Being Sick Sucks

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Being sick sucks.
It's especially hard to keep a good attitude. This time around, I was attacked on multiple fronts, and was taking Tamiflu, Amoxicillin, Cipro ear drops, eye drops, and copious amounts of Dayquil all at once.
Yeah. I hate being sick.
Well, now I'm down to the Amox and ear drops, I have infections in both ears, and the left one actually ruptured. I have new appreciation for Esther's difficulties now that I know what she has gone through being mostly deaf in one ear. It wasn't fun in the slightest. I still have partial hearing loss, and it's hard because I sound loud to me, but everyone else says I talk too quiet, and I can't hear them either. It's frustrating, and aggravating, and exasperating and......well, you get the point.
Anyway, I am looking forward to spring. I already have some bulbs popping up in the backyard. Iris, mostly, and I know there are some peonies in that area. I neglected to rake up all the leaves off the iris last fall, so some of the rhizomes have risen to the surface, I'll have to replant them, but at least they survived!
Then there is my veggie garden. Now that I'm not pregnant, I am really looking forward to some quality time with peas, tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, pumpkin......mmmmmmmmmm. The girls especially love peas and cucumbers, most of my peas last year went straight to them!
I have rosebushes to rescue, vines to train around the front yard, a lattice to bolt to the front porch, and lots of other stuff to do. Now if the weather would just make up its mind, I might get some of this done!
Then there's the stuff inside. We have taken serious looks at moving to Eagle Mountain, right down to picking the house style we like best. It's just barely out of our reach, loan-qual wise, but we're so close. If we could just get this place sold without taking a loss, we could get the house we want. Unfortunately, with the kitchen being a 40s-style nightmare, and the bathroom not much better, we're going to have a hard time selling.
Well, so now you know what my spring looks like. Assuming I stop being sick.
Sigh. I hate being sick.

Good Riddance 2009!

Well, the year is over. THANK GOODNESS! Yes, there were some good things about the year, such as a new addition to our family, but there was a lot of not-so-good. 2009 decided to take a parting shot at us in the last week. Taea was in the hospital.
Yup. My little snuggle bug caught some kind of horrid virus that dehydrated her in about 24 hours, so we ended up in the emergency room, where the doctor decided to keep her overnight. Thank goodness Jeff had a couple days of PTO left, he took the first night, and I took the second. Thankfully, she is much better now, though she is wont to be fussy and argumentative. I guess after having life turned upside-down for a while, she is trying to reestablish her boundaries.
Becky is doing well, she regained her birth weight and then some by her two-week checkup. Whee! She is developing so well, already tracking objects with her eyes, and being VERY clingy.
Esther is going back to school after the holiday today. I'm sure she'll be happy about it, but I pity her poor teacher. Trying to get kids settled down after a long holiday is never an easy task!
Sigh. So on to a new year. I have so many goals, so many things I want to accomplish, but I don't know if I will have time for it all. Prioritize, I know, but so many of the things are worthy goals, it's hard to decide what is most important.
Well, I guess the only thing to do is dig in and hope it works out for the best. And hope I survive the melee!

The End...and The Beginning

Well, the pregnancy is finally over! All the puking, the waddling, the loose, sore hips, screaming bladder...it's all done.
It was a good ending. About 3 and 1/2 hours, culminating in three sets of three pushes, and there she was.
Yup. It's a girl.
A new beginning. So far, her sisters just seem a little perplexed. Only mildly curious. But then, little Rebecca has been a pretty quiet, content baby. Sleeps well, eats well, except she utterly refuses to even try to nurse. Not a big deal, I have no supply anyway. I tried a professional hospital pump, I worked with a nurse and the baby for half an hour...nothing. Baby wouldn't latch, not even to a plastic shaper. Nada.
Stress isn't good for anyone. Especially when you're recovering from childbirth. So...I gave up. It's not the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Formulas are good these days, and the thing about kids getting sick more easily if they aren't breastfed isn't always true. My kids have been anything BUT sickly! They are growing well, and except for Esther's speech problem, they're developing fine. My mom had the same issue, her kids grew up fine...so I am not going to fret about it. There is no point. I have no choice.
Anyway, all that aside, our new little bundle is cute as a button. She has slightly more hair than the others, and it looks like it will probably be blond or slightly strawberry, just like the rest of us. I'm wondering if any of our kids will be redheads like their grandma, but if not, that's okay.
She was seven pounds fifteen, nineteen and a half inches. Right there in the middle size-wise with her sisters. Baby gray-blue eyes, no idea what color they will be in the future. She is a little love-bug, likes to snuggle. It will be so fun to see what her personality will be like as she matures, if she is strong willed like Esther, or REALLY strong willed like Taea!
I am glad to have my body back (sorta). Now, let the fun begin!

Prepping for Baby

How the heck do women survive this last month?
Yes, I've done it twice before. However, for whatever reason, I am carrying this one more...forward than the other two. More hip and back problems too. I know my body is supposed to do this kind of stuff to get ready, so I'm not trying to shove a baby through a hole the size of a garbanzo bean, but still, it's hard!
I have so much to do to get ready for the baby, and yet my body doesn't want to cooperate! How do women survive this last month and get everything done in time? So far she has a place to sleep, we have the cute outfit we're bringing her home in (designed to make her look like a Christmas gift), and I have a vague idea of where the diaper bag is. Oh, and yes, we have two cases of diapers.
That's it so far.
Sheesh, I was ready MONTHS in advance for the other two! Of course, at that time, I was living in an entirely different place so I pretty much kept everything in the nursery anyway, since there was nowhere else to store it. Now that we're in our own home, a lot of that got shunted out to the garage. Here was me thinking I was going to have a boy, so the bin of girls clothes is....somewhere in the vicinity of the house. The garage, most likely.
Double sigh.
I'll get it done. Somehow. We have bought a few new things, so the kid won't be naked, I still have the bottles out since my older two are just NOW going to no bottles at all (that's another story, but yes, we're bottle-breaking finally, and they are not happy in the slightest), and I have the bassinet set up. I have blankets, the small chest of drawers has been cleared out for her with a new, big one set up for Esther and Taea...I guess I'm not doing too bad.
But still, there is so much to be done for babies! So much to prepare. And if you have an older home that is less than...well, quiet, there's a lot of other stuff that you wouldn't think of. Our bedroom door sticks and doesn't want to close properly. At times, it has gotten completely stuck. This is the room the baby will be sleeping in. DEFINITELY needs to be fixed.
The floor squeaks badly, especially at night. If I have to walk across the kitchen five times a night for bottle prep (sigh, yes I will try to breast-feed but we all know how successful THAT has been) then I run the risk of waking up the older girls. Five times a night. Gotta get that fixed too.
We have a new car-seat/stroller set. It's just still in its box. In the garage. With everything else.
I need to get the baby swing reassembled, set up the play yard so I can leave the room occasionally without worrying about Taea squashing her baby sister, clean out the extra junk in the living room so I don't have to worry about it getting knocked over on top of her. Lots of baby proofing.
And some of you are asking "why haven't you done this before?"
To which I answer "have you ever tried to clean boxes and bins out of a living room, while pregnant and sick, with two toddlers underfoot?"
So now that I'm REALLY pregnant, I get to do it anyway! Oh joy! Sigh. Yeah, I'm a procrastinator.
But it will get done. Somehow. Because baby is coming, whether Mommy is ready or not.

Have you hugged yourself today?

Okay, folks, it's Monday!
And you know what that means.
Yeah, usually, it's a rough day. Take each day's allotment of frustration and roll it into one day, and you have Monday.
So what are we going to do about it?
First of all, we are not going to stress. Things will go wrong, things won't get done that need to be, and kids will drive us utterly bananas because they're back to routine after the weekend. But we won't stress about it.
Moms come in for an awful lot of guilt. Your kid falls and gets hurt during two seconds of diverted attention, you feel horrible. Never mind that you already told him fifteen times not to climb on the back of the couch. He still did it, and he got hurt, and now he's giving you that look that says "Mommy, why did you let me get hurt?"
Don't do it! Don't give in! Yes, he needs attention, but make it a teaching moment. Make sure he understands that if he had listened, he wouldn't be hurt now. Kids seem to prefer the school of hard knocks for some reason, but that is no reason for us to amp up our guilt levels.
Your first grader came home from school crying because she didn't have her costume for the dress-rehearsal of the school pageant. Your guilt SOARS. Did she bother to tell you she needed one? Nope. You didn't even know the school was having a play, but she insists it is your fault because you're a mommy, you are supposed to know things like this. Oh, and the school hasn't updated it's calendar for the last six months, but still...you're omniscient, didn't you know that??
Yeah, sounds absurd. But it happens. All the time.
Don't let it get to you. Things go wrong. You have to go through the bad in order to appreciate the good! If life were nothing but easy and peaceful...how would we know? We have to have hard and chaotic to appreciate the good moments.
So today, instead of dialing your therapist for yet another session of "I'm such a bad mother", try a bit of free therapy. Hug yourself. Once, twice, however many times you need it. Give yourself a big hug, look into a mirror (ignoring the toothpaste splotches you haven't cleaned yet) and tell yourself what a wonderful person you are.
Because you ARE!
People are so depressed these days. Granted, a lot of it is for legitimate medical reasons. Been there, I know, and in fact I'm suspecting I still have an issue. Not in my brain, but elsewhere. I think somewhere else in my system is haywire, and that's depressing everything else. If you really wanna know more, look up "adrenal insufficiency" and see if that describes you!
But there is a lot of depression that could be solved if we just lightened up on ourselves. Society has put a huge burden on us to be thin, beautiful, and totally competent while maintaining a gorgeous home. I'm a self-described HGTV/DIY network junkie, and I've noticed that every time I watch one of the high-end makeovers, it depresses me. You know the kind. The ones where the designers have a five figure budget just to make over a guest room? Sheesh, if I had that kind of money, my family would be on their way to Disneyland about now!
But it kinda makes you feel inadequate. My living room is best described as secondhand toddleresque eclectic. Basically, it's full of hand-me-down furniture that is already worn enough, I don't really care if the kids finally destroy it. But it is so EMBARRASSING! Especially when the donor of said furniture drops by, and you feel like sinking into the floor because of its condition.
Okay, enough! No stressing today! Yeah, I do it too. Time for another hug.
On days you know you're going to be stressed, make a point of doing something for yourself, and don't feel guilty about it. Have a sort of touch point, a link to how you feel when you feel awesome about yourself. Not a hugger? Give your mirror a high-five, and LEAVE THE HANDPRINT! Heck, make a collection of handprints, count them at the end of the day to remind you just how awesome you are, and THEN you can clean it off. If that doesn't work, buy a small cache of treats, hide it away well, and when you need a pick-me-up, grab a treat and say "I deserve every calorie!" If you're on a diet...well, go for sugar free! They make some good ones these days.
You get the idea. It's time to stop letting ourselves be ruled by Monday, whether it's on Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, whatever. Time to just let things be.
Give yourself a hug. And while you're at it...the next time your kid comes at you with uber sticky hands and chocolate all over his face, let him hug you anyway. That's what stain treaters are for.

TGIF...now what?

Meh. Blah. So uninspired today.
You gasp in disbelief. But...it's Friday! you protest.
Yeah, so?
It's the weekend! You should have plans to do all kinds of stuff!
Uh-huh. That's the problem. I have TOO MANY plans. Where in the world do you start? It's all stuff worthy of completion. The garden needs to be cleaned out, the garage wiring needs to be done, I've got weeds to pull, a stone path to install in the front yard, endless housework to do. How does one choose? There is no way I can get it all done. Not in my present state. And yet, it all needs to be done.
Yes, Jeff will likely be doing most of the heavy work. But even after he gets that done, there is more to do. It would be nice to have a weekend where we don't have anything to do. That never comes. I suppose, some time this winter we may have a day where we are snowed in and therefore have just house stuff to do, but there is a lot of that too. Besides house cleaning, there's wiring and repairs inside to do as well. We still have old light fixtures and wiring in the ceiling that are just blazes waiting to flare up. I swear we must have guardian angels keeping the house from going up in flames. Getting into the attic is the fun part. The opening is small, and it is stuffed full of blown insulation.
I don't like to make excuses for why things don't get done. But sometimes...you look around at everything that NEEDS to be done, and it just defeats you. How the heck do you find a starting point? And when you get to the end of the day, how do you choose a stopping point? You see "just a few more things" that need to be done, and before you know it, it's midnight and you're so tired you can't even see straight. You're useless the next day because you overdid it.
So what's the answer?
Haven't a clue. I guess, this weekend, maybe I'll find it.

Looking at the Bright Side...With New Sunglasses!

Sigh. We knew it had to be done. We knew the time was coming. And it came a lot more swiftly than either of us would have liked.
I'm sitting in the living room, babies are in bed, and Jeff walks in with his glasses in his hands. "I am not happy right now," he says. I look up, and he hands me his glasses, with one lens popped out. Easy enough, I think, just pop it back...
The frames were snapped.
He had been having problems with them not sitting properly on his face. That's what happens when curious toddlers are constantly trying to bend them out of shape. So after his shower, he was trying to bend them back INTO shape. They broke. In this case, it wasn't a simple matter of the nosepiece breaking in half. Nope. Instead, the frame of the right lens had snapped away from the nosepiece, which is a 90 degree angle. Not something you can discreetly wrap with tape.
The first thing I think of is crazy glue. Well, he has to have glasses, or he can't go to work! He's bat-blind without them! His only other pair are sunglasses, which he really doesn't wear as often as he should, but I'd rather they not be his only pair. People might think he really IS blind.
I check the desk. No crazy glue. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any in the house for a couple of years. Then I remember my bead fixative. That stuff is just about as strong as crazy glue. I should know, I actually glued my fingers together when I first tried it. So I go pull out a new bottle, cut off the tip, and try to apply it.
Nuts. Too old. It dried up in the bottle. I check my old bottle. Same thing.
Drat. Double drat. NOW what?
I'm desperate. So I try seam glue. Those of you that have used it know what I'm talking about. It's a kind of clearish stuff, resembling crazy glue, that you place along a seam of fragile fabric to keep it from fraying.
It's not crazy glue. So I try scotch tape. It looks terrible.
I am so ready to give up. I head back into the living room, and tell him I tried the seam glue, but it's not working, so I taped it. He's more or less resigned to it. He heads for bed, I go back to turn off the office light.
Of course!
Sitting in my tool basket is a tool I haven't even opened yet. A mini hot-glue gun. The tip is small enough to allow for delicate detail work. Lessee, a gun...and about a hundred sticks of glue. Yeah, that should be enough.
I plug it in and wait for it to heat up, examining the break as I do so. It isn't a clean straight break, it's slightly jagged, so I fight with the glasses and get it arranged properly, tightly as possible to hold in the lens.
I apply the glue, leaving about a lentil-sized blob, and hold it, blowing on it to cool it more quickly. I wait, and wait...I look around for a rubber band, then decide to just test it. Tentatively, I let go.
It holds.
EUREKA!
I wrap the rubber band around it anyway, to hold it overnight and allow it to cure. The glue blob is apparent up close, but far away, you don't really notice unless you look for it.
I go in to bed, where Jeff asks where in the world I've been. Apparently, he didn't notice me working in the kitchen. I tell him what I did, and warn him it may or may not hold.
The next morning, he makes an appointment at the glasses shop. One of those one-hour or less places. The tab is staggering. He buys two pair--one regular, one sunglasses--with "flexible" frames and no-glare lenses. Good idea, he stares at a computer all day. Over six hundred dollars.
Eesh.
It would have been cheaper had we gone somewhere else, but...while the repair had miraculously held throughout the day, the lens still kept popping out. The more he shoved it back in, the more it would strain the repair. So we had little choice.
At least now he has better glasses, with a double bar across the nosepiece instead of single, so the girls can't twist it to pieces again. It looks...different. Different color, too. But they are similar enough to the glasses he had years ago, it's not hard to get used to.
As for the old glasses, I hate to throw them out. His prescription has changed, but not immensely. In a pinch, they might be useful. So after examining them, we've decided to take the lenses out of his old sunglasses, which have identical frames, and put the regular lenses in those frames.
Why I didn't think of that the night before, I have no idea.
Still, at least he didn't have to miss oodles of work because of broken glasses. They were expensive, but fortunately, we actually had a little savings this month. We could whine and complain that we had other, more fun uses for that. But the fact of the matter is that he has needed new glasses, and this was a good time to get them. We were blessed to have the money when we needed it.
Next up? Lasik!