mia

I have been MIA for too long now...So many things happening...Just when I think things are going to settle down, something new crops up. I so desire to post more regularly and I plan to very soon. Girls are doing great!! Hard to believe Madeline (A.K.A. danger girl) is 9 months old and crawling like a crazy woman. I need to post all that has happened. I hope I can pull it forth from my mind when I have the time to sit and write.

We sold the house this week and have a whopping 10 days to be in the new house...I start teaching my summer class Monday...fun in the sun....................oh and raging humidity.

More to come when life settles just a bit. :)

Still Sick...

So everyone is still sick. Apparently this bug likes to make multiple rounds before exiting. We are heading out to see my dad in Arizona tomorrow morning. Hoping the hot dry weather will kill this lingering pest.

Bye for now...

Her First Spring...

Ramblings...

Yes, Spring has sprung! It always amazes me how warm and delightful 60 degrees feels after a long cold dreary winter. I took the girls out to play next door on Saturday afternoon and they enjoyed it so much. Madeline just cooed and smiled the entire time. However, in hindsight, Abby was moving a little slow...I realize now that she was coming down with a nasty cold. Yep, the last two days have been warm and sunny and we are indoors! Gotta love it! I got over my bronchitis just in time to take care of Abby...just praying Madeline does not get it next.

I never posted Easter pics as it was like an act of Congress to get us together and have a photo taken. Madeline was either asleep in the carseat or Abby was half naked. Maybe next year. The best part was that Brad was off this year and was able to go to church with us.

I guess I don't have a whole lot to write about...even in spite of the fact that I have not posted an entry in days...such an exciting life we lead :) Truthfully, I am just now feeling human and thrilled that I can say more than three words without a ten minute coughing spell.

On a happy note, my mom is coming this Friday for a visit! I can't wait to see her. She will stay until Tuesday morning. Although she is retired, she is teaching part-time at the community college and she has to be in time for class Tuesday night. It is not long enough but we will make the most of it. She and Brad are going to make a fabric covered headboard for our bed and we are going to hang the drapes she has made for us! I can't wait to see them. I hope everyone is well by then!

On another bright note, Madeline is doing so well. I give her last bottle around 11p and she sleeps from around 11:30p to 7:30 or 8am each morning. She is also starting to sleep better in the days as well. I was actually able to put her down twice today, AWAKE, and have her fall asleep for a 2 hour nap each time! To most, that may not seem like a big deal but to me, HUGE! I have never been able to lay a baby down in a crib and have them go to sleep. It may sound crazy but it's true. I can hardly peel myself away from the door for watching this miracle happen before my eyes. Not too mention, how stinking cute she looks. I always nursed Abby to sleep so this whole concept is so foreign to me. Abby really struggles with sleeping even now so it will be interesting to see how this impacts Maddies sleeping habits as she gets older. I love it! It is just so wonderful to see her happy!

Well, I guess I better get back to work...so much to catch up on.

Happy Spring! I can't wait to get outdoors again...course by then, it will be raining. :)

For the record...

I have finally decided to paint my kitchen cabinets. I wanted to do this for years but it has either not been the right time or I have just not been able to decide on a color (or agree with Brad about the color :)) Finally, we picked two colors and I have slowly started the grueling process of prepping and painting these white cabinets.

Yesterday I was in the floor painting with my Abby girl right by my side. As I scooted to the next section, she scooted with me. She asked if she could paint about ten times but finally became content just watching and oh, sticking her baby finger in the paint every once in awhile. At one point, she got up and was playing near me with her blue and yellow plastic SOHO drinking cups (Abby's choice of toys--a complete post in itself) and she put her arms around my neck and said "you are the best little mommy in the whole wide world."
My heart melted. She tells me she loves me all the time but she has never said that before. It was so gentle and sweet of her....No apparent reason (i.e., I was not giving her candy), she just felt like telling me that. She then walked over to Madeline who was in the jump seat and said "you are the best baby in the whole wide world." She loves us! How lucky we are!

So, for the record, I am the "best little mommy in the whole wide world"...atleast according to Abby at three years old....Somehow I think I will need to remind her of this when she is sixteen and I won't let her go out with her friends.

Apparently, I forgot I had a blog...

I don't know where the days have gone but it's been awhile since my last post. I haven't really forgotten I have a blog, I just have not been too inspired to write much lately. I don't know why exactly but I figured I would try to post something anyway.

The girls and I travelled to Cincinnati to visit some dear friends last week. We had a great time, but as always, the time goes by way too fast. After we got home, it seems that the days have just been a blur. Hubby was off this past weekend so we just spent some good quality time together as a family. It was nice, really nice. It seems that things are slowly falling into place. Not completely, but they are getting there. I guess I expected that to happen a lot sooner than six months after Madeline blessed our lives. I feel like such a ninnie complaining about this adjustment from one to two children but man o' man, it has been an adjustment. I just keep reminding myself that it was all of the other feeding and reflux issues that made it so hard. We are on our way now though! She will be mobile before we know it...and then I will be complaining about her climbing...:)

So, not much of a post tonight either...rambling.

I suppose I will just upload some photos and call it a night....tired.

Abby girl...

Little miss with the Easter Bunny...although he/she gave me the creeps, she loved him. Check out her new haircut...yes, she told daddy we went to the "booty parlur" to have this done. Everything I told her to do while she was in the chair having it cut, she made sure to tell me when I was having mine cut just after her. "Hold very still mama." Oh, and yes she made sure to tell me how I should say thank-you to the hair stylist as well. And look, she is wearing more than just a pull-up! Atleast until we got home...strips down in the kitchen immediately upon arrival home....without fail...yes, she is a fan of the pull-up...my Abby girl....

6 Months Old...

Hard to believe that my little bird is six months old. Yep, I took her for her six month check-up on Tuesday. 16 lbs. 2 oz. The formula is packing the weight on my little chunk o' change. The shots did her in the past two days but she seemed back to normal today. Started her on solids but she is not nearly as interested as Abby was. As I learned with breastfeeding her, she is not too keen on having to exert any amount of effort to feed herself...just let it flow in her open mouth. She is something else.....my babe. The photo of her in the high chair is right after her first bowl of super porridge. She ate it up but I don't know how jazzed she was.

I could not resist taking the photo of her sleeping. This was her earlier this week prior to her shot induced coma. She chose to sleep in Monday morning until after 9am! Note the size of her nightime diaper. After 10 hours I am pretty sure it weighs almost as much as her. Can you say HEAVY WETTER!! My system seems to be working right now but I have to help her get on her tummy when I lay her down at night as the diaper together with her longies are so fat that she can't get herself turned over. Not really, but almost... it's cute. My bu-bu bubble butt.

My favorite photo here is the one of her in the sling with daddy. So precious.

Happy 6 months sweet Maddie Bird....We love you to pieces..........

Oh my gosh...

Abby and I were snuggling early this morning. As I started to move towards getting up, I yawned, stretched, and in a sleepy voice said "oh my goshhhhh." Abby sat up next to me and with her curious little voice said "what's gosh mean?"

aaahhh...life with a three year old!

Enough Said...

No need to go in to every last detail... I will just say, the Alimentum is working.

I need to focus on so many other areas of my life that I have been neglecting...I hate it that I get so consumed with one thing, obsessed almost. I honestly don't think I have always been this way? I think it started when I left work to stay at home with Abby...I don't know. I don't know much anymore :)

Anyway, not much of a post. Need to start the day, get something accomplished and hopefully get out of this funk................

Happy Monday!

No Textbook Baby Here...

So our sweet Madeline has had a somewhat rocky couple days...I have sort of been holding my breath...praying she is not also allergic to the soy formula. She has been resisting the bottle quite a bit and has thrown up a few full bottles over the last two days. I don't think it's a stomach bug because she is not displaying any sort of other symptoms. Her cheeks are bright red like she has wind burn.

Now I am thinking that she really does have reflux in addition to the dairy allergy. Although I thought about slowly taking her off her reflux meds, I decided that I better continue to give them to her until we get the formula working smoothly in her system and we talk to the doc at her six month. I called the ped's. office yesterday and they suggested I try a little rice cereal in the bottle. I had heard about this for GERD babies but had not yet tried it. She had a few small bottles yesterday and today with a few teaspoons of cereal in it and was able to hold all but one of them down....

She has not slept all day...fussier than usual and had another long painful crying spell. After I was finally able to get her calmed down I gave her a bottle with 1/2 soy, 1/2 alimentum, and some rice cereal. She resisted it but finally, she began to slowly drink it. She got all four ounces down and slept for about 45 minutes. She has held it down but I just don't know. I am thinking that I am going to keep slowly adding the alimentum until I can get her switched over to it completely??? I would like to see her after having the alimentum in her system for a few days to compare. I just don't know anymore. We had a good 5 or 6 days...
Aahh...I hate it when the wind gets knocked from your sail............

Please keep this little bird and her mommy in your prayers.

"It's Bal-lay Time"

We just got home from our first ballet class! I don't know who enjoyed it more, me or Abby. We have been looking forward to it for a month... I took her into the class and as I was taking off her coat, I pointed to the ballet teacher. I told Abby that was her teacher (she is very into teachers right now). She was in awhh...she just got this sweet little shy smile and sort of batted her eyes at her...similar to her response to Santa this year...although, she didn't try to snuggle with the teacher...yet.

The class is called "Dancing Dolls" and it is the first in a series of ballet classes offered at the Y. It is for 2-4 year olds and the moms stay at "participate" I didn't know how much! This out of shape mama was sweating by the end. Each week there will be a different theme--this week was Sabrina the Ballerina. We started with some dancing and stretching to get going, then had a story about Sabrina, and then, BALLET! This is where I stopped participating so much...:) I am no twinkle toes that's for sure. I got the camera out instead :)

At one point, the teacher gave a large cloth ballerina to each child. Then the music started...Lionel Richie "Ballerina Girl" Marne--you know what happened next don't you? Don't worry, they were just little ones in the corners of my eyes...I held them back as much as possible and I did not embarrass Abby. It sounds silly but that song brings up old memories of my life at about age 16. That is when that song came out--about 1985 or 1986. My mom had just bought a CD player...oohhh, they were all the rage! This CD--Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling" had just come out. Hearing that song today just stopped me in my tracks. Twenty two years ago I would have never believed it if you told me that someday I would stand and watch my little girl twirl and dance to it's melody. I know... it ain't easy being cheesy..............:)

HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE BEING A MOMMY!

A New Day

Dear God,
Thank you for this new day, its beauty and its light.
Thank you for my chance to begin again.
Free me from the limitations of yesterday.
Today I may be reborn.
May I become more fully a reflection of Your radiance.
Give me strength and compassion and courage and wisdom.
Show me the light in myself and others.
May I recognize the good that is available everywhere.
May I be, this day, an instrument of love and healing.
Give me deep peace that I might serve You most deeply.
Amen.

I have never considered myself to be very good at praying.. I know there is no right or wrong way to pray...I am just one of those people who hears other people pray and thinks, man I wish I could pray like that...silly huh? This is a prayer from Marianne Williamson that I absolutely love. It says what I think in my head and feel in my heart but am unable to articulate with my words. So, recently I have been saying this prayer each morning when I wake...I think it's beautiful.

Soy! It's What's For Dinner...

And breakfast, lunch, and anything in between...Yes, my prayers have been answered. I have been praying to God asking for guidance...The crying, fussiness, and sleeplessness with Madeline had me at the end of my rope...barely hanging on. Praying to God everyday for help as I felt helpless as a mother...inadequate for not being able to help my child...on so many days, holding her almost 24 hours a day was not even enough....

Last Thursday was the day...the day God led me to my answer. I was reading one of my favorite blogs (The Big Trade-Off-- I have not learned to link on blogger yet :). The post I read was related to her son's allergy to milk. She posted a link to an earlier post which showed a picture of Alimentum formula. It was like a spotlight came over my kitchen table...suddenly, it was all clear....Madeline was allergic to my breast milk...well, allergic to the dairy I was ingesting. This was the reason for all of the crying, fussiness, pained tummy, sleeplessness, gassy ...oh my goodness, this was it.

I needed more information...quick. I read through old posts on the blog but could not piece together the whole story. I wanted to know more about her son's allergy and if her story was similar to mine. To make a long story short, I emailed Karen and asked her for more information. She promptly replied and gave me all of the details. She also gave me words of comfort and compassion for what Madeline, our family and I had been going through. In addition, she suggested I email a friend of hers who had breastfed and switched to a soy based formula. Between these two wonderful ladies, I received the answers I had been so desperately seeking. That was it, I was going to pump and try Madeline on a soy formula for three days. If she got better, I would know it is an allergy to dairy. If not, then...well, I did not want to think about that...:)

Thursday was another painful night and Friday morning first thing, I headed out to buy the soy!
I can't say the first day was much different but I kept reminding myself that it would probably take three days. Then it happened...I put her to bed that night and 6 hours later, she woke up! She even woke up mid-way through the six hours and put herself back to sleep within five minutes with just a little sleepy talk...FIRST TIME EVER! Yes, I knew it...this was the answer.

Second day, again, was not that great but bedtime sure was...She slept for 7 hours last night, had a bottle and slept 4 more...HEAVEN! Course, I did not get much sleep as I kept waking up and looking at the clock...in shock...I will have to break the trained night waking on my part :)

It gets better, today she had two, count 'em, two 2 1/2 hour naps. Minimal crying and fussiness. She had a bath with Abby, a bottle, and then get this, fell asleep in my arms while I was stretched out LAYING DOWN in bed!!! Another FIRST!! I did not have to stand and do the sleep dance...It was SO nice. I was able to lay next to Abby and tickle her as I always do and still get Maddie to sleep. I can't tell you how wonderful that was. Normally, by bedtime it is an all-out cry fest as Maddie is fussy and requiring me to do back flips and Abby is fed up with the crying that has gone on all day and just desperately wanting mommy to just tickle her and quietly tell bedtime stories.

Honestly, my stomach is still in knots a bit as I feel like a caged animal finally set free. I have been wound so tight and become so over-tired that I was just a robot just going through the motions. That is NOT me... There were only a handful of days where there were "moments" of happiness and contentment. I tried so very hard to find the blessings...the good things about the day...how things could have been worse. Some days I was able to but for so many, I just wished the hours away. I kept thinking things would get better as soon as Maddie was older and got through the reflux...I just kept wishing and hoping... While I think I was good at maintaining and hiding my thoughts and feelings to the girls, inside, I was going crazy. Feeling so overwhelmed and inadequate. The lack of sleep for days on end made the problem worse...add to it, wintry gray cold days inside...oh goodness, I am really going off the deep end now...apparently, I needed to write this all down to get it off my chest...therapeutic I suppose.

So, Karen needles to say, your post from last Thursday changed my life! THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!! I hope someday I can write a post about something so simple and have such an impact!! Somehow, I don't see that happening...unless of course there is some recipe that could change your life. :)

Wow, I did not expect to write this much...making up for too few posts I guess. I am so excited for the days ahead...all of the firsts with Madeline. As she lay on my chest tonight, she had this little smile on her face...clearly, not one I had ever seen after drinking my poison! My heart just ached...wishing I had been able to figure all of this out sooner...what a strong little person she is...she hung in there with me. As I said, I can't even let my mind entertain those thoughts...I am so very sorry sweet Maddie Claire... I can't wait to see the "real" Maddie emerge...we have wonderful days ahead of us my dear...you are deeply loved my baby bird...Here's to happier, healthier, carefree, baby days!

xoxox

P.S.

I just added this photo this morning (Monday) to show how our happy baby is starting her day...playing and smiling! She did throw up her bottle this morning but I am just hoping it was an isolated event...fingers crossed. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type so I think she is fine....I sure could get used to this!

These Are The Days....

"These are the days...These are days you'll remember...Never before and never
since, I promise will the whole world be warm as this... And as you feel it,
you'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky...it's true that you are
touched by something that will grow and bloom in you...
These are days that
you'll remember... when May is rushing over you with desire to be part of the
miracles you see in every hour...you'll know it's true that you are blessed and
lucky...It's true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in
you..."

These are the lyrics to an old song that I always loved..."These are the Days" by 10,000 maniacs...I always think of these lyrics on days such as this one...Another "normal" day...pretty uneventful for the most part and yet, my heart is full. I just put my two little girls to bed and even as I write this, my eyes well up with tears...how on earth did I get so lucky??? I feel so incredibly blessed to be their mom, mommy...and my favorite, mama...

I created this blog for this very reason, to write down all of the little things that I never want to forget...things such as tonight at bathtime... All day today Abby and I played a little game where I said you are my cutie pie, or you are my angel, or you are my little sweet girl....and everytime I said that, Abby would say, no I'm not, I am baby Mabbie's little girl, or angel, etc... I made a big fuss and said oh, no that makes me sad, I want you to be my girl... We went on and on like this several times today and had fun with it. Then tonight in the bath, as Abby was getting out, she looked at me and said, " I love you mama, I'm YOUR cutie pie...and I'm YOUR angel." She leaned over and kissed the tip of my nose...Does it get any better than that? Just the sweetest most precious expressions of love for little ole' me...

We hopped in bed...and as I was nursing Maddie, Abby and I said our regular good-nights to each other...I tell her I had a good day with her and she repeats, "a good day." I say sleep tight and she says "and don't yet ya bed bugs bipe..." I say, you neither. I said I love you Abigail Grace and she said "I love you too, Kasha sheen....and giggled...I giggled too...she knows that cracks me up when she calls me Kathleen. Off to sleep she went...yes, what a good day... I finished nursing and put sweet Madeline in her crib and will re-unite with her in a few hours...maybe more!

Life is good...that sounds so cliche I know but it just is...It's bitter cold out right now...about 10 degrees and the snow is on it's way. I am home, girls asleep in bed, Brad on his way from work and we are safe and sound. Thank you God!

These pictures are from the past few days...they are perfect to put with this post as they are the images of our everyday life...at any given moment on any given day in our home...these are the days I want to remember...for always....

This feels weird...

So, I created this blog and I have to admit, it just feels weird to sit down and type...good, but definitely weird. Thanks goodness for the delete key! The good part is that atleast, I am writing! For the past year, I have had so many things I have wanted to journal but just did not get to it. I supppose one of my first few posts should be a "catch up" post with all of the little stories that I promised I would get down on paper. The key for me will be not worrying how it reads or sounds...just getting my thoughts down on "paper"will be the goal right now...I must remember that!

On to the reason for this post. I just downloaded some images from the camera and thought I would attempt to post a few pictures to see how it works. These pictures were taken a little over a week ago (before illness struck both girls). One night after dinner, I was in Madeline's room with the girls and Abby asked if "baby Mabbie" could sit on her lap in the chair. I put her down in her lap and as usual, Abby's mind began to whirl. As you will see, holding her was not enough. One of the photo's shows her pointing and telling me what to get to make baby Mabbie happy...She was not happy until the chair is full of goodies to show Maddie...it ended with her reading a book to her but somehow I missed getting that photo.

Let's see how this works with photos...

Never Thought I'd See the Day...

I read several blogs on a regular basis but never did I think I would have one of my own...Just goes to show you how unpredictable life is...so this is just my first test blog entry...what do you think?