Wish List Wednesday

Because money doesn't grow on trees and it is always fun to window shop...

This is my first time doing Wish List Wednesday. I am really excited about giving this a go, so after you read about my wish list click on the button above and it will take you to Jennifer´s blog The Foster Family. Read her wish list and everyone else that decided to play along.

I would love to have a maid so I do not have to clean my house!!!

My dream is to go on a cruise to Jamaica.

Because my printer is not working anymore I would love to have a new one. Maybe not this one but at least a canon printer.

And last but not least....I would love to have Jillian and Bob here to get my butt into shape. Oh that would be a dream come true!!!

Now if you want to play along, head over to Jennifer's blog and have a great time!!

Update on Doctors appointments

I wrote a post last week about my knee and Kobe´s ears. Well Kobe went to the Drs on Friday to have his ears and lymph node checked and his ears were still very red and the Dr said that it can take up to a month for the lymph node to go away. Well then yesterday I took Kobe in for his 2 year Well Baby visit. My son is 30 lbs. 8 oz. and 38 inches tall. He was born at 9 lbs. 1 oz and 22 inches tall. The Dr put in a referral for him to see the ENT again and also put in aseparate referral for him to see a pediatric surgeon but that is a whole nother post that I am going to write soon. Other than his ears Kobe looks great and is growing right on track and his motor skill and speech all are very advanced :o)

Kobe is going to be getting some of his vaccines now, I delayed a lot of the vaccines. I have been given so much sh*t from the Drs and Nurses for delaying his shots but I am the Mamma and I will decide what I think is best for him. Tyrique and Markus didn't get their shots until after they turned two too. The Dr and I had a "very" long discussion about the benefit of shots yesterday and I have to say I do agree that children need their shots. I just don't think their bodies need to be bombarded with shots every few months for the first two years of their lives. Their bodies are too tiny to deal with it. Also the link between Autism and the MMR shot is just too scary for me. My step sisters son is autistic and that is too close to home for me, I am not putting my children at risk.

In regards to my knee, the Dr said that I have some fluid behind the knee cap still and he wants to do a MRI to make sure that I didn't do damage to the ligaments and also just to find out what in the world I hurt. My knee is still bothering me at night and on occasional days like today I wake up and my knee feels like I ran a few miles in my sleep. I just made the appointment with radiology and I have my MRI tonight at 8:30 pm and I will get the results in the next 5 days. Fun stuff, I hope it is nothing serious.

Since we are talking about Drs why not talk about Vets too :o) Tomorrow morning Maya (my beautiful Boxer puppy) is going in to get some shots. Poor thing is not going to like me very much. It is ok because we will go to some fun pet store afterwards and I will buy her something nice. Hey if the kids get to have something after shots why not get Maya something too???

Ok enough for today. Have a great Wednesday!!!

Here are a few pictures of Maya. Isn't she the cutest thing ever :o)

Toot Your Horn Tuesday

It is that time of week again...Time for Toot Your Horn Tuesday!!! After you are done reading about my Toots click the button above to head over to A Silly Little Sparrow and read her and everyone elses Toots.

I am starting this Toot off by giving myself a HUGE pat on the back for emptying my sisters storage this weekend without the help of my husband. And let me tell you I am still sore today, it hurts to type.....Oooh, aaahh, oooh, aaah :o)

I need to pat myself on my back for getting all the laundry done yesterday and today I WILL put the clothes away. I don't know about the rest of you but I don't mind washing clothes, it is the putting them away that drives me insane. I hate walking up and down the stairs with overflowing arms of laundry. Putting away laundry after 5 people can take awhile and even now after I started making the big boys take their own laundry it still seems like such a looming task to walk that laundry up the stairs and put them away.

I am running out of Toots now, guess that is it for the day. I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday and play along. To play along all you have to do is click the button above and it will lead you directly to A Silly Little Sparrows page and you can read her Toot Your Horn Tuesday and then write your own. Easy as that!!!

Not me! Monday

Did something really embarrassing happen to you this week and you don't want to tell anyone about it?? Well here is your chance to tell it all in Not me! Monday. It is a fun way to get all your stuff off your chest without actually telling on yourself. After reading my blog head over to MckMamas blog and read her Not me! Monday and do your own this week. This is so much fun and you are missing out!!

Let me start off by telling you how my sons school principle did NOT make me so mad last week that I did NOT go to the school pick up my son and dis-enroll him out of school. I did NOT then call the school board back for the third time that day and I did NOT tell the secretary in charge to call the principles boss and tell him he needed to speak with me NOW because it was an emergency!!! I did NOT finally get in touch with the guy the next day and tear him a new one because of HIS principle and her rude nasty behavior. I was NOT promised the world by the guy and asked to please bring my son back to above mentioned school.

This morning I did NOT do the walk of shame with my tail between my legs because I had to re-enroll my son in the school. I did NOT hope to see the principle so I could smirk at her for messing with the wrong Mom.

This weekend I did NOT clean out and empty my sisters storage that she has had here for a year and a half. This was NOT a storage stuffed with all kinds of crap that needed to be gone through and half the stuff thrown out and the other half re-boxed so it can be sent to Iceland. I did NOT spend hours on Saturday cleaning out the storage preparing it to be emptied out. I did NOT go to the storage on Sunday with the 3 boys and two female neighbors and empty the storage in two trips (we had a trailer on the back of my truck). I did NOT have a house full of boxes and other things I didn't know what to do with and I did NOT get it all cleaned out before going to bed last night. Toot toot for tomorrow :o)

Ok that is it for this weeks edition, join me, MckMama and all the rest of the Not me! Mondayers and do your own Not me! Monday. Have a great Monday!!!!

Kobe's ears and my knee

Let me start off by telling you about how Kobe had tubes put in his ears in November last year. He had ear infections at least once a month for 8-10 months straight and finally the ENT agreed that he needed tubes in his poor little ears.

Fast forward 9 months and Kobe has had no ear infections until we come home from our trip to Iceland and now this poor child has a raging ear infection in both ears. His tubes were still in place and they are green in color :o) He is given antibiotics and Tylenol with codeine for the pain (that is a new one). So he takes the meds and starts to feel all better.

Now one month later he wakes up in the middle of the night and he can not move his head. I checked him all out and see that he has a lump on the side of his neck and every time he tries to move his head to the side he screams in pain. So I rush him to the ER at 1am worried about my poor little man.

We were there for 3 hours and first the nurse told me that he must have slept too long in the same position and he has a muscle spasm in his neck. Uh ok whatever you say....where is the Dr?? Ok so in walks the Dr and she checks his ears and low and behold his ears looked horrible. And the worst part.....his tubes have fallen out!!! She said the lump on the side of his neck is a swollen lymph node and it is because he has an infection. She said it should take a couple of days to disappear and he should be all better.

Fast forward to today and my poor son has his head cocked to the side and will not move his head to the right. I am going to the Drs today for myself and I am gonna ask him about Kobe while I am there. Poor baby looks so pitiful with his little head cocked to the left side. I need to take a pic and post it on here so you can see him.

So I am going to the Drs today to get my knee checked out because silly me hurt it a few weeks back walking down the stairs with laundry. I dropped something on the stairs and squatted down to pick it up and I must have turned wrong because all of a sudden my knee popped and got stuck in a weird position. I had to pop it back into place and let me tell you it hurt so flipping bad I got tears in my eyes and it took my all not to scream.

I went to the Drs the next day and they gave me a brace and crutches after doing an x-ray. The Dr was not able to see anything on the x-ray and told me he wanted me to come back in a week to see how the knee is feeling. Well now it has been a few weeks and it is not better. It is not as bad as it was when it happened but it is definitely not back to normal. It hurts so bad at night sometimes that it keeps me up.

Guess today I will find out what is wrong with it. Wish me luck :o)

Toot Your Horn Tuesday

It is time for Toot Your Horn Tuesday :o) After you are done reading about my Toots click the button above to head over to A Silly Little Sparrow and read her and everyone elses Toots.

I have to start out by writing that yesterday after I wrote my Not me! Monday post I saw that MckMama visited my site and read my post!!! I feel like a celebrity was reading my blog :o) LOL I know it is funny that I am so excited but dang she is HUGE and Famous in the blog world!!!

I have been down in the dumps for awhile trying to decide what I want to do with my life and I have finally made the decision to stay at home and start doing daycare again. I feel so at peace with myself and my life knowing what I am going to do. I am too much of a planner/organizer to not know what I am going to do.

So Toot Toot to myself for taking hold of my life again and making the decision!!!

Now it is your turn to start Tooting!!! Have fun and see you next week for more Toot Your Horn Tuesday :o)

Not me Monday...it has been awhile!!!

Have you done all kinds of crazy things and are too embarrassed to tell about it??? Don't be, we have all been there. That is why MckMama created Not me! Mondays, so we can all tell the world what we did not do. So after reading about my adventures click on the button above to go directly to MckMamas blog and read her and everyone else's Not me! Monday.

I did not use MckMamas old Not me! Monday button because I was too lazy to figure out how to get the new button. Nope not me, I would have taken the time to get the button first before ever starting my post.

I am not wearing the same clothes since Saturday because I decided to clean today and didn't feel like putting clean clothes on just to get the dirty again. Nope not me!

I did not stay up till 4 am watching the last of season 3 of Dexter instead of going to bed early and watching the rest of the season today. Nope not me!! I put my sleep first above my need to watch TV. I have also not watched 3 whole seasons of Dexter in the last week and completely ignored the rest of my life in the process. Nope not me!!!

I did not go out to a club with a friend on Saturday night and dance my a** off. Nope not me!! I am a married mother of four and would never go out clubbing. Oh the shame, nope not me!!!

I did not spend the last month going to interviews, applying to multiple jobs and wracking my brains trying to write my resume only to get hired and decide that I want to stay home and continue doing daycare instead. Nope definitely not me!!! I would never do that.

I did not call around looking for daycare's for my son only to be scared to death of other daycare providers and their lack of common sense. Nope not me!!!

I did not do a Not me! Monday post for the first time in months! Nope not me!!!

Ok well that is it for this edition of Not me! Monday. Again click on the button above to visit MckMama and read her Not me! Monday and then you can go read everyone else's too. Have a great Monday and see you tomorrow for Toot your Horn Tuesday :o)

To do or not to do???

That is the million dollar question!!! So I have been out looking for jobs since I came home from Iceland and it seems to be looking up for me. I have gone on a few job interviews and I walked away from them knowing I was not going to get the jobs. But now I have one company that is looking rather promising and it is a supervisor position with great hours.

So now that I think I may have found a job I have to find daycare for Kobe. So I started calling around yesterday to CDH (Child Development Home) providers who work with the military and no one in this area has any openings for Kobe. So the closest one that has an opening is about a 20 to 30 minute drive from here and there is no way I am putting him in care that far from home. Last night I posted a listing on craigslist looking for providers in this area and I had some interesting responses. I was very clear on what I wanted in the ad and I have people e-mailing me who live in Norfolk which is waaaaayyyy out of the way for us and others who have part time hours but want full time pay for it.

I spoke to a woman today who responded to my ad and she sent me a link to her daycare web site and on it is says that she works from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. She told me that she is willing to work until 5 pm if needed though. Ok here is the catch....she considers 8:30 am to 1 pm full time and charges extra for the kids to stay any later than that???? What the f*ck??? She also said that the kids only get to take an hour nap in the afternoon because she has to pick up her children from school and she has to have the kids awake to do that. Ok I can understand that you have children of your own but come on an hour nap a day??? Kobe would go insane if he took only an hour nap everyday. She said that parents appreciate it because their children go down so easily at night...uuuhhh yeah that is because they are exhausted. Children need those naps so they can function and also for their brains to develop!!!

Now she also told me that she is closed anytime that the school is closed. That includes being off for Christmas break and I have to pay for all her holidays!!! If we take any vacation then we still have to pay her!! She gets paid 52 weeks a year regardless of the situation!! Give me a freaking break. She has it better than I ever did as a daycare provider.

So now I am wondering if I should just stay home and become a daycare provider again or do I want to put my child in daycare and pay out the ass for someone to watch him for me and I have to take vacation every time the school is off???? I am kind of frustrated after the last 24 hours trying to find someone to watch Kobe. One lady was shady as hell telling me that if the state came to audit her then I had to say that Kobe was a drop off for the day!! Uh that means that she has WAY tooooo many children and needs to be reported for that!!! Kobe is not going near her!!!

Ok so off I go to make dinner and keep looking for a provider for him. Do I start doing daycare again or do I go out there to work and pay someone else twice as much as I used to charge???

Toot your horn Tuesday

Finally after a long break it is time for Toot your Horn Tuesday again :o) After reading about my toots click the button above and read A Silly Little Sparrows Toots and everyone else's.

I don't have very much to Toot about this week because I am having a crappy week so far but I am sure I will think of something. I have made my bed every day (ok except twice when I stayed in it most of the day) since I came back from Iceland almost a month ago and it feels great! I have kept up with my laundry and I am loving that. I have no more than a load or so every two days and it is so nice not to have that HUGE pile twice a week like I used to do it before. I am trying to stay completely on top of some things in the house such as, making beds every day and making sure the boys keep their rooms clean and so far it is going pretty good.

I think that is all for now with the Toots. I will have something better to toot about next week. Have a terrific Tuesday everyone :o)

Work

I was a daycare provider for a year and a half and just quit in the end of June. Before that I was an insurance agent and worked for GEICO. I loved the job, it was just so hard to be away from my newborn baby. Kobe was 8 weeks old when I returned to work and I lasted for 4 months before I quit to stay home with him.

I really enjoyed getting to be home with him every day. It was so rewarding getting to see all his firsts and getting to be there everyday when he woke up or went to sleep. I wouldn't trade that for the world.

Now my baby is 2 years old and it is time for me to go back to work. I applied at a security company and they were not willing to pay me enough so I turned the job down. I was kind of depressed thinking damn what do I do now?? Then I was asked why I didn't go back to GEICO and I said that I thought they would not hire me back. When I resigned my manager tore up my resignation letter and asked me to please stay. I was given a 6 month leave of absence and told that I could come back at anytime.

Well I decided to give it a shot and apply at GEICO. I got a call from them last week but they called my husbands cell phone and when I tried to call them back I got a voicemail. I was kind of negative about it thinking that they would not call me back. Well this morning they did call me back and she asked me to please come in for a face to face interview on Thursday!!! I am so excited, the money is good, I love the job and I could not ask for more.

So please keep me in your thoughts and prayers on Thursday and keep all your fingers and toes crossed for me. I will let you all know how it goes. If I get the job I start on September 28th and I will work Mon-Fri during the day and then after 11 weeks of training I will start working from 1:30-10pm. The best part of working nights is that I get night differential!!! That is almost $2 more an hour!!! Ok let me stop now. Fingers and toes crossed that I will have good news on Thursday.

Happy 2nd Birthday Kobe!!!

I decided to copy paste Kobe's birth story from last year so you can all read about his arrival into this world.  Kobe is now 2 years old!!!  Wow how the time flies!  I feel like it was just yesterday that I was rubbing my belly wondering when I was going to meet my little prince and now I have had him with me for 2 years :o)  Enjoy the pictures and story while I enjoy my little man.

This ultrasound was done on 4/25/07, the day I found out we were having a BOY!!!

Here is a 3D pic of Kobe taken the same day

Here is a profile shot of my little munchkin

Here is a belly shot taken at 20 weeks and 2 days

Another belly shot, this one taken at 24 weeks

Last belly shot taken at 36 weeks and 2 days

I took this picture of Kobe first after they brought him in my room.  He was a few hours old

This pic was taken with Daddy the day after Kobe was born.

Mamma feeding Kobe the morning after he was born.  Sorry about the boob shot :o)

Here is Kobe in May of 2007 enjoying sitting in the grass

Kobe in November 2007

Kobe riding his new Diego bike on September 6, 2009.  2 year old big boy!!!

Now on to the birth story....

So at 5:30 am on September 6, 2007 I woke up with contractions and a horrible back ache.  I got out of bed and got into the bath tub which by now I was taking 5-6 baths a day because my back was always hurting soooo bad (found out when Kobe was three months old that was due to kidney stones).  I laid in the bath tub for hours.  I had Dewayne wake the boys up for school and called them into the bathroom and told them to take the bus home with my friend Michele's children.  I explained to the that I was going to have Kobe that day and they were going to stay with Michele as we had discussed before.  The boys left for school and that is when I told Dewayne that I was going into labor and he needed to call work to let them know he was not coming in that day.  So Dewayne called work and I got out of the bath tub and made sure all the bags were packed and ready to go.  While I was getting Jalen ready Dewayne went and took a shower and got ready.  I don't think he realized that it was actually happening though because I had to rush him and let him know it was time to go to the hospital.  

We dropped Jalen off at Michele's house and her husband Oron took Jalen for the day for us since Michele was in school.  Then off we went to the hospital.  As we were coming to Portsmouth we got stuck in some serious traffic and we could not get into the proper lane because no one would let us in so Dewayne scootched his way in to my horror (I thought we would end up in an accident).   We got to the hospital about 10:30 am and checked in at the desk to Labor and Delivery only to find out that there was a HUGE wait to be seen, it seemed like everyone in Virginia decided to have their babies that day!!!  

So the wait began.....

We sat in the waiting room for hours waiting to be seen, we talked to all kinds of people waiting for their babies arrivals too.  The funny thing was that most of the pregnant women were having boys as well, I think only one or two were having girls.  My contractions kept coming but they were not too strong but my back felt like it was going to explode!!!  At about 3:30 pm I was finally seen and the doctor said I was about 50% effaced and 2 cm dilated.  He wanted to send me home but he was just a resident so he had to have the head doctor come in and make the final call.  When that doctor came in he checked me also and told me that he wanted me to walk the halls for two hours and let him check me again because he could not admit me and do a c-section if I was not progressing.  

So the walking began....

Dewayne and I went to the cafeteria which is all the way on the other side of the hospital and two floors down so he could have something to eat.  I had not eaten anything all day and the nurse told me not to eat anything but I was allowed to have a smoothie so long as there was no dairy in it.  I had about 1/4 of the smoothie and then Dewayne drank the rest and we kept walking.  We walked the halls and then I wanted to walk up and down the stairs because I knew that had worked when I was having Tyrique.  So up and down I walked for probably about an hour.  I was so tired by then that we decided to go back to Labor and Delivery and see if they would check me.  When we got to Labor and Delivery there were even more people waiting to be seen so I had to wait another hour before they would check me to see if I was dilated any more.

When I went to the room to see if I had dilated anymore the nurses put me in an actual Labor and Delivery room and then they left me there for awhile longer.  About 7:30 pm the doctor came in and checked me and said that I was at 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced so she (it was a different doctor from the first time) asked me where I lived because she wanted to send me home and have me come back the next morning for a c-section.  I told her what the other doctor had said about me progressing and I also told her that we live at least an hour away.  She told me to hold on a sec she wanted to check with the head doctor and see what he said before making a decision.  

Well while waiting I decided that I better call my Mamma and tell her I was going to be having Kobe soon and I did not get an answer.  So I texted Birgitta and she called me right back and I told her the news and asked her to please call Mamma and tell her.  Well Mamma called me back and said she had forgotten her phone in the car.  Well as I was talking to Mamma the nurses came in to put the IV into my arm.  I got off the phone with Mamma and I swear everything happened so fast after that.  The nurses got the IV into my arm and I went to pee really quickly and then when I came back from the bathroom the doctor was waiting for me and told me I was going in to have my c-section.  I was rolled into the operating room so fast that we forgot to take a picture of my belly.  While I went into the operating room Dewayne put on his scrubs and waited to be called back. 

Well the ride into the operating room was scary....I didn't really know what to expect and I was so nervous.  I got a spinal tap and then the nurses prepped me (put in the catheter and shaved me).  They put up the sheet between me and my belly and the doctors came into the operating room.  Dewayne came into the room and sat at my left side by my head.  He was so good rubbing my head trying to make me less afraid.  The doctors started cutting my belly and I remember smelling a burning smell and it made me really nauseous and the anasteseologist put an alcohol wipe on my nose and it worked like a charm.  

I remember them pulling and tugging on my belly and then they pulled his head out and I felt my stomach empty when they pulled his body out, Kobe was born at 10:15 pm.  Then Dewayne started saying "Oh my God, Oh my God" and I thought something was wrong and when I asked him he said "Wow Helga you should see all the hair this baby has!!!"  Kobe was placed under the warmer and they cleaned him out and suctioned out his lungs and Daddy stood there with him.  They then dressed Kobe and Dewayne brought him to me so I could see my baby for the first time.  Wow he was so beautiful and perfect weighing in at 9 lbs 1 oz and he was 22 inches long.  He was my smallest baby and he had the most amount of hair by far.  Kobe was then taken to the special care nursery because they had to clear his lungs out.  I was stapled shut and taken to the recovery room, all in all the surgery took less than an hour because I was wheeled out of the OR at 10:45 pm.  I sat in the recovery room waiting patiently for them to take me to my room so I could see Kobe and Dewayne.  Finally  at about 12:30 they took me to my room and there was no one in the room.  I was taken to a different room than the one I had been in earlier that night so I didn't have any of my stuff including my phone so I could not call Dewayne to find out where he was.  I laid there waiting for something to happen and at about 1 am Dewayne came into the room and told me that he had been in the other room waiting for me to come back and had just found out that I was in this new room.  

Kobe was brought in to me at about 2 am, maybe a little sooner but not much.  As soon as I got Kobe in my arms I undressed him completely and placed him on my chest so I could have some bonding time with him.  Then I breastfed him and took lots of pictures of him.  After I was done ooohhhing and aaahhhing over my beautiful baby that I created I had Dewayne put him back in his bed and I went to sleep.  

Kobe was born on a Thursday night and we came home from the hospital on Sunday afternoon.  He has been a joy since the minute he was born, always so happy and sleeping through the night by the time he was 6 weeks old.  I could not have asked for a better baby.  He just keeps melting my heart in one way or another.