What nearly a year can do to you....

Eli Immanuel - Born 22 Feb, 2012, Ash Wednesday 

 Eli and Sean - Christmas Day

Hot Blooded

It is so hot here in the heart of Iowa, the HX is well over 115! I'm glad I don't have to work outside in this weather! Just being out the short time to let my brothers dogs use the potty makes me want to get sick.
With the weather as crappy as it it ( I thought I saw a guy outside dressed in red with a pointy tail and a pitchfork) I just want to remind y'all of how dangerous this weather can be.

1. DRINK WATER!! Not iced tea, not soda, water. Your body looses a lot in weather like this and dehydration is not just not fun, but deadly! Give it to your pets, kids and the elderly.
2. CHECK ON ELDERLY FAMILY AND NEIGHBORS - As one get's older, the body keeps less water in it's cells, has a harder time maintaining body temperature and has a hard time recognizing thirst. The elderly are at a far higher risk of heat related illness or death than others. Make sure they have air conditioning, if they don't get them somewhere that does, and OFFER WATER! Every time you enter or leave a room, offer them a drink. This was law at the nursing home I worked at.
3. KEEP PETS INDOORS - Dogs and cats can develop heat related illness in as little as 10 minutes. Keep your fur babies inside with plenty of water.
   
4. NEVER NEVER NEVER LEAVE A CHILD IN A CAR!!!!!!! - I cannot stress this one enough. I know that all it takes is one sleeping baby and one sleep deprived parent for an accident to happen, but please be hyper vigilant. A inside of a car is much hotter than the temperature outside and will get that hot in a matter of minutes. Babies and small children cannot regulate their body temperature as well as adults and will get very sick or die in a short time.

If you do see a child in a car without the motor running,

• GET THEN OUT! If you have to break a window, do so, this child's life is far more important than the insurance clam you might have to file.
  
• CALL 911! Explain what you found and what you did and request an ambulance and police right away.
• GET THE CHILD SOMEWHERE COOL! Get the baby/child into the building and strip the down to their undergarments, then apply cool (not cold) damp cloths to the skin.When inside, have someone to find the parent/guardian.
  
• RESUSCITATE IF NEEDED!!! If the child is not breathing or does not have a pulse, begin mouth-to-mouth and/or CPR. If you do not know how to do these, have someone who does administer. Child CPR is different than adult, so please educate yourself in both.
• STAY WITH THE CHILD UNTIL HELP COMES!!! Even if the child's parent get's there, stay with them until the police arrive, they may need to take your statement.

I hope that none of you ever have to do any of these steeps, but it is better to know what to do and never use it then being in the situation and not knowing what to do.
Just to show how dangorus it is to leave a child in a car in this heat, the local weather crew here actually baked cookies in a car! SERIOUSLY! That's like leaving your baby in the oven!

Please keep safe everyone! Stay cool!

I'm not fat!

One of my favorite lines to tell people when my weight comes up is "I'm not fat! I'm fluffy!" (thanks Miss Lime). But the truth is, I do need to loose some pounds. And I've been trying. My health is relitivly good, need to work on the trigs, but other than that, docotrs arn't too worried about it. But I have been trying.
My plan was, before the babino, to go on a bike ride on the trail by our hous after work at Cookies. That got blown out of the water.
I'm also having a hard time movin' and shakin' it recently because I'm just so tired! I was like this with Sean, where all the energy I have is just sucked out by the growing baby. That's how he got his nick-name.
Does anyone have ay advice on how do get some exercise in when I'm tired and preggo? Help?

It's been a while.

Hello everybody! Sorry for the hiatus. Just a point in my life where blogging wasn't part of it. But I'm back and with big news.

I'm going to be a mommy again! We just found out!
Just like with Sean, Nate and I are both excited and scared, but mostly excited. I'm a little scared because I'll be doing my hospital clinicals 6 months along (where you can walk up to three miles in one day). Fun.
The approximate due date is March 6, 2012 and I'm about 4 weeks along.
YAY!

LOOK OUT!

This blog is going through an over hall!
After who knows how long, I'm finally redesigning my blog. So sorry for the mess and check back soon!

Open Letter to Sean

Dear Sean,
Hello, it's Mommy. I just wanted to take this time to asked you to please stop growing so fast.
I am very proud of you for for learning how to unzip and take off your footie jammies and then take them to your gate and through them out for the laundry; that helps Mommy out a little by letting her rest an extra five minutes so her back will feel well enough to get up. But I miss those little fuzzy sleepy sacks that your noodle legs would kick in and we would snuggle.
You amazed us the other day at lunch, when Granddad leaned across the table at Chicago Speekeasy and asked how old you were. You looked down at your little hand, heaqld up two fingers and exclamed "dwo!" All I can ask is "When did you learn how to talk, let alone figure out how old you are?" Wasn't it yesterday you just found you hands?
You and Daddy have played "So Big" forever, but when did you start saying "Soooo big!" with Daddy?
So I guess what I'm saying is; while I'm very happy and proud of you for learning how to count to five, sing, dance, color, get un-dresses, put your shirt on partway by yourself, and God only knows all the other things that I don't have the time to post here in your two years of life, would you please slow down? I don't think that I can keep up with you and I am missing my baby boy. However, I am having such a good time being your Mommy right now, as this very moment.
Please keep all of these points in mind as you continue to grow.

Love and kisses,
Mommy

Ugh! The Sicks!!!

Lovely day today. (can you hear how thick the sarcasm is in that line?) Strep has been going around the city and lil' Sean’s daycare, only he's not the one who caught it. That's right. Me.
I just had strep real bad back in January (that required an overnight stay at hospital) and this case is pretty bad, too, but was caught in time. Doc says that one more case and he's pulling my tonsils.
The worst part is not being able to really function. With the fever and soar, swollen through and dizziness from the fever and not being able to swallow (so lower blood sugar) I just feel like a blob. Sean at least had a real good day with his great-Grammy and then with Daddy tonight. I just wish I could have done more when Nate's gone (had a little get-together) and Sean woke up and was mad. I don't want him exposed anymore than he already had been, and I don't feel safe holding him with the light-headedness. And boy was he mad!

At least he and I had a good time last night. We went to the mall to drop off some books (our library is temporally located during their renovations). We had a good talk with or three librarian friends and then went to play in the kiddy area. (I'm going to have to management about that they need to enforce the age limit rule. Honor system isn't working and kids are getting hurt)
But the best part was very unusual. There is a wild life educational center that opened up a couple months ago, so Sean and I checked it out. They had real live wolves and a baby cougar there! Don't worry, they were use to people and born in captivity, plus in their fence area, so we were safe.
They had all sorts of cool things, like fossil and skeletal remains that were found in Iowa. Sean really liked the Saber Tooth Tiger skull and holding the Mammoth tusk replica. They had lots of pelts that had been donated of native species that you could touch and feel; Sean grabbed everyone I showed him and gave it a big kiss!! It was the cutest thing in the world! He especially liked the mink and otter pelts.
His highlight of that visit was he got to pet a real live skunk! De-smelled of course, but still a real skunk! He thought that was super cool. And boy, was this skunk a big fella'! The last thing we did before leaving was pet a black ferret. Sean has been around ferrets before, so I know he likes them, but it was real close to bed time and he was getting tired and tried to grab this lil gal’s face. We left, and he didn't have a fit or anything, so I think he had a real good time. We're going to go back there with Daddy soon, once I'm done with this crud.

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

PRESENT!

Sorry folks, it has been a while. There's no regular internet access at my house, and since Nate decided to break our garden faucet (it was an accident) and have no water to the house for a while, I'm at my folks.

But really, I wanted to be at home. I've started picking up more hours between my two jobs, so I've pretty much gone form a stay-at-home mom to a working mother. Sean is fine adjusting to it. He goes to Great-Grammys three days and to day care one day a week (and he loves it!) and is just happy as a clam. It's me who has been having a hard time.

First, there's the guilt of leaving Sean with someone else, feeling like I abandoned him, even when he's perfectly happy and loved by a family member looking after him. I know he is okay, but I feel like it's my job to stay home with him. Even back when I wasn't working so much, we talked about one day at day care so he could be around kids his age, but this is just a little more than I had ever thought. Maybe it's a mother thing. Sean is okay and will be okay and it won’t last forever. I just need to hug him more when I am home.

Next is, the house is a mess and I was hoping to tidy it up a bit. The clutter is a two fold issue: 1) I have a two year old, 2) I have ADD as a result of other illnesses that I fight, so that makes the cleaning part harder. "Okay lets vacuum. I'll just plug in the -OHHH! Shiny!!" So, what I tell people is this: Keeping a house clean when children are growing is like shoveling snow when it's still snowing." It's not filthy or unsafe; it's just harder to find cretin things. I'll live. So, that's okay that I didn't get to to that.

But still, at the end of the day, when I'm tired and my feet hurt, and I come home to my cluttered, falling apart house and see my lil' man snuggling his daddy with a puppy at their feet.... and I am happy.

OT: Just now, Sean came to find me. He was in the kitchen having a little snace and he came to find me in the office, and fed me a Wheat Check! I feel so loved!