Our spring break has been spent with thermometers and Tylenol.
I weighed in this morning and lost nothing. Which doesn't surprise me. Sunday afternoon Cooper started running 103 degree fever. His temperature fluctuated between that and 101 for 3 days. I took him to the doctor on Monday to rule out anything obvious and the doctor decided it was probably roseola. But that diagnosis was incorrect because this afternoon, Garrett started running a fever too. It didn't start out as high as Cooper's, when I checked it an hour ago it was 101. He says he feels fine, the only reason I even checked it was because his cheeks were flushed which is not typical for him.
So with Cooper being sick (which means very, very little sleep for me. He is NOT a good patient...) I've done zero exercising this week. Now I get to look forward to walking Garrett through this virus. Thankfully he usually is a good patient, so this part shouldn't be as hard. (knock on wood)
Even though I've been doing this mom thing for 4 and a half years, I've discovered this week that I'm obsessed with temperature-taking. Every few hours, I was checking Cooper's temp. Good thing for him, I limited a rectal temp check to twice a day and the rest of the time used the less than accurate ear thermometer just to give me an idea of where his temp was running. I've already felt Garrett's forehead multiple times since I first realized he had a fever. I don't know if that's a mom thing, or just my OCD coming out.
You would think that the month of March would spell health and fun times in the sun, but apparently this was our month to be sick. Here's hoping once this virus leaves our house, we'll stay healthy for awhile.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
9 Months
I know this probably sounds goofy, but it's hard to believe that Cooper has officially been on the "outside" as long as he was on the "inside". haha
Sometimes he gets himself stuck under the couch. Here's a shot of that. Now that he can crawl, he's able to get himself out, most of the time.
Dear Cooper,
Today you are 9 months old! You are entering the "fun" stage as far as I'm concerned. In the past 2 weeks, you've taken off on the crawling front. I can turn around and you're gone and we have to track you down. For right now, we try to keep all the bedroom and bathroom doors shut and I've got you blocked from getting into the kitchen or dining room, so you're limited to playing in the living room and hallway. I know that's just temporary because you'll eventually figure out how to get around the blocks, but for now it's working. (We have an open floor plan, which means that the "doorways" between the living room, dining room, foyer, breakfast nook are all open and way too big for any baby gates on the market.)
So far you've pulled up a handful of times.
You still have no teeth. I'm not holding my breath that one will show up anytime soon. Your cousin Jake didn't get one until he was 11 months old and your aunt Grace was 1 before her first tooth popped in, so we'll see when it happens for you.
You've become a bigtime babbler lately. You say "mama", "dada", and "baba" all indiscriminately. Sometimes you say, what sounds like "blah, blah" which cracks me up. You still love to screech and squeal too.
Your current obsession is cords right now. I know that if my bedroom door is open, you're going to take off as fast as you can to get to the lamp in my room and start pulling on the cord. If you manage to get behind the couch (which sits well away from the wall), you immediately hunt down the computer cord to start playing with it.
You LOVE to eat. I've started giving you more and more table foods/finger foods for you to feed yourself the majority of your meals. Then I finish off meal time, giving you some of a jar of baby food to be sure you've eaten enough. About half of the food I put on your highchair tray ends up on the floor. You eat 3 meals a day, 4 (6oz) bottles a day and one afternoon snack of Cheerios or fruit puffs.
You are now wearing size 4 diapers and are outgrowing many of your 6-9 month size clothes. You can still wear most of the Carter's brand in that size due to the fact that it runs big, but we've already brought out some 12 month clothes that you fit in well.
You startle really easily and get scared by random things, one of which is the Tickle Me Elmo that we have. Yet you love to watch Elmo on TV. You also love Clifford too. I turned on a "Singing Babies" DVD for the first time the other day and you were mesmerized. I try to limit the amount of TV you watch, but anytime Garrett gets to watch a cartoon, you are very intrigued by it.
You still are a good sleeper, most of the time. You take 2 naps a day that last 1.5 to 2 hours each. You typically go to bed around 7:30pm and sleep until 7am. You love to have many paci's in the crib with you, and when we get you up after a nap or in the morning, you are always sitting in the crib, surrounded by paci's and you're systematically throwing them out of the crib one at a time. Thankfully you've started throwing them into the middle of the room rather than the side by the wall.
You love rocking back and forth in your exersaucer along with spinning yourself in circles. Besides jumping in your Jumperoo, you also do this little move that looks like you're hula hooping where you shake your hips back and forth. It's so funny!
You got your first haircut this month. Your hair was getting shaggy over your ears and along the neckline, so I just gave you a quick trim.
This is the before picture. He was thrilled, obviously. haha But this gives you a bit of an idea as to what his hair looked like over his ears. I normally kept it pushed behind his ears, but I was getting tired of that. He's sitting in his Bumbo seat on the table, which is how I kept him relatively contained and still long enough to do it.
And the after picture. He's very thrilled to have shorter hair. As well as knowing that Momma cut her hand while trying to trim his hair quickly. He felt it was a good form of retribution for all the "pain" I was inflicting upon him.
Sometimes he gets himself stuck under the couch. Here's a shot of that. Now that he can crawl, he's able to get himself out, most of the time.Dear Cooper,
Today you are 9 months old! You are entering the "fun" stage as far as I'm concerned. In the past 2 weeks, you've taken off on the crawling front. I can turn around and you're gone and we have to track you down. For right now, we try to keep all the bedroom and bathroom doors shut and I've got you blocked from getting into the kitchen or dining room, so you're limited to playing in the living room and hallway. I know that's just temporary because you'll eventually figure out how to get around the blocks, but for now it's working. (We have an open floor plan, which means that the "doorways" between the living room, dining room, foyer, breakfast nook are all open and way too big for any baby gates on the market.)
So far you've pulled up a handful of times.
You still have no teeth. I'm not holding my breath that one will show up anytime soon. Your cousin Jake didn't get one until he was 11 months old and your aunt Grace was 1 before her first tooth popped in, so we'll see when it happens for you.
You've become a bigtime babbler lately. You say "mama", "dada", and "baba" all indiscriminately. Sometimes you say, what sounds like "blah, blah" which cracks me up. You still love to screech and squeal too.
Your current obsession is cords right now. I know that if my bedroom door is open, you're going to take off as fast as you can to get to the lamp in my room and start pulling on the cord. If you manage to get behind the couch (which sits well away from the wall), you immediately hunt down the computer cord to start playing with it.
You LOVE to eat. I've started giving you more and more table foods/finger foods for you to feed yourself the majority of your meals. Then I finish off meal time, giving you some of a jar of baby food to be sure you've eaten enough. About half of the food I put on your highchair tray ends up on the floor. You eat 3 meals a day, 4 (6oz) bottles a day and one afternoon snack of Cheerios or fruit puffs.
You are now wearing size 4 diapers and are outgrowing many of your 6-9 month size clothes. You can still wear most of the Carter's brand in that size due to the fact that it runs big, but we've already brought out some 12 month clothes that you fit in well.
You startle really easily and get scared by random things, one of which is the Tickle Me Elmo that we have. Yet you love to watch Elmo on TV. You also love Clifford too. I turned on a "Singing Babies" DVD for the first time the other day and you were mesmerized. I try to limit the amount of TV you watch, but anytime Garrett gets to watch a cartoon, you are very intrigued by it.
You still are a good sleeper, most of the time. You take 2 naps a day that last 1.5 to 2 hours each. You typically go to bed around 7:30pm and sleep until 7am. You love to have many paci's in the crib with you, and when we get you up after a nap or in the morning, you are always sitting in the crib, surrounded by paci's and you're systematically throwing them out of the crib one at a time. Thankfully you've started throwing them into the middle of the room rather than the side by the wall.
You love rocking back and forth in your exersaucer along with spinning yourself in circles. Besides jumping in your Jumperoo, you also do this little move that looks like you're hula hooping where you shake your hips back and forth. It's so funny!
You got your first haircut this month. Your hair was getting shaggy over your ears and along the neckline, so I just gave you a quick trim.
This is the before picture. He was thrilled, obviously. haha But this gives you a bit of an idea as to what his hair looked like over his ears. I normally kept it pushed behind his ears, but I was getting tired of that. He's sitting in his Bumbo seat on the table, which is how I kept him relatively contained and still long enough to do it.And the after picture. He's very thrilled to have shorter hair. As well as knowing that Momma cut her hand while trying to trim his hair quickly. He felt it was a good form of retribution for all the "pain" I was inflicting upon him. This week you had your first bout with real fever. You have roseola, so your temperature has been fluctuating between 101 and 103. You're a bit grouchy, but not terrible.
I can't believe that in 3 months you will be 1 year old!!
I can't believe that in 3 months you will be 1 year old!!
Friday, March 12, 2010
Week 8 Recap
Surprisingly, when I got on the scales this morning I had lost a pound. This week was kind of tough for me to get back into the groove after a week off. I'm nowhere near being ready to take breaks yet, but I knew I needed to verbally say that or else I was going to go crazy last week trying to continue to diet and exercise with our house in full chaos mode. I only managed to get on the treadmill twice this week and my eating has been spotty with bad choices. The positive is that all the cupcakes are gone so no more bad temptations, I just need to figure out better meal options for supper time around here.
I also wanted to point out for those who read this and don't know me or for those who haven't seen me in a while, I have a good amount of weight to lose. While my initial weight loss goal is to lose 30 pounds by June, my ultimate goal is 60 pounds. As we all know, the more weight to lose, the faster it comes off in the beginning. So for those who might be struggling to lose 10 pounds, hang in there! And I'm jealous that you only need to lose 10 pounds!
As of today's weigh-in, I am officially over halfway to my first goal. Hopefully between now and June I can lose 14 more pounds.
I also wanted to point out for those who read this and don't know me or for those who haven't seen me in a while, I have a good amount of weight to lose. While my initial weight loss goal is to lose 30 pounds by June, my ultimate goal is 60 pounds. As we all know, the more weight to lose, the faster it comes off in the beginning. So for those who might be struggling to lose 10 pounds, hang in there! And I'm jealous that you only need to lose 10 pounds!
As of today's weigh-in, I am officially over halfway to my first goal. Hopefully between now and June I can lose 14 more pounds.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Weekend (and Week) Recap
If you don't like reading words like "vomit" and "diarrhea", then check back with me later this week.
As I mentioned last week, Cooper had the stomach bug. That was on Monday night when I got about 3 hours of sleep. On Wednesday night, at 1am, I woke-up to Garrett crying and throwing up in his bed and on the floor. Awesome. When I went in his room he said "I spit-up on the floor." Poor guy. He didn't even know it's called throwing up, he just assumed spitting up because that's what Cooper does.
I changed his bedding and clothes, lined everything with towels, put a trash can by his bed and told him to call me if he was going to be sick. An hour later, I heard him crying again and thankfully I made it in his room and got the trash can ready before he got sick again. This repeated itself once an hour, every hour for 4 hours. So I basically would just drift off to sleep when I heard him crying. Then Cooper decided that 5am was a good wake-up time, so I brought him in our bed and when he hadn't settled down by 6am, I made him a bottle. He took it all and then slept for an hour before Garrett got up for good.
Before Keith left for work, he said his stomach wasn't feeling good, but he went to work anyway. (I'm not going to attempt to explain that one because I don't know either.) 2 hours later, he called me and said he was on his way home, throwing up in a Walmart bag in his truck. Awesome again. I got him settled in our bed with water and Gatorade. Garrett was settled on the couch with towels all around him, toast, and Pedialyte. Thankfully he never threw up again and never got diarrhea either. I still made him eat only toast that day just in case. Meanwhile, Cooper was dealing with horrendous diarrhea. The kind that cannot be contained in a diaper. (Somehow, even with all that, Cooper decided he was going to explore the house, so he is now completely mobile, crawling into every room that he can find, going all over the place. I've had to try and contain him in the living room and hallway in order to be sure that he's safe since it's almost impossible to keep up with him. Those 2 places are completely babyproofed now, so he's loving the opportunity to explore.)
I kept Keith filled with meds that might help him along with water and Gatorade. Later in the day, I brought him some toast and by that night he ate a bowl of chicken noodle soup with saltines. I think he suffered for about 12 hours and then was exhausted for the next day. Cooper had diarrhea for 5 days (though not constant. Just 2 or 3 diapers a day that were completely toxic.) Garrett was perfectly fine within a few hours and so far, I have remained healthy. Not well-rested, but healthy. I spent Thursday night on the couch so Keith could have the bed to himself and to keep away from the germs as best as I could. All day Thursday and Friday were spent spraying Lysol everywhere (Keith said we were all high on the fumes because I sprayed it so much) wiping everything else down with bleach wipes and washing all the clothes and bedding in hot water. Every night I would completely clean the kitchen and living room because I just knew that night was the night I would succomb to the bug and I wanted everything as tidy as possible. But thankfully that never happened. So far.
By Saturday night, Keith was more than ready to get out of the house and have a good meal, so we went to Logan's for steaks. That is "the" meal for him when he hasn't been feeling well. Nothing else will do other than a good steak. Our first choice was Texas Roadhouse, but we have never seen their parking lot as full as it was on Saturday night. We had never eaten at Logan's before so we gave them a shot. It was good, but not quite as good as TR, in our opinion.
On Sunday we went to church, then picked up Sonic for lunch. It was a rainy, chilly day, so we spent the afternoon at home, everyone took a nap except for Garrett. Then I watched the Oscar's last night. I normally don't care one way or the other, but I was excited for Sandra Bullock to win the award.
My apologies for this being all about sickness. It was just one of those weeks. I hope we can get back in the regular groove this week and I can get back to eating right and exercising again. This morning I did get on the scales just to see how much ground I had lost for taking a week off and shockingly I'm exactly the same as I was the last time I weighed. That was a nice surprise because I seriously did not watch what I ate this week, one bit. In order to put that in perspective, on Wednesday I had made a batch of cupcakes for Garrett to take to school on Thursday because it was his teacher's last day. She had a baby on Friday. Well, Garrett got sick Wednesday night so the cupcakes never went anywhere. And while I technically could have saved them for him to take to school on Tuesday, where's the fun in that? I've had one cupcake every day this week. And if you don't think I've enjoyed every single bite, then you just don't know me. But, they're almost gone now and I'm back to my diet and exercise. That was a fun break. Minus all the vomit and diarrhea I had to clean up, of course.
As I mentioned last week, Cooper had the stomach bug. That was on Monday night when I got about 3 hours of sleep. On Wednesday night, at 1am, I woke-up to Garrett crying and throwing up in his bed and on the floor. Awesome. When I went in his room he said "I spit-up on the floor." Poor guy. He didn't even know it's called throwing up, he just assumed spitting up because that's what Cooper does.
I changed his bedding and clothes, lined everything with towels, put a trash can by his bed and told him to call me if he was going to be sick. An hour later, I heard him crying again and thankfully I made it in his room and got the trash can ready before he got sick again. This repeated itself once an hour, every hour for 4 hours. So I basically would just drift off to sleep when I heard him crying. Then Cooper decided that 5am was a good wake-up time, so I brought him in our bed and when he hadn't settled down by 6am, I made him a bottle. He took it all and then slept for an hour before Garrett got up for good.
Before Keith left for work, he said his stomach wasn't feeling good, but he went to work anyway. (I'm not going to attempt to explain that one because I don't know either.) 2 hours later, he called me and said he was on his way home, throwing up in a Walmart bag in his truck. Awesome again. I got him settled in our bed with water and Gatorade. Garrett was settled on the couch with towels all around him, toast, and Pedialyte. Thankfully he never threw up again and never got diarrhea either. I still made him eat only toast that day just in case. Meanwhile, Cooper was dealing with horrendous diarrhea. The kind that cannot be contained in a diaper. (Somehow, even with all that, Cooper decided he was going to explore the house, so he is now completely mobile, crawling into every room that he can find, going all over the place. I've had to try and contain him in the living room and hallway in order to be sure that he's safe since it's almost impossible to keep up with him. Those 2 places are completely babyproofed now, so he's loving the opportunity to explore.)
I kept Keith filled with meds that might help him along with water and Gatorade. Later in the day, I brought him some toast and by that night he ate a bowl of chicken noodle soup with saltines. I think he suffered for about 12 hours and then was exhausted for the next day. Cooper had diarrhea for 5 days (though not constant. Just 2 or 3 diapers a day that were completely toxic.) Garrett was perfectly fine within a few hours and so far, I have remained healthy. Not well-rested, but healthy. I spent Thursday night on the couch so Keith could have the bed to himself and to keep away from the germs as best as I could. All day Thursday and Friday were spent spraying Lysol everywhere (Keith said we were all high on the fumes because I sprayed it so much) wiping everything else down with bleach wipes and washing all the clothes and bedding in hot water. Every night I would completely clean the kitchen and living room because I just knew that night was the night I would succomb to the bug and I wanted everything as tidy as possible. But thankfully that never happened. So far.
By Saturday night, Keith was more than ready to get out of the house and have a good meal, so we went to Logan's for steaks. That is "the" meal for him when he hasn't been feeling well. Nothing else will do other than a good steak. Our first choice was Texas Roadhouse, but we have never seen their parking lot as full as it was on Saturday night. We had never eaten at Logan's before so we gave them a shot. It was good, but not quite as good as TR, in our opinion.
On Sunday we went to church, then picked up Sonic for lunch. It was a rainy, chilly day, so we spent the afternoon at home, everyone took a nap except for Garrett. Then I watched the Oscar's last night. I normally don't care one way or the other, but I was excited for Sandra Bullock to win the award.
My apologies for this being all about sickness. It was just one of those weeks. I hope we can get back in the regular groove this week and I can get back to eating right and exercising again. This morning I did get on the scales just to see how much ground I had lost for taking a week off and shockingly I'm exactly the same as I was the last time I weighed. That was a nice surprise because I seriously did not watch what I ate this week, one bit. In order to put that in perspective, on Wednesday I had made a batch of cupcakes for Garrett to take to school on Thursday because it was his teacher's last day. She had a baby on Friday. Well, Garrett got sick Wednesday night so the cupcakes never went anywhere. And while I technically could have saved them for him to take to school on Tuesday, where's the fun in that? I've had one cupcake every day this week. And if you don't think I've enjoyed every single bite, then you just don't know me. But, they're almost gone now and I'm back to my diet and exercise. That was a fun break. Minus all the vomit and diarrhea I had to clean up, of course.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Memories
6 years ago today, our house was hit by a tornado. I originally posted this 3 years ago, recounting my memories of that day. Today I sit at home with 2 boys who are getting over a stomach virus. It's hard to believe all of this happened before either of these boys were here.
Beware, this is going to be really long, it's just a way for me to share what I'm feeling about today. I never really thought that I would write a blog, but a few thoughts have been running through my head today that I thought I would share with the few of you who might actually read this. 3 years ago today our house was hit by a tornado. I can't believe it's actually been 3 years, it seems like yesterday in some ways. I can vividly remember so many details about that day, even before coming home to find my house in shambles from the tornado.
I'm a teacher and I was at school that day like I would be any Thursday (yes, it happened on a Thursday and I can remember that without looking it up). I remember looking on a weather website and seeing a line of strong storms moving through the Fort Worth area early that afternoon. By the time school was letting out, those storms began to pound our area. The principal made an announcement that we were dismissing a little early and teachers who did not have afternoon duties were allowed to leave. Most of the teachers decided to stick it out there, but I just couldn't bring myself to voluntarily stay in the school when I could be heading home. Looking back, that was a dumb idea, but what did I know? I remember it was raining and blowing so hard I could barely get my truck door open and there was absolutely no using an umbrella because it would have been demolished in a matter of seconds. I got out on the road and could barely see in front of me. I ended up behind a long line of traffic virtually stopped, about a mile from my school. We inched along and I eventually came upon the reason for our slow travel, an old barn-type building had blown into the road and everyone was having to make their way around it. After driving another mile, I came upon the interstate and found a spot to park underneath it along with a school bus and a few other vehicles until the storm finally passed. It actually didn't take that long, maybe 15 minutes of sitting, and we were able to move. From there until I came to my neighborhood, I saw relatively minor damage from the storm, a few limbs blown down, maybe the occasional sign, nothing to be concerned about.
I remember driving down the road leading to our housing addition and catching a glimpse of our neighbor's house. Our neighbors have a house that appears to be a 2 story, but in reality is only a one story, and the 2nd "story" on their house was completely gone, roof and everything. I was in total shock, for a moment I couldn't even see our house and just knew that it was completely gone. Finally there was a break in the trees and I was able to see our house for a moment and saw it still standing and looking to be in one piece. I pulled onto our road and had a good view of the side of our house closest to the neighbor's destroyed house. Our bedroom windows appeared to be broken and there was debris all over and around our house. I pulled into the driveway and of course we had no electricity so I couldn't park in the garage, I came in through the front door instead. At the time, Keith and I had only lived here for a year so we were very picky about taking our shoes off before walking on the carpet. I took mine off out of habit and made my way to our bedroom, before I even walked into the door, I could already see glass all over the carpet in the hallway. (Remember, I'm only wearing socks on my feet!) I walked into our bedroom and it was completely destroyed. Both of our windows were broken, glass was everywhere, embedded in the sheetrock, all over the carpet, our bed, etc. Our blinds were completely ruined, the glass on our TV screen was actually chipped from something hitting it. We also had shingles and 2x4's from our neighbor's house, all over our bedroom. Upon seeing our bedroom in such chaos, I called Keith immediately. Of course he didn't answer his cell phone, so I left him a message. At the time I didn't know it, but later that evening when we actually listened to this voice mail, I sounded out of control and very frantic. I called him a second time and he answered and I remember telling him to come home immediately, our house had been hit by a tornado. I told him the state of our neighbor's house and what I had seen so far of our's and he said he was on his way. I then made my way around the rest of the house to check for any more damage. The master bathroom actually had a 2x4 that came through the roof and then through the wall of the bathroom, leaving a hole atleast 18 inches big. Our guest bathroom had about 2 inches of water standing in the floor. Other than glass being everywhere, there wasn't any other damage to the inside of the house. I went to put my shoes on to go outside and check things out and realized the bottoms of my socks were covered in glass and of course soaking wet. Thankfully I wasn't cut. Our neighbors from across the street were standing in my yard when I went outside and they asked if everything was ok and had I been home when it hit. She had been home, but thankfully had made it to a closet with her son before the storm hit. Plus, their house only suffered very minor damage, thank goodness. Her husband went to the neighbor's house to see if anyone there was home because obviously their house was in very bad shape and if someone had been in there, they could have been seriously hurt. Thankfully, they were both still at work. We then examined my house and discovered several spots on the roof where 2x4's and other boards had "stabbed" through the roof leaving holes. There was a 10 foot long board "stabbed" into the ground about 20 feet from our house. Who knows what kind of damage that would have done had it actually hit the house.
The emergency crews began arriving at this point. They broke down the neighbor's door to check and see if anyone was home and needed assistance (no one was), they checked with me to see how we were, and then made their rounds to the other houses with damage. By this time, Keith had made it home, but it took him awhile to actually get to our house because of all the traffic beginning to accumulate from gawkers along with emergency workers. He took the tour of the damage to the house and then climbed on to the roof with a friend of our's who had come to help. They assessed the damage, were given some makeshift materials, and started covering up the holes in the roof to keep out any future rain. Our home builder came by after I called to see what he could do to help us get our house back in order. Not that it was his responsibility at all, but he is such a nice man, that I knew he would help where he could. He brought plywood and with that and some tarps from our neighbor we were able to board up our bedroom windows. He also gave us a list of the people who originally built our house for us to call and get them to come out and fix things. He even pulled some strings and had the window guy out to our house the very next day to replace our broken windows. That was totally awesome and so helpful. He's a wonderful guy.
At this point, you would not believe the traffic winding through our small neighborhood. The police eventually had to block off the roads because people were clogging up our streets terribly. Our neighbors whose house was demolished had made it home by now and you could see the devastation on their faces. They had moved into their house more recently than we had and now it was unliveable. A news crew showed up and interviewed them and later that night a moving/restoration company had also showed up and were salvaging what they could and taking it for storage. By this time, we had the holes in our roof temporarily covered and tarps covering our windows, so we were doing ok. Our neighbors from across the street went out and picked us all up some pizza and we sat around our kitchen eating in the candlelight. Once everyone was home for the evening, Keith and I spent several hours calling our family to let them know what happened. Our mattress was soaked and cut with glass from our windows, so we had to sleep on the full sized guest bed. 2 people sleeping on a full sized bed isn't all that comfortable to begin with, but when one of those people is 6'5", it is pretty much impossible. We ended up putting the mattress on the floor in the living room and slept half on the bed, half on the floor. At about 5 am, the electricity came back on, we weren't sleeping much anyway, so we got up and turned on the news. We saw the funniest thing that morning, we still talk about this to this day. A Fox 4 News reporter was in our neighborhood talking about the tornado and the damage it had done. He was standing next to a pile of bricks that was once a mailbox and talking about how this tornado had even taken down this brick mailbox. Keith and I died laughing, that mailbox had been a pile of bricks since before we had moved out there, so it definitely wasn't caused by the tornado. Too funny! Once it was daylight, we drove around our neighborhood surveying the damage. One house had their chimney completely broken off and it was laying in their yard, another's front porch columns had been blown down, several small storage buildings were completely destroyed, multiple houses had been stripped of their shingles, one house had 2 RVs and they had both blown over and into each other, and there was countless debris everywhere. We learned that day that a man had falled off the roof of a neighbor's house and broken his back the night before. He had to be airlifted to a Dallas hospital. One neighbor just trying to help an elderly neighbor out by patching his roof. Another neighbor told us about their back porch grill being blown into their son's bedroom window and totally destroyed his room due to all the glass and water damage. Thankfully no one was in there at the time.
It took the entire day on Friday to just pick up the debris in our yard. We still to this day find the occasional shingle or scrap of wood in the yard. The insurance adjuster along with the window man also came that day. I know a lot of people have a lot of problems with their insurance companies and we definitely have some gripes about the process it took to eventually get the check to cover all of the damage, and we were thankful we had enough in savings to cover alot of this upfront before finally getting the check. Our insurance adjustor was very nice and helpful. He was very thorough and more than fair with everything. We ended up having a claim for close to $20,000 in damages. We had to get an entire new roof, a new central heating and air conditioner unit, a new bed, new carpet in our bedroom, new blinds for the new windows, new sheetrock in the bedroom and bathroom, of course everything had to be repainted. We were not completely moved back in to our bedroom until June, 3 months later! I am so thankful that we did not have a baby during that time. It was very challenging and frustrating. I am so thankful that God helped us through it and keeps us from constantly worrying that something like this will happen again. And if it does, I know that He will still be there for us. Thanks for letting me get this "out there".
Beware, this is going to be really long, it's just a way for me to share what I'm feeling about today. I never really thought that I would write a blog, but a few thoughts have been running through my head today that I thought I would share with the few of you who might actually read this. 3 years ago today our house was hit by a tornado. I can't believe it's actually been 3 years, it seems like yesterday in some ways. I can vividly remember so many details about that day, even before coming home to find my house in shambles from the tornado.
I'm a teacher and I was at school that day like I would be any Thursday (yes, it happened on a Thursday and I can remember that without looking it up). I remember looking on a weather website and seeing a line of strong storms moving through the Fort Worth area early that afternoon. By the time school was letting out, those storms began to pound our area. The principal made an announcement that we were dismissing a little early and teachers who did not have afternoon duties were allowed to leave. Most of the teachers decided to stick it out there, but I just couldn't bring myself to voluntarily stay in the school when I could be heading home. Looking back, that was a dumb idea, but what did I know? I remember it was raining and blowing so hard I could barely get my truck door open and there was absolutely no using an umbrella because it would have been demolished in a matter of seconds. I got out on the road and could barely see in front of me. I ended up behind a long line of traffic virtually stopped, about a mile from my school. We inched along and I eventually came upon the reason for our slow travel, an old barn-type building had blown into the road and everyone was having to make their way around it. After driving another mile, I came upon the interstate and found a spot to park underneath it along with a school bus and a few other vehicles until the storm finally passed. It actually didn't take that long, maybe 15 minutes of sitting, and we were able to move. From there until I came to my neighborhood, I saw relatively minor damage from the storm, a few limbs blown down, maybe the occasional sign, nothing to be concerned about.
I remember driving down the road leading to our housing addition and catching a glimpse of our neighbor's house. Our neighbors have a house that appears to be a 2 story, but in reality is only a one story, and the 2nd "story" on their house was completely gone, roof and everything. I was in total shock, for a moment I couldn't even see our house and just knew that it was completely gone. Finally there was a break in the trees and I was able to see our house for a moment and saw it still standing and looking to be in one piece. I pulled onto our road and had a good view of the side of our house closest to the neighbor's destroyed house. Our bedroom windows appeared to be broken and there was debris all over and around our house. I pulled into the driveway and of course we had no electricity so I couldn't park in the garage, I came in through the front door instead. At the time, Keith and I had only lived here for a year so we were very picky about taking our shoes off before walking on the carpet. I took mine off out of habit and made my way to our bedroom, before I even walked into the door, I could already see glass all over the carpet in the hallway. (Remember, I'm only wearing socks on my feet!) I walked into our bedroom and it was completely destroyed. Both of our windows were broken, glass was everywhere, embedded in the sheetrock, all over the carpet, our bed, etc. Our blinds were completely ruined, the glass on our TV screen was actually chipped from something hitting it. We also had shingles and 2x4's from our neighbor's house, all over our bedroom. Upon seeing our bedroom in such chaos, I called Keith immediately. Of course he didn't answer his cell phone, so I left him a message. At the time I didn't know it, but later that evening when we actually listened to this voice mail, I sounded out of control and very frantic. I called him a second time and he answered and I remember telling him to come home immediately, our house had been hit by a tornado. I told him the state of our neighbor's house and what I had seen so far of our's and he said he was on his way. I then made my way around the rest of the house to check for any more damage. The master bathroom actually had a 2x4 that came through the roof and then through the wall of the bathroom, leaving a hole atleast 18 inches big. Our guest bathroom had about 2 inches of water standing in the floor. Other than glass being everywhere, there wasn't any other damage to the inside of the house. I went to put my shoes on to go outside and check things out and realized the bottoms of my socks were covered in glass and of course soaking wet. Thankfully I wasn't cut. Our neighbors from across the street were standing in my yard when I went outside and they asked if everything was ok and had I been home when it hit. She had been home, but thankfully had made it to a closet with her son before the storm hit. Plus, their house only suffered very minor damage, thank goodness. Her husband went to the neighbor's house to see if anyone there was home because obviously their house was in very bad shape and if someone had been in there, they could have been seriously hurt. Thankfully, they were both still at work. We then examined my house and discovered several spots on the roof where 2x4's and other boards had "stabbed" through the roof leaving holes. There was a 10 foot long board "stabbed" into the ground about 20 feet from our house. Who knows what kind of damage that would have done had it actually hit the house.
The emergency crews began arriving at this point. They broke down the neighbor's door to check and see if anyone was home and needed assistance (no one was), they checked with me to see how we were, and then made their rounds to the other houses with damage. By this time, Keith had made it home, but it took him awhile to actually get to our house because of all the traffic beginning to accumulate from gawkers along with emergency workers. He took the tour of the damage to the house and then climbed on to the roof with a friend of our's who had come to help. They assessed the damage, were given some makeshift materials, and started covering up the holes in the roof to keep out any future rain. Our home builder came by after I called to see what he could do to help us get our house back in order. Not that it was his responsibility at all, but he is such a nice man, that I knew he would help where he could. He brought plywood and with that and some tarps from our neighbor we were able to board up our bedroom windows. He also gave us a list of the people who originally built our house for us to call and get them to come out and fix things. He even pulled some strings and had the window guy out to our house the very next day to replace our broken windows. That was totally awesome and so helpful. He's a wonderful guy.
At this point, you would not believe the traffic winding through our small neighborhood. The police eventually had to block off the roads because people were clogging up our streets terribly. Our neighbors whose house was demolished had made it home by now and you could see the devastation on their faces. They had moved into their house more recently than we had and now it was unliveable. A news crew showed up and interviewed them and later that night a moving/restoration company had also showed up and were salvaging what they could and taking it for storage. By this time, we had the holes in our roof temporarily covered and tarps covering our windows, so we were doing ok. Our neighbors from across the street went out and picked us all up some pizza and we sat around our kitchen eating in the candlelight. Once everyone was home for the evening, Keith and I spent several hours calling our family to let them know what happened. Our mattress was soaked and cut with glass from our windows, so we had to sleep on the full sized guest bed. 2 people sleeping on a full sized bed isn't all that comfortable to begin with, but when one of those people is 6'5", it is pretty much impossible. We ended up putting the mattress on the floor in the living room and slept half on the bed, half on the floor. At about 5 am, the electricity came back on, we weren't sleeping much anyway, so we got up and turned on the news. We saw the funniest thing that morning, we still talk about this to this day. A Fox 4 News reporter was in our neighborhood talking about the tornado and the damage it had done. He was standing next to a pile of bricks that was once a mailbox and talking about how this tornado had even taken down this brick mailbox. Keith and I died laughing, that mailbox had been a pile of bricks since before we had moved out there, so it definitely wasn't caused by the tornado. Too funny! Once it was daylight, we drove around our neighborhood surveying the damage. One house had their chimney completely broken off and it was laying in their yard, another's front porch columns had been blown down, several small storage buildings were completely destroyed, multiple houses had been stripped of their shingles, one house had 2 RVs and they had both blown over and into each other, and there was countless debris everywhere. We learned that day that a man had falled off the roof of a neighbor's house and broken his back the night before. He had to be airlifted to a Dallas hospital. One neighbor just trying to help an elderly neighbor out by patching his roof. Another neighbor told us about their back porch grill being blown into their son's bedroom window and totally destroyed his room due to all the glass and water damage. Thankfully no one was in there at the time.
It took the entire day on Friday to just pick up the debris in our yard. We still to this day find the occasional shingle or scrap of wood in the yard. The insurance adjuster along with the window man also came that day. I know a lot of people have a lot of problems with their insurance companies and we definitely have some gripes about the process it took to eventually get the check to cover all of the damage, and we were thankful we had enough in savings to cover alot of this upfront before finally getting the check. Our insurance adjustor was very nice and helpful. He was very thorough and more than fair with everything. We ended up having a claim for close to $20,000 in damages. We had to get an entire new roof, a new central heating and air conditioner unit, a new bed, new carpet in our bedroom, new blinds for the new windows, new sheetrock in the bedroom and bathroom, of course everything had to be repainted. We were not completely moved back in to our bedroom until June, 3 months later! I am so thankful that we did not have a baby during that time. It was very challenging and frustrating. I am so thankful that God helped us through it and keeps us from constantly worrying that something like this will happen again. And if it does, I know that He will still be there for us. Thanks for letting me get this "out there".
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The One With the Stomach Bug
I thought I would give you all a heads up that I won't be posting a weight loss recap this week. Even though it's only Tuesday, I can already tell I'm just going to be in survival mode for the rest of the week.
Yesterday was a fun, but kind of different day. We have our routine which includes taking Garrett to and from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and typically on Mondays we do our grocery shopping. Well, it was pouring rain here yesterday (Monday) and I am not a martyr so I decided no grocery shopping and I would do it today (Tuesday). Some friends from church were meeting for breakfast at IHOP so we decided to join them. That's very atypical for many reasons, 1. I tend to shy away from situations like that. I always worry my kids won't behave or something will go wrong, so I just avoid going altogether. 2. None of these friends are actually stay at home moms, so rarely does the opportunity present itself for a group of moms and their kids to get together during a weekday. (I actually don't know any moms at my church who are stay at home moms. I'm sure there are some because we go to a big church. But none of them are in my Sunday school class.) From the 3 I met with yesterday, one of the moms is on maternity leave, another is in between jobs and the third only works a couple of days a week. I will freely admit that I had a great time. We were there for 2 hours!! Chatting and sharing hilarious stories that I can't even put on here because I'm sure I would get in big trouble. Garrett played with 2 girls who are close to his age that he knows pretty well, and while there were a few moments of chaos, he did really well with minding the rules. Cooper typically does great when we're at a restaurant because he basically gets a steady stream of food and he can people watch. I only had to take him out of the highchair for the last 15-20 minutes.
That kind of outing throws the rest of our day's schedule off, but it was definitely worth it.
Just before I was going to bed last night, I went to check on the boys and found that Cooper had thrown up all over his crib. Poor guy! He was covered. So Keith jumped in the shower with him while I changed his bedding. Between 10pm and midnight he threw up about 6 times, after the first 2 clothing changes, I just left him in a diaper and wrapped him in a bath towel and we sat in the living room. He slept off and on and I dozed some on the couch. At midnight, I attempted to put him in his crib which resulted in the last round of sickness. At 2am, I tried again to put him down, he gagged and burped, so I took him back to the couch for another hour or two. I'm not really sure what time I finally got him to go in his bed without throwing up or trying to, but I'm going to guess I got about 3 hours of sleep in my own bed before he was up. Thankfully he had not thrown up again. I gave him a little bit of water in a sippy cup and he gulped it all down (we had tried Pedialyte earlier in the evening but he refused). I decided that since it had been about 7 hours since he had last thrown up, I would give him a bottle and see how that went. I mixed one scoop of formula with 4 ounces of water and he drank it all. Thankfully he kept it down minus a few burps and a couple of times where he acted like he was swallowing, so I'm not sure what was happening. By noon, I gave him a regular bottle and he took it all again without any problems. Since then the diarrhea has started, so far it hasn't been terrible and hopefully it will be short lived.
Now I'm just crossing my fingers that Garrett (and Keith and I) don't get it. Garrett actually has a great track record for not catching stomach bugs. He's only had 2 in his 4 years of life. And the second one may or may not have been an allergic reaction to Sunny Delight. I'm not sure, all I know is that he started throwing up an hour after drinking it for the first time. And I don't remember him having any diarrhea with that, just the vomiting.
Back when he was just over 2, we went to a Halloween party at a friend's house with a bunch of other preschool kids and their parents. A few days after the party, the mom who hosted it called me to ask if we were sick and I told her no. Turns out every kid at the party, along with their mom, caught a bad stomach bug. Garrett and I came out just fine. So, long story short, I hope he avoids this one too. While he was at school today, I spent my time Lysoling everything and washing everything else in hot water.
Unfortunately the stomach bug is going around right now, so I knew it was inevitable, but you still hate having it at your house.
So with the chaos of yesterday, the chaos of today, hopefully no chaos tomorrow other than a very much needed grocery trip, I've just decided that this week is my break from the diet/exercise routine. If I get enough sleep one day and have the energy to get on the treadmill, I will, but I'm not going to feel bad if I don't. The same goes for eating well. Yesterday and today it's more about what food can I actually find, than what I can find in our house that's healthy. That's what happens when you don't grocery shop on the day that you typically do, suddenly you're out of everything.
My fingers are crossed that no one else in this house gets the stomach bug and that Cooper's diarrhea is short lived. I'll extend that wish to the rest of your houses as well.
And just to share a fun bit of news, Cooper pulled himself up to standing on Sunday! He's been trying for awhile now and has managed to get on his knees a few times, but that was his first time on his feet.
Yesterday was a fun, but kind of different day. We have our routine which includes taking Garrett to and from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and typically on Mondays we do our grocery shopping. Well, it was pouring rain here yesterday (Monday) and I am not a martyr so I decided no grocery shopping and I would do it today (Tuesday). Some friends from church were meeting for breakfast at IHOP so we decided to join them. That's very atypical for many reasons, 1. I tend to shy away from situations like that. I always worry my kids won't behave or something will go wrong, so I just avoid going altogether. 2. None of these friends are actually stay at home moms, so rarely does the opportunity present itself for a group of moms and their kids to get together during a weekday. (I actually don't know any moms at my church who are stay at home moms. I'm sure there are some because we go to a big church. But none of them are in my Sunday school class.) From the 3 I met with yesterday, one of the moms is on maternity leave, another is in between jobs and the third only works a couple of days a week. I will freely admit that I had a great time. We were there for 2 hours!! Chatting and sharing hilarious stories that I can't even put on here because I'm sure I would get in big trouble. Garrett played with 2 girls who are close to his age that he knows pretty well, and while there were a few moments of chaos, he did really well with minding the rules. Cooper typically does great when we're at a restaurant because he basically gets a steady stream of food and he can people watch. I only had to take him out of the highchair for the last 15-20 minutes.
That kind of outing throws the rest of our day's schedule off, but it was definitely worth it.
Just before I was going to bed last night, I went to check on the boys and found that Cooper had thrown up all over his crib. Poor guy! He was covered. So Keith jumped in the shower with him while I changed his bedding. Between 10pm and midnight he threw up about 6 times, after the first 2 clothing changes, I just left him in a diaper and wrapped him in a bath towel and we sat in the living room. He slept off and on and I dozed some on the couch. At midnight, I attempted to put him in his crib which resulted in the last round of sickness. At 2am, I tried again to put him down, he gagged and burped, so I took him back to the couch for another hour or two. I'm not really sure what time I finally got him to go in his bed without throwing up or trying to, but I'm going to guess I got about 3 hours of sleep in my own bed before he was up. Thankfully he had not thrown up again. I gave him a little bit of water in a sippy cup and he gulped it all down (we had tried Pedialyte earlier in the evening but he refused). I decided that since it had been about 7 hours since he had last thrown up, I would give him a bottle and see how that went. I mixed one scoop of formula with 4 ounces of water and he drank it all. Thankfully he kept it down minus a few burps and a couple of times where he acted like he was swallowing, so I'm not sure what was happening. By noon, I gave him a regular bottle and he took it all again without any problems. Since then the diarrhea has started, so far it hasn't been terrible and hopefully it will be short lived.
Now I'm just crossing my fingers that Garrett (and Keith and I) don't get it. Garrett actually has a great track record for not catching stomach bugs. He's only had 2 in his 4 years of life. And the second one may or may not have been an allergic reaction to Sunny Delight. I'm not sure, all I know is that he started throwing up an hour after drinking it for the first time. And I don't remember him having any diarrhea with that, just the vomiting.
Back when he was just over 2, we went to a Halloween party at a friend's house with a bunch of other preschool kids and their parents. A few days after the party, the mom who hosted it called me to ask if we were sick and I told her no. Turns out every kid at the party, along with their mom, caught a bad stomach bug. Garrett and I came out just fine. So, long story short, I hope he avoids this one too. While he was at school today, I spent my time Lysoling everything and washing everything else in hot water.
Unfortunately the stomach bug is going around right now, so I knew it was inevitable, but you still hate having it at your house.
So with the chaos of yesterday, the chaos of today, hopefully no chaos tomorrow other than a very much needed grocery trip, I've just decided that this week is my break from the diet/exercise routine. If I get enough sleep one day and have the energy to get on the treadmill, I will, but I'm not going to feel bad if I don't. The same goes for eating well. Yesterday and today it's more about what food can I actually find, than what I can find in our house that's healthy. That's what happens when you don't grocery shop on the day that you typically do, suddenly you're out of everything.
My fingers are crossed that no one else in this house gets the stomach bug and that Cooper's diarrhea is short lived. I'll extend that wish to the rest of your houses as well.
And just to share a fun bit of news, Cooper pulled himself up to standing on Sunday! He's been trying for awhile now and has managed to get on his knees a few times, but that was his first time on his feet.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Happy Half-Birthday, Garrett!!
I had to share this picture for 2 reasons. 1. He looks so big to me, and 2. These are the last pair of footed pj's he'll probably own, because they're hard to find in bigger sizes and for nighttime potty training purposes.
Dear Garrett,
I can't believe that today you are exactly half way to your 5th birthday. To say this boggles my mind would be an understatement. Technically you could begin kindergarten this fall, but I couldn't bear to send a newly-turned 5 year old off to school just yet, so we'll be waiting one more year. Thank goodness.
When you were born 4 and a half years ago, I had no idea what I was about to undertake. This whole notion of motherhood. Of course, I thought I knew. Being the oldest of 5 kids, you tend to think you know a lot about babies and baby things. Turns out, there's a lot less experience in that position than one would think. Sure I "knew" how to change a baby's diaper and feed them a bottle. I did not know how to be a mom. The new mom emotions, hormones, stress, anxiety, but also the absolutely overwhelming love that you suddenly feel for someone you've never even met. Yet, you feel as if you've known them your entire life and then some.
If your Nana and Pawpaw know what they're talking about (and they probably do), then it turns out you and I are a lot alike. You can be so bossy and opinionated and stubborn and argumentative. Yet you're also extremely tender-hearted, loving, caring, and way too smart for your own good.
You are the best big brother. I wasn't sure what to expect when Cooper was born. Your dad and I did everything we could think of in order to smooth the transition from only child to oldest child, but there's only so much you can do when a new baby is added to the family. I can honestly say I have never once seen the remotest streak of jealousy in the past 8 and a half months. That's not to say you never get mad at Cooper because you most definitely do. You can't stand it if he somehow manages to get his hands on your toys (even though I tell you constantly to put them out of his reach.) You also love to tease him with things you know he can't have, which has resulted in many "conversations" between you and me. But overall, you would hold him every chance you get. You encouraged him to take his first crawling steps and I'm sure you'll be right there when he takes his first walking steps. You get so excited for him every time it appears that he's learning something new. You ask every day if he has a tooth yet. And you are so ready for him to be big enough where you can actually play together.
You love preschool and almost everything about it. You absolutely adore your teacher, Ms. Marlo. She's actually been your teacher for 2 years now and you've loved every minute of your time in her class. You seem to like most of your classmates and have only had a few negative things to say about one or two. You love your friend Avery and talk about her a lot. She definitely feels the same way about you, so you are big buddies and play a lot together and also fight sometimes. A few weeks ago, I picked you up from school and you acted like you were sick. Your teacher said you had been acting that way for most of the afternoon. You didn't have a fever and didn't have any symptoms other than acting real mopey and not wanting to talk. I finally got you to tell me that Avery had said she didn't want to play with you. And that was apparently the only cause to your attitude. After we talked about the fact that there are going to be days that kids don't want to play with you and you should just play by yourself and not worry about it, you were fine. Turns out, Avery's parents told us the exact same thing with her. She said you didn't want to play with her and she was very sad about it. So who knows what happened.
You know all your letters and can count to 25 or so. You know most of your colors, though this has been relatively new. 6 months ago I would have sworn that you were color blind because you didn't seem to know any of your colors, but now I think you've started learning them. Apparently you didn't care to know them before now. You can spell your name verbally and are learning to spell it on paper. You still have some problems with holding a pencil correctly for making letters that are legible. You do a great job drawing pictures and it's always fun to figure out what your drawing is, but at the same time, you really don't like to sit down and draw or color. You would prefer playing Wii or playing with your toys. You're very active, even to the point of standing up and walking around while you watch a movie. I could only dream of having half your energy.
A few months ago you recited John 3:16 for me, which was a big shocker because I didn't know that you knew it. I feel bad for not really working with you on memory verses, so hopefully in the next few months we can learn a few more. Thankfully you learn them at school and in Sunday School.
About 8 weeks ago, you experienced a first. Your first set of stitches. You slipped on the hardwood floors in our living room and fell right on your chin. You cried, of course, but after the initial shock wore off, you did great. We went to the ER where you got 3 stitches and you didn't shed one single tear the entire time. As for me, I ended up laying on the floor of the ER room because I came really close to passing out while they were stitching you up. I have issues with stitches. I'm hoping there won't be a next time, but if there is, I hope Daddy will be available to attend those stitches and Momma will cheer you on from the other room. When we went to your doctor to get the stitches removed the following week, you lay very still until they were all out. The doctor said that was the best stitch removal he had done in 8 years or more. He was very proud of you, and of course I was too!At bedtime every night you pray something close to the following: Dear God, Thank you for Momma, Daddy, Cooper, me, Nana, Pawpaw, Nana, Papa, and my heart. Thank you for the day. Amen.
Your current favorite (non-kid) song to sing is "Apologize" by One Republic. If we ever hear it on the radio or, even better, when someone sang it on American Idol a few days ago, you always say "It's my song!" and you start singing along.
Though you speak very clearly and enunciate really well, you still have a few words and phrases that you say that crack me up. When I remind you to say "Yes Ma'am" you say "Yes Man". You say wipe for white. You say compeeter for computer. You also call "Cheez Its" Chucky Cheez Its. Which really makes me laugh because you've never even been to Chuck E Cheese before.
Just this past week, I asked your teacher how you were doing in school. I told her I was mostly interested in how you were doing socially, but I did want to know how things were going academically. She laughed and said socially, everything was perfectly fine. And academically we just need to work on the correct pencil form, which doesn't matter in the least at this point. She actually gave you a great compliment in that she said she compares her son, who is 1 year younger than you, to you. She remembers what you were like last year and sizes her son up to that and it helps her to know that he's right on track to being where you are now.
I still can't believe that you're half-way to 5. You make life exciting and adventurous every day. And we wouldn't want it to be anything but that.
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