Sigh

Hey, look who's a rockstar!  Just kidding, it's so not me.  I feel like I'm failing life lately.  My house seems to always be a disaster, I'm almost never caught up on the dishes, my personality is a failure, I can't keep my blog updated, and my baby isn't sleep trained.  Go me?  And now the husband is encouraging me to make peace with my pompous brother in law who thinks he's sent from god to train the world on how to behave.  Whatevs.  I tried writing an email, but I'm sure the husband will shoot it down.  He says it's an attempt to better myself and not be such a grudge holder, but fuck, man, if it's the only thing I seem to be good at, what do I have left?  So, there you go, super bitch fest.  I need a nap.

total rockstar failure

ForEVER

So, I guess it's been a while.  A way long while!  Ha!  TG just turned 1 a few days ago and that has been busy  blowing my mind.  He got some little toy cars that he's absolutely in love with and I got to make him some birthday pancakes.  This is a tradition that I've been doing with Big D since she was 2.  I can't begin to tell you how exciting it was to do with TG.

And this weekend we are throwing his birthday party.  Of course, it's going to be attended by mostly adults.  Hopefully it won't cost us too much more money.

We've also started the weaning process, which is going to take a while with the way I'm doing it.  But, I'm super excited for it!  It's going to be amazing to have my body back again, even if it's going to be a new, deflated version of it's former self.  It will also be nice to be able to have some drinks without worrying if I'm having too much!

I'm pretty sure I say this every post, but I really do intend to update this more often.  Big D is starting school in a couple of weeks, so I'll have more free time.  I may make the goal of updating once a week, maybe I'll add it to my chore list.  Wish me luck!  

Good Gracious

So, this post might be a bit rambling.  Things are a bit wonky in my life.
Ever since TG got RSV he's reverted in his eating.  Right before he got sick, we were on a pretty great schedule of solids eating.  He was eating 2 ounces of food 3 times a day!  It was great.  But, now, it's a struggle to get him to eat 1 ounce 3 times a day.  I've started making his food chunkier, which is helping.  But, since he's recently started crawling, I'm afraid that only nursing and minimal solids won't be enough calories to sustain all his new found activity.  So, I'm exploring the options of chunkier foods and seeing if that will renew his interest in solid foods.  So far I've made him chunky sweet potatoes and whole peas and he really enjoyed them!
The other thing going on in my life is INTOLERANCE!  Mainly from organized religious people.  Which turns out to be my family.  I recently made a statement on facebook commenting on how awful people are being in regards to healthcare reform and how saddening it is. Which led to my conservative religious sister to go on a rant about how much she hates healthcare reform and her angry reasoning behind it, wherein insults were directed, presumably, at me.  This hurts in more ways than one.  First, that she would use such a forum to insult and secondly, because I feel that I am very respectful of their religion and beliefs that I DO NOT share and they can't show that same respect back.  It came to a head for me when other family members also spewed their hateful responses on the same post.  A few friends came to me and asked if it would be OK for them to respond in kind to her, since their feelings either reflect my own or they thought she was completely out of line.  But, I kindly asked them to refrain, since I'm not looking for all out war here.  I'm looking for a place where people can comment on social happenings without fear of rebuke by those they love.  So, I posted a paragraph expressing my disappoint in their reprehensible behavior and their lack of respect.  I'm hoping that this step will help them to take a minute to think about how their words affect others the next time they want to say something hateful or unkind.  It seems to me that this is something they'd already be doing, since their religion teaches it, but I guess this is why I hate organized religion in the first place.

Sick of Being Sick

So, here I am, up way too early.  And I've been up now for almost 2 hours.  Being sick and having a sick baby are pretty much the worst.  TG has lovingly passed on his RSV to both The Husband and I and we are suffering for it.  And TG has been waking up once a night since he got sick which only makes sleep harder to come by.  Of course, The Husband is TERRIBLE at being sick and whines and moans and complains, so that doesn't leave a lot of room for me to receive any sympathy for how lousy I feel.  As the one who also has to get up with the baby, since I'm the one with the milky boobs, it also creates a situation where The Husband gets the opportunity for more sleep.  So, I run around, sleep deprived, feeling like shit and now also harboring resentment at The Husband for getting more sleep and then COMPLAINING about how tired and sick he is.  It makes a girl want to cut someone.

Super Sicko

Oy, it has been a rough week and it's still not over!  Poor TG had his immunizations on Monday and those did not go over well.  He had a raging fever that lasted him for a couple of days, which made for a very grumpy baby.  Then he also ended up with RSV, which we're still in the throes of.
His breathing today started getting a bit wheezy, so The Husband suggested I take him into the doctor.  As the doctor listened to his breathing, he detected what he thought could possibly be pneumonia (gasp! what??) and sent us to the radiologist for x-rays.  While there, my mom called because she had seen on the news about a plane crash here in Austin.  I had been holding up fine, but, of course, when I talked to my mom, I started crying from worry.  She reassured me, having dealt with pneumonia in 4 of her own children.  So, we got the results by late afternoon and, thank goodness, it wasn't pneumonia, but that's when the doctor made the diagnosis of RSV due to the inflammation in his lungs and bronchial tubes.
Unfortunately, you can't do much for RSV but wait it out.  So, he prescribed Albuterol  and a nebulizer in case TG's coughing and wheezing become too much.  And instructed to keep an eye on his breathing and to take him to the hospital if it becomes distressed, since RSV can turn into pneumonia in small children and old people.  So, we also picked up some BabyRub from the local Wal-Mart and spent the evening worrying.  Hopefully his immune system will prove to be somewhere as close to bad ass as his sister's was at his age and he'll recover quickly.  Poor little baby!!

And So It Begins...

So, winter time here in Austin brings about the pollinating of the cedar trees.  A pretty innocuous event in and of itself, but for those with allergies, it's quite possibly the worst time of the year.  The poor Husband has cedar allergies something fierce.  And so from January at least through February, he wishes he were dead.  Because even though taking allergy medicine helps, it also gives him a wicked case of medicine head.  Something he hates only a little less than the allergies.  It's a pretty miserable time for him.  And so it appears that poor TG has inherited these allergies from his father.
We went hiking on Sunday at Lake Georgetown and it was a lot of fun and really beautiful.  However, it also happens to be situated directly inside of a cedar forest.  Whoops!  Turns out that may have been the worst idea. It was one of the heaviest pollination days so far in the season and so The Husbands poor nose was a drippy mess.  He also complained that his whole face was burning due to the allergens!  And now this whole week, poor TGs little nose has either been running like a sieve or plugged up entirely.  And the worst of the allergy season hasn't even happened yet!  That's next month.
Wish us luck that we all survive!!

Babies Rule.....sometimes

TG is a pretty great baby.  He's pleasant most of the time and he's super fat, which just equals cute.  But, now he super wins because he's sleeping through the night on a pretty regular basis!  This started when he was around 3 1/2 months old, but was only off and on.  And now that he's 5 months old, it's the norm!  He has his slip ups now and then, but it's hard to complain when I know some of my sister's babies weren't sleeping through the night until they were much older.  

The sleeping nights thing, though, has wreaked havoc on my poor boobs!!  Here they are, used to waking up once or twice a night and being drained.  So, unfortunately, it's many a morning when I wake up to painfully swollen boobs.  And, though, it's getting less often, lots of leaking!  It's not very comfortable to wake up to wetness, most especially to the kind that is fully capable of curdling.  I guess the plus side is that our bed sheets are washed more often than they've ever been!  Ha!