I found the boxes

that i wanted to buy last weekend. i had to search each of the aisles at the store very carefully and then finally found them. i dug through all of them and bought all of the ones that were in good shape. some of them had crooked spots where the corners met so i left those on the shelf. i think i'm going to hit up the other store out here in katy and buy all the ones they have too. i love these little boxes and cannot wait to start using them.





i think that the first one i'm going to work on is going to be used to store the coasters i made for my first swap-bot swap. then i think i'm going to make one with some frida sugar skulls. i have a bunch of plaster skulls that i cast and haven't painted. i also have an idea to make one with my nana's wedding picture, one with grandma ross' wedding photos and one with grandma ferns wedding photos.

tomorrow is the first day of school and i'm already dreading the morning routine with portia. she is such a crabby little person early in the morning. most of us try to keep our distance for about 20-30 minutes until she is in a better mood. i also have to deal with her making a million excuses everyday not to go to school....not fun at all. then after school she will complain about all the mean things other kids did at school and about the bitchy teachers oy. the upside is that jewel is always in a great mood in the morning and cannot wait to head off to school. and she comes home in a really great mood and will tell me how great her day went.

my neighbor asked me again this year to watch her kids until she gets home from work. i'm totally conflicted on what to do. i want to help her out cause she is a single mom and i know paying for day care is hard but her youngest is really a handful and so very loud. i talked it over with chris and he said to be honest with her and i want to be but i guess my own family makes me fearful about how other people will react. usually i get totally reamed by my family if i don't do what they want. for years i have wanted to tell my dad to butt out when it comes to how chris and i parent the kids, but i haven't because i know he will totally blow up and then we won't hear from him for who knows how long. same thing with my mom she will get totally offended scream and yell, use lots of guilt and then shut out the person that's pissed her off. *sigh*

gah the trip to schlitterbahn was okay. my dad spent the day bitching about everything under the sun...a co-worker, my mother, my aunt. i was totally left alone with him at the picnic table and had no choice but to listen.....or pretend that i was listening, every once in a while i kind of said "u huh" or "oh really?" lucien was having a total blast he loved the little kiddie pool with the slides.

he wore himself out pretty quick. the night before he stayed up very late then we got up early in the morning. he was awake for about 30 minutes and then slept the rest of the way there, about 2 hours. he played for a very long time and when he was totally worn out he got very cranky. so i held him and rocked him until he passed out, the whole time my dad was bitching about how he is such a titty baby and to just let him CIO, yeah well we don't do that dad! so i just ignored him and concentrated on getting lucien to nap, he finally fell asleep and my mom set up a lounge chair with towels on it and i was able to lay him on that to nap for a while.

when he woke up he was ready to go again and went right back to the slide. we did have one scary moment early in the day. my dad insisted he was keeping an eye on lucien so i could talk with my mom without running over to the little ramp right next to us to check on him. he was having fun just running up and down. he is showing signs of sensory issues and didn't like the way the wood felt where we were sitting. so chris comes to get some money in his wallet and says i'm gonna go get something to drink. we didn't realize for a couple of seconds that lucien was no longer on the ramp and i asked my dad "where is he?" ugh i don't know i just saw him there.....well shit the kids and i panicked and started looking for him. he was nowhere in sight and i started to panic. i ran over to where chris was and there was lucien standing behind him munching happily on his cheetos. i raised my voice a little and asked why he didn't tell us he was taking lucien. chris said he didn't even realize lucien had followed him and had no idea he was standing behind him.

he could have fallen in the pool behind chris!! he was wearing a life vest so he would have floated but still it would have scared the shit out of him. he doesn't speak clearly enough to understand that he shouldn't wander off without telling someone so that was really scary. he couldn't even tell someone his name or our names. his speech is very very behind where it should be. chris and i have been talking lately and we both think he may be on the autism spectrum or possibly dealing with aspergers syndrome.

i'm going to schedule an appointment with his pedi to see what she has to say about it and go from there. he has been showing some really unusual behavior and that is what has me slightly worried. he hates clothes and shoes. he will scream for them to be taken off and he gets angry right away if we don't do it quick enough. he lines up his cars and will get extremely pissed if someone moves one out of line or if he can't get them lined up perfectly quick enough. sometimes he zones out so bad that he will not respond to his name being repeated over and over again. he hates to have his hair touched or brushed. he refuses to eat most food and when he drinks his milk it has to be warm and he has to be laying on his mini couch to drink it or else it's like the end of the world. routine is very very important to him. things have to be done in a certain way everyday or he gets angry. and we are so not schedule people we kind of just let things happen and go about our day so it has been rough to deal with his need to be so rigid.

there are more things, i'm going to make a list for the doctors visit. but right now everyone in the house is attempting to talk to me while i try to type. doh!

i really hope it is nothing and he is just anal and taking his time to talk. lol a friend of mine recommended someone she knows to chat with about my concerns so i'm going to take her up on that offer.

i also am working on some charms for my second swap-bot swap that i will be sending off soon too. this week sometime. i made some in clay that came out really cute.




i have to get my poop in a group this week and get my swap stuff packaged up to mail out. it will be much easier with the kids in school this week. no more breaking up fights and answering 5 million questions all day. lucien will be sad without them here cause he loves to play with his big sisters. and he will be super happy when they get home, especially with the 2 extra kids that will be coming with them.

lately lucien has been very fascinated with putting things in the toilet. i remember when portia and jewel went through this phase. once jewel put a whole bar of soap in the toilet and it clogged it something awful. chris had to go out and buy a snake to get it out. we didn't know what was stuck in there so when the first chunk came out we were both saying "what the hell is that?" then the toilet started to bubble and smelled just like ivory so we figured it out pretty quick. we laughed so hard.

so the other day lucien was playing with a set of hot rollers in my bathroom. taking them off of the stick part and then sliding them back on in the right places. so i was very happy with that, it was sort of like putting together a puzzle. i left him to play and went into the other room for a minute. i was swapping out the wash loads when i thought i heard the toilet lid. portia was in my bedroom so i asked her if he was playing in the toilet......never trust someone elses word. she said no he's not and then she kicked this rubber ball and it sounded like what i had heard. so i'm thinking oh okay it was her playing with that ball not him in the toilet.

so he finally came out and we were all downstairs doing other stuff. i had to go the bathroom and chris said don't go in the downstairs potty for a while cause i just stunk it up. lol so i went up to my bathroom and lifted the lid and this is what i found.......



then a few days later i went to use the downstairs bathroom and found a bunch of polymer clay sushi beads (that i was going to use in the swap) in the bottom of the toilet. we have also found candy wrappers, a necklace, and barbie toys. i didn't take pictures of those just put on my rubber gloves and dug them out of the toilet to throw away. which is the same thing i did with the hot rollers. so tomorrow when i go grocery shopping i'm going to look for toilet seat locks for all 3 bathrooms. ahh the joys of toddlerhood. he is lucky he is so damn cute it helps him get away with a lot.

measles outbreak

An article was posted on my local mom’s group about recent measles outbreak. I was going to post a response to the group explaining how I feel about this, but decided to blog about it instead.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,379388,00.html

I think all parents, especially first time parents should avoid articles such as this that attempt to point the finger of blame at a certain group of people based on the fact that they do things differently. To me it seems like that is the focus of most of the articles I have read about the measles outbreak. Many of the articles seem one-sided and pro-vaccine.

I personally feel that too many parents will blindly follow doctor’s advice without doing the research first, because we have been told “doc knows best” and for me that is not always the case. I think as parents it is our responsibility to know what is being injected into our children’s bodies. For my children I believe little bodies that are so tiny shouldn’t be subjected to so many foreign substances all at once. Hep b, vitamin k, and eye goop (erythromycin or silver nitrate) in the hospital are way up there on my list of not going to happen to my babes. Most doctors will even fight parents or drop them as patients for delaying or not vaccinating. That says a lot about some medical practitioners. I would welcome such a reaction from my children’s pedi and I would immediately look for another that would value my opinion and the fact that I have spent valuable time and effort doing the research.

Also tugging at the parent’s emotions by using terms such as little children suffering such a disabling and unnecessary illness. Measles is just another childhood illness. If contracted it can be dealt with and treated so that the child fully recovers. Once upon a time that was not an option for parents and one of the reasons so many parents have a huge fear of their children contracting such an illness. I would much rather have my kids deal with this and have life long immunity. Most adults will not continue to be vaccinated for it into adulthood and if contracted over a certain age it can be very debilitating. I had an ex who had measles at 19 and suffered permanent sterility from having developed it at his age.

I don’t think any pharmaceutical companies are ever going to outright admit to vaccines causing autism. Most of the pharm companies are not willing to finance the cost of such experimentation and I think that says a lot . For my family it is not just the risk of mercury in the vaccines. So removing it from vaccines still does not make it feel 100% safe to me. Delaying and breaking up the vaccines rather then injecting them all at once is a very useful way of figuring out what is causing a problem. The same way we try new foods with little ones. Most parents will give a new food and wait a while before trying a new one to see if it causes any sort of reaction. But a lot of doctors will scare parents into believing that if they don’t do them right away or all at once that baby could contract the disease that they hope (no guarantee) to avoid with the vaccination. How many parents have heard other parents speak negatively about the parents who choose to delay or not vaccinate? Some people can be very judgmental and not the least bit understanding of parents who choose to make different choices than they have for their children. Doctors and nurses use guilt to toy with a parents’ emotions “could you live with yourself if your baby died from this illness?”

What works for some families doesn’t always work for others. Why can’t we as a society learn to be more accepting of others differences and support the choices that we make instead of speaking negatively about those choices? The only time I think that speaking out against another family’s choice would be if there was abuse involved. Unfortunately some will view delaying/not vaccinating a child as abuse.

So those are my thoughts on the subject. I tried to explain my feelings in a way that made sense, but I do suffer from mommy brain and some of it may seem a bit jumbled. :)

I'm a klutz

saturday night i broke a toe.......again!! thank goodness i got my birthday shop out of the way before i did it. :) chris took me to hobby lobby and let me buy whatever i wanted for my birthday. he says he still has some other stuff he will be getting for the actual day but all i want now is CAKE. i got a bunch of new goodies. etching cream, fabric pastels, fabric paints, new brushes (the nifty kind with the non-slip rubber grip handles, i love those), amazing putty, and glaze. i had so much fun picking out new stuff, the craft store is like a drug to me. lol

so late last night i was walking into my bedroom to make the bed cause i had just washed the sheets, i love love love clean sheets. i had the gameroom light on and thought that was enough light to see with so i didn't bother turning on the bedroom light, no i know i should have. when BAM i walked full force into something next to my nightstand. i screamed loud enough to make everyone run upstairs to see if i was okay. there i was hopping on one foot griping about a toy booby trap. portia admitted to leaving her leap pad next to my nightstand after her and lucien had played with it, instead of putting it up.

i thought no big deal i stubbed my toe the pain will pass in a little while. so i was sitting at my desk crafting away and i moved my foot owie wow wow it hurt like hell. so i shined my desk lamp on my foot and realized my 3rd toe was crooked, swollen and starting to change color. that was when i realized dammit all to hell i have broken another toe. earlier in the year i broke my big toe on the same foot.

today it is huge like a fat sausage, purple around the nail and very bright red all over the rest of the toe. *sigh* we put off our schlitterbahn trip for this week because last week everyone was really sick. we were all running high fevers, congested, coughing, sniffling and achey. but i am going to suck it up and go to schlitterbahn anyway i will just have to be extra careful not to slam my foot into anything. riding the big rides will be hard but i was joking earlier that i will ride with my foot up in the air. very lady like in a swim suit.

speaking of swim suits i bought a new one for the trip and i love it!! it is really cute and hides my cinnamon rolls well. chris loves it too. the girls all thought the waist was too high but i love the vintage look to it.

today we went to the dollar tree so i could look for these little wooden shadow boxes that crafty chica had posted about in her blog. i got stuck on the aisle with all of the scrapbooking stuff and loaded up with a bunch of nifty stuff. paper, stickers, paper crimper, small boxes, glue, tape, and a cute little skull container that i put my new paintbrushes in as soon as we got home. lucien was being his normal self in the store, screaming his head off because he wanted out of the cart to walk around. so chris took him out to the car while me and the girls finished up. well in my rush to get out to the car i totally forgot about the shadow boxes. doh so now i will have to back during the week to look for them.

after we got home i was checking my email and someone on freecycle posted a huge list of stuff. i asked for the scrapbooking magazines & an electric kettle and she said yes wheee. so we went to pick them up and there was a ton (about 18) in the bag and the kettle was still brand new in the box. big score. i was so happy and thanked her as soon as i got back home.

so all in all it has been a great weekend except for the broken toe and the forgotten shadow boxes. the good news about the toe is i already have a wrap, boot and crutches if i decide to use them. i hate wearing the boot but i will probably end up having to use it to keep from bumping my toe. i walked around on it too much today and it is really swollen so now i will keep my foot elevated for the rest of the evening.

i have to finish up some stuff for a swap-bot coaster swap and a onesie that will be sent to a friend in california along with some other stuff i have made for her and her baby. i need to remember to take pictures before i mail them off too.

well i have to hand over the laptop because my "boss" is asking to use it. lol

ugh summertime colds

why do we have to get sick in the summertime? it is so hot and i feel miserable. first lucien got it, then me, portia and i think marina's getting it too. being immuno-compromised...i'm usually pretty lucky and don't get sick when the kids do but not this time. when i eat, drink or breathe it feels like i'm swallowing ground up glass.

we have the schlitterbahn trip at the end of this week and i'm so not looking forward it to it. i don't want to spend the day running after lucien in the heat and i really am not looking forward to spending the whole day with my dad. but if i don't go i will be the big party pooper cause the kids have really been looking forward to this trip. we will have to spend several hours in the car to get there and then ride back after an exhausting day in the sun. wah wah wah
guess i will just have to suck it up. :)

today i charged the camcorder battery.....it was lost for a while but i accidentally found it yay!! and i figured out how to get it to play back on the tv. so i watched the video that was recorded a year ago when lucien was only a year old. oh my gosh it was so nice to sit and watch that. lucien loved to see himself and kept saying baby and pointing at the tv. so now i know how to do it i will make videos to send to family.

i had done several very short videos with my new camera, cause i couldn't figure out how to record for longer than 10 seconds. doh. but my mil and dad couldn't access them online from work. i finally got jewel to show my parents how to view them from home while she was visiting them. but my in-laws don't have internet access at home so they can't watch them.

so now i hope to make vhs copies here at home to send or take them somewhere to have them transfered to dvd's if they don't have a vhs player.

with this video you can see how my previous attempts on the new camera were way too small. i'm going to use this one to apply for mother of the year.....



after viewing you can click on my user name to see the other videos i have on youtube. :) they are all short and sweet but jewel wanted to see them while she was visiting with the grands because she missed her brother and sisters. awww