Signs of Spring

I go through phases where I take pictures like crazy and then I don't for a month of two. I think it mostly depends on the amount of pictures I have waiting on my memory card to be edited. I realized that it had been around Christmas since I got any pictures that I would call frame worthy so I thought we'd give it a shot today with the beautiful weather we're having. I guess I'm back in a picture taking kick with hopes of staying on top of them.. We'll see how long that lasts.









As I looked at these pictures, I began to wonder if maybe Emma looked like she has grown up more in the last six months than even Chloe. We went to a birthday party for one of her classmates yesterday and a mother of one of the boys in her class told me that he had asked her to get Emma's phone number and ask if it was okay for him to call her. Emma seems oblivious. I have to say, he's a cute little boy and smart and polite so at least she's attracting the right kind but still, I don't think I'm ready for this.. Someone please tell me how to make time stand still!

After the Motrin Kicks In

For those of you not on facebook where I posted these earlier today..

Chloe is having a terrible time cutting her one year old molars. After a terrible morning of non stop whining and me trying to remember why I opted to be a stay at home mom, I came upon this. She was so engrossed in her play that she didn't even notice me.... NOW I remember...

ATTENTION: DANA WILL BE ON HIATUS UNTIL SHE RETURNS FROM HER GUITAR HERO TOUR WITH HER HUSBAND

Chloe moves like lightning and Maggie is gaining on her so no time during the day and Adam got me addicted to Guitar hero so now every night after we get the girls to bed, we play instead of writing in our blogs. And I don't want any sas. My children will survive if I don't have every second of their life documented. Quality time with my husband is a good thing too. I did get some video of the girls though that I will try to get posted if I can pull Adam away from the guitar long enough to format it for me.

Now back to poisioning my head with that rock music.. No wonder I listened to country when I was a teenager.


Blessings,

Dana

February 2009

And the Winner Is...

According to random calculations at Random.org. After 134 entries (included the ones that got 10 entries for blogging about my drawing on their blog). The winner is Jay at Janey and me, Happily! Congratulations Jay! and though I do love you with all of my heart, this was a totally random drawing and cupid smiled on you today!

I wish I had a copy for all of you! Thanks for those of you that participated! I hope to do more of these in the future. The book is not yet available in stores but you can order it from amazon by clicking on the icon below.



Happy Valentine's Day to you all! I hope you steal a kiss from your honey!

The Most Expensive Free Vacation Ever

Emma at her school Thanksgiving program before we left

For some reason, God has found it fit to wake me up every day at 4:30 a.m. When Emma was a baby, I was just convinced that I was a hero mommy because I followed the instructions of "On Becoming Baby Wise" to the T and she was sleeping through the night by six weeks. Six weeks! I was so proud of myself. And if I ever begin to feel proud of myself... In steps God for what you can be sure will be the most humbling experience. Don't get me wrong, I still think "Baby Wise" is a wonderful book with a great philosophy. But, it just so happened that when I had Chloe, we had some circumstances in our lives at that time that gave the flawless plan a run for it's money. Lot's of traveling, an older sister that brought home lots of colds, ear infections, stomach viruses, you name it. And Chloe, like her mother gets stuck in these little cycles and something done once becomes a habit.. So, after many different times of letting her "cry it out" (which is not easy for me), she is back to sleeping through the night (until the next crisis). I don't mind waking up with a newborn for feedings in the middle of the night. Somehow, though exhaustion does set in, I treasure those in the middle of the night feedings when everything is quiet. I don't mind comforting a child after a bad dream or being up with a sick child (if they are truly sick the drama that a five year old brings to the table makes you really evaluate these situations)But waking up in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, now that's just wrong...

But since it has happened as it often does, I'm going to use this opportunity of quietness to record a vacation that we had a while back. So go with me if you will, back to Thanksgiving. Adam's parents have a timeshare in Gatlinburg. It is at a super nice place that has recently added an indoor waterpark! Since everyone's lives have been crazy with having babies and stuff and they hadn't been able to vacation much in the past couple of years, they had banked a few weeks at this timeshare. They offered to us, our own cabin with a connected studio apartment and told us that we could invite whoever we wanted to come with us. So, we invited my parents and since my sister was on a trip to be in the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York with the dance team she coaches, it worked out great that my nephew, Justin was able to spend Thanksgiving with us. It had also been quite some time since we had had a vacation because all of our vacation time while we lived in WV was spent visiting family. I thought we were going to get our cake and eat it too! And really we did. We got to spend Thanksgiving with both of our families and have a vacation at the same time.. But as you might have learned about me by now, nothing can ever go that easily so, let me tell you about how we got to Gatlinburg...

We never map out a destination. Adam got me a GPS for Mother's Day and we now heavily rely on our trusted friend (I call her Beyonce because she's always saying, "to the left"), so we punched in the destination and pursued on. So, after five and a half hours of travel, we see a sign that says, Gatlinburg, 30 miles. I turn to the children in the back seat and trying to build their excitement just a little more, I exclaim, "Thirty more miles until we see Nana and Papa"! And then, just a few minutes later, we saw it.. THE SIGN.. "Roads closed due to ice". And so... I kept driving of course. I mean surely this had to be some sort of mistake. They must have left that sign out by mistake. It's not THAT cold out is it? But then, the road became more narrow and the sides became more steep and I began to have visions of my family plummeting to our death in our little silver minivan and so my motherly instincts won the battle over my will and I turned the minivan around. We turned to our trusted friend again, punched in a detour route and there you have it... two and a half hours.. "This must be a mistake", Adam exclaims! So we stop and a convenience store to have our lot confirmed finding that the only way to not go over a mountain is to go around it. Hmm, who would have thought it. Thankfully, my children have gotten pretty used to having to be flexible and it wasn't long before they were both sleeping soundly in the back seat. Determined to not let our vacation be ruined so early on, I say to Adam, "not a big deal! we haven't had a chance to talk much lately and the kids are almost asleep" It will go faster than we think.. So, I got Adam's dad on the phone and laughingly told him the situation saying that we were having a "National Lampoons Vacation". And at that point he said, "well, I'm glad you didn't go on the icy road because if you have a wreck, on a closed road, your insurance won't cover it". To which I said, "oh, speaking of insurance, I hope we don't have car trouble because I left our roadside assistance cards on my desk at home". I hung up the phone and Adam and I continued our conversation about life and death and heaven and hell becoming more and more convinced that in our brilliance, we had discovered the answers to all the deep questions that brilliant people have asked for centuries.. and then, not five minutes after hanging up the phone, it happened... I pushed the accelerator to go up a hill and there was no acceleration.. It just wouldn't go. I pulled over to the side of the road. I distinctly remember thinking... Did this sort of thing happen to Confucius? I mean seriously, I have heaven and hell pinned down, couldn't I remember to put our road side assistance cards in my purse? Adam dug through his wallet and thankfully had his card. To spare you a lot of details of what happened while we sat on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere North Carolina by a "flea market" (and by flea market I mean a little shack with a lot of broken toilets and camper shells in the yard) for about four hours, I'll just sum it up by saying, that Adam's dad made a long trip to come get us, our van was towed to a transmission place, we arrived at our destination at 3:30 a.m. just 7 and a half hours later than Beyonce predicted and Adam and my dad made a trip back to NC to get the van a few days later and we came home with a new transmission and a $2600 charge to our credit card.

I told Adam that we might as well live it up because after the Disney trip (which I already had booked and paid for or we wouldn't have gone) we were going to be sitting on our tails. And so we did! And I was so proud of us because through the whole ordeal, we didn't say one unkind word to each other... Did you catch what I said earlier about what happens when I start feeling proud of myself? Well, stay tuned for the piece of humble pie that I ate on the Disney trip...

Oh and in case you didn't catch the fact that my comments about figuring out life and death and heaven and hell were seeping in sarcasm.... The topic boggles me. I have lots of theories on the subject that come and go, some which might get me disowned by The Church. But the only thing that I'm quite sure of is that any small idea that I have about God's wonderful creation is more wrong than right..

Anyway, here are some pictures of our trip and our attempt to have $2600 worth of fun.




And, because it's difficult to be both a mother and a photographer, as I usually do, I missed getting pictures of some people that were there with us. So... not pictured: Pawpaw, Justin, Uncle Kevin and Aunt Vicky and Paul.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

We now have pigtails. Being the child of both a barber and a beautician, this is a monumental time for us!


And since I didn't start blogging until about a year later, here is a picture of Emma sporting the do for the first time. Both of them at right at 17 months.. See how much bigger Emma was. You would never know it looking at her little string bean frame now. Oh and see that sneaky look on Chloe's face? Perfect depiction of her personality!


PS: Don't miss my give away in the post below!

My First Book Review and Give Away!

Recently, I was accepted by a publishing company to review their books on my blog. Since my time is limited, I knew I would be more likely to actually get a children's book read and reviewed so, I chose "The Moon Shines Down" written by Margaret Wise Brown, the author of the bestseller, "Goodnight Moon" and illustrated by Linda Bleck.


And... I am so glad I did! In this book, you travel around the world with a friendly Koala bear and a sweet little prayer, "I see the moon, and the moon sees me, God bless the moon, and God bless me". With wonderful illustration and a heart felt sentiment, this book has so much to offer, making it appealing to a wide variety of ages. My toddler watched wide eyed, chanting, "moon, moon" with each turn of each colorful page and pointed out each animal while making the animal's sound as we traveled along our paper adventure. It also makes for an effective language learning tool with it's sing-song and rhyming flow.

It is also not lacking in it's appeal to the older child. Reading it with my five year old, it provoked discussion of the differences found in other cultures all a while reinforcing the idea that children in every land sleep under the same moon, made by the same God. This book definitely makes our "never get rid of and save for the grandchildren list", even topping it's ever loved sister, "Goodnight Moon". It would be a great addition to any child's library of childhood memories!

And, since the publishing company sent me two copies, this also brings me to my first give away. This Give Away is open to anyone in the Continental U.S. There are a couple of ways to enter.

1. Simply leave me a comment and I will enter your name and then check back on Valentine's Day to see if you are the winner.

2. or, to increase your chances, put a link to my give away on your blog or personal page and leave me a comment with a link to your page and I will enter your name 10 times!

Just think, along with the practical mop or iron skillet that your husband gives you for Valentines Day, you could also score a children's book that your can read to your children while you lounge in your favorite cotton night gown with the hole it. Once upon a time, I did own silk... It now belongs to my child and is referred to as blankie instead of lingerie..

I will randomly choose and announce the winner on February 14th!

Blessings,
Dana

Looking Back into the Fog

I guess that I feel it's necessary to explain the thing that threw me so off track so I'm going to start there. This is going to be a long informational post. However, if you have children (especially children that have had chronic ear infections) I urge you to read it. I wish I had gotten a hold of this information sooner.

On Chloe's first birthday (August 30) she came down with a nasty cold. Btw, I have only one picture from her birthday. I pulled one picture of her off of my memory card and after that, it was somehow damaged and I haven't been able to retrieve those pictures. If anyone has any ideas about that, I would love you forever. Anyway, she came down with a cold and was feeling really yucky. I began to wean her as I did Emma at one year and so naturally, I thought part of her fussiness was due to that. Her seemingly need to still nurse was too overwhelming and I gave in to both mine and her desires to continue what I see as a wonderful part of babyhood. I saved the weaning for a later time and we continued on with a persistent runny nose. About two weeks later, Emma woke screaming one night saying that her ear was hurting. The next morning, I loaded all three children in the car (including Maggie, the baby that I babysit) and headed off to the doctor. I figured while we were there, I could have the doctor check out Chloe also. Sure enough, Emma had an ear infection and to my surprise, Chloe had a double ear infection. Doses of antibiotics for both and at the recheck Emma's ears were clear but Chloe's still infected. Maggie had an ear infection around this time also so my thinking was that maybe there was a strong bacteria that needed an antibiotic.

Now, I'm a firm believer in letting my children "cry it out" unless they are sick or hurting. I also believe that antibiotics are overused and that when we dose our children over and over, not only are we hindering our children's ability to naturally fight infection, we are also feeding immunities to the bacteria which in turn will result in more and more sickness for everyone. However, I was desperate to ease her pain and frantic because my child had something that I could not get rid of. And, since I didn't have a solution myself, I followed the doctor's orders and gave her more antibiotics. So, three antibiotics later, the ear infection was still there and I had an appointment with an ENT and two months of no sleep. I have such a high respect for mothers that have dealt with an on-going or terminal illness with a child. I know that in the grand scheme of things, an ear infection is not that big of a deal but to me, not being able to make my child better made me feel like I couldn't do my job as a mother. I can not imagine the desperation a mother must feel when they have a child suffering from something worse.

It seemed suspicious to me that Chloe had never had an ear infection and then at 13 months, she got one that we couldn't get rid off so, I did a little or maybe lot of internet research. I found a lot of mother's saying that dairy was the culprit of their children's ear infections. Now I know that there is a lot of crazy information out there on the internet but I also know that some of the best advice that I've gotten has been from mothers who have actually experienced things and aren't trying to make their children fit a text book description. And since it was also around her first birthday that I introduced milk, I figured it couldn't hurt to take dairy out for a week and see what happened. A week later, we headed off to visit the ENT to find out that her ear infection was gone. They checked her hearing and found out that some "temporary" hearing loss had occurred and though the ear infection was gone, her inner ears were packed with fluid. The ENT insisted that the fluid would not go away on it's own though he admitted that many children did have a strong sensitivity to milk and that he thought that sensitivity did often cause ear infections. He told me that if I didn't put tubes in her ears, that her ears would continue to get re-infected and her speech would not develop correctly. And he said that even though it might be due to a milk allergy, putting tubes in would take care of it and I wouldn't have to worry about her diet. I kindly thanked him for his time but told him that I was going to give her two months with no dairy to see if the fluid would go away on it's own and that she had her 15 month checkup coming up and I would have the doctor look at them then. I came home and purchased an otoscope off of the internet. I was able to keep a check on her ears to make sure that they weren't getting infected but I wasn't really sure how to tell about the fluid. On December the 10th, we went in for her 15th month check up. I went in equipped with my defense (charts of where I had kept up with her protein, calcium, and iron intake) and fully ready to change doctors if he was not supportive of my decision to take her off of dairy. This is how that visit went:

He came in, checked her out as doctor normally does at a check up and then looked in her ears and said nothing.. So this is how the conversation went:
me: so how to her ears look?
doctor: great
me: you mean there is no fluid?
doctor: no, they look perfect
me: you know you sent me to an ENT don't you.
doctor: looks through her chart. Yeah, I see that I did.

I then explained to him what I had done and then very defensively told him that I was keeping her off dairy and that I had been charting her nutrient intake and that I knew that she was getting the nutrients that she needed.

And to my surprise, he responded by saying that many children did have a sensitivity to milk and that he had several patients that ate a dairy free diet and that they were just as healthy as his other patients and that he didn't even think that cow's milk was the best nutrition for a child and that if I did decide to try milk again, goats milk might be the way to go because goats milk was made for an animal more the size of a child while cows milk was made for an animal the size of a cow. INFORMATION THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL THREE MONTHS AGO!
He also told me that it wasn't necessary to chart her nutrient intake because she would take what she needed from the food she ate (which I don't totally buy). But anyway, he was more supportive than I expected. Since then, I have read in many different places that researches believe that at least 50% of children have some sort of sensitivity to dairy products. I wish I had figured this out before I put her on three unnecessary antibiotics. But, here we are many months later: tube free, dairy free, and ear infection free, at least for now. And, we moved on to other illnesses like stomach viruses which made for an interesting Disney World trip! But that'll have to wait until later. Chloe is sitting beside me repeatedly calling momma and telling me what she wants with precise clarity.. Speech seems fine to me.

Blessings,
Dana

Mommy Tips

Okay, until I get my act together and get the last pictures I took edited and our income taxes done, I was hoping to do a kind of interactive blog. We all know that mothering isn't easy but I would like to hear any tips you might have that we could use to help each other along. It can be anything from cleaning, to getting your child to sleep through the night, to the things you do to energize yourself to products you can't live without. I'll start.. and as others add things, maybe I will think of more.

Cleaning--
Vinegar, water, and baking soda are the best cleaners. I rarely need anything else.

Laundry--
-turning clothes inside out to wash them helps prevent fading.
-sometimes you can stretch a piece of clothing that has shrunk by washing in hair conditioner (depends on the material)
-RIT dye does wonders!

Sickness-
-a spoon full of sugar does help the medicine go down, it also cures hiccups.
-I swear by the Vicks on the feet for persistent coughs
-a bath soak in Epson salts helps achy muscles and energizes by removing toxins.
-telling your child that you got a girl scout badge for taking out splinters gets her to sit still so that you can remove hers. Or at least it worked with my child. Yes, it was a lie, don't worry, I asked for forgiveness.
-keeping a set of red hand towels on hand is useful in case of an accident with blood. It helps a lot with the drama if they can't see the blood.
-buy stock in band-aid

Okay, that's all I've got for now hopefully ya'll have some better ones. Becky, we definitely want to hear your trick for getting rid of the boogie man.