It's the little things

It's amazing how much the little things we do for each other add up. Mr. X and I have this thing we do to show we care or that we're thinking about each other. We leave cards. Sometimes they are fancy, sometimes they are really simple, sometimes they are hand made, sometimes they are store bought. The point though is to bring a smile to the others face.

He started it too. I would get cards through out the year, not just for the normal holidays. And he would leave them in various places too. On the kitchen counter, on the pillow for when I wake up. Then he got me started. Now I leave them for him too. It's starting to become a game almost. the most odd ball place to leave them. Once I knew he was going to be taking the car to do some errands so I snuck out and left it on the dash. He left one under a pillow on the couch where I normally sit. It's just our thing.

Whats yours?

Another Little One

I've said for a bit now that I thought Baby Girl was going to end up being little like Toots is. Based on her weigh in yesterday it looks like I may be right! Granted maybe she'll have a big growth spurt in the next few months but I doubt it. Guess it's a good thing I didn't invest in a lot of larger sizes for this winter.

She is now 3 1/2 months old and yesterday she weighed 11lbs 11oz. I pulled Toots weight information and at 4 months old he was 13lbs 8oz. Such a difference in all my kids too cause Monkey was over 15lbs at 4 months old. I guess we forgot the Miracle Grow when the seed was planted. LOL

She Bit Me!

Baby girl is exclusively nursing and just like with Toots we have been lucky in that it has been fairly easy. I think some people believe I'm a freak of nature because I never had the common issues tha tpeople talk about. The only pain I've had, until today, was just when the milk initially comes in. I know, it's not normal but all things considered I deserve a break here.

Anyways, tonight I was feeding Baby Girl while surfing on net. She's got her eyes clothes about to fall asleep so I was off in lala land reading another blog. All of a sudden I get a piercing pain right where her mouth is. I holler "Ow!" and yank back. "No biting" I tell her. I kid you not, she looked at me and giggled. Something tells me she is going to be more of a handful than Toots.

Word Explosion

I've always heard that kids who are slow to talk will just wake up one day and start talking. I don't know that I ever believed it though because I hadn't seen it personally. Monkey was early to talk and always spoke very clearly. Toots on the other hand is much slower with the talking. Up until about a week ago our conversations consisted of grunting, pointing, and screaming. He could say mama, dada, and sissy but not much else. There were a few other things he would say that we figured out over time but to a stranger who wasn't used to his speaking they would have no clue.

Then one day we were reading books and we always try to get him to repeat after us. And the boy just started saying the words. Not only saying them but saying them so we could understand him. Then a couple days later I hear him start talking in sentences. "Where did it go?" seems to be his favorite since we play catch and he often loses the ball.

It's just amazing to me to hear him talk and to be able to understand him. Now that he's getting words he is babbling more now too. I guess maybe he didn't see the point before?

Shout Out!

I'm giving a shout out for a friend and her amazing creations!! I can only hope that one day my projects look as awesome as hers.

So if your looking for some interesting things go check out Goldilocks Creations!

The CT is over

Today we took baby girl in to do a CT scan for her eye. For a normal person it's not a big deal and really for her in the long run it isn't either. It takes 5 minutes to do and isn't painful or anything like that. However it does require you to lay completely still the entire time. Since baby girl is only 3 months and doesn't understand the concept of staying still it was required to give her a sedative through an IV.

Again, normally not a big deal but since she's so little her veins are very little too. It took 3 failed sticks before they finally got it on the 4th try. Poor girl has bruises on both hands and feet. Thankfully Mr. X was able to go after all so he held her most the time. She wasn't allowed to eat after 3am and considering it was 7:30am by the time they tried to do the IV I knew she was hungry and smelling me wouldn't help. So I stayed to the back and fought a losing battle with my own tears as I listened to her cries.

Thankfully they finally got the IV and at that point she pretty much just collapsed from exhaustion. I was able to hold her and I walked her back to the room where they do the scan. I held her until they gave her the sedative which worked really fast. Let me tell you, it's pretty creepy seeing them fall asleep with their eyes open. Once she was asleep we waited about 10 minutes and they took her to a recovery space so she could wake back up.

Thankfully she doesn't seem to be any worse off. After she was awake for about 15-20 minutes she was babbling and talking to us. We even got a couple smiles out of her. The nurse said she has the sweetest little voice which I agree of course. I was able to feed her again and we waited a bit longer just to make sure she wouldn't start vomiting. Then we were sent on our way with instruction on things to watch for. So far so good and although she has been sleeping a bit more than normal she really does seem fine.

Now I've been emailed and asked if I can explain better whats going on and why ultimately she is going to be having surgery. I actually managed to capture a great picture recently that really shows whats going on so I'll share that in a minute.

Baby girl has whats called a vascular malformity. It's basically a clump of blood vessels behind/around her eye that shouldn't be there. Over time it can/will grow and will cause issues with her vision and growth if it's not taken care of. When she was first born it looked like she just had bad bruising around her eyes and it still does. Well sorta like she has a black eye if that makes sense. Here's the photo so you can see.

When you look at the picture its the eye on the left. Don't mind the red marks, those are birth marks. The area in question is the dark purple like right over her upper eye lid. It almost kinda looks liek she has eye shadow on. Thats where all the blood vessels are clumped up. You can even tell where it's kinda puffy on that side compared to the other. When her eyes are open or in certain lights it can be hardly noticeable but it's definetely there.

The surgery itself will involve them cutting right along the crease of her eyelid so that after it heals it won't really be noticeable. They will be removing those clumps to make sure that nothing else about her eye is damaged from the growth. Then for the next few years we will have regular check ups with the specialist to make sure that it's not regrowing back or anything.

The CT scan done today is supposed to show exactly how bad it is. We can only see whats visible right by the eyelid, we have no idea how deep it may actually go. If it's deep or causing other issues then they will do surgery soon to try and prevent damaging anything else. If it's not that deep or interfering with anything else then we will wait as long as possible to do the surgery. We were told that after the scan today no news is good news if we don't hear from the doctors office prior to our August 9th appointment. if it's worse than he thought or considered urgent then we'll called in for an earlier appointment so we can get things going.

So there you have it. Maybe with the photo it will be easier to understand since now there is a visual. I know in the beginning it was confusing for us so I get why some people arent understanding what the issue is. Just keep fingers crossed that we will be able to put off the surgery a bit because the older she is the more surface area they have to work with as well as the better she will be able to handle the surgery.

Need to fire the toothfairy

Yup, the woman is slacking on her job. I mean...all she does is go around collecting teeth and leaving money for the kids who lost, or in Monkey's case, yanked out their teeth. This is the 2nd time now that she has completely bypassed our house at night and I've had to deal with a crying child in the morning. Next time she's expected to come around I'm just gonna have to stay up and kick her hiney!

**Yes I completely forgot to exchange the tooth for money last night. I've got Monkey thinking the toothfairy is just an extremely overworked and exhausted person who needs and assistant so she won't miss houses in the future.

Rockin Robeeze

Yesterday I hit up my favorite thrift store and scored a pair of Robeeze that look brand new for $3. Pretty typical of this store which is why I love it! They are 12-18 month and fit Toots perfectly. Apparently he loves them because now he wont' take them off. We tried last night before bed and he screamed. This mornign and he screamed. Tonight again and he screamed. Here he is today rockin them...

And yes we do dress him but he likes to undress now. Unless it's diaper snaps or zipped in the back he gets it off. This was right after he woke up from nap time. I just realized looking at it that the way his hands are posed it almost looks like he is strumming a guitar too.

My New Obsession

I recently had the opportunity to invest in an embroidery machine and man am I so glad I did!! Now I really want to get a serger just to complete my process but that will have to wait a bit. I need to sell off some more projects to pay off the embroidery machine investment first. Anyways, I've been finding all sorts of things to personalize. My very first one I can't post just yet cause I don't want them to see it before it arrives in the mail. A bit of a surprise if you will. So these are a couple other things I've done today.

First, this morning I did Baby Girl's lovie.

Then I made this bag for a friend of ours. It's a memory bag for keepsakes from the little girl they lost.

Then on to burp clothes. These are flannel on each side with a prefold diaper in the middle for obsorbancy. Turned out quite cute I must say!

Hmmm....so what else can I do??? LOL Right now I'm limited to just a few things. There are some designs built in but I'm still thinking on how to use them. I do have some others that I bought, like Ballerina's, firetrucks, stick people, etc that I'll be able to use. I'm just waiting on a memory card that I need in order to get them from my computer to the machine. Hopefully this week!

And so it goes...

Mr. X has always told me that he can't gurantee being able to get off work even for some important things. In almost 3 years we have been extremely lucky in that he has always been able to get off when needed. It really hasn't been a lot of requests though, maybe 3 or 4 different ones. I think I was spoiled.

Last night he informed me that they denied his request for leave next week when Baby Girl goes in for her CT Scan. With them getting ready for work ups and it's a duty day for him it's really bad timing. Granted it's not the surgery itself but it does require them doing an IV and giving her medicine to make her sleep. Not to mention he more than likely won't be here for the surgery either. At least it's looking more and more like it will be that way. I know he was upset that they denied it as well but there's nothing he can do.

This really sucks having to take her by myself.

Unbelievable

I was in Target Saturday picking up our weekly case of wipes and looking for July 4th outfits for the kids. Of course I can never just pass by the clearance rack so I checked it out. Came across this really cute shirt marked down to $3.

I thought it would be perfect for Toots since he is turning two in less than 2 months. I didn't pay much attention to the sizing but just looking at it I knew it would fit him so I put it in the cart and kept going. It wasn't until I got home and was putting things away that I caught the tag. It's a size 12 months. Yes, my soon to be 2yr old is wearing a shirt made for a 1yr old. Anybody want to bet his pediatrician tries to send us to some sort of therapy after our next well check?

Happy 4th of July!

I want to wish everyone a very happy 4th of July. Please stay safe and happy BBQ'ing and fireworks!!

Today is a special day for Mr. X and I in another way as well. Exactly one year ago today was the first time we said "I love you". Ya ya ya I know some of you are doing the math, we were together way before that. Yes it took just 19 months for us to say it the first time. I would have said it earlier but I wanted him to do it first.

That weekend we were camping with friends and as we laid in bed in the tent listening to the fireworks go off around the camp ground the conversation went like this:

Mr X: Do you love me?
Me: Yes
Mr X: Well I love you to.

**Sigh** And that my friends was the beginning of Baby Girl who was born almost exactly 9 months later.