My Poor Baby!!!

We have had a rather interesting 24 hours, though. After spending many hours at church, Alethea had a 30 minute nap. Around 7:30pm she was climbing up in my desk chair, as she does often, and she fell, as she does often. Usually she falls on her butt, but this time she fell on her head and her left arm/hand. She was immediately in tears. Inconsolable. After about 2 hours of her crying, I called Christian to come home and help with the girls so I could attend to Alethea. I finally got Alethea to sleep around 11pm. She slept until about 2:30am and then woke up crying. She wouldn’t really stop either. So, finally we were all able to go to sleep around 4am. Then Rayah woke me up at 7:30am and Alethea woke up soon after.

As I was getting her dressed, she cried a bit when I put her left hand through her shirt sleeves, which immediately caught my attention. I began to watch her and how she was using her hands/arms. I noticed that she was favoring her right arm and nursing her left arm. I began to think she may have either broken or sprained her arm in the fall, so I began to test her to see. I checked her arm, feeling for any breaks. I couldn’t feel anything, but she was tender. So then I tried to give her things to see if she would use both hands, or favor the right one (she’s right handed anyway). She favored her right hand, keeping her left arm pretty much in the same position as much as possible. Then I tried to give her some things that she would have to hold with both hands. Instead of holding them with both, she just grabbed them with her right and set them down because of their weight. Any time she put pressure on her left arm/wrist she cried.

Because of all that I had observed, I decided it would be a good idea to get her in quickly to see a doctor. She was seen at 12pm. He suggested that x-rays would be best because he couldn’t tell if there was a break or not, either, and he noticed her tenderness on her left arm/wrist, as well. So we had to go to a separate building for the x-rays. After about a 10 to 15 minute wait we were finally checked in and then we had about another 5 minute wait before they were ready to start the x-rays. She did NOT like the x-ray. Especially since they wanted her to lay down on the table and then have me manipulate her arm into different positions and hold it there for the picture. I was allowed to be with her, so that was good. Otherwise it would have been worse. She cried from the time I laid her down on the table to the time I was able to pick her back up again. They took 5 different positional pictures.

When we got back to the doctor, he took a look at the x-rays and said that it was definitely broken. She had broken her bone right below her wrist. My poor baby!!!! He had the nurses put a splint on her. I was worried that she would cry and have issues while they were putting it on, but they said that most kids are actually happy and peaceful because it relieves their pain. They were right. She was happy and talkative and NOT whiny! What a relief! Then they scheduled her for the orthepedic doctor, who will fit her for and place her in the cast. She gets her cast on Wednesday at 8:30am. She has to keep it on for 6 weeks, so she should be able to get it removed on Christmas Eve…if they’re open. If they aren’t open, I will have them remove it the day before.

She was so tired from the trials of last night, her pain, and from the long morning and early afternoon, that she fell asleep in the car. When we got home, she went to sleep very quickly and slept for a little over 2 hours. A beautiful thing for me.
Alethea and Rayah’s godfather, Jason, watched Rayah while I took Alethea to her appointment. And I am SO thankful he did, because I could NOT have handled them both with all we had to do for Alethea’s appointment. So, special thanks to Godpoppy! THANK YOU!!!

So tomorrow we're going to the orthepedic doctor to get a cast put on Alethea. I am not looking forward to that. We have to be there by 8am to fill out paperwork and then we have the consultation and finally the casting. The whole things should take about 2 hours. Not my idea of a good time. Luckily Christian is going to be with me to help out. He took some time off of work so he could help with Rayah at the appointment. I'm going to have my hands full with Alethea.

I'm going to ask the orthepedic doctor to give her a soft cast and a water-friendly one. Otherwise they'll give her a cement cast. And she likes to play rough with other kids. A cement cast would be a very bad thing.

So that's it. My Poor Baby has a broken bone!

My Friendships and What They Mean To Me

I have one real friend; most of my friendships are really superficial as it takes me a bit to trust someone with anything really close to me. My best friend is Aviance. We've been friends ever since I found out that she wasn't interested in my now husband. LOL. It's been 3 1/2 years now. Whenever I move to a new state, I lose my friends. At least, that's how it's been for me. You just get out of touch with them. Or you are in a different mindset from them and you just can't communicate like you used to, you know?

I really value my friendship with Aviance. She's there when I need to vent or lament about something. She's there when I just want someone to talk to. And I can talk to her about things, knowing she understands, because we're both in the same mindset about a lot of things. We have a ton of similar interests, and she's just a great friend to have.

I also have a close bond with my mom. She's my ultimate best friend. I can talk to her about just about anything, no secrets. She gives me her honest opinion and I take it or leave it. She isn't pushy. Well, at least not all of the time. I don't know what I'll do when the day comes that she's not with me anymore...hopefully that's a LONG time coming. I know we all must die, but I just can't imagine not having my mom and best friend with me to talk to anymore. I think that will be the biggest blow to me, and there's no way I can possibly prepare for that day. I believe it'll ruin something in me that I'll never get back, you know? Anyone who's lost their mother probably understands what I'm talking about.

I also have a close bond with my youngest sister, Tiffany. Although there are 5 years between us, we get along well (which wasn't always the case when we were growing up, of course). She and I talk on the phone for HOURS almost every day. She got married within months of me and had a baby soon after, just like me. Our children are a year apart in age. We have always been able to talk about stuff. Conversation comes easy for us. There isn't any uncomfortable silence, and we can sometimes just listen to each other breathe without feeling like we need to fill the silence (this happens a lot as we're both usually distracted by something or other).

I don't have a close bond with my other sister, Trisha, even though she's closer to me in age (3 years difference). She and I are just not in the same mindset. I wish things were different. I hope one day they will be. She's pregnant now so maybe my niece or nephew will bring us closer together. We just didn't grow up together. Trisha lived with Dad and Tiff and I lived with Mom, then, after I'd gone into the military, Tiff moved in with Dad, so Tiff and Trish are closer than Trish and I are. It's just how it is for now, I guess.

I don't have a close bond with my Dad either, although my heart yearns for one. We don't have that Father-Daughter relationship that I've heard other women talk about. I didn't marry a man like my dad...I don't really know much about my dad's likes or dislikes. I don't know much about him. When Mom and Dad separated when I was 11, that was the end of seeing my dad on a semi-regular basis. He was in the military so he was away on deployments and things quite often throughout my life before the separation. There was a few months out of the summer back when I was 14 that I lived with him for a while, but that didn't last long (I didn't like his girlfriend!) and I went back with Mom. He wasn't there much then, either. Always at work. I lament to God a lot about the lack of closeness I have with my Dad. What will I say if we never get closer and he is no longer with us? What will I say at his funeral? I don't know him very well. Oh, I know I could come up with something eloquent to say that will touch everyone and bring some tears, and I do have some memories I can share, but I sometimes wonder if I'll be more sad that I didn't have a closer relationship with him that I will be about his actual passing...which is horrible to say, in some ways, but I know that someone will understand what I'm saying. If we were closer, at least I'd have fond memories of him to give me solace; at least I'd have the close bond we shared to give me peace in my heart. I still pray for that closeness soon, but it may be that it's just impossible for that to happen with my dad.

You see, no one on my dad's side of the family is really close to anyone in the family. Close bonds aren't formed, as far as I've seen. There's just a barrier that no one crosses. It's sad, but right now, it's impossible to penetrate. Don't know why. That probably explains the lack of closeness with my sister as she grew up with that influence more than Tiff and me.

But that's about all I want to say for now. Got to go take care of crying Rayah.

Wow!

It's been almost a year since I last posted! Lots of things have happened in that time.

We found out that I was pregnant at the end of October. Wonderful news, I know. Then I began suffering from morning sickness...all day and night for the first 3 months. What fun that was! But I lost weight. Good side effect? Of course! I didn't gain much throughout the pregnanct, only 26 pounds as apposed to the 50 pounds I gained with my firstborn. I weigh less now than I did before I got pregnant!

Baby daughter was born July 23rd. She weighed in a much smaller 8lbs 6oz, 20 1/2in. Now I have two precious little girls!

We found out after about 4 weeks after she was born that she had a bad case of acid reflux. It ws causing her considerable pain and discomfort. And, unlike with some other babies who suffer, Rayah didn't have a failure to thrive. Instead, she gad gained 2 pounds in 2 weeks, a total of 4 pounds in one month due to her comfort feedind in attempt to ease her pain. She would cry for hours many times a day, unconsollable; driving my dh and myself crazy! She spit up large quantities several times in an hour! I would change my shirt 3-5 times a day, and her clothes just as much! And she would only sleep for minutes at a time before waking up crying, starting the crying for hours all over again. Very frustrating, if you can imagine.

We tried mylicon gas relief, which helped a little, but nothing significant. I then went online and found info pertaining to her symptoms...she had ALL the symptoms of acid reflux. Although I wish she didn't have this, I was glad there was a reason for what she, and dh and I, were going through. I made an appointment with her pediatrician and requested medication to ease her pain. She was reluctant to give me anything, saying it's normal for babies to have acid reflux and all babies have it, yadda yadda. I knew it wasn't normal. I have a firstborn who NEVER had these issues. I told her I wanted to try a perscription for acid reflux. She relented and gave us a sample. And surprise, surprise. It worked! Rayah slept like a normal baby, ate with fewer spit ups, and was overall a more pleasant and happy baby. I was thrilled, so I got the perscription filled for her and we have much happier days and nights with Rayah. Everyone, even the toddler, have less issues and we all sleep better at night. No more crying ringing in my ears. I used to hear Rayah crying, even when she wasn't. We've changed how we do things with her, too. We keep her upright for at least 30 minutes after a feeding, keep her upper body elevated when she sleeps, and burp her frequently, at an angle, with little to no pressure on her tummy. This makes for a happy baby and less messes to clean up!

She still has bad days, though, but they are not nearly as frequent, and we no longer feel like throwing ourselves in front of a train! LOL! Life is much better now...from that end.

But we have, at the same time as all this was happening, and is still happening, a toddler going through her terrible two's. This alone can drive me to drinking if I were a drinking woman. Alethea is blatently disobedient. Beligerent and difficult. She just doesn't want to listen and, as a result, gets her bottom swatted every now and then. Nothing harsh or violent. Just a couple swats on her diaper padded rear. It drives the point home...sometimes. But I get through this phase by knowing that it's temporary, even though there are times when I want to give her to someone else until she's over it! LOL. And the good news? Once she's out of it, I'll have to deal with the terrible twos with Rayah right afterwards! We've decided that we aren't having any more until Rayah is potty trained. We still have to potty train Alethea, but she's resisting, even though she clearly wants to learn and is showing all the signs of being ready, so we're waiting.

Alethea will be turning 2 next month. She's getting so big. Its crazy that she's almost 2! They grow up so fast.

My nephew, my youngest sisters son, will be turning 1 at the end of next month, as well, and my other sister is pregnant with her first. My dad is retiring from 26 years in the Navy. My mom is looking forward to that!

Well, that's all for now. Got to finally go to bed. The little one woke me up at 3:45am and just went to sleep about 20 minutes ago. Time for me to go back to bed.

How Could A Mother Do That?

How on earth could a mother kill her own child? I'll never get used to it. Why on earth would you kill your own flesh and blood? Someone who relies and trusts you with her very life? I can't imagine such a thing. My children are so precious to me. So absolutely precous. When I look into their eyes, I feel such love and warmth; such a deep-rooted desire to protect my precious little gifts from God from all the bad things in this world. To kill your own child, you must be possessed by something evil.

I watch news reports on this happening, and it seems to increase every year. A mother cuts off her baby daughter's arms and legs, then calmly calls 911 to tell them her baby is dead because she cut off her limbs. Another mother drowns her 4 children, one by one, in the bathroom tub, while each crys and begs her not to, all the while unable to be successful in their frantic struggles to free themselves from her grasp. And then she as the nerve to blame it on God. Why do these crazy women do this? Say God told them to do it...as if! She said she was trying to save them from hell. Stupid women. I hope she rots in jail, just like the woman who butchered her baby girl. Another woman lets her car drive into a river/lake with her kids still buckled in, drowning them, all because her boyfriend didn't want her kids. So she chooses to drown them to save her relationship with her boyfriend. Sacrifices her kids for the relationship! Obsurd! Appauling! Outrageous!

And the list is endless, but those are the ones that stick in my head the most. And I don't wanna hear about people blaming it on post-partum depression. That's crap... I have a baby that drove me crazy for the first 4 weeks of her life due to acid reflux issues. She would cry for hours and hours and hours before she would go to sleep. But, as much as I may have been at my end, I could never have hurt her. I used to put her down and shake the living daylights out of a pillow or something, but never her. She's my baby. I carried her for 9 months in my body. I felt her grow and move. When she was born I counted her little fingers and little toes, and kissed her precious little baby-ness: those little cheeks, those little lips, that little button nose, and her hands and feet. God gave her to me. How could I harm her because my nerves were fried? Whenever we've had enough, there's always more we can take. It's a constant stretching of our patience. Kids work out our patience, so that we can handle more. If you couldn't handle children, why are you having them? If you were a responsible person, you would do what's best for the child and give them to someone who could care for them without resorting to the sort of violence that these women resorted to. There is NO justification for such an atrocity.

Sorry, I just had to vent. I could go on and on, but it's a morbid and disturbing subject. Hold your beloved children tighter this holiday, and pray for the safety of the children who were unfortunate enough to be born to women such as these.

Creatively describe the weather in your area right now.

The weather here in Seattle, Washington is currently living up to it's reputation. Right now there are light gray clouds covering the beautiful blue sky and blocking out the warm rays of the sun. Today the clouds are taking a break from releasing their rain on the earth. The air is clean, crisp and fresh from the weeks of rain. There is a light breeze gently flowing through the trees, causing the branches to sway slightly. With the changing of the leaves on the trees, you can watch them as they dance a beautiful, colorful dance. If you are outside and take a deep breath, you can smell winter in the distance. It is snowing in the mountains. We've had a very rainy year so far. And plant life here has been thriving because of it. Although some would complain of the rain, I find it soothing and a wonderful change from last year, when rain was scarce and the grass was a dull brown and very dry. If you visited Washington then, you wouldn't really understand why this State is called the Evergreen State.

Everywhere you look, God has painted the landscape in the colors of Fall. Trees have shed their leaves, causing them to cascade down to the wet, green grass below. As you look at those trees that are bare, you can almost imagine that their branches are dozens of hands reaching up towards God and heaven, as if in thanks for the abundance of rain and for being free from the waterlogged leaves. And as the breeze causes them to sway, they look as if they are praising Him. Such breathtaking beauty is awe-inspiring. Just looking at all the beauty God has created makes me want to stop and admire His handywork. Surely God is pleased.

Fall is a time when Nature sheds it's old skin and prepares for the long months when it will rest and then begin to grow new, fresh skin. Oh how I love Fall. The soft, gentle, fragrant breeze that seems to caress my skin and embrace me with a cool kiss; it relaxes and sooths my soul. What beauty! What serenity! That Man has been blessed to witness this wonderful season every year!

This is the weather I am in. One of my favorite seasons. The weather isn't too hot or too cold, it's perfect for me! A time to bundle up or cuddle up next to the ones you love and just enjoy them and their warmth! A wonderful time of the year. This is the weather I am in.

Everyone has at least one travel 'horror' story. Share your worst experience(s) with us.

I sure do have one of these.

In June of this year we went to Hawaii with Alethea, who was 6 months old at the time, to visit my dad. The trip there was perfect. We only paid for 2 seats but the plane wasn't full. We picked seats in the center aisle but my husband and I had both aisle seats in hopes that the center seat wouldn't be taken or, if it was, that the person wouldn't mind moving so we could have the row to ourselves. It worked. The person who had the center seat was moved to a row by herself (a window seat). Everything was great. When Alethea fell asleep we placed her in the seat between us. She didn't fuss at all. It was great. We had an early flight (8am), but it worked perfectly for her schedule.

The return trip wasn't so great. In fact, it was horrible!!! I had picked a flight that would get us home a little bit before her bedtime. It would have worked, too, except for that our flight was delayed 3 hours! And we didn't find out until we had reached our gate. How annoying! I checked in online and no mention of a delay, even though they knew it was delayed many hours before that.

Well, our seats were right next to the engine so, not only was it loud, it was very warm, too! None of us could get comfortable. It was a full flight and we had a 2 seater by the window. Horrible. Alethea couldn't get comfortable enough to stay sleeping. She was so warm. I had her in only her diaper for the entire flight! She was fussy and whiny and everything! Totally what I wanted to avoid. I didn't feel sorry for the other passengers, though. We all paid for our seats and I couldn't help how my daughter felt. I felt the same way! It sounds horrible but, I didn't care! We were all miserable! 6 hours is a long time when you have an uncomfortable 6 month old who can't get to sleep and it's past her bedtime. We didn't pull into Seattle until 1am. Alethea had just fallen asleep and I had just put her clothes on so I wouldn't wake her. I carried her out of the plane and, even though we had our stroller, I carried her all the way to baggage claim so nothing would wake her. My husband and I were exhausted. But he got to sleep a bit. I didn't. I was concerned over keeping my daughter cool and as comfortable as possible. But then again, I haven't been able to sleep on planes for quite some time.

When we got to baggage, my mom was there to pick us up (she had our car). Alethea chose that time to wake up. She was so happy to see her Mime. She was comfortable and she was happy. I dropped her off with my mom and went with my husband to help locate our baggage (he didn't really know which ones were ours). When we got home, Alethea was so pumped up from the excitement at baggage that she was up for another hour plus! All I wanted to do when we got home was sleep, but I couldn't until Alethea went to sleep.

If we had just had an ontime flight, none of that horrible flight would have happened! It is forever etched in my mind! One thing's for sure, I'll be making sure Alethea has her own seat AWAY from the engine from now on and I'll be CALLING to find out about any delays beforehand, that's for sure.

You can tell a lot about a woman by her purse (and its contents). What do you think?

Wow. Well, I don't have a purse, per se. I have a diaper bag/purse. The only thing that's for me in the diaper bag is my wallet. That's it. Nothing else. Everything is for my daughter, so I guess you can tell I'm all about my daughter. I don't even use my real diaper bag anymore. It's just a shoulder bag with little seashell charms on it that my stepmother gave me when we were visiting them in Hawaii. It's bright blue and my husband thinks its girly so he doesn't like to carry it like he did the diaper bag. That's fine with me cause I'm girly. :)