Dirty Faker!

Have you ever seen those tv shows where people are "caught on tape" doing something they shouldn't be doing? Particularly the insurance or workers-comp scams? Say, someone falls at work and hurts their back so they can't come back to work (and are still getting paid wages and medical coverage) , yet they're out jogging or skiing or something stupid like that. Well, I have a story for them. I felt so bad this morning when she came hobbling out of the bedroom and eased herself onto the kitchen floor that I made an extra scrambled egg and an extra slice of bacon (or two) for my poor painful pup.

And then ... I catch her doing this ... hmmmmm .....

Update on my dog!

The vet seemed pretty positive about everything so I'm happy - well, happier than before I went. Kaitlin whimpered when the vet checked her back hips then yelped when she was feeling along her spine. They took some x-rays of her back and the pics showed more arthritis along her vertebrae. Instead of rounded edges hers are getting kind of pointy. The vet thought there might be a slipped disk but there wasn't. Her spine is trying to heal itself by growing more bone. It is actually causing a lot of inflammation and possibly some exposed nerves but the plan is to treat her with some anti-inflammatories ... or arthritis medicine ... and reevaluate. She does have hip displasia so that's the problem with her hips and it has just gotten progressively worse so she'll just be on medicine everyday. It is possible she stepped funny (or rolled off the sofa - she likes to turn onto her back and sometimes she gets really close to the edge) to hurt her back. No jumping off things! I had to put the baby gate across the stairs so she won't go up there with me. She can make it up just fine but she can't make it down without pain!! She's on complete bed-rest for two weeks then we'll continue to limit her activity for another two weeks. We're also supposed to help her lose about 3 to 5 pounds. I gave her another pain pill and she has been asleep on the floor since then. I'm happy she's asleep because I know she's not in pain.

When we got to the vet I asked if someone could help me get her out of the car because she's having trouble walking. When she got all feet on the ground she took off in a trot with her tail wagging. hmmmm ... I think she was trying to convince me she was OK and didn't need to see the vet. ;-)

First ... please say a prayer for my poor old dog. She is not feeling well and we have a vet appointment later this morning. She started having trouble getting around Sunday and when I got home from errands Monday, with a fresh new package of Busy Bones for the girlie, she almost wasn't able to get up. She tried twice without luck then just wagged her tail. It broke my heart!! I gave her a pain pill yesterday (one that was prescribed to her in January - nothing crazy from my medicine cabinet) and it really knocked her out. She didn't move all night. So we're going to the vet today and hopefully it's just an arthritis inflammation or something easily resolved but I'm not so sure. We went for that short walk Saturday afternoon and she was fine so I don't know what happened. My poor puppy dog.

On a lighter note, Megan started on Rice cereal again. We took some time off but decided it was time. She wasn't sleeping well at night and that might have been because she's just hungry. She's been on the same amount of formula for over a month now!! Sunday night she ate it up without a problem. She grabbed the spoon and shoved it in her mouth and sucked all the formula off! I was so excited that maybe she had decided she was ready for it. Last night she wasn't as sure about it but she did eat it all. Doc said to start her on veggies at 5 1/2 months so we just have a couple more weeks. I hope it goes better this time around because she's supposed to be eating two real meals a day by her next appointment in a month. :-)

It's time for me to start getting ready to go to the vet. I'm going to be a mess while I'm there. I think I'm going to have to carry Kaitlin to the car and I'll probably need help getting her in the office. :-( James offered to help but I told him I could handle it. We'll see how it goes.

You can't really tell but my too-cool sunglasses are pink and green just like my too-cute outfit!

OK - so I didn't care much for the too-cool shades but this hat is kinda nice.
We have such beautiful weather today. We went shopping and I got to dine outside because mommy and daddy shopped longer than planned. OH BOY do they know how to shop!!

Mommy was good today. She didn't spend any money on herself but she scored some BPA-free Dr. Browns bottles made of polypropylene plastic instead if polycarbonate at Babies R Us today. I hope they work because I don't want to be poisoned by plastic ... and those other ones have been leaking on me anyways so it was time for some new bottles. Of course, she only bought three so she'll just have to go back to BRU sometime to get some more. darn.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!!

Ahhh ... the weekend is over!!

It was a big weekend for Baby Megan!! Grammy Olga was in town for the weekend for her Baptism Sunday afternoon. I think she was happy to get back to her weekday routine of eat, play, sleep, repeat. I know mommy was happy to get back into that routine. Friday night was a nightmare ... MIL went around with a realtor Friday afternoon and James was supposed to meet up with BIL to bring MIL back here ... anyways ... nightmare ... so Megan was awake until 10:00 pm!! Saturday was actually kind of productive. Our neighborhood had their garage sale weekend so James and I lugged my old college sofa out to the curb and put a "free" sign on it. Some kid was happy to load it up into his Honda Pilot with James' help (figure that one out - that's not a big car) and we were just ecstatic to get it out of our house!! Now I can get to the treadmill without climbing over a sofa and a bed and a bunch of other crap!!! Saturday afternoon we hit the outlet mall. It was such a beautiful day so it was nice to do something outdoors and I LOVE that mall. Poor Megan was in her carrier for a long time Saturday but she's such a trooper. I don't think Sunday was much better between Mass, breakfast, and being held during the Baptism. There were 12 children being baptized Sunday afternoon so it was a long ceremony. She was a trooper through that too but I think she was happy to get out of that long dress and take a nap once we got home. Here are some pics ...

Being Baptized with the water. She didn't cry at all during that.

Being a wiggle worm on mommy's lap. Daddy can always calm her down!

With the Godparents!
Here's a pic of the gown my sister-in-law made. Isn't it just beautiful!? The church gave us the white stole with the cross on it after the ceremony was complete.

We didn't get any really good shots of Megan in the gown. She was wiggly and we were always holding her. I might try to put it on her again sometime this week to take some pics. She wasn't very happy either so the smiles were few and far between.

Aaaah ... it's the weekend!

Why is it that when you put something in writing, or share it on your blog, it is immediately contradicted? I posted about how wonderfully Megan has been sleeping and that very night she was up at 4 am crying!! She calmed herself down and fell back to sleep but she hadn't even been doing that for a couple weeks. She sleeps through thunderstorms but sometimes she just wakes up. That's a head-scratcher... but I suppose waking up occasionally sure beats those first few weeks after she was born, waking up multiple times to eat throughout the night. I'll take it!

Remember how I posted that we had some excitement with all the tornado sirens the other day? Well, it happened again only this time it was in the middle of the night while James was in LA. Yes, James was out of town and we had bad storms two nights in a row. Lucky him ... he got to sleep! Me? Not so lucky. The crazy dog freaks out at the first sign of thunder so I know I won't sleep when we're expecting storms. I've come to terms with that. Monday night (I think it was Monday) it started to storm right when I was going to bed. Right. Needless to say the dog had me up a few more hours until the rain passed. Tuesday night, however, it didn't start until 3:00 am. I remember waking up going "Oh, it's already 3? I got 5 hours so I guess I'm ok if I have to be up the rest of the night.". Right. So I turned on the TV to check the weather, and hopefully to calm the dog, and I'm watching live weather reports of some serious storms south of me. I'm thinking, "OK, south of us. We bit the bullet again." Right. Around 4 am the storms start to flare up in my neighborhood and the radar is showing little swirly things right on the county line, which is about a mile down the road. THEN ... THE TORNADO SIRENS. AT 4:00 AM ... AND I'M HOME ALONE. WWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! I raced upstairs and grabbed Megan. Poor girl. She was so sleepy that she didn't shake the cobwebs out and realize she was awake until we were already in the bathroom downstairs. I know the sirens don't necessarily mean a tornado is bearing down on my house at that exact moment in time but you never know ... someday it just might and I don't want to be that woman who left their 4 month old child sleeping upstairs during a disaster. :) Like on an episode of Cops or something. Once she realized she was no longer snuggly asleep in bed she decided she was hungry. It was a long few minutes until the sirens stopped, and the radar finally updated, that I felt comfortable getting a bottle ready for her. I was able to get her back to sleep around 5 and we all slept until about 8 so it wasn't so bad. A little scary but not so bad, now that it's over. It was a wild night all across the area. A few tornadoes did actually touch down but none in our area. They were reporting wind gusts up to 80 mph. And I thought I left hurricanes when we left Pearland!! I have never in my life heard, and reacted to, actual tornado sirens and I had to twice in about a week's time. Weird. Very weird. I'm ready to never have to do it again. Especially alone at 4:00 am. I do wish I had a camera with me in the closet though because the dog burrowed into the darkest corner behind my hanging shoe thing and my shirts so all I could see was her head poking out.

On top of not getting any sleep because of the storms, I ended up with more than a slight cold. My head was so stuffy it like it was packed with concrete! Then I started coughing too. UGH! I still can't hear and I'm still coughing but I feel a million times better. Nothing like being a single mom during crazy storms and a bad cold. God bless those who really have to do it. I was finally feeling better yesterday and set out to clean the house. I got a lot done. I cleaned the shower. I did ALL the laundry. I changed the sheets and vacuumed. It doesn't sound like much but trust me, it kept me busy. Well, that and Megan. :-) The maids' last trip out here was two weeks ago so I'm hurting now that it's all on me again! It was a good gift but maybe I'm spoiled now. We're hoping they can continue coming out to only do the downstairs but they're kinda flaking on when they can fit us back in. I guess I'm getting such a good deal they're hoping I'll just go away. No chance. I don't wanna clean!!

James was lucky his flight was not on MD-80 so he made it home on time Thursday. We've had great weather since the storms moved out and should for a few more days. It makes it all worth it. I actually got some sun outside earlier today while planting some flowers. It is nice to see some color out on our patio again. Our hibiscus barely survived the winter (mostly in our garage) but they're both coming back. Our Maple is finally leafing out so we know it's still alive. We spoke with a landscape company about doing some work in our front yard. The competition in our neighborhood is stiff for 'Yard of the Month' so we're calling in some professional help. We should have their proposal early next week so we'll know if we can afford said professional help.

That's all for now. James is almost done with the yard and I think we have plans to do something tonight so it might be time to find my way to the shower. Or maybe to the beer fridge ... ;-)

New toy. I'm not sure she's actually big enough for this yet but she LOVES it. So far, she's only in it when she's closely supervised.

Another new 'favorite thing to do'. She loves this Bumbo chair. I hated the stupid things and didn't want one and some lady told us we HAD to get one while we were registering so James HAD to add it. (growl) I think my problem was putting kids in them when they werent' big enough and they're all slumped over. It just didn't look right. Now that she can sit, with help, she LOVES this stupid chair. I'm now a believer. I guess. Especially now that they got their act together and made a new tray to go on it that totally rocks. Everything goes straight to the mouth now too. "Oh! A Caterpillar! MMMMM! Must eat it!"

This cereal thing isn't going so well. Megan was so good for her first two nights. She seemed to really love it. Then, she started screaming every time the spoon came towards her mouth but she would open wide and eat it. Then she just started yelling and pulling the bib over her face. Then, she just screamed. We took a break for a couple nights and I tried again tonight but she just wanted that bottle. I'm not too worried yet since the docs recommend any time between 4-6 months to start solids so I know she's not missing out on anything. I did try Oatmeal instead of rice for two nights but instead of screaming and refusing she made a really funny face, then screamed and refused. I think I'll take a few more nights off before trying again.

It is amazing how she's grown. She's sleeping through the night, usually from about 8:30 pm to sometime around 7:00 am, and has been since we moved her upstairs on March 28th. Of course, last night she was awake and crying at 4:00am but put herself back to sleep after a few minutes. I didn't have to go up there but I'm not used to being awake at 4 am anymore. She's really trying to sit up when she's in her swing or bouncy chair and loves sitting up with help when she's on a lap or the floor. She has pretty much rejected the pacifier and loves her fingers. She doesn't mind the tummy time so much anymore. She still cries after a while but she can be distracted by silly mommy. She spits up like crazy when she's on her tummy so I have to really watch to make sure she doesn't roll her face in it. That's just really gross. No sign of any teeth yet but sometimes I wonder when she's being fussy. She found her feet last night for the first time. I've introduced hand to foot several times but last night she looked at her wiggly toes like she was seeing them for the first time and just had to reach out to touch them. She's settling into a naptime routine too so that's really good for mommy. I was able to get my fat ass on the treadmill for 30 minutes the other day while she napped so hopefully mommy is settling into a new routine too. Of course, that was Friday and I haven't gotten up there since then but, in my defense, I feel like poo. The whole family is all snotty so I think we all have a slight cold. Who knows. Meg is more congested than normal but she seems OK other than that. Her newest trick - sticking out her tongue. She just sticks it out all the time and it is SOOOO cute.

Oh ... and go ASTROS! I was watching the game and we were up 3-0!! Then I went to give Meg her bath and all of a sudden it was the 9th inning and our closer had blown the save as the Cards had tied it up. DIE PUJOLS ... even though you weren't responsible for the third run ... DIE! We got them out of the inning with a web-gem of a play. Then we led off the bottom of the 9th with a base hit - Go LEE - then our newest big name addition hit a two run walk off homer! YAY! Astros win! Astros Win! ASTROS WIN AGAIN!

Hope you cared. I did! hee hee!

Craziness

The past few days have been totally crazy. We had our all day long mall adventure last Friday then headed back out Saturday to shop some more. We went to the outlet mall to try to find a suitcase for James since the one we got 7 years ago has pretty much finally crapped out on us. We found one that would work HOWEVER the idiot at the Samsonite store must have been having a really bad day ... or absolutely deserves to be fired. We didn't buy the bag because we didn't think they deserved the sale. Seriously. Now we still need a suitcase but we're back to square one because we ARE NOT going back into that store, ever. Sunday we had a birthday party to go to and it was a lot of fun. We've had crummy weather but we got just enough sunshine on Sunday to make it a great time at the park. I ran to Target Sunday evening and they had this great promotion going on the formula we use so I bought two cans ... and when I got home I discovered both of them were pretty banged up (under the plastic cap) so I was definitely not going to feed my daughter from those cans. Who knows if they were still air-tight and I wasn't going to open them to find out and waste $25. SOOOO ... this all brings me to yesterday. They said there would be rain in the afternoon so I went to Target early to exchange the formula (I probably looked pretty funny at Target with a baby in my buggy, two cans of formula and two cases of beer) and got home in plenty of time before the rain. I'm really glad I did because when the storm blew in it was crazy. Megan was in her crib for a nap and had been there about 45 minutes. I was rushing around trying to get stuff done when the storm blew in. It didn't seem that crazy. There was some rumbling thunder and rain but the sky wasn't completely black and the wind wasn't crazy. Then it started to hail. Crazy pea to quarter sized funny shaped hail. So I checked on Megan through the monitor to see if it was waking her up and when I turned up the volume on her monitor is when I heard the TORNADO SIRENS!!!!! Don't get me wrong, I was watching the news and keeping an eye on the weather but I didn't hear the sirens until I turned up the monitor. Megan was, of course, still sleeping, but I had to wake her up and bring her downstairs in case I needed to get into a closet. They were showing a wall cloud and some circulation on TV in Frisco but it never touched the ground. I was on the phone with my mom when the worst of it went over her house, which is just a couple miles south of us. She saw the clouds swirling and decided it was time to step into a closet. Now, my mom likes thunderstorms and will watch them even when I'm nervous (which, quite honestly, is almost every thunderstorm) ... so to hear her say she was ready to seek shelter kinda freaked me out. She's having work done on her patio and the guys left tools and shovels in the back yard. The wind picked them up and blew them around the yard (thankfully not through a window). The people across the street from her house had their cast aluminum patio furniture blown from their backyard to their front. uhhhhh ... wow. We never got that crazy swirling wind at our house but I was holding on to poor Megan so tightly and was ready to run. The dog, I wasn't sure the dog was going to survive. She set up camp in front of the tv, like she was watching it, and I couldn't get her to come to me for some time after it was all over. After the rain and hail stopped, we had bright sunshine and the birds were chirping like nothing happened. wow.

To top it all off, the Astros game was supposed to be on TV last night. So, at 9:00 I switched over to ESPN2 ready to watch Opening Day only to find ESPNNews being broadcast on ESPN2's channel. I was PIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDD!! I actually called Time Warner and all she could tell me was that she would turn it in to the tech guys. She actually called me back 10 minutes later, while I was mid-email to Time Warner, and said "it's just ESPNNews scrolling across the bottom. Right, I've never watched ESPN. I don't know there's a ticker that goes the whole time you're watching. I had to explain to her that what was actually on my TV was a sports ESPN News broadcast and, in fact, not the Astros at Padres game that I had been looking forward to for a week. I haven't heard back from my email. No, I didn't use any bad words but it was dripping with sarcasm. I hate Time Warner WITH A PASSION. That really ruined my night but I guess I got to go to bed earlier and actually watch Medium, which was a part two of two from last week.

Anywho ... I'll leave you with a few pics ...

Daddy and Megan at Cooper's First Birthday party.
This was just before Daddy handed Megan back to Mommy to be fed. I guess feeding is Mommy's job when we're in public. ;-) hee hee

My thunder-phobic dog keeping her eye on the news and the Tornado Warnings. Thanks Pete Delkus for talking to my dog.

Ready for Opening Day! Yes, she may look like a little boy but she's my little Astros fan (whether she knows it or not)!

Ready for some grub mommy!! Then the ballgame!