I suck
Lately I just suck at blogging.. writing OR reading.. in fact I'm a pretty sucky friend cuz I haven't called anyone (that means you Tempe), a
nd I've been losing my temper alot with William.
Here's the scoop.
James is great. he's smiling.. he's happy. He has a big patch of eczema on the left side of his face that gets redder and not on any given day.
The doctor says he may or may not grow out of it. He also has a big birthmark (stork kisses) on his forehead.. also may or may not grow out of it.
Other than his funny skin problems, he's pretty happy.. and so far hasn't been sick. He MOSTLY sleeps through the night - with usually one feeding around 4-5am.
William... well, lets see. William starting going to day-care "school" two mornings a week in March. He hated it at first but now he likes it.
Every time we drive by the school he yells "Hi Andrea!" (which is one of his teachers).
William is potty training. Yes.. it's true. He generally wears underware all day now, but still sleeps with a diaper. He's still soaking wet in the morning.
He refuses to go poo in the potty. He asks for a diaper and then 10 minutes later he has a load. Or... if he's too busy to get the diaper..
he just poos in his underware (very messy). He does however like it when I empty his diaper/underware into the toilet and flush and he says "bye bye poo-poo!".
Why he pees in the potty and not poos I have no idea,
but I hear it's pretty common.
William still doesn't speak well. We've taken him to Children's Hospital here and had him evaluated. He was officially diagnosed with prominent speech delay.
He was recommended to also get evaluated by an Occupational theripist as well as have Developmental assessment. -
The good thing is that my local school district has pre-school starting at 3, for those kids that have special needs (and this is 1/2 day 5 days a week for FREE) - my tax dollars at work. I'm trying to get him into the school for next Fall. So thoughtout the summer we'll be doing all these evaluations to see if he stil has speech issues.
Of course he could improve on his own by going to day care so that's possible too. Although the thought of free prescool 5 days a week sounds pretty good,
even if it is for special needs. I'm told the speech issues are also why he is so physical and has a bad temper. (he's been hitting and pushing alot lately).
He's basically frustrated because he can't communicate. I sympathize but I still don't like when he is physcial.
We've planned our big vacation - we'll be going to Oregon to visit my husbands dad and stepmom. I have only met them once, when I was pregnant with William.
They are eager to meet their youngest grandsons. (of coures they are great-grandparents several times over for some of Chuck's siblings) ..
We'll be there 9 days. - in a hotel.
Including airfare for 3 + infant fare// this is pretty much our budget for the next year.
So that's all.
Well, here we are again
Well, here I am - finally catching up on some blogging that I've been missing out on. I have about 3-5 blogs I read semi-regularly, just to keep in touch with what's going on with people. Nothing too exciting.
William started "school" yesterday morning. Today is his 2nd day. He is going 2 mornings a week (Wed and Thurs) for 4 hours each. (depending on when he gets dropped off, he can stay for 4 hours from that time.) Yesterday was 8:30-12:30. Today will be 8-12. Its nice to have the flexibility, as Chuck is doing the dropping off and he's not that consistent in what time he leaves for work. I'm getting ready to go grocery shopping this morning which is nice to go without William. (He's actually very good in the store - but it's still difficult to get groceries when you have two kids filling up the basket already!)
William seemed to have a good time yesterday and this morning when we explained that he gets to go there again he was very excited. I'm not sure if it's the school he's excited about, or the fact that he gets to ride with Daddy in "Daddy's car" - which is a novelty for him.
James had his 2nd month checkup last week and is doing great. William had a cold just before that, and of course promptly passed it to James. So after we had James' vaccinations, I couldn't tell if he was sick with a cold or sick from the shots. In any case, both kids are well on the mend now. James is now 13lbs 12oz, and 24 1/2 inches long. He's getting pretty chunky, but I know it was the same with William and I'm not worried.
We're coming into "Birthday Season" in my family. Everyone's birthday falls within a 3 month period starting in Mid-March and running through June. This Friday kicks off the season with Cassie's birthday which is St. Patricks Day. It's hard to believe she'll be 20 this year!! The rest of the birthdays/anniversaries follow..
- Mar 17 - Cassie's birthday
- Mar 25 - My dad's anniversary
- Mar 28 - My dad's birthday, my twin cousins' birthdays
- Mar 29 - my dad's wife's birthday, my aunt's birthday
- Apr 7 -William's birthday
- Apr 22 - my birthday
- May 9 - my cousins birthday
- May 10 - my husband and my mom's birthday
- June 11 - Veronica's birthday
- June 25 - my anniversary
Since my blog is acting funny lately I thought I'd include a photo of James since I dont have one on the side bar...but apparently I can't seem to browse my photos here either. In any case you can see photos of James at http://www.webshots.com/user/webberpl.
That's about it. I better get some errands done this morning!
Life
So, I'm all recovered from my delivery. I have had my post-partum check-up, at which the doctor tells me that it's OK to have sex again.
The funny thing is that now I have to concern myself with birth control. After years of trying to get pregnant, going through infertility treatments and finally getting IVF to get pregnant with William... James came along naturally. (well mostly naturally - I did have to take some extra progresterone to keep the pregnancy going strong). So I guess it's two for the price of one. We are very fortunate. I realize that. I shouldn't complain. There are many couples that cannot conceive without the help of medical science. And now we're no longer one of them. I'm not in the special club anymore. This should be a good thing. Unless you are like me, and don't WANT more kids.. 
. (4 college tuitions is enough thank you!)
So I am going to start taking the pill. It's been over 10 years since I've been on the pill. I never had any problems with it before. It is just freaking me out that I have to think about this stuff again.
In the meantime... we're getting our ducks in a row to send Cassie to college next fall. She's going to graduate this May with an Associate degree from the community college near where she lives. Then she's transferring to a 4-year private college way up in northern Michigan (brrrrr!). Next month she and my husband are going to drive up there and visit the campus and check things out. She went on a campus tour two years ago but hasn't been up there since. (she thought she was going to go there after High school but instead went to the community college).
Tuition isn't cheap, but our plan is simple. We're not going to pay for it. At least not up front. We're going to have Cassie get her own financial aid, and student loans and any other schollarship money that she can. Then when the bills come due later... Maybe we'll pay... or maybe we won't. It will hopefully get Cassie to take her school seriously if she knows it's her money, and it will also be a good learning experience about how life works with bills/loans and credit ratings.
Veronica is a year behind Cassie (due to time off for life-experiences) , which means that next year at the same time we'll be doing this again with Veronica... and possibly a different (more expensive) school than Cassie has picked. I think we'll be doing the same thing again.
James Alexander has arrived
As you might imagine, I've been a bit busy the last month or so.
I'll have to write a more lengthy entry some other time - but for now.
James Alexander has arrived
1/6/2006 - 8lbs 5oz. 19 inches
(we think the 19 inches is wrong though because a week later at his 1-week checkup - he was 21 3/4 inches! I doubt they measured correctly at the hospital because he was probably all curled up..)
Lots of black/dark brown hair. He's almost 5 weeks old already and I'm just now getting to this.
Its been a long month that has gone by very quickly!
Time keeps on tickin'.. into the future..
Well, the holidays are upon us and William got a bunch of stuff of course. I don't know what possesed me to purchase not only one noisy toy... but 4 of them. Namely a drum (yes a real one with drumsticks and everything), a tambourine, and a pair of cymbals. Top this off with the electronic Wiggles guitar that has no volume control and ... well you get the picture.
My foot has healed up pretty well, although it's still a little puffy on one side and my shoe is a little tight. I can get the shoe ON which is an accomplishment in itself.
We had an ultrasound on 12/27 - which was primarily to monitor the size and position of the baby. He's now approximately 7.5 - 8 lbs and is laying transverse in a pike position head-down. Almost good.. I'm having the C-section anyway so it doesn't matter to me. He's coming out one way or the other!! From the ultrasound date - to my c-section date - is 10 days... I am now down to 1 week... the baby could still respectively gain another 1/2 lb or more. (so I'm told). So 8.5-9lbs isn't too terrible...
William's other favorite (quiet) toy is the Little People Ramps Around Garage set. He LOVES this. I also bought several matchbox cars for use - which he likes to drive around the living room.
I was afraid the set was too young for him but he seems to love it. Additionally we got some preschool ABC software for his computer and fortunately he spends hours on end in his room playing on the computer unsupervised... perfect for a 38+ week pregnant mom to NOT have to entertain her 2 1/2 year old.
(yes, say what you want about my being lazy but I bet you would be too)
Fortunately William is a whiz on the computer and understands now how to:
- Turn it on (properly)
- Double-click on Internet Explorer
- Go to "Favorites" and choose a bookmarked website
- Close browser windows (properly)
- Double-click on his software 'games' on the desktop and play them
- And Turn off (shutdown) the computer properly.
It's really kind of funny at bedtime we go in his room and tell him to do a shut down and he start closing down all his browser windows by using the "X" in the upper-right corner, and on some windows he minimizes them first and then right-click closes them. Once all windows are closed, he uses the "Start" menu to perform a "Shutdown" function and waits for the power to go off before he turns off the power-strip switch under his desk. Sometimes he just unplugs it from the wall though, at least he waits until the computer is shut down first.
I never actually showed him how to do this, I think it was just observed behavoir. But now it's one less thing I have to do. :)
Soon I will just tell him to go to bed and I won't even have to help with brushing his teeth, turning off his computer, getting changed or turning out the light.
Maybe I don't even need to be home :)
Ok..that might be a few more years.
ER at the holidays
Somewhere I read there's a statistic that pregnant women are more likely to have a serious fall or accident during their pregnancy. I never had any serious falls when I was pregnant with William. I think I may have slipped on some ice that winter and fell on my butt, - but that wasn't anything for alarm.
Friday night, I had my first real "accident" in years.. thus instigating a trip via ambulance to the ER. This event caps off the last 10 days of holiday hell that my house has thrust upon me.
I suppose I should recap to some degree..
Wednesday Dec 7. William and I return home at lunchtime to find my carbon monoxide dectors intermittently alarming. My next door neighbor also hears my alarm going off and being a fire-fighter, he rushes over to see what he can do. He calls his fire department buddies and they come with the big fire truck (William is loving this btw). I didn't know you were supposed to call the fire-department for carbon monoxide but I guess in hindsight that does make sense. The fire department crew all come through the house with their CO meters and determine that my oven (even though it had not been used since the day before) has been emitting a major amount of CO anytime it's been on. Apparenlty CO can accumulate in your standard CO detector and my detector had just reached it's limit. Apparenlty normal CO levels are like under 10. My oven was like over 250. Time for a new oven. (that was probably the original oven with the house - el-cheapo generic builder installation special from 10 years ago). New gas ovens are not cheap btw.
Thursday Dec 8. Every Thursday in December I now have OB appointments. My appointment was at 12 noon. At 11:15am I planned to leave with William and drop him at the sitters so I could make my doctor appointment. I load William into my car. The garage won't open. The door opens about 5 inches and stops. This is a big double-door garage. I attempt to release the door from the opener and do it manully (mind you a 36 week pregnant person should not attempt to lift a double-garage door). It won't budge. I run next door to my fire-fighting neighbor.. help! It turns out the big spring on the top of the door that allows the opener to help open the door is broken. Between the two of us we do manage to open it so I can get my car out. I figure I'll deal with it later. I rush away and head to the sitters. I realize I forgot my purse!! Amazingly enough I decide to take William to my other friends house who is closer and still manage to get to the doctors only 5 minutes late.
Friday Dec 16. - I beg Chuck to get home "early" (I.E. Before 8pm) so that I can go grocery shopping without William in tow. Not that he's bad at the store, but it's getting harder and harder for me to manage the food and a toddler. He gets home around 7 and I go to sneak out of the house (William has a fit if he hears the garage door open (now fixed) without him getting to go someplace). I tell Chuck to take William in the far part of the house so he can't hear me leave. I step out of the house - there are three steps from the house to the garage floor. I manage to step wrong off the first step and ... boom.. take a flying leap into my trash cans. Now I'm laying on the concrete floor screaming my head off. Chuck can't hear me... they are in the far part of the house. It seems like an eternity but eventually he does figure out that I haven't left yet and hears me yelling. 37 week pregnant person laying onthe concrete crying and screaming isn't funny. He calls 911. The fire department (??) shows up. The same guys that were just here for my CO issues. William runs out to hug everyone saying "hi!!". They ask if I've gotten a new stove yet.. They cut my sock off my foot and wrap it up and take me in the ambulance to the ER. William is yelling that I forgot my shoe. Chuck dumps William with a friend and then meets me at the ER. Nothing is wrong with the baby. My foot gets X-rayed and it's just a a really bad sprain (thank goodness.. can you immagine me with a cast on my foot and a new born?) We actually make decent time through the whole process but my OB wants me on the NST monitor for an hour to be sure the baby isn't in distress. I fell at 7pm - we get home around 11pm. Not too bad actually. I get wonderful crutches and spend the weekend on my butt.
Now, its Tuesday. I've been hobbling around - and my foot, other than turning pretty colors - is actually getting better. The swelling is down and I could probably fit into a shoe. I planned to have a day of pampering before the baby arrives. I'm scheduled to have a facial and get my nails done. I'm doing it - dammit. Foot or no foot...
Hopefully bad things only happen in 3's.... I think I should be ok for now.
Mark your calendars!
It's on!
I have a scheduled C-section for Jan 6 at 7:30am. Which of course means that I can't eat or drink anything the night before, and we have to be there at 5am to get admitted and prepped. Oh fun!
Only 5 weeks to go and I'm already feeling like it will be an eternity. I get short of breath easier, I seem to be waddling when I walk and I've officially outgrown all of my maternity clothes except 2 shirts and one pair of jeans. - The rest of the time I'm in sweats and oversized nightshirts when I'm home.
On the good side. All of my Christmas shopping is done (mostly done on line) - except a few toy things for William which I intend to pick up this weekend. We're planning on getting him one of those Little Tykes playhouses for the backyard. (yes I know it's cold out but I think he will still get some use through the winter). And then a few smaller toys - cars, little people, some books and maybe an RC car for toddlers.
I'm pretty done with eveyrone else - although I probably should look at getting one or two more things for Cassandra. She is always difficult to buy for because I can't seem to figure out what she's into.
We're planning on getting our Christmas Tree this weekend. I'm pretty excited, and I know William will be thrilled when he realizes we're getting a tree for our living room. It's going to be a blast!
I guess that's all the news that's fit to print for now....
Dull entry but noteworhy I suppose!
Has your Sony Music CD ruined your PC?
Sony has about 50 titles of music CD’s that they released that contian some anti-piracy software that actually doubles as spyware! If you listened to your music on your PC, you might have unwittingly installed this XCP spyware!
If you are pissed off at Sony for installing this on your PC (and then not being able to remove it!) - drop me a note... I want to hear your complaints!!
(and maybe you can get something out of it too!)
Check out this article for more info:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/11/texas_attorney_.html
