Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Vegas (a long story)

My sister and I were finally able to get away for the weekend for a belated 30th birthday bash. Better late than never, even if it was 2 years late. No kids, no husbands. It was wonderful! Although, I did miss them terribly. 

I flew out first thing Saturday morning and met Ann in Vegas. We hung out by the pool and relaxed, we shopped a lot (but mainly window shopping) even though we knew we could never afford the stores we were in. But, we loved it anyway. We ate delicious food although we didn't eat nearly as much as we normally do because we would lose track of time either shopping our hanging out at the pool. We probably walked at least 5 miles each day... in flip flops. Which was better than what some of the women on the strip we wearing. Speaking of wearing, I'm pretty sure we had at least 4 wardrobe changes each day, including swimsuits, and I think we also have a picture of each outfit. 

We saw The Lion King production at the Mandalay Bay theater and it was awesome. Somehow, we didn't realize that it was almost word for word as the movie which made it 2.5 hours long. I messed up and thought the play started at 8:30 but it actually started at 8 so we missed about 20 minutes of it. Plus, I wore a pair of my sister's new shoes so she could wear my new shoes that matched her new dress. It wasn't until we were on our way out to the cab and just found out we were late that I figured out her shoes were not working for me at all. About every 10th step or so the strap would come off my right heel and the 3 inch wedge shoe then became a flip-flop. So without even drinking, I looked like I was drunk trying to walk in her shoes. So because we were running late, I ended up carrying my shoes through the casino to get to the theater faster. The entire race there I was apologizing to her for us being late and she was apologizing to me for her shoes.

From the very beginning I had told Ann no dance clubs. I was pretty adamant about it until we passed by Coyote Ugly and she gave me her puppy dog expression begging me "Please, let's just go in for a little bit and then go home." So I gave in an actually enjoyed it a little. I could tell you that the night might have ended with my sister and I dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly to Beyonce's Single Ladies, but I don't think anybody would believe me. 

I thought we would sleep in late and take naps while we were there, but that was not the case. We had a blast though. Now that we finally made the time for ourselves, we will do it again at our 35th and 40th birthdays.

The real excitement came at the end of my trip. My flight left Vegas at 3:30 and arrived in Dallas at DFW at 9. I made it a point of remembering that I parked my car in the parking garage at B26 when I arrived at the airport on Saturday. So you can imagine my surprise when my car was not at B26, nor was it anywhere near there. I walked back and forth in the parking garage looking for it, retraced my footsteps from inside the terminal and everything, but nothing. I knew that I had pulled into $17/day parking, stayed on the ground level, parked on the left side in a parking spot directly beside a handicapped spot. I knew that I had crossed the street, passed one escalator and went up an elevator, past a baggage claim area, security area, and then onto ticketing where I checked my bag. So needless to say, it was dark, I was tired, and I was starting to freak out. So after about 45 minutes of me looking myself, I gave up and went into the airport and asked security for help. All without trying to breakdown, which I think I was pretty close to at the time. I described to him my path just like I just told you, and he was very nice and called someone on his radio for me. That security guard asked me all the same questions, then took me outside and walked me to his car. Apparently, they have a security car for that very purpose, locating lost vehicles. So with his help, we drove around and found my car. It was exactly where I described it was, except it was at B6 instead of B26. I was so embarrassed. He did praise me for being able to give him so many details though. 

I also felt better to know that it happens frequently enough that they have a specific form that I had to sign since I had to ride in their vehicle. It had it's own little check box for lost vehicle. Did I mention that I was tired, ready to get home, and ready to see my kids?

So I made it home at around 11:30 last night. My poor sister didn't make it home until 2 am even though we left Vegas at exactly the same time. So, it definitely could have been worse. 

Thanks to Gary for taking such good care of the kiddos while I was away. 

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Alright, who paid him?

Mason could do no wrong today after saying to me, "Mommy, why you belly getting smaller?" when I was working out. You better believe I gave him a big smile, with a big hug, and a big kiss, which was immediately followed by letting him watch one of his new favorite movies. 

Monday, June 15, 2009

Today's GI appointment

We had Reese's GI appointment today. I have to say that I really liked Dr. An and his bedside manner and how he looked at things. First of all, like I have said previously, she looks great. He wasn't concerned about her size, but was concerned with her anemia and size together. He flat out said she should not be anemic at this point and instead of giving her iron supplement to mask the anemia, we need to figure out why she is anemic. Like I said, I really liked him, as I have been asking WHY all along. He ordered a urinalysis today to see if she might be "peeing out" red blood cells which could account for her abnormal blood counts. But, he was pretty confident that her anemia and lack of significant weight gain together are one of two things...1) either she is fine and that is just HER normal, or 2) she may have celiac disease. I contemplated not even putting that on here because I'm afraid my mom will google it and get freaked out. You can research just about any medical condition online and get the scariest of results, so I have yet to do online research and don't plan on it either. 

So our treatment plan is to take her off the iron supplements, leave her on toddler formula, and re-check her blood levels in 2 months. If they are fine, then we know she's fine. If they remain low, then we will perform an endoscopy to check for inflammation in her intestines. So in the meantime, we will take heart in knowing that she is happy and has been in quite the cuddly, yet drama queen-ish kind of mood lately. Baby girl and started throwing some temper tantrums in the grocery store, something that Mason never did and has yet to do. It must be a girl thing and if this is just a glimpse of things to come..."here comes trouble" as Mason says. 

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Close supervision required

Apparently, not just being in the same room is enough supervision for an almost 4 year old with finger paints. So even though there were 2 adults with him, he still managed to squeeze out pretty much the entire bottle of finger paint onto his paper. Actually, it was 4 separate bottles of finger paint. I do have to say though, he did a great job keeping it on the paper, at least he didn't decide to put it elsewhere, and if he were to, thank goodness it was washable. 




Sunday, June 7, 2009

Forgot to mention

I forgot to mention earlier that Reese started walking well about 1 week ago. She took her first steps 2 months ago, but never really got the hang of it until last week. Now she wants to walk everywhere. So, I apologize to everyone who has been stuck behind us in the last week. We still only have about one speed right now with occasional spurts of energy, like when mama is trying to pick her up in Target. 

On a different note, there's nothing like kids in the sprinklers in the summer. Free and and quite entertaining. 



Saturday, June 6, 2009

Blood work update

All of Reese's blood work came back normal! Yeah! She is still showing moderate anemia even with iron-fortified formula and an adult dose of iron supplement. So now we will just follow-up with the pediatrician next month at her 15 month check-up. Thanks for checking in!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Juicy Lucys and Buttaloes

Our household has recently undergone a reincarnation of sorts as far as cooking is concerned. Gary got a grill for his early Father's Day present and we have put it to good use. Every night we seem to catch some kind of cooking show and we are hooked. Our favorites right now are Man v. Food and Bobby Flay's Grill It. Recently on Man v. Food they did an episode about theJuicy Lucy. We have since made it 3 times and finally got it right. It is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S, delicious! Of course, we are always trying to eat healthy so we tweaked it a little and made it a buffalo burger instead. Mason, however, cannot say /f/ sounds yet so it comes out buttaloes. We try to see how many times we can get him to say buttalo in a day because it sure is funny.

A few other funny sayings to come out of his mouth this week:
"Reese, why would you do that?!!!" in response to her pushing the buttons on his trash truck movie.

"A little help here (insert sarcastic voice)!" when trying to open the back door by himself.

"Reese, I'm not going to tell you again, stop it!!!" once again when she was playing with buttons.

"Mama, my peepee not hanging out my undies anymore, I fixed it all by myself!" as we were driving down the road on a very long road trip. It was followed by uncontrollable, shaking,  silent laughter from Gary and I in the front seat.

Here's a few pictures from our Memorial weekend getaway to the beautiful Texas Hill Country.

Reese loved looking at all the animals from the front seat. She also liked turning on the wipers, radio, air conditioner and any other knob or button she could find.

This is what it looks like when a little boy falls into extremely cold water. Oh, the faces he made.

Daddy trying to show Mason how to skip rocks across the river.



Mason was so excited to see all the animals too. I thought he would be more scared once they got closer, but this mama seemed to be more anxious than anyone else. Some of those horns looked really sharp.

Have a Blessed day!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Failure to thrive


Does this look like a little girl that is failing to thrive? I would think not, but unfortunately,  all the numbers point to it. She has been fighting off something weird these last couple of weeks. She was treated for strep (for the faint of heart, I won't go into detail as to where the strep was, but I will say it wasn't in her throat) with 2 different rounds of antibiotics only to have a 3rd swab taken and come back positive. It was sent off to the lab for a culture, which we found out today, came back negative. So now we are left wondering what is going on with her. To add to that, she has had 4 nights in a row of lots of tossing, turning, and tooting. That's right. I said tooting. The first night we thought it was funny when she was lying between us for about 2 hours. It made us want to check to make sure there wasn't a grown man hiding in the room somewhere by the sound of it. The second night...not so funny. Three hours of inconsolable crying on top of the tossing, turning and tooting. For a mama's girl, this mama couldn't even console her. We tried a car ride at 1:30 in the morning to no avail. What finally worked was a Tylenol suppository, Baby Einstein on the Farm DVD, a pacifier, a recliner, and mama. The next 2 nights were repeats with out the inconsolable crying. 

So all that to say, little girl has once again lost a little weight and dropped down to the 5th percentile. We (when I say we, I really mean I) have been pondering doing more extensive bloodwork just to make sure we aren't missing anything. So with her drop in weight and failure to thrive label we went ahead with lots of bloodwork today. Maybe we can find some answers as to why she needs an adult dose of iron along with iron fortified formula at 14 months to maintain borderline normal iron levels. 

In the meantime, we are taking her off all dairy products to see if maybe her GI system is temporarily lactose intolerant after 2 rounds of antibiotics and strep. I forgot to ask how long it should take to hear anything back about the bloodwork. So if you don't mind, please just say a little prayer for baby Reese for normal bloodwork and for her to have a little reprieve from her GI issues and lack of sleep. 

Have a blessed day!