Saturday, December 29, 2012

Ups and downs

Parenting as well as anything in life has its ups and downs. More ups than downs for sure but some days, I ask myself how on earth am I going to make it until bedtime. Not just bedtime but through the next hour.

This week with the colder temps and being flu season, we started going stir crazy. The husband, baby and I were sold on getting out of the house. HG, I think the only time she has been out of her pajamas is when we forced her to.
A trip to lunch and mall walking at grapevine mills just about did us in. I lucked out nicely, the husband took HG next door to walk around Bass Pro while I walked through a couple of stores. Harper, you could tell wasn't feeling too hot. Not only did we stop her reflux medicine at a year, she is finishing up her molars, cutting her eye teeth AND still suffering from a sinus infection (much better today). She has even on various antibiotics for 10 weeks straight. So as you can imagine, her belly is suffering. Just this week, we changed antibiotics from one we started a week ago. With that, we restarted her reflux meds and working on taking all dairy out. It seems to terribly upset her still. Example...she had Danon yogurt this morning for breakfast and within 30 minutes, she has poop all the way to her toes. She felt like a million bucks after and kept say 'uh oh' but that is no fun for she or I. Everything single thing has dairy it seems. I'm not going to be crazy about it but pulling it out long enough to see a difference. She still can't do cow milk. AT ALL. With all of stuff going on with her little body, she decided that Friday she would wake at 2am. For the day that is. The night before that, she had been up a ton but luckily I caught a nap shortly before dawn. Friday however, that wasn't the case. She wasnt having it. She fussed and moaned as if she was in pain. By lunch on Friday, two whiney girls and a momma who stayed up until midnight was about to blow. I finally gave in and just started bawling. Harper in her crib for over an hour refusing a nap, HG whining about every little thing in site and a momma who needed five minutes but couldn't find it. After calling and crying to my parents, I called the husband and said come home now. Thankfully, he was in Irving because I really didn't want my parents to drive over for a five minute break. Okay, realllllllllly I did but that wasn't fair to them being five and three hours away. I felt terrible and horrible for breaking down, I felt like a failure. I was exhausted, not sure what my next move for sleep needed to be. I think the husband finally realized that I hadn't slept at night since Harper. It had caught up with me. I crumbled. I can't believe I lasted that long. He ordered Boston Market and when 8 rolled around last night, I crawled Ito hg's bed and she into mine. I slept enough not to feel miserable today. Praise the Lord! Harper was still up some but after a burp or two and some motrin, she rested. Maybe it was all my praying I did or maybe her belly felt better. Either way, I crumbled like I never had before, ever.

Today was much better all around. I still felt horrible from crumbling. There are people who would love a challenging time just to have a child or their child back. Here I had been bawling my eyes out over whiney, sick and no sleep children. I prayed and prayed hard today for many. I thanked God so many times for my amazing children and apologized for loosing it. I know it is okay and expected from time to time but I felt really bad. HG was so worried that I was bawling, it probably scared her. As with each new day are new moods. I am thankful for today and our bright moods.....well most of us had bright moods.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Christmas Card 2012

I love how our Christmas cards turned out this year and loved the price even more. Groupon had a deal from Zazzle.com where you could get 110 for $39 with free shipping. Now that is a deal in my opinion!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Change in plans

We are pretty flexible.
That is something we learned as soon as we began a family, flexibility is a must.
The girls have been packed for a week.
We were supposed to be heading to Arkansas today.
With our snow here, 8 inches at mom's in Little Rock and 10+ in Batesville at Aunt Tonia's, we are staying home. Such sadness surrounded our house last night when we pulled the no trip plug. While it was for the best, we were so looking forward to family and hunting.

I guess it made Harper mad as she decided to wake at 2 this morning and scream until 12:10 or so. Yes, 10 hours. No UTI, only a trace of bacteria (damn you Elmo extra sensitive bubble bath), no strep but super red throat, crazy sinus infection that is apparently not contagious because she has had it for two lingering months. Her white blood cell count was okay, a little off but with her blowing snot and red throat, it made sense. Poor girl took a super hard fall yesterday so it bruised the side of her face (and all of or hearts!!) Add scraped knees from Christmas and then the surgical glue on the other side with bruises, she looked pathetic. Her nose and face was crusted with dried snot and the site of a nurse or doctor put her in our panic. Our sweet ENT (who is the greatest thing ever!) is seeing up next week rather than waiting until mid jan. Sounds like another surgery is in our near future unless we can get a grip on this never ever ending sinus infection, watery eyes, two months straight of antibiotics. We are on number 6 in a month. But on a positive note, she te two chicken nuggets, a little veggies and half a deal of yogurt in her chair tonight. That is big for the baby girl!!

With all the fussiness going on today and snow, we worked around the house. The husband tackled his side of the closet and bathroom and I worked on HG's room. Poor girl still had 2t/3t panties in her drawer that she was wearing and 3t clothes in closet. No wonder they didn't fit much. She ears a 5/6 now. Tomorrow we will tackle more rooms.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Eve and Day

Christmas Eve, we loaded up and headed down the road for Christmas with my in laws.
Every year, the tree is surrounded by far too many gifts.
The girls were beyond spoiled and squealed with excitement going from gift to gift.
Poor Harper, she only managed a nap of 40 minutes or so all day and stayed strong until arriving home.
We enjoyed  living so close to them during this Holiday, it makes for fun visits.

The husband began suffering from a major head ache and sinus stuff so he headed home with us shortly after the girls normal bedtime.
Setting up for Santa was made easy as I had everything ready to go.
We keep Santa simple.
They don't get tons of stuff, they already have tons of stuff.
The girls exchange, we gift a few items and then Santa has a few.











Love babies and love the snow











Snow, in Texas on Christmas.
SO FUN!
My dad's house in East Texas got 2 inches of snow in 45 minutes or so.
Living so close to the in laws allowed for them to come and enjoy Christmas day with us as well.
Uncle Mark was in town and the girls window watched for him for hours.
They just adore him so much.
The husband loves Mexican food and knew we would be sick of the traditional Holiday food by today.
We decided on a menu of pork/chicken tamales, sour cream enchiladas, borracho beans, guacamole, queso, three types of salsa,  and rice.
Everything turned out lovely on this cold wintery day.
The girls decided they were tired of fancy food and opted for eggs, pancakes and french toast for dinner.
Such a wonderful and Blessed Holiday this year.