, respectively, on Wednesday. Should be interesting.

What else...not much else going on. I've got to do quarterly reports for hsing (still!) and look harder for some freelancing work.

Oh, and I got the nicest email from someone who read an article I wrote for Mothering mag a long time ago. It's so nice to get stuff like that!

winter

I'm sick of winter already. It's been warmer and all the snow has been melting a bit at a time, but today it sleeted for a bit and I realized how ready I am for spring. Damn, too bad it's only February!

The work truck is fixed to the tune of over $800. Ouch. Tom and his mom's neighbor were able to fix the Suburban for about $75 - it was the distributor cap and some ignition thingy under it. (love how specific I am about these mechanical problems?)

Tom is finding and scheduling work for the next couple of weeks, which is great. I did massive cleaning around here today. He brought a ton of stuff here that was at the townhouse and in his bedroom at his mom's house, so I've been sorting and trying to find space for more space, and also freecycling a lot of stuff. Thank goddess for freecycle!

I hung out at my friend's house today for a bit (the kids were having a playdate and I thought I could use one too, after all that cleaning!) and found out that another friend is pregnant. I'm so excited! She's been trying for some time now and it's great news. She's into the second trimester now, but I"m not going to name any names because she wants to tell people herself :).

It's been a busy week - lots of laundry, cleaning. Ugh. I am so sick of dishes! Bless Tom, he's doing dishes right now. We had catfish, crescent rolls and salad for dinner. Soren had a major meltdown. I think she was really tired after her logn playdate - she fell asleep on the way to the gym, and then fought about dinner and wouldn't eat anything she usually does. Rather than argue any more with her, which is just futile, I picked her up, carried her upstairs, undressed her, brushed her teeth, tucked her into bed and read some random book to her until she was almost asleep and then told her how much I loved her and snuggled her to sleep. It must be so hard to feel so frustrated with the world so much of the time. I hope she feels loved despite how hard it is to get along sometimes. I adore her so. I wish I knew better what makes her tick.

Sullivan is doing well. He had a vet appt. yesterday and did great. He's already growing and is still doing pretty well with housebreaking, although we a few incidents today. Jude was happy and wonderful today, except while I was teaching. He gave Tom a really hard time. I felt so badly. Tom really feels awful when Jude is upset and he can't fix it. He slings him and snuggles him and tries everything. He didn't even really want to nurse - I think his mouth just hurts a lot. He makes all these weird faces like he's trying to rub his gums with his lips and his tongue, and only Tylenol or homeopathic teething stuff helps for any length of time.

Anyway, I should get to bed. Sully's here chewing a bone to death, all the kids are in bed, and I'm beat. My back is hurting this week from work, and I've been trying to do more conditioning with them to get my own strength up. ::::yawn::::

car trouble

Damn, nothing ever goes right for long around here. Tom's work truck lost its brakes the other day and is going in to be fixed today. Last night the Suburban just stopped running. !@#$!@% How can this be? And we really don't have any money to fix these beasts with Tom out of work. I have had to rob Peter to pay Paul again and I hate that.

Anyone want to buy a used motor home? We need to get rid of THAT beast too! I'm so frustrated.

In other news, Jude is so close to rolling on to his tummy from his back. He has reached a new level of vocalization too - really yelling and cooing and so much fun! Laughing out loud too :).

Sully the puppy is doing great. He slept all night last night (more than I can say for Jude, who had me up most of the night nursing). S. had a couple accidents yesterday but is starting to whine to go out, which is great. What a sweet guy!

Tom's birthday was uneventful. Poor guy! Broken down car, moving stuff out of the townhouse. Blah!