Sweet Music

After his lip repair last December Matthew was really restless and we had a hard time keeping him sleeping and comfortable.  I made a little joke to the nurse that he must not be used to all the quiet since he's the youngest of four.  She laughed and left the room to come back with a small box that she plugged by his bed.  She turned it on and it played soft "black" noise to help him.  It worked once his swing came and the Morphine kicked in.  ;)

At Matthew's 6 month check up at the cleft clinic his plastic surgeon was thinking about having his palate repair done sometime in September. I am not looking forward to having my poor little one year old in so much pain and discomfort. (Yes, you read that right...he'll be one!)
Tonight I was blog surfing and came to this blog.  (This blogger is quite amazing, she really is inspirational.)  Picture a little light bulb go on above my head as I read about this give away.  Wouldn't this be so soothing and amazing for my little boy to listen to while he recovers??  I think so, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. 

Some days are harder than others.

I was at doctors appointments all day today and for a break I took Daniel to a McDonald's play place.  Matthew needed to eat and it was time for his lunch consisting of creamed corn and strawberry puree.  Matthew doesn't sit yet so I put a few of his blankets around him in a highchair to hold him up and we got down to business.  Matthew was uber distracted watching all the kids playing and screaming around him that it was hard to get him to stay focused.  About half way through the feed I could hear the ladies at another table talk about how young my baby was and how he wasn't old enough to be eating solids.  I was getting a tad annoyed when Matthew sneezed and his food came out his nose.  For him, this is normal and we don't clean his face unless it is bugging him.  It may not look pretty and can even be alarming but for Matthew he doesn't know or have a choice.  What goes into his mouth also ends up in his nose.  Enter the busy body ladies at the other table again commenting on how he was choking and the look of discust on their faces.  It was like I was waving a soiled diaper under their noses.   
Today I was jolted back into realizing that Matthew will forever have challenges.  He will one day have to face children who will tease him because of his scars, his split gums, his misplaced teeth.  A school photographer who may insist he shows his crooked teeth in school pictures.  Maybe the parent volunteer who will over correct him during one on one reading time because he can't say the proper phonetic sounds.
I know that we have lots of time to prepare, but for today i feel it and I'm overwhelmed.

Different Shapes and Sizes

This evening while we were eating supper Daniel got all of our attention to let us all know that his Daddy is a triangle.  Yep, apparently my husband is not rectangle, square, or circle...he's a big triangle. 

On Friday Daniel asked for a piece of bread.  I told him he could and he headed off to the side counter where we keep the bread.  As I was heading into the living room he calls me back and while standing in front of the counter exclaims, I'm not tall...can you reach it?  It was so cute and yes my poor boy, you are not tall. 

The other day Daniel climbs up on the side of my rocking chair to sit with me and asks: Are you a girl?  I tell him I am a girl to which he replies, I love girls. 

I just love this boy and he says the cutest things.  Maybe one day he'll be taller that a baseball bat.  ;)

*Sorry for the blurry picture, taken with my cell phone.*

Full

While out at our local home improvement store today I was approached by an elderly lady.  She was pushing her cart past mine which held Matthew in his car seat.  The other three where sitting around two small tables enjoying a late lunch. 
Our conversation went something like this:

Are all these kids with you?
Yes, these beautiful kids belong to me.
Your the Mother to all these kids?
Yes, I am their proud Mother.
Well you sure have your hands full.
She then told me to have a good afternoon and she walked away.

This is a typical conversation between curious strangers and I.  Usually I don't think twice about it however this lady got me thinking.  Yes, I am the Mother to four great kids.  I am very proud of my children and the are used to being in public and behave very well.  We are not immune from the odd melt down but for the most part, we hardly ever have problems.

So to this lady and others who ask, my hands are not full...my arms are.  They are the best huggers, the sweetest kissers, and my greatest joys. 

10 Second Rule?

I bought the kids pizza tonight for supper.  Knowing that my husband hates pizza I bought his usual order of 20 hot wings.  They are a bit pricey but hey, the guy really hates pizza.  As I am bringing the food into the house the box of wings falls and hits the garage floor.  Every single wing was laying on the concrete of our dirty garage.  Just my luck, in my attempt to avoid cooking I ended up getting take out and making supper.  ugh, what a day.  (And if your wondering, yes the thought did cross my mind to pick up the wings and "dust" them off.)

I'm taking it all off...

...and by all off I am referring to the extra padding I happen to have on my 5.5 frame.  I have mentioned before that a few of my family members started a challenge on January 2nd.  We all set a goal and a little friendly competition to loose weight.  We all weighed in together and marked down our weights and put them in an envelope.  We also all put in $50 to help with the motivation.  We are going to keep going until our final weigh in on July 2.  The person who has lost the most weight, by percentage of course wins.
Stepping on that scale in front of my whole family was super hard for me.  I did it with a kitchen full of my family and announced the large, scary number that was staring me in the face.  2.4.1.  Yikes I can't believe that I put this on my blog but yes my weight was an ugly 241 lbs.
Leaving my sisters house that day I realized that I had no game plan.  I didn't know where to begin.  So I came home and made a few changes, changes that I knew I could live with.  First thing first, no eating after 9:00pm.  It is still a late hour but sometimes by the time I get my kids settled, I haven't had my supper.  Eating breakfast every morning.  Making the decision that if I didn't want my kids to eat it, I wasn't allowed to.  It was only about a week into my new life style when my iPhone came to the door.  I saw a free application called Loseit.  I downloaded it and it has helped me to keep my calories in check.  I log everything I eat everyday and log any exercise I might get in.  I also record my weight so that I can see that little graph line dropping.  I also added my two sisters and my brother as friends.  They can see what my daily calorie intake is and if I happen to go over.  They also can see if I am getting off my butt and moving each and every day.
My goal is to drop 91 lbs. Hopefully I will reach this goal in November/December of this year.  If I don't not a huge deal, I want to do this in a healthy and safe way.  No crazy dieting and no pill popping for me.  I'm not able to go to a gym, and I won't be ordering any of Richard's or P90X DVDs in the near future.  However I will do this by facing the crazy woman who lives in my head.  The one who has been hiding for a long time leaving me to think that I would be forever fat.  She is slowly loosing her grasp on me and I am no longer in denial.  I have willpower.  Who knew??  I sure didn't.  I have to thank my sweet Matthew for this little gift.  After I found out that he was allergic to dairy I cut all dairy out of my diet so that he could still get my milk.  Breast feeding is something I have strong feelings about and believe that it is the best form of nutrition for any baby.  I was shocked to see that I was able to do this without any problems.  I was willing to give it all up just so that my son could have the best milk?  It took a few tears and a real shake of my head to apply that same logic to loosing weight.  Why was it so hard for me to leave the snacks, fast food, crappy junk food alone? Didn't I want all my kids to have the best, a healthy Mom?  
I am down 22 lbs and feeling great.  I am so proud of myself and know that I will be a better person and mother when this is all said and done. 

I am SO done with germs and bugs!

We have had quite the eventful house.  It started a few weeks ago when I happen to get yet another plugged duct.  (I'm pumping milk for Matthew since he is not able to breast feed.)  So take my word for it, if your doctor comes in and says she's going to use a large needle to drain out the infection...its going to hurt.  The bonus is it clears up really fast and doesn't hurt like a son of a gun.  ;)
Matthew had an appointment with his cleft team at the children's hospital.  Everything was going well until his ears started to drain clear fluid.  So after failing his hearing test again, they gave him some drops.  5 days later he had gross green pus coming out of his ear.  It happened at church so I decided to wait until the morning so that I could call his surgeon who put his tubes in to look at him rather than some one different.  The good news is tubes are still in place and everything is looking good. 
Becca had a cold with a mild cough.  She didn't get too sick and bounced back really quickly.  That's my girl, doesn't seem to miss a beat unless she is super ugly sick. 
Michael managed to one up his sister and got strep.  He then ended up have a severe allergic reaction to the antibiotic and ended up with hives covering his whole body and facial swelling.  The poor boy even had hives in his mouth.  He spent a couple of hours at the hospital getting dose after dose of medication to reduce the allergic reaction.  We got the lovely lecture from the  ER doctor that we need to call an ambulance the next time he gets a bad reaction like this.  I'm just hoping that he doesn't have a next time.   
Daniel must have been feeling left out of the loop of sickies cause he now has strep and pneumonia.  He is just in the beginning of his ordeal and we are waiting to see how bad his chest x ray is.  The poor boy is quite ill and spends most of the day on the couch with his monster truck. 
I can't leave DH out of the blog...he had his gout flair up in his ankle and has been limping around.  
I think that we have had our share now so I have spent the day cleaning like mad to try and rid our house of any remaining germs trying to hang out.  I would really like to get my hands on some of those CaviWipes, you know the super germ killer ones they have at the hospital.  They probably would be safer than my home made water/bleach spray bottle I carefully take around my house.  (I have dark blue carpet through out the house so I have nightmares about spilling it.  Can you imagine, YIKES!)