| | I am sad. I wish that there weren't so many people living in poverty and starving. Or having no freedoms at all and living in war torn nations or having awful diseases ravage their countries. I have a hard time with how rich the US is and I feel like there has got to be so much we can do. But I don't know what. Why can't some of our millions of dollars in movie revenues go to feed starving children and their parents and the other people in their villages. Why can't we, instead of living the luxurious life we are used to, help give homeless people places to live. I never realized how we are so utterly blessed to be where we are. My family has a house, 2 cars and we eat at least 3 meals a day. Most people in America have these things but that is definitely not the norm a lot of countries in this world. I feel so bad that we have all that stuff and are still not content. There is always something more to get. I feel so selfish. I also feel so completely frustrated because I don't have a single clue how to help. How to feed the people that need feeding or to protect the people being massacred or to put a roof and heat over people's heads. I feel so helpless, what can I do to help? I truly, truly want to do something. And yet I will probably close this entry and go back to my padded little life and never do anything at all because I don't know what to do. I wonder how mother Teresa got started helping people or how that one scientist knew how to created golden rice. I don't know how all these people got started. I don't know what to do. I want to stop being an arrogant American who lives a rich, cushy life and thinks the whole world lives this way. I want to take my head out of the sand. But once I do, then what????? | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| Well its been awhile since I have posted so I felt obligated to get something up here. I am not sure what to say. My life has consisted of work, Leah and Nathan, and hanging out with friends (not too much of that though, cuz I also have to squeeze in sleep). Plus the holidays are oh so hectic with trips and family and whatnot. For Christmas I got a membership to a gym and I am loving it!! Now I just have to get myself to wake up in the morning to go so I don't have to try and fit it in after work. Ok, I am getting bored with this, I will let you know when I have something fun to comment on. In the mean time, here is a updated picture of Leah's first Thanksgiving, birthday and Christmas.
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| Well it's been a couple months and I am still liking my job. I find it interesting how much working teaches me what I to make sure I teach Leah. I've decided that it is very important to me that Leah be respectful to her elders and to her peers. I have also learned that while it would be fun to spoil her I would not be doing her, or anyone else for that matter, any favors. Sometimes being in a Jr. High can test my patience. Enough about work.
Halloween was fun this year. I dressed up as Kermit the frog and when I walked into the living Leah took one look at me and started cracking up. Leah was a pumpkin this year, see:
Also, I recently let Leah play in the bathtub with a few tubs of colored cool whip.
Leah will be one this month. I don't know how that happened, it feels like she was just born.
Our friend Teresa is leaving us this January to go to school in Chicago. That stinks. I will miss her. She better come back and visit a lot.
I remember I had a specific thing I had wanted to post but I can't remember what it was. I guess I'll have to get back to you. Time for football!!! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Security: | | | Time: | 06:15 pm | | Current Mood: |  accomplished |
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Leah in her cuteness.
Daddy teaching Leah tricks of the trade.
Leah burying daddy at the beach.
Not super-recent, but Mario is in there, so you know it's gotta be good.
Leah's first airplane ride. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Security: | | | Time: | 05:10 pm | | Current Mood: |  bored |
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| Um Hello? Is anybody there? I am sorry. I know it's been a long time. Let me fill you in.
I believe I left off with Nathan's swollen face. Well I am not sure exactly what happened when but things have happened since.
Nathan's root canal went well, he ended up only needing one. I haven't had another trip to the hospital since well...last week, but that was for Leah, I haven't been there for an abscess since May. So the whole family has been healthy for one week and counting!!
Nate, Leah and I moved out of Katie's house and into our own. We are still working on renovations but it's livable here and we are actually sleeping in our bedroom now so that's amazing! Thanks to everyone who helped.
About a month ago I was in Connecticut visiting Rachel and a school system from this area called and offered an interview for me. I wasn't looking for a job but after a series of interesting events I decided to take the job. And I am loving it! I work about 30 hours a week and every Wednesday I have a half day. I like my student that I work with and I love the work that I do. I dislike not seeing Leah as much as I used to and some days it's really hard but for the most part I think working outside the home has made me a better mom. The time I spend with Leah has so much more meaning now and I'm excited to see her at 3:00 everyday. I'm not sure if I was cut out to stay at home. Which is interesting because every since I can remember I've wanted to be a teacher or a stay at home mom. I think I'll try again when Leah is old enough to communicate and we can actually do stuff together. I almost feel guilty liking my job so much. It's been a weird mix of emotions.
Ok, I am feeling particularly bored with this entry. Now that my obligatory "bring you up to speed" post is out of the way, my following posts will be actually interesting.
*Picture post on its way* | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| *UPDATE - Nathan has a double root canal tomorrow morning.*
So we got the house across the street that we wanted. Now the people who bought our house need to sort out the glich they are having in financing so that Nate and I can close on the new house. Nathan does a good job of explaining why we bought that particular house so I plan to just copy and paste from his journal, as I have other things to post about. "Here’s a picture of the new house from the porch of our current house… 
I know, it seems crazy to move to another place that is so flipping close. We had pretty much finished whatever real improvements we could do on our current house, so we decided to sell. As we went through the process of selling, we started looking for another place we could buy that could be fixed up. We looked at more than a dozen different houses of varying size, location and price. They were all what Realtor types would probably call “Handyman Specials.” We looked at the place pictured above a little over a week ago, it is in good enough condition that we felt confident in being able to do most of the work ourselves and we liked the layout. Our plan is to stay for a year or two and then move on to another place. We’re really just trying to keep our broker as busy as possible. More updates about how things work out, our renovations and all that coming up soon." Ok, so an update on the families health. About two weeks ago I got a nasty viral infection that I promptly gave to Leah, who promptly gave it to Nathan. It is finally pretty much gone. Other than that, Leah has been healthy. I wish I could say the same for Nathan and I. I got another abcsess, in the same spot. I now have to see some specialists. Nathan's toothache came back full force Saturday and yesterday his face started swelling. So he callled the dentist who called in a prescription for Nate to start. Nate sees the dentist this afternoon and I have a followup appt with my doc this afternoon as well. Thank God Leah has been relatively healthy(and sleeping well too!!). Plus, I finally figured out how to keep her poop in her diaper, all i had to do was stop giving her rice cereal. Nathan and I are now living with our friend Katie. We started moving into the house we planned on renting but a few days after we moved stuff in, the house was broken into and the copper piping was stolen. Not only that but the people stealing the piping left the water main on which ending up flooding the basement. So needless to say we couldn't live in a house with no running water and we didn't feel comfortable in a house that was so recently broken into. So Katie was amazing enough to let us move in with her. It's been nice to have a place to stay and we feel really comfortable here. Katie's a great friend.
I got to go interpret for the whole day on Thursday. It was nice, I didn't realize how much I missed it until I was there. I think I'm going to let the agency know I'm ready to come back. Maybe just work once a week or something. Ok, so i've updated about the house, the move, our health, work, I think I'm done. Over and Out. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Last night at Las there was a conversation about societies pressure on women to be thin. Ok, the whole conversation wasn't about that but that was one of the points we touched upon. Well, today I stumbled onto America's Next Top Model and I watched a bit of it. They have two plus sized models on the show. I found out that one of the "plus size" models wears a size 8. A SIZE 8!!!!! How on earth is that considered plus size!?!?! Anyway, i just thought it was interesting that we talked about the absurd pressures put on women in our culture to be thing and I think this is a perfect example. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Three nights ago Leah was up every two hours. Not to eat, just to fuss and scream about being in her crib. Then the next night she slept from 10pm-4am then back to sleep til 8. It was amazing. Then last night she slept from 10pm til 6am then back down til 8. I'm so proud!
In other news, I think Nathan and I have found a house. We are putting an offer on it today. I'll let you know how it turns out. If we get it, it would be hilarious because of it's location. It's across the street from where we live now. No Really, I'm not joking. If the offer goes through I'll explain a bit better.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go clean the bed sheets which were just spit up all over. Ah, the joys of motherhood. :-) | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Ok, as a reply to Andy's request back in October for me to update, here we go. You'll notice I haven't been on here since July. I'll do my best to fill you in. I really don't remember much of anything before November. Leah decided to come along on Nov. 24th, the day after Thanksgiving, at 7:34 am. Which means that I was having contractions all day on Thanksgiving. It wasn't bad though, we stopped by the hospital at 9ish just to make sure things were ok and they ended up keeping me there. I started having pain with the contractions around 2am. It was all over by 7:30am. During our stay in the hospital Leah was called Feisty and Pissy by the nurses and every single time they brought her back from the nursery they said to me, "you better have a swing at home" and then they would leave quite quickly. To say the least, Leah was a bit cranky, and she let you know it, for the first 2 months of life. She has since improved and is now a cute, smiley baby who occasionally has a colicky night.
For the most part, the past 3 months have not been good medically. Apparently while I was in the hospital for delivery I fed Leah wrong for a few days. This resulted in massive wounds on very sensitive parts of my body. These usually heal within a week but in my case it took 4 1/2. It was prolonged due to the fact that I got a yeast infection in my milk ducts. The symptoms of which were itching, burning and the feeling of shards of glass in my ducts. So needless to say feeding the little lady resulted in a nightly tear-fest.
2 days after I healed fully from all that I got a sore on my bum. I went to the hospital for it on New Years Day and found out it was an abscess. They opened it and drained it and then Nate had to pack it twice a day for me. That lasted about 3 weeks. While they drained it they put me on antibiotics but oral antibiotics weren't strong enough so i had an IV in my had for 4 days and I had to make 2 trips to the hospital that would last between 2 and 4 hours each. This is a bit irritating when you have a child to feed and she can't come with you. Plus taking care of a 5 week old with an IV in your hand is quite the challenge. However one good thing is, while I was there we figure out that the rash I had come home with from the hospital for delivery was actually a yeast infection on my legs. Hard to get rid of but treatable.
We then had a Dr. appointment to discuss Leah's projectile vomit habit and her crankiness. She has acid reflux so the dr. put her on medicine to help take the discomfort away. I had to administer this grape-peppermint nastiness twice a day. That was on top of the antibiotics I had to give to her 4 times a day to prevent the yeast from me infecting her mouth.
So things were looking up, the packing was over and I was able to sit again so I thought things were going to settle down. Unfortunately that Monday(the 29th I believe) Leah was acting very lethargic and was very warm. Her fever spiked that night and I whisked her away to the emergency room. After doing a million tests, including the threat of a spinal tap, and a few x-rays, they decided she had a Urinary Tract Infection(UTI) which is extremely rare in 2 month olds. So they admitted her and there we stayed for the week. On Wednesday night Nathan stayed with Leah in her room while I went down the to ER with another abscess. This one made it difficult to sit or walk, which is not appreciated when you have a colicky infant who can only be consoled with a specific combination of bouncing and walking. So anyway, after an awful Wednesday/Thursday we were discharged Friday night and on the way out I had a reaction to the meds they had given me. So Nate and I stayed while my mom took Leah home. The good thing about this stay though was that I got to talk to a lactation consultant to figure out why there was still soooo much pain when I tried to feed Leah. We figured out that I produce too much milk and it comes out WAY to fast for her little mouth to keep up with. So to stop the flow she was pinching me. The consultant gave me a few things that might help alleviate the pain and things have slowly been improving ever since. It doesn't even hurt to feed her anymore!! It's amazing.
We spent most of February recuperating and in Dr's appointments, both hers and mine. They ruled out kidney reflux in her so her UTI was just plain bad luck. They figured out the reason for my abscesses was that I had contracted MRSA during labor and delivery. It isn't curable. You can find more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRSA The up side is that now when I go to the hospital I have to have a private room. The down side is that I may continue to randomly get abscesses or boils.
Recently she had a dr appointment and we decided the acid reflux medicine wasn't helping so we stopped giving that to her and we got to stop the antibiotics. So now I only have to give her vitamins once a day. AND last night she slept 5 hours straight!!!
Also Nathan and I put the house up for sale a few weeks ago and it sold right away. So now we are in the process of trying to find a new house. I don't know why, but I think it is soooooooo much fun to go look at houses.
So for everyone who has called or sent letters and hasn't got a response yet, give me about another week and you should hear from me. I haven't meant to neglect people, I've just had a lot on my plate. When Nate gets some time to show me how to post pictures I will put some up on here. Hopefully that won't take me another 7 months. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
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monkeysgirl417's journal
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