Waiting On The Doctor

Need A Louder Alarm Clock

Posted by Heather Manning On April - 23 - 2010

Now that our new bed is in place, the night stand has to be on Pato’s side instead of at the bottom of the bed on my side. That means the alarm clock is on the other side of the bed.

Two days in a row now I have missed the alarm clock. I swear Pato turns it off. It’s Jordan’s alarm clock and it’s not very loud. Usually I’m a really light sleeper and everything wakes me up, from Pato rolling over to a kid sneezing in a room down the hall. I don’t understand why I keep sleeping through it. Our alarm clock died a sad death about 2 weeks ago and we “borrowed” Jordan’s because he never gets up to it anyway. I always wake him up.

He’s so funny with it though. Mom! I set my alarm for 7, you don’t have to get me up tomorrow. I get up at 6:50 – 7, the alarm starts going off. What do you know, it’s a Pato Jr with the ability to sleep through any alarm clock that dare to disturb his slumber. It’s hard to get him up because his bed is so hgh in the air. I can’t just shake him like I do Kat. Not shake, gently move back and forth. I have to climb the ladder to reach him.

Back to this morning. I had the alarm set for 7. Pato’s phone started ringing at 8. I said, what time is it? He said almost 8. Crap. The kids are supposed to be out in line for the bus at 8:15. They both needed showers. Guess who went to school all disgusting? My kids. Jordan piled on the deodorant. I splashed some body spray on Katiana, hoping that she didn’t sweat too badly at soccer practice last night and sent them out in the rain to the bus stop. Actually, I also fought with Katiana for 5 minutes because she wanted to wear a skirt, Katiana ALWAYS wants to wear a skirt. I had gotten her out *gasp* leggings because it’s raining and cold and icky out. Put the stinking leggings on, put your t-shirt on, put your hoodie on, and go to school. You don’t have to be a fashionista every single day. It’s ok to dress down every once in awhile chicky poo.

I’m glad tomorrow is Saturday and I don’t have to officially get out of bed until 9. Pato has time to stop and get me a loud alarm clock that I won’t sleep through. Kat has a game at 11 and we have the whole once every 5 years or so get our entire family together for a huge family picture at 4:30. There are 19 of us now. Our family just keeps multiplying. I’ll take some of the blame for that with my 4 kids. My brother Josh has 3, my brother Steve has 2, and my sister Abby has 1. (Speaking of my brother Josh – Happy Birthday JJ! Welcome to the 30′s with Steve and me!) I think I just had Katiana and Jordan in the last family picture and I had on this mustard colored cardigan that I absolutely adored, until I saw myself in the picture and realized the mustard colored cardigan gave me about 50 extra pounds in the picture. Not pretty. I haven’t worn it since then. It’s hanging in my closet though. I’ll be wearing a black dress I think, paired with the necklace that Steam Designs sent me. I can plan my family’s outfits easy around black. I think I’ll be good.

We’re hoping the rain holds off. With 19 of us, it’s hard to find an indoor studio that has room for all of us. And an indoor place like the botanical center is over the cost of what we want to pay just to go in, snap a few pictures, and leave. We’re heading to a park near us and praying that we don’t get soaked. The weather forecast calls for rain later in the evening, but I don’t remember them calling for rain this morning either, and my children are now soaked. Well, Jordan probably is. Katiana grabbed her umbrella on the way out and I wouldn’t let Jordan take Alyce’s umbrella. He doesn’t know where his is at. Alyce has been waiting forever to use her umbrella in the rain and if we leave today at all she finally can use it.

I’ll leave you with Alyce’s new word.

Mom, look at all my money in my change purse. I keep my money in my change purse. I’m going to put my crystal in my change purse too. I’m so …….. wait for it …… sensible.

(Don’t you love it when 3 year olds come up with words like that?)

You’re so sensible?

Yep, I’m so so so sensible.

Later on when I repeated it to mom on the phone and we’re rolling, she said, yep. I’m sensible. I’m growing up just like daddy.

Oh, come on. If you want to be sensible, you need to grow up just like mommy.

Maybe not.

Maybe you should grow up like Jordan. He seems to be a little more sensible than the rest of us.

Have a great day!

ETA – It’s been awhile since I posted something from my favorite man (of course it’s because he’s a huge advocate, has nothing to do with the fact that is his absolutely gorgeous and moves like no other man) in the world besides my husband, so let’s just add a little hotness to this morning –

Alright, I feel better, don’t know about you all.

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My Life

It’s A Hard Knock Life For Us

Posted by Heather Manning On February - 19 - 2010

Not really. Jordan was just cracking me up last night singing that song. I guess I never knew the words to it before. Other than, it’s a hard knock life for us, it’s a hard knock life for us.

I just looked it up and found it on You Tube for the kids to watch it:

Click on the video to watch it at YouTube full size. Having issues with my coding and it being to big for the front page.

Jordan’s whole 4th grade class is performing Annie Jr next Thursday. (This is the play that Jordan didn’t want “no solo, no duo, no trio, I’m an advertiser mom!) That’s where his infatuation with Annie is coming from. I think I actually have it in my Netflix que to watch. I should check because shouldn’t every kid watch Annie at least once? I’m kind of excited. I love the kids’ programs at school. Takes me back a few years.

Jordan told me in the car yesterday, mom, my music teacher told me that if we forget the words we can just mouth watermelon. Yep, and mom knows that trick and if I see you up there just mouthing watermelon over and over again, I’m going to know you’re not singing.

Last night I had a headache that finally started fading at about 7:00, so I called Pato and said, can we come eat at your work? It’s only a 30 minute drive, the kids will eat by 8. I’m a horrible mom, on a school night none the less. He said, it’ll be late when you get home. I know but it’s either that or they can have corn dogs because I was in no mood to roll out the pizza dough I had planned for supper. We packed up in the car and drove to Indianola.

I’ve noticed something that is different between the Mexican culture (usually people who have come here from Mexico, those who were born here, tend to have some of our idiosyncrasies put into them) and us Americans and it has always drove me nuts. The guys (and women) that Pato works with have no qualms about telling me how Jordan is husky. (They actually say fat, but I won’t say it like that.) Everyone who came to our table last night had to make a comment about how big Jordan is and how skinny the rest of the kids are. I hate it. My husband only speaks in Spanish to the kids (and I only speak in English so they learn both), they all know what the word gordo means. It happened even back when Jordan was 4 and we lived in Ohio. I’d bring him up to the restaurant and they’d talk about how “gordo” (fat) Jordan was. I don’t know about you, but I would never ever in a million years say that to a kid and/or his parents. They tend to state facts and not beat around the bush about it even if it’s something that would hurt someone’s feelings.

The funny thing is, they say how gordo Jordan is than immediately follow it up with, he looks so so so much like his dad.

It is true. Jordan resembles Pato.

My weight doesn’t bother Pato at all, but then this is the man who affectionately calls me gorda. (Which translated literally means fat also.) He claims it’s a term of endearment. I claim that I don’t give a flying fig. I don’t like to be called fat. Who does? Then again, he calls Katiana and Alyce las gorditas and they are actually bordering on being too skinny, we have trouble putting weight on them.

I almost have him broke of calling Alyce pelona (bald). I have to keep pointing out that she does have hair now and he really should come up with a different nickname.

Christiano is still el pelon (bald). Child has had hair since he was born. Pato’s just weird.

If you haven’t seen the pattern, they tend to give each other nicknames for physical appearance. Pato was nicknamed that by his sister when he walked like a duck when he was little. His friend Omar is el burro (not sure if that is because he’s a solid built guy or because he is a stubborn ass – ass meaning donkey of course). Hector is nicknamed after a parrot because I guess they think his nose resembles one?

He’s got one friend who is called sheep in Spanish, and I really don’t want to know where that came from.

Pato’s dad used to call him and his friends a zoo. You can see why.

And my Ricky Martin tweet today -

Here’s the video that he links to:

Watch it please. It’s good. (And it’s in English so my blog readers can understand it. ) The Ricky Martin Foundation is actually one of my charities that I choose to donate our money too (which is why I bring it up a lot since I found it). Yes, I found it by being a fan of Ricky’s, but Ricky does so much to try and stop human trafficking, specifically that of children that I can’t help but donate the little bit that we can afford to to that charity. I’ll put my $$ anywhere that it will help to stop children from being abused like that. It breaks my heart when I see stories on it. Children Kat’s age, younger, older, they should never be put in that kind of life. The first time I showed an article on child trafficking to Pato it was on a little girl who was younger than Katiana. It made him so angry. It made us both so sick. That’s when he agreed with me that whenever we can, we’d donate to that cause. Last time I donated it was to text from both of our phones to help with Haiti (RMF and Habitat for Humanity). It’s a new month and time for us to donate something again.

You have a great day!

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My Life

Tal Vez

Posted by Heather Manning On February - 18 - 2010

I know this is going to come as a huge shock, but I am a huge fan of Ricky Martin. (Can you hear that sarcasm? If you’ve been to my blog more than say 5 times you know I love Ricky.)

I was on You Tube and came across one of my absolute favorite songs by him. I hadn’t seen the video and it’s beautiful. Thought I’d share it.

Click on the video to watch it at YouTube full size. Having issues with my coding and it being to big for the front page.

Lyrics:

Tal vez sera que esa historia ya tiene final
no se porque hoy te siento tan distante de mí
que a pesar que lo intento de nuevo
tal vez llegue tarde, ya no hay nada que hacer
y no puedo creer que el tiempo que hemos tenido tal vez se nos gastó
tal vez fui yo que no te dio una noche entera
tal vez nunca te he dado lo que tú esperabas
y no estaba cuando me necesitabas
tal vez no te escuche,Tal vez me descuide
tal vez se me olvido que yo te amaba.
Tal vez…….. ay,ay,ay,ay
tal vez será que por ahora ya no hay nada que hablar
tal vez esta vez necesitamos tiempo para pensar
Y yo por mi parte propongo intentarlo de nuevo,volver a empezar
que por más que lo pienso no encuentro una sola razón para seguir sin tí
Tal vez fui yo que no te dio una noche entera
Tal vez nunca te he dado lo que tú esperabas
y no estaba cuando me necesitabas
Tal vez no te escuche,Tal vez me descuide
tal vez se me olvido que yo te amaba.
Tal vez me sorprendio la vida por la espalda
y tira y tira y se rompió la cuerda
Tal vez nunca entendí lo que eras para mí
Tal vez yo nunca supe a quien amaba
Y yo por mi parte propongo intentarlo de nuevo,volver a empezar
que por más que lo pienso no encuentro una sola razón para seguir sin tí
Tal vez fui yo que no te dio una noche entera
Tal vez nunca te he dado lo que tú esperabas
y no estaba cuando me necesitabas
Tal vez no te escuche,Tal vez me descuide
tal vez se me olvido que yo te amaba

Translation:

Note – I didn’t translate this, it was an option in my tool bar. It’s rough.

Perhaps that story will already have final
today not because you feel so distant from me
that although I try again
maybe late, there’s nothing to do
I can not believe that the time we had maybe we spent
maybe it was me who did not give you a full night
may never have given you what you expected
and not there when you needed me
you may not listen, I may neglect
maybe I forgot that I loved you.
Maybe …….. ay, ay, ay, ay
may be that by now there is nothing to talk
maybe this time we need time to think
And I for one intend to try again, starting over
more than that I think can not find a single reason to go on without you
Maybe it was me who did not give you a full night
Maybe I’ve never been what you expected
and not there when you needed me
You might not hear, I may neglect
maybe I forgot that I loved you.
Maybe life surprised me from behind
and pull and pull and the rope broke
Maybe I never understood what they were to me
Maybe I never knew he loved
And I for one intend to try again, starting over
more than that I think can not find a single reason to go on without you
Maybe it was me who did not give you a full night
Maybe I’ve never been what you expected
and not there when you needed me
You might not hear, I may neglect
maybe I forgot that I loved you

More or less – It’s a song about someone saying Maybe I didn’t give you enough time, enough love, maybe I wasn’t there for you. It has always just spoke to my heart since I first got this CD a few years ago.

It’s on his Almas del Silencio CD which I just found on Amazon for $8.98. That’s crazy. I bought it at a Mexican store here in Des Moines when it came out for like double that. But they price their CDs high. I didn’t shop online back then, now I know better.

Here’s my 2nd favorite song on that album -

His face cracks me up when he sings un foto con Bush. (president)

Lyrics:

Tengo millas de vuelo para ir a Plutón

Tengo un club de fans en la luna

Una casa gigante que veo desde un avión

Y en los ojos de algunos fortuna

Un ejército de alcahuetes, una foto con Bush

Una suite en el Waldorf, y más autos que amigos

Tengo ganas de no tener ganas

Tengo un par de mascotas que no saben quien soy

Y entre tanto que tengo no encuentro

Razón suficiente pa’olvidarme de ti

Coro:

Y de tu mano pequeña diciéndome adiós

Esa tarde de lluvia en San Juan

De los besos que llevo conmigo

Que son sólo tuyos y nunca te di

Por andar ocupado en el cielo

Me olvidé que en el suelo se vive mejor

Mi boricua, mi india, mi amor

Mi asignatura pendiente

Mi boricua, mi india, mi amor

Mi asignatura pendiente

Tengo tres oficinas y un piso en New York

Y el Rey Midas trabaja conmigo

Tengo varias razones para tener razón

De que no hay peor razón que el olvido

Tengo intacto al niño que fui

Tengo ganas de anclar

Y otras tantas de huir a un sitio perdido

Tengo ganas de no tener ganas

De comprarme un boleto de regreso al ayer

Y entre tanto que tengo no encuentro

Razón suficiente pa’olvidarme de ti

Repite Coro

Translation:

(again, this is rough, but quicker than me doing it.)

I have miles of flight to go to Pluto I have a club of fans in the moon A giant house that I see from an airplane And in the eyes of some fortune An army of procurers, a photo with Bush a suite in the Waldorf, and more cars than friendly I have desire of not having desire I have a pair of mascots that do not know who I am and in the meantime that I have nonencounter Sufficient reason pa’ to forget to me you Choir: And of your small hand saying goodbye to me That behind schedule of rain in San Juan Of the kisses that I take with me That they are only yours and never I gave you To walk occupied in the sky I forgot that in the ground it is lived better My boricua, my Indian, my love My pending subject My boricua, my Indian, my love My pending subject I have three offices and a floor in New York And King Midas works with me I am right several to be right Of which there is no worse reason than the forgetfulness I have intact the boy that I was I have desire to anchor And other so many to flee to a lost site I have desire of not having desire to buy a ticket to me of return to yesterday And in the meantime that I have nonencounter Sufficient reason pa’ to forget to me you

Those are my 2 favorite Ricky Martin songs. It’s hard to choose. He has so many CDs out, but I think Almas del Silencio is my most favorite.

If you’re looking for a great charity to help children, check out the Ricky Martin Foundation.

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U Gotta Go Somewhere

Not Happening Again

Posted by Heather Manning On February - 15 - 2010

Jordan asked me last night if he could do something on my computer because whatever it was he wanted to do, he was unable to do on his computer. I assumed it was for the same reason that Webkinz doesn’t work. Something with the adobe flash plug in isn’t compatible.

I said yes, went off to do something than after a bit heard mom! mom! mom!

I come back out here and see my anti-virus program going crazy. He’d shut the browser. AVG is popping up over and over again about a trojan. He was looking for a game that he wanted to play, clicked on a link, and it went nuts.

That should be a reminder that I need to put parental controls on my own desktop. I’ve got them on Jordan’s and on my laptop because that is where Kat plays, but not on my own because I know I’m not going to go look up porn and obviously there is a reason I don’t let anyone touch my work computer. No more being generous I’ll tell you that now.

I tried to start malwarebytes which gets rid of everything. This virus deleted it. (It installed Internet security something or other that was also giving me tons of warnings.) I went and redownloaded malwarebytes, and while that was downloading I opened up Spybot. That froze up. Just running Adaware. It wouldn’t open. I installed malwarebytes and it needed to restart my computer to finish the installation. Restarted, get a window about a worm installed on my computer, and it is recommended to completely scan the system. At this point, I didn’t know if these were coming from my computer or from the worm/trojan. Windows explorer wouldn’t start. So I’m sitting there just looking at Bella and Edward on my desktop with no folders, no icons, everything gone. I tried to restart in safe mode. Everything came up in safe mode, but I was still got errors. Tried to run malwarebytes again. It deleted it as soon as I restarted. I was crying at this point. I haven’t backed up my computer in 2 months, all the pictures I took in January and February, my newest scrap pages, all I could think was I’m going to have reformat and I’m going to lose it all. In safe mode I tried to turn on my external hard drive to back up my pictures at least. All of a sudden my recycle bin is full with like 10,000 items. It was everything off my EHD, well, I’m not sure if it came from my EHD or if it came from my computer I just glanced at the files and then hit restore for all of them.

Though, speaking of restore, let’s do a system restore. Tried that. Nope, it said that the administrator had disabled that option. WTH? I am the administrator.

I’m starting to promise God anything and everything if he would just fix my computer.

Tried starting MSCONFIG to see what was starting up. That would shut down in regular mode, in safe mode I could start it up but every time I deselected these extra things that were starting up on my computer, they’d recheck themselves when I restarted. I was flipping out. Tried to get to the task manager by CTRL + ALT + Delete. That wasn’t even an option showing anymore.

The final time I hit F8 when I rebooted I decided to try repair computer instead of safe mode. Bingo. I had the option of system restore there. I was able to restore to Feb 13. Everything was back. All of my much loved folders. All my pretty little icons. There was my beloved From Drive K folder with all of my pictures and scrapbook pages in it. Yeah, I should rename my folder to something else. I just named it that when I moved everything from my partitioned hard drive in my old computer to this one, because they were all on, you guessed, drive K.

I just about fell off my chair in relief. Jordan heard me yell I FIXED IT! from the shower with the water running.

Needless to say, no one will be touching my computer again.

And now I have a whole spreadsheet of things I can and cannot do re: my promises to God if it got fixed. I really need to think more before I promise things to someone who can strike me down with lightening.

Guess what I did immediately after I got it back up and running again? Backed up my pictures to my EHD.

Here’s your handy dandy tip of the day: Back up more than 1 every 2 months.

That’s what I was freaking over. I have all my disks to reinstall my programs if I had to reformat, I might have to reup some of my CDs to my computer which would be a total PITA if I wanted them on there for my iPod again, all of my digital stuff is saved on Amazon, I can redownload everything I’ve bought there, but I didn’t have the important stuff backed up.

There really is not excuse, I have 1 – 500 GB EHD and 2 – 250 GB EHDs, you know, back up and then back up your back up.

After all that I decided that it was time to defrag. I use defraggler because the defrag in my system tools freezes half way through every time. I started it at 2 AM and then went to bed. At 7 this morning it was only 70% done. It was just finally finished at 9 AM. My computer had better run better after that long of a defrag.

So, class, let’s recap Heather’s favorite programs, all of them free, none which helped me out with this problem, but I still will use them because they are the best I have found for what I need (plus a few others):

(I’m not sure which works better between the cleaning programs, so I alternate.)

Those are the ones I use at least on a weekly basis if not more often.

While I’m linking to free awesome programs, I’ve had a few emails lately asking me how I do my digital scrapbooking. Introducing new mom’s all over to this fantabulous way of preserving your memories. I use the program Paint Shop Pro (I actually use X1, but they just released X3, I am trying to decide if it’s worth the cost of upgrading or is it like X2, a few bells and whistles added, nothing I really need?) A lot of scrappers use photoshop products – including elements. But, if you’re brand new to scrapping, don’t have a photo program and don’t want to put out a lot of money until you know if you like it or not, Gimp is a program that is free, similar to Photoshop and those who use it love it.

I personally have been using PSP since version 7 and I can make it do just about anything that Photoshop can do, some in less steps, some in more, it’s way lower priced than PS. I have photoshop elements 5 installed on my computer that I got with my Wacom tablet, and I’ve downloaded the free trial of Photoshop CS2 (they are past 2 now. ) but when I open it, I look at it, close it, and open up my PSP. I might just have a mind block because I have used PSP for so long, but I just don’t get it.

That’s linked to the pic.

I think I’m going to take a picture of what I’d be laying in if I got myself in that position and twitpic it to Ricky Martin. It’d be my toes turning blue in snow. I want to be on a beach.

I’m going to go play with Nano a bit! Have a great day!

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My Life

My Kids Crack Me Up

Posted by Heather Manning On February - 12 - 2010

My children are funny without even trying.

Yesterday I got out Christiano’s blocks hoping to improve his mood a little. Alyce was sleeping, the other 2 were at school, just Nano and I.

I’m all trying to build him a tower and he is knocking it down before I even get a third block stacked. Over and over and over. I wish I had video of this because it was way funnier in person than I can tell it.

He goes off to play with one of his many cars and I proceeded to make a castle out of foam blocks. He looks over, notices that I managed to get a bunch of blocks stacked up without him knocking them down, walks over to me squats down and starts waving his arms through my castle, he’s laughing and squealing and not finished until there is not one block on top of another one. Even with his destruction, he wasn’t happy that a block had landed on top of another, so he went after those, all the blocks had to be laying in a single layer on the floor.

Is that kinda OCD of him? O

Ok, that wasn’t as funny in the retelling as it was when it actually happened. What do ya do?

Then Jordan comes home from school. He’s been studying debate. I guess his topic is “why my mom should let me have a dirt bike when she has told me know 300000000 times.) He looks at me all seriously and says, “Mom, let’s discuss my getting a dirt bike.”

First, you say I play video games too much, that you want me to get off my butt and move. If I had a dirt bike I could be outside riding it.

My rebuttal, riding on a dirt bike is not quite the same exercise that riding on your bike would be. You’d move a lot more muscles on the bike.

I then said, and where would you ride this dirt bike at.

Mom, I knew you would say that. I would keep my dirt bike and grandma’s and ride it on their acreage.

So, you’re going to ride every great once in awhile?

Well, I could stay at grandma’s for a week here and there.

[insert my mom laughing here]

And, if you’re worried about the cost mom, I’ve got that covered. I earn money at my dad’s house. I’d give you that money every time I come home. Plus you could keep whatever I earned here.

My rebuttal, save all that money, then by the time you have enough money saved up, you might be to the point where I think you are old and mature enough to own a dirt bike.

Mom wins.

Would you guys get your 10 year old a dirt bike, he is almost 11, but I think it’s more a case of maturity rather than physical age. Jordan, at least up until last summer, had a habit of taking off on his bike. We’d go through this every couple of weeks. He knows to stay out in front, but he’d take off with a few kids. I’d look out, not see him. Load all of the other kids up, go out driving, find him at the next block of apartment buildings, or at the park. Then he’d be grounded for leaving where I could see him. If I can’t trust him on a bike, how the heck could I trust him on something with a motor?

I know he gets mad at me. Our apartment complex is huge, stretches down at least a mile if not longer. I don’t know how many times I see kids younger than Jordan at the park by themselves (with a sign up that says no one younger than 14 can be there without an adult) or out running around the parking lots of buildings that aren’t even close to where they live at. Jordan doesn’t think it’s fair, of course, but I really don’t care what the other parents let their kids do. I’m responsible for the safety and well being of my children, thank you very much.

Let’s flash forward to last night. The older 2 are watching Tom & Jerry cartoons. We’re old school over here. (I actually got a DVD set on sale for like $5.99 with 3 dvds full of Tom & Jerry.)

I started out nursing Christiano in my bed. Alyce joins us because she is *insert fake yawn here* sooooo tired mommy.

As soon as she climbs in bed she’s giggling and just making a nuisance of herself to the mom who is trying to put the baby to sleep. Christiano decided that he wasn’t in the mood to nurse anymore, he was going to play with his sissy.

They started playing hide and seek with my pillows. Alyce hiding, Christiano seeking. And might I add here that Alyce is not very good at hide and seek. With those giggles, anyone could find her including a not quite yet one year old.

Christiano took my pillow from her, put it over his head and bent at the waist with his face in my mattress. I pulled the pillow off of him and he stayed that way, face planted in the sheet, the whole, if I can’t see them, they can’t see me, I’m hiding so good! thing. I was ROLLING. He’s all still, not making a sound, Alyce is giggling up a storm. I said, Nano……mommy sees you. He looked up at me, gasped and opened his eyes all big, in shock that we found him. I’m telling you, I almost peed my pants.

I’m thinking we need to play peek a boo with our hands more. Work on that, just because your eyes are covered doesn’t mean your invisible thing he has going on.

He’s so funny!

Then we’ve got one of Miss Alyce. Who, by the way is off her amoxicillan for 2 days. She is throwing up every time we gave it to her. The dr said to take her off for 2 days then give her 1/2 the dose until the medicine is gone.

I went into the bathroom last night. She comes following me because it isn’t a great trip to the bathroom unless I have a party going on with me. She looks at me and said, “I brush my teeth and go to bed.” That’s standard, she always says that. Then she never goes to bed. I said, “You need to brush your teeth?” “Yep, I brush my teeth, my teeth stinky.” Open mouth wide, haaaaaa haaaaaaa haaaaaa (that’s the sound of breathing out really big 3 times). See mommy, you smell it? I got stinky teeth.

Picking myself back up off the floor where I passed out from the smell………..I let her brush her teeth.

The kids are off of school today. Teacher work day. My friend Diane said teacher work days are so overrated. (She’s a teacher.) She prefers the day off period. Poor teachers.

Nothing planned at all. If the kids were completely healthy, I’d load us up and go to Pato’s work, but his boss doesn’t like it when family comes to eat for free on Fridays, Saturdays, busy days ever.

So we’ll just sit here bored today.

Have a great day!

Note to self, need more prenatal vitamins for me, zinc, vitamin C, vitamins, whatever else will keep us healthy, Pato and I are starting to feel like crud, before we need to buy stock in NyQuil.

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My Life

There Are Some Things Even A Mom….

Posted by Heather Manning On February - 8 - 2010

shouldn’t have to do. If talking about stool samples will make you sick, skip this post. Thank God they were baby stool samples at least.

Have you ever tried to get a stool sample from a baby whose stool is soaking into his diaper? I have a request for the makers of stool sample kits. When you are making those vials and spoons, make a separate one for babies who are in diapers because let me tell you, that spiked spoon attached to the lid does nothing but rip the diaper up.

My doctor told me once when Jordan was a baby that babies are like cars. Cars will tick until you get them to the mechanic then they won’t duplicate that noise again for the person who needs to fix it. Babies will do the same thing with the doctor. Tick tick tick, get to the doctor, nothing.

Christiano didn’t have another diaper that concerned me after we got back from the doctor, so the stool sample vials sat there until this morning when I get a whiff of him.

Pato’s ironing his clothes, which usually when he does that, Christiano goes over trying to pull Pato’s pants off the board, I thought that would work in my favor this morning. I take the diaper off, clean him up, put a new one on. Christiano just lays there looking at me. Usually as soon as the diaper is off he’s rolling over trying to get up. He doesn’t even wait for the new one. Now when I need him to move he won’t. Pato’s whistling at him, calling him to come over. Nothing. (Yes, my husband calls to our children like dogs, whistle, here Nano, Nano. It might not really be that bad. I might be exaggerating a tad. It’s close though.) I snap the gloves on, turn my whole body away from Christian and start setting things up. Christian gets up, toddles over to me, squats down, and looks at me funny. I swear my son was thinking, what the heck are you doing with my diaper mom? Or, maybe he was thinking, you never let me play with my own poo. How come you get to have all the fun?

I got out the spiky spoon and tried to get some out. Ripped the diaper. Crap. I’m holding my breath this whole time. I got a plastic fork out and started scraping at the diaper. Christian went and sat at the sliding glass door, looked at me, and started laughing. I am not kidding you. My almost 1 year old was laughing at me, like it was funny that I had to dig crap out of his diaper. Have you ever tried to get stuff out of a diaper when the stool is so loose it soaks into the diaper? Not cool.

The plastic fork wouldn’t fit into the vials very well, so then I had to use the spiky spoon to scrape it off the fork and into the 3 vials. Pato was cracking up.

I said, you know what. Laugh now bud. Next time we have to get samples of our kids poo, it’s all on you, and it’s usually Jordan we have to get samples of. You have fun with that dude.

I scraped and scraped, almost passing out from holding my breath. Didn’t even get close to enough to fill up to the magic lines in the handy dandy flippin’ vials. Said screw it. They can take what I have because it’s not going to get much better until he’s back to solid poo. At that point, we won’t need stool samples because the whole reason we are getting them is that he’s had diarrhea since Tuesday.

I’m just thankful that my sister-in-law, who is a nurse at our clinic, threw in gloves for me to use while doing it. Normally they don’t think of those. So, a big thank you to Angie. Man, that would have sucked even more bare handed.

I have to say I think I’ll take Ricky Martin‘s advice. Singing always makes me feel better and after a morning of playing in poo, I need it.

Have a great day!

ETA – You know I’ve been doing KettleWorX. What are your favorite weight loss products? Tell me your secrets!

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My Life

Find Your Tribe

Posted by Heather Manning On February - 6 - 2010

Over on SITS today they had a fun suggestion and I thought I’d follow along.

Today, your challenge is to start connecting with some of your blog’s tribe.

Identify five bloggers that regularly comment on your blog.

Call them out in a post on your blog.

You could highlight a post they wrote, link to their main blog URL, or thank them by name. Think about ways you can thank your readers for supporting you. Maybe you can do a weekly round-up of links highlighting some of your tribe/commenters? The idea is to encourage interaction. If certain people comment regularly on your blog, I bet your readers might like to read their blogs, too. Pay it forward and watch your tribe grow.

So, let’s find 5 of the people who visit my blog lately! I’ve got to wave and say hi to the lurkers! I’d love to have you comment so I can visit your blog too!

1) The Girl Next Door – Laura has such a fun attitude! I love reading her blog. She’s got such a sense of life when she writes! Thank you Laura for visiting me!

2) Flying Giggles and Lollipops – Michelle is a fun blogger who does like me, she mixes up posts about her life and reviews/giveaways. I think her blog is so much fun to visit! And it seems like whatever she writes, I have been through or will be going through. Thank you Michelle for reading my blog too and for the email sessions!

3) Kristine’s World – Kristine has been a friend of mine from way back – even before digiscrapping. She has a wicked sense of humor and I adore her! Kristine, thank you for always being there for me with a comment on my blog or an email shot back and forth!

4) The Jersey Mooners – Stacy has been stopping by regularly leaving me a short sweet comment that always makes me smile! Thank you so much Stacy!

5) Dress My Doll – Margaret has been stopping by also. I love her blog. Most of you know that my daughters and youngest son are part hispanic because daddy is Mexican. I am always on the lookout for dolls that aren’t your typical blonde haired blue eyed (though Alyce is blue eyed) barbie doll. I want dolls that look like them. She has such a fun blog and she features a lot of African American dolls, which, when clicking on links, can lead me to other ethnicities, which leads me to dolls that my girls can relate to. Thank you Margaret for stopping by!

Ok, so if I didn’t point you out, it’s not because I didn’t notice that you’ve been stopping by! I will get you during the next posting. It was really hard to only pick 5 of my commentors and I want you to know that I appreciate each and every one of you! So, thank YOU for reading my blog!

___________________________________

Today Pato is off and Jordan is going to his dad’s. We’re going to hit the stores and grab Jordan’s birthday presents. I know the boys’ birthdays aren’t until the 23rd, but I don’t want to wait for the last minute and I don’t want to shop when Jordan is home. We’ll do Jordan this weekend and Christiano next.

Then we are going to hit Turtle Hut. It is by far my favorite consignment store. I can walk in, spend $60 and walk out with 4 or 5 grocery bags full of good, looks barely used, usually name brand clothes for the 3 youngest.

If you’re in the Des Moines area and haven’t heard of Turtle Hut, read these 2 reviews I found -

THE best consignment store in Des Moines! Great prices and awesome stuff. I go there for almost anything. It’s made garage sale-ing nothing more than a past time.

This is the cutest store I have ever seen! The quality is amazing and most of the clothing are name brands. I would recomend this store to anyone wanting childen’s clothes that look brand new at a great price!

Seriously, the prices there are so much better than Once Upon A Child or Kidding Around (the other 2 consignment stores I used to hit for kids clothes before I found Turtle Hut.) This is not a paid advertisement, I got nothing for it.

We’re hitting it up for Christiano today. Child hasn’t even hit one yet and he needs to go into 2T or 24 months clothes. He’s tall. Alyce is 3 and he’s past her shoulders already (and she’s not short). I’m curious to see how tall the kids have gotten. Jordan, Nano, and Alyce all have their well child checks on Feb 24. I’ll be able to update then on their heights. (I have a feeling Kat, Alyce, and Nano are going to tower over me as adults, they are always in the 90-off the scale range in height.) We’ll just leave it at Nano is tall and his pants are way too short, not to mention his arm sleeves are inching up above the wrist too.

Other than that, the only other plan I have is to guilt Pato into scrubbing the kitchen floor ask Pato to scrub the kitchen floor for me. Someone spilled jucie last night while I was either nursing Nano or changing one of his multiple diapers. It wasn’t cleaned up very well and I noticed the floor was sticky this morning when I walked on it with my bare feet.

Tweets -

From Eman, love the quote!

From Ricky Martin -

He didn’t post that one in English, so I shall translate.

Inhale for 5 seconds Exhale for 5 seconds without counting. #Life

If I’m not counting, how am I to know that 5 seconds have passed? Seriously, I know what he means. Breathe innnnnnnnn, Breathe oouuuuuuut. Excellent plan. Stop and just breathe a little.

Have a great day!

P.S. @HappyHourWiki is giving away an iPad! Sign up & find out how 2 win! Use HeatherM74 as your referral please! http://bit.ly/coiQj1 Easypeasy!

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My Life

Waiting On The Doctor

Posted by Heather Manning On February - 4 - 2010

I called this morning to see if he wants to see Christiano or if he just wants me to watch him. I’ve learned to call before I come. 90% of the time I get, it’s a virus. Just watch him. So now I call and give the symptoms first unless my mommy radar is going nuts, then I go straight in. He threw up again yesterday morning, once last night, and has had some nasty diapers. The one this morning was fun to change. Out the top, up to his neck and out the leg holes, down to his knees. My house still smells. Not that you want details about it, but it’s my blog and I’ll gross ya’all out if I want to.

He’s still nursing good though not eating food much. He ~~threw a complete and total toddler tantrum and tried crawling all over her when he saw~~ wanted Alyce’s cheese stick this morning so we got him one out and he’s eaten about half of it so far. Let’s see if he keeps that down.

Poor child has had so many showers in the last few days he is going to prune up permanently. But, when you are leaking the stuff he is all over himself, you have to get clean again.

Alyce got up this morning barking like a seal. (cough) When I asked Nano if he was a sick baby, Alyce looked at me with this pitiful expression and said, I’m a sick girl. Yes baby, you are.

It’s not unusual for my kids to be sick at the same time, but it is unusual for them to have completely different things like this. Usually they pass the same thing back and forth, back and forth, until everyone in the house has had the joy of partaking in the virus and the germs.

So far Kat and Jordan seem to be healthy. *knock on the proverbial wood*

Pato and I just started talking about the rash on his face too. He has a few spots that look like little pimples. I looked up hand, foot, and mouth disease and it doesn’t look like he has those symptoms. He’s had the little rash for a few days, but they haven’t developed into anything else.

I need to get my dishes done. Christiano was so cranky I didn’t get them done last night and they are stacked up. Not cool. As soon as he lets me put him down again, I’ve got to get on that. I think I’ll wait until he takes a nap because when I do dishes, he likes to help by taking everything off the bottom shelf. Such a good helper.