My peanut

It was Little Man's 18 month well check today. Yes, already! He weighed in at 20 lbs 4 oz and 32 inches long. Such a little guy! His only words are "Hi" and "kitty" but we are already getting help from the speech therapist, nutritionist and occupational therapist so the pediatrician said he looked excellent.

I did get a chance to discuss The Girl's behavior issues with her too. She said she had no problem giving me a referral, but unfortunately she had just found out today that the therapist she usually refers to is moving out of the area, so we have to figure out who would be the best person for The Girl to see. If it's not one thing it's another!

Oh for the love of ...

I just want to get back into bed and start this day over.

#1 being woken up by The Girl jumping on my bed equals a grumpy mama.

#2 the speech therapist is coming today for Little Man's first session and my house is a mess.

#3 When I tried to take a shower I came out to something on Little Man's face. Turns out The Girl went in my bedroom (where she is not supposed to be) climbed up my dresser (where she is not supposed to touch) and took my nail polish. She then got it on her dress, her brother, my bedroom carpet, Little Man's toys and spilled the rest of it on the kitchen floor. Can I please refer you back to #2?

I spent the next hour trying to clean it all up while The Girl spent that time in her room. Does anyone have tips to get nail polish out of carpet? The nail polish remover is not cutting it ...

My kids are sabotaging my weight loss!

My kids are close to being underweight. My daughter is 4 years old and is 34 lbs and 42 inches tall. My son will be 18 months next week and is just barely 20 lbs, and this is after months of working with him and trying to get him to eat. So here I am trying to loose weight and I'm desperately trying to get calories into my kids! It makes it very difficult for me. This stuff is in the house and I can't always do low fat options for the family because my kids need it. I almost envy the women whose whole families are overweight. They can just focus on only having healthy, low fat options in the house! Instead I buy pizza and cheese and chicken nuggets because my kids will eat them and they are high calorie foods. The nutritionist even recommended loading up in butter and margarine, but I have a hard time going that far. Ugh. Just frustrated!

Nobody should force their style of parenting on someone else!

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week Gisele Bündchen is in the news for saying “I think there should be a worldwide law . . . that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months,” says Bündchen. “Some people here think they don’t have to breastfeed and I think, ‘Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?’”

First of all ... WTH??

Second, is she really proposing to tell billions of women what they can or can't do with their bodies?

Third, what about those millions of women who cannot breastfeed? Those who have had breast reductions, or mastectomies or have to go to work full-time to feed their family and are away from their babies for over 8 hours a day? Or women like me with my daughter? When The Girl was born I was set on exclusively breastfeeding. But something went wrong. I would sit and let her nurse for hours, but at 1 month old she was still BELOW her birth weight. The doctor gently suggested supplementing with formula and The Girl adored it! She gulped down her first bottle and screamed every time I would offer her my breast. None of that for her! To this day I don't know if my milk didn't come in correctly or if it was my impatient daughter's problem. But either way I wasn't going to continue when my daughter obviously hated it and she grew tall and skinny and brilliant with formula.

When my son came along I was going to give breastfeeding another chance, but I decided I wouldn't be crushed if it didn't work out. When he ended up in the NICU I was sure that it would be a losing battle but I would try. I ended up exclusively breastfeeding my son for 6 months and he weaned himself from his last 2 nursing times a day at 13 months.

They grow up so quickly!

My little sister turned 19 yesterday and that blows my mind. I was 9 1/2 when she was born and when I was 11 we left my stepfather. I practically helped raised her and our younger brother (17 months between them). I changed so many diapers and read "Hop on Pop" SO many times. That was her favorite book as a toddler and I ended up memorizing the stupid thing! She drove me crazy and between the two of them convinced me I would never want children. Heehee. My mom swore they were the world's best birth control for me as a teenager! When I was expecting The Girl people made stupid comments about how I would be with my first child. Nope, already raised two! By the time I got to my own I was an old hand! Now my sis is working on college and waitressing and hoping to be a photojournalist or in graphic design. I'm so proud of her!

Favorite movies?

I'm a movie buff, we own over 300 DVD's and there is so many I feel like I'm "missing". The other day at work we were discussing our top 10 favorite movies and I realized that I didn't think I could narrow it down that far! It peaked my interest though, so I came home and wrote a list. It may not be the most high class list and I may have forgotten a few, but here are my top 25 favorite movies in no particular order ...

1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
2. Independence Day
3. On The Town
4. The Mummy
5. Rent
6. Star Trek
7. The Quiet Man
8. Serenity
9. Galaxy Quest
10. Equilibrium
11. French Kiss
12. The Toy Story Trilogy
13. Across the Universe
14. The Dark Knight
15. Singing in the Rain
16. Boondock Saints
17. Liar, Liar
18. Lilo and Stitch
19. The Bourne Trilogy
20. Evolution
21. Harvey
22. Shaun of the Dead
23. A Knight's Tale
24. The Matrix
25. Men in Black

I think it's actually a pretty broad range! So what's your top movies?

It was one of the hard ones ...

Today was a very difficult day. The Girl just wouldn't listen to a word I said. Little Man thinks it's hysterical to run in the opposite direction when I tell him to come. The speech therapist is coming tomorrow to do an more in depth evaluation and the house is a disaster area. Every time I start cleaning they come right behind me and make it was then it was to begin with. Arrgh.

I struggle so much with The Girl. I feel like I'm just doing so badly with her. My mom saw an incident today and told me that I did everything like I was supposed to, but it just made no difference. What do you do when you are doing everything right and it just doesn't work? It just made me want to cry. I really hope that referral goes through quickly!

A lot has been going on ...

Well, Unlabeled Daddy found a new job (hurray!) and has already gotten a raise (double yeah!!). So things are starting to look better for us financially. We're not caught up, but it's looking better!

Little Man is still not talking and is 17 months now (today actually). Since he spent time in the NICU he is considered high risk for delays and he has had regular developmental appointments in the nearest city which is an hour away from us. At least it was only every 4 months! They referred us to the local Developmental Agency for evaluation. It was agreed he was delayed and is talking at a 10 month level. The speech therapist will be coming on Friday to do a more in depth evaluation and we will go from there. We also talked about his food issues. He is a little peanut, not even 20 lbs yet and he just won't eat! He won't even try "new" food. We have to jump through hoops to get him to eat anything. For instance, he will not eat grilled cheese sandwiches cut into quarters, but if you cut it in bit size pieces he will. They think it might be a sensory issue, so we are now waiting on an Occupational Therapist to evaluate him.

THEN, while the were evaluating Little Man, Princess Red Chief was acting like a wild child. We started discussing her and they agreed that she and I could use some help. They are referring her to a therapist that specializes in 3-5 year old children. Hopefully, she will be able to work with Princess and I. I adore my daughter. She is funny and loving and sweet and loves to help, BUT we end up going over the same things over and over and over and she still gets upset at me when I discipline her over it. It's like she just thinks I'm being mean and that she didn't do anything wrong even though I just told her not to do it. :::sigh::: God, give me patience. I sometimes feel like I spend the whole day yelling at her and it breaks my heart.

I guess I just needed to get this out and I will try to keep this updated with all our new therapy adventures!

Dare I hope?

For the last 3 nights Little Man has slept ALL NIGHT LONG! 8:30-8:00 on Saturday night, 9:00-7:30 on Sunday night and 8:30-7:00 Monday night! Is this enough of a trend to expect to sleep every night? He has woke up several times a night since his birth and I feel very strange having had more then 4 hours of sleep at a time.

Yep, I've been AWOL

Sorry I've been completely gone! Right after Thanksgiving my computer had a nervous breakdown. My genius uncle was kind enough to fix it (and update it!) for free, but it was not finished until Christmas. It is now better then ever, but I was having major computer withdrawals!

December was a month of firsts for my Little Man. He crawled for the first time, had his first snow and his first Christmas! Princess never really had the traditional crawling stage so it's been an adjustment. He moves so quickly!! He has always wanted to be attached to me at all times, but now that he is mobile he wants to GO. Discovering his sister's room was like a treasure trove. He's always making a beeline down the hall now. He's very lucky that she is enjoying having someone to play with and doesn't mind him being in her toy boxes. Having them enjoying each others company and playing together has been a godsend! It's so wonderful. Of course this morning I was reminded that children who play together get in trouble together when they spread saltines all over the kitchen. They work fast! But it was a quick clean up and seeing the look on Little Man's face when his sister is playing and paying attention to him is so worth it!

Here they are playing with the pans in the kitchen!

Cookies!

Princess Red Chief and I made Snickerdoodles! So yummy . . .



Rolling the dough into balls



Dipping it into the cinnamon mix



Monkey chilling on the floor



Ready to go in the oven!



Cleaning up!



Yummy cookies! We had a lot of fun and the nice things about Snickerdoodles is they only take 10 minutes to bake. By the time we cleaned everything up they were about ready!

Life is nuts and so is Mama

My little baby boy is pulling up on the furniture! As my sister said, "Lock the doors, put up the cats, the little man is on the move!" Yesterday I was pregnant and huge and ready for him to be born. Now he's here and about to take off.

Princess has been driving me crazy. There is non-stop talking and from the moment she wakes up she is asking to "go". But then when we're out she ends up having melt downs when Mama does something she doesn't want. Drives me NUTS! Can we just have a quiet, obedient child? (What am I thinking?) Between Little Man wanting constant attention and Princess Red Chief misbehaving Mama doesn't have time for anything. Life is hectic and I might be rethinking my original request of 4 kids . . . :(