I Wish I Was There

Chase just sent me these pictures from his phone. I swear that he is only home one week out of the month but he gets to do more fun things with our baby than I do!

4 Years Ago

Now you're my whole life

Now you're my whole world

I just can't believe the way I feel about you

Like the river meets the sea

Stronger than it's ever been

We've come so far since that day

And I thought I loved you then.

~Brad Paisley Then

Four years ago, we wouldn't be able to recognize our life now. 1.8 kids, a mortgage, different jobs, an il stupido Chihuahua. But when I look at these pictures, I realize that the good things that I fell in love with back then exist today but are even more prevalent. Even after four crazy years. I still think that Chase is my absolute best friend who knows me better than anyone else on the planet. He can see right through me and know what I’m really thinking no matter what is actually coming out my mouth. I truly believe that he has the biggest heart out of anyone that I have ever met. Harmony and empathy rank very high on his list of strengths and I wouldn’t have it any other way. He puts up with a lot from me and nothing seems to get him down. I wish I could be more like him in that way. In other ways, we are completely alike. We are definitely marshmallows right in the fire kind of people. We could both work much harder at staying organized (unfortunately the combination of the two of us being this way allows us to enable each other but that’s a whole separate issue). Finding the person out there who has your back no matter what is so rewarding that it takes away any fear that I might have about our future. Here’s to 40 more!

What I can't see is how I'm ever gonna love you more?

But I've said that before

Tautphaus Park Zoo

On Sunday before Izzy got sick, we finally made it to the zoo as a family to see our monkey. Above is the picture of our name plaque! You can check it out at Tautphaus park anytime. Izzy named him Kitty just in case you wanted to know. There is a baby camel at the zoo right now that is absolutely adorable, so don't miss him if you have time. We actually had to cut our visit a little early because I seriously was as swollen as a grapefruit on steriods. But we are excited to use our zoo pass to go back soon.

Rotavirus

My poor little baby. I can't believe it. She has survived another hospital stay. Last Sunday, Izzy had a fun day playing with her dad in the pool and at the zoo. She was fine all day long. That night, a switch was flipped and she started throwing up and having diarrhea. It literally came from nowhere. I laid in bed with her until 2 in the morning and finally I couldn't take it anymore because she was having problems breathing and her eyes kept rolling back into her head. So I picked her up and we went straight to the ER. I walked in with a little lifeless body and they didn't even make me wait. They took us straight back and started taking her vital signs. They helped getting her breathing correctly and just watched her for a few hours. When they sent us home, I really felt like they weren't listening to me. I'm really not one of those moms who whisks her kid into the ER for every sniffle. In fact, she has only been to the doctor one other time this year yet they made me feel like I was an over zealous person. It was very frustrating. I stayed home on Monday, well actually at my parents house because our sprinkler system flooded our yard and the city killed the water to our house until we got it fixed (another extremely long story that I don't even want to get into). But Monday night I did notice some improvements, so I thought the ER doctor was right and it was a 24 hour thing. I dropped her off at daycare the next morning and by the time I got to work, I had three urgent messages to come pick Izzy up. She definitely took a turn for the worse and she was miserable all day. She couldn't even hold a small sip of water down. And the diarrhea was constant. It seriously sounded like someone turned a spigot of water on inside her stomach. So Wednesday I took her into the Pediatric Center. Of course, by the time I got there, she was actually coming back from the dead a little bit. They took her blood and she thought it was great that she got to pick out her own bandaid (it really is the little things in life, right Izzy?). The doctor looked her over and said she looked fine. He even asked me twice how old she was because she just kept responding to his questions with such ease. He tried to give her a book and she told him, "I already read that one, I'm going to need a different one please." At that point he said, "You are a very precocious two year old" and she responded with "I know but thank you." At this point, I was really thinking he was going to send me on my way without really listening to me tell him that she hadn't kept anything down in over 48 hours and I was starting to get flustered. But he did want to review her blood work first. When he came back in, Izzy was reading a book to me and she told him, "I need to finish this but I already told her it was the last time." It was very cute. Fortunately, when he saw her blood work he finally understood what I was trying to tell him. He said,"You really couldn't tell from looking at her but she needs to go to the hospital right away because these results aren't telling a pretty story." So we went straight to EIRMC. When we got there, Izzy stuck out her finger like a little pro so they could take her pulse. When the nurse commented what a good patient she was, I told her that we had done this before, in fact just 3 days ago. She asked me what the Rotavirus results had been at the ER and I told her that I had no idea what she was talking about. She said that anytime a child under 5 comes into the ER with these kind of symptoms they ALWAYS check for Rotavirus. She went to pull Izzy's records and came back in 15 minutes later and said that they didn't check her for Rotavirus. I wasn't suprised but frustrated that I could have avoided this second hosptial stay had I known what I was up against. You are supposed to keep a child infected with Rotavirus drinking liquids every 15-30 minutes even at night, which I hadn't been doing. You are supposed to call the doctor if they have dirrahea more than 12 times a day, which I didn't know. I was kind of grouchy about the whole thing. But it got worse because they needed to put an IV in her and her veins kept collapsing. The whole time she was screaming, "They are hurting me Mommy." It was horrible. And it just kept going on and on. Finally they called an ER nurse up that is more used to working with patients with bad veins (like drug addicts). The poor kid had bruises up and down both arms. I was having a hard time and my mother was having an even more difficult time. But a couple of days in the hospital is the best treatment for Rotavirus, even though you should obviously not let it get to that point. Kids who are hospitalized usually recover a little faster because the only way you can get rid of it is through dirrahea and the constant fluid helps push it through much faster. I could actually keep going with this for another 300 words on this entire experience but I'm going to save everyone some time and just wrap it up. We are very lucky to have a healthy child once again. Thank goodness!

Yes, I Say Stupid

I had to take last week off work because Izzy had Rotavirus. And while I have a whole lot of things to say about that experience, I can’t get my camera to upload to my computer so I’m going to save that for tomorrow. But I just wanted to share one experience that completely slapped me in the face and made me feel like the worlds worst Mom (almost more so than the fact that I let her so dehydrated that she had to go to the hospital). The ceiling tiles in the Pediatric wing of the hospital have little kids footprints carved into them, which are very cute and give a very child orientated feel to the whole place. The doctor came in on Thursday while making his round and was trying to get Izzy to come to life. Which she wasn’t having. She just sat there and stared at him. The doctor made one last attempt and asked Izzy if she was the one that walked all over the ceiling because nobody else had such tiny feet. She looked right at him and said, “No stupid.” I seriously could have died right there in the chair. I have to find a new word when referencing my brainless chihuahua.

Hormonal Pregnancy Woman Rant

So only 39 days until I get this kid out of me. Thank goodness! There are moments where I seriously doubt I can do this for one more hour let alone days. But you find the strength (mainly because you have no choice). I know that these 39 days will go fast and trust me when I say I need them because I really have nothing ready for this baby. But lately I have had some serious second thoughts about naming this baby Elliott. Mainly because everyone looks at me like I’m stupid and I do not want to pass that on to my child. One of my biggest pet peeves in this life is people who saddle their kids with ridiculous names. Every time I meet a Princess, Cherry or Sugar, I seriously cringe. Do people really lack that much respect for their unborn children? I can’t get over how dumb people are. It’s almost as bad for me when people spell their kids names like they just got dropped on their heads. When Isabelle was born, a lady in an online group suggested I spell it Izzabellayah to “be different.” I wanted to ask her how in the hell that proved to the general population how “different” I was other than the fact I was willing to torture my child for years to come on continuously spelling out her name. The other day, I was trying to get an email address from a lady named Victoria. When I stared spelling it out with a V-I, she corrected me. Her name is Veectoryiah. Are you freaking kidding me? Not that I believe Elliott is anywhere near that level, I just don’t think that it has been used enough for girls to establish a pattern of ambiguity between sexes. Do I really want to give that job to my child? I don’t know. My heart tells me yes but my head tells me no. And I’m a head person. And its funny because I love the name Elliott, I love what it represents but the second Chase and I talked about Cambree, it just felt right. So as of now I’m going with this, I just have to break in Grandma Great to the idea…

Lawn Mowing Drama

I had a slight nervous breakdown two nights ago. I wish I could pass the blame onto someone else, but I can’t. I’m feeling very overwhelmed and hormonal lately. My lawn was so long that it just had to be mowed. It couldn’t be put off even one more day let alone a week and a half until Chase gets home. My brother-in-law (the one that doesn’t even live with me) took pity on me last time and I was eternally grateful (especially after I figured out how much work it is) but I know that he has a life of his own that doesn’t involve my lawn. I have seen 8 year olds mowing the lawn. It can’t be rocket science. So I headed out back determined to get it done. The whole experience got off to a rocky start because it took me a few minutes to figure out where we even keep the thing. I forgot that our lawn shed was filled with someone else’s junk (long story). When I tracked it down, I actually got it started. I was so proud of myself! But the grass was so long that it kept dying and everytime I did the pull motion to get it started, every single stomach muscle tightened and it was starting to become painful (which I will never admit out loud to anyone because I can mow the darn lawn). After three rows, it wouldn’t even start. I tried for 15 minutes and couldn’t even get it to putter. So I called Chase to talk me through some trouble shooting on the phone. Which he refused to do. Which completely set me off. He kept saying, “You’re not going to mow the lawn. Just let me take care of it.” At this point I’m not proud to admit that I said something to the effect of filing for divorce if he called anyone to help me and if he didn’t tell me what to do. WHY COULDN’T HE JUST TELL ME THAT THE STUPID THING NEEDED GAS!??! I actually did open the gas tank at one point and could see a small layer of gas and I had assumed that was enough. It turned out it wasn’t but I didn’t find that out until later in the evening. I thought it was something else. So I called my dad. He was very vague in his answers and kept saying it would help him out if he could come borrow our lawn mower the next day to mow his grass because his was acting up. And he would just mow our lawn to return the favor (which I found out later that his mower is just fine). At this point I was hysterical. I am not handicapped. I can mow the lawn. Izzy was just staring at me like I was crazy. Finally I told my dad not to worry about it and I would figure out something else. Within 10 minutes both my parents and Ben showed up to mow my lawn. I got the feeling that everyone thought I was taking some kind of passive aggressive approach to getting my lawn mowed. I really wasn’t. I was just trying to take control of something that needed to be done in my life. Ben got the lawn mower started with one pull, which made me cry again. But it promptly died because there wasn’t enough gas. So Ben went and got gas and took care of it. My parents took the baby home with them for the night (probably out of fear that I had mentally snapped) and I went to bed. But I was grateful that it got done and Ben did a wonderful job. All this drama over a dumb lawn. Apartment living is the life for me.

Poor Chuckles

Here are the pictures of Chuck post surgery. Hopefully all the cancerous cells have been removed and he can make a full recovery. It's very painful for him to talk so the rest of the family is enjoying the break. Just kidding! The swelling does get worse everyday so he hasn't been able to return to work yet. We were very fortunate for my Grandma Bev because she was the only one able to clear her schedule so that Chuckie wouldn’t have to take a cab ride home from the hospital. She has had a lot of experience this last year with doctor visits and so forth, so she was our liaison for the entire day. She asked all the right questions so that we all know how to treat our patient. The night before, Chuck did plan his funeral and I know there was a big party involved. In all seriousness though, I’m thankful he made it out ok and seems to be doing very well.

You Got A Big Belly

Last night for dinner we went to my Mom’s house. My dad just had surgery on his face and so we stopped by to make sure he recovered. Everyone will be relieved to know that no face transplant will be required at this point though it appears half of his face has been lifted and the other half sags like an old man. I’ll have to get some pictures. Anyway, my mother cooked enough spaghetti for 10 people (I’m not exaggerating at all) to eat and be stuffed. So when she went to scoop out some for Izzy, I told her there was no way that Isabelle would eat that much. Oh but she did. And then she went on to have seconds. Then a bowl of watermelon. Then two bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I couldn’t believe it. She just kept eating. I asked her if she ate anything for lunch and she said a sandwich and soup. Sometimes I wonder if we put things on our kids by assuming too much. Izzy wrapped up the night by singing for me which I got on video. It might be hard for outside ears to understand her, but she is singing Maria the Cowgirl off Sesame Street. There is a great moment where she comments on my stomach that just gave me oodles of self esteem. I guess its her job to make sure I don’t feel too comfortable with myself.

Mother's Day

On Friday I got the most beautiful bouquet of flowers delievered to my work. The lady at the flower store could barely get through the door. Use the paper towel in the background for a real life size comparison. Chasey sent them to me for Mother’s Day. It was a nice surprise that broke up the work day for me. I know I’m not his mother but it was still great to feel appreciated for all the work I put into our two kids. On Sunday, Chase brought me a carmel apple. It was heaven! Of course by Monday it was easy to see how I had gained 4 ½ pounds in one week. This after coming off the high of losing 2 ½ pounds at the doctor visit before. Oh well. Such is life. It wasn’t only the carmel apple. We met Ryan and Nicki for brunch at Garcias at 9 and then topped it off with a barbeque at my parents at 2. So food was pretty much the focus of the entire day. Walking into Garcia’s, I passed out in the parking lot. I skinned my leg and sprained my ankle. I looked up and my skirt was literally around my neck. I was crying because it was so embarrassing and honestly I don’t really remember too much about breakfast until we went to leave. I had calmed down by that point. Mother’s Day is too much for me to handle. It made me feel really old and decrepit. But the honest truth is that nothing makes me happier than my little angel, especially when she’s sleeping.