SAHM

I've been a SAHM (stay at home mom) for 3 weeks now and have some random thoughts about the transition. Overall, it's gone really well. It's amazing how four weeks ago, I didn't have the confidence to 'deal' with my children 24/7. Working a job and coming home to my family was so stressfull, that I never was emotionally capable of handling my kids for long stretches of time. So I was really nervous about this new chapter of my life. I now can say that it's been successful so far.

The first week was kind of rough. Kendall was a walking disaster - falling, hitting her head like 5 times. Taylor refused her naps... EVERY day. But by day three she was cooperating with 'quiet time' and by day eight actually fell asleep after 1 hour 15 minutes of 'quiet time.' Now she does sleep most days after she reads her books for 30 minutes.

So here is my break down on the pros, cons and things to work on of being a elementary stay at home mom.

PROS:
- Taylor - to see her play by herself is awesome. She loves to color and play with playdoh. Nothing else holds her attention long. She enjoys staying home with me and therefore we have less battles. Her behavior seems to be more consistent.
- Kendall - in the three weeks I've been home she's learned several new words and I've started to pick up on what she is saying more (just by being around her. She has become extremly independent. This week after 20 minutes of "I can do it" (slurred into 3 syllables) she can put on her pants all by herself. It's hilarious to watch her and if you attempt to help, she'll pick up and run to a corner to continue doing it herself. She's also peed in the potty twice (in one day). She's asked to sit on the potty many more times but doesn't actually go. Last week, I saw her saw her feed herself an entire meal with a fork - no help from me. It's the little things but I figure before hand we were so rushed for everything, we would never take the time to let her do things herself. It's awesome to see her grow up.
- I feel less stressed (most of the time). I've gotten half the house cleaned up and maintained. I am able to balance my life better. I'm still working 17 hours a week but that gives me time to get a way.


CONS-
- Socially- I do worry about my kids and their need to socialize. They go to Bunnie's 1 1/2 days a week but I don't know if it's enough. Taylor has had trouble sharing and listening there. We've never had trouble with her at any daycare facility/home. Kendall use to love to socialize but recently I noticed she whines at children she doesn't know. I'm not sure if she's 'scared' or 'telling' on them but it's different.
- Weekends are still an issue. When working, I always fell apart on weekends... grumpy, irritable, etc. I was hoping it would be better but not sure. During the week, we have a 'schedule' (not really) and things are semi controlled. However during the weekend, it seems nothing gets done, the house becomes a mess, we all stay in our jammi's on Saturday unless we have plans and by that evening, I'm going stir crazy with all the noise.
- My socialization. I've found myself needing to talk to someone... but no one to talk to. I told Adam one evening when I was wanting to talk and he was wanting to watch TV that he's the only adult I see all week and hope for any conversation.
- Cabin Fever... I think eventually if we don't get out regularly, I'll end up with cabin fever. We haven't done a whole lot these past three weeks so we have lots of options but the fever is still there.
- Weekends - I find myself alittle crazy... needing to get away from the noise and chaos and mess. But at the same time weekends are time that we usually spend doing.. nothing as a family. heh heh.

Things to work on...

- Our schedule. Some days I find it hard to get dressed. My kids are dressed but I'll stay bummed out until late in the afternoon. I know I need to get dressed along with them but just don't find jeans ,etc all that comfy.
- I'd like to do some structured stuff with them - crafts, baking, etc. But haven't gotten there yet. I am not all that crafty and wouldn't know where to begin. If anyone has any ideas for any fun activities, please share them.
- I have to implement some away time for me. During the week isn't bad as I take time off during quiet time and can re-generate. But don't always have that time on the weekends.

Over-all I'm pleased with how things have gone. This was something I knew was coming eventually and have been nervous about it for months. The transition has gone well and I think both me and the kids have adapted well.

Kendall - 18 months

It's occurred to me recently that I haven't posted on Kendall specifically since she was a baby. For Taylor, I tried to post blogs after her well visits to document her vitals and milestones. Since we've had Kendall there have been numerous occasions that I have looked back at Taylor's post to compare. So I'm going to attempt to make this post all about Kendall.

Kendall is such a sweet child. I knew as soon as she was born that she was going to be my cuddly child and she is. She is contempt sitting in your lap or you holding her. Don't get me wrong, she likes to play and can hold her on. But she likes to cuddle just as much. Kendall is an awesome sleeper. She get's that from me. She usually asks us to go to bed for both naps and night time. She'll gather all her night night items, say 'night night' and head to her room. She usually goes straight in her crib, alittle humming at the least.

She loves her big sister. She looks up to her and recently copies/mocks everything she does - actions, words, songs. This can be good and bad. She's hurt herself a few times copying Taylor and they've gotten into screaming matches to see who can outdo each other.

She loves music and is a dancer. Since she was a baby, she knew how to do the chicken dance. Now she dances to all music and will attempt to sing along.

She's my social bug. Everywhere we go she makes friends. If she see's another baby, she'll try to talk to them "baby." We went to the library this week and before we left she had had conversations with two other children their. She has a real concern for other people's feelings and wants to know what's wrong.

She is part monkey. She loves to climb. She started walking at 10 months old. Not long after that, she was climbing on the furniture. We have found her on table tops at times. I keep waiting for her to learn to climb out of crib. She's tried before by hiking her leg up.

She seems to like animals. However everything is a dog to her.

She is so independent. I'm sure this is typical of most second children and beyond. But it still amazes me. At 18 months, she went trick or treating by herself, sits at the doctor by herself (ENT doctor in the chair all by herself for the exam), puts her self to sleep, gets in her carseat, brushes her teeth, attempts to put on her shoes. She loves to read books but must read them herself (babble). She does not like to be read to.

She's my texture baby. She had trouble starting solids, starting a sippy cup, etc. Even today some days she doesn't like certain foods/textures. We haven't had a problem with her putting non edible items in her mouth. And she also has to adapt to textures with her hands. She does pretty well with it but has to get use to the texture first on her own time. With eating, she'll usually play with it or touch it a few times before putting it in her mouth.

She's a biter and a hair puller. Kendall has been pulling hair since she was 6 months old. She still has that habit and even occasionally bites. Luckily, she's never bitten anyone outside of the four of us. Hopefully we can keep it that way. She responds well to time outs and reprimand. She listens most days better than Taylor, though I'm sure that will change with age as well.

At 18 months, Kendall weighs 23.8 lbs (42%) and is 33 inches (85%).

Her speech had a slow start due to ear problems but in the last few weeks had blossomed. Her vocab includes: mine, "side" (outside), doggie, woof, shoe, more, milk (maa), cheese, sit, Taylor, (Ta-da), dada, momma, uh-huh (yes), uh-uh (no), CiCi, glasses, night night,

She knows many body features: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, hair, head, fingers, feet.

She has seen almost every doctor specialty since she was born: Gastro (stomach), ENT, allergist, Opthalmo (eye),speech (texture aversion- feeding therapy). Luckily we have spared the most serious referrals and all she has is treatable at this point. She does have esotropia (cross eyes) and probably will wear glasses her entire life. At this point, doctors don't think she will be a surgery candidate (good thing). We hope that the glasses continue to work. As for gastro, there are still some minor questions of her possible intolerances. We won't know anything for sure until she gets older. Around two, our pediatrician may order some lab tests but even that might not tell us what we know. Right now, our only suspicion continues ot be oats. We have no reason to think anything else causes her probles, (wheat, etc).

So that's my Kendall in a nutshell. She is a pleasure to be around and I love her so much.

Halloween 2010

We had another good Halloween this year. For us it was a week long event, though definitely not planned.
The weekend before, we attended Faith's carnival with Caedyn and Eli. We always have so much fun at their church. The kids were a lady bug and ballerina. They loved trick or treating and got some great pictures.




Saturday night we went shopping. When we arrived home at around 6:00 our neighborhood already had trick or treaters. We weren't planning on having Halloween that night but turned out good. Our neighbors were having a small party and had music blaring on their porch. My kids had a blast handing out candy and dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller. I have to say my Kendall bug has quite some moves on her.

Sunday night we went to Melissa's house. We had good food and good fellowship. We took the kids trick or treating and I was surprised at how well my kids did. Kendall was the cutest thing. After the first two houses or so, she would walk up to the houses by herself. If it wasn't for steps, she could have done the whole deal solo. It was such a bittersweet evening. She's my baby but it was so sweet seeing her do it for herself.

Small Blessings... in disguise

Taylor is a nail biter. She's been a nail biter since she's had a mouth full of teeth. Therefore she has no nails on her fingers or toes. She also bites her nails until she bleeds. She'll grap her cuticle and yank. We use to go through a box of bandaids for her fingers. We had to stop giving out bandaids to boo boos caused by her biting her nails.

Well one night this week, she woke up at 3 am to climb into our bed (not unusual for her). While she's gathering all her animals, she starts screaming 'ow ow ow ow.' It was so real, I had to ask what hurt and she said her finger. I turned on the light and the poor childs fingers looked like they were about to fall off. Two of her fingers were extremely infected with puss, redness, and swelling. She could barely move them and they hurt her so bad that she wouldn't let us put bandaids on them.

By seven the next morning, they were twice as bad. Adam and I took it upon ourselves to 'drain the wound'. We were safe and careful. We were able to get rid of the puss, put neosporin on it and bandage her up. She went to school. That afternoon when we got home, they were still obviously infected but much less puss. It didn't look any worse... maybe even a tad better. However, when she started running a 102 fever, I threw her in the car and took her to Doctors Care. I was so concerned about her fingers and her having some kind of major infection from them. Long story short, they took blood work at Doctor's Care. Her wbc was 22, which is twice as high as it should be. This signaled that she has some kind of infection. (Well, duh, her finger) but the doctor was adament that her finger infection wasn't 'large' enough to cause her white blood count and fever to be that high. Something else was brewing. She had a chest xray to rule out pneumonia, which was clear. She's had a cough for two weeks. She ended up getting a mega dose of Rocephin and we were to follow up the next day with her pediatrician.

Our follow up turned out better than expected. Dr. C wasn't happy about her fingers (and agreed that wasn't the cause of her fever and abnormal blood work)He seemed worried about her blood work. However when her repeat cbc came back at 11 (normal is 3-10), he felt much better. It was decreasing and her fever was gone. We went home with oral antibiotics to treat skin and respiratory infections. His theory is that she had bronchitis/early pneumonia. It was too early for it to show up on the chest xray. The Rocephin shot we received the night before (and the fact that she had fever for less than 24 hours) kicked it before it really started brewing.

Small blessings. I raced to the doctor because of a fever due to her fingers. If it hadn't been for her fingers, I would have waited, thought she had a virus (it's ALWAYS been a virus) and she might have ended up with pneumonia. I can't imagine what her wbc would have been if we waited. Scary! Especially since it was 22 after being sick for such a short amount of time. We might have ended up in the hospital.

Thank goodness for sick fingers. However, we are trying to kick that habit in the butt. The next day was hard for her but we refused to allow it and reminded all she had been through. I honestly haven't seen her bite her nails since then... though not to say she hasn't.

New Ears and Eyes

We are proud to announce the new arrival of Kendall's new ears and eyes.

Kendalls glasses have arrived. Though she cried at the sight of them when we picked them up, I think she likes them. She wears them at school better than she does at home. It will still take some time but she is so adorable with them. I think she looks like a totally different kid... like Little Einsteness.


She also got ear tubes this month. After battling bad ear infection for six months, this last one was it. She's had six rocephin shots in a matter of two months. We saw the ENT doctor on September 15 and he put her tubes in the next day. She went in with infected ears ("loaded" was the physicians word) and nasty snottly green nose. She literally came out of the procedure running all clear. It was amazing. I"m not sure if they just sucked it all out or what but it was her cure. She has been great since then.

She is talking so much more though we don't know what she is saying. At 15 months, she's suppose to have a small vocab but she only has like three words. We hope because of her ear problems. The very next day her babble just took off. She talks to us with so much conviction. I hope soon she'll pick up some real words so we can understand her. I'm including pictures from her procedure. Most are from the playroom. They took us to a playroom while we waited for her turn to go back.

Crash, Bang - Bang

As most have heard, Monday August 30, Kendall and I were in a 'little' bump in on Insterstate 20. Well maybe alittle more than .. little... but it could have been so much worse.

We were on our way home from a doctor's appointment. We were near between mile marker 58 and 57. There was a vehicle pulled off the road to the left. He decided to pull back on the the highway. At the same time he did this, tire tread goes flying across both lanes. There were two cars in front of me that basically had to come to a crawl to allow the pulled off vehicle back onto the highway. I was concentrating so hard not to hit the tread and slow down. I was breathing a sigh of relief (thought I was in the clear) when CRASH, the girl behind me slammed into the back of me.

We were okay. Kendall acted like she wasn't sure what hit her, never cried or whimpered. I immediataly had pain in my upper back and neck. I am not sure how fast she was going but could guess atleast 50mph or so. The girl that hit me had had cuts and bruises. Her car was absolutely totalled. We learned later that her car went completely under mine. Since where the accident happened was unsafe, I moved my car away from the scene at the officers request. My mom showed up on the scene. The three of us are sitting in the car (me, Kendall, mom) when I started losing gas and then the car cuts off and won't re-crank. It looked like I had run out of gas but I knew I had plent of gas prior to the accident. It turned pretty chaotic. Mom ended up taking Kendall to the house when my dad showed up. We were visitied by fire, ambulance, police, and DOT. We ended up leaving the car to be towed and headed home.

When Adam arrived back at the house, he turned around to go meet the tow truck at the car. He calls and says the car is missing. At this point, we were laughing to keep from crying. Literally, he says ' the car is gone'. I'm screaming, who would take a wrecked car... it won't even crank!!!" Turns out the tow truck beat him there and took it... however they took it to the wrong destination. It was all insane. It got taken care of eventually but was just chaotic.

My car has been fixed. The damage was basically invisible but still present. The bumper was curled underneath. Most of the damage was to the exhaust system/muffler since she went under me (hence why my car wouldn't start). They had to replace the entire system.

We've been working through Travelers and they have been very good to us. I'm having to see a chiropractor and am really hoping that he can cure my ailments sooner than later. We were very lucky that day. The accident could have been worse for all of us. God was steering those vehicles.

Goodbye September, Hello October

September started out a dousy. Unfortunately, it has continued the entire month. Our family has never been so eager to see a month go by and start a new month. Let me recap.

Sunday, August 29 (not even September yet)- I started feeling sick. I was up all night, nauseaus and just couldn't sleep.

Monday, August 30 - woke up sick with major stomach bug. Kendall was due for a rocephin shot to cure yet another ear infection. Mom met me at doctors office since I was so sick. On way home from doctors office, I was rear ended on Interstate 20. We were okay. I'll probably post a seperate blog on this later.

I stayed out of work most of the week due to car accident. Stomach bug continued for eight FULL days. It turned out to be food poisioning. By day seven, I was so dehydrated, I could barely get out of bed. I felt so bad. Luckily, by day eight the antibiotic had kicked in and I started seeing improvement.

This SAME week (dousy beginning, remember), Adam came down with bronchitis. He has suffered for four weeks with this bug. He's gone through numerous cough medicines, two antibiotics, and finally a round of steriods seems to be his best treatment. He's still got a cough but feeling probably 85% better.

Kendall ended up having a HORRIBLE ear infection. We finally got our ENT referral. We saw him on 9/15. He was excellent. We ended up doing tubes the very next day. Again, I'll post more about that later with pictures.

Kendall also got her glasses this month and has been adjusting to those pretty well. She seems to like them but goes through times when she refuses to wear them.

Taylor has had some major adjustments this month as well. The beginning week of September, we were all so sick that she ended up sleeping with me every night. We didn't have the energy to put her to bed. Her bedtime routine takes like 45 minutes. So after we were all 'well' we had to transition her back to her room. This past week we had quite a scare with Taylor (again I'll post a seperate blog). Small blessings, paranoid parents and a Doctor Care visit ended up saving her from having pneumonia. It was a close call.

All this has been in a four week period. Can you see why we are ready for a new month. I am still dealing with the car accident injuries and treatment.