July

I can tell you right up front, this entry will not be my best one. I'm just not in the mood to write well. Hell, I might not even edit it. *gasp!*

Things around here have been busy. Before this week Max and I pretty much spent every day he was home going somewhere that he could play. I knew that August was going to be busy and he was going to spend a lot of time at daycare. So I wanted to make the most of July. And the weekends have been full of visitors- both family and friends.

Just this week Natalie had the twins. Their names are Aleah Marie and Eliana Estelle. And because my blog is private, I can say this- I don't like their names. My s-i-l always picks such prissy names. And frowns when we try to give them nicknames. Anna is always called Annaliese by her parents. I think it's a mouthful. I didn't like her name either. I know, I know, it's their kid. But we all have to use the name too! And SHE has to go to school with it! So fortunately, Max can't say their names. He calls them Lili and Eli. Also fortunately, Natalie thinks it's cute that he can't say their names. Secretly, I'm going to pay him to keep saying those names until the cute factor doesn't count. Maybe by then the nicknames will STICK. Haha.

I am desperately clinging to the last weeks of my summer. Only 3 weeks left after this one until I am back to work full time. That....makes...me...sad. Plain and simple, I don't want to go back. I like the routine that Max and I have at home. And I like having a clean house. Kendall doesn't clean. And so unless I am home to put everything away, our house goes to shit. Case in point- we've been at the hospital all week visiting and trying to help out where we can. Our house- shit hole. *sigh* I've had to get up two days this week at my normal work time to go to summer workshops. Both days SUCKED. :P I have to do it again tomorrow. It will suck as well.

We got some interesting news this week on the get-a-sibling-for-Max front. Catholic Social Services informed me that we are eligible for their next home study group. This is a big surprise to us because we never repaid the fee to go back on the waiting list. We just told them to put us at the bottom and we'd let them know. I guess that meant we got to work our way back UP the list again. Which means that adoption is still a very REAL and CLOSE possibility for us. Which both comforts me and tears my heart out at the same time.

It helps to know that adoption is still an option and makes me excited that we wouldn't actually have to wait 'til Max as almost 4 for it to happen. It kills me to think about because as bizarre as it sounds, I so want to be where Natalie is right now. Recovering from another c-section. I'm not sure what that's supposed to tell me. I feel like my heart really is open to the idea of bringing someone else's baby into our home and making them OUR baby. But because of Max, I think I would always question whether we could still have more biological children. Maybe this is God's way of telling me to take some time off from killing myself to have a biological child. And maybe we could come back to it later when we wanted a third. Still a lot to think about.

Some quick things about Max and I'm outta here!

His latest favorite: Up and Down. He will use any prop he can get his hands on to demonstrate the concept of going up and down. Sometimes, when there are no props available, he'll use his body to go up and down. It's pretty funny.

His new favorite toy: General Red. A big plastic horse my mom bought him when she was here to visit for my birthday. Kendall wanted to name him General. I wanted to name him Red. A nice compromise was formed. Who cares what Max wanted to name him!

18 Month Check up: Weight- 28 pounds (50th to 75th percentile), Height- 35 inches (95th percentile- child, stop growing! This will put him FOR SURE over 6 feet as an adult.), Head Circumference- 53 centimeters (OVER the 95th percentile- which means he has a VERY large brain. Just the way I like 'em!)

Stressed

So ever since our vacation, things have felt stressful. Between being sick, catching up on bills, cleaning the house and dealing with Max's meltdowns, I'm getting worn out. We even decided that we'd wait another month to go back to the fertility doc because we're so tired and stressed. And that's big for us, because I was fully planning on going back as soon as I could.

We're also trying to refinance our mortgage. While on vacation, our loan officer called us to let us know we were eligible for a signifcantly lower interest rate. So significant that it will save us 250 dollars a month on our monthly payment. The only glitch, we have to get the house appraised for the same amount it was given three years ago when we bought it. While it doesn't sound that hard, I'm worried that in this current economy we're going to get hit. I REALLY want this refi to happen. It will add up quickly to more money in our savings account for fertility treatment, home improvement (which will only raise the value of our home more) and overall more money for emergencies. The appraiser is coming today at 10. So keep your fingers crossed for us!

Max is starting to hit his terrible twos a little early. He has been throwing more and more fits and temper tantrums. He's been hitting and throwing and occassionally biting. It's hard to yell at him and spank him sometimes. And at other times, extremely easy. :) I have to make sure that I don't just fly off the handle and that I give him ample warnings and explain WHY he is being punished or spanked. I have spanked him enough now (for serious things like throwing at the dogs or running away from me in public) that when I ask him "Do you want a spankin'?" he actually says, "No!" and stops the behavior. (I KNOW that sentence isn't punctuated correctly, but I'm on summer vacation! :P)

I'm also starting to stress about school. I'm nervous about team teaching with someone full time. Especially because she's totally ADHD. It's going to be a long year if we don't get along. At least I have a good idea of what the kids are like. Many of them are good kids (according to my friend Leslie who had them last year) and that matters more to me than if they are straight A students. If they are trying to do their best, that's all that matters.

Okay, I feel a little better. I just have to tell myself that it will all work out. We are going to try "on our own" this month for baby #2 (even though our hopes aren't high it will work, you never know) and have several other things on the agenda socially. We've also talked about several other home projects, especially if the refi goes through. One of them is an egress window for the basment so that we could list our home as a 5 bedroom. Plus, it would add a lot more light to the spare room down there. Additionally, we still want to paint several rooms, including a bigger room for Max. Now if only I could get my brother to come down and paint....

HECK YEA!

So the language arts coordinator for our school district sent me a text today that had me smiling. You're probably wondering, "He texted you?" Yes. He used to be our assistant principal and we became friends while he was in our building. And he's very good about using modern technology to communicate. Anyways, you're also probably wondering, "What did the text say?" Wellll....I found out that 100% of my kids passed the OAA (Ohio Achievement Assessment)! That means even the ones that were total TURDS and didn't write much for their answers had a passing score of at least 75% or better.

I also found out that I have a Perfomance Index of 111! The coordinator also told me that he thinks I got the highest PI of all language arts teachers in the district! HECK YEA!

I feel like all of my hard work this year paid off. Especially because I didn't feel like it was my best year since I was balancing work and family. Since my "arch nemesis" is teaching the advanced kids this year, I'll be very interested to see how their scores do....

Max at 18 Months

This will probably be a lengthy post and is mostly for my benefit, since typing is faster than writing. I want to document all of the things that Max can already do at 18 months. Sometimes I worry that he is "behind" and then I read all of the things he can do and say and understand, and I think that he's doing just fine. :)

Words he actually uses: Mommy, Daddy, book, dog, out, up, ball, Manny (The Handy one), Nana, banana, Anna (all slightly the same but with point we understand), Morrie, Maggie, grandma, Aunt Nat, Tasha (day care person), Kelly, Max, me, eat, baby, more, Elmo (Momo), poop, choo choo, wheee!, uh-oh, apple, clean up, Oooh hot!, juice, didi (means his pacifier), fish, cake, TV ("TB") beep beep and black berry (his most recent word).

Animals he can identify/noises he can make: Horse (Nay), Cow (Mmmmmm) (his two favorites), Sheep (Ba), Goat (Na), Elephant (trumpeting sound), Chicken (Buck), Duck (Quack), Bird (Tweet), Cat (Meow), Dog (Woof), Lion (Roar), Tiger (Grr), Monkey (Ooh ooh), Turkey (tongue wiggling on his lip kind of sound), Frog (Bit) and Camel (spitting noise). He can also identify: Parrot, Mouse, Giraffe, Fish, Guinea Pig, Lizard, Snake, Zebra, Bear, Penguin, Pig, Bunny, Bug, and Butterfly.

Other words he understands and points to but doesn't say: Flower, plane, tractor, truck, train, boat, pear, broom, spoon, fork, bib, bathtub, slide, swing, Ernie, Bert, Zoe, Rosita, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover, Oscar, outside, bye bye (for leaving the house, he stands by the door), night night (heads for the stairs to his room), time to change your stinky/poopy butt (knows to lay down so I can change it or go up to his room), say hi/bye (he waves), basement/downstairs, and get in your chair.

His "favorites": Tomatoes, bananas and hot dogs are his favorite foods. His favorite animals are horses and cows. It used to be dogs. He also likes giraffes a lot lately. His favorite muppet is Elmo, closely followed by Ernie. His favorite Disney character is Handy Manny. His favorite thing to say right now is "ooh hot!" He says it about his food and the weather outside whenever we step into the sun. He likes to pick his nose and stick his hands down his poopy diapers and smear them on his legs and sheets. (Sorry, gross.) When you yell at him for picking his nose, he squeezes both nostrils and says, "Honk!" He likes Morrie better than Maggie, but mostly because Morrie stands still and lets him pet him. He's really into books, but mostly books that he can point to objects in. Most of his favorites are used books from the library sale.

Things he can do: Put his arms in the sleeves, legs in the pants (with support), climb steps and slide down them on his belly, go down slides on his stomach (even the really big swirly ones at the park), tries to put on his socks and shoes, eat with a spoon and fork (still won't decide if he's lefty or righty, good with both hands), color with crayons, clap and dance with music without prompting, ask to watch TV ("TB") and applaud you when you let him, throw a ball with two hands, build block towers without prompting, make his stuffed animals and plastic farm animals walk and talk to each other, climb in and out of his wagon by himself and ride a Power Wheels with steering assistance. I'm sure there are many other things he can do, these are the ones at the front of my mind.

He also is starting to understand colors. They claim at school he says some of the colors and will point to them. He definitely understands the color red because we are only allowed to pick and eat the RED cherry tomatoes. Sometimes he's too excited to wait for me to wash them and will eat them straight off the plant.

I could go on forever, but this gives a pretty good picture of things he can do. Sorry it was so lengthy. Will try to keep it more brief in the future with only new words and activities. :)

Eventually, I WILL update this blog....for now, this is what we're up to...

Question

If someone apologizes to you, should you have to apologize back even if you don't feel you did anything wrong but they do? Just because they acknowledge that what they did was wrong, you might not feel the same way about what you did.

Furthermore, if you give an apology, but then point fingers at someone, is it really an apology or just a convenient way to point out what you think someone else did wrong?

Isn't the entire purpose of an apology to just say you're sorry for YOUR wrong doing and not expect anything in return?

Life

I haven't blogged in almost 2 months. Mostly because the things I would blog about haven't been very nice and I wouldn't have been able to blog about them in a very nice way.

The short of it...I've managed to miscarry one uterine pregnancy and am now dealing with an ectopic pregnancy that fertilized at the same time....basically freakish twins. It only happens to 1 in every 35,000 women. It's been incredibly hard to deal with both emotionally and physcially.

The long of it. I spent 2 weeks FEELING pregnant. Morning sickness, tightening pants, raging hormones. No bleeding, hardly any drama. Then the bleeding started around week 6. Just spotting. No big deal. My numbers were still fine. The bleeding got heavier around 6 1/2 weeks. Panicked. Called the doctor. Wanted me to come in for an ultrasound to make sure the baby was okay. The ultrasound was heartbreaking. No baby. No heartbeat. Just a giant blob of tissue and blood that used to be my baby. My numbers had plunged. We went home to wait out the inevitable.

Just when I thought things were going to be okay and we could move on, I had lab work done again to confirm that my pregnancy hormone was at zero. It wasn't. It had jumped back up to my original numbers and the doctor was in a panic. I went in for ANOTHER ultrasound. This time, they found bleeding and tissue near my right ovary. Two choices: Surgery or a chemotherapy drug injection. I opted for the injection. I have have up to three of them. It should dissolve the remaining tissue without the risk of losing my fallopian tube. I will know if it has started working this Thursday. If it doesn't work, I have to go in for another shot.


It doesn't help that I'm SURROUNDED by pregnant women. My sister-in-law is huge. 3 more months til the twins are here. Jessica is almost 17 weeks. There is a woman at school that is due in 4 weeks. My neighbor's daughter and son are both expecting babies in October. At least 4 other friends or acquaintances are due to have babies this fall. I swear if one more person tells me they're having a baby I may just flip my lid.


I'm so greatful that I have Max and Kendall. Coming home every day to my boys does make things easier than they were before. Everything felt so empty every time we lost a baby before Max. And now I have this smart, adorable, amazing little boy who does things on a daily basis to both frustrate me and make me feel like the most important person in the world. Kendall has been incredibly patient and supportive. I know it's hard for him too, but sometimes that's easy to forget when I'm the one going through the physical as well as emotional stress.


So I'm definitely ready for summer vacation. And a summer of fun with Max. We can't try again until the fall and I plan on spending the next three months swimming, at the park, at the zoo, on any field trip I can think of to keep us happy and busy. We're taking a vacation the third week of June and I want to try and work a second one in once we have a better idea of when Natalie will have the girls. Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative.


I end with the lyrics to one of my favorite songs when I'm feeling down. "Sunrise" by Brandon Heath:


All you need is a sunrise


Just a moment of dawn


If you're lost in the twilight


Close your eyes and move on


When you're tired in the waiting


Even though it's gonna take you


A little more time


Just a little more time, the sun's gonna find you