Photo Outfits?

I'm horrible at coordinating things among all three kids so I'm wondering what others think before I move forward. The only thing I haven't figured out is shoes.

Baby Girl:

Toots:

Monkey:

Thoughts and opinions?

Realizations

I have always believed that everything in our life happens for a reason. We may not always know what that reason is, or even ever find out, but there is one. Sometimes we are lucky enough to figure it out though and for me, the last couple days has been my realization.

Most of you know that Monkey's dad left us when I was pregnant. Well I should clarify, we split up before I knew I was pregnant. I refused to get married just because I was pregnant so he ran off and married someone else. All while abandoning myself and our daughter. After she was born he told everyone she wasn't his and did nothing to support her. It wasn't until she was 5 months old when the courts proved she was indeed his and ordered support that he began contributing. Even then, thats the extent of it. Except for a handful of phone calls last year he has had no involvement with her.


Because of that I was forced to handle things on my own. I had to deal with every change, crisis, responsibility, major decisions, etc by myself. I had no family here that I could lean on, I only had myself. And I had to do it, I had no choice because I had to make sure my daughter was taken care of.


For 4 years it was just her and I and I learned very quickly how to manage. Was it hard? Heck ya it was. I had a few nights I cried. From frustration, anger, hurt, loneliness....the list goes on. I wondered if I had found out I was pregnant sooner would things have been different? Then I wondered why didn't I find out? Why did I have absolutely no idea? And trust me i didn't have a clue, it wasn't just denial there. Most of all I wondered why did things end up the way they did.

Now, years later, I look back and I think I know why. What I learned was that I could survive. I could be on my own and live to tell the story. What I know now is that all those years were preparation for whats to come. To show me that yes I'll be lonely and frustrated but it doesn't last forever, that "this too shall pass". Those years were to give me the tools I needed to survive as a Submariners wife. Mr. X told me once that a chief on his boat tried to warn him that very few wives could handle how much they are gone. His response to this chief was spoken in confidence that he knew I would be just fine and he believes it whole heartedly. The first time he left was a perfect example. I handled purchasing our current home, packed and moved everything, took care of 2 kiddo's, and worked a full time job. All while preggo with Baby Girl and a fractured tailbone. Yup, I can handle anything.

Anyone who thinks being the spouse of a service member is easy is sorely mistaken and add the fact that your other half is stuck on a sub somewhere under the water well...it stinks. You go days or weeks with out contact. Just living by the moto that no news is good news. The constant frustrations of not having real time contact. I can email my hubby tonight but it could be days before he gets it and the same in return. We can't email photos, there's no skype. And the amount of time they are gone?? Well I might as well be a single mom again.

We recently got the schedule for our boat for next year and while I'm not allowed to go into specifics due to security reasons lets just say he will be gone way more than he'll be home. He'll miss every single holiday and birthday except one. Am I bummed about it? Completely. But since I did the single mom thing before I know that we can survive this.

We will be living just one day at a time and taking things as they come. The good with the bad and hoping that the days fly by in the mean time. Will it be easy? Some days will be easier than others and some will seem like we've hit rock bottom. We will take lots of photo's with the kids, do some traveling to visit family and friends, and make awesome care packages for Mr. X to enjoy where ever he ends up. We will make the most of every moment. And then when he comes home we will cry at the pier, hug like we never want to let go, kiss like it's our honeymoon...and then go home. Where we will have to adjust to living as a 2 parent family again and start the cycle all over.

We are drop outs

When we moved to our current house last year we knew that the school we were zoned for was not one we would send our kids too. Most people wouldn't buy a house under those circumstances but anyone who has seen our house...well it was a deal we just could not pass up. Especially when there were other options to avoid that particular school. We loved her old school which wasn't that far away but because we were out of zone we had to provide transportation back and forth. With my daycare hours it was just impossible.

One option was going to a private school. Very costly just paying for tuition, then you have uniforms and everything else. This honestly would be our last resort just because of finances and also transportation. Depending on the school we may have had to still provide transportation. There are a couple really good schools around here though so we couldn't rule it out entirely.

Another option was the magnet program but it's a lottery system so there is no gurantee of getting in. Monkey ended up getting wait listed at 2 of them and since getting in at that point depends on no shows and drop outs there is also no gurantee of getting in. Great program though and we wouldn't have to worry about transportation because the city buses the kids regardless of where they live.

And finally our last option was homeschooling. Everyone knows this is the route we ended up taking and not for a minute do I regret it because it showed me a few things which I'll explain in a minute. With homeschooling we had so much flexibility, I could work schooling around our schedules and vacations rather than the other way around. We could spend more time on things she needed help with and go right through the things she didn't.

Monkey did very well with the lessons and taking the time to learn things as I knew she would. Heck I even learned a few things along the way. What I didn't account for was how much she would miss actually going to school. Having been in public school for 3 years now she was very aware of what she was missing. Adding to that her walking with my assistant to put her daughter on the boss every day and well...I ended up with a crying 7yr old wanting to go back to school.

So last week I started making calls and went up to the school board to see what our options were. Our request to go back to her original school was denied because it is "full" so that was a no go. So we re-explored the magnet program. At one school she was still #33 on the list. At the other....they had a spot for her!

Well, they HAD a spot for her. Turns out the principle had tried to call us the week before school started to let us know the spot was open. Apparently though the old school never updated it with in the computer systems that our phone number had changed and the principle never actually saw our application for the program which had the new number on it. So obviously we never got the call. Thankfully though since it was right at the beginning of the year, they got busy with all those first few weeks of school stuff - etc, they never filled her spot with someone else. So the spot is still Monkey's. She gets to start next week.

When I told her that she was going to get to go back to regular school the child literally jumped up and down. Anyone ever seen a kid that excited to go back?? Of course I'm fully expecting it to wear off at least a bit after a couple weeks but we'll see. The program at the school she is going to focuses on international languages which Monkey has been trying to learn Spanish lately. Of course that is based on the various learnign toys we have that speak in English and Spanish so it's kinda interesting what she has learned.

So now at this point I get to officially say we are homeschool drop outs. But in a good way! This week I'll get to go school shopping with her to get what she needs. And since we started our schooling back in July she has already covered everything that they are doing up to now in class so she won't be behind. It's going to be wierd not having my oldest around during the day now but it will be ok knowing she is happy too.

My Funny Guy

I posted before about how Toots has just started talking pretty much over night. Every day he blows me away with the words he says and his ability to communicate. There are a few things he has been doign lately that just crack me up every time.

Mr. X will point to Toots and say "Who are you?" which Toots replies "You!". Then Mr. X will point to himself and say "Who am I?" and Toots replies "Mine!".

I have been getting him to repeat the alphabet letters back to me while we are doing diaper changes and we never make it past "D caus eit goes like this. "Say A....A!!!, Say B....B!!!, Say C....C!, Say D....Daddy!!!!"

What Now?

I've posted before that we have been dealing with an issue concerning Baby Girl's eye. She has a vascular malformity on her right side which makes her look like she has a permanent black eye. It's essentially a clump of blood vessels where they shouldn't be and if left untreated and grow and damage other areas of her eye.



We went yesterday to our follow up appointment with the specialist since the CT scan was done a couple weeks ago. Originally the plan was they would view to see where it was at and decide if surgery should be done now or wait until a little later. Our appiontment yesterday didn't go like that at all.

The specialist said that most of the malformity is in her eyelid and appears to be slowly growing back into the eye area. It isn't something that would go away like a regular hemangioma would. This type would continue to grow as she grows and begin to damage other areas. At this time since she is still so small (12lbs at 4 months old) he is really wanting to avoid surgery for awhile. So instead he wants to try a minimum of 3 laser treatments followed by a second CT scan to see if the laser treatments appear to be working. If they are then we would continue with laser treatments until it is either gone or it appears to no longer be working, which at that point surgery would be the only option. The treatments would be done every 4 weeks with the first one starting sometime in the next couple weeks.

Sounds great right??? No surgery and a much less invasive option would be the ideal. However in our case because she is so young she doesn't understand that she has to lay completely still during the procedure. So to ensure that she doesn't move it would require her being put to sleep under general anesthesia every time.

Something in my mommy sense is making this plan of action not sit well with me. The idea of having to go through the ordeal of giving her an IV and putting her to sleep every month just doesn't seem right. I know how hard it was for them to put an IV in her last time. It took them 4 tries to get a successful one. I know how sick she got afterwards. We're not 100% sure if it was because of the anesthesia but it seems an odd coincidence that a perfectly healthy baby becomes horribly ill with in hours of having it done.

So now I don't know what to do. She has her 4 month well check on Monday and I plan to discuss everything with her pediatrician whom I love. I really want to know from her opinion the side affects and possible issues with having to do this so often. What other options there may be and so forth. Even Mr. X isn't thrilled with the idea of Baby Girl having to go through this and is wanting to go to a different specialist to get a 2nd opinion.

So for now this is where we stand.

A Full Plate

I haven't been blogging lately just because it seems like I am always busy doing other things. Right now I think I have so much going on I either need a bigger plate or need to trim the excess. Not sure yet though. My daycare is still going strong. We have a lot of the fune very day and we are constantly comign up with new ideas. Especially with our lunch's and snacks. Tomorrow is Bunny pies. Hopefully the kids will be enjoying the flavor so much they won't notice the few veggies we sneak inside.

In addition to the daycare my sewing has really taken off. I've got orders that require me to do some sewing every single night to keep up. Last night I spent like 5 hours behind my machine and was up until 2am. Not a good thing when the alarm goes off at 5:30am so that I can get ready for the first kids who are dropped off at 6:45am. I'm enjoying it though. The embroidery machine I got has really been a blessing. I've got so many ideas floating around in my head and there just is not enough time in the day for them all. Maybe one day though my sewing will be doing really well and I can just focus on that only. We'll see though. If any of you are interested though click HERE to go to the facebook fan page. You can also search at www.etsy.com for Daffe Designs to find my items.

Those 2 things alone keep me busy and then I still have to take care of the house, the kids, Monkey's homeschooling.....the list goes on and on. Maybe one day I'll get to take a "real" vacation.

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.

Peter Pan Syndrome

I wonder if after you have a certain number of kids you start to suffer from the Peter Pan syndrome. Meaning that they never grow up in your eyes. I can remember when Monkey was a baby how I could see her growing and getting bigger. I watched her change from an infant to a toddler to a young girl. I never felt like we were stuck in one moment of time.

Now with Toots and Baby Girl I look at them and still see them as little ones. Course the fact that Toots is almost 2yrs old and is still pretty tiny for his age probably doesn't help. At his 18 month check he was 22lbs. I can still get him into some of his 6-9 month onsies. Anything bigger than 12 months in shorts and they fall right off of him or look like high water pants. Thats even in cloth diapers where it's expected to wear a size up to accomodate the diaper.

Baby Girl will be 3 months old in less than a week and I still see her as an infant. Yes I can see where she has grown a bit and she is developing in other ways. She smiles all the time and coo's/talks to us. We even got her to start giggling which is the best sound ever. But when I look at her I still see a baby face.

What made me think of it is I recently saw another baby who is less than 2 weeks older than Baby Girl and it seemed like she actually looked like an older baby. So I started actually paying attention to other babies/toddlers and they all do. They just have a more "grown up" look to them then when I think of my own.

So I'm wondering if I suffer from a sort of Peter Pan syndrome where in my eyes my kiddo's will never grow up. Course we know they will but I still, how long will they be babies in my eyes? Forever??

Happy Daddy's Day!!

I know it's now almost 10pm but I figured better late than never right??? So HAPPY DADDY'S DAY!! This goes out to my dad, my hubby, and all the other daddy's out there.

Unfortunately my hubby wasn't able to spend the day with us so that we could pamper him. The boat managed to steal him away yet again. Such is the life I'm told. We did get to talk to him briefly this evening which was better than nothing I suppose. Oh well, at least we got to take him out to dinner last night to celebrate.