Lot's going on

Soooo, I have had a crazy 2 weeks. Spring break is here and in full effect. The shop was busy last week with private school break, and this week has been hopping because of public school break. Loving all the new customers, but I am pooped! I started at Weight Watchers as of today. I have finally found my tipping point and I can't take it anymore. Plus, I don't want to look like a pregnant person during our Memorial Day get-together. MAJOR NEWS: I have decided that I am going to move the new store. Yep, you heard it right, I am going to move the new store. I am TRYING to make this move in the next month. Again, yep, you heard it right. Nothing like running around like a chicken with your head cut off. I am going to look at a possible place first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will work out, the money will be right and we can move forward. I will keep you posted. Reagan as also been off this week and is driving me a little crazy! I had Haley (a customer/friend) come watch Reagan while up at the shop yesterday. She was a big help and I think I may use her more this summer. She is in middle school, so not old enough yet to leave her home with Reagan, but up at the shop works great. I really miss you all and I can't wait until Memorial Day.

Love,
Me

Blanket over my head

So this is how I feel--can I pull the blanket over my head?!?!?

There is really no good news here. As you all know, I unexpectedly lost my job last Monday and I am still in shock. I have cried, been pissed off and hit a pillow! We officially lost the house as we don't qualify for the financing. I removed Rebecca from day care so now I am a stay at home mom looking for a job. It is really hard to find adequate time to search for a job while taking care of her.

I know all the optimists have told me it will be ok but today I am really sad and pissed at the same time. We were supposed to close on the house today. We were 8 days away from the life I have worked so hard for--we had exactly what I wanted for Rebecca and now it just seems so far away and unattainable to me. I just feel like a 34 1/2 year old failure as I still can't get my sh!t together. I have this feeling of guilt in relation to Sean as I made his personal dream disappear. That eats at me daily. I hate the fact that he had to suffer.

My parents are still coming to see Becca and allow me to search for a job during the day so that will be nice. As for the future, Sean and I have decided to limit my job search to Florida as we are both licensed if I decide or have to practice law. It would be nice to get out of S. Fl but Sean loves his job and I would hate for him to loose that considering it took him so long to find a job he loves.
The decisions we have to make are huge and I want to pull the blanket over my head!

Yallaly update

Ok, so I am so far behind in updating pictures and stories. I am working on a great post in my head and maybe in the next few weeks I will get around to posting it. In the meantime, Reagan appears to be feeling better, I am taking her to work with me tomorrow. The shop is doing really well, we are sold out for this weekend's breakfast with Bun-Bun. I have planned Brian's birthday present for May and I am so excited that I want to tell him right now, but I know I have to wait. I hope he is as excited as I am about it. Here are some pictures from the last 6 months or so......

The Joys of Parenting--Allen Style

Uggh. What a past week and half! Where to begin...

Rebecca had diarrhea for a few days so I took her to the pediatrician on Thursday, March 4th. Dr. said she looks good, watch for dehydration and give her some pedialyte. Cool, we can do that.

Oh then on Friday I get a call that the new house didn't appraise and the sale is in jeopardy. Super!

At 5am on Sat, March 6th she has a fever of 101.7F. Take her to the pediatrician, again. Of course it is the one Saturday every 6 months Sean has to work. Dr said she has a double ear infection--orders blood work and a urinalysis (don't ask). I was there for 5 hours. She was super hot and clingy. He proclaims with sarcasm that she is the youngest baby with an ear infection he has ever seen. Wonderful. Give her this pink medicine, cool we can do that.

Oh, the seller decides that she will lower the price on the house--sale back on. Whew....Now we have to re-fill out all the mortgage crap....

Go back in for check up Tuesday, March 9th--ears look better. Tell the Dr. she has a occasional cough. He said if it gets worse bring her in. Cool, we can do that. Oh, did I mention that they misplaced Rebecca's chart. I had a 9:15 appt and had to "remind" them at 10:00 that I was still here and babies who came in after me had already been seen and left. Jeesh.

This Friday she starts coughing a lot. Of course with asthma in the genes we are keeping an eye on her. Sat the cough continues. Katee and Kirk are here to visit! Sunday she is starting to wheeze. We take her back to the pediatrician. He gets Rebecca to smile and laugh. He orders a chest xray and breathing treatments. We do the breathing treatment and she breaks out in this rash. Go get the Dr. He says stop the albuterol. Cool, we can do that.

He prescribes an alternative to albuterol. We had to go to 4 different pharmacies to find it. We find it. Yeah! Did I mention that this is all before noon on Sunday--and that the biggest street festival in the world is 2 blocks from our house and if we don't get home soon we will not be able to get home? I mean we would have to show ID to get to the area. Unbelievable. Oh and spring forward is fun....load of fun.

The final straw is that my mother-in-law is coming for a week starting tomorrow. She is renting a car at the airport but one of us has to go to the airport so she can follow us back to our house. Are you kidding me? Why is my life morphing into a bad sitcom episode--ha ha!

I will admit to having some alcohol over the past 10 days...I might need some more to make it through the week.

The Joys of Parenting

I'm sure you'll all remember my minor addiction to "tragic Mom" blogs. Well, perhaps it was all preparation for the past two weeks...

I never thought that I would EVER say, "I wish my child JUST had MUMPS!" And yet, I repeated those words about half a dozen times over the past week.

When I created this post about Loki having the Mumps, I'm not entirely certain that we even had doctoral confirmation. And while our doctor was fairly certain that we were correct and that Loki did indeed have the mumps, there's no way to tell for sure, without a blood test. And since you can't really treat the mumps anyway, we both decided that it was unnecessary, at the moment, and we'd revisit the topic the next time Loki had blood drawn.

After about a week of being not quite himself, Loki looked to be on the mend. He regained his interest in toys, his voracious appetite returned and he was pretty much the typical toddler we have all grown to know and love! EXCEPT that his mump lump didn't seem to be healing. In fact, it appeared to be getting redder and larger.

All of this would, of course, take place when WB and I were both SUPER busy AND when our doctor went out of town. So, I was corresponding with him via email and since Loki seemed to be acting pretty normally he assured us we didn't need to worry. By the time, I was too concerned to ignore this new growth that we came to call 'George', it was Friday afternoon just as the Doctor's office was closing so I had no choice but to wait until Monday morning.

By Monday, George was moving outside the city limits and trying to annex Loki's right eye. The doctor we saw ordered an ultrasound for Tuesday that nearly destroyed the very fiber that holds our toddler together and keeps his eyes in place. And by this morning George had his own zip code (and began building real estate on said eye (read: STY) !

After getting the run around nearly ALL day ~ the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist (whose receptionist wanted to know if Loki's problem was his " E - A - R" and to whom I wanted to respond to with, "No, it's his L - U - M - P" and I'm still not entirely sure why we were spelling things in the first place) took one look at Loki and told us his jaw was abcessed and that he needed to drain it. Which he did rather quickly and the promptly wrote a prescription for Amoxocillan and some crazy eye drop that should emancipate Loki's eye from the evil grips of George and his manifest destiny.

We have been worried sick for weeks and in 20 minutes time some strange man, in a strange place suctioned all of the anxiety carried in my sons ever growing chin into a little syringe and says, "I know it's kinda weird and gross but check this out," and waves around a milky bloody mess of goo that he plans to send off for analysis.

WOAH!

Between all of our appointments today, I single handedly wrangled both children into and out of Chick-fil-a. Another wild and wacky experience to add to my running list...and while it was difficult in and of itself, the hardest part was fighting back the tears as the other children on the playground looked at Loki and made faces and said things like, "I don't want to play with him, he's scary" and "Oh no, here he comes, run and hide."

Now, I know kids will be kids and I was probably a little strung out from all the anxiety of not knowing what sort of demon George was and also by the possibility of George having to be surgically removed (which is what the first doctor told us this morning), but wow, you don't really know what it's like until you are that kid (or that kid's mother). Though, in their defense, Loki did look a little frightening.

I'm just happy it's all over for now and that this "tragic Mom" can go back to being the zany mom who lets her son eat pizza in the bathtub!

Happy Birthday Crissy! ;o)

Hope you have a fantastic birthday filled with fun and laughter. Enjoy your time in Philly with your Mom and Dana. Hoping the baby shower is a big success. Wishing you a wonderful birthday and year ahead. Enjoy your day...you deserve it! xoxo

My Mump-alicious Munchkin

OY! And I mean it, too! OY!

It has been a LONG, trying few weeks. It seems like illness seems to be running rampant through our family tree. It starts at one end and by the time the last one's recover, the first one's are sick again.

Our immediate family is typically immune to these viral cycles. We just seem to have pretty strong constitutions. But Loki has been side swiped TWICE now.

He got the dreaded Norwalk Virus, that hit EVERYONE in our family with the exception of WB, Elora and I. But luckily, he was only down for about half a day. And NOW, he has the MUMPS.

That's right...the MUMPS! Oh, it's terrible...well, actually, it's not that bad. What's terrible is the thought that Whitebread and I gave it to him. Well, OK, we didn't really GIVE it to him, but we feel like we may as well have given it to him since we didn't vaccinate him against it.

Or atleast that was our initial knee jerk reaction. We chose not to vaccinate conscientiously. Mumps really isn't that bad of a malady. In fact, Loki is such a trooper. He looks just miserable (as evidenced by attached photos), but he's been in a GREAT mood. Now don't get me wrong, he is definitely sick. And does have a bit of trouble getting comfortable enough to go to sleep, but compared to that nasty Norwalk Virus, this is a walk in the park.

Here's hoping that you and yours are Virus FREE!