Baby..

Changing my name...

I sit here during my first quiet moment of the last few days, silently contemplating changing my name…   No,  I don’t mean my given name,  I mean the name MOM, or rather Mama as baby calls me.   The name given to me by my wonderful children…   And at this point I don’t even mean ALL of my children, and there happens to be 7 of them, no, I mean the baby, Miranda…   Now normally I wouldn’t think of such a thing, but after 3 days I am tired….   Tired of lifting her in that 1 ton cast of hers to take her to the potty only to have her say,  “I don’t have to go now, Mama”   (said in that sweet and innocent little voice of hers)  and then struggling to lift her up and get her back to bed because she cant walk on that foot. Tired of watching Scooby Doo, or Richie Rich ALL day long cuz she wants Mama to sit with her….   Tired of forcing Motrin and Tylenol into her because she cries that her big leg, (which is what she calls her cast) hurts so bad, but she doesn’t want to take the medicine to make it feel better.  Tired of fighting to wash her hair and get the tangles combed out because it gets so terribly ratted up when all she does is lay around and rub her head back and forth over the pillows and sheets…  Just tired….   Not that I would give my job of mom up for anything in the world…  But gee whiz!!!   Enough is enough already!   And I still have 9 more days before the cast can come off….     Will I make it???  Stay tuned…. On another note…  it is HOT here!  Not just a little hot!  It is real hot!  Heat index of 108*  Our central air has been out all season as we wait on my brother, the heating/ac technician, to get us a quote on a new furnace /ac unit.  At least we have a room ac unit in our bedroom, the computer room and baby’s room…  Alex and Sara have bedrooms in the basement so they spend a lot of time down there in their rooms where it is cool too.   I keep refilling Baron’s, (our almost 2 yr old German Shepherd male) water bowl.  He seems to prefer it outside under our big evergreen bush laying in the dirt.  I am thinking I will go outside pretty soon and turn the hose on for him so he can play in the water for awhile.  I have never seen a GS that likes the water as much as he does.  Whenever I turn the hose on it is a fight between him and baby to see who gets to soak up the water…   Generally he wins… Hubby is back at work, but he does get tomorrow off so maybe a little more will get done on the deck…   So there….   I feel a little better….  Baby is napping right now so I think maybe I will take some quiet time and go lay in my bed and maybe watch a big people movie rather than the ‘toons    And just in case there is any doubt..  I love baby with all my heart, her smile makes me melt, her little arms hugging me close is worth any amount of tiredness on my part, and will I continue to jump when she calls me???    You bet!   Sometimes, ya just gotta  let it all out though….     thanks for dropping by and don’t forget to share a smile

Calgon!! Take me AWAY!!

It has been a rotten couple of days… First of all we were SUPPOSED to have the hot tub deck done by today so we could get started on digging the postholes for our patio deck. As of right now we are a day behind and tomorrow hubby goes back to work. The reason we are behind is because baby was seriously hurt yesterday. My son Alex and son in law, Stephen, were removing the old patio blocks from the spot that our new patio deck is going to be put. Baby had snuck back outside without me catching her and suddenly I heard a bloodcurdling scream from Alex… MOM!!!! (image placeholder) I threw the stuff in my hands down and came running. He ran into the kitchen with baby in his arms and blood everywhere. Alex is my big, strong 16 yr old son and baby is Miranda, our 2-½ yr old daughter. Hubby came running in the door behind Alex, the scream was so loud he heard it over the noise of the drill he was using. I saw blood all over and quickly realized it was her big toe, a patio block fell on it and the toe nail was just hanging and there were cuts all around her toe. I wrapped it in a towel and headed to the car. I got in and held baby, something I NEVER do in the car. She always sits in her car seat. She was screaming and crying and kicking her feet. (image placeholder) She had blood all over my shirt and pants and her dad’s face. We got to the emergency room and the nurses tried to get it cleaned off. Baby wouldn’t let anyone look at it, she just kept saying she wanted a band-aid and to go home. In his wisdom hubby had grabbed a Dora band-aid before we left the house and he kept telling her the Dr’s were just looking for a bigger band-aid. The Dr finally got a look at her toe and said he needed to call the Orthopedic Dr in to look at it. We got an x-ray… Yep… It was broke, as well as cut all over and needing stitches. Baby finally calmed down in my arms and fell asleep, I am sure just from pure exhaustion. The Ortho Dr showed up, said it needed surgery, no way could they fix it with her awake so down to surgery we went. They took her in and we waited for about 90 minutes… Finally the Dr came in and said she was all sewed up and in a cast from the top of her foot to the top of her thigh. She has to wear it for at least 2 weeks and then we go in and get it checked. Her toenail is gone, but hopefully it will grow back and there won’t be any lasting damage. When we saw her she was still very groggy, but Hubby leaned over and put that Dora band-aid that we had carried all thru the hospital on the cast over her hurt toe (image placeholder) picked her up and we left… She is on antibiotics, pain medication and bed rest… So she has spent the day lying in our king sized bed watching the 'toons. And guess what? The satellite glitched, the 'toons went off and baby got off our big bed, walked to the door and was captured coming out into the hallway by her big sister! I knew she wouldn’t stay down long (image placeholder) Soooo, I wrote another book as my daughter Catie would say,,, but really that was a very scary afternoon and evening for mom and dad and I never want to have another one of those! I sure hope YOUR day has been better (image placeholder)

Its been another busy week...

It’s been another busy week… The postholes for the deck have been dug and the cement has been poured… The posts have been cut, put into place, and the next thing to do is to anchor them to the beginnings of a deck frame. Hubby is doing it as he can when he gets time off from work. His next block of days off will be next Wednesday-Friday, so hopefully the bulk of the deck will be done then…. Then we can move over to the next deck and do it all over again :) I sure wish we had time for an all day ride on the Goldwing. Seems like all we have been doing is working. Ohhhh and our new bed has a mind of it’s own… One night shortly after we got it we were watching television and the massage started on it’s own. We finally got it shut off but had to use the power down which drains the batteries immediately. We didn’t replace them right away cuz we thought this was just a fluke and wouldn’t happen again…. Sure enough, a couple days later we were sleeping and at 4am the head of the bed started rising by itself! Talk about a rude awakening! I woke my poor hubby up yelling about the bed rising. It took another half hour to get it to lower again so we could go back to sleep. I called customer service, they said it must be a peak in the electrical system, so we went to town and got a 24 joule surge protector, changed all the batteries and re programmed the controllers… You guessed it…. It happened again… Another call to customer service and they are finally going to send a service technician (fancy term for repairman) out sometime next week to fix the problem…. Right now the bed is unplugged… Baby isn’t too happy cuz she has gotten used to watching the ‘toons in our bed with the head adjusted up :) She is such a sweetheart :) Hmmmmmm, Lily fell up the steps the other day and bruised her legs. She is due to have the baby the 18th of August so the Midwives were concerned and had her go in for a stress test just to check on the baby. Everything is fine and I am hoping she doesn’t have another fall.. Her leg has been giving out on her occasionally… So far the chiro hasn’t done much to help her deal with the pain or the weakness. I am sure it is all just the way the baby is laying.. In dig scrapping news… I am working on a 4x6 mini album to put in my purse. So many times people ask for pics of the kids and I haven’t carried any with me for a while now, I just never seem to have enough room. That is going to change though since I am doing this mini album. It is coming out pretty good, I only have 3 LO’s done though. I am going to have to run to town soon, the milk is gone and baby needs her pink chocolate milk…. She doesn’t call it cocoa she likes strawberry milk and so to her it is pink chocolate milk… And the premade stuff in the bottle is magic pink chocolate milk cuz it is already made up :) Alex is off at his sister Lily’s house for the weekend helping her move the girls’ bedroom around. Sara is going to the fair with Abby and Catie… Rachel is on her way to work, so soon it will be just me and baby again. Hubby has lunch at 1:30 so I may take baby and go get our milk and have lunch with hubby… She loves going to McD’s :) Ok, that is all for now… Thanks for taking the time to read about this small part of my life…. And if you do visit, a comment is always nice :)

Its been a long week...

It’s been a long week….  Just the start of many of them I think.  We are in the midst of a major remodeling job…  On our agenda is redoing the living room, dining room, kitchen, 2 bathrooms, back porch, building 2 decks on the back of the house and putting in a new 6 foot tall privacy fence around our 1 acre….   The insulation is up in the living room, next for that room is wallboard and plaster.  Of course we re-did the ceiling too so that also has to be covered.  Since the weather is so warm we decided to move out projects outside and get started on one of the decks.  So the hot tub deck has begun.  Thursday my husband and Alex (my son) started digging the holes for the posts.  Now these aren’t just any holes, they have to be 42” deep and the zoning people will be out to check the depth.  Then they wont come out again til the deck is totally built.  I think that is just so if you did make a mistake they can happily tell you to tear the whole thing down again and fix it….  Anyway, back to the postholes…   We rented a 12” gas powered auger that takes 2 men to run.  It was a monster!  By the time they got deep enough to come close to the 42” they couldn’t even pull the auger back out of the ground.  So it went back and my brother is gonna have someone come over Sunday morning with a tractor driven auger and finish deepening the holes.  They are all about 2/3 dug now.  Today all the wood gets delivered, so next Wednesday when hubby has another day off he can get started on the building of the deck…   Other news….   We finally got our new bed delivered.  We decided we had slept on that old bed long enough so went out looking for a bed to replace it.  Sounds pretty easy huh?   Well it isn’t….    If you haven’t been out lately looking at beds you have no idea how many different types there are.  We finally decided on a Comfort Select bed, which is better known as the “sleep number” bed.  After upgrading to a king size and getting a nice plush top for the bed we were ready to order.  This is where it gets painful….   The cost is awful, but we decided the warranty on the bed is 20 yrs….   And if we can sleep better it will be well worth it.  Since I hurt my back so many times I have a very hard time sleeping anyway, a lot of tossing and turning and pain…   I have to say though, in the last 2 nights since the bed was delivered I have woken up without a backache.  Of course it hurts within a few hours after getting up, but at least it isn’t hurting thru the night.  Hubby is still having pain in his hip, but we think he just needs to adjust the bed on his side so it is a little softer.    I guess we will figure that out….   Hmmmm…  other than that there isn’t much going on.  Alex went to Adventureland with his brother and sister in law for the weekend.  Sara and I are going to clean house…   Fun, Fun (     Thanks for checking in…….

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Potty Training....

The house is quiet for a few minutes so I thought I would talk about my day. I am trying to potty train Miranda. Sometimes she does pretty well and other times she doesn’t. So I decided to take my mother in law’s advice and stop putting training undies on her and just use little girl panties. I think this is working better. Oh, she still wets her undies, but at least she is immediately removing them because she doesn’t like being wet. She gets up on the potty, but by then she cant go anymore since she already just did :( But I think she is getting a better idea of how this all works.. No one but a mother will appreciate this but yesterday she went to the potty without being asked and actually pooped in the potty :) I was so happy when she came and got me to show me what she had done…. She just might figure out this potty training stuff after all :) And she sure does love her Dora, Care Bears, and little princesses undies…. :)

Tattoo...

Well, I finally did it. I went back and had my wrist tattoo touched up. In the process I had my husband's name added to it and a star for my baby girl who is the only one of my children that didnt have a star yet. So it is finally finished, (well, probably NOT finished, I can go back in a month and have the color redone if I choose). I am going to attempt to add some pics of it, but in case they dont show up I will try and describe the tattoo. I have a wrist bracelet of clouds encircling my wrist with a birthstone colored star for each of my children dotted along the clouds. On the top of my wrist is a sun/moon which signifies my husband, (the star) cradled by the moon, (me), and of course my husbands name.. It looks pretty good right now, but it will take the full month of healing before the true colors can be seen.... I got a bunch of errands ran today too. I had to take my husbands office chair back in and get it exchanged. I decided that waiting a month for a new wheel to replace the one that broke was long enough and I called last night to complain. The manager told me to bring the chair in and just exchange it for a new one. I think he much preferred exchanging the chair to listening to me complain. So that is done and my daughter Rachel just got it all put together for hubby. So far it hasnt fallen apart :) I got Alex's pictures of our vacation developed and picked up. That was fun.... Somehow WalMart messed up and didnt get the one hour pics done. Then they lost one of the rolls, which was eventually found in another womans' pkg.... Needless to say, I got all 3 pkgs free. Sometimes it just doesnt pay to get up in the morning, (for the WalMart employees that is :) Time for me to try and add some pics and then I am going to call it a night... Sweet dreams :)

Home Again :)

As the title goes.... We are home again :) It sure has been a long week, but it was a really nice one. Monday morning and another phone call to the bank and the money problem was solved, that was a big load off my shoulders... Ohhhh.. I forgot to mention the pigeons. We got into London, Ohio on the afternoon of 6/30. There was a semi truck at the hotel carrying 3,000 homing pigeons that were due to be let out Saturday morning at daybreak to begin a race back to New Jersey. We dont know who won, but we were all up bright and early Saturday morning to watch the pigeons circle and begin the race.. Saturday was spent swimming and visiting with my husband's mother.... Sunday was also spent visiting. Monday we left for Ashtabula, Ohio and more family. After a cookout at my husband's father house and lots of pictures and catching up on all the news we drove to Jim's (my husbands brothers') house and did some more visiting. By the time we got back to our room it was after midnight... We spent Monday night in a motel in Conneaut, Ohio. Then it was up early to drive into Sherman New York for the big family reunion. Lots of family was there, lots of people my husband didnt recognize. Thankfully his cousins wife took us around and introduced us and then a lot of memories were jogged. I guess that is what happens when you have been away from family for so many years... The reunion went so well that Ron is already planning on another trip east next summer for the 2007 family reunion... The night we drove to Fredonia, Ohio and stayed in the Days Inn there... NEVER, NEVER stay there.... We got locked out of our room when we went for dinner. Our magnetic card wouldnt let us back in to our room. So Ron walked all the way around front to the desk for a new card. He walked back to the room only to find out that this card wasnt working either. By now it is after 10pm... We are tired and cranky, baby is tired and cranky and Ron has to walk to the lobby again.... This time the desk clerk brought her master key and let us in.. And told us to make sure someone stayed in the room because apparently the keys werent working :( As if that wasnt enough the internet was also down. And all this for a room we reserved in advance and had paid for. I have a survey card I intend to fill out and send back to them letting them know just how rotten we thought they were. Wednesday morning it was on to Niagara Falls. It was wonderful! I got lots of great pictures. We went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride up to the Horseshoe Falls which can only be seen from the Canadian side. We also went on a hike up to the Cave of the Winds. Both of those excursions had us soaked, but it was so much fun :) We took alot of trolley rides, saw alot of different sights. Didnt get a chance to see the aquarium or the discovery center, but I guess we can do that after next years reunion :) Then it was time to head back towards Illinois. It was late so we stopped in Fredonia, Ohio again for the night, only this time we by passed the Days Inn and stayed at the Comfort Inn. It was sooooo much nicer... Everything worked, we had a great breakfast the next morning, and by 8:30am we were on our way home. After a quick stop in Ashtabula, Ohio to pick up a computer for baby and a stop to see Lake Erie we were on our way. Finally 9:30pm we were home... What a long trip... But it was well worth it. Maybe next year Lily and Stephen and the grandbabies can come too.... Now I just have to get everything put away and get this house back in order.... Soooo... baby just came and asked me to go watch the 'toons with her so I am off to do that.. Have a great night everyone :)

On vacation...

Well, here we are. Sitting in London, Ohio, in a hotel room visiting family for a few days. I pull out the laptop to check on our banking info and what do you think happens? The bank messed our deposit up by about $700.... Not a big problem if I was home and could go to the bank, but a real hassle since I am about 8 hrs north of home... So I call, and they are supposed to be checking into it and calling me "right Back" oh yeah... We have all heard that before. That was about 40 minutes ago and still no phone call back. And to top it all off the 2 women that would normally take care of this sort of thing are gone for the day and we are starting a long weekend. Hopefully they get this fixed soon because that is part of our vacation money and we really could use it.... A lovely start to our vacation... stayed tuned for further updates...... :)