Chaos

We have a playdate in half an hour. Approximately one hour ago I was getting myself dressed and thinking how nice it was that the children play so well together that I can leave them in the living room. Then I came out to get a load of laundry done and to get them dressed. And I entered Chaos. 

Every single toy was on the floor. All of our toy shelves were moved into different locations. It was total madness. I know it will be like this at the end of our playdate, but I really don't want it to start out that way. They were playing with everything, so it wasn't pointless mayhem but it was irritating nonetheless. We cleaned up and got dressed and now we are watching Curious George as the Princess sleeps and I try to be in a better mood. 

I decided to buy the kids a kitchen set. I know. I picked one out on Amazon last week, put it in my cart. On Tuesday after the Princess's ultrasound I decided to go ahead with it. It had doubled in price! Yesterday I decided what the hell and went to checkout. In addition to double the price, shipping was $93!!! It was only available online but I did some more searching and Wal-Mart had it for the same price (the higher one) but with $24 shipping. And then I saw that it could be shipped to the local Wal-Mart store for free shipping! Bonus! So I'm doing that. After all our traveling is done it should be put together and we'll have this:

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Whew

I came home from work last night and ripped the wallpaper behind the fridge and above the cabinets on the last wall that needed to be done. I finished up at 10:30ish. And then I saw this:

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Gah! Hidden away underneath a shelf. After breakfast I got back to work and now it is like this:

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And I can officially say that I am done with the wallpaper in the kitchen. I didn't think I was going to be able to do it myself. Aside from some help from SkyWalker (and my sister the very first day), I did it all myself. I'm not doing anymore. I am paying to do the rest. I don't care how much it costs me.

We've been doing pretty crappy with our letters of the week. Partly because I've been doing the wallpaper. But I've also been focusing more on his social development and playdates and things like that. And he's been spelling a lot each time he insists on checking his e-mail. He's doing a lot of things on his own now--playdough, making cards for people with happy face balloons and scribbles that say "Hi Dear [name] I love you." So he's still learning.

I've been presented with an opportunity at work. To do less of it. It would be easier for the schedule if I worked less. And we know it would be easier for me... originally I thought I would need the money of two nights a week. But how many nights have I missed??? And I haven't made any of that time up so clearly I can do without it. I'm sure Vader would appreciate having another night to stay late at work. I need to talk to him tonight but I think I can sell him on it particularly when he realizes how much time I've had to take off since I started back here. It's been A LOT.

I have been helping people all night long. Reading list books. SRP questions. There is a karaoke program going on down the hall. I missed last summer because I was having that baby. So this is the first summer for me of teen programming that I'm not a part of. Feels kind of weird.... and relaxing. :-)

I have a crapload of cleaning to do before our playdate tomorrow. I'm not going crazy though since everything is going to be covered in dust next week anyway. It'll be more of a straightening up than a cleaning. We have to get everything out of the kitchen and living room this weekend. Won't that be fun? I also have to pack for the 3 of us.

Just for fun:

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Holy crapcakes it's busy. I leave you with this-- a little boy who used to come in a long time ago and is a bit off his rocker just told me all about Dale Earnhardt and then asked me how the husband was. I said good. He said "And the kid?" I said, "I have two now." He said "Two? Adoption?" I said no, He said "both born?" (What the hell??) I said "yup." He says "That husband is one lucky sonofagun, If it wasn't for him I would have gotten to you!" and proceeds to tell me how he will strangle god when he "gets up there" because of this. Good times, yo.

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Done now

I'm done now. No more surgeries please. kthxbye. 

The Princess has reflux. If you recall from here and here the Princess was born with 2 ureters on the right kidney. One of them was not emptying into the bladder correctly. So they did surgery and wound up putting the two of them in a new spot right next to each other. Seems as if the weaker of the two ureters now has reflux. 

Options:

A) Wait and see. Do nothing. Keep her on amoxicillin and see if it resolves itself. 

B) Traditional surgery.

C) Deflux--outpatient procedure in which they inject a substance to bulk up the weak muscle around the ureter in the hope that it will function better. 

A) would be great if she was born with reflux, but she wasn't. This is because her ureter is weak. I can't see it resolving itself and the doc said the odds weren't great. We run the risk of needing to do surgery anyway, only when she is older and I am either pregnant or already have another baby.

B) 90% success rate. But another surgery... another incision. Another night in the hospital. Another recovery. 

C) 80% success rate. No side effects. Outpatient and she's back to normal as soon as the anesthesia wears off. if it doesn't work she can still have traditional surgery. It it does work she's only had to go through a procedure. 

Vader and I haven't discussed it yet since he went to work immediately after we left the doc's office. I'm leaning towards option C. The surgeon stressed that all 3 options are acceptable and that there was no immediate rush to do anything. She's not in life-threatening danger. The kidney itself looks great. No damage is being done and as long as she doesn't get more infections she's okay. Looks like we'll be on the amoxicillin for a while. We have to e-mail the surgeon and let him know how we want to proceed. 

I am SO done with this crap. Only I'm not. And that's the sad part. 

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Creak

That is the sound my back is making. But it is worth it. 

I started the day out praying to the wallpaper gods. By the end I had totally made the wallpaper my bitch. I have one section left to do. Part of it is behind the fridge. I'll have to decide if I will move the fridge out and take the wallpaper or just leave it. Our fridge is at the corner so you can kind of see behind it. I guess it'll depend on how smoothly the rest comes off. 

My "mother's helper" has been here twice so far (including today). The first time the kids started out shy and then warmed up rather quickly. Today there was no hesitation. It's so funny to hear SkyWalker playing with someone else. And the Princess did well too, as long as she couldn't see or hear me. I know I could be saving myself $20 a week by having my MIL come over but I don't want to do that and I think it's better for the kids to be around other people. They both have the tendency to be shy and I'm really trying to break that. 

The thunderstorms woke SkyWalker up last night at 2:30 in the morning. Much crying. Vader had to go up and I think he may have even laid down with him to calm him down. We got rained out of another playground playdate today. It's getting very annoying. 

The Princess has her ultrasound and VCUG tomorrow. Hopefully everything is all clear. I'd really rather she not need another surgery. One is enough I think. Personally I think we've had all the surgeries we should need forever. But I'm sure by the time #4 comes it will be missing an entire kidney. Or have 3 testicles. Something like that. 

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Um. Scary?

Remember yesterday I mentioned SkyWalker stabbed himself and was oozing blood? This morning I'm nursing the Princess and he's laying on my legs because that's what he does and he says:

"I need to clean the big mess in my bathroom from when I got the tylenol."
I said "huh?"
He said "My finger hurt so I got the tylenol."
I said "If you think you need tylenol you ask Mommy and Daddy. And even if you could get it you couldn't open it."
He said " Yes, I oped it!"
I say "What??" thinking he's full of crap.

When I'm done with the Princess I go in the bathroom. The infant motrin is there in the sink. Unopened. The children's tylenol is on the counter. Opened. I said "Did you take some??" He said "Yes. 3" He clarified that he put a little bit in the cup but that he did that more than once, possibly 3 times. He did this sometime last night so I think if he was going to get sick it would have happened by now. All of the medicine is on the very top shelf of the medicine cabinet. He climbed on the sink in order to get it. So now I'll have to take all of that out and put it in some type of closed container and put it in the top of the bathroom closet so that he can't get to it. Luckily he is not a wild child who would drink the whole thing. But it's still pretty scary. Particularly since he left it out and had he not told me the Princess would have crawled in there and she WOULD have taken the whole thing.

Good times. Not.

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Good times

Highlights from today's baby playdate:

1. SkyWalker poops with the door open and yells "I pooped" so that I can come and wipe him. 

2. SkyWalker uses his scissors to cut up pieces of cord for babies to choke on and stabs himself and oozes blood that I have to bandage. 

3. SkyWalker TALKS to someone. Woo-hoo! He apparently does so much better in smaller group situations (one mom and baby) and when the pressure is off him. It wasn't his playdate. So he was funny and cute and talked and was pretty normal. At one point he was talking about the abacus he has and he said that he does it "with Daddy not with ladies." How funny is that?? At least he's polite and called her a lady. :-) And when our guests left he very nicely said goodbye and followed it up with "Drive your own car!" in case she might get confused and take Mommy's. (He says the same thing to me and Vader when we leave--Drive your car Mommy. Drive your car Daddy.)

The Princess seemed to have a really good time playing too. It was nice to see her interacting with another baby her age instead of just her big brother. I think at one point she wanted to kiss him. She needed to go down for a nap and got pretty cranky but I do think her molars must be getting close to breaking through. It was really nice for her to have a playdate instead of it being big kids and her getting a little overwhelmed and wanting to cling to Mommy. I think it was nice for Mommy too.... 

Remember the maid of honor dress fiasco? Wasn't ready when I picked it up and I had to wait for her to hem it? My mother brought the dress to where we bought it (I brought it down to LI with me so it's there and I don't have to worry about it) and they were shocked at how horrible of a job this woman did. So when I'm down there next I have to go there and have a fitting and they're going to fix it. I probably should ask for my money back but I just paid and left without really inspecting it so it's kind of my own fault. I should have just had the dress altered on LI to begin with but I didn't think about that. 

The Princess sounds like she is trying to kick her way out of her crib right now. I think she's still sleeping. She's just kicking. I'm sure she's going to be climbing her way out much sooner than I am ready for.

I have to work this weekend and all I want to do is sleep. It's not like that would happen if I wasn't working. Vader would be out all day mowing the lawn and it would be just another day for me. Next weekend we'll be clearing out the living room and kitchen in anticipation of the floor refinishing. Which reminds me I have more wallpaper I need to get down before then. Ack!

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Coincidence

How's this for coincidence? Last year I bought Vader a Mini iPod for the hell of it. I only bought the mini because that's what I could afford. The other night he asked if there was a way to make it bigger. Tee-hee. Like software that would expand it. You know what I did. I bought him an 80G Classic. It came yesterday and SkyWalker and I drooled over it because we just have a 30G. I've noticed some odd behavior from my iPod lately. Today the date/time was wrong and I watched the full battery drain in a minute or 2. Yup, I need a new battery. If I was mean I'd keep the 80G and give Vader my 30G and let him get a battery. But I'm not mean. I'm going to get a battery and kit to do it myself and if I kill the iPod ... I have a birthday coming up.

We went to the foot doctor again on Tuesday. The X-ray came back normal. He suspects that I'm holding my foot wrong when I walk so instead of the ace bandage I was wearing they made a new one that will give more support to the bottom of my foot. And he wants to see me again in 3 weeks. Good times.

The Princess is not only crawling up the stairs, she is now going down. She crawls up while holding on to the pipe-railing we have (a series of pipes between the upper banister and the bottom so that tiny heads cannot get squeezed into it and also so little hands can reach a railing), and then she climbs down a few steps, and then climbs back up a few and then back down a few so that every trip takes twice as long. If I pick her up there is much drama. She's getting good practice going down the stairs though. She's not doing the butt-thing that most kids do. It's hilarious. She won't walk by herself but give her something to climb and she's all over it. I have a feeling in the fall she will be the one doing gymnastics when big brother is in preschool.

I've contemplated taking them both to swimming classes at the Y. I think SkyWalker would benefit from it and I KNOW the Princess would love it. The only thing stopping me is that I would have to pay the sign up fee again since I quit years ago, I would have to pay the monthly fee AND the swim fee. At least I think that's what it is. Maybe I should check first. If all I'm doing is swim classes maybe I don't have to pay the monthly charge. That's a lot of money when you add it all up.... and while I think the Princess will be fine because I'll be with her, what if SkyWalker decides he doesn't want to do it after all? That would be all too familiar... I wonder if we can try it out first.

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