My baby is 8 months old!

So I looked back at my blog when I had M and he had a video every month. Poor T - she is lucky to get a picture. By 8 months M was crawling - T has no interest - she just pulls herself around and gets things or she screams and she gets what she wants. However she can stand somewhat by herself if she has something to hold onto. I am so not ready for two mobil kids! I hope she doesn't move for months! If this was M I would have been freaking out because he was 'behind'. This week T started waving hi/bye bye - I don't think she knows exactly what she is doing but everyone else loves it so I am sure she will do it more and more because of the reaction. Still no teeth - poor girl! Her hand is constantly in her mouth. They look like they are so close but still they haven't come through.

I really need to find the video software and load it onto my computer - I have about a year of video backlog. I look back at the blog with all of this stuff about M and what he was doing and T is really getting only a small percentage of that. I know that happens with the second kid and I always thought it was bad but now I am able to enjoy my time with her. I am not quite as obsessed with pictures, videos, and documenting. It would be nice to have all of that but sometimes you just have to shut that computer down and have fun with your kids.

On a more positive note...

I realize that I have been a little negative and complaining a lot lately. It just feels like 2010 hasn't been that kind so far. Q1 is almost over and I am hoping Q2 is a better one. It should be lighter and warmer so that is something that is guaranteed even if everything else isn't. Here are some things making me smile:

-M's has changed from want to 'NEED IT!' He not longer wants the toy he NEEDS IT! He needs milk, he needs Manny (tv show) he needs tools, etc.

-M was pointing out bridges to me on the way to school the other day - it sounded like he was saying bitches.

-M tells everyone that he loves them.

-T is starting to hold her bottle - that will be so nice!

-T will smile back at your when you smile at her 99% of the time and she has the cutest dimple on her right side - how can you not smile when you see that.

-T sounds like she is saying Bye bye, ma ma, and other words. I know they aren't real words but I still love hearing it.

-M will hold up two fingers (instead of one) and say hold on I will be right back and run to get something and bring it back.

-M will give T stuffed animals, kisses, and hugs, when she is crying - that is so nice to watch.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

The week in review

Andy has been gone for one week as of tomorrow but he is getting home after the kids to go bed so for all intensive purposes he is gone until Thursday.

Day One, Thursday - Andy leaves for Vegas. Pick kids up, I honestly don't remember too much about the day so it couldn't have been that bad

Day two, Friday - drop kids off, take Deucey to get her staples out, they say she looks awesome and she is right on schedule if not ahead of schedule - so thrilled and pleased! Grand plans to do some painting because I have taken a vacation day but I decide that Deucey's ear looks nasty so I make another appointment with the regular vet. Mom is schedule to come in, the flight is delayed so I decide to pick up T first not after the airport. I get there, she is sleeping. Leave go to airport, go to pick up M, he is thrilled to see my Mom, who he calls Gray, and actually runs up and gives her a huge kiss and hug. Now if you know M you will know that this is highly unusual - he usually won't talk to you for quite awhile. Go to pick up T and we head home. Evening is nice - M even wants Gray to put him to bed - shocking again! I think this is going to be a great weekend. The rain starts...

Day three, Saturday - we go to the Science Museum, we have a good time. Try to keep M awake on drive home in order to get a real nap at home. Again he asks for Gray to put him down for the nap. Catch up on TV via the DVR, again should be painting but I don't. M wakes up crazy. Evening is good - at least I don't remember anything about it. Still raining....

Day four, Sunday - We hit the mall as on 'outing'. I had some thing to return and we got there early with the time change so there weren't a lot of people there and there is a Starbucks. Have fun. Small fight over tools. Leave the toy store and the tools but M is good for the rest of the mall so we go back to get the tools. Now we have about 300 different tools at my house. Go back to the car, kids are in the car, putting the stroller in the trunk, back go out. I can't move for 5-10 minutes and after that it is extremely painful. Somehow I get into the car. We have no food so I go to the store, the one that will load your car with the groceries because at this point I can barely walk. My Mom stays in the car with the kids who are now sleeping - that god she was there and thank god they were sleeping. Do the shopping, head home. Deucey still needs to be carried up and down the stairs. What do I do? I do a little of her doing it and me still carrying her. No dinner made, ate cereal. Andy is due to arrive at 5 AM the next morning so at least I don't have to carry the dog until Monday night. He makes it to LA then flight is canceled. No help in the morning there. Email from renter - there is a stain on the ceiling in the apartment - I am reading this as I am getting into bed around 10:30. Get back out of bed, go over to that house. Find the problem in the attic - the roof is leaking. Go and find things to collect the water while in a lot of pain - going up and down ladders and in the attic wasn't the best idea. Get home around 1 AM. Still raining....

Day Five, Monday - no way I can make it to work because I will have to meet with someone about the roof. Get up, get kids ready, ice back, and send Mom in a cab to the airport because the kids are still sleeping due to the time change which I hate!!! Kids don't just automatically go to bed an hour earlier! Mom is off. Kids are ready and I go back upstairs to change. Come back down to brown sugar all over the dining room - I resist the urge to throw M out the window. Finish getting them ready and off to school. Get back home, logon to do some work. How do you clean up all of this brown suger? I let it just sit there and dry and get hard - much easier to vacuum up. Evening is relatively uneventful.

Day Six, Tuesday - M wakes up crying and whining and didn't really stop all that much until we dropped T off. Get them to school, run to work late due to drop offs. Work, work, work. head home. M has another round of crying and screaming. Finally get them down and I try to clean up the house - it is awful by this point. The rain has stopped - that was the highlight of my day.

Day Seven, Wednesday - Small crying in the AM but otherwise good. Wednesday is trash day and M is scared of the garage truck because it is so loud - that is a very motivating thing to use when you want to get a kid into the car quickly. They are dropped off and I am at work. I am hoping that the evening is a good one. Everyone needs a bath but I am not sure my back will allow that so I will probably send in dirty children to school tomorrow. Oh well.

Here is to a better 7 days starting tomorrow.

How to get your child to eat his/her greens....

On Monday night M had this dinner right when he walked in the door, as usual. We started our dinner and had that after he was finished. He walked over to check out what we were eating and announced that he wanted it. We were having steak, mushrooms, and asparagus. He wanted the asparagus. Andy responded by saying the following:

'If you go around and clean up all of your toys you can have a plate of asparagus'.

Now let me just say that he has liked asparagus in the past. So M ran around gathering up most of his toys and then sat down for his plate of asparagus that he loved and said 'I ate that all up!'. Somehow we got our child to eat vegetables and clean up toys without cookies or other bribes. I don't know if that will work again in the future but for one night all was right.

Week #2

So we have started week two of Deucey's recovery. It is actually much better than the first:

- 15-20 minute walks 3 times a day
-Anti-inflamatory - 2 times a day
-Pain pills - 2 times a day - though we run out tomorrow - hopefully she isn't in too much pain
-Massage as needed - that is happening less because honestly she stinks! I think with that collars on stuff is getting caught in there and not getting out. I honestly don't want to pet her because she smells! And I don't want to take the collar off because then I feel like she would know somehow it comes off and she would try to do it herself. It already has many rips and breaks after only 10 days. We had to tape it back together after only a few days - she doesn't really get the fact that she can't take tight corners and she has to lift her head up when walking.
-Icing - Honestly that has totally fallen off the map. Sitting there with a dog for 15 minutes on the ground holding an ice pack doesn't seem like much but with two kids running around and total exhaustion happening due to earlier mornings for the walks and later nights for the walking and such.

So we are going to enjoy the 'easy' Week 2 & 3 because Week 4 comes back with a vengence. Deucey gets her staples out on Friday and my Mom arrives on Friday to help out - Andy is leaving for Vegas on Thursday so I needed to call in the troops.

Excuse Me, Excuse Me, Excuse Me

Murdoch has mastered 'Thank you', 'Please', and a few other polite phrases. You have to reminder him but he will pretty much always say them. We have now started to teach him to say 'Excuse Me' if you burp or make any other bodily noise or if an adult is speaking and you want to say something. The Excuse Me when someone is speaking isn't going that well but the other one is as I witnessed the other night.

The two of us were sitting on the couch watching Handy Manny before bedtime and he got the hiccups. Murdoch would hiccup, then say 'Excuse Me', another hiccup, another 'Excuse Me', etc. It was so cute! He was clearly tired so he was just kind of staring at the TV and saying excuse me every couple of seconds. I tried not to giggle but I couldn't help myself. Luckily he did notice.

Aleve and Narcotics

I picked Deucey up on Friday and we have made it through almost two days of PT for her. I know that plenty of other people have to do PT and it is way more than we have to do but the thought of 14 weeks of this is a little overwhelming - especially when it is only day two. So we are taking it one day at a time and hoping the light at the end of the tunnel comes soon.

One thing that I thought was pretty cool/interesting is the patch that is on Deucey's leg. The doctor told me to take it off on Monday, and that it has to be returned to them. She said that if we just threw it out and someone found it in our trash we could get in big trouble. I didn't ask but I think I should - what kind of drugs are those?! I know it is a narcotic but what kind? I wonder what would happen if I ripped it off her leg and put it on my arm like one of those patches that help you stop smoking - that is essentially what it looks like.

Here is the PT for the first week:

Ice - 4 times a day for 10-20 minutes - of course a dog doesn't just sit there while you put a bag of peas on their leg so you get to sit there with them and give them support

Leash walks for 5-10 minutes, 3 times a day.

Passive range of motion (flex and extend) for 10 repetitions, 3 times a day

Massage thigh muscles for 5 minutes before and after range of motion exercises

No stairs - so we have to carry her up and down the stairs when she has to go to the bathroom

Contain her to one room - not hard so far but she has already started to whine when we are in the other room. Not sure how well this is going to work.

Anti-inflammatories 2 times a day

Pain meds 2-3 times a day

Now this doesn't seem that bad but combining this into a schedule that is already a mess and overbooked is presenting some problems. April can't come soon enough!

Post-OP

Deucey is doing well. I spoke with the surgeon around 7 PM last night and he was really happy with the surgery. Her knee is very stable now. Her miniscus was torn so they had to take the back half out and leave the front which basically means that she is going to have arthritus but I was expecting that. She was on IV pain meds all night and they are going to start weining her off and switch to oral pain meds today. Assuming she looks okay I am going to pick her up later today. I am washing all of her bedding and everything else just to try to avoid any infection in the wound and she has a brand new bed so she will hopefully be more comfortable. It is going to be a long road of PT that we have to do at home but hopefully is goes by relatively quickly and we have our old Deucey back by late Spring.

TTA or TPLO?

About a month and a half ago Deucey came back from the dog park on three legs - she had hurt her back right leg. We waited a few days to see how things looked - maybe she just twisted her email - though we really didn't think so. We took her to the vet and she thought she had blown her knee out but we would need to go to a specialist. They gave us some pain pills and anti-inflammatories and said to wait a few days to see if that did anything. It didn't and then we were off to an orthopedic surgeon for animals. They confirmed within a matter of minutes that she did indeed blown her knee out and that she needed surgery. At this point they gave us three options. One that wasn't very invasive and then that were. We decided against the one that wasn't very invasive because she is so young and so active. If she was a 12 year old dog that slept most of the day we would have gone down that route. So then we were left to TTA or TPLO. We spoke with the two doctors, one does TTA, one does TPLO. They had no recommendations so we did a little research, got the expert opinion from Craig & Ellen and we decided to go with TTA.

So now we pick a date for surgery, March 11th. You aren't supposed to feed your dog past 8 PM the night before. So what do I do? Feed the dog the morning of - surgery scheduled for March 18th. March 18th rolls around, Andy's car battery is dead. Reschedule for March 25th.

So my first baby, yes I said baby for all of you people out there that don't think dogs are part of a family, is in surgery today. I dropped her off at 6:30 AM unable to tell her anything about what was going to happen. I guess in a way it is better not to know about pain because she slept well last night but the inability to explain what we are doing and how in the end it should help her brings tears to my eyes. I just hope she is okay when we pick her up tomorrow.

No stairs for 6 weeks - that is going to kill me! She weighs just over 60 pounds and let me tell you that I feel everyone of them when I pick her up, especially when she doesn't want to be picked up. So that is going to be a long road - I am going to want to shoot her even after a few days but as the weather gets warmer and the days get longer my baby will heal and we will be out on our family walks again. So I am trying to stay positive and look forward to that time. I am sure I will complain at some point about it though. That can't be helped!

Things that made me smile this week

Murdoch got out of the bath last night and told me that his nipples were tired. I guess that means that it is time to go to bed!

Thayer kicks her left foot/leg over and over again when you change her diaper.

Thayer was face/belly down in her crib with both legs sticking out of the crib at a 90 degree angle when I went in to get her. You would think that she was either very uncomfortable or dead. When I turned the lights on low she just turned/lifted her head and smiled.

We got snow this week - I love that Murdoch calls it 'BIG SNOW!' with such enthusiam.

Murdoch is slowly potty training and he says bye-bye to his poo when we flush it down the toilet.

Murdoch was almost gabbing his toy dust buster on Thayer's leg and she was just laughing the whole time.

Murdoch and I were shoveling together. He enjoys shoveling with a golf club - I am sure you can imagine how effective that is.

Murdoch calls dog poop, poop dog. It always takes me a second to figure that out.

We finally downloaded some pictures

It has been a tough month or so around our house. Lots of travel by Andy and lots of sickness for everyone. Andy is away for part of this week and Deucey's surgery is scheduled for Thursday so the week will still be a little crazy but I am hoping things settle down a little.

Thayer got a tutu from my Mom and Murdoch and I went to the Museum of Science for a play date this weekend. Today we are just hanging out and starting to get ready for the week. I hope you enjoy all of the the pictures.

Hoping for a better month in February

So I have decided to continue my whining Wednesdays though it is Thursday so I can't even seem to get that right! :) On Sunday I ended up going to the emergency room - yes I went twice in one week. I cut a piece of my left index finger and nail off while cooking Sunday night. It didn't seem bad - it wasn't bleeding all that much and honestly I just didn't want to go to the ER again. I went to bed with it wrapped up and over my head. Well I woke up about an hour later to blood all the way down my arm, all over my head (it looked like someone tried to scalp me), and blood all over my pillow. Andy looked at me and said go to the ER - no options - this is bleeding too much. So I jumped in the shower - because there was blood everywhere and drove to the hospital down the street. Well I got there, no one else was there, thank god, so they took me in right away. I pulled off the wrap I had on there and you want to know how much it bleed - one drop!!!! I felt like such an idiot. They sent me home with band aids and bacitracin. My theory is that the combo of getting in the shower and then running out into the cold with wet hair and such made me cold enough, my hands were practically purple, that the bleeding stopped due to my hands being frozen. So back home and back to work a few hours later.

Then Wednesday comes. Deucey's appointment with the orthopedic surgeon is at 11 AM. I wait by the phone for the update from Andy - knowing that she has blown out her knee but there is that 1% chance that it is just fine and we have to do nothing. Well the 1% didn't win so we are looking at a really expensive surgery, not to mention at least 6 weeks of recovery which is really going to suck - no stairs for her at all. I barely survived three days of carrying her up and down the stairs. I think we need to have one of those chairs installed that she can sit in and it takes her down the stairs. So not shocking news but it sucked to have it confirmed that she needs the surgery.

Then daycare called - Murdoch has a 103 fever. Again - not surprised because he seemed off but once again I was crossing my fingers that it was nothing.

So I am not really sure how February is going to be better when we have a dog that basically can't do anything and it is still winter so the kids will be sick but like I have in the past I will cross my fingers and hope for the best, knowing that most likely the worst will occur.

Yoga and my BFF

This is a picture of Murdoch doing yoga at school with his BFF Alex. They are basically the exact same child - Alex's mother says that they share a brain.

On a separate note I am thinking of making Wednesday either Whining Wednesday or Worn out Wednesday! Laura has wordless Wednesdays where she posts cute pictures or videos of her kids. That is a much better option but yesterday I was worn out and I wanted to whine! Andy traveled three days last week which made it a long week with the drop off and pick up and then I had a three-day weekend so I was thinking yes! This will be good. It started off really well. I was sick on Friday night so I just went to bed. I got up early, ran errands, went to spinning, and then I ran some more errands. Back home to hang out with Murdoch while Andy, Thayer, and Deucey went to the dog park. Deucey comes home and she can't use her back left leg at all. Crossing my fingers I am hoping that clears up, well it doesn't. Sunday is fine. Monday Thayer doesn't have daycare and is a little off so I didn't get much done and Andy left to travel. I take the Deucey to the vet. They tell me she might have torn her ACL or MCL. GREAT! Not only is she is pain but this will be A LOT of money. And I am carrying a 65 pound dog up and down the stairs - Andy fell down the stairs on Sunday doing that when he slipped on ice. Back home. Tuesday - back to work after dropping the kids off and popping Aleve because by this time my lower back is killing me! Tuesday afternoon, daycare calls and says that Thayer sounds weird when she is breathing and they are concerned. I exchange calls with the nurse at the doctor's office and they say that if she is wheasing then they will see her the next day but if she is having an issue breathing she should come in right away. I call daycare back to get an better idea of things. I call the doctor back and now it is after 4 so I am having trouble getting in touch with anyone. I talk to daycare again. They feel like it is pretty bad so I say screw it I will go to the emergency room. I make a bunch of phonecalls trying to find someone who will watch Murdoch - I don't want to expose him to those germs, not to mention the fact that it could be hours and trying to take care of her and watch him would be a nightmare. Andy's friend came over and Murdoch loves him and didn't even care when I left. So I headed to the ER. Things were looking good when I got there but it quickly fell apart. About 90% of the ER were kids and then about 80% of the kids were babies. So we were there for about 5 hours to find out that she had a cold. By the time I got home and got ready for bed and all that I would have gotten maybe 4 hours of sleep if I was going to go to work so I just decided to take a sick day. Especially knowing that Thayer would be sleeping with me for most if not all of the night. Yesterday wasn't bad and Andy got back late last night. So hopefully we are back to normal. And I know a lot of other people have it a lot worse than I do so I don't mean to complain but there are times when I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

2010 is Here. Yeah!

Since I now have 2 kids and already dedicated one post to Murdoch, here is one for Thayer.

I was always kind of scared of having a little girl because I never had a sister and almost none of my friends growing up had sisters either. Well so far she's been great. Doesn't cry or make a fuss that much. Sleeps a lot (just like her old man). And is generally in a happy mood.

Well this morning, my 2010 started off in the usual crappy way. Murdoch comes prancing into our room like a raging bull. Starts proclaiming everything under the sun as his and grabbing it to throw in a giant pile around himself. Yelling at the top of his lungs that he wants to eat. So we start to get up to get breakfast when he decides to grab some screws that had been lying around. I do the usual "Don't touch those you might get hurt!" which clearly means nothing as he smiles, laughs, and runs off. Eventually I determine the bizzare little hiding spot that he has for them so we can finally get breakfast. At which point something, I'm still not sure what sets him off into orbit in a tantrum that lasts a good 20 minutes. All I can think of is Happy New Year!! Definitely not an It's a Wonderful Life moment for me.

Then we hear some noise on the monitor and it sounds like Thayer is ready to eat. So I go upstairs to grab her, very grumpy at this point, only to find a shiny, happy face smiling up at me. And I realized, I'm so glad that I have a little girl to go along with the train wreck. Any time he makes me crazy I can run away to someone else who always seems so happy to see me. At least until she's 12....

My Girlfriend works at the bar

Since I was the cause of the latest funny Murdoch story, Sarah asked me to give the Blogging a try. Here goes...

Lately on Sundays we've been taking the family down to the local bar for some good Bloody Marys, food we don't have to cook, and some football. Murdoch seems to like going and the staff is very kid friendly so it all seems to work out OK. Well this past weekend we brought along Sarah's parents for the experience and got a nice table right near the big screen. Our waitress was very nice and was trying to make friends with Murdoch who was clearly in over his head and got very shy. Just for fun, I decided to tell him that she was his Girlfriend. Well, upon hearing that he was now VERY interested in this girl and kept watching her walk all around the bar. Anytime he lost sight of her he would ask "Where my girlfriend go dada?" or when she came near the table it was "That my girlfriend". When it was time to wrap up the outing, we stopped over to the bar and said goodbye, but Murdoch couldn't hold it together and hid his head on my shoulder. She loved it though, so I think he managed to work a little magic even with no confidence. She was cute, but I know to Murdoch she looked more like this.

Later when we got home he asked me where his girlfriend was and I said at the bar where she works. He repeated this a couple of time trying to work through the details in his head and then has been proudly telling any and everyone since that "My Girlfriend work at Bar!" Funny stuff. Can't wait to see what happens this Sunday. Maybe he'll even bulk up the courage to say hi.

Cleaning House

One of my goals on maternity leave was to clean out the basement. That like many other goals didn't actually happen. Though I did make a good dent in the clutter but the place is still a mess. When I started the process I didn't want to just throw everything away because a lot of it was in good shape but we just didn't use it any more. There are the regular outlets like GoodWill and The Salvation Army but I wanted to see if I could maybe trade a few of these and get something back. Here is a little summary of what I found.

To Donate clothing and housewares:

-Goodwill
-The Salvation Army
-Dress for Success

To donate children's items:

-Newborns in Need - newbornsinneed.org
-Project Night Night - projectnightnight.org

To donate books, CDs, or DVDs:

-Books for Soldiers - booksforsoldiers.org
-Read to Reader - readertoreader.org

To swap items online:

-For clothing and accessories - rehash.com or swapstyle.com
-For children's items - handmedowns.com or thebabychain.com
-For books, CDs, DVDs, and video games - bookins.com, bookmooch.com, chancexchange.com, goozex.com, or swaptree.com
-For everything else - freecycle.org, neighborrow.com, swapthing.com, titletrader.com

I haven't tried all of these but I have use a few and I have gotten rid of a lot of things while helping others or trading to get something that I do want. I also ran into a way to give away gently used shoes. If you go to piperlime.com there is a link in the lower right-hand corner for soles for souls. You send your shoes to them and they distribute them to people worldwide who are in need and they send you a receipt to use for your taxes. I just sent them a big box yesterday.

So get on out there and clean your house out and help someone else out in the process! And reusing is also green!

One, Two, Tres...

Murdoch has learned/is learning to count and say the alphabet. The counting has been going on for awhile. We walk up the stairs and count the stairs so he was counting to 15 pretty well. We count to three for a lot of things - one, two, three, jump, or I am going to count to three and you better stop hitting your sister or you get a timeout - he doesn't really help us when we do that :) Lately instead of saying one, two three, he has started saying one, two, tres. It is cute. It took me a couple of times to realize what he was saying. I guess they count in Spanish at school and he has started to pick some of that up.

I am loving....

That little piece of her head where you can see her heart beating. And it is almost gone...

Nice!

As Murdoch has started to talk more and more you start to realize quickly words that you use often. I never realized how often I use the word 'Nice' until Murdoch started using it all of the time. A couple of months ago we went out to get some new shoes together and he wore them out of the store I guess I said 'Murdoch those are nice shoes!' basically because I didn't want him to take them off. Then he started saying nice shoes to his shoes and everyone elses shoes which was kind of funny. Earlier this week I gave Murdoch a bath and then asked him if he wanted any lotion or cream - often times he enjoys a 'massage' after his bath. So he said yes and I asked him where he wanted the lotion. He told me his left foot and lifted it up in the air so I put lotion on that foot and started to rub it in. After about 5 seconds of that he said 'OOOOOHHHH Nice!' and I started dying laughing. And of course because I laughed at what he said he kept doing it over and over again.

I guess 'Nice' is better for him to pick up from me than compared to a lot of other words!

What doin'?

That is Murdoch's way of asking you what is happening or what is going on. I personally love it. Not sure why but it makes me laugh. Last night we had police cars speed down our street, happens often enough to not make it alarming but not often enough to make it exciting. So three cop cars pull up two houses down, and they get out and start walking up and down the street. Murdoch and I turned out the lights and pulled up the shades so we could see what was happening. Not too much happened - I still don't know why they were there but the whole time Murdoch keep saying 'What doin' Mama?' The kid is leaning over the back of the couch looking outside with his bum up in the air and he is choosing this over Handy Manny! I am not sure if this is the best lesson to teach your children - yes go spy on your neighbors but make sure you turn the lights out so they don't know!