sick baby

*Update*

This is what has happened since I posted last. My child has broken out with this terrible rash and I'm not sure what is causing it. My suspensions point to a reaction to tylenol...maybe. This same thing happened the last time she had a "viral" infection. The doctor has said that viral infections can cause a rash like this and a reaction to tylenol can also. I was wondering about the whole tylenol thing because I've it given to her since she was a baby for fevers, teething and such and nothing ever happened but they said it can happen all of a sudden. Who knows. I'll be taking her to the doctor tomorrow morning if this rash isn't taken care of by benadryl. Poor baby.

My little darling is sick! Around 5:45 this morning she woke up crying. I let her "cry it out" for probably a minute or two and then realized that this cry wasn't like any other. So, I got up and stumbled into her room to be greeted by the most awful smell. I then continued stumbling over to her lamp. When I turned it on I could see that she had stuff in her hair and all over her sleeper. I walked over to the crib to check out the "crime" scene and it was full of nasty wetness. So to the bathtub we went. She was crying and shaking and acting so weird. I still don't know why she was doing that. I mean, she was probably just as tired as I was and then there I was stripping her clothes off and tossing her in some water...not the best early morning greeting. The whole time I thought she had thrown up because that's what it looked like and smelled like. Well, when I got her clothes off I soon realized that she had diarrhea dried up her back and on her sleeper. It was everywhere!!! She had been having diarrhea the whole day and I passed it off as teething and now I'm not so sure. I've never seen that much poo from teething. I had to totally strip her bed-sheet, pad, bear and lovey and get it washed asap so the smell isn't lingering around. That would be gross. I have no idea what my husband did with the diaper...hopefully he put it outside...I'm pretty sure he did because he was just as grossed out. She is now running a little fever and being cranky as ever. I can tell it's going to be a long day which is not good because I have a lot of cleaning, planning and packing to do for our trip to Austin on Wednesday. She has a pediatric cardiology appointment on Thursday.

Well, I'm off to try to get stuff done. Happy Monday.

cousins

Yesterday evening was pretty fun. I went to a friend's little boy's birthday party. He turned one last Sunday. It was small and quaint. Anna-Kate had fun playing with someone else's toys...you know, they get tired of their own after a while. About an hour and a half into the party my OB!! showed up who happens to be my friends cousin. Niiiice. It wasn't too awkward...only in my head. Sometimes I need to just face weird situations to help myself realize it's not really that weird after all. Her first response to seeing Anna-Kate (whom she hasn't seen since she was tiny) was, "Wow, she looks just like you!" That put a grin on my face since everyone seems to say she looks like her daddy. I KNOW for a fact that this kid looks like me...she just looks like her daddy too :). She's a MUCH CUTER version though which is a-okay with me.

After the party I "ran" to my mom's house for a little while to get some much needed NEW pics of all her little grandchildren, two of which have been adopted by a wonderful family and are so gracious and caring to let us see them. They spend weekends with my parents quite often...atleast one every couple months. Before the oldest started school they were there every month for days at a time. We have been very blessed with the family they have been adopted to and couldn't ask for more. (This whole adoption thing is a loooong story) Anna-Kate, of course, was the only cousin. The other four are brother and sisters but they don't exactly know it. The oldest, Madi, knows that Cameron and Emily are her siblings but Cameron and Emily don't know that we are their biological family. I think Cameron senses it some where deep inside because of the way he acts sometimes but he was really young when all of this took place. Cameron spent the first year and a half with our family before he was removed from his parents (my brother) and Emily went to this family straight from the hospital (in which she spent a month or two, I don't remember). Needless to say, it was all a mess but everything is okay now. Here are the pics from that (almost disaster ;)):

You know, I figured I might as well explain this whole family dynamics thing really fast so people aren't left wondering. Okay, my brother had Madison with a girl who didn't tell him that Madison was his until she was like 3 or something. Then my brother had Cameron and Emily with another girl. When this girl got pregnant with Emily she then decided that having another baby was not a good idea so someone told her that if she did crack then she would have a miscarriage (obviously they were already doing things that weren't good ideas). So, she does this not knowing exactly how far along she is (because she never went to the doctor). Eventually she goes into labor from all of the drug use and delivers Emily. She weighed four pounds and tested positive for drug use. Cameron was immediately taken away and Emily was never given to them. My brother and this chick ended up spending some time in jail for some other things and eventually lost all rights to their kids and were adopted by this family I spoke of earlier. After all of this happened and while my brother was in jail (I think) this other girl comes forward and tells my brother that he fathered Madison (and there is no denying it, the girl looks JUST like him!). So when he got out he started getting her on weekends and stuff and eventually met a girl whom he is married to now. They have a little girl named Kylee. Madison's mom got all of her kids taken away just at the time my brother was settling down with his current wife so they have had custody of her for almost 2 years or something. Cameron and Emily's adopted family allow all to see the kids and spend time with them. Their biological mother has no contact because she never got her act together.

Whew, okay, that was a lot but hopefully it makes sense and explains the pics a little bit.

P.S. It's hard to get good pictures of a 5 year old, 4 year old, 3 year old, 1 year old (mine of course)and a 10 month old all together.

darn couch cushions

So, my husband got a weekend job about an hour away being the pilot for a skydiving company. It sounds like a pretty cool job except the pay is little, it's an hour away and it's basically 12 hours both Saturday and Sunday. He has to leave at 7am and gets home around 6 or 7pm. No bueno. He started this last weekend and it made for a very long weekend on our (mine and Anna-Kate's) behalf (and I'm totally sure his!). Since we only have one car this means we are stuck all weekend without transportation. Last weekend my mom came and picked us up in the mornings and we basically camped out at her house all day. I don't necessarily want to do that every weekend as that gets just as boring as being at home alone. He took this job to help get the remaining hours needed for MAF. He's at around 340 right now and needs 400. He says this job will only be for about a month or two. Hopefully it's true. Not only is it not fun for me and kiddo but it totally wears him out because he works 40 hours Monday through Friday and then picks up another 20 or so hours on the weekend at this new job. Bear with me on this. Anna-Kate's wake time is from 7am-7pm. During those 12 hours she takes a total of about 2-4 hours worth of naps. Sean doesn't get home until 5pm during the week so this means he sees her for a total of about 10 hours during the week and pretty much not at all on the weekends...maybe an hour or two if we're lucky. That is so sad to me! I know I shouldn't say this but most of me can't wait for this phase of our life to be over. As much as I don't want to move I kind of do because this means Sean will be around A LOT more and I'll get more assistance with raising our child. I'm not at all mad or bitter with him, I'm just sad that he is missing out on our daughter. Because afterall, she is TRULY AMAZING. And I'm sad that she's missing out on her oh-so-fun daddy. All I can do at this moment is sigh.

On another note, the Heart of Texas Fair & Rodeo is in town. This yearly "extravaganza" takes place about 5-7 minutes from our house. Do you know what this means???? It means that every night around bedtime those darn country bands start up and disturb our peace. The first night I seriously thought the block behind us was having some kind of party so I drove around looking for it and there was none to be found. Then as I was watching the news I realized that it was the "kick off" night and they were jamming it up. So it's safe to say that for the next 8 evenings I'll be feeling the urge to call the police on some obnoxious music that I almost always assume is located one block over at a certain house...I won't give out addresses. I know this disturbance is just part of living near the HOT coliseum but none-the-less it's still nerve rattling. I just feel sorry for those people who live basically next door to the place. Ahhhhh!!! So, if you are one of those people out enjoying these country bands (because in all honesty I wish I was) just think about how I'm at home wishing they would turn down the bass about a million notches...then try to enjoy yourself ;).

Wow, it sure seems like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Actually, I woke up on the wrong side of the couch cushions. Anna-Kate is teething, which makes for awful poopy, which makes for an awful diaper rash, which makes for a bad night because every time she tt's she wakes up screaming. So, being the smart person that I am, I took the couch cushions off the couch and put them on the floor in her room so I wouldn't have to keep getting up. Plus, I didn't want to disturb Sean because he has to get up early. Needless to say, I was up a majority of the night and was not excited about waking up at 7:30 especially when I went to bed around 3 or 4. She's napping right now and I should be but I have too much on my mind to do so.

Peace out.

...a possum is eeeating my shooooe...

Gotta love Veggie Tales songs. One thing you must know about us, we ALWAYS have a Veggie Tales song stuck in our head! This morning Sean woke up singing, "Driving down the road in our sport utility vehicles, slam in to 4-wheel drive for a scoop of rocky road!"....or something along those lines. It's always funny when Sean has a Veggie Tales song playing in his head because he never has the songs correct. Probably because he doesn't watch them nearly as much as I do. Hahaha! It's pretty funny though. Just ask those who talk to me often, I sing them a Veggie Tales song atleast once a week...and that's not nearly enough considering they are almost constantly floating around in my head. It's sad when I make it a point to avoid putting on certain veggies because of the guarantee that I will be walking around all day with an annoying song in my head. Anyways, I thought that would be a fun conversation for the time being.

News, we HAVEN'T put in our two month notice. We are both feeling as though we may not be ready for it. I'm okay with that. I haven't come to grips with the whole idea of moving yet. I've lived here my whole life and have only spent a month away from home and that was probably one of the hardest and lonely months of my life. It's going to be hard, I know it is, and I need to be preparing myself for the day that I actually have to grow up and make this transition. I'll keep you all informed.

Now, did anyone watch the debate last night?? We did. I was hesitant at first because I find my nerves ridiculously rattled by the voices of both Barak Obama and Joe Biden. I don't know why, it just happens every time. I have this "I'm going to be revisiting my dinner if I have to hear you say another word" type feeling when I hear them speak. They both totally creep me out and I'm really anxious to get this whole presidential election thing OVER WITH! I must say, Sarah Palin did a grand job and definitely fired some stinging remarks that SHOULD'VE had people thinking if they even considered voting for Obama-Biden.
One last thing about that, my BIL (brother-in-law) posted this thing one day that said, "Obama n Biden. Sounds a lot like Osama bin Laden. Coincidence? I think not!" It was so funny! And true. Wow.

Well, I'm off to hang out with my daughter on our day off ;). We have some errands to run. Happy Friday to all!

...trust...

I'm wondering when life will start filling me in on upcoming events. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying. My husband talked to me this morning about giving our landlord a two months notice today on when we'll be moving out-which makes for December 1st. This wouldn't be such an....annoyance for me if I hadn't just gotten a job, gotten Anna-Kate used to a new schedule (and even myself), and became comfortable with my position in life right now. I mean come on, I just started actually HAVING a life, making friends, having fun, earning some much earned money and the whole shabang. Now, we're going to uproot my current "life" to begin another one...only to uproot that too eventually. I know it's part of living and getting to those dreams that have been out of reach for so long, but I was just getting used to settling for what's going now. And settling is obviously never a good thing. I don't want to settle for the little things in life when I know there are bigger things yet to be had. I think my problem is that I think way too much. What will we do when we get to where we're going? Are we even going to get there? How will it affect Anna-Kate's life? Will it change her fun loving personality? Will it make me more anxious/paranoid? Will we make decent money to live and do the things we want to do? Will we have decent healthcare? Will we waste our time striving for something only to be shot down? Will I reeeally be able to stand living with my MIL (she's totally awesome, I'm just saying)? Will things ever be normal-consistent-steady? Will we ever be at a place to have another child? Do we even want another child?

Blah blah blah.

Sometimes I wish I could shut off my brain.