our fans

Alright all you readers, I want to know who is out there keeping tabs on our family. Ok, really I'm just nosey and want to know who reads my posts. Maybe someday I can get Sean to post on here and give you all a real treat! So leave a comment and let me know who you are. :)

simple math

Thinking about all the new babies that are going to be around got me thinking about how long I've been pregnant and/or nursing for the last 5+ years. It's kind of scary when you look at the actual numbers. Since May of 2002 when I got pregnant with Emma, I have spent 54 months pregnant or nursing. That's 54 months out of 64 months total. This means that I have only had 10 months that didn't involve me sustaining the life of another human being. Those are some cray numbers and almost hard for me to believe, even though I've lived it. I have not loved every minute of those 54 months, but I am so thankful for all of them and that they have given me 3 beautiful healthy children.

babies everywhere

I'm not sure if it's because the people we know are at just the right age, or if it's just some strange coincidence, but so many people we know are expecting babies in the next year and I couldn't be more excited. I love babies, but am not even close to ready for anymore, so I'm happy people around me are having them so I can enjoy the baby and then send it home. :) Currently two of our neighbors are pregnant, one is dues in November and the other in March. Some friends of ours just found out they are expecting in April. My sil's best friend is having her little girl on monday, and we just found out my brother and sister-in-law are due with their second baby in April. I'm so excited for all the expecting mommies out there. I also want to wish the best of luck to those still trying. I know a couple girls that are dealing with some major infertility issues and I have nothing good to say to them because I have no idea what it's like, but I want them to know I'm always praying for them.

useless doctor

So I went to my doctor today and was really excited to get some more medicine to make me better. I dropped of my prescription and went home and had dinner with the fam. Later I went and picked up my meds and then hit the grocery store. We came home and put Megan to bed and I decided to go ahead and take my antibiotic since I only have to take one dose a day, and it would be best to start as soon as possible. I read the insert and it didn't mention any contraindication with breastfeeding, and I had told my doctor that I was still nursing so I assumed it was safe. I decided to check out the info about the medicine online just to be sure, even though I'd already taken a dose, and guess what; it's not considered safe while breastfeeding. That's just great! I just took medicine that could potentially harm my 7 month old. Thanks for being on top of that one doc! I decided to go ahead and check the nasal spray he gave me, and it's not considered safe either. Luckily I hadn't used it yet, but I spent $40 on medicines I can't even use, all because my doctor is either really careless, or ridiculously uninformed. I am really upset that I was prescribed these medicines even though I made sure my doctor understood I was still nursing. He even passed on giving me an oral steroid and prescribed the nasal spray instead because I was nursing. Now I have to call my doctor in the morning and tell him I won't take the meds he gave me. At least tonight I found the antibiotics I can take so tomorrow I will make sure what he wants to give me is safe. Why aren't doctors better informed about medicines and breatfeeding. This is a big deal to me because I am not willing to take anything that will potentially harm Megan to make myself better, especially when there are safe meds out there.

broken computer, new email and more...

Holy cow, where do I start. I'm still sick. I took all my antibiotics and I'm still sick. I'm going back to the doctor today, only this time my regular doctor, to see if they can do anything for me. My head feels better and my fever is gone, but I'm still coughing like crazy, and everyone tells me I sound horrible. I think they are trying to be n ice when they say that, but it just comes off bad. I have now gotten Megan sick too. She has started coughing. I feel terrible that I got her sick, but there isn't much I could do since breastfeeding her requires us to be in close contact. So far she doesn't have a fever and is fussy, but not inconsolable, so her doctor's office said to give her some medicine and if she gets worse to call back and bring her in.
Our computer was broken all week last week. We had a storm her back on Friday the 24th and our power went out, and after that our computer wouldn't turn back on. So after some investigating Sean decided our power supply was broken. It was either that, or our motherboard was fried, and we both prayed it would just be the power supply which is a much easier and cheaper fix. Lucky for us, Sean's best friend had an extra power supply that he gave us and now our home computer is back up and running.
After fixing the computer last night we installed our new dsl service on our computer. It only took 3 months of hounding att, but we finally got it working. A big thanks to our neighbor who works for att and is the real reason our DSL order was pushed through. This means we finally have new email addresses and if you haven't gotten our new address please let me know asap because I plan to disconnect our old service as soon as I can.
The really big news in our house is today Nathat started preschool. He wanted to go so bad when Emma started and Sean and I agreed he is socially ready and now that he is potty trained he can go, so his first day was today. He was so excited that it was finally his turn to go to school. He looked a little nervous when I left him, but I'm sure he is having a great time. I just hope he behaves himself since he can be quite the brute when he wants to.
Megan has started on solids officially now. I'm such a bad parent because up until now Megan has had a wafer cookie, a pita chip with cinnamon and sugar on it, some Coldstone Creamery ice cream, and mashed potatoes, and I'm finally getting around to getting her real baby food. She started out with the squash last night and really seemed to like it. She was very fascinated by the spoon and kept trying to just chew on it, but I managed to actually get some food in her mouth too.
Hopefully as I recover and we get into a good routine here I'll be better about posting regularly again.
This is what our living room looks like after Megan has been playing. She really did make this mess all by herself.

sick leave

Those of you that are stay at home moms know that we don't get sick days. There have been days when I literally couldn't get out of bed that Sean has stayed home to help, but of course this week that just wasn't possible. He just started his new position and is really busy with meetings and helping to entertain an international guy, so him staying home to help me just wasn't an option. He did come home early a couple of days so I could go to bed, and then yesterday I went to the doctor. I haven't been to the doctor for being sick since I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Nathan, so it's not like I go for every little thing. I ended up going to the urgent care center near us because getting in to our doctor for a same day appointment is difficult, and if you do get an "appointment" you still end up waiting 2 hours to be seen, so it's pretty much useless to even try. The doctor there said I have a sinus infection and bronchitis, which explains why I've had a fever all week and I feel like I'm going to cough up a lung. He gave me some antibiotics and today I feel marginally better. I'm hoping by Monday I'll be as good as new and not feel the need to stay in bed all day. When we had kids I never thought about the fact that even if I was sick I didn't get to take the day off and rest up. It's times like this that make me realize how much work 3 kids really are. Even doing the bar minimum this week still felt like way too much work. I'm definitely going to have to do a better job of avoiding germs so I don't have to go through this again for a very long time.

first day of school

Emma made it to school today with ease. There were no tears, on her part or mine, although I came close! She was so excited and brave about being dropped off at school. We'd been going over and over how things were going to happen today so she knew exactly what to expect. We all had lunch and then got her dressed and packed everyone in the car and drove the 5 miles to her school. We got there and she jumped out of the van with her lunch bag, with her snack in it, in her hand and ran up to stand in under the shady tree to wait for me to get Nathan and Megan out. We walked up the sidewalk together and as we got inside the door her teacher immediately said hi to Emma and took her to put away her snack. When Emma came back I gave her a hug and told her I'd be back later and we'd call daddy and tell him about the great day she had at school. For a split second she had a horrified look on her face as if she couldn't believe I was leaving her, but it passed and she said, "OK, bye Mommy," as I walked out the door.
I can't believe the change in her in the past six months. When we originally visited the preschool in February to see if that's where we wanted to send Emma, she threw a fit at the thought of us leaving her there. But now she is just fine and was happy to be going to school without mom, dad, or Nathan. Hopefully it will continue to be this easy and this is not just the "honeymoon phase" as my cousin calls it.