Baby Names

Aislynn found a baby doll in her room when she was going to bed.

I was informed that this baby's name was "Floyd".

=)

FINALLY! An answer...

"So, what did you do all day?"

Simple question, right? But when you stay at home with kids, or if you don't stay home, but you HAVE kids, the answer can seem simple to some one that does not have children.

Please read this article! I found it to be so true and it totally rings true why moms do the same things as those who aren't moms, but yet they are so much more tired! (Thanks Corrine for sending this article to me!).
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TELL ME ABOUT IT ®
By Carolyn HaxWednesday, May 23, 2007; Page C10


Carolyn,
Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today?
Her: Park, play group . . .
Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.
Tacoma, Wash.
Relax and enjoy. You're funny.


Or you're lying about having friends with kids.
Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?
I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.
So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.
It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.
It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.
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SO WELL SAID!!!

When Being A Mom Sucks

I always got in trouble for saying "that sucks" as a kid. I guess one great thing about being an adult is that I can say it all I want.

Sucks,
Sucks,
Sucks.
This sucks.
That sucks.
Suck-suck-suck.

Sometimes being a mom sucks. Now, don't get me wrong. The pros definitely out weight the cons, but there seems to be a rough patch that you hit an you wonder, "Can this get worse?". Mainly that's said when you're trying to operate on 3 hours of sleep and you still have your whole day ahead of you. Did you have a rough path on the way to conceiving? Was your pregnancy just unbearable? Did you go through 18 hours of labor, 3 hours of pushing, just to have a C-Section when you weren't even completely numb? How can it get any worse, right? Does it get better? Then you hold that sweet little mini-you and everything is forgotten. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting in my hospital bad with my precious baby boy at my breast, crying with joy.
Fast forward to another scene: my 4.5 year old firecracker of a boy throwing his pencil AT my breasts and I, crying, because it's such a JOY dealing with the impossible at the end of a long work day. We had a terrible weekend. His "spunk" was "whacked" and I still honestly think it's the food. He had a sugar cookie Thursday in his lunch, Friday he had hot lunch at school and he had some of those conversation hearts. Saturday's lunch consisted of chicken nuggets and Sunday they had pizza again. I do have to say that I was really impressed that for the first time we did not order fries for the kids. We got them apples, baby carrots and ranch dressing. BOTH kids actually ate the APPLES and the CARROTS before they even touched their pizza! I was AMAZED. And I cannot tell you how great of a mother I felt to make such choices for my kids. I felt proud, dammit!

After the continued spunkiness on Sunday, I told Ryan that we had to call the doctor because Tyler just needs something. I'm not trying to just have a doctor throw drugs at us for an easy fix, but I feel in my gut that something else needs to be looked at. So on March 11 we are going back to the doctor. The office is sending us a packed of questions that we need to fill out and have all of his teachers fill out and send back before his appointment. The thing that I'm not looking forward to is going back to this doctor again. The last time that we brought Tyler in and discussed his behavior, the doctor totally blew us off. He made it sound like we weren't doing enough in the discipline department.

Hmmm, no other news to report. I have a nifty hat project that I'm really looking forward to starting. Ryan started working out. We're trying to "get healthy" I guess... See what California does to you?

Book I'm reading: Miss American Pie.
Music I'm listening to: One Republic, Colbie Caillat, Amy Winehouse.

Pictures, pictures, pictures... And a prayer request!

This is THE BEST picture that I have ever taken. Great focus, great boke (background blur).



I've read so much over the last year about taking better pictures and I'm really working with the manual controls of the camera to get better pictures. I'm now really starting to work with the software to sharpen up and enhance the pictures. Lots of fun, but time consuming. It's one of my FAVORITE things...







Look at the excitement!

Aislynn's new BARBIE bike!!! Mommy and her little girl...





Tyler being "Tyler"!








My friend Rachel just had a beautiful baby boy yesterday. He is currently in the hospital due to some breathing difficulties. Can you all please keep Rachel, little Killian, and the rest of the Dryer family in your thoughts and prayers? Killian is looking better and he hopefully will be able to come home soon.

Progress...

*WARNING - The spell check is not working and I can't spell, so don't mind the errors!

Tyler's behavior has been MUCH better. Honest! We had a great day on Sunday! It's so sad to say this, but it's really the first time in a loooooong while that I really enjoyed spending quality time with him. I love him more than anything, but it was really hard to actually "get along" with him since everything ended in a war. I've also been really patient and have been giving him lots of praise for all of the nice things that he says to us and his sister and all of the helpful things that he does. He also gets rewarded for doing his homework, brushing his teeth and finishing his dinner. The new reward is "trying something new". This has worked WONDERS getting Tyler to try new healthier foods. Last night he tried salmon (and he liked it!) and tonight we had biscuits and gravy. I also made him a "roll up" for lunch using a whole wheat tortilla, cream cheese, and turkey breast. He said that he really, really liked it. =) I'm working really hard with him to get him off of the "Chicken nugget-fish stick-cocoa puff" diet that he has been on for the past year. So far it's been going well.

We have some MORE great news! Aislynn is potty trained! And she did this all by herself. I really can't take any credit for it. She went from going on the potty one day to wearing underpants to school for the first time. She did hae an accident, but I'm really proud of her. She even wakes up with a dry diaper in the morning! What a good girl!

Aislynn also got her first bike today. Ryan and Tyler went out on Sunday and bought her a pink Barbie bike complete with a Disney Princess helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads. She loves it. The bike came with a purple Barbie back pack that is a *must* for her to wear when she rides her bike. I have some pictures that I will need to resize and post. She can't peddle yet, but she is getting really good and steering.

When did my baby get so big? And can anyone believe that Ty is going to be 5?!?!

A Change Will Do You Good

First, I'm happy to announce that I have given up the nastiest habit on Earth: Smoking. I know what you are probably thinking...it's like the 12th time that I have attempted to quit. And until you have smoked and tried to quit yourself, you will never understand how hard it really really is. I've smoked since I was 17 I think, and in this day and age where there are so many things on this planet that make you feel like sh*t, this is one that you really have complete control over.

On that note, The Ross Family has also adapted a healthier lifestyle for ALL of us. No preservatives, no artificial colorings. This change will not come easy as most of all the food that you buy today comes with some sort of coloring or preservative to make the food LOOK better and last longer. These preservatives and colorings have been linked to some (not all) of the symptoms of ADD/ADHD. It's no shock to me that the rise in children diagnosed with ADD could possible correlate with all of the preservatives and colorings that children eat every day and at every meal.

As some people know, Ryan and I have struggled with Tyler's behavior since he was a toddler. We took a lot of it in stride because he was just "overly curious" or "just a normal toddler". Now that he is going to be 5 and he is in school, it has been brought to our attention that his behavior has been effecting his school work.

I spoke with the teacher last week to see how he was doing. Now, I don't EVER see his regular teacher. She isn't there when I drop Ty off in the morning and she isn't there when Ryan picks him up. But his teacher has not been at the school and someone is taking her place. I was lucky enough to talk to this teacher to ask her about Tyler.

She said that he has been having some difficulty at school with listening, following directions, and concentration. He has been receiving time outs for not listening and this was news to Ryan and I. We knew how he was at home, but when those issues were addressed earlier, the school said that he wasn't having any problems. I guess a lot has changed in 3 months.

Previously we have taken Tyler to the doctor to ask him about ADD/ADHD and if the behavior that Tyler has been showing gave us any reason to be concerned. The dr brushed us off and gave us some advice of "gating him in his room for time outs" (he wouldn't sit for a time out and it got to be a 2-3 hour ordeal that ended with Ty so worked up that he was sick).

Now, don't get me wrong. I know that boys can be hyper and have a lot of activity. But there was one temper outburst that still has me sick to my stomach. On 2/14, Tyler wasn't listening after Ryan and I told him not to do something. After threatening to take toys away and chasing him around the living room (a common night for us) Ryan caught him and put him in bed. He then said to us, "Tomorrow when it's Friday, I'm going to kill you!". Good grief. I was mortified. He commonly bursts out with "I hate you!" which has no effect on us anymore, but this was the breaking point. His behavior at home was getting worse and it was now starting to become a developing problem in school. It was time to take action.

I was ready to start over. I've done my research and I was ready to try a change to better my children and better my family. I won't go into "preaching mode" about the preservatives and the colorings, but when I started to pay attention to what was in the food I was feeding my family, I realized that I needed to do something about it.

So, as you see, I went through our cabinets and pulled out EVERYTHING that has any preservatives and colorings.

It left us with a pretty empty cabinet. Rice, REAL oatmeal (the instant actually has a bunch of preservatives, so that will go), spaghetti noodles, mandrin orange cups stayed. The Aunt J's maple syrup was to go... it's packed with high frutose corn syrup. The kids' love their french toast (made with carrot puree!) and waffles, so I have to keep syrup in the house. Ryan pretty much sh*t a brick when he saw how expensive REAL maple syrup was when we hit up Trader Joes. We also found granola bars, banana chips, crackers and cereal. Next week we are going to check out Whole Foods for more ideas and options. Since the food is a little bit more money, we have to make sure that we eat what we have and not wind up with a bunch of stuff that is going to go bad.

I have to honestly say that even after ONE day Tyler's been extremely good. No screaming outbursts. He has been a joy this afternoon and I'm probably being stupid for thinking that it's all just the food, but I do believe that it has something to do with it.

If you are interested, here's the link of additives. Look at the food that you have in your cabinet and I'm sure you'll be surprised too!

http://cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm

It just makes Ryan and I think...

This is why I live in California...

Tomorrow's weather for Woodland Hills:

Sunny
High of 80.

'nuf said.

Quick Update!

After reading a close friend's blog, I realized that I had one that I had not updated in 8 months! Shame on me...



California has been really good to us. Ryan and I both found really great jobs and the kids' enjoy going to their daycare. We recently moved into another apartment in the same complex that accepted dogs. So now Yippy is here too!



California Winter's are something that I wish I could have experienced sooner. We usually are pretty cold in the morning (today it was 40) and then it warms up to about 60 during the day. I really don't miss the -25 degree weather back in Illinois! It was so hard to be happy when you were basically stuck in the house for 6 months out of the year. Winter's here are rainy, but the warmer temperature sure makes it easier to deal with.



On to the kids: Aislynn is at a very funny age right now. She is very different from Tyler when Tyler was 2 1/2. First of all, she is addicted to DORA! It's all that she watches. When she gets home from school, she screams that she wants to watch Dora. When she wakes up, she wants Dora. It even has gotten so bad that she has woke up in the middle of the night SCREAMING for DORA!!! She also has not been sleeping in her own bed since we have moved to the new apartment. She was in bed with Ryan and I or I would go sleep with her in her bed. That had to stop. Ryan and I were not sleeping well at all and it was just adding stress. So i went out last night and bought a gate for her and Tyler's room. And guess what happened last night? I SLEPT! All night... and we didn't have a screaming little girl demanding Dora at 2am. Hopefully this will continue and it will be a phase that will have passed.



She loves playing with her Barbies and loves to color. Her favorite color is purple and she loves to show off her earrings. She's also been going on the potty lately and is very proud of that as well.



Tyler is still very active! He's been asking for a skateboard so Santa brought him one for Christmas. If he sill has an interest in it we will take him for lessons. SCARY!!! He can write his name all by himself and he loves to be silly and entertain us. He loves Spiderman and is very picky when it comes to eatting and what he wants to wear in the morning. So silly... We are still working on writting and we struggle to get homework done at night (can you believe it, homework!). It's hard for Ryan and I to actually grasp that he will be heading off to kindergarten in the Fall. My babies are just growing up so much!

We're here...adjusting.

So we made it to California...barely! It was a long trip, but the kids handled it great! Tyler had so much fun riding in the truck with his Grandpa Dan and his dad. Aislynn enjoyed Spongbob...a little too much. I think that I now have the entire DVD memorized.

"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?"

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!

Ahhhhhh, yes. No need for the Ipod to keep me going. By the time we got to Utah, I was seeing Patrick running amongst the red rocks.

The move-in went well. I really thought that we dismissed a lot of our belongings. But as we moved in box after box after box, we slowly realized that we were running out of space. Most of the packing has been done. We weren't able to take Mr. Yippy with us, so we have to move again to another "pet-friendly" apartment (in the same complex) once one becomes available. Eeeeeeeeeek.....

We've been to the pool a few times and Tyler is quite the little fish. He was a little hesitant of the water at first, but Ryan told me yesterday that he was jumping into the pool by himself!!!

5 Days...

There hasn't been all that much that has happened. Just counting down the days until we load up the truck and pull out of the drive way. Excited? YES! Nervous? Um, yeah... Sad? You bet! Ryan and I are going to miss everyone here: My mom and Karen, Ryan's Dad and Barb, friends, neighbors and the rest of the family. It's going to be different not having our family and friends down the street...

Anyways, Aislynn had her EEG on Wednesday and she did great! We put her to bed at 11pm and Ryan woke her up at 3am. She did remarkably well for only getting 4 hours of sleep. No fussiness, whining, or crying. She sat with Ryan and watched cartoons!

We arrived at the hospital at 9:50am and checked in. We then made our way back to the neurology department. The goal was to get Aislynn to fall asleep and then they would put the electrodes on her head. She didn't fall asleep very easily... but we turned on the tv in the room and after about 10 minutes she was out. the tech came in and went to work.

They ran the test for about 15 minutes. Aislynn slept the whole time and woke up as they were taking the last electrode off of her head. We will have results in a few days (I'm hoping that we'll hear something today!).

Grandma Debbie has been taking Tyler and Aislynn out and they are enjoying the time that they are spending with her. Tyler spent the day with her on Wednesday. Yesterday they went out, and today they are going to go to Chuck E. Cheese (my LEAST favorite place on Earth. Does anyone else find this place creepy?).

So that's the past few days in a nutshell.

Aislynn Had a Seizure

So May 8th wasn't a great day for me... at all. I was thinking heavily about the loss of my former boss' son. I kept thinking how hard it would be to loose a child. We have been very blessed to have two very healthy children. Tyler and Aislynn are always happy, healthy and full of life. But that past Tuesday really opened up my eyes...

We arrived at my father-in-laws at about 6:30 PM. We were going to have dinner and Ryan and his dad were going to replace some parts on our cars. Ryan and FIL weren't at the house when we got there, so it was MIL, Tyler, Aislynn and I. We went outside to go play on the trampoline. Aislynn was having fun just standing around while her brother jumped and performed "stunts". She soon was done, I got her down and put her sandals back on.

We walked back to the deck and she climbed up. She went to reach up for a patio chair and she froze, dropped to her knees, and then fell straight back. At first I thought that she was playing around, since she is my silly little girl... but I quickly noticed that something wasn't right.

Her eyes were moving in all sorts of directions, and her arms and legs started to convulse. She was making a clicking noise with her mouth and her lips and face quickly started to turn blue. I screamed for MIL to call 911 and I just freaked out. A neighbor came rushing over and we just watched what was going on. I tried to stick my finger in her mouth (which is something that you are totally NOT suppose to do when someone is seizing, but I had no idea!) and her jaw was clamped down.

The seizure ended and I just held her. She was going unconscious and we were desperately trying to wake her up. A police offer showed up at that point, and then the paramedics. She was breathing on her own, but was totally out of it. FIL came home and shortly after Ryan arrived.

My poor baby girl woke up in the ambulance with 6 people over her trying to hook up an IV into her tiny arm. She was so brave! Her vitals were good, and off we went to the hospital in Woodstock.

We were at the hospital from 7PM until 11 PM. They ran blood tests, chest XRAYS and a CT scan. All of the tests came back normal. She was acting like her old silly self toward the last hour that we were there, so they let us go home. We were warned that she could have another seizure, but we were told how to handle it. I'm praying that she won't have another one... And as scary and lifeless as she looked, I was reassured that a seizure is not deadly. Very scary, but not deadly.

We have an EEG scheduled for next Wednesday. The EEG will tell us if she is epileptic. Aislynn also had a check up the next day with her pediatrician. Dr. Lippman didn't find anything abnormal either.

After doing some reading on the Internet and talking with other people, I have found out that seizures in children are very common. Crazy, huh? 1 out of 3 children have a seizure that is caused by a high fever (which she didn't have) and 1 out of 100 kids have epilepsy.

It's a mother's (and father's!) worst nightmare. Since Tuesday afternoon I have sat and thought if there was anything that I did wrong. I'm sure that it's unlikely that I had anything to do with the seizure, but I still question myself. And I have the images of her blue in the face and limp burned in my brain. It's been hard to sleep, hard to focus, and hard not to worry. I'm walking on eggshells trying to protect her from having another, even though that's kind of hard to do since we don't even know how the first one happened.

So until next Wednesday Ryan and I will continue to worry...

=( Just some sad news...

I called my former boss to see if I could use him as a reference on my resume since I'll be looking for a job in California. A week has gone by and I was sure that he wasn't going to call me back.

But he did! He said that I definitely could put him down. So that was actually some good news...

He then told me that the boss that I had BEFORE him lost his son yesterday. His son was only 21... My former boss didn't know any of the details... but how sad. I can't imagine what it would ever be like to loose a child, specially that young. I pray that it wasn't anything too traumatic and that he didn't suffer.

Off to go hug my kiddos.

Taking up a new sport...

We went out last night to look for a "big boy" bike for Tyler. He's growing so much and getting so tall that his knees touch the handle bars on his tricycle! It looks pretty silly to watch him try to go full speed down the side walk with his knees sticking out.

We thought that we would go to Dick's Sporting Goods since they are right in town and it was already 6:30 pm. We looked around and they didn't have ANYTHING... one girl's bike and the rest were over $100. Okay, I love my son VERY much... but I just can't see spending $100 on a bike that he is going to out grow before he wears the tires out.

Ryan agreed that they didn't have anything, and I was interested in looking at golf clubs for kids. I have never seen them before, so I just wanted to take a look. Guess what I came home with? A set of golf clubs!

Now, this is just funny to me because I have NEVER swung a club. I don't think that I've even ever held one, other then a putter at the mini-golf place.

So we put the kiddos to bed and I was ready to get my first lesson from Ryan (BRAVE MAN!!!). I didn't do too bad! And I actually like it! We're going to the driving range on Friday and THAT should be interesting...