Yesterday

Yesterday, Ray wanted to work on organizing the kids' toys and relocating them from the living room toy bin into the new cubicles in their room. While we were in the midst of said project when some kid decided it would be really cool to pull the fire alarm in my building. Well, besides the fact that the alarm outside is REALLY loud, we have an alarm inside our house that was even louder (and its not a smoke detector, its like a little speaker)! I seriously had to plug my ears with my fingers. After Ray went outside to make sure there wasn't really a fire, he came back and covered up the alarm so it wouldn't make us deaf. Finally after about 10-15 minutes, the fire department showed up to shut it off. The meter room happens to be right next to my back porch, so I saw the fire fighters pass by and thought, "I need to get Nate and go see the fire trucks before they leave!" So I yelled for Nate, and Ray, Grace, Nate and I all went outside to see the fire truck. Just as we got there, a Lieutenant walked up behind us and said hi to Nate and then asked if Nate wanted to go in the fire truck. But, just as he said that, they got a call and had to go. It was very cool of him to offer, though. Nate was just glad to see yet another fire truck.

Bad, Bad Blogger

Sorry. Again. As usual, I am so busy, and I often forget to update this. Ray and I took the kids to see the movie UP yesterday and we would highly recommend the movie to any one of any age to see it. It was a very good movie. I do think it moved a little slowly at times for Nate, since a few minutes before the end he asked me, "Mommy, how long does it take?" I interpreted that as, "Man, is this thing over yet?" Nate liked the movie, though, despite wanting it to be over. Hey, its hard for a three and a half year old to sit anywhere for over 10 minutes straight, let alone an hour and a half.

Today, I got to take the kids on a tour of the fire station. They had such a great time, thanks to my friend Tessa who had plans to go with a play group and got me in after some cancellations opened up. In case you don't already know this, Nate is obsessed with fire trucks. He probably is either playing with his fire truck, or pretending he is a fire fighter and making fire truck siren noises about 75% of the day, so this we a delight for him. Grace was super excited, too. I took some pics and I promise to have those up in a few days.

I Love It When......

• Nate tells me he wants to "nuggle" with me. I love to snuggle with my kiddos.
• I don't have to cook
• My house is clean
• I go to Olive Garden
• I go to any restaurant, because that means I am not cooking that meal
• I do well on a test
• I can hear the rain pounding on my windows and I can hear the thunder roll and I can stay home and relax because I don't have to go anywhere
• I go on vacations
• Its quiet
• I can take a nap
• I get hugs from my husband. He's the best hugger, ever!
• Its cold outside (is it October yet?)
• I drink Chai Lattes
• I drink Caramel Lattes
• Grace makes pictures for me

Tonight is Grace's Kindergarten Graduation. How cute! I can't believe she'll be a First Grader in the Fall. Yikes....time flies!

My Computer

A little over a week ago, my computer crashed. I was able to turn my computer on, but after it VERY slowly loaded up, I was only able to do a few small things. I was not able to do anything in Windows, which included shutting the computer down properly, check my email, etc. I ran a diagnostic test on it which indicated I had an issue with my hard drive failing. I called Dell, told them the code I received from doing the diagnostic test and they just confirmed my address and sent me a new hard drive with no questions (guess they thought I knew what I was talking about, ha ha!). Ray and I decided that I would just increase my hard drive space and buy a new hard drive at Comp USA, and use the one Dell sent me as my external hard drive instead. After getting my new hard drive, format it, reinstall Windows, load up all my drivers, figure out why my wireless card was not enabled and fix it, figure out why my sound wasn't working and fix that, then I had to transfer the data from my old hard drive to my new one by plugging it into my computer as an external drive and I also upgraded the size of my RAM. Phew! It was exhausting. But I did it. I almost threw my computer out the window a few times, but its done and its working and I'm glad its finally over. Hopefully I won't have to do this again for a LONG time. :)

Experiment

I decided to conduct an experiment tonight.

Perhaps I should back up a bit and give you a little background story. A while ago I noticed that when I ate just a few Pistachios, I would start getting a reaction in my throat, mouth and ears. I've tried to eat them several times after and its been the same every time. Then one night not too long ago, we had a jar of almonds, macadamia nuts, and cashews. I ate some, and soon realized I was having the same reaction. I was pretty certain that it wasn't the almonds or the macadamia nuts since I eat them more often than other nuts and have never had a problem. I started googling online, and soon realized that apparently people who have a reaction to pistachios have a cross reaction to cashews. Basically that means you can have a reaction to something and have a reaction to something else that is different, but similar to what you had a reaction to. Cashews and pistachios belong to the same family, Anacardiaceae, which also happens to be the family that Mango belongs to, however, I just ate Mango a few weeks ago and was fine. But there is a popular cross reactivity between the Cashews and Pistachios.

So my experiment was that I purchased a jar of Cashews from the store to eat to see if I got another reaction. Now basically, I had made note that in the jar of mixed nuts I had a reaction to not too long ago had contained some oils I was not familiar with, and hoped that was what causing my reactions, so I made sure to purchase a jar of Cashews that did not contain that same oil. Well, folks, its true, I am DEFINITELY allergic to Cashews and Pistachios. Goodbye Pistachios and Cashews. I will miss you. I will now make friends with Benedryl.

Bullet Updates

• I went up to see Wendi, John, Isaac, and Elijah a week and a half ago.
• I FINALLY got to meet my little Elijah
• I FINALLY got to hold my little Elijah
• I went to Isaac's first birthday party
• Nate now asks everyday to go see Uncle John, Aunt Wendi, Issac and Elijah again
• Nate is fully potty trained, but just can't seem to stay dry at naps and bedtime consistently
  
• I just cleaned out the kids closet and reorganized it
• I am about 96.5% done with the kids' entire room
• The hall closet is next
• Then its our bedroom closet
• Ray and the kids served me breakfast in bed on Sunday for Mother's Day
• Then Grace knocked over my milk onto the floor
• So breakfast in bed became breakfast out of bed
• But thats ok
• I need to restart my diet
• And I need to drink more water
• And I need to work out
• And I need to go back to the gym by June 1 or I have to cancel my membership
• I need to go read my Microbiology lab experiments for Thursday
• So I am ending my blog entry for today
• I'll try to blog again soon, but we all know how that goes :)
  

Going On A Trip

Thursday Grace, Nate, Ray's mom and I will be going on a road trip to visit Ray's brother John, his wife, Wendi, and their boys (my nephews!!) Isaac and Elijah. I'm really excited as I LOVE vacationing, and of course, because I get to see family. This will also be me, Nate, and Grace's first time meeting Elijah in person! Unfortunately, Ray was unable to take off work to come with us, but we are hoping to go back sometime this summer to visit again with him.

Also, if you live near and like going to Benihana, here is a deal for you. If you sign up for "The Chef's Table" (which is probably a newsletter of sorts letting you know of any specials going on, etc) on their website, they will send you a $30 certificate to use during your birthday month. It's free! Ray and I actually went for my birthday/Valentine's day (BEFORE I knew about this deal, of course!) and it was not nearly as expensive as I had always thought it was. So anyway, here is the link to sign up:

http://www.benihana.com/email

Dentist Appointments

On Friday, the kids had dental appointments set up. It was Grace's Easter Break, so I thought I would take the kids in together at the same time. I made it a point to make sure I got there about 15 minutes early to fill out the new patient paperwork I knew I would have to fill out. They were both new patients because Grace had previously gone to a different dentist who no longer takes her insurance, and Nate had never been to the dentist at all. Well that 15 minutes wasn't nearly enough time to fill out the 45 pages of paper work I had to fill out. For each kid. While I was still completing the paperwork, one of the assistants came in to get the kids to take them for xrays, and then the dentist was going to come in to the little office room I was in to go over the kids' medical histories with me. After that was done, I went over to the room where the kids were, and I see Nate sitting in the chair with the saddest, yet cutest little sad face and his bottom lip was quivering! It was close to nap time, and that combined with a new place, and neither Grace nor I was with him (she was getting some panoramic xrays done), he was scared and sad. He did better when I was there with him, but he kept telling me how he wanted to go home. Apparently, while I was out of the room talking to the dentist, he did really well with listening to the assistant while she was getting his xrays. He also did really well with his cleaning and every thing. Grace was done first, but she had to go get her molars sealed, but Nate was only a few minutes behind her. After he was done, we went and waited where she was waiting, and ended up waiting for what seemed like FOR-EV-ER! The dentist has to check the sealant before she can go and I guess he was tied up with patients.

Overall, the kids' teeth are good. No cavitites for either one. Grace has a crossbite and I was given a referral for her to go see the Orthodontist. Her last dentist had mentioned that she would get some sort of appliance to put into her mouth, but we would have to wait until her molars were fully grown in before we could go. Nate apparently has had some trauma to his two front teeth (uppers). The root is either damaged or stopped growing or something, and the dentist showed me on the xrays how the teeth next to those two have these long roots, and the middle ones do not. I think he said something about watching for abcesses or something (he had a very thick accent) but basically said that he would check him again in 6 months and if the teeth are causing or will cause damage to the permanent teeth behind them, he will have to extract those two teeth. Nate also has a part of skin inside his mouth, called frenulum labii superioris, that grew too far and is inbetween his two top teeth, causing a slight gap. This is the skin that you have between your lip and your gums (top and bottom have it but the bottom is called frenulum labii inferioris, and frenulum linguae, which is the skin that attaches to the underside of your tongue to the bottom of your mouth). I brought this up to the dentist myself as I had known about this problem for years and wondered what we could do about it. For now, nothing is done about it. When he is about 6 or 7 and those permanent top teeth are in, if the frenulum is still causing a gap, it can be surgically corrected. The dentist did mention that Nate would need braces. I don't really know much about teeth, but if his permanent teeth grow in just like his baby teeth did, then yes, he will most definitely need braces. Poor boy.

I'm slighty frustrated because it was VERY hard to find a dentist that took the kids' insurance. Grace is part of the State of Florida program called Florida Healthy Kids. Its a program to ensure that no matter what the income is that children in Florida get on some type of insurance. Now, if you make too much money, I believe you just pay the total premium which is like $110 or $120. However, you can pay as little as $15-20 per month. Luckily, we only pay $15. Nate is part of the State Medicaid system, but since we're not completely poor (just slightly, lol) and Nate is not an infant, he is on a sister program called Medikids. Now, its actually really confusing because Medicaid, Medikids, and Healthy Kids are all part of the same system, but they're seperate (see I told you it was confusing!). Anyway, hardly any dentists accept Medicaid, so I basically had to settle for a dentist, which I did not want to do. I am grateful for the insurance, just a little frustrated. To add to that frustration, the dentist's office gave me a referral paper for the orthodontist and told me all I had to do was call the insurance company and find out which orthodontists they cover and bring the referral to them. I called the insurance company and they told me the dentist's office needs to send them the referral themselves along with the xrays and it has to me medically necessary, like, and I quote, "if the child can't eat or can't speak." Um, then there's NO way they are going to cover this thing. But I will call the dentist's office on Monday and let them know what I need them to do and we'll see what happens.

Man, I can't wait until I am a nurse and I can get our family on some good health care coverage.

Under the Weather

Well, speaking of weather, even though my post has nothing to do literally with weather, (well I guess now it does since I'm mentioning it)..... Can you believe its forecast to be around 90-92 degrees? In the beginning of April? Sheesh. I wonder what summer will be like. Minnesota (for summer) here I come.

Anyway, my post was about Nate. I think he may not be feeling well. He's been complaining of being cold all day. It started after we dropped off Grace at school. Nate and I walked back to the car and once he gets in, he tells me its cold. Its 78 degrees outside. The AC is not on in the car because the car isn't even on. But he's cold. So I gave him a blanket. He's laid around with me on the couch most of the day, and he's had a blanket on him most of the day, as well, except at lunch he didn't. He started saying how he was cold again, and went and got a blanket and he put his booties on his feet. Still cold. So I went and got him a long sleeve shirt so he can move his arms around to eat and not be so cold. A couple of minutes later, he folded his arms, put his head down on the table and went to sleep. This is something he hasn't done in probably 2 years. I think the boy is sick.

Potty Progress

My little guy is officially becoming a big boy. This week he has only wet his pants/diaper/pull up a handful of times. I've been keeping him in big boy underwear all day long, with the exception of nap time and bed time, and he's even kept dry through most of his naps and bedtimes.

He has even been going into the bathroom himself, getting on the potty and going, and then calling me for any wiping assistance he may need, but he is doing SO well. I am really excited he all of a sudden just finally decided to cooperate.

The other night he had his first accident and tinkled while standing in the living room. He was so funny, he just stood there and said, "Uh oh," and I looked down and saw he was getting wet. Ray picked him up and brought him into the bath tub so I could clean him off and on the way in he says, "Yuck!!" Glad he finally thinks sitting in his own pee is gross, lol.

I will try to upload a pick of Nate sometime this week. I'd do it right now but he's asleep.

Four Score and Seven Years Ago.........

Ok, well maybe not exactly four scores, but seven years ago today I married the most amazing man in the world. I am so thankful that he is the man I married. I just love him so much and he is a really loving, caring, sweet, honest, and cute guy. For our anniversary present, he bought me a Wii and a Wii Fit (and while these are very cool gifts, I would still love him just as much if he didn't buy them for me). Grace and I can't wait until it's hooked up!

Happy Anniversary, Honey! Here's to four score more! (Wow, I would be REALLY old if I made it 80 more years!!)

Look how little Rob is!!

Update #2

My mom went home today. She finally got transferred out of ICU last night around midnight, and then was told around 10am today she would be going home. She talked to her surgeon and learned that he was actually very surprised it was not a cancerous tumor, so we are very thankful he was wrong. I stopped by my mom's house and saw her and she looked A LOT better than when I had seen her in the hospital and she was moving around quite well.

Thanks to all for their thoughts and prayers!!

UPDATE

I talked to my brother and he told me that my mom was supposed to be moving from the ICU to another room on a different floor sometime tonight. I did just call the hospital to see if she has moved and she is still in ICU. My brother also said he was told the tumor was benign, so thats good news. I don't really know exactly how my mom was told it was Stage I cancer, but it seems that is NOT the case and that is great.

Prayer Request

Sorry I've yet again been too busy to continuously blog, but honestly there hasn't been much to say except that I'm busy.

Anyway, onto my prayer request. Back in August, my mom was having a colonoscopy and the doctor alerted her that there was something on her ovary that was big enough for him to notice. She proceeded to see her gynecologist, who ordered an ultrasound and determined that everything was OK and there was no need to do anything about whatever was growing on her ovary. Three weeks later she was called by her doctor to come in for a repeat ultrasound, and afterwards was presented with the same result, which left her a little confused as to why it needed to be repeated, and yet everything was fine. Then in December, she was called again by the same doctor requesting her then to get an MRI of her ovaries. Unfortunately, due to insurance reasons, my mom was unable to go at that time. Within the last month or so (I can't remember when exactly) she went in for her MRI and then had an appt to meet back with her dr for the results. Now I don't remember the exact details about how the oncologist and/or surgeon got involved, but what it came down to was she had a growth on one of her ovaries that was getting biggger and not going away. It was also unclear if it was cancerous or not, but she was advised that she needed to have a hysterectomy and was scheduled for the following week (which was about the beginning of March). My mom decided to postpone the surgery a couple of weeks, and went in Wednesday for the procedure. She is now sitting in ICU, mostly due to the fact that they have been unable to control her blood sugar. She is a diabetic on insulin, and even with the insulin so far it has been too high for their liking. Otherwise she seems to be doing well, except for being in a lot of pain. She was on a morphine pump but they took it away because she was too sleepy, so now shes on pain pills of some sort instead.

So I asked my mom today when the doctor expected the test results on the growth to come back to see if it was cancerous or not, and she tells me that it looked like it was at least Stage I. My mom was pretty groggy, so it was hard to get more information than that, and apparently that was news to my brother and step-father as well since my step-father asked why he didn't know that bit of information.

So my prayer request is that they got all the cancer out and that my mom won't need much more treatment for it, and also that she has a quick recovery.

Please pray for me as well. I have the weight of the health world on my shoulders now, and I worry about what my future holds. I seem to have inherited the genes of many possible health problems.

• Heart problems (mom and grandfather - mom's dad- who died of a heart attack)
• Diabetes (mom and grandfather- mom's dad)
• Lung Cancer (my mom's cousin)
• Breast Cancer (grandmother- mom's mom)
• Thryoid Cancer (uncle- mom's brother)
• Thyroid Disease (my mom AND dad)
• Blood pressure (my mom)

So as you can see, the odds are stacked against me as it is in the cancer department, genetically speaking. My mom is one of three children, so out of their family of five, THREE of them have or have had cancer. THREE out of FIVE. That's 60% of their immediate family. And that's not to mention that I think my mom had told me once that my dad's sister had cancer too, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

Anyway, I have a lot on my mind right now, and I'm just babbling away. If you think about it, just say a quick prayer for my mom, and for our family and our future health.

Sorry, I'm a Slacker

So I went on vacation (which was SO relaxing, by the way) and once I got back, things were crazy.....unpacking, taking care of kids who haven't seen their parents in a week, trying to get back on east coast time and catch up on sleep, trying to catch up on school work, getting back into the real world, craziness just ensued! So, I have slacked big time on my blogging.

I still don't have much to say as I am just completely busy with the kids and home life and school and everything else in between. But I do want to bring attention to the side of my blog to "My Blog List." I've added some "frugal/parent" related blogs. They are great, they give you a heads up on deals and coupons and ideas to save money, something I am really trying to work on. So have a looksey and hopefully I will blog about something with a little more substance soon.