Getting To Know YOU!

Click the button, head on over, answer the questions and link up! Fun times! Since naps are being enjoyed by Grayson (it will be short lived!) and Claire (her two hour marathon sleep) and Ethan is enjoying some instant netflix (the only good thing about this crappy Tivo) then I get to do something fun! Here goes!

1. Have you ever snooped around someone else's house?
I've snooped in my family's houses, but really, there wasn't much I hadn't seen anyways. I once got chewed out by my grandmother's friend back in the day because while I was using their bathroom, I noticed my hair was getting little fly aways, so I took out my hairspray (yes, I totally carried around aqua net in the 8th grade in the mini backpack I called a purse..The important things in life when your 13) and fixed my hair. She thought I was using stuff in her bathroom and yelled at me. I refused to go to that woman's house ever again.

2. Can guys and girls be friends? ( thanks Jen!)
Yeah, I think they can. I myself only have 2 guy friends, and I've known them since 7th grade.

3. Can you curl your tongue?
I sure can!

4. Have you ever stolen anything?
Not intentionally. There's been a couple of times where I've paid, gone out to my car to put groceries away and come across a lone bottle of A1 sauce behind the diaper bag. Oops.

5. Would you rather talk on the phone or text?
It doesn't matter to me.

6. Memorial Day plans?
None. David works and Ethan's out of school. Maybe we'll try geocaching. There's a few in town!

7. What do you do to relax?
RELAX!? HAHAHA...No, really, I read. A lot. I'm trying to read Stephen King's Under The Dome right now, but I think I might have gotten in over my head with this one. It's HUGE!

8. Do you do anything to honor those that have died fighting for our freedom?
When I lived in Arizona, I would somtimes go out to my grandmother's house and help her put a flag and some flowers on my grandfather's grave, but I haven't been in Arizona for a memorial day since 2006, so I haven't done anything in a few years now. I do call and talk to my grandmother though.

The Crying Won't Stop...Except At Bedtime.

I'm starting to get concerned about Grayson's crying. It seems odd to me. He's almost 7 months old (just a few more days!) so I don't think it's colic. I haven't stopped giving him the acid reflux medication, but it doesn't seem to be doing much good anyway. He's quite happy in the morning, but when 11AM comes around, the screaming starts.

He's inconsolable. I rock him. I try to feed him, which most of the time results it my being bitten. I sush, I sing..Everything I can do. But the wailing continues. He usually takes a nap at about noon, but it's short lived, and the crying continues. He won't nap for extended periods of time. I know he's tired. I can see it when I look at him, but he just won't give up and go to sleep. He just cries. And cries. And cries some more. The crying stops when I feed him baby food at dinner time. Every other day he has a bath. He's peacefully asleep by 7:30 or 7:45. At 7AM the next morning, we begin again.

I'm don't think it's teething. He's got two teeth that he tests regularly during mealtimes. I don't think it's colic because he's almost 7 months old, and I've never heard of it starting so late or lasting so long. He was 8 or 9 weeks old when all this crying started. His acid reflux is under control with medication. So, what's up with the crying? I don't really know, but it's starting to bother me. It's starting to make me feel like something else is wrong. Something I can't fix. I told David that, and he said I'm just being paranoid. I'd rather be paranoid than not though. I think I'll be making an appointment with our doctor and see if he has anything to say.

See, I already know though that once I'm in that office Grayson will "magically" be better. It always happens. I once took Ethan to the ER with my MIL. He had a fever of almost 104. You would never have known it. He was running around that joint like nobody's business. All I could think was, "Man..No one's ever going to believe he's sick!" He did end up getting an IV, but the doctor was surprised he wasn't exhausted from his fever. Heck, so was I! But, I'd rather Grayson be "magically" better in the office and insist they take a look at him than not take him and regret it later.

Writer's Workshop: Wedding Do Over

It's Writer's Workshop time again. Head on over to Mama Kat's, pick a prompt and link up!

Today I chose the prompt If you could do your wedding over, how would you do it? Let's begin.

My friend, Jaime, recently got engaged. We went out and she bought a wedding dress about a week ago since David's Bridal is having their annual gown sale. We've been talking about bridesmaids dresses, bachelorette parties and other fun wedding things for weeks now. Her wedding is still a little more than a year away, but it has gotten me thinking, "Hmmm..What would my wedding be like if I had...?"

I planned my wedding in a month. Thirty days. That's 3-0. Our wedding was not super fancy, but I loved it. I have a friend whose a hairdresser. She was super excited to do my hair, and did my hair for free as a wedding gift. She did and absolutely wonderful job too. I went to high school with a girl who became a photographer and she gave me a super deal and my family could not stop talking about how polite and fun she was. We got married in my grandmother's backyard, which meant the world to me. It was the house my grandfather built, and it was filled with memories of him. So, what would I change? Not much, but I do have a top 3.

1) My wedding dress, which I can't seem to find a picture of myself wearing. Don't get me wrong, I loved my wedding dress, but I would have loved to have gotten a dress from David's Bridal with a full skirt and a fitted top. But, at $200 dollars and my father paying for it, I can't complain too much.

2) Speaking of my father, I probably would have had a friend walk me down the aisle. I haven't spoken to or seen my father since my wedding. I was married September 2, 2005. We've had a rocky relationship for, well, my whole life. But, that's a post for a different day. All I'm saying is, it probably would have meant more to me if someone who really knew me and cared about me would have given me away, like my best friend since 7th grade who introduced me to David. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if that's what I should have done.

3) Lighting. Our lighting wasn't fantastic. We used TONS of twinkling lights, but a storm came through after we set them up that night, so they kinda got blown around a little. If we could have reached, I probably would have strung them up in the trees. Also, after the fact we realized they had hooks connected to each light to snap them onto the fence. We looped the wires around each section of wire. Yeah...You can see them in the background looking awful in some of our pictures, which I can't locate right now.

And, that's it. That's all I'd want to redo. Hopefully I can find my wedding pictures soon. I want to get cracking on my wedding scrapbook. Yes, it's been almost 5 years since my wedding and I haven't done anything with my pictures. It's OK. They'll be waiting for me.

Are we Chicken Pox free? Maybe!

Ethan headed back to school today for the first time in 2 weeks, and he was so excited. Seriously, never seen a kid happier to get back to school. He was all over it. I, however, had it written down that he did not have school today, which resulted in having to load all three kids into the car to drive Ethan to school because he missed the bus. That was OK, except for the fact that it's FREAKING humid. It was so sticky out this morning.

His class took a walk to the library this afternoon. Apparently it was movie night. Ethan casually told me that I could take him and "drop him off" and then "pick him up". Uh...No...You're 7. We only live in a town of just over 1,000, but I'm not all about the false sense of security. My doors are locked and I watch my kids like a hawk. I'm not dropping off and picking up Ethan anywhere. A kid can disappear from a town of 1,000 just as easily as they can from a town of 1,000,000. He wasn't very happy that I wouldn't let him go alone. If David hadn't worked today, I would have no problem taking him while Claire and Grayson spent some time with daddy. Maybe they'll do it on a non work day for David so I can take him over the summer. They're doing a fun, all ages summer reading program that I think Ethan and Claire both might enjoy though. That might be fun...But...

Claire has an extreme dislike of, well, people in general. Someone will say hi to her, and she's instantly glued to my side, mouth open in a mock scream of horror uttering, "Ahhhhh!!!" with crocodile tears sliding down her face. Someone can be offering her a sticker (Wal-Mart greeter) or trying to take orders at a restaurant, and BAM, out come the tears. The sure fire way to get rid of the screams? The good old iPOD touch. I wasn't all about David buying it, but man do I love that guy whenever this happens. Bad thing? I don't always have it with me because David takes it with him when he's out and about quite a bit. DAMN THAT SHARED TECHNOLOGY! Claire can start Pre-K in 2 years. This will go away then......Right?

Writer's Workshop: Why Kids Should ALWAYS Tell You If They Have A Splinter

It's Writer's Workshop day! I get to get back to it after a few weeks off chasing kids while hubby was away, catching up on a little housework and taking care of a child with chicken pox, which has moved on down the line to Claire. Woo Hoo.

Want to take part in Writer's Workshop? Head on over to Mama Kat's and link up!

Today I chose the prompt: What was your medicine? Write about a time you remember being ill.

When I was 7, we lived in a small townhouse in Antioch, California. Our landlord wasn't fabulous. My dad was always complaining about the marble buried in our backyard and the rotted fence surrounding it. The landlord always ignored him.

One day, being the crazy monkey of a kid I was, I decided to play in our yard. I started out by digging for marble in on of the planters in the backyard. I climbed a tree. Then, I heard one of my friends putting their trash out in the alley. I climbed the fence, said hi, then went to hop down and OW! I looked at my big toe. I got a HUGE splinter. I panicked. My little 7 year old head screamed, "SPLINTER! Do you know what that means? TWEEZERS AND NEEDLES!" So, this is where I quietly went inside, grabbed a pair of socks and slid them on my feet. When asked, I said my feet were cold. My feet stayed encased in socks.

Fast forward a week. My mom comes into my room to wake me up for school. As she leans over my bed, she notices a red line running down the left side of my neck. Thinking I colored on myself with marker, she tries to rub it off. It doesn't budge. That's when she notices the line goes down my left arm as well. She pulls down the sheets and notices that it runs up from my left foot, up my left leg. It runs all the way to my heart. She freaks out. My dad comes running. She bundles me in blankets and throws me in the car. They drive me to the hospital.

As it turns out, I had the early stages of blood poisoning. As an added bonus, it also turned out I had a rare, highly contagious infection. I can't remember what it was called. I had to get IV antibiotics and fluids, and then they gave us half a gallon (oh yeah, so not kidding) of medication that I had to take a syringe full of everyday, on top of antibiotics for my blood infection. The medication tasted GROSS. When my brother came near me, he had to wear a mask. I missed three weeks of school. And it all started, with a splinter.

Grayson is a SITTER!

He did it. Today. Finally. I present to you, for the first time, Grayson, THE SITTER!I can't even tell you how excited I was today. It's been a week of firsts for him. He FINALLY rolled over from tummy to back during awake time, and now, he sat up! I've been trying to get him to sit up for awhile. His little legs are finally starting to get a little too chubby for the Bumbo. David and I have to team pull him out of it. I pick him up and David pulls it off his tush. Claire got that toy for her first Christmas in 2008. It actually converts from a floor toy to a sitting toy on a stand to a standing toy on a taller stand. Grayson was staring at it today, so I thought, "Hmm..I bet if I put that on the floor and sat him up in the boppy, it would motivate him enough to actually stay put there." So, I took it off the stand, set it on the floor, put Grayson inside the boppy, turned the toy on and let go and he stayed. He stared at the toy, he stared at me, he looked back at the toy and laughed and started reaching for the toy. He toppled over a few times, but every time I put him back up, he stayed put.

I am so excited, but I'm also sad. Seeing him do that for the first time made me realize that these moments, right here, are the last time I'll ever see any of my baby's do something for the first time again. No more first teeth, no more first rolls, no more first steps. While I'm sad, I'm also OK with it. I've always known that having three kids was it for me, so I'm relishing these moments even more.

Ethan Is A Chicken..Oh, Wait..

Ethan has the Chicken Pox. Yup. I'm very excited (she stated in an overly sarcastic tone).

He's had both doses of his Chicken Pox vaccine, but apparently it did not work. Claire has had one dose. Grayson has had none. I think I'm in for a real treat here. My uncle told me it takes 7-21 days for them to show up and Ethan would be contagious two days before the Pox started. That means Ethan became contagious on Sunday. Want to know how we found them? I'm pretty sure that was a resounding YES!

Ethan went to school on Tuesday. Was there a collective gasp? Were you thinking, "Oh no, she sent him with the Chicken Pox?"? Yes, I did. I didn't know. He didn't say anything about being at all itchy when he got up and had breakfast. He didn't say anything about being itchy when he brushed his teeth. He didn't say anything about being itchy when he put on his sweater and left. David picked him up from school and took him to see a movie. David told me Ethan was bouncing around in his chair and scratching a little. They came in from the movie and Ethan handed me his bag. I went through the papers and handed him his homework and went through the notes from school. One noted happened to be about head lice. I asked Ethan if his head was itchy and if they checked it at school. He said, "I'm a lot itchy." I went over and took a look at his head. Nothing. That's when I happened to look down and see his neck. COVERED in pox. I stretched out his shirt. Pox everywhere. I made him strip. All over his chest, back, neck, and starting to pop up on his arms. Super! My question is, where the hell did it come from? We haven't been around ANYONE with the Chicken Pox. People don't just randomly get this. I think someone at school got it and didn't say anything about it. When I called the school to let them know they had an outbreak on their hands they were shocked and sent notes home immediately.

Since then he's been scratching, while I've been telling him not to, and he's managed to spread it to his forehead, behind and inside his ears. His ears have turned bright red from him trying to get into them to scratch. I feel horrible for him. We've been giving him Benadryl for the itching, and he's also been taking daily oatmeal baths. The oatmeal baths seem to help the itching the most, although, like I said, he spread it to his forehead and ears. I also feel awful because, this week Ethan is supposed to be taking a field trip to the zoo and he was invited to his classmates birthday party. He was really looking forward to both, but I just don't think he will be well enough in time to attend either. The zoo I can make up to him by taking him this summer, but the birthday party I won't be able to help him with. Poor guy.

So, here I sit, waiting for it to move on down the line. I'm sure Claire will get it, and I'm BRACING myself because when Claire is sick, she's not a happy camper. If Grayson gets it, I don't know what I'm going to do. So, wish me luck. This is going to be a super fun time!

Wow..It's Quiet

David went back to work for the first time today since he got home from Arizona. It's quiet tonight without him here. I actually miss him, and he's going to be home at 4:30AM. Weird. He's been annoying me with that damn sock habit he has this past week. Add empty pop cans on the end table to the mix and I've had enough ammo for a week's worth of throwing stuff at him while he sleeps.

So, here I am, surrounded by piles of dirty laundry I should be washing but can't seem to get the GIT 'ER DONE to do it. Eh..It'll be there tomorrow, right? Yes, yes it will. So will the stains. I loathe stains. I really, really do. Why don't they come out? All of Claire's old clothes that I am trying to get E-Bay ready are stained around the neck because she was a breastmilk/formula baby who happened to think that spitting formula all over her neck was the thing to do. Bibs didn't help this because she would spit so much it would leak under and through the bib. Grayson's clothes, which I am not trying to get E-Bay ready but I'd still like stain free, are all stained on the butt and around the legs because after a nursing session he enjoys blowing out his diaper and then laughing hysterically while I change him. I guess this is stand up comedy for a 6 month old. Oh, to be easily amused. I bet you wanted to read about baby poo, right? You're welcome.

I'm actually a little concerned about Grayson's sleep habits right now. He is a GREAT sleeper at night. Fantastic. Right up there with Ethan at this age. Claire? Totally different story. But, during the day, he will not nap! He just won't do it. My SIL let us borrow her swing, and he LOVES it. I thought maybe I could get him to take naps in it, but nope. The longest he's slept in that thing is 35-45 minutes. I can count on one hand the number of good naps he takes since starting super awake times at 6 weeks of age. That is not a good thing. I don't know how to get him to nap longer or better. I'm not a fan of crying it out. I can't do it. It breaks my heart to know he's in there screaming it out waiting for rescue. I didn't do it with Ethan. I didn't do it with Claire. I won't do it with Grayson. As a result of this horrid daytime sleep schedule he gets overly tired and cries constantly. Sometimes he nods off in my arms for a few minutes, but then wakes screaming. Any suggestions out there? Ones that don't involve him crying it out. I just can't bear the thought of it.

Oh, and totally off topic, but if you follow my Project 365 blog, I'm am horribly behind by 2 weeks. Our computer has been acting up lately. We're trying to figure out how to restore it and then I'll be posting pictures, hopefully but the end of next week.

Where I've Been

David came home last Sunday, which means that I survived a week with three kids all alone. Go me! Although, I am STILL exhausted. I was so ready for him to come home. His first order of business after coming home was to take our recalled crib to Target and pick up a new one. Welcome home honey! When we put the new crib together, we realized that we were missing two of the screws for the bed. I called the company for replacement hardware. They asked me if I was calling regarding their voluntary recall. Ummmm...No. I feel as if this may be a bad sign. Can't wait to take this crib back. For now, Claire is still sleeping in the Pack N Play until the new hardware pack arrives.

Guess what else is exciting in the house of Townsend? Claire has been binky (paci, nuk...whatever you call it) free for a little over a week now, and she's doing great without it. It happened by accident really. I decided on day two of David being away that in order to save my sanity, I would just wait until he got home to go ahead with Operation Bye Bye Binky. My thinking was that it would be much easier with us both around than just myself and a screaming toddler vs a screaming 6 month old and Ethan asking, "Why?" about a thousand times a day. The day after I decided this, I accidentally put Claire to bed in my exhausted state without the binky. I didn't realize this until the next morning when I was pouring cereal into their bowls for breakfast and spotted it on the counter where I'd put it before we brushed teeth that night. My first thought was, "Uh oh..She probably wants this." But then I realized she never cried or anything. She wasn't trying to find it. It was just another day..Only this time, minus binky. I quickly stashed it along with two others I found and we haven't gone back. She had a little moment the other day that made me a little sad for her because my SIL came over to drop something off with my niece Makayla. Makayla had a binky and Claire kept staring at it with her hands in her mouth and a sad little longing in her eyes. I wanted to run in and grab the binky and give it to her, but once everyone left, she was just fine. It makes me sad that she doesn't need it anymore because that means she not a baby anymore. She's two. A toddler. My little girl is growing up.

I took Grayson to the doctor on Thursday for his SIX MONTH well check. I can't believe he's already 6 months old. He's 16 pounds and 26 inches long and continues to be the only one of my children whose head can be compared to other children on the percentile chart. Claire and Ethan were both well off the chart by this time. It's nice because his head actually still fits in the clothes we have for him. I'm taking him to get his 6 month pictures next Friday. I can't wait. He's also gotten 2 teeth, which he used to bite me when I was feeding him the other day. I've been afraid of that ever since he started teething. It's the only time he's ever done it, and I'm not looking forward to him doing it again. It hurt. A lot. I'm determined to breastfeed until he is one though, so I am not giving up just because he gave me a little bit of a nip.

And, that is all that has happened. Just been spending time with my hubby and kids. I'll be back to my regular blogging schedule this week!