Back to school...

The boys went back to school yesterday, FINALLY! It's like starting over to get them back into the routine after two+ weeks off. Hayden is actually doing better than before, no tears at drop off either day and I didn't have to shove him into the classroom and run either day.

Trevor is struggling despite my best efforts. I went into work late yesterday and today so I could drop him off myself but there was still sobbing upon my departure. Actually, he's kind of funny first. I say "It's time for mommy to go." And he says "It's time for Trevor to go too". His teacher is so sweet though, holding him and loving him through the transition. Reports were that he had a good day despite the initial tears.

Still no internet at home. I've almost given up. I used to come home and turn on the computer and check if the internet was working. Now I don't even bother. Comcast is like that boyfriend who stopped calling suddenly. At first you would check your messages and caller ID to see if he called. Then you try calling him. Then you just give up because that piece of crap loser isn't going to call. You're on your own now, you don't need him. But you still kind of miss him and you'd take him back. So screw you Comcast, we're done. Unless, of course, you want to get back together.

Decaf

The whole food poisoning episode started Tuesday mid-day. Felt queasy in the morning and then was doubled over with sharp intestinal pain by lunch. Still ate some pizza and salad which I promptly donated back to the city of San Antonio's waste treatment system. Wednesday started OK, ate a few crackers in the office but they came right back up. So now I couldn't keep anything down, including my daily diet dr. Pepper fix. Incredible nauseau compounded by a splitting headache now for a 4 hour drive with the kids from San Antonio back to Houston. Thank goodness my mom was driving.

Got too dehydrated by Thurs and had to go to ER for IV fluids and was quickly settled on the road to recovery.

In the midst of it all, survived the caffeine detox/withdrawal since I couldn't keep any fluids down. So I'm free, right? Except that caffeine, she's a seductive little minx. I feel like she's calling my name every time I put my quarters in the machine to buy another bottle of water. "Come back to me...you need me..." She says.

Forget about crack, it's caffeine and the internet that are going to bring me down.

Back to work...

Ahh, the internet, I've missed you my love. I know we only have a few precious hours together every day now, but I cherish them dearly.

I now have access to all the really important information. Like this. Wham! was #28 on the greatest songs of the 80s, George Michael solo was #74. I think a lot of the ranking are pretty debatable, but then again, I'm not a big fan of pop metal (guns -n- roses, whitesnake, etc.). Although, I have turned to volume up on Def Leppard more than once. Saw them at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo a few years ago. Doesn't that seem like a strange venue for Def Leppard? I was happy to find Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock at #80. Just downloaded that one from Amazon a few weeks ago. Trevor made a funny face while I played it and danced around the living room.

Oh, and when I don't have the internet, I can't share this precious piece of 9-month old loveliness.

The things you're not supposed to say out loud...

I know we should be counting our blessings right now...and we are, really. Our home is undamaged. We've had electricity for days, we've got gas in the cars, food in the fridge, my nasty bout of food poisoning is past (don't even get me started on that), the kids are a little less stir crazy...

But I miss the internet.

There...I said it...

Was laying sick in bed watching VH1's top 100 songs of the '80s on and off the other day. Didn't catch Wham! or George Michael. Was desperate to get on the net to know where they placed. Sigh...the really important stuff like that. Darn Comcast.

Checking in...

All is well for me and Miss J in Chicago (actually Wisconsin right now). The boys and Grandma Denise rode out the storm in Houston. They lost power and water, but the house stayed dry due to Sean's all night efforts keeping the drains clear of debris so water didn't back up. The power came back today and they've got enough water for a few days. My flight home has been cancelled but I should be able to get out Monday afternoon. Hope all is well with all of you.

Where do you blog?

On a plane with a baby waiting for people to board.

On my way...

Out of town tomorrow for a business trip/visit to Chicago. I'm taking Juliette with me. It will be her first airplane flight, first trip anywhere other than a day trip to visit Grandma in Louisiana. Should be fun. If only I could get around to packing. Yeah, that would be nice.

Anyways, the new photography website is officially up and running. So I'm adding it to my links. Comments and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

Finally, here's a pic of Juliette from last week. She went from 2 teeth to 5 last week, yet still is only being fed mush (prunes here). She's getting great at the combat crawl, mostly using her arms to pull herself along. But she can definitely get into trouble. She executed a 1 second triple roll off the king size bed last night and was on the floor before I could jump across the bed to grab her. Oh well, she survived, hopefully we will too.

Mobile Blogging...

So my new thing is to blog from my Blackberry while I'm pumping at work. Yes, blogging on the blackberry is slow and half the time my posts get lost, but the other options are to stare at the wall or flip thru 5 year old magazines.

I had lunch with Hayden at the elementary school today. It is a bit of a challenge to get out of work, pick up some lunch, get checked in at the office at his school, and down to the cafeteria by 10:57 am, but it was totally worth it. He was so excited and I was like a rock star at his table. All the kids were clamoring to tell me stuff. The other mom who looks kinda pregnant but I wasn't sure and didn't want to ask...her daughter confirmed that they do indeed have baby#4 on the way. Hayden was super talkative, much better than at the end of the day. So if you want the real scoop on life in kindergarten, go to lunch.

The one thing that shocked me was that they have about 150 kids eating lunch at the same time and only 2 adults monitoring. Hayden's teacher was there at the start to help open bags, etc., but after that the kids were just left to eat with a few roaming monitors to make sure nobody acted up. Definitely a situation ripe for mutiny. If those kids were organized enough, they could totally overthrow the monitors and run wild. Talk about an insufficient adult to child ratio...

I went to the cardiologist Monday. He had me wear a 24 hour continuous EKG. Should get the results next week. I'm guessing it will show a few palpitations here and there but nothing serious. The doctor didn't seem concerned about the SVT. He sees much worse all the time (could have guessed that by the lobby full of 80 year olds in wheelchairs). He said I'm young and healthy and my heart can handle a few extra beats a few times a year. If I start having SVT every week, maybe we'll do something. He said he'd medicate me if my blood pressure wasn't so darned low. He took it 3 times to convince himself it was really 90/60. All the drugs they could give me would have a side effect of lowering my blood pressure and he said that with my regular pressure so low, I'd be passing out if it got any lower. So on we go...

It takes a lot...

A lot of stuff to keep our family of 5 going each week. Fruit, vegetables, 3 loaves of bread (wheat, white, cinnamon), ravioli, sauce, meat, fish, yogurt, crackers, cheese, vitamins, cereal, paper towels, baby food, wipes, etc. It makes for a really full cart at the grocery store. And a really ridiculously high bill - $300 last week.

Which makes it all the more embarrassing when you're all checked out with all the groceries sacked up and you kid munching on his new licorice and you realize you left your wallet at home.

Something, anything...

OK, I've been busy trying to sort through the pictures from the first week of school to share plus I'm working on a re-design of my "business" website. Neither is complete, but it's kept me from posting. If you want a sneak peek at the website redesign, it resides here temporarily until I finish it up and go live.

If you need something to read, there's a blog that I've been reading which really makes me stop and think every day. Start here, then you can read recent posts here. It's written by a dad with a daughter about Juliette's age, so I guess that's why I connect to it. Her mom was on bed rest for several weeks before she was born, just like I was. That's where our paths diverge, and reading it makes me count my blessings...and realize how abundant they truly are.

Oh, and as long as I'm posting completely random information, don't you think my fingers look FREAKISHLY long in the baby picture a few posts down? People always tell me I have long fingers, but they look creepy-long to me in that picture.

SVT...

Supraventricular Tachycardia. That sounds like fun, eh? I've probably had about a half dozen episodes in my lifetime, the last when I was pregnant with Juliette. But I've always been with another adult before.

Today I was in the drive-thru at Chik-Fil-A when it happened. It's always sudden onset, just sitting there, la-de-dah, and all of a sudden my heart is beating out of my chest and I can barely catch my breath. I try to take my pulse, but can't count that fast. So I finish ordering lunch for the kids (priorities people, priorities!) and drive home, now more annoyed than ever at the construction on my street. I try to call Sean, but big surprise, his cell phone is turned off. So I call my mother who is fortunately not working today and tell her to come over right away.

So I'm sitting, waiting, explaining to Hayden how to call 911 if mommy "falls asleep and can't wake up". The kids don't take me seriously at all, by the way. I wonder what the ambulance people would do if I called them...would they bring the kids with? Should I drive myself to the hospital? What would they do with 3 kids if I showed up at the ER? Sean calls, he's on his way now, but that's still 30 minutes at least.

Juliette's hungry, so I let her nurse. Can't make things worse, I figure, and I don't think there's any milk in the fridge so if I go to the hospital she'll lose her meal ticket.

I beg the boys to put their shoes on so we can be ready to go when grandma arrives. They're still unimpressed with mommy saying she doesn't feel well. Trevor doesn't want Hayden to help with his shoes. I cry a little, that works wonders, remember this for future reference.

My mom arrives and drives us to the hospital. Heart problems give you a free pass at the ER, no waiting. They put me on an EKG and say "SVT". Sean arrives, they put me in a room, start an IV, doctors huddle a bit, they try the vasovagal maneuvers (I tried them at home, no success), then decide to move on to the adenosine. This part sucks, they basically jack you with a chemical really fast and it stops your heart with the assumption that it will restart itself in a normal rhythm (crash cart standing by, just in case). In the meantime, when your heart stops, it feels like you're dying, even when you know it's going to happen, it's creepy. Last time the nice cardiologist held my hand. This time they all watched the monitors...success, normal sinus rhythm...everyone cheers, high fives.

I'm resting tonight, no housework or diaper changing they said. I asked all the important questions: Can I drive myself to the hospital next time? Answer: it could cause you to faint, but since you didn't faint this time, you probably won't next time, so it's probably OK. Can I bring the kids to the ER? Yes, definitely, plenty of people to watch them (not those creepy guys in the lobby, right?).

Will it happen again? My cardiologist said yes after the last time. Some type of electrical abnormality in my heart. They can do something called ablation, where they burn out the malfunctioning part, but if they burn too much, I could need a pacemaker, so that would suck. So as long as the episodes aren't too frequent, we just pack it in and head to the ER. Thanks for that $100 co-pay, see you again next time.

Sorry this post is so long, just a stream of consciousness...hopefully you still notice the post below begging for comments.

Show me some love people...

OK, we're going on 20 posts and over 2 months without a single comment. So it must mean nobody reads the blog, so I should just abandon it, right?

Look familiar?
I don't have a whole bunch of baby pictures of me (second child, y'know how it goes), but I thought this one looked a little like Miss J. Whadda ya think? By the way, note the edge of my brother's face cropped out of the picture. So the only baby pictures I have of me have him in them too.

It's actually the opposite here. I have more pictures of Juliette than either of the boys. I only went digital when Trevor was ~3 months old. Even though I was really over-zealous with the film, I've shot way more pics of Juliette, probably averaging 200 a week or something insane. So no complaints baby girl, OK?

Juliette & Malik...

I tried to take some pictures of Juliette yesterday because she was being super sweet for me. I got a few decent shots, but something kept getting in the way...and so I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the nuisances we deal with during our photo sessions and everyday life...

Here's a normal shot...

Isn't she delicious? Couldn't you just eat her up? Apparently, I'm not the only one with this thought...

For the full-size slideshow, click here. The close-ups work much better on a bigger screen.

#2...
Juliette found another tooth in her mouth today. More pictures here...obviously another productive day.

And in other news, I handed my paycheck to the plumbers who make more in 6 hours than I do in 2 weeks. Why did I go to college for 6 years??? Oh, that's right, I was getting paid while I took the picture above and the plumber has to dig in my sewer pipe to get paid. OK, maybe that's fair, but I'm so tired of spending money fixing things around this house and having no visible improvement. Oooh, a new hot water heater...the dangerous leaking gas valves replaced...the gas valves at floor level that the crawling baby can open capped off...YEAH, YEAH, it's all important, but not as exciting as some curtains or furniture.

The electrician is next...GFCI's...YAY! Now that's a party waiting to happen.

Tropical Storm Edouard?

We laugh in the face of tropical storms. Ha! Until we fall on the concrete and cut our knee. Then we cry. And the bad mommy feels guilty for encouraging the jumping.

Goodbye, hello...

It seems we've come full circle. This blog has actually outlived our fish Barnaby. If you've been a reader from the beginning, you might recall when we thought our fish Sammy died a few years ago. Then he actually died. Then we mourned. Then we brought Barnaby home.

Well, it was flush-time for Barnaby this morning. Rest in peace, little friend. All drains lead to the ocean kid.

And this afternoon, we welcomed GoGurt to the household. He's a zippy little fellow and hopefully will enjoy a long healthy life. Maybe I'll even change the water in his bowl occasionally. Maybe he'll live long enough for Hayden to be able to do it himself.

The new baby...

No, he's not really ours. He's Erika's new puppy that has been coming to work with her the past few days. Pippen and Trevor are quite fond of him, but Juliette's in a battle for reign over the toys and blankets. And Malik? The big bully has stolen the poor little guy's crate.

Juliette's Loves Live Sporting Events...

Could somebody make this child stop looking at me so I can get something done other than taking her picture?