March 13, 2009:
I need to say this before I forget. You are so much fun these days. You sleep better. We can put you to bed awake and you either sing/talk yourself to sleep or you turn on your mobiles/music and listen to it while you relax. You’re a little boy now. It’s wonderful and amazing to see you grow. You are so special and loved very deeply. You love books and bring them to us to read often. You sit on the floor and shake your legs back and forth in excitement. You are moving all over the place now. You walk from one piece of furniture to the next and you can stand on your own for a few seconds. You are well on your way to walking. And lastly, you are finally starting to get into the TV. Not that we encourage couch potato-ness, but we can put on Baby Genius or Sesame Street videos and you love to watch the animals and sing along to the kids on the TV. It’s wonderful.
April 20, 2009:
It’s been a very rough 6 weeks, Jameson. You have been so sick and it’s endless. Absolutely endless. The mucus in the back of your throat hasn’t gone away since Christmastime. I’m not exaggerating. It causes you to cough a lot, almost constantly. It causes you to vomit almost daily because you still have no teeth and the food catches the back of your throat and you can’t seem to get the food past the thick gobs of mucus at the back of your throat. It causes you to get constant ear infections and eye infections. In the last three weeks alone, you’ve had a high fever of 103.9 and then a rash which ended up being Rosiola, which is basically a viral infection that goes away on its own. Then you got pneumonia, which brought you to Children’s Hospital in Hartford, where you were given oxygen because your pulse oxidation levels were low, and you were given a nebulizer treatment, steroids, and put on Augmentin. Your temperature reached 103.1, so you also got Tylenol. The Augmentin, acid reflux medication, prednisone (steroids for your lungs), and Tylenol were extremely difficult to give you twice daily. You would choke on them, and half the time, you would vomit it right back up. It was heartbreaking in many ways. We knew if you didn’t get the medicine in, you might relapse and not get better. And watching you vomit over and over was very difficult for us. And when you were finally getting better from pneumonia (except your mucus never got better), you got some sort of stomach bug because 1 week to the day from the ER visit at Children’s hospital, you woke up with more poop in your crib than what could fill 4 diapers. The poop was everywhere. I can’t even begin to explain how awful the next 48 hours were. You had the worst diarrhea and you vomited a lot as well. You were lethargic and constantly cranky. That was last weekend. I ended up with the flu, and your dad was also sick this past week. Over the weekend, you turned 14 months, and we had a fabulous time with you. You are still moody, needy, clingy, and stubborn, but you didn’t vomit!!! And you took your first steps!! Solid steps! Walking isn’t fast enough, so you usually hunker down on your butt and start crawling after a few steps, but you can stand on your own now and each day, you are getting more and more confident. You are a child with a lot of coordination and athleticism, so I’m surprised you aren’t walking yet, but with all the sickness you’ve struggled through, I’m certainly not worried about you. You are so intelligent, Jameson. You amaze us every day.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Jameson's Birthday
February 25, 2009:
Mere and Pere came to visit last week (the 14th through the 18th) and we were able to take them out to dinner because Tante Dette tagged along for the weekend. She babysat you and the 4 of us went out to dinner on Sat. night. On Sunday, it was your FIRST birthday party! Holy cow did we have fun! You were so good that day. We got you down for two naps, your second nap was from 12-2:30 pm and we had to actually wake you up for your party. 40 friends and family came to celebrate such a wonderful event. Monica/Mike/Jack, Brian/Yelena/, Cathy/Mona/Aunt Theresa, Anne/John/Aunt Irene, Matt Dionne, Matt/Holly/Brandon, Alissa/Owen, Stef/Jim/Lindsey/Hunter/Ethan/Will/Madeline, coworker and new friend Wendi, Paul/Jeanne (Papa and Nana), Paul/Cindy/Lauren/Jenna, Mere/Pere/Tante Dette, cousin Susan, Uncle Tom/Aunt Barbara/Sheryl/Wayne/Amanda/Marc/Nick/Morgan, and we were even allowed to pick up your brother and sister for this event, so Grace and Austin were there as well. You tried some frosting, but were really unsure of the texture of it on your hands, and you certainly didn't like the taste. It was quite funny! You had ice cream, though, which Mere gave you, and you loved that. You easily went from person to person without a fuss and I was able to walk around and chit-chat with all our friends and family that came to wish you a Happy 1st Birthday. It was a great day!
Mere and Pere came to visit last week (the 14th through the 18th) and we were able to take them out to dinner because Tante Dette tagged along for the weekend. She babysat you and the 4 of us went out to dinner on Sat. night. On Sunday, it was your FIRST birthday party! Holy cow did we have fun! You were so good that day. We got you down for two naps, your second nap was from 12-2:30 pm and we had to actually wake you up for your party. 40 friends and family came to celebrate such a wonderful event. Monica/Mike/Jack, Brian/Yelena/, Cathy/Mona/Aunt Theresa, Anne/John/Aunt Irene, Matt Dionne, Matt/Holly/Brandon, Alissa/Owen, Stef/Jim/Lindsey/Hunter/Ethan/Will/Madeline, coworker and new friend Wendi, Paul/Jeanne (Papa and Nana), Paul/Cindy/Lauren/Jenna, Mere/Pere/Tante Dette, cousin Susan, Uncle Tom/Aunt Barbara/Sheryl/Wayne/Amanda/Marc/Nick/Morgan, and we were even allowed to pick up your brother and sister for this event, so Grace and Austin were there as well. You tried some frosting, but were really unsure of the texture of it on your hands, and you certainly didn't like the taste. It was quite funny! You had ice cream, though, which Mere gave you, and you loved that. You easily went from person to person without a fuss and I was able to walk around and chit-chat with all our friends and family that came to wish you a Happy 1st Birthday. It was a great day!
Catching up w/Jameson, part 2
January 5, 2009:
It’s a new year, but we’re still dealing with the same problems. In the last 5 weeks, you’ve had 3 double ear infections. At your 2-week “check-up” appt. where the doctor wanted to make sure you were all cleared up from your 5th ear infection, you were put on Amoxicillin because you had the start of yet another ear infection. We caught it early, so for the most part, you didn’t seem to experience any pain. However, it is my belief that the antibiotics didn’t work and your 6th ear infection turned into a bad cough and then a bad cold and then led into your 7th ear infection. That’s right. 7!!! It’s utterly exhausting these days. You barely sleep now. So used to waking up with pain in your ears, or a bad cough, or a ton of mucus at the back of your throat, you have NO idea what it’s like to sleep more than 4 hours at a time, which of course perpetuates your inability to heal properly. It’s sad to watch you in pain, and it’s difficult to be a productive person when I’m working on 6 hours of jumbled, split hours of sleep a night.
You are slowly becoming a little boy, though. You change a lot each week. Learning more and more. You are filled with personality and charm and smiles. During the day, you are a fun baby. You don’t like going down for a nap any more than you like sleeping through the night, so you get overtired and you now have the intelligence, determination, and strength to fight us when we try to rock you to sleep. Although you are very needy, impatient, and strong-willed, you are the cutest baby that has the best charisma, personality, and character. You are the love of our lives and we hope we can heal you so that you don’t have to go through so many ear infections anymore!
January 27, 2009:
It’s Mere and Pere’s anniversary today. Yeah! I can’t express how fast you are changing these days. 5 weeks ago, you were still doing the military crawl, pulling yourself forward with the intense strength of your arms. A week later, you were up all on fours, trying to get coordinated enough to move fast. In a week, you were a pro at crawling up on all fours and speed was your best friend. Within days, you started pulling yourself up, standing on two feet. Now, only 2 weeks later, you are standing all the time, pulling yourself up with ease, holding on with one hand while playing w/a toy with the other hand. You eat a lot more table food now. That too has matured leaps and bounds in the last couple of weeks. You went from eating small, miniscule bites to whole pieces in just days. You are also saying “ball” even though the “L” sound is almost mute. You have an acute fondness for balls now. You can throw, roll, and palm a fairly large-sized ball. You offer us toys and then wait for us to say “Thank You”. Then hold your hand out for the return favor. You say “dat” and point to EVERYTHING, mimicking your parents as we used to say “What’s that?” to you all the time. Now, instead of asking the question to you, we answer you as you point to everything in existence, “Table, Chair, Window, Photo, Dust Bunny”. And your newest thing…you turn your palms upwards towards the ceiling and say “dat” or “ball”. It’s hilarious. You even have the correct questioning expression to go with the hand gesture. You are learning so fast, your body can’t quite keep up. You can put a ball in a jar and know to reach into the jar to get it out, but don’t always have the coordination to get the ball out of the jar. You still love music and bang away on pots and pans like the best baby drummer, and play your pianos full of gusto. You laugh at every weird facial expression your dad and I give you. I called you Fonzy last night and you squealed in delight. And better than all that, you are FINALLY sleeping through the night. Though you wake up at least once and yell at us for 5 or 10 minutes, you manage to get yourself back to sleep, waking usually around 5:30 am. In one month’s time, you will have tubes in your ears in hopes of slowing down the double-ear infections that have plagued our house since you were 3 months old. I love you more than words can say and hope one day this journal helps you understand just how much joy and entertainment you bring to our lives.
Catching up w/Jameson
Sept. 26, 2008:
Jameson must hold a spoon when we feed him solids. Otherwise, he'll grunt and furrow his eyebrows. And eventually, refuse to eat. But once we give him a spoon, he's fascinated long enough for us to feed him. Jameson has also recently learned how to launch the spoon and the food on it in all directions. He is also quite talented in banging on his tray (a new signal that he's ready to eat), and screaming VERY loudly if the banging doesn’t get our attention fast enough. But, he's the joy of our life and makes us laugh all the time.
The rest is told as if I'm talking to Jameson...
October 9, 2008
You continue to have good sleeping nights and bad sleeping nights. We can’t always rely on you to sleep through the night. Although you were on track as a consistent nighttime sleeper, your last ear infection and your latest cold have put a small damper on this progress. You still sleep fairly well, and most nights, we are able to put you in your crib while you’re still awake. Currently, you have a bad cold and your spit-up level has increased dramatically. You were never a baby who regurgitated your food, but lately, you’ve had some serious issues with your acid reflux. You have projectile vomited more than once in the last week, which tends to cause your dad and I some concern. This is not typical behavior of you, so we are worried. We have put you back on Axid, an infant acid reflux medication. It seems to help you but now that you have another cold, your mucus level is high, which is another aggravator to your reflux. It just seems like a never-ending story. And we have to limit your food intake to certain foods as well. Heaven forbid we try new foods! Oh well, you are still young, so I’m not going to worry about it. In another 10 days, you’ll be 8 months old! You are rolling all over the place now. You don’t stay still at all. You try to crawl, but look more like a fish out of water with flailing arms and legs. You’ll get it soon, I’m sure! You continue to have the cutest hair-do ever. It’s soft as can be, and it spikes straight up, no matter what we do. You have also learned how to blow raspberries, but now, with your entire tongue sticking out of your mouth so that you spit everywhere. It’s quite funny and you know it, so you do it over and over to get a reaction out of us. You are smart and curious. I couldn’t love you more.
November 14, 2008
Wow, it’s been more than a month since I last wrote. It’s been busy for me at work, and with the holidays, I’m trying hard to get ready, shop early, and decorate on time. I’m not very good at these things, Jameson. In the last month, you have decided that crawling is just too difficult to do, so instead, you either roll all over the floor to get to where you want to be, you get up on your knees and rock back and forth, or you whine/scream/shake vigorously until someone moves you to where you want to be. You are a very stubborn baby and you give up easily because you are like me…IMPATIENT.
December 1, 2008:
Time sure is flying by during the holiday season, as I suspected it would. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, Jameson. And I type this because I know a lot of parents that forget the first year of their baby’s life because so much happens, so many things change, and let’s be honest, we barely survive it half awake. When you are feeling well, you are funny, charismatic, and full of fun personality. You talk incessantly and you have the greatest smile. You are smarter than we would like. You can mimic our actions and we can see the wheels turning in that bright brain of yours. You analyze everyone you meet and everything you see people do. You easily move from one person to another on most days and its nice to have the freedom to do this. You even sat on Santa and smiled. I am amazed by how quickly you are learning things. I can put a toy in an empty tissue box and you know it’s there and can pull it out and then put it back in. When I read to you, you try to help me turn the pages. You still cuddle like a champ and now you give kisses on our necks. You love water and scream in delight when you take a shower with your Dad and you can put your hands and face in the spray of the water.
You do not like being dressed because it interferes with your play. You hate being put into your winter coat and mittens because you feel trapped and immobile. You scream really loudly, sometimes because you are so excited about something you figured out or something new has made you happy. But most of the time, you shriek because you love attention and hate entertaining yourself. You want to be near someone at all times, or held, or touched, or watched. And I can tell, even at such an early age, you are frustrated with your physical limitations. You have finally learned to crawl, although its still more of a drag motion, but you can get to what you want when you put your mind to it. You are still impatient and stubborn and sometimes you either forget you know how to crawl, or you just plain don’t want to put the energy into moving yourself, so you scream to be moved. You can get on all fours, but you don’t quite have the strength yet to move forward. You still hate table food, although, you have eaten banana and fresh, homemade rice cakes (that quickly and easily dissolve) without choking, so that is progress.
For Halloween, we visited Nana and Papa and Uncle Paul, Lauren and Jenna. Then we went to Tante Rena’s house and she played with you while your mom and dad ate a gourmet meal she cooked for us. You were in love with her bell and you fell asleep on the way home and we put you to bed easily that night. It was a great first Halloween.
Two weeks later, you and I drove to Old Orchard Beach, Maine to visit Tante Dette. I had a baby shower to attend for a high school classmate, Shelli Dumais Gibbons. It was November 15th. You had a great afternoon with Tante Dette and she cherished her day with you. That night, you didn’t sleep well at all. I rocked you and rocked when you woke up 3 hours after I put you down to sleep. Each time I put you back into your portable crib, you woke up crying. Eventually, Tante Dette took over and you fell sleep and ended up sleeping with Tante Dette in her big bed. She’s so good to you and such a wonderful godmother. However, that weekend marked the start of what turned out to be the longest 3 weeks of our lives since you were a newborn. The next 4 nights, you didn’t sleep well at all, waking up once, twice, three times each night. It got worse as the week progressed. We could only assume it was due to teething and we gave you some Tylenol and Orajel to help ease your pain. But you are and always have been immune to the calming effects of baby Tylenol or Motrin. While they seem to help reduce fever when used, other side effects that most parents get to enjoy, such as sleepiness and grogginess, do not exist for you. So you still remained a horrible sleeper for the next couple of days. In fact, your dad and I were supposed to go away for the weekend of November 22-23, taking you to Lincoln, NH in the White Mountain region, but we had to cancel that trip because you just weren’t yourself. You started a cold on Thursday, your nose was constantly running, and by Saturday, you were coughing up a lung. But, in our haste to unpack all our luggage that Friday night, the 21st of November, we put you on our bed and failed to protect you as best we could. You rolled off the bed. Your dad tried to catch you and though he managed to keep your head from hitting the floor, you still managed to fall directly on your butt and roll onto your left leg. You cried for about 5 minutes and then you were finally comforted, but you didn’t sleep well that night. We chalked it up to teething and your new-found cold. But sometime during the day on Saturday, I began to take notice of a difference in the way you moved, or should I say, the fact that you weren’t moving. You didn’t rollover or enjoy sitting much, and you didn’t laugh or kick like you usually do. In fact, you were quite cranky. And then it hit me, you were hurting from the fall. And when I changed your diaper and you screamed in pain, I realized that there was a tender spot just above your left ankle. Your dad immediately dressed you in your coat and we were off to the ER. An x-ray confirmed that you had a buckle fracture in your left Tibia, just above your ankle. Sunday, you seemed in better spirits, but you still were sleeping really badly at night. Waking in screams, hard to console, and even more odd, you were starving. On the 24th, you had your 9 month well visit. You had more immunizations and your pediatrician said you looked good considering your cough and broken leg. He also assured us that the break was very minor, barely a fracture, and would heal on its own in 2-3 weeks. A brace or cast was not needed because you weren’t walking, but we did take you to a specialist on Tuesday, the 25th, just in case. Again, the same response. So we felt better. You took your shot like a pro on Monday, and we also found out that your iron levels were a little low. So you’re now on iron drops to help boost your iron. Thanksgiving was on Thursday, the 27th. Your first Thanksgiving. You did fairly well with all the commotion, but around noon, it was a struggle to finish preparing the table, appetizers, side dishes, and hold you because you were overtired and didn’t want to be put down at all. You finally fell asleep after we all finished eating – Aunt Cindy, Uncle Paul, and Lauren helping to hold you while we ate. Unfortunately, you continued to wake up constantly at night and after 10 consecutive nights of this, your Dad and I were exhausted. We still are exhausted.
Jameson must hold a spoon when we feed him solids. Otherwise, he'll grunt and furrow his eyebrows. And eventually, refuse to eat. But once we give him a spoon, he's fascinated long enough for us to feed him. Jameson has also recently learned how to launch the spoon and the food on it in all directions. He is also quite talented in banging on his tray (a new signal that he's ready to eat), and screaming VERY loudly if the banging doesn’t get our attention fast enough. But, he's the joy of our life and makes us laugh all the time.
The rest is told as if I'm talking to Jameson...
October 9, 2008
You continue to have good sleeping nights and bad sleeping nights. We can’t always rely on you to sleep through the night. Although you were on track as a consistent nighttime sleeper, your last ear infection and your latest cold have put a small damper on this progress. You still sleep fairly well, and most nights, we are able to put you in your crib while you’re still awake. Currently, you have a bad cold and your spit-up level has increased dramatically. You were never a baby who regurgitated your food, but lately, you’ve had some serious issues with your acid reflux. You have projectile vomited more than once in the last week, which tends to cause your dad and I some concern. This is not typical behavior of you, so we are worried. We have put you back on Axid, an infant acid reflux medication. It seems to help you but now that you have another cold, your mucus level is high, which is another aggravator to your reflux. It just seems like a never-ending story. And we have to limit your food intake to certain foods as well. Heaven forbid we try new foods! Oh well, you are still young, so I’m not going to worry about it. In another 10 days, you’ll be 8 months old! You are rolling all over the place now. You don’t stay still at all. You try to crawl, but look more like a fish out of water with flailing arms and legs. You’ll get it soon, I’m sure! You continue to have the cutest hair-do ever. It’s soft as can be, and it spikes straight up, no matter what we do. You have also learned how to blow raspberries, but now, with your entire tongue sticking out of your mouth so that you spit everywhere. It’s quite funny and you know it, so you do it over and over to get a reaction out of us. You are smart and curious. I couldn’t love you more.
November 14, 2008
Wow, it’s been more than a month since I last wrote. It’s been busy for me at work, and with the holidays, I’m trying hard to get ready, shop early, and decorate on time. I’m not very good at these things, Jameson. In the last month, you have decided that crawling is just too difficult to do, so instead, you either roll all over the floor to get to where you want to be, you get up on your knees and rock back and forth, or you whine/scream/shake vigorously until someone moves you to where you want to be. You are a very stubborn baby and you give up easily because you are like me…IMPATIENT.
December 1, 2008:
Time sure is flying by during the holiday season, as I suspected it would. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, Jameson. And I type this because I know a lot of parents that forget the first year of their baby’s life because so much happens, so many things change, and let’s be honest, we barely survive it half awake. When you are feeling well, you are funny, charismatic, and full of fun personality. You talk incessantly and you have the greatest smile. You are smarter than we would like. You can mimic our actions and we can see the wheels turning in that bright brain of yours. You analyze everyone you meet and everything you see people do. You easily move from one person to another on most days and its nice to have the freedom to do this. You even sat on Santa and smiled. I am amazed by how quickly you are learning things. I can put a toy in an empty tissue box and you know it’s there and can pull it out and then put it back in. When I read to you, you try to help me turn the pages. You still cuddle like a champ and now you give kisses on our necks. You love water and scream in delight when you take a shower with your Dad and you can put your hands and face in the spray of the water.
You do not like being dressed because it interferes with your play. You hate being put into your winter coat and mittens because you feel trapped and immobile. You scream really loudly, sometimes because you are so excited about something you figured out or something new has made you happy. But most of the time, you shriek because you love attention and hate entertaining yourself. You want to be near someone at all times, or held, or touched, or watched. And I can tell, even at such an early age, you are frustrated with your physical limitations. You have finally learned to crawl, although its still more of a drag motion, but you can get to what you want when you put your mind to it. You are still impatient and stubborn and sometimes you either forget you know how to crawl, or you just plain don’t want to put the energy into moving yourself, so you scream to be moved. You can get on all fours, but you don’t quite have the strength yet to move forward. You still hate table food, although, you have eaten banana and fresh, homemade rice cakes (that quickly and easily dissolve) without choking, so that is progress.
For Halloween, we visited Nana and Papa and Uncle Paul, Lauren and Jenna. Then we went to Tante Rena’s house and she played with you while your mom and dad ate a gourmet meal she cooked for us. You were in love with her bell and you fell asleep on the way home and we put you to bed easily that night. It was a great first Halloween.
Two weeks later, you and I drove to Old Orchard Beach, Maine to visit Tante Dette. I had a baby shower to attend for a high school classmate, Shelli Dumais Gibbons. It was November 15th. You had a great afternoon with Tante Dette and she cherished her day with you. That night, you didn’t sleep well at all. I rocked you and rocked when you woke up 3 hours after I put you down to sleep. Each time I put you back into your portable crib, you woke up crying. Eventually, Tante Dette took over and you fell sleep and ended up sleeping with Tante Dette in her big bed. She’s so good to you and such a wonderful godmother. However, that weekend marked the start of what turned out to be the longest 3 weeks of our lives since you were a newborn. The next 4 nights, you didn’t sleep well at all, waking up once, twice, three times each night. It got worse as the week progressed. We could only assume it was due to teething and we gave you some Tylenol and Orajel to help ease your pain. But you are and always have been immune to the calming effects of baby Tylenol or Motrin. While they seem to help reduce fever when used, other side effects that most parents get to enjoy, such as sleepiness and grogginess, do not exist for you. So you still remained a horrible sleeper for the next couple of days. In fact, your dad and I were supposed to go away for the weekend of November 22-23, taking you to Lincoln, NH in the White Mountain region, but we had to cancel that trip because you just weren’t yourself. You started a cold on Thursday, your nose was constantly running, and by Saturday, you were coughing up a lung. But, in our haste to unpack all our luggage that Friday night, the 21st of November, we put you on our bed and failed to protect you as best we could. You rolled off the bed. Your dad tried to catch you and though he managed to keep your head from hitting the floor, you still managed to fall directly on your butt and roll onto your left leg. You cried for about 5 minutes and then you were finally comforted, but you didn’t sleep well that night. We chalked it up to teething and your new-found cold. But sometime during the day on Saturday, I began to take notice of a difference in the way you moved, or should I say, the fact that you weren’t moving. You didn’t rollover or enjoy sitting much, and you didn’t laugh or kick like you usually do. In fact, you were quite cranky. And then it hit me, you were hurting from the fall. And when I changed your diaper and you screamed in pain, I realized that there was a tender spot just above your left ankle. Your dad immediately dressed you in your coat and we were off to the ER. An x-ray confirmed that you had a buckle fracture in your left Tibia, just above your ankle. Sunday, you seemed in better spirits, but you still were sleeping really badly at night. Waking in screams, hard to console, and even more odd, you were starving. On the 24th, you had your 9 month well visit. You had more immunizations and your pediatrician said you looked good considering your cough and broken leg. He also assured us that the break was very minor, barely a fracture, and would heal on its own in 2-3 weeks. A brace or cast was not needed because you weren’t walking, but we did take you to a specialist on Tuesday, the 25th, just in case. Again, the same response. So we felt better. You took your shot like a pro on Monday, and we also found out that your iron levels were a little low. So you’re now on iron drops to help boost your iron. Thanksgiving was on Thursday, the 27th. Your first Thanksgiving. You did fairly well with all the commotion, but around noon, it was a struggle to finish preparing the table, appetizers, side dishes, and hold you because you were overtired and didn’t want to be put down at all. You finally fell asleep after we all finished eating – Aunt Cindy, Uncle Paul, and Lauren helping to hold you while we ate. Unfortunately, you continued to wake up constantly at night and after 10 consecutive nights of this, your Dad and I were exhausted. We still are exhausted.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
goals
I want to fit in an airplane seat without my thighs rubbing up against the passenger next to me or the arm rest carving a dent in my hips.
I want to have a second child knowing I can handle the demands of the pregnancy with the demands of an active toddler.
I want to see what my belly button looks like.
I want to run up and down stairs again without fear of falling or having an asthema attack.
I want to wake up without the pains of an 80-year old.
I want a back that can sustain the pressure of me lying down flat again.
I want to keep up with the speed-walker that my step-daughter has become.
I want to dance like the celebrities on Dancing w/the Stars.
I want to wear a cute outfit just once in my life with confidence.
I want to have a second child knowing I can handle the demands of the pregnancy with the demands of an active toddler.
I want to see what my belly button looks like.
I want to run up and down stairs again without fear of falling or having an asthema attack.
I want to wake up without the pains of an 80-year old.
I want a back that can sustain the pressure of me lying down flat again.
I want to keep up with the speed-walker that my step-daughter has become.
I want to dance like the celebrities on Dancing w/the Stars.
I want to wear a cute outfit just once in my life with confidence.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Stresses
Finances, paying bills, Jameson w/Pneumonia, MK business start-up, trips to NJ on a weekday, housecleaning, yard work, PTO for doctor's visits, no PTO for my husband, weight, weight, weight, exercise, body aches, back issues, foot pain.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Cheerleading
My 7-year old stepdaughter, Gracie, is now in 2nd grade. Who knew they had cheerleading at this age? Who knew they had pee-wee football? I am learning quite a bit about "extracurricular" activies...they are MUCH different than when I was in school. It used to be that little league was one practice a week with games on the weekend during summer. Now, it's practices 4-5 times a week during the summer and games every weekend during the school year. In June, Grace begged her father to join cheerleading. Unfortunately, Scott has very little control over what sports his kids do and don't play. So he wasn't able to tell her "yes". In the end, we found out that Grace had asked her mother to join and her mother said No. But then Grace asked her dad and followed that up, for good measure, by asking her grandparents. It worked. Grace's mother realized how badly she wanted to join and signed her up. An expensive venture...at least I was surprised by the price to play. I think it totalled up to almost $350 for 8 weeks worth of games and 12 weeks worth of practices. At first, this whole cheerleading adventure proved frustrating. Scott and I had to cancel our family vacation because Grace's cheerleading coach told us that she absolutely could NOT miss practices during the first 2 weeks of August or she would fall behind. Then, we had to sell candy door-to-door because we have NO family in the area to appeal to such generosity. And lastly, we had to lose out on family time because our wednesday night dinners turned into Scott racing from work to pick up Grace and bring her to practice and sit on the sidelines for 2 hours watching her with his oldest son by his side. Scott would get home at 8:30 pm having skipped dinner and I would have baby duty at home alone, missing out on time with Grace and Austin. It was a huge bummer. But once school started for them, Grace's practices moved to Tues/Thurs. and our regular wednesday night dinners resumed. And what changed our attitude most was watching Grace cheer at her first game. Total pride beamed on our faces as we clapped enthusiastically for 2 hours in humidity so extreme, our clothes were soaked by the end of the game. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful day. Grace needed this. A lot of her life is spent being shuffled around to Austin's Judo and Karate tournaments and practices, so much so, she has begun to compete in Judo as well. But there's not a lot of push for individualism in her life. So, for once, Grace had something to call her own, and she blossomed. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Grace didn't go to her second game because she had a fever and was lethargic that morning. Grace didn't go to her third game because the day before she fractured her elbow falling off the school playground at recess. We won't mention the bull-oney that occured thereafter. Because Scott is not seen as the "primary" parent, even though he has JOINT custody, the school never called him. His ex-wife didn't call either...not until FOUR days later when she was put into a removeable cast and sling. Grace's cheerleading has come to an upbrupt hault this season to my utter dismay!
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