Sickness Update....

Well, it turns out the reason both my kids have been sick is because they had upper respiratory infections, which of course, require antibiotics to kill off. They were on a "weaker" antibiotic for 5 days, but 2 days later, they are getting sick again. The medicine helped, but it didn't completely get rid of it. We have an appointment tomorrow with the pediatrician to discuss this further and to discuss Beauty's night terror issues. There's also an issue going on with her foot, but that requires a lot of explanation, so I'll save that for later.

As for me, I had to go to an Instacare Saturday afternoon because for the past month, I've been experiencing a drippy nose and a dry throat. This has been happening to me all the time for the last two years. I've even lost my voice quite a number of times because my throat gets so hoarse. You wanna know what the doctor told me was causing my problems? Allergies; that's right - ALLERGIES. I didn't know allergies could cause laryngitis, but I guess you learn something new every day. So, now I'm using a nasal spray daily and I'm also taking Claritin. I have to try this out for the next few days and see if it makes a difference. If it does, then I'll know what to do in the future when I start feeling sick. If it doesn't work, well, then I guess it's back to square one.

Wish my family luck and good health....we really need it!

Trying to keep up...

I'd like to try and post a blog at least twice a month, but I already know it'll be hard to do. Still, I'll do my best anyway.

Last Friday, Beauty had a play-date with her "boyfriend" from preschool. She was so happy when he showed up at the door and they had a great time playing together. It's great to see how relaxed and happy she is just hanging out with a friend (you know, like a regular kid). When it was time for them to leave, us moms were trying to get our kids to give each other a hug good-bye. Beauty leaned in to give him a hug, and he (let's call him Brian) leaned in and gave her a big ol' kiss on the cheek. Beauty touched her cheek with her hand, tilted her head and smiled. It was the CUTEST thing! I wish I had a camera at that moment.

Macho is still having "intestinal issues," which means it's been a solid month that, on average, I've been changing his diaper every 1/2 hour. I suspect he has a stomach bug, but I'm going to call the pediatrician tomorrow and get his take on this.

I also have to ask the pediatrician about Beauty, because she's been waking up at least twice a night now with night terrors. The other night, she woke up at 1 am and didn't go back to sleep until 4:30 am! Ugh....I was so exhausted.

I'm happy to report that since my last blog 2 1/2 weeks ago, I've lost another 4 pounds! Yay me =) Which means that I am only 9 lbs away from returning to my normal weight. I'm finally fitting comfortably in a size 14 again, but I really can't wait till I'm back down to a size 12. And, if I can lose 10 more pounds after that, I'll reach my ideal weight and be a size 10 again! The last time I was a size 10 was after I had Beauty; that's right, I said after. I lost so much weight after the pregnancy that I dropped 3 dress sizes. I won't hold my breath, but it'll be a happy miracle if I can make that happen again.

On a churchy note, I am the Relief Society Secretary and have been for over a year now. I love my calling and I love the women I work with, which is good 'cause I see them a lot. I bring this up because something interesting happened in church today. I received my new list of sisters to visit teach and of all people, the RS President is on my list. Let me say that again: The Relief Society PRESIDENT. I mean, seriously?? They want ME to visit teach HER? I mean, I spend so much time with her already and I'm sure she's probably getting tired of always seeing me. So, not only do I work with her, but now I have to teach her. It's just so weird; what could she possibly learn from me? I'm a girl in my late 20's and she's in her early 50's. If anything she should be teaching me, which she does all the time anyway, just 'cause she's just such an amazing woman.

Another thing happened in church today, but this was quite embarrassing. At the very end when it was time to leave church, Beauty started making a dash toward the Relief Society room. Why? Because she knows there's a piano in there. As much as I wanted to allow her to play on it, I couldn't because there was another class waiting for the room. She threw a HUGE tantrum, and everyone just stared looking at this beautiful girl throwing herself on the floor. I had my hands full with other stuff, so I had a really hard time getting a good grip on her. Eventually, the RS President had to pick her up for me and take her out the door. Not a good way to end the day at church. Good think my wonderful mother-in-law is giving Beauty a keyboard this week. Hopefully, that'll help ease the "piano fetish."

Finally, today we had quite a snowfall! Poor Hubby had to go out at 10 pm and shovel our driveway so we wouldn't wake up to an ice block in the morning. He's back inside now, drinking a nice mug of hot chocolate and reading his Holmes stories. I'm so grateful for a husband who is willing to get things done, even if it means it inconveniences him. He even helped me get Tons of chores done this weekend so I wouldn't have so much to do before Thanksgiving (which, btw, I am hosting this year). I truly picked the perfect man to be with for time and all eternity. I love him so much =)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and hopefully I'll blog again soon.

It's been a while...again

There are a lot of things that have happened over the last few months worth mentioning, but if I talked about everything in detail, I'd end up writing about 10 pages worth! So, I'm gonna try to keep each "bullet point" short and sweet so you don't get bored or tired reading my blog =)

1- Beauty started preschool in early September. I thought she'd have a hard time adjusting because they moved her special ed autistic class to a different school, but since all her teachers and classmates were the same, she got right back in the swing of things.

2- Beauty is finally drinking from a regular cup! She won't drink anything except water in a regular cup (her brain thinks that milk should be in a bottle, juice should be in a sippy cup, and water should be in a regular cup). I'm just happy that she's finally taken that next step.

3- Macho has been weened off the binky. I wish I could say that it happened because I had the willpower not to give it to him. The reality is he got real sick a couple of months back and was unable to sleep with it, so I just took it away and never gave it back. Now he goes to sleep all on his own without sucking on a binky.

4- This may not seem like a big deal for most people, but this was a HUGE step forward for Beauty; she finally started eating Ritz crackers! It's a really big deal because her mouth sensitivity issues keep her from eating SO MANY things. To finally be able to give her crackers to snack on means that eventually (hopefully), she will learn to eat a wider variety of foods.

5-Beauty made a friend in preschool - a boyfriend. According to the teachers, they do everything together. They swing, play, take turns on the computer; they're pretty much inseparable. It's really cute when I drop Beauty off at school, he'll see her and run away from the teacher towards my daughter so he can say hi. Young love =) If you'd like to see a picture of Beauty and a different boy (that's right, there's more than one), my Hubby has a picture posted on his blog: http://robert.walkertribe.com/2009/09/reeling-them-in.html

6- Macho won't shut up! lol Seriously though, I love that he talks and attempts to say new things all the time, but sometimes I'd really like some peace and quiet! I guess I won't get any of that until the kids are out of the house. He is doing really well though. He'll be two in a couple of months, he's almost 30 pounds, 34"tall and he's built like a linebacker! I wouldn't be surprised if he plays football one day, I think he'd be good at it.

7- A downside lately is that both kids have not been sleeping well. Macho usually sleeps from 7 pm to 7 am every night, straight through. But lately he's been waking up around 5 am and not being able to settle back down. It's mostly because he's had really bad "intestinal issues," so I've been changing his diaper every 20 minutes. Beauty's issue has been night terrors. She's been having them more often so she'll wake up screaming at all hours of the night and getting her to calm down and fall back to sleep takes a long time. Needless to say, I'm tired =(

8- Hubby and I have decided that we really need to be more proactive with helping Beauty get better. We realize there is no cure for Autism, however there are treatments available to help children get over some of their autistic tendencies. The downside is the treatment we're looking into (ABA= Applied Behavior Analysis) costs roughly $30k a year. It's an in-home program where specially trained instructors spend about 8 hrs a day with Beauty to work on her weaknesses, such as communication. We're looking into ways to come up with the financing. Please pray that we are able to make this work!

9- We recently had to take Beauty in for a couple of foot x-rays. Needless to say, it was rather difficult making her sit still. Hubby posted a rather amusing blog about it: http://robert.walkertribe.com/2009/10/five-stages-of-x-raying-child.html

10- Beauty had her first school pictures taken last Wednesday. According to the photographer (who called me because they were having a problem getting my child to sit still), Beauty kind of freaked out when she saw all the lights and the step stool they wanted her to sit on. They sent her back to the class, waited for her to calm down, then brought her back with a toy for her to play with. Eventually, they got a good picture. Once I get it, I'll show it off =)

11- Mommy moment: I put Beauty to bed the other day and without any prompting, she looked right at me and said, "I love you." It made me all teary-eyed.

12- I'll try to make this short: The mother of Beauty's friend (the boy) contacted the teacher the other day asking if there was a girl in the class named "Beauty." The teacher said yes and the mom requested to speak with me. I gave her a call and it turns out she found out about my daughter because her son said a prayer for her the other night. Isn't that sweet?! He also has a doll with brown hair and when he plays with it, he pretends it's my daughter. I think it's really cute, although Hubby said, "You know, if he were older, I'd say he was a stalker." I got a laugh out of that.

13- And last but not least...I'm finally off that horrible medication that was blowing me up like a balloon! I transferred to a new doctor and he told me to stop taking Lyrica and to try a new medication to help with my Fibromyalgia. The only negative side effect is nausea, but a major positive is that it helps you lose weight. I'm happy to report that since I stopped taking Lyrica (which was almost 2 months ago), I've lost 17 lbs. Whoo-hoo!!! I'd like to lose another 13 lbs (which would put me back at the weight I was before the medication), but my ultimate goal is to lose 23 lbs, which would put me at my ideal weight. Wish me luck!

Okay, I think that sums it all up. I'm gonna try to blog more frequently so I don't end up with these enormously long story-like blogs. Oh, one more thing I have to say...WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, BABY! Congrats to my Yankees on winning the WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!

(BTW, check out my autism blog: http://speakingonthespectrum.blogspot.com/ )