Better

Websites are getting better with luring customers to buy. Keeping my card on file so I don't have to actually get up and search the house? Excellent, I think I will buy now.

I just bought what should be but probably won't be Katie's last Christmas gift. So far I got her a dumbo stuffy, a Rapunzel doll, and now I made her a book for later. I love Shutterfly books, and I got a free one from the hospital so I finally made it up and ordered it today, just had to pay shipping. The last one I made I really like, it went through my pregnancy with Katie and how excited we were to prepare for her. This one is about Katie's first three months. I think she'll enjoy them later, seeing that she'll most likely be a sappy, emotional girl like me. =P

I also just bought Bill's birthday gift, which ironically, he had to help pay for since I didn't have enough. At least he's guarenteed to like it, so I'm sure he won't mind when he finds out. I just don't have enough money to spread between his birthday and then Christmas for everyone. Maybe I'll just think of it as him donating to Katie's Christmas gifts fund!

I'm in a much better mood today. Still lacking in sleep, but Katie's rash looks so much better. I don't think anyone can understand what stress and strain it is to see such a diaper rash on a baby, and then the giant relief from your shoulders once it starts improving until you're a mommy. I know I certainly didn't expect it until it happened. Seeing it fading this morning made my entire day. Possibly week. I feel so much lighter now that I don't have to constantly worry about it. It was really weighing me down!

The problem with it though, it when I worry, I can't sit still. The house has looked really nice for the last few days! Today....well, I haven't done any chores yet and it's almost 7PM. But I was on a deadline to finish Katie's book (the gift certificate ran out tomorrow - I had three months to do it but I waited until I was standing on the edge again!) and I had to do some shopping for good prices for Bill's gift. Plus I got really wrapped up in a tv show and ended up watching quite a few episodes in a row as Katie slept on me. So it's been a really busy day! But yeah yeah, I'll get to cleaning very soon.

My grandmother bought me and Katie a maya wrap for Christmas and I just got it today. I'm really excited to use it. Moby wraps are very comfortable in certain situations, but you can't breastfeed in them and they get hot. The other sling I have, the Seven Sling, is very flimsy and doesn't do much of anything at all. So I wanted a maya wrap, which should help me be able to privately nurse in public and help when we go to church (which I'm hoping we'll start going to this weekend, even though Bill's work has him coming in Sunday morning again!). It's brown and pink and has a pouch to put things like my wallet, keys, diapers and wipes and such in so I don't have to lug a heavy diaper bag everywhere. That may be my favorite part. It's so hard to wear a sling/wrap and try to carry a bag on your shoulder as well. It doesn't fit right with the baby there and it makes you feel very lopsided. Anyway, I'm excited to use it.

Hoping Bill and I get to take Katie to her first Halloween parade this Saturday. He's a bit reluctant, as he has to wake up at 4 AM the next day and since Katie won't remember it, he doesn't see the point. He's very much a guy. I think Katie will enjoy it, and who cares if she doesn't remember it? It'll be celebrating her first Halloween and in her little puppy costume. We'll see. All of the other halloween events are during week days, so he definitely won't be able to go to them.

Okay, Katie just fell back to sleep. I'm going to attempt getting some dishes and laundry done, even though I know the moment I try to get off the bed she'll wake up and cry. Well, here goes.

Oh, and we got our Dorney Picture back!

All 3 years:

Pic Post!

Rough night

And the stress continues.

Katie wont stop crying tonight. She's telling me something hurts but I can't figure out what. Theres just so much it can be. She has 7 viruses in her, a tooth trying to break free, oral thursh and a bad diaper rash. So I started with teething tablets because she was drooling so much. That didn't do anything. I changed her diaper again (after only changing her 20 minutes prior) in case she peed and it stung. I slathered her in desitin. Didn't help. I took her temperature, gave her the last daily dose of oral medicine for thrush, then gave her some baby medicine. Still nothing. She refused to nurse this entire time as well.

So I went back into the attic, where it seemed hot so I took off the onesie she was soaking with drool. Then I put blues clues on the big screen. Thankfully that gave me a little break, she watched about 10 minutes of it without crying. But then it started back up again. She was obviously very tired but something wouldn't let her sleep.

I took her downstairs again and walked her. It calmed her a little bit and made her sleepier. This is when I was able to nurse her finally while walking. After a while she started to close her eyes and now she's starting to sleep in my arms as we lay in bed. But she doesn't seem to be sleeping peacefully. Hopefully the meds are starting to kick in. It just feels like it'll be a very long night.

Honestly, my only wish is for her diaper rash to go away. I can handle the rest of this stuff, but the rash worries me. Bill said it looks much better. I think it might be getting worse. But I see it all day so it's hard to judge. If it's not showing a lot of improvement by Thursday night, I think I'll take her to the doctors on Friday. Not sure what they can even do. She's already on a prescription.

Also, it seems like The universe wants to drive me to the edge of insanity (if I'm not there yet). On top of EVERYTHING else, bill just said it looks like soph might be in heat again. Because you know, I have time to deal with her in diapers and cleaning that area. If I could, I'd be driving her to the vet tomorrow to get her spayed. This is a lot to handle all at once. Something's gotta give soon.

Did I mention my MIL might be stopping by tomorrow morning?

Not a good day

Today is horrible.

I generally try to not be negative on the blog, but what can I say? I hate today.

I got no sleep last night because Katie was already cranky. She didn't go to sleep until after 2:30 AM. We had to wake up at 7 AM. The night didn't go very well as my nipples were bleeding before she even started to eat. You can actually see skin missing from around the bleeding areas as theyve been rubbed raw. Latching on herself in the night made me near tears. Latching her on myself made me grit my teeth and whimper. Not one of breastfeedings fun moments, but then again there's not many of those! It's just something necessary and healthy for us. So, I'm trying to suck it up and hope thrush goes away very soon.

This morning Katie got her shots. I went in there thinking that I could choose the shots, as the doctor has told me at every visit that I'm allowed to. We didn't see the doctor today. This time a heavily accented nurse was there and she would not listen to me. In fact, she treated me like crap the moment she found out we were delayed vaxing and gave us lectures like I had no idea what I was doing and she knew better. At least the doctor asked us our reasons and sees that we know our stuff but this woman was just terrible. I wanted only hep B, Polio and DTap. I was worried enough with just those as that's a lot! At first she only said she'd give Katie hep b. Then when she saw that her shots weren't updated the way SHE wanted them to be, she over loaded Katie with a shot I don't even know and added the rotavirus, which I was told she didn't need to start until 6 months. So now Katie is fighting off more than I wanted her to and she's just miserable. On top of that, the nurse refused to let me give her medicine there and only gave me the dosage amount after when we were ready to leave. What a jerk! Then I got home and saw that the meds we have is a new concentration. Oh great! So I called the company and after waiting 20 minutes for someone to answer, they said they couldn't help me. Wonderful. So I call the doctors and can't get through. I want to kill someone. My little baby is crying in pain and no one can help me! (Edit: I'm quite fond of our pharmacist now. I walked up a mostly sleeping Katie to the pharmacist to beg for help and she was wonderful. I took Katie home and dosed her up, shes now doing better)

All this to add on to the stress I'm already having about he suffering from thrush, which probably had her miserable to start with. Her diaper rash just isn't going away like I thought it should be after 2 1/2 days. It's still all there, just not getting worse. But it's not going away. I do it three times a day like I should and it's still there. I just want her bottom to look normal.

I just took the top part of her diaper off and had her outside to expose the rash to direct sunlight. Only managed about 5 minutes before Katie started to fuss (she doesn't like being moved because her legs hurt her. She's happier in the swing but to take her out of the swing, put her down, move the swing out, pick her up, take her out and put her back in the swing would have had her screaming.) I'm going to try to keep doing it as she let's me. I'm also downing probiotics, yogurt and cod liver oil.

Giving Katie her oral nystatin was an adventure, but she shocked me with how well she did. Every time (except the last time when she had enough of it!) she opened her mouth wide when I told her to and didn't mind me shoving a q-tip full of medicine towards the back of her throat. I'm supposed to put it directly on the spot but seeing that it's practically in her throat and it's hard to see when Katie is being perfect and I have someone helping me, it was mainly guesswork. I have to do this FOUR times a day.

That's in addition to giving her medicine every 4 hours or as needed (so I need to keep track of those times), putting the butt cream on her three times a day, remembering to take my vitamins and yogurt, giving Sophie her pill since it seems like she has this too and she hates her pills even when wrapped in disguises, take my own pills, using wipes and sprays on Sophie At least twice a day, and making sure Bill takes his vitamins to make sure he doesn't remain a carrier. Oh yeah, besides this I need time to make breakfast, lunch and dinner - and we have no easy frozen fixes, everything is from scratch. I have to remember to feed and water the dog multiple times a day bc she's fond of eating, nurse Katie on demand with nipples that make me weep, make sure all of the prescriptions we're on get called into the pharmacy and picked up, make sure that while im doing laundry all of Katie's things are separate and then all of my bras are separated from the rest of my clothes, make sure my breast pads are changed very often, make sure all infected areas on katie and me are exposed to air a few times a day if not sunshine, and if I manage to go to the bathroom and maybe brush my hair or teeth in a day, I feel a bit like super woman. And showers? Where do they fit in when the baby is screaming and only wants me and I also have a million things to do?

I'm so tired.

I haven't even started any of the chores not mentioned above and it's already 5 PM. If Bill hadn't bought breakfast this morning all I would have managed to eat is yogurt. At least I've been chugging water today. At least the stomach aches I've had for three days or more seems to have gone away today. I sure hope tomorrow is a bit easier. Something has to let up.

All this and I forgot (though I'm sure she hasn't) that I bumped Katie's head today when tryin to put her in her carseat. Didn't seem very hard but she sure screamed. I'm causing her so much pain lately, I feel terrible. At this rate im going to get a bad mommy of the year award.

Purple!

Katie is looking quite purple today. I'm using gentian violet on my nipples which I hate because it's so messy and stains. Currently her pretty plain pink onesie and her mouth and face are all purple. Since she has thrush orally, I guess it's not a bad thing. Awkward when i had to take her to the store and then have to take her to the doctors tomorrow. Earlier she looked like a baby zombie who just attacked a purple blooded person.

Here purpleness looks a little strange, but seems to bring out the light blueness of her eyes! lol

I'm determined to never ever get this again. Yogurt and probiotics for me every day! My purple covered nipples burn so badly, nursing is hellish. I bled last night too, something I haven't done since Katie was only a week old or so.

Here's a few pictures of Katie's Halloween costume. Not sure how girly or dressed up I'm going to make it though, I might just put a pink bow at the ear and be done.

Now that Katie is sleeping better and mostly through the night (she no longer wakes up much to nurse every hour), I'm going to try an experiment. I moved the bassinette back into the bedroom and at least when she's awake she loves it. I'm going to see if I can get her to sleep in there for part of each night (you know, more than the two minutes that she would do as a newborn). If it doesn't work, no biggie. I love cuddling up with her. But if it does work, it's one step closer to getting her ready for the next baby. We have plenty of time for her to get prepared for that though!

I've been on a big cleaning frenzie for days. The house isn't showing too much improvement, which is disappointing, but so far I've caught up with the dishes, bleached the sinks, kept everything completely wiped down and clean, organized the tables, working on catching up with laundry (both washing and folding), scrubbed out the bathtub, collected all the trash from all three levels, cleaned out the fridge, vacuumed and shampooed the carpets, made the bed every day, organized the bedroom and nursery and swept from the second floor to all of the first floor. Seeing that I've been on the go every day, Sophie needs medication stuff three times daily, Katie also needs med stuff multiple times a day and I've been exhausted, that's quite a lot done.

I'm soooo hungry for a Red Robin burger, and I've never even had one. But they look amazing, and there's a new Red Robin just up the street - and it has a take out window! I'm hoping to eat there in the near future.

12 Weeks!

Katie's had a busy last few days. We went shopping all day two days ago, a vet visit for Sophie's shots yesterday and then more shopping, then today we ran around more. We went to the restaurant store for an icing dispenser and a cheese grater, then headed to Ross's to buy new shoes. After that we hit Party City to look at costumes for Katie but none impressed us. Instead I got her an adorable princess hat headband. We hit Sam's next to pick up a Sophie-lookalike costume vest instead. There had been at least 6 dog costumes just last night there. Today there was just one, in the very front like it was waiting for us to bring it home.

I found white spots in Katie's mouth today after a few days of what looked like a yucky diaper rash. Not wanting it to get worse, we headed to Urgent Care. I hated the doctor there but Katie was so good. We got her butt cream meds today but have to wait until tomorrow for the oral stuff. I need to get treated as well since she's breastfed. *sigh* there's always something!

We got home and Bill and Katie both fell asleep. I have too much of a headache to do anything.

Buuuut, Katie is now 12 weeks old and just a few days off from officially being three months. My little joy. <3

Tomorrow she's going to attend her first Mass. I'm a little nervous...I guess we'll sit in the back pew. Hopefully she sleeps and doesn't have one of her "I just want to hear my own voice and how loud I can get" fits.

On mobile now, I'll post pictures later!

Happiness

It seems like I find happiness in striving for more. I live for the need to have something that's just outside of my grasp now, and making it accomplishable. I guess everyone has a dream that makes waking up in the morning a little easier, but I have to have constant goals that I strive to reach and get closer to every day.

And it's a little hard, really. I have to keep making my dreams more and more extreme. I already have all of my old dreams my reality now. I have a very loving and supportive husband who shares my same views, a dog that's the same breed I loved and wanted, a daughter that has me head over heels, my own house that I picked out, etc. So now my dreams aren't so tame. Theyre wilder and harder to catch. Like, owning my own bakery or...going to Disney.

It seems crazy to even think about visiting Disney. With 6 school loans, one income, a terrifying mortgage that we need to pay off ASAP and only a baby emergency fund, it seems a little odd to save up our pennies for something so silly as a trip to Disney. But, I have been. Literally, pennies. I've kept a jar of change for the last year. More about the jar later though.

Though it may seem silly, it's an idea that's been in my mind for two years now and I want to make it happen. Disney is literally the happiest place on earth. No joke, it's not just their slogan. I went several times for a week each time and while we ran into problems sometimes, it was never anything we couldn't laugh through. Because at Disney, it just seems like there are no problems. It's just so upbeat and happy and it forces you to get caught up in the moment and thoroughly enjoy it. I want Katie to feel that. And just like every woman deserves to get a little blue Box once in their lives, every little girl deserves to go meet the princesses that she dresses like, decorates her room like and watches over and over with a little happy, contented sigh. Katie needs to experience this as well, so I need to get her there. I could just see her wandering through Cinderella's Castle, watching the theater plays they do, running up to hug Belle while dressed just like her, wearing little Minnie ears with a crown on them, pigtails flying in the Florida breeze, splashing in the pools and water rides, bouncing on a Disney hotel bed and riding the monorail...yes, she definitely has to get there at least once!

The problem is the cost. And not just the cost for Disney. The fund that I've been saving this up for is in our Wedding and Honeymoon fund. Because this would count as our honeymoon but...with kids, because I couldn't leave them behind! The wedding however, will be a bit expensive as well, even if done as cheaply as possble. Of course we're already married, but we've always wanted to do it "right", with all of our family and friends and to be married under God, not just by law. I was going to do a cheapy wedding at the beach, but I doubt everyone would want to travel so far. My dream wedding idea is in Disney (haha) but I don't think we could afford to even find a JOP that would marry us on official Disney property, let alone do it right. I never wanted to do it in a church before, but I do now. When I think about it, it feels right to go get married in a church. However, that doesn't seem very cheap at all. Luckily, even if the wedding and honeymoon is a bit pricey, the reception wouldn't be. I can make all the food myself and have ideas for really neat decorations that I can put together cheaply but have it be very "us". I just need to find a cheap place that would hold about 50 people.

So anyway, there's one large dream that I'd like to accomplish in the next 3-4 years. To do that, I have a jar. It was my original jar, before my baby jar, my emergency fund jar, and bakery jar. And since all of our money back then went to baby and emergency funds, it became the change jar - because all we could afford to contribute was petty change I'd find laying around after Bill would have friends over, or when I'd clean out my purse, or that would lay at Bill's desk a little too long. Finally, this jar has now filled. Would have filled up faster if it wasn't for those yard sales...but it finally did. And once Bill said there was a coin star at our bank that doesn't charge us to use, I've been dying for a visit. Well, we went today.

While all the bank ladies literally flocked and squeezed into one little section from behind their desk to look at Katie, I was eagerly watching Bill pour all the coins i had collected, saved, and stared at hopefully for the last year. I had my fingers cross to at least hit $30. We ended up with $51.51. When we got home I added the $20 that I had for the fund, bringing it up to $71.51.

So...after a year (albeit, not really contributing at all aside that $20) I have a little less than 75$. Great! That could buy me an entire lace cap sleeve on a wedding dress. Or half a child's ticket to one day in Disney. But it is a start. A pretty good start for something we hadn't even paid attention to financially, that's $50 that just wasn't there before. And now we have a system, where any week we don't go into the "negatives" with our bills, groceries and gas, we get to split any money that's left over between us for "anything money". Bill is saving for a new phone to replace his stolen one. I save for holidays, crafts, my faraway dream of a bakery, and that wedding/Disney fund. Actually, I need a new pair of shoes, which will be the first thing I've spent "my" money on myself for. But since I can now only fit into a pair of sandles and it's getting so chilly out that I've needed to wear SOCKS with those sandles, it's definitely time to go winter shoe shopping.

Other dreams, btw, include things like having more children, one day getting the house spotless and keeping it close to that way, finding Bill's very lost wedding ring that I'm convinced is still in the house SOMEWHERE, selling clothing from my seamstressing, setting up a profitable online store, becoming a awesome cook, and getting a good night's sleep.

And all that I have in my life and all that I look forward to makes me very happy, if not a little antsy.

(My parents, siblings and I all standing in front of Cinderella's Castle)

Growing too fast

I'm weepy and nostalgic today.

I can't believe how fast Katie is growing. Truly, it seems to just be slipping by so fast. Each day speeds by, and this little beautiful baby that's been given to me is growing up so quickly right before my eyes. Every day she learns something new, she gets better at something, and she gets a little older. All of these days are really adding up. She's on the border of three months now. Three months! That's a pretty big milestone.

I guess I hadn't realized just how much she has changed. This morning, I was staring at her while she was sitting on me staring right back, and I thought that maybe she hadn't changed all that much. But she did. I had forgotten how tiny and new she once was. The pictures I took of her today make her look so much like a little kid instead of a little baby, especially when you compare them to her baby pictures. In fact, let's do that. Here's some of my pictures, and even a picture my mom took (which sorta helped set some of this "emotion" off. I just can't believe how much she's changed!) from when she was just a few hours old.

Notice her little wrinkly wrist skin!

Before she was bathed, and her face still swollen from it's journey out:

That was my little dinker. Now look at the pictures from just this morning, when she was happily watching Blues Clues on her own little Video Now.

That's my little Snuggles, my KatieKakes KatieKateKate Sunshine, who has such a personality, and little opinions of her own, double her birth weight already and knows how to do so much. She hardly even resembles that little helpless newborn anymore!

Ugh, I just want to hug her. I spent two hours of her crying and crabby at me because she was too tired to sleep, but part of me wants to take her out of her swing, wake her up, see her smile and just snuggle her for a while. But I'll wait.

Part of me wondered, you know, the part of me that hadn't slept in four months, has sore nipples, doesn't miss the terrible pregnancy backpain but definitely still feels that broken tailbone sometimes, and dreads months of morning sickness, if I'd be ready by April to do the whole thing over again already. After all, just this very morning I had a meltdown on Bill saying I didn't know how I was supposed to raise a whole batch of kids in this house. We'll have enough bedrooms if we pair the boys up with boys and the girls with girls, but where is my homeschooling room? Or a library room? One gender is going to have to have walk in rooms, who are we going to subject to random walk ins and no privacy? I started to wonder if it's fair to have many kids when we don't know if we'll get out of this house in time for their teenagehood when they'll need their own space.

Every other part of me, the hormonal, mostly healed, part of my brain that is working very hard to forget the hell of labor and pregnancy, is screaming YES, YES I'LL BE READY! WITH BELLS ON!

So, I'm pretty sure I'll be very ready. Because I can talk logically all I want, in the end, I want another baby and I want one close to Katie. I miss pregnancy already and I miss that newborn-ness and in six months I'll be clawing at my ovulation sheets to get it back. This house can fit 4 children comfortably, so my plan is to have those four children. At that point, I'll reevaluate the situation then and see if we should have more or not. No need for those kinds of things to talk me away from my babies-to-be now.

After all, I only have one ovary. Which means it has to tick all the louder all the time at me, because it took over the job of the other one and wants to make sure it's doing a good job. Message received, little buddy.

Pic Post

Haven't posted any pictures lately, so here's a pic post: