Stickers, Stickers Everywhere

So lately (and by lately I mean since about April when Tyler was out of town for a conference for two days), Lydia has been a bear about going to bed.  Like we start bedtime with a bath at 7:15 (like always), and sometimes she's still putting up a good fight at 11:00.  She's the queen of stalling.

So a few weeks ago, I made a chart.  The chart says "Before bed each night, Lydia needs to:" and then shows a list of things she needs to do.  I have it written out (because she's working on learning letters), and then I drew a picture illustrating each item on the list.

Below the chart is a calendar with open boxes that Lyd can earn stickers to put on there.  If she earns three stickers (which only get stuck on in the morning... my mama didn't raise 'no fool!), she get's a "surprise" (Note: "surprise" means a reward to anyone not three years old...).  She's three years old, so three is THEE number that makes her little world go 'round.

This chart business has worked wonders on bedtime.  Lydia does only one task at a time (even though she is capable of stringing tasks together... whatev... it works, so I don't interfere and point that fact out) and then runs back and checks her chart.  I hear her saying "Take a bath... check.  Eat 5 cereals... check." So I know she gets the point of the chart.  And DANG IT she wants needs those stickers!

So far she has earned...going to see the movie "Brave" in the park...going to Hardee's for breakfast...going to Pizza Ranch for supper... going to the pumpkin patch.  Let's be real... some of these things we had already scheduled to do....but sssshhhhhhh! Lydia doesn't need to know that!

Girlfriend with her chart.

Life Without Some Organs

When I was pregnant with Lydia, I remember having my first gallbladder attack.  I remember being on the phone with my mom, wondering if those spasms I felt were contractions.  She told me she thought they were up too high to be contractions (and thank goodness, as I was only about 20ish weeks pregnant).  I all of a sudden had the urge to purge (that's all the dets I'll make you read about, Folks, but you get the picture).  After doing so, I felt much better. I have had this same feeling off and on for the last three and a half years.  About a month and a half ago, I had the same problem, but this time it was the worst I've ever had it and it just never really went away.  I went to a surgeon to be checked out and he ordered an ultrasound to be done.  

During the ultrasound, it was found that I had polyps inside my gallbladder.  The surgeon called and talked me about the polyps and said I had two choices:  1.  Leave the gallbladder and monitor it each year with ultrasound or 2.  Take it out and not worry about it.  Apparently the polyps were very unlikely to be cancerous, but he said if they developed (which was a pretty good chance), I may have a hard time dealing with that.  I am a worrier (about life in general, let's be real), so when I asked the doctor what his opinion was, his words were "Why worry about it?  Take it out and be done with it!" He also wanted to do a procedure where he inserted a camera into my stomach to see if there were any polyps/damage in my stomach as well.   

So... very nervously, I had my gallbladder removed on September 19 and the doctor also took my appendix while he was in surgery.  He found that I have some reflux damage that I now am being medicated for too.  

While everything was scoped out, I still have had some serious soreness, but the hardest has been trying to nurse little Henry.  We are working at getting back to working together, but since surgery, we've had some hard times because I can't really hold him how we are both used to.    

A Movie in the Park

Tonight we went to the park that's down the street from our house to watch the movie "Brave."  It's one of Lydia's favorite movies and at one point, Tyler looked at me and said "she's over here reciting the movie." HA! That's my girl! Tyler and I had actually gone to a college football game this afternoon that was 45 minutes away from the town we grew up in (and where we left our kids for the afternoon.  College football is not for the childrens. Ain't nobody got time for that!).  So after the game, we drove the 45 miles back to our hometown and picked the kids up and then traveled 45 more minutes home, just in time for the movie to start.  It was so much fun! Our town's wrestling booster club sold concessions (which included cotton candy... a life staple in my little world!) and there was a blow up screen that the movie played on.  I didn't get any pictures, because I was in charge of baby-rocking during the movie (and keeping him warm... it got CHILLY!).  I hope our town does the movie in the park more! We spent $3 on concessions and watched the movie for free.

Fire

I'll admit it.  I always laughed when they made jokes about Sophia's nursing home burning down on Golden Girls.

Until August 6, 2013.  My Grandma's senior living community burned down.  Like burned down, burned down.  My mom called me a little after 10:00 p.m. and said that there was a fire at my Grandma's apartment and that they were headed out there to check into it.  The next thing I knew, my brother sent me a picture that showed the fire.  It was big.

Long story short:  someone's heating pad in a recliner chair caused a fire that went up into the attic. The fire started across the hall and down one from my Grandma's apartment.  The building was built in a square, with a courtyard in the middle and apartments on the outside of the square and the inside (courtyard side) of the square.  My Grandma's apartment was on the inside, facing the courtyard gazebo, on the south side of the building.

After a long, sleepless night, knowing the fire fighters were doing what they could to fight this, the dust settled and we realized how bad this was.  My Grandma had grabbed her purse before leaving, but literally owned what she was wearing.  Everything is gone.  When my Mom called, I thought someone like burned a cake and they'd be back in the building in an hour or two.  Not so.  This is what things looked like the next morning.

This is looking into the courtyard from her front door. 

Grandma had left her wedding ring on the end table where she always left it when she went outside during the fire.  She was sick about it.  A week and a day later, the fire fighters finally got to go back into her apartment to see if there was anything left.  My Mom gave them a description of where her ring should have been, where all of her furniture was, and a general layout of her apartment.  

After about 15 minutes of digging through 18" of debris, a fire fighter came out of the apartment with this....

The jeweler who is fixing the ring up (because although it looks fine, it was very sooty, and needed some attention to the prongs holding the diamond on) said that the fire was within 200ish degrees of melting that ring to a puddle.  That happens at 1700 degrees (I believe that's the number he said).  Grandma is thrilled to have it back.  

My Mom, Dad, and I all got to go into the apartment about 3 weeks after the fire to try and find things to salvage.  

My Grandma's front door.  It pretty much melted off the frame.

My Mom, Dad, and me looking for anything to save. We are in Grandma's apartment, but had to keep stopping to re-evaluate where the boundaries of her apartment had been. 

We found a lot of broken pieces of things.

This is Grandma's China that had been in a hutch in her bedroom.

Everything is gone.  The cedar chest is gone. The Grandfather's clock is gone. Her wedding dress is gone.  She had down-sized so much to move from her house into this apartment.  The things she still had were the things that meant the most to her were the things she still had.  They were the things she had worked to protect her whole life.  Things she had kept her kids and eventually grandkids from climbing on or throwing balls around.  Things she had kept safe on the trip from Detroit to South Dakota where she settled.  Things that my Grandpa had bought for her or with her.  It's all gone. 

The overwhelmingly relieving part of this is that of the 43 residents in 41 apartments, every single one made it out safely.  Many lost a lot of their stuff; Grandma unfortunately was one who lost everything. 

Our Newest Addition

So, in May I wrote about how we'd be adding to our family in July.  Well..... (3 months later I finally have time to write about it, but whatev. I'm a new mommy again, don't judge!), Henry Andrew decided he wasn't going to wait until July and came into our lives on June 24!

On Friday, June 21, we had a terrible awful makemystomachchurn kind of storm.  The rain fell at our house horizontally, that's how windy it was.  It sounded like a freight train coming at our house.  It was the kind of storm that had me sitting in our basement crying... well, until the rain started pouring into our house through the windows.  Then I got off my 38 week pregnant buttooski and held towels up the windows to help save our new carpet!

Anyhow, after the storm finally quit, our power was out.  And it stayed out for hours.  (Side note: Let's be real --- I learned very quickly how little food we have in our house regularly that can be cooked without power!  So, we ventured out to the side of town with power (apparently there's two companies in our little town making things run!) and got some sandwich makings for supper.)

After we put Lydia to bed that night, Tyler and I sat in our basement and played "The Game of Life" in the dark. We NEVER get to play board games, even though we have a bazillion of them and I love playing them!  Anyhow, as we were sitting and playing, I kept telling Tyler when I would have contractions.  I had been having them every so often for a few days, but nothing regular.  I had been to the doctor a week and a few days before and was dilated to 3 cm and effaced 50%.  When the doctor told me I was that far dilated, I couldn't believe it and I didn't know what to do with that information.  When Lydia was born, I was never dilated on my own at all and had to be induced 5 days after my due date. Tyler finally said to me "I think we need to start keeping track of these contractions.  That's the 3rd contraction you've told me about in half an hour."  At about 10:30, I called the hospital to talk to an OB nurse to decide what to do and she said to wait a while longer, but to definitely be keeping track.  However.... we live 45 miles away from the hospital we deliver at.  We decided to set a time that we would make a decision to 'stay or go' by (By the way: the "should we stay or should we go" decision was one that gave me much grief in the days/weeks leading up to Henry's birth, as we never had to make those decisions with Lydia).  When that time, which was midnight came, we decided to pack our stuff up and head to the hospital town to have things checked out.  So we packed up our stuff.  In the dark.  And let me tell you, when it's dark, it's dark.  And it's really hard to pack stuff (even though my hospital bag was packed) when it's dark.

So about 1:15, we pulled out of our garage to head to the hospital.  Tyler looked over at the lights on in our neighbor's house and said "What the heck?! They have power?! They don't have a generator!" When Tyler got out of the van to go pull the string to put the garage door down (because that's another thing that doesn't work without electricity... we could write a book about it!), he tripped the fancy schmancy laser beam thingy that makes the door not shut on little children or dogs, and it turned the overhead light of our garage door on.  Yep. The power came on.  RIGHT as we pulled out of our garage. AFTER we had packed in the dark.  Whatev.

We continued on our way to the hospital.  It was a pretty quiet ride.  The storm had been very stressful and we were both tired, but excited!

After we dropped Lydia off with Tyler's parents, we went to the hospital and they hooked up the monitor to record my progress and contractions and all that jazz.  Of COURSE the second I laid down, the contractions slowed down (and felt to me like they stopped, but the machine was registering some.. thank goodness... or I'd feel like a total ninny who thoughtshewasinlaborbutwasn't!).  But... I wasn't in labor labor, just the pretend kind that freaks a prego out and causes her to make her husband pack in the dark.....

So we got sent home at about 3:00 a.m.  But heck if I was going to drive the 45 miles home in the middle of the night.  And I certainly didn't want to get home and then have to turn right back around (because of course, I knew the second I got out of the car at home, my water would break.... Murphy's Law anyone??).  So I vowed right then and there that I wasn't leaving hospital town until I had a baby to take with me.

Saturday, June 22, I hung out. I walked around Target. I walked around Walmart. I visited all the people I had to visit in hospital town (which is the town Tyler and I grew up in, so we have peeps, of course!). I walked 17.2 miles with my bestie (okay, okay... it really was only like 4 blocks... but it FELT like a marathon walk!).  By Sunday, I was bored.  I told Tyler that I couldn't walk around Target one more time -- I know, right?! GirlwhocouldLIVEattarget can't stand one.more.time. going there. (It was a moment I'm not proud of, nor will I ever admit again).  So we decided to go home, but my mom asked us to stay for supper.
I packed our stuff up to get ready to go home.  I dropped Lydie off at my parents' house before supper so that Tyler and I could run to Walmart quick before we ate.  After we went to Walmart, we decided to drive around the golf course to see the tree damage from the storm.  In the course of driving around the course (there's the English language at its finest confusion!), I had contractions start up again.  They went from being 8ish minutes apart to about 3 minutes apart (p.s. -- anyone pregnant out there? There's an app for that.  What a genius, yet useless app!  We used an app called "Contraction Keeper" that was a huge help in tracking contractions... what the heck did people do to track before technology?!) On our drive to my mom and dad's I asked Tyler to drop me off and go get our suitcase from his mom and dad's house to take me back to the hospital.

After we ate supper, we went back up to the OB floor (yes, I quickly became that mom that goes to the hospital with false labor 72.9 times before actually delivering).  This time, they kept me 4 hours, until 10:00 Sunday night before sending me home.  My doctor wasn't on call that weekend, but her partner was the on-call doctor.  She came in to check another one of her patients and stopped in to see me.  We decided that I wasn't active enough in my labor to stay, but that I should go to the clinic Monday morning to see my regular doc (who would be back in commission as of 7:00 a.m. Monday morning) and decide what to do.  She couldn't break my water (on purpose), because I was only 38 weeks, 6 days.  Those things can't be done until 39 weeks.

Monday, June 24, 2013, I went to the doctor's office at 8:30.  I told Tyler while we were walking in that today had to be the day.  I couldn't take the false labor game anymore.  If my doctor told me today wasn't the day, I was probably going to cry (hormones, what?!).  When I got into my appointment, she said I had options to strip membranes (nothankyou), just wait (doublenothankyou), or be induced (thankyouverymuch!).  She called over to the hospital, which is attached to the clinic I go to and they didn't have anyone there delivering, so I got to go over and be induced.

We grabbed our bags out of the car, walked over to the hospital, and called Lydie.  When I told her "Brother's going to be born today," she was SO excited!  Anyhow, we went up to the OB floor, got checked in, and got started on the induction process.  I was giving the first part of the induction at 10:15ish.  At 12:09 (which is funny, because that's the time Lydia was born!), my doctor broke my water.  At 5:30 I started pushing.  At 5:43, we had a baby!  

Henry Andrew (my grandma's maiden name was Andrews) weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.

We love you, Henry! 

Cha-cha-cha-changing...

So..... since the last time I blogged, we've had a lot of changes in our house.

* We are having a baby boy due July 1.
* I accepted a new position with our church.  I am the Director of Youth Ministries as of tomorrow.
* I have been working part-time at my new job since November.
* I resigned my position and all my duties at the school.
* We have switched daycares.
* We bought a "Mom Van."
* We have researched and researched and researched different health insurances, life insurances, annuities, dental insurances... if it needs to be changed due a job changed, we've changed it.

If you know me at all, I do not tend to handle life changes very well.... and to have all of these at once is getting me a little overwhelmed!

What's Happening, Hot Stuff?

In the past two months, I have...

1.  Finished Couch to 5K.  Towards the end of July I finished the program and have continued running.

2.  Added 1.25 miles (13 minutes) to the top of my 5K program.  That means I now run for 43 minutes at a time, without stopping.  I used to not be able to run 60 seconds.  I am planning on running my first road race in October.  My original plan was to run just the 5K, but now that I'm only about 1.5 miles away from a 10K (6.2 miles), I think I'm going to aim for that.

3. Gone on a family vacation with my husby, daughter, and inlaws.  We went to my husband's mom's hometown in Northern Minnesota and it was fab.  It had been since about a month after L was born that we went anywhere on vaca (and that's where we went then too!), so it had been over two years.  It was time, we had a good time, and we can't wait until next time.  How's that for time!?

4. Started my 6th year of teaching school.  The year has gone well so far, and we made it through homecoming week last week.

5. Attended T's 10 year class reunion (just yesterday).  It was a good time seeing people we hadn't seen in a long time.  I graduated from the same school, just a year behind T.

July so far...

So today I finished week 5 of the Couch to 5K program.  I have not skipped any days of the program, nor have I ever cheated on my minutes while running.  Today required 5 minutes of warm up walking and then 20 minutes of jogging.  I never in a million years thought I could run for 20 minutes straight.  But I did it.  AND I didn't even look at my stopwatch for the first 14 minutes.  Normally I look like every 30 seconds, but not today.  I kept telling myself I would check it at certain points, and then at those certain points, I'd tell myself not to do it and to wait until another point.  When I looked finally, it was because I was having to decide which way in the park to go... before I looked, I was in a runner's high -- I wasn't in pain anymore, I was breathing well, I was enjoying what I was doing.  Once I looked?  BAM! Runner's high = done.  I swear I looked at my stop watch every 4 seconds after that initial look.... oh well...

C25K

So I just finished the second week of the Couch to 5K plan.  It's probably the hardest I've worked in a really long time.  Not probably.  It IS!  I feel like I'm more toned up already and I've lost a couple pounds.  I've also really kept good track of everything I eat every day.  I use www.myfitnesspal.com and I really like it.  It has a good database of most of the foods I eat. It also gives an option to add a food to their database, which I like.

On another note, this weekend is our towns annual celebration.  Hopefully we don't have a repeat of last year. UGH!

Just Keep Running...

So I know Dori from "Finding Nemo" says "Just keep swimmin', just keep swimmin'" but I was running, not swimming.  Day 2 of my Couch to 5K is in the books.  I started much earlier today (at 2:30 ish as opposed to 9:10 at night!).  The wind was really a factor today and it made the running hard for me.  But, once again, I didn't let myself give up.  I just kept on running.

Not going to lie, I feel skinnier when I'm done running.  It may all just be in my head, but I don't care.  I'm going to keep living that dream!

I'm Here!

Well, kids.  Here it is.  I've not blogged since November (I think).  Lots of things have happened since the last time I posted (duh, that's what life does).  LC gave up her pacifier, she's in a big girl bed, she turned 2 on Mother's Day (complete with a Sesame Street birthday party), and she's a bossy-flossy little thing. I finished up my 5th year of teaching English in May and Tyler finished his 4th year at his network administrator position.

Here's the real scoop with me.  On Thursday, June 7, I quit drinking pop. Now it's not like I was a camel when it came to pop, but let's be real, I love, love, LOVE (!!!) Dr. Pepper with all my heart. When I quit, I went cold turkey.  I never really drank water --- and when I say never really, I mean never -- so I have totally cut out all pop and have been drinking water. A lot of water. Sometimes I really just want a pop. so. bad. I am not even opposed to having one once in a while, eventually . For right now, I think it's best that it's just gone for a while. I don't know how long a while is yet. Maybe a month? Maybe 6 months? I just don't know.

Tonight I Googled "Couch to 5K," because I keep hearing about it, but never get the full story.  So, I looked at it. I set my computer down.  I went and changed into workout clothes. And. I. Ran. The program seems do-able and I'm definitely ready for a change in my life.  I cannot continue to look the way I look and feel the way about myself that I feel. Today the plan told me to walk briskly for 5 minutes to warm up.  For the following 20 minutes, I alternated jogging 60 seconds, then walking 90 seconds.  Even before I started jogging for the first 60 second section, I was telling myself (with each footstep) "I. can. do. this. I. can. do. this." And I DID! I surprised even myself, but I didn't give up.  Not even once. I ended up running in the rain at the end, but it didn't matter.  I sweat. A lot. But I did it!  (And I have the shin splints already to prove it!).  I felt fat running -- like my butt weighed a thousand pounds; like all the leftover baby pooch wiggled and jiggled all over; like I was drained by the last 60 second running interval.  But I CAN DO THIS!

I came home and took pictures of myself, but I'm not brave enough to post them yet. Later....

Overdue.

So here I am.  Another three and a half months have passed since a blog post.  Things have just been so busy that I can't keep up! It's funny, though, that I manage to keep up with reading the blogs I follow..... something's fishy there!

I can't believe we are already into the month of Thanksgiving, cold weather, Christmas trees going up, and lights on the house.  I love, love, LOVE this time of year.  I can hardly stand the wait to put up our Christmas tree.  It will be interesting to see how it goes this year, though, as we have an 18 month old in our house who may like the tree a little too much.  I hope she can learn to just look and leave it alone.  She's pretty good about stuff like that, so who knows. We are also going to re-arrange our living room to accommodate our Christmas tree this year.  We usually put it right in the middle of our picture windows.... but.... the four-legged friend in our house likes to spend most of her days looking out that window, thus pushing and turning the tree with each delicate (NOT!) pass near the tree to get to said window.  It about makes my heart stop every time, so this year, we're going to eliminate the problem!

Where Have I Been All My Life?!

So clearly my blogging skills have taken a back seat.... again!  I thought I was doing better at blogging more regularly, but not so.  It's funny, because I still read the blogs I follow regularly (like daily or more!), and I think to myself each time I'm looking at the dashboard "I should write something..... but I can't think of anything.  Eh, I'll do it later."  Yup.  Now is later!

So, today is my husband's and my five year wedding anniversary.  It seems like just yesterday that we got married.  Yet, when I think about our wedding -- our actual ceremony, the reception, the dance -- it seems like longer than that.  Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing.  It's just all that planning and waiting seems like a lifetime ago. 

I was thinking today about the anniversaries we've shared thus far...

The first year, we went back to the Wisconsin Dells to the same water park we had been to on our honeymoon.  SO FUN! 

The second year we went to Sioux Falls for shopping and eating. 

Our third anniversary was spent on a trip to Rapid City to go to a Taylor Swift concert (bless my husband's heart).  I'm not so sure Tyler was into TayTay (yep, that's what we call her at our house!), but when we got to Rapid and saw that our seats were FRONT ROW (!!!!!!), he seemed to have more fun.  Then when TayTay grabbed my hand (EEEEEEPPPPPPP!!!!!), I cried, and I think I realized he actually was having a fab time!  We had just gotten possession of our house (Tyler's grandpa's house that we bought), and had been painting, moving, painting, moving, painting, moving, moving, moving the week before we went.  This trip was a welcomed break!

Our fourth anniversary was spent just hanging out at our house.  Lydia was only about 2 1/2 months old, so it was easy to just hang out! 

Today we have again just been around the house.  It's been kind of nice to just hang.  We planned to go on a bike ride tonight, but as I type this and look out the window, I see that the sky is darn-near black, I'm hearing thunder, and I'm pretty sure it's raining/going to rain soon.  I'm not Lance Armstrong.  I don't love biking that much and I don't like the weather that much to ride IN IT! Haha!  I'm literally taking a rain check!

Ruby's Runaway Recap

Last weekend was our town's annual celebration, Farley Fest.  Each year, the town hosts an arts and crafts fair, a car show, windmill tours, a concert, and a fireworks show, among other events.  Previously, the fireworks and concert were held on the same night, but last year, they switched the fireworks to the night before the concert. 

Lydia was just a month and a half old last year at Farley Fest.  I remember standing in our dining room, holding her while she cried, and being sad that the first fireworks she was seeing in her lifetime were hampered by her crying.  AND there were 9,000,000 mosquitoes!  UGH!

Anyhow...... flash forward to this year.  In the days leading up to Farley Fest this year, the people who shoot the fireworks kept doing test shots.  They did them like every half hour on Friday.  It was kind of a pain, because it made our dog kind of nervous.  Friday night came and it was a beautiful night -- very little wind, not too hot, not too cold, and a clear enough sky to see the fireworks shoot up.  Tyler and I decided to start a fire in our fire pit and by the time it was going, another test shot had gone up.  It woke Lydia up.  Instead of fighting to get her back to sleep, I brought her outside, thinking she could go to bed a little later than normal.  After all, it is summer, the fireworks would be loud, and we could sleep in the next morning if need be.  We enjoyed sitting by the fire (Lydia was entranced... I don't think she's ever seen anything bigger than a candle flame!) for a while and then realized that the fireworks would soon be starting.  I had handed Lydia over to Tyler so she could sit on his lap for a while and he handed her back just as the fireworks were starting, so he could hold on to Ruby's collar.  At one point while watching the fire, I said "Let's just keep Ruby out with us and see how she does with the fireworks." 

The next account is exactly how about 3 minutes of our lives went:

Fireworks start.
Lydie cries.
Tyler gets up and says "Ruby. Ruby.  RUBY." 
Tyler buzzes her shock collar. 
Tyler walks around our house looking for her.
I finally realize he's not joking and he can't find Ruby.
Lydie and I get up and start looking.
Ruby cannot be found.
Tyler presses Ruby's shock collar one more time and says "She's out of range of the collar to work." 
O.M.G.

So, I race inside to call Home Again, the company that we have Ruby micro-chipped through.  We thought it was a tracking system.  When I called, the woman informed me "It's not a GPS, Ma'am.  Your calling us will allow us to make a poster that will be delivered to all the shelters, rescues, veterinary offices, etc. in your area. The poster will have Ruby's information and a picture of her on it."  A POSTER!?!?! HELLO! I could have done that myself! Whatever. So I say "okay," hang up, and head outside to keep looking.  Tyler took Lydia with him in the car to drive around and look for Ruby, I stayed close to home in case she came back and walked around our neighborhood on foot.  Mind you, by this time, it's like 11:00 p.m. and pitch dark.

Time out for me to describe our area:  We live on THEE northernmost street in our town.  One house north of us is sided on the north side by a farm with lots of trees.  Beyond that, it's out in the country.  OY!  And again, pitch black, People.  

Okay, so I'm out looking and looking for Ruby, calling her name, and trying to find her with a flashlight.  Most of our neighbors were out (which was a good thing, as they could say "yay" or "nay" to having seen Ruby).  Most of the town was out too at the fireworks.... the problem with that is they were all in the park south of our house watching the fireworks that were shot off from across the lake we live on.  Ruby was definitely trying to get AWAY from the noise, so going south into all of the people where she may have been found seemed like an impossibility!  Before leaving home, I called our radio station to have them announce at the fireworks that Ruby was missing.  Then I realized that the phone number on her collar is definitely our OLD phone number that was in service a year ago... we got a new phone number last November to save money through our provider... OH NO!  I also called our local police station/sheriff's office to alert them of Ruby's disappearance and put a message on my facebook that she was missing.

So, I finally call Tyler and ask if he's had any luck. No luck.  He was coming home.  All the while of looking for Ruby, I realized that this was, in fact, my fault.  I had told Tyler to keep her outside.  She took off like a bolt of lightning when she left and we knew she had to be a long way from home.  It made me so sad to think of our poor puppy.... barely two years old....alone at night....scared from the noise... was she hurt?.... was she killed?.....was she trying to get home and couldn't find her way?.... what if she was hurt, but dying slowly, all by herself, scared in a big, dark night... the guilt of all of this about pushed me over the edge.  It was like our first baby had been ripped away from us and she was all alone. And it was my. fault.

I decided then and there that I would stay out all night waiting for her to come back.  Tyler finally convinced me to come inside, but it was the longest, sleepless night I've ever had.  I kept thinking I was hearing Ruby scratching at our front door. Or crying. Or barking.  I was SO SO SO sad!  And Tyler was sad too.... he's spent so much time training Ruby to hunt, teaching her to stay in our yard (which she does faithfully!), and playing with her throwing the retriever in the lake behind our house.  I knew it was breaking his heart that she was gone.  We each kept getting up throughout the night to see if Ruby was back or not. She never was.

By 6:30 Saturday morning, my  mom sent me an e-mail telling me to call her ASAP.  When I called her, she was very upset that Ruby hadn't come back yet and that I hadn't called Friday night to have them come help look for her.  Really, there probably wasn't anything to be done Friday night, as Ruby is a speed racer and could have been to Canada by the time we even hopped in our car.  My mom told me that she, my dad, my brother, and my grandma were coming to help find Ruby. She also told me that she was going to call their town's radio stations, as they project to our town and all the surrounding areas.  Someone was bound to find her.

Bound to find her.... all night long, I kept thinking those horrible thoughts about her being lost, hurt, killed, etc., but I also had hope that someone would find her.  I was praying someone would find her.  And alive, not dead. 

As I hung up from talking with my mom, I realized I had new voice mail messages.  I listened to one: "Um. Yeah. I just seen [sic] (I would never use grammar like that) your dog four miles north on the highway."  Awesome.  Thanks for the really detailed message, Lady. BUT that meant someone had seen her alive!  Then I listened to the second message:  "Hi. My name is Jerid.  I am at mile marker 179, north of town, on the highway.  I can see your dog, but she won't come to me.  She seems scared.  Call me back when you can."  HALLELUJAH!!  I called him back and we RACED north of town to find her.  When we got to where the man was, he said "She saw me, looked back, and took off running east. I'll go back to the northern dirt road from here, you go to the southern dirt road from here and we'll cut her off."  So we did that, but our dirt road never came.  We were almost back into town when Jerid called back and said "She's headed back towards the highway."  We turned around and raced BACK out of town.  We came up over a hill, saw Jerid's car coming towards us, and RUBY BARRELING down the highway!!!!  She saw our car and came RUNNING!!! I jumped out of the car, ran over to her, and she came right to me!  She was wet.  She was dirty.  She was tired. Hungry. Thirsty.  BUT HOME!!!!

She ended up being four miles north of home.  We'll never know how far she went throughout the night, though. 

I think next year she'll stay inside for fireworks.... Oh, Ruby.....

Summer Titles.

So, I've been on summer vacation for almost a month now.  I can't believe a whole month is gone from my precious vacation! It always goes way too fast!

When I thought about the things I wanted to do on my vacation this year, I knew I wanted to challenge myself to read one book per week.  I'm doing pretty good so far.  I've read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, "American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld, and have started "The Four Ms. Bradwells" by Meg Waite Clayton.  All have been good.  The MWC book is a little hard to get into, but I think I remember thinking that about the first book I read by her called "The Wednesday Sisters."  I have to decide what I'm going to read next.... I have so many books that I've bought over the years and haven't gotten around to reading yet.  I have a Kindle, but I think for the summer, I'll put it on the shelf to get some of the paper books I have read.  I hope this is a tradition I can carry out throughout the year!

Sweet Summah-time!

So.  One week down.  I've been on summer vacation for exactly one week today.  This week has gone SO fast! I'm afraid I'll blink and it will be August and we'll be back in school.  EEEKKK! I'm NOT ready!  I love my job.  I love the kids.  I love teaching English and Literature. Bbbuuuuuuutttttt... I LOVE summer too!  I call myself "Summer Girl" so much that my husband calls me that too!

Lydia has gone to daycare each day since Monday this week.  At first I felt guilty about taking her while I was sitting at home doing.... well....whatever I feel like.  I got over the guilt fast!  I needed a little Mommy Vaca and I DO have flex account money that has to be spent... so to daycare she goes! 

So far this week, I've expanded my garden, read, watched TV, done a few craft projects, picked up the house, watered flowers, had lunch with a dear friend, and basically whatever else I've felt "moved" to do! Haha!  I've had a great time so far and could get used to this "Summer Girl" business! 

Hello Hiatus!

So... my plan to write one blog a week hasn't gone so well.  Life has been so busy lately!  Maybe my goal should be one blog per month...maybe THAT'S what I meant to say when I started this blogging deal and said I'd do it once a week?

Anyhow.... so much has happened since I last blogged.  Let's recap:  Husband has pneumonia.  Daughter has RSV.  Husband is hospitalized.  This mom's losing her mind.  Husband heals.  Husband starts coaching track.  Daughter has double pink eye.  Husband's pneumonia comes back. Daughter has double ear infection. End scene.

Okay, so that was the fast-forward version, but I think you get the hint.  We (or should I say, the rest of my family) hasn't been the healthiest this spring.  Darn public places sharing ickies! 

Lydia Claire is one year old today.  It's been a very nostalgic week for me.  I remember (to the minute usually) what I was doing a year ago.  Last night I kept thinking about how we had gotten the phone call to go to the hospital to have Lydia.  I wasn't scheduled to be induced until 12 hours later, but we got to go in early.  So we left here in fog as thick as butter and drove to our hospital 45 miles away.  When Tyler's alarm went off this morning at 6:30, I thought "one year ago right now, my water broke!".  And the time comparisons have continued all day.  At 12:09, the exact moment LC entered the world one year ago, I took her picture with the date AND time stamp on on my camera.  I know. Corny, right?  But... she is my first baby and she's getting so big and I want to remember every SECOND with her! 

It's strange because all year, I had times where I would wish for her to be one year old.  Now that it's here, I could live without it.  Anyhow, Girlfriend is in her crib napping (a new development... thank you daycare!).  She has started napping in her crib instead of being held (she sleeps fine in her crib at nighttime), but only if she's swaddled.  It's kind of funny to see this big girl (although she's quite petite!) swaddled up in her crib.  Say it with me though: "WHATEVER WORKS!" 

We are off to make patio stones with her little foot and hand prints in them when she wakes up.  I've been planning this for weeks.  Here's hoping I know what the heck I'm doing!

Drum Roll Please.....

We have FINALLY figured out what's going on with my husband.  Lydia's RSV is under control (I should say, it's *been* under control, considering she's never acted like anything's wrong!).  Anyhow, when I took Tyler to the doctor on Tuesday, the doctor put in an order for a Z-pack medicine that we could pick up Thursday/Friday if he just wasn't feeling better.  He wasn't.  So yesterday (Thursday), I picked it up and he took the dosage of it yesterday at 2:30.  By 8:00 last night, he was having such stomach pain and was just generally uncomfortable, so I took him to the ER in our town.  They found nothing, still, to be wrong with him. Said it was still viral, still nothing to be done. Still, still, still. 

Today, his fever was up and down up and down again.  I told him I thought we needed to get him looked at again, but this time in Watertown (where we both grew up).  So, I called the office, they had an opening at 3:45, I packed an overnight bag for us each (just in case!), loaded the dog up, and away we went.  The doctor quickly found that Tyler has a severe case of pneumonia. So severe that he's been hospitalized.  Good thing our parents all live in Watertown! Lydia and I are at my parent's house.

When we were driving, the wind was blowing about 9000 miles per hour.  I went into the clinic with no coat on.  When I came out of the hospital after Tyler's admission (the hospital is attached to the clinic), it was raining and then snowing lightly by the time I got in my car.  By the time I got to my parent's house about 6 blocks later, it was SNOWING snowing.  This was at about 5:15. My dad and brother left to go to a Boy Scout camp at 5:45.  They made it 20 miles south of town and had to turn around and come back.  The 14 miles took them 1 1/2 hours.  I drove across town to buy diapers and I couldn't even see the car 10 feet in front of me.

Good thing we brought the dog and our clothes along... the interstate is now closed to get home! Hopefully tomorrow's a little less eventful than the days in the past week... maybe?

Giving Up Sleep for Lent.

I jokingly (or was it???) wrote on my facebook status that I have given up sleep for Lent. Now, I'm not Catholic, so the practice of giving things up for Lent is not something I normally do.  It's not that I couldn't do it, I just have never done it.  Anyhow, this year really could be the year I give up something and right about now that something feels like sleep.

Sunday my husband started to not feel well.  I thought he was just tired or had a little cold or something.  By the time we went to bed Monday night, he had a temperature of 102 degrees.  I felt bad, but thought, again, it was no big deal -- just a cold, maybe a bug, or something.  We are on day four of him having a temperature of 100 + degrees.  His temperature breaks, goes down a little, but then ends up right around 100 multiple times a day.  He has missed four of four days of school this week.  When will he get better?

Lydia has had a little bit of a cough, runny nose, and a little congestion for probably about a week now.  She did get a tooth last weekend, and these are her normal teething symptoms, so I didn't really think much of it.  She has been running a little fever her and there, but again, I thought it was teething.  I picked her up from daycare yesterday and her daycare mom said she had a fever again and her chest seemed rattley.  I thought to myself "The clinic is only two blocks away from daycare.  I'm going to go see if they have anyone who can listen to her chest."  There was a little boy with croup at daycare last week and who knows what else she shares with her friends at daycare.  I took her over to the clinic and they tested her for influenza and RSV.  The influenza test was negative; the RSV test was positive.  My baby has RSV!  I was so scared they were going to hospitalize her.  For now, we have escaped the hospital stay, as she's over six months old.  However, if she gets worse, she'll have to go to the hospital. So, out of five school days this week, I'll have missed three and a half. Good thing I have sick time! 

We are supposed to go to Sioux Falls this weekend to meet up with college friends.  We've had this weekend planned since last summer.  We have a motel room and it's literally been the only thing getting me through this week: knowing that we get to "get outta Dodge."  Our plans to go have been canceled.  We don't get to go and it makes me so SO sad! We haven't been out of town (except to run to Watertown for the day every once in a while) since we went Christmas shopping for a day in Sioux Falls before Thanksgiving.  After this weekend, I have next weekend open and then I have oral interp. meets every Saturday until April 16.  Tyler coaches track starting the week after next.  I'd love to go to Sioux Falls just for the day next Saturday, but it's state basketball.  That causes a mess.  Everything gets so busy and full that driving in town, eating at a restaurant, and shopping at the mall are not so much fun.  That blows that idea. 

Well, the baby's crying (surprise), the kitchen needs picking up (typical), and this Momma needs to get her butt in gear (ugh).  Until next time blog-owers (that's blog followers, duh)!

290.

290.  That's how many days old Lydia is today.  Saying you have a 290 day old baby doesn't seem as much as saying a 9 and one half month old baby.  9 1/2 months?! Where has this time gone?!

I'm sitting in our living room, watching her play today.  Tyler's at basketball practice.  It's his last before the team's first district game tomorrow. Anyhow, I'm watching this baby, my little baby, pull herself up to stand on the dog, stand by her "Learn and Groove" table, talk to herself, page through her book, crawl all over, and empty out her toy bin again. And again. And again.  Sometimes I have to just take a minute, clear her blanket off, putting everything back in the bin, because I just can't take the chaos of the toys... say it with me now: O.C.D.

I can't believe how all of a sudden, her development is taking off.  We have a calendar that my bestie gave me for Christmas 2009.  It's one that comes with milestone stickers for firsts, holidays, special times, number of months old, etc.  I've taken the liberty of writing my own stuff in (because, hello, I'm her mom... duh!) like the day she woke up to see her first snowfall.  I'm not kidding when I tell you that I put about 90% of the stickers on one week.  One week.  In one week's time (actually about 4 days), Lydia started waving bye-bye, clapping, crawling, pulling up to standing, turned 9 months old, went to a check-up, had her first Valentine's Day, and got her third tooth.  Ho-ly cow. Where's my baby gone to?

Just the other night, I was poking around in her mouth (which makes her mad, but again. I. am. the. mom., kid.), and I found her fourth tooth.  We have this habit of getting two teeth at a time, but about 10 - 13 days apart.  In October, Lydia got her first tooth.  Eleven days later, she got her second tooth.  Then we worked. And worked. And worked for the third tooth.  Lots of drool, next to no sleep, some fevers here and there, and many crabby days later, we got a third tooth.  On Valentine's Day.  What a romantic that girl is! Anyhow, Friday, February 25, I felt a fourth tooth.  On top this time.  OH NO! As I explained to my husband, big kids have top teeth.  Not my gummy smiled, no toothed little baby.

We've started talking birthday party plans for LC's first birthday.  It's hard to believe that my baby will be a whole year old.  Just a year ago, I was pregnant (obviously), but it is wierd to think about the things we were able to do a year ago without our Little.  It's also strange to think about all the things we were planning for our Little and she hadn't used anything we had purchased; everything was so new and...anticipatory. 

I guess that's how I feel about her birthday.  While I'm sad for her first year to be over, I'm anticipatory.  I'm anxious to see what Lydie looks like as a walking big girl.  I'll always long for her baby, newborn, curled-up, wrinkley days, but I know they won't come back.  Memories are a wonderful piece to this life (so are photographs!) and I have so many from when she was little.  I don't think I'll ever tire of talking about her delivery, our trip home from the hospital, how my parents came up with a meal (and many frozen meals) when we first arrived home, the first time we took Lydia for a walk in her travel system, the way the train barriers came down as we were crossing them to take Lydia back to her first doctor's appointment, the fact that Lydia pee'd on her newly-daddied Daddy at our newborn photo session, the waiting and waiting and waiting we did trying to catch her rolling over on our video camera, or any of the other memories from these past 290 days.  So, Miss LC, here's to 290 more days, times infinity.

P.S. - I suppose I should include a disclaimer on this blog.  In the next 75 days of Lydia's first year, the blogs I write about my little baby may (okay, will) become increasingly sappy.  Again, I'm her mom.  We tend to do that.