Why do I want to move?!? (caution: many expletives)

From a post on 11/9/05:
I HATE THIS FUCKING HOUSE!

Seriously, it sucks. Remember our septic tank issue? Or the two floods we've had? Probably didn't know this, but we HAD to redo the kitchen because the dishwasher broke before we started trying for kids.... I'll list 'em out later for your information and amusement....

What's the problem now? WE HAVE A DEAD FUCKING SKUNK IN THE WALL! And where is my husband? Same place he was when the septic tank broke - in FUCKING LOS ANGELES. And his way of saying goodbye? "I love you honey. Oh, that smell is making it from the basement to the first floor. Can you take care of it? Bye!" That was at 5am. I've been up since!!!!

Here are some of the things we've had to deal with since buying this house less than 5 years ago:

• Replace dryer
• Dishwasher dies. Call out repairman, can't fix it. Can't pull it out without tearing out the counter - they built this fucking 1972 (it was on the dishwasher!) machine into a 1991 built house. Idiots. We had ordered a new dishwasher - it was TOO DEEP for the counters. The counters were for a bathroom, not a kitchen. Whole kitchen needs redoing unless we want to fix a stupid 1972 dishwasher.
• Stuck in our house because of a blizzard for a week at 6 months pregnant
• Seal breaks on 4 windows in livingroom - total to fix? Well over $8000. Not gonna happen.
• Starts to smell in basement. Come to find out that the last people who pumped our septic tank only pumped the overflow, not the whole thing. Well, that filled up - and then it backed up into the crawl space. Chris left town and I had to deal with it, a newborn and no toilets for two days. $300 to fix (not as much as originally quoted) and another $2000 to clean up the raw sewage. Fun.
• Flood in basement. Covered by insurance, but still $10,000 worth of damage
• Mice everywhere. Call exterminator and got it fixed.
• Flood in Sam's room. Not too bad
• More mice - and something large. And my husband tosses poison in the crawlspace (the girls can NOT get in there) and voila! No more large thing crawling around. Now it's a fucking DEAD thing *I* have to deal with.

Okay, I think I actually feel better. Well, at least not as angry. Off too figure this crap out.

Taking portraits today!

Today is the second set of "professional" portraits I'm doing.... This is for a co-worker of Chris' and her hubby and son. I'm pretty excited, but still a little nervous. I've been reading a TON on natural light photography as well as posing people so we'll see how it turns out! Julie and Mark know that they are guinea pigs so hopefully they are patient and the photos turn out like I'd like!

Sam is sleeping better!

Well, we've had a few nights of Sam sleeping well. Hopefully this is a trend that continues! Even though it takes a few times of me going back in there before she stays down, once she does, she's down well lately. Like last night, she was up about 3 times before 10pm (she went down at 8). But then she only woke at 3:30 before she was up for the day at 6:30am! Yeah!

I need to copy all my old posts from my other blog over here - one of these days!!!

My new blog

How many others have started their new blogs with that title?! LOL!

You'll be seeing this blog get a LOT of posts pretty quickly. I'm planning on moving all my blogs from MSN to here. I think that'll make it easier to update and add since I am constantly having to log out and log back in for MSN. Bleh.

So what's this blog about? Well, it's probably boring to most - I'll be talking about my girls (6 & 28 months), my life, my husband and photography.... So great information for me and my family, but probably nothing exciting to anyone else!!!

We have a tooth!!!

I am actually GIDDY about Sam having a tooth! Which may seem odd for someone exclusively breastfeeding.... But Ellie was HELL (and still is) when she's teething.... Sam's tooth was a complete surprise! I LOVE THAT!!!!

Soooo.... Here's the sleeping update. I'm not going to post the actual schedule we had (it's so damn long), but here's a recap of her old one:

• 8-11pm - Put down up to 5 times before sleeping more than 45 minutes
• 11pm-8am - Up to nurse and calm back to sleep every 1-2 hours - generally 8 times a night
• 8am-8pm - Up to 5 naps, none lasting more than 45 minutes, most around 20

Result: Cranky baby most of the time - ESPECIALLY at night

NOW:

• 8pm - 12am - to bed. May get up once or twice before midnight to nurse, but goes RIGHT back to sleep
• 12-8am - Up twice, maybe three times to nurse and go right back to sleep. We might have one session that takes 40 minutes, but generally it's pretty fast.
• Daytime - 2 long (1-2.5 hour) naps with a possibility of a late afternoon 30 minute nap

Result - Happy baby except when she's tired!!!!

I've been following the No-cry Sleep Solution for now. We still have a ways to go as she will nurse to sleep almost every time... We'll work towards breaking that habit soon. We will still have some rough nights from time to time (and I'm sure I'll jinx myself and tonight will suck), but overall.... things are 100% better!

But now that she's sleeping well, Ellie is teething and she is not going to sleep easily at all. Ah, well! That's just the way it goes!

My life has focused to a pinpoint.....

And that pinpoint is Sam. Everything else is a concentric circle around Sam and as you get further away, things become less important until they just drop off my radar. But that ring of concentric circles that are important in my life has gotten smaller and smaller.... There is very little I care about outside this small ring of things right now.....

What am I trying to say? I realized that Sam turned 6 months old on Saturday. I have been dealing with sleep issues, allergies, fussiness and more for 6 months. Most everything has been solved or at least dealt with, but the sleep issues are still there - rearing their ugly head. The other night, after trying to get her down for 3 hours starting at 8pm, I lost count of how many times she woke during the night. I got to about 9 and then couldn't focus anymore. It was then that I knew that my number one focus had to be getting this solved.

As a reminder, we were on our way there until a week and a half ago when she went into the ER. Since then, things have been bad, almost worse than before. So I went out and bought some books on sleeping and this is my focus in life right now.

That and trying to get Sam to eat. She dropped from 40% to 25% in weight and 75% to 50% in length - and the doctor feels this is because she won't eat solids. Yup, her two incidents with me feeding her and her getting violently ill have screwed up her want to eat. (She LOVED food the first 3 times we gave her some.) So we're working on that, too......

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know why I'm not around much. I check in when I can, but I often can't muster up the time or inclination to post more than once or twice a day. I think about everyone, but just can't post.....

Wish me luck getting this one piece fixed. I just feel that getting Sam onto a good, happy sleep schedule will allow me to focus on the rest of my life - the other things I need to be thinking about. So for now, I need to focus only on that.

Six months is too long let this going on. I won't let it happen for 6 more.

I miss everyone. I miss my life

My other allergy girl: Ellie's allergy appt

So, today we went to an allergy appt to see if Ellie was still allergic to eggs and peanuts... She's more allergic to eggs than before (didn't know it was possible to get less then more) and she's very allergic to peanuts and pecans. (Not surprised at the peanuts. And she's never been tested for pecans so I wouldn't have known.) Mildly allergic to other nuts.

While I'm certainly not surprised at the results that she's still allergic, I was bummed to see that eggs had gotten worse. We go back in a year to get her re-tested. But honestly, these allergies aren't as bad as soy and dairy so I'm totally fine with them. (She can have trace amounts of egg in her diet and be fine. Nuts we completely avoid.)

On a different note completely, we're going to see the Winnie the Pooh show this weekend and she's completely jazzed! (I am going to put Sam in the snugli and hope that she does okay with all the noise.) It should be a blast!

The real truth: I poisoned Sam on Saturday (Sam ER update)

So.... I've been wracking my brain on what could have sent Sam over the edge on Saturday night.... And couldn't come up with anything but Rice Cereal. But, as most of you know, rice is VERY non-allergenic. So that just didn't quite seem right.

Then this morning I was talking to a friend and she asked, "What's in the rice cereal?" I answered, "Well, rice of course!"

Then I thought of the fact that I never looked at the ingredients! Dumb!!! What's the second ingredient?!?!? SOY oil-lechithen! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! How STUPID am I not to think there would be SOY in the damn rice cereal. So I feel really dumb, sad, and relieved that it's not a rice allergy....

*sigh*

Lesson learned. Poor Sam!

Quick update on everyone

Gosh, I'm so far behind.... Since it's so early in the morning, I'm just going to put down several notes to remind myself what I need to update:

Sam sleeping
Sam rolling over for real
Sam sitting
Sam small amount of lunch meat in my diet
Sam rice cereal
Sam ER visit

Ellie potty
Ellie counting to 12 (10.10.05)
Ellie "wife"
Ellie "lettuh crahckuh"

I hear Sam. Must run.

Update on Sam.....

I'm not going to post a full update yet - I want to wait a little while for things to even out - but I wanted to let you know that things are improving a bit. She is waking far less at night and sleeping a little better. Her naps have shortened dramatically - and she's obviously still tired. But I'm sleeping better, too, so I'm quite a bit happier!

As soon as we know where this will all land, I'll let you know what I did. But I will say this, I read and re-read what everyone said and tossed out everything I was doing and tried a TON of different things. Even things I said I never would or had already tried before. I decided that I should start from scratch..... And it's helped.