April 28, 2011

Say What?...

As Ryan continues to learn the english language she keeps us entertained and guessing.  It also takes us back to when AJ was learning to talk.

There are a few things that I don't think I will ever forget from AJ's Toddler Speak days.

My all time fave has to be 'hurkle'  It was especially cute because he would get the back of the throat sound like he was saying Chuppah or Hanukkah.  'Hurkle' was his word for freckle.  It was very short lived since, even though I loved when he said hurkle I would correct him and he quickly learned the proper term.  Though I still call them hurkles sometimes.

Other favorites are...'cho-loc-et' for chocolate, 'ploblem' for problem, and we may never know why but he called Kirby 'PT' until he was two years old.

Of course Ryan is still learning but she already knows a lot, she understands what you are saying to her and can sometimes answer.  She definitely knows when she is tired and wants to go to bed.  If there is a blanket or puppy available she will grab it and head for her crib, if the door is closed she will stand at it, turn her head and say 'nite, nite' then stare at the door till someone opens it for her.

She loved the word 'no' for a long time but is using 'yah' just as equally now and uses both correctly.  No was very cute because she had so many different ways of saying it, it could be 'No no no no no', 'Noooooooooo' or a short and sweet 'no'.

I loved when she learned the word 'kisses'  she said it perfectly and then would lean in and pucker up her lips and go 'mmmmm, ah'  Though the 'mmmmm' part could last whole minutes if you let her keep going.

She used little sentences pretty early on, a benefit of an older sibling I'm sure.  But things like "that's my toy", "no more milk", "go lay down", "what is this?" and "I did it" were coming out of her mouth at 15 months!

She is signing and saying words together like AJ did at this age, though sadly I haven't been as diligent with Ryan as I was with AJ.  She still says and signs 'milk', 'more', 'eat', 'down' and 'please' among others.

My faves for her right now are 'bye, sees' as someone is leaving for 'Bye, see you later'.  'a goo goo' is a good girl.  'ee, eh' is The End when we are done reading a book.

But my absolute favorite right now?  She will walk up to you with her hand in the air in front of her and say 'hoh, pwi'  which is 'up high'.  Every once in a while she will change it to 'hah fi' which is high five.  She loves to give high fives and will give them over and over as long as someone is willing to play along.

They are so cute, I love them!

A word to any new mother.  As with everything don't rely on your brain to remember these little things they say and do.  I have all sorts of little pieces of paper which I have used to jot down things they say or do, they are so fun to go back and look over.  They grow up so quickly.



 - I am grateful for my family and that they are all happy and safe -

Time Marches On...

This past Saturday was Jasey's last day of class.  He will be officially graduated on May 5th, though he is not going to walk.  No more middle of the week group projects or studying until 2 in the morning.  We have been looking forward to and waiting for this day for two years.  When he first started the program AJ was just over two years old and we hadn't yet decided on a name for Ryan.  During his first few months we talked about how when he was done AJ would be 4 years old and Ryan would be 18 months.  It seemed so far away, we couldn't even imagine our little babies being that old.

Now, here we are.  It's been two years.  AJ will be turning 4 in less than a month and Ryan turned 18 months a week ago.  So much has changed for us that even though it was a big day there are other things that are so much bigger right now.  There were other things that we were looking forward to that made the moment pass like any other.  A day that took so long to get here and now, it's past.  Just like that.  It was one of the most anti-climactic days known to man.

Of course I'm beyond happy that Jasey is done with school but honestly not much has changed in the past week.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but nothing grandiose occured...and here we are, just the same.  Most of the class went out after their final exam for a few drinks and when he got home we all went out to dinner.  Other then that it was life as usual.  I kinda feel like a bad wife for not decorating the house or baking him a cake, but I know he doesn't feel like I let him down so I'm done worrying about it now.

For those of you not familiar with country songs, the title for this post is the title of a Tracy Lawrence song.    It is a short, lovely song.  Well maybe not lovely...it's a country song and we all know how the story lines in country songs go.  Anyway, the chorus of the song has a line that says "The only thing that stays the same is everything changes."

You always hear people say how you can't change someone and a lot of people believe that your path in life is already planned out and you can't change that either.  When heard in context with the rest of the song lyrics, it fits and then you can look at your own life and realize, even if you believe that you can't change your destiny, that the words are true.  Everything does change.  Not because you try to change it but because...it just happens.  You don't know what tomorrow will have in store for you.  We as a family are learning that lesson over and over on a daily basis.

So as one chapter in our life has come to a close and we wait to see what new twist is waiting for us around the corner all we can do is keep moving to the rhythm...as Time Marches On...





 - Today I am grateful for Toddler Speak and learning new things with Ryan as she grows -





April 12, 2011

Just A Little Reminder...

Yesterday AJ was nice enough to remind me of something.  It was early evening and I was sitting on the floor.  Ryan walked by and I grabbed her and laid back giving her belly kisses and tickles.  As far as I knew AJ was in the kitchen with Daddy.

I was wrong.

Next thing I know all 46 pounds of my firstborn child comes down, butt first, right where he first entered this world.  For those of you that had 'normal' births, go north a few inches.  Ok sure he's almost 4 years old so thats a pretty old scar, except that it was the same place from which his sister made her debut appearance, too.  Less than 18 months ago.

18 months is the general amount of time that is recommended between pregnancies when you have a c-section.  Not between births...between pregnancies.  This gives your body time to recover and your uterus time to heal fully to reduce the risk of rupturing during the next pregnancy.  So that means the kids should be 27 months apart (or 2 years 3 months).  Of course, plenty of people have had kids closer then that by c-section and have been fine, heck we are pretty much just at the cutoff.  AJ and Ryan are 2 years 5 months apart.

Usually he will growl and say "I'm gonna get you mommy" or something else along that line, but...I had no clue he was there and absolutely no warning.  Luckily Ryan was already climbing over me so I didn't have to worry about dropping her.  I'm not sure if I yelped or cried out but Jasey could hear that I was in pain.  I had to lay there for a moment and then Jasey needed to help me up off the ground.  I was very careful moving for a while and ended up missing ballet last night.  I was prepared to call the doctor this morning or even go to the emergency room last night, I was knew there was still a slight possibility of the scars reopening.  But I seem to have healed up pretty nicely and don't have any signs of internal bleeding, woohoo!

I had no time to tighten up or protect myself and was laying on a hard surface so when he hit me there was no where for everything to go except out.  If you sit on a balloon thats on the ground, it can only squish out to the side so far before it pops.  I felt like I almost popped.  The incisions were still sore and swollen but were going down, finally.  Though after last night I feel like I have some internal bruises and have been getting pains and cramps that I haven't gotten in about 6 months.  Luckily I'm not having trouble sitting up or using my upper abs, it's all lower and more to the sides.  Though I still want to lay in bed and moan at times.

So I guess AJ just wanted to give me a little reminder...of what I'm still not sure.  Maybe it's a reminder of how far I've come in the last 18 months and I shouldn't get frustrated with my body.  It's doing what it needs to do and taking the time it needs to do it properly.  Maybe it's reminder of how lucky I am to have such beautiful children and live in a time that they were able to be born in a way that was safe for them and myself.

Or maybe he was just being a little boy who wanted to play with his mommy and sister and for the slightest moment forgot to be careful of mommy's boo-boo.




   - Today I am thankful that I am able to whine a little bit and then move on and continue to enjoy my life. -   Thanks for listening to me whine :)

April 04, 2011

*nothing*...

Have you ever had one of those moments where someone says something to you or does something, something so ridiculous, that you are dumbfounded and have absolutely no response?  I'm pretty quick with one liners and snappy comebacks.  I  speak clearly and don't have problems communicating (except for when I have pregnancy brain relapses, luckily they are few and far between now).  But I admit that there have been times that I was at a complete loss for words.  It's not that my mind can't process something quickly enough to respond.  I just can't decide which would be the best way to respond.

I'll give you a couple examples...

     *  It was about a week after I had Ryan.  I was home but wasn't allowed to drive and still had my staples in.  Mom and I put the kids in the car to head to the grocery store.  From our house in Abacoa it was a couple small back roads and a roundabout to get there no major roads.  Obviously at the roundabout there  is no stop sign but when merging you have to stop if there is a car already there, common sense right?  It was kinda busy so there was a small line to merge, 3 cars, we were the 3rd.  As we get to the front we also have to break and as we are waiting for the car to pass so we can go...Bam!...we get rear ended.  There are no hidden areas at this roundabout you can see whats going on for a half a mile before you get there.  Also let me remind you that Ryan was a week old and in the car and I could still barely walk and had staples in my stomach.
The lady that hit us didn't get out of her car, heck she didn't even put it in park!  Mom got out and walked back to her car.  The lady was on her phone searching around in her console for pen and paper.  When mom got there the lady barely even looked at her.  Mom goes through the whole you realize you just hit me, didn't you see I was stopped thing and the lady is still talking on her phone writing something down.  So mom tells her about me and Ryan and she needs to pay attention and we could have gotten seriously hurt.  No joke the lady finally responds "Yeah, but this is a really important phone call".  That was it, no 'Hold on a moment, let me call you back' or 'Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry'.  She rear ends a newborn and a recovering surgery patient and she wants a free pass because she had an important phone call!
Other than smacking her and calling her a dumb b!#ch, how do you respond to that?
Luckily everyone and everything was ok so we just got back in the car and left but seriously we were dumbfounded.

     *  It was a few years ago when I started making and using my own reusable shopping bags. It was still a pretty new thing in most of the grocery stores around here and the baggers would look at me and my bags like I had left my antenna up.  I'm sure you know how wonderful baggers are at their job anyway.  I used to work at Publix and as with everything else in this world you have to sit and watch a video on how to properly bag groceries.  I think they all fell asleep.  At least 10 items in one bag people!  I have watched them put 3 different packages of meat in 3 different bags and then turn around and pile so many cans into one bag that they double bag it.  Come on!  What is so hard about a few cans, a couple boxes and a loaf of bread on top?!?!  Anyway...
I switch over to reusable bags, they are super sturdy and can carry a lot more stuff, of course best of all, they are reusable (are you catching onto that yet? :)  The baggers still try to use the store bags, I actually had one guy put my bags into a plastic bag and stick them in my cart...huh?  I prefer to bag my own stuff whenever possible but over the years they have gotten better and I don't end my shopping experiences ticked off and re-bagging everything at my car anymore.  But this one bagger will forever be at the top of my list.  I shopped late so it was a high school age kid that was bagging for me.  I had plenty of bags with me and was still in the routine of telling them "I don't need the milk in a bag and I don't want the meat in plastic.  Put as much as you can into each bag, they are strong."  (just don't squish anything, please)  I don't know if I didn't catch the kid in time or if he didn't hear me but he started putting meat in a plastic bag so I caught him mid-bag asking him to use my bags.  He kept putting it in the plastic and then grabbed the plastic bag and stuck it in one of my bags.  So I took it out and handed him the plastic bag and said "I don't need the plastic bag, there is no point in wasting it"  He stares at me for a split second before taking the bag and then said "What, you don't like to recycle?"  ...Me, Dumbfounded...
I had no clue how to respond. I was thinking well at least he has recycling on his mind but have kids had recycling so engrained into their heads that they can't even grasp the concept of not being wasteful.  I have seen people ask for a bag at the checkout counter for a pack of gum.  Take the gum out of the bag while they leave the store and then throw the bag away right outside the store.  They asked for the bag!!!  Why?  Are there people so determined to be dirty and wasteful that they can't pass up the chance to throw away a plastic bag?

     *  I saw a garbage truck driving down the road today, within a half a mile I watched 6 plastic bottle and 2 newspapers fly off the side of truck (the recyclable material section) because there was no cover on the section.  So if you recycle just know that there are trucks out there littering for you.  It's things like this that sometimes make me think 'what is the point?'  For every one of those bottles there was probably 5 more that didn't even make it to a recycling bin.  (I have no studies or research I have just observed how wasteful people can be, and made a random guess)  Again, all I can do is shake my head, I'm speechless.

     *  I dropped AJ off at school one day and as I was leaving campus a driver headed towards me pulled half of their car into my lane, so that they were driving straight for me and started honking at me.  I couldn't go anywhere since there was a guard rail and a canal to my right.  The only thing I could do was slow down.  The driver stopped honking just long enough to throw a few hand gestures my way, get in her lane and turn down an aisle to park.  I was too shocked to even be puzzled, let alone think about following her and asking what in the hell she thought I had done to her.  So I just kept driving and went home.  I guess she was having a bad day.

     *  This last one had me more mad then speechless.  I was driving home another day from taking AJ to school.  At a stop light I glanced to the car next to me.  The driver was sitting so far back I'm surprised he could reach the pedals or see over the steering wheel.  He had a cigarette in one hand, hanging out the window.  With his other hand I watched him reach over to the passenger seat and grab a girl by the arm and sit her down on the seat, which was leaned back just as much as his.  The girl was no more than 2 years old!  There was a car seat in the backseat but here she was climbing and bouncing around in the front seat!  I was so mad.  He was actually heading the same way I was and I saw him turn into the daycare that is right down the street from mom's house.  I got home, exclaimed to mom for a minute how stupid and careless people can be and then called the daycare.  Luckily the person I talked to was just as upset as I was and asked for a description of the car and the people so that she could say something.  I really hope she did.  At least in that situation I could process and take action later, since it really needed to be corrected.


So, in these sorts of situations I am torn between calling the person an idiot, shooting out one of my sarcastic responses, repeating what I said and hoping they figure out what an idiot they are, explaining myself and telling them why their comment wasn't the most intelligent thing they could have said, etc.  I am also checking myself and reminding myself that I need to be polite, no name calling, cursing or getting snippy even if they were snide to me.   Then there is the little bit of me that just wants to smack them across the face for being a moron or treating me like I'm a moron.  I have never done this but there are times it would be so rewarding.

It just never fails to amaze me how little people think nowadays.



   -  Today I am thankful for a healthy little girl then I had yesterday -


Mmmmm, Tasty...

That is what Ryan says while she's eating...anything.  She takes a bite, does a little side to side swaying dance and says "Mmmm, tasty" with her funny little squinty-eyed smile.  It's beyond adorable.  Though it was kinda sad when she did it yesterday.

At about 1:00 in the morning she woke up crying.  We brought her into bed with us.  After a while she was still whining but was still really tired and falling asleep in weird positions on me, so I went to put her back into her crib and she threw up, poor baby.  AJ is the only one that got any sort of decent sleep that night, I'm really amazed he slept through it.  It's always so sad when little ones are sick and don't even know the words to tell you whats wrong.  She has been stuffy nosed and raspy coughing for a few days now but even with all the coughing nothing was coming up.  (I'm trying to be as non-discript as I can here).

Anyway after a few days of coughing like that, it finally made her sick, but at least she got some of it up.  I think she also had a bit of a bug cause for the rest of the night and most of Sunday she was a wimpering, moaning, crying, pitiful mess.  She threw up 4 times, didn't eat anything and even refused juice most of the day.

Late afternoon she finally passed out on mom's bed for about an hour but, when she woke up, had developed a low fever.  She hadn't had anything come up in a while so I gave her some Tylenol and rubbed her down with some Vick's Baby Rub and got her some juice.  None of these things seemed to bother her so I went and got her some puffies and a few saltines.  She grabbed them both without hesitation and as she took her first bite of saltine she did a pathetic little shoulder shrug, bobbed her head to one side and croaked a sad little whisper, "mmm, s'tasty".

I almost cried it was so cute.



On a different note (though something that merits the same title) I harvested Kale and Swiss Chard from the garden on Saturday.  I cut them up and cooked with a little bit of olive oil and garlic until they were dark green and wilted but still had a little crunch to them.  They were both very yummy.  The Chard reminded me a lot of spinach while the Kale was heartier like collards and had a bit of a vinegar flavor, certainly not what I expected.

I also picked out first tomato on Thursday.  It was a little Cherry Tomato, but the first to appear on any of our plants and the first to change color.  We didn't eat it till Friday night since it was still a little orangey colored when I picked it.  After sitting on the window sill and then being chilled in the fridge it was perfect.  I don't like tomatoes but I had already decided that I would try the ones from our garden.  I grew them, I would eat them!

So I cut it and mom and I both had a half.  It still tasted like a tomato which as I just stated I don't enjoy but it was very crisp and slightly sweet.  Just take out the tomato flavor and it was very good.  I think I will eat more but I will try taking the seeds out next time.  I picked the rest of the bunch on Saturday and AJ ate one of them.  He popped the whole thing in his mouth and it was so fresh and crisp that I could hear it crunch when he bit into it.  He said it was yummy.  Jasey and I both love that AJ and Ryan like tomatoes.  We didn't want to be the kind of parents that never let the kids try something just because we didn't like it and what do you know, they both love tomatoes!

We are very close to harvesting a full salad.  The Red Leaf Lettuce continues to grow and some of our iceburg is starting to form a head.  We have quite a few peppers and lots more tomatoes, both are just about to change color.  The cucumber is getting so big, it's crazy.  I also harvested some of our wax beans Sunday with many more to soon follow.  I'm very excited to take pictures of our yummy salad, whenever that may be!

April 02, 2011

6 weeks...

Six weeks...no I am not posting that I am pregnant again, wouldn't that be a hoot!  Although if I had posted this yesterday I'm sure I would have had a few people going for a little while.  Sadly I did not pull any April Fools jokes.  I usually have a few good ideas every year but I'm not particularly fond of being pranked or surprised so I follow that age old golden rule.  You know the one "Do unto others..." yeah that one.

So what in the world am I talking about when I say 6 weeks?  The crazy explosion that is our veggie garden of course!  I can't even explain how amazing it has been to watch it grow...and grow...and grow.  so I will share some pictures instead.  As you may recall this is what the garden looked like on Day 1.

February 15
Day 1

I was beyond ecstatic as things began to grow and the seeds we planted starting popping up.  We even managed to get some of the tiniest tomatoes I had ever seen on one of our tomato plants.  We didn't just have plants with flowers, they were actually growing edible parts!

February 23
Our first bunch of tomatoes
March 3
The cucumbers begin to climb
March 7
The same tomatoes less than 2 weeks later
March 7
The first green pepper emerges
March 8
Day 21
So by the start of the 3rd week all seeds had sprouted and everything was really starting to grab hold.  We were even so successful as to have plants growing fruits.  So we decided to make a scarecrow, isn't he cute.  Then we got a pretty good storm.  The winds were very strong and I had to prop a few of the plants back up that got pushed over.  luckily nothing was uprooted completely.  They didn't seem to mind the wind but they really loved the rain!  They loved it so much that I was able to harvest some of the lettuce to make a salad for dinner one night.  It was so yummy, AJ ate 3 bowls of salad that night!


March 8
Our new addition
March 16
Red Leaf Lettuce before I harvested some of the leaves
March 16
Day 29
March 17
The first harvest
Kale, Iceburg, Chard and Red Leaf Lettuce
(Brussels Sprout leaves were for show and tidying up the garden)
I was a little sad when taking all of these leaves.  I was thinking that it would take forever for some of the plants to put out more and wondering if I had just ruined the plants chances for producing a nice head of lettuce.  I knew I was being silly but I didn't know just how silly.  I think the garden may have needed this reassurance that we were actually going to eat them and not just look at them and let them die out.  They figured if we weren't going to eat them then what was the point in putting all this energy into making beautiful, tasty veggies that were going to go to waste.  All they needed was one small massacre to ease their little vegetable brains that if they grew we would enjoy them.  And how appropriate that this Green Massacre occurred on St. Patty's Day, green veggies on a green day, perfect!

Two days later I was out checking on the garden like every day and everything was out saying hello, it was wonderful!
March 19
My little green pepper bud is growing up
March 19
A cayenne pepper is popping out to say hello
March 19
Tomatoes are starting to show up on our other 2 plants
March 19
Neat and tidy after the Green Massacre but still thriving 
After this I guess I stopped checking on the growth of the plants and started focusing on the growth of the fruits they were putting out.   It's so exciting to walk out everyday and see noticeable change, sometimes it would be noticeable even after a couple hours, that still has me in awe.

March 28
Remember my one tiny Cayenne Pepper?
It grew friends, this is 9 days after the first pic
March 26
I was super excited to go out one day and find these little cuties
Our first Wax Beans

March 31
5 days later here is what the Wax Beans look like now
Huge and changing color!
March 28
In less than a month this pepper and all it's buddies
have never stopped growing, it'll be changing color soon too!
March 31
That is one huge Swiss Chard leaf
I almost don't want to cut it
As impressive as all of those are this one still gets me every day...all of these pictures are of the same cucumber...

March 19
We start noticing cucumbers, very exciting!
March 26
It's butt end start turning dark green and getting big
March 28
Only 2 days since last pic, look how much bigger!
March 31
Mom and I both exclaimed Holy Crap! when we saw how big it had gotten
In less than 2 weeks this one cucumber went from a little flower bud to an almost fully grown cucumber, how can you not be amazed?!  I have not taken pictures of it yet this morning (two days after the last pic) but I can assure you that it has grown noticeably since then.

This next set of pictures really has me excited.  I know, how much crazier can I get?!  Remember my first bunch of tomatoes?  Well I go out one morning and one of them looks funny then I realize...it is changing color!

March 26
see it looks all funky and brown I thought it was dying
March 28
2 days later, it looks so pretty and I don't even like tomatoes
March 31
I picked the first one (no pictures yet) but all of it's friends are coming right along
Isn't it beautiful, all the different shades
 Mom and I both check on the garden at least once a day to see what new changes are occurring, though as I said I had stopped taking notice of the plants themselves.  Then one day I walked out and couldn't overlook the plants any longer, they were huge!  Look, you'll see what I mean.

March 31
Day 46
Now I ask you how could I have possibly overlooked growth like that!?!?!  Everything is huge, I can barely get in there to check on everything, or weed or harvest.  What in the world were we thinking?  So we did the only logical thing.  We bought more plants and dug up another 8x8 plot of land.  Stage two is complete and here is the finished product.

March 29
Stage 2, day 1
March 29
Just added onto the front
Don't the new plants look so silly?
March 29
As you can see off to the left we already have stage 3 laid out, time to dig!

In stage 2 we planted...Sunflowers, Corn, Romaine Lettuce, Broccoli, Jalapeno Pepper, Strawberries and Asparagus.
Stage 3 will consist of...Spaghetti Squash, Eggplant and Sweet Potatoes.

We know that some of our stuff isn't in the best spot whether it needs more or less sunlight or whether is needs more or less room then we anticipated or any other slew of reasons.  But, everything seems to be thriving either way and it's been fun so far.  I would dig up most of moms yard if I didn't think that she would disown me after I did.

Hopefully the garden won't over take me again as it did the past few weeks, every time I took a picture with intentions to post the very next day something else would have doubled in size over night and next thing you know I'm writing a blog post the size of a small book.  Thanks for reading and I hope this motivates someone to get out there and plant a garden of your own if you haven't already.  It's so rewarding!