Maybe Not

So Buddy decided not to move in for the time being.  This after we talked with his mother about child support and how we would handle that issue.  Honestly I am relieved and very irritated at the same time.  I know that money is tight for her/them right now but we were honestly not being unfair regarding support payments.  The focus in this should be on Buddy and what is best for him… NOT money.  This isn’t a denial of the relief that overcame me when I realized the changes weren’t imminent because that was definitely there.  For now we will focus on spending additional time with Buddy and being supportive of his decisions.  All I can do at this point is pray for the whole thing.

Camera Fever

I have camera fever.  I really want a new camera.  I’m tired of my old camera because nearly all of the pictures taken require editing just to look okay.  I am currently using a Kodak Easy Share camera that is several years old; however I am completely unimpressed with the results from it so I’m pretty sure I don’t want another Easy Share.  I have tried everything to get rid of red eye in my pictures to no avail.  The shutter speed is extremely slow thus losing some really great shots. 

What do I want in a camera?  Good question.  I know that I want to take great pictures in basically any situation- action, landscape/nature, indoors, people, group shots, etc., etc.  I would like to have a camera that allows me explore with the settings but not overly complicated in that I have to set it up for every situation.  I would like this camera to be able to grow with me and my abilities (if that is possible).  My ideal camera would have the extra lens to go with it, I think. 

So… if you have a camera you love would you please tell me about it.  I am completely lost in my search.  Also, if you wouldn’t mind sharing where you got it and any other relevant details I may need to know.  Or if you know of a good site that recommends cameras based on answering questions I would be interested in checking those out too.

It’s time for another giveaway!

It’s time for another giveaway!  This is the second time I am happy to offer a giveaway for anyone who leaves a comment.  It’s always so hard for me to choose what to offer!  I have so many great ideas!  This prize is a gift certificate to spend with any WAHM of your choosing in the amount of $15.  I love to support WAHMs and hope that you do too!   

I will randomly pick a winner from all comments on Saturday night at 8:00 CDT.  Depending on the number of entries more prizes may be awarded, I will update this post if more prizes are offered.

Winners will be notified by email and also posted here on my blog.  If you are the winner you will have 3 days to claim your prize before it is offered to someone else.

Thanks for visiting and please take a couple minutes to look around.  More giveaways can be found here.

More than just April Fool’s Day

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary.   

Dear Husband and I were planning an August wedding (Aug. 22nd to be exact) but behold there were other plans in place for our future as our first child was due Aug. 31st.  I didn’t want to be a.) so pregnant that I couldn’t fit in the wedding dress, let alone being hot and miserable in the height of Iowa humid hotness  or b.) delivering or recovering from delivery.  Although it had not been officially discussed it was assumed that we would wait until after Moo Moo was born for the wedding.  We were driving on one of the main roads in Newton and DH looked over at me and said “Let’s get married… now.”  Well now wasn’t going to work because no preparations had been made but we looked at the calendar and decided to do it on April Fool’s Day.  We weren’t going to tell anyone except our witnesses- not even our parents- we planned on “eloping”.  That plan soon changed as we found that eloping wasn’t really all that cheap and so we decided to get married in the small, rural church with just our closest family and friends in attendance.  Afterall it was extremely short notice and it was taking place on a Thursday. 

Honestly it wasn’t the day that I had dreamed of all my life.  It was small, quiet, and yet so beautiful.  Suddenly all the things that I had dreamed of seemed completely unimportant.  All that mattered was that I was joining my life with my best friend.  Someone who loved me unconditionally, someone I knew I could count on.  It didn’t matter that the decorations weren’t extravagant or that the matron of honor wore a consignment store dress or that DH wore my dad’s suit.  It was a day full of a new life and the promise of blessings to follow.  We had cake and ice cream at the church following the short service.  Then we went out to eat at a local steak house.  I had horrible “all-day sickness” (not just morning sickness) with the pregnancy and got sick on the way to eat.  We stayed in a local hotel that night.  Again, not the “honeymoon” of my dreams but it didn’t matter.  Dear Husband returned to work the next evening. 

A wonderful, memorable, blessed day filled with the most important thing: Love. 

 

The years that have followed have been great.  We rarely fight and only argue upon rare occasion.  We fill our home with love and acceptance.  It can be done even in the days of now, where is seems few marriages make it even this far.  I know the struggles of life are not over but I know that we can and will make it through the difficult times.  I love you honey!

“I don’t like it”

A post on another blog that I frequent quite often got me thinking about the differences in the boys’ eating habits and our current struggles with meal time. 

“I don’t like it,” has become the common response to any inquiry about whether Moo Moo is hungry or not.  Half of the time he doesn’t even know what we are having before I hear these four evil words uttered from his mouth.  Over the last few weeks we have had to remove the words breakfast, lunch, and supper from our vocabulary because when he hears any one of them we get to hear: “I don’t like it!”  Don’t even think about putting something green on his plate because it invokes instant gagging.  Fruit-no, veggies-no, meat- sometimes, breads/pasta- usually.  You may be wondering what exactly do you feed this child and the short answer is: anything I can convince him to eat at that particular moment.  The only things that he will happily eat are butter/margarine, ketchup, and ranch (all of these things plain).  YUCK!

Some days he loves a food and the next time we offer it he absolutely refuses to eat it.  This is very frustrating because I never know if he will eat what I fix or not.  Even when he tells me he wants XX by the time it’s ready to eat he very well may have changed his mind.  Moo Moo has a very strong and prominent gag reflex so we must be careful about how much we push, plead, bargain, and make him sit at the table until everyone else is finished because any one of these things can push him over the edge to where he is vomiting at the table (it comes on fast too).  I struggle with making him something “special” or an alternative to what the rest of us are eating because he may or may not eat the alternative.  Yet at the same time I honestly do not know how the kid is able to survive on the amount of food he eats sometimes.  We have recently went to an instant breakfast mix to make chocolate milk to help ensure that he is getting adequate vitamins and such.  I don’t know what to do about this situation.

On the other end of the spectrum is Wrinkles.  He will eat anything and everything.  His recent newest favorite food is lettuce salad but it has to have a dressing, he won’t eat plain lettuce.  He loves onions, meat, noodles, bread, all fruits, most veggies.  I honestly can not think of anything that he refuses to eat.  Maybe his tastes will change as he grows but I certainly hope not!  Wrinkles is always hungry.  It is normal for him to eat as much if not more than Moo Moo who is two and a half years older than him.  I don’t want him to get (unhealthy) fat but I don’t want to keep him from eating when he needs it. 

As I struggle with this eating issue, I am now trying to sort out all the information on trying to implement a “diet” for Dearest Husband to try to combat his high cholesterol and pre-diabetic conditions.  I also need to start a diet as I have put on more than a few pounds since quitting smoking.  I am torn between going on a high (healthy) fat diet and trying to better monitor portion sizes or going to a low fat diet along with portion control.  I just want something to help with his issues and get him off of his medications (like yesterday) and getting me to quit eating so much. 

Who knew feeding kids could be so difficult?  I certainly didn’t- maybe I missed that memo!?!! LOL!  So in case you haven’t guessed it by now- meal time around here is a struggle in more than one way and a source of stress for me.  I am open to any comments/suggestions you may have on any of the issues.   Oh and also open to any yummy healthy recipes you have to share as I am feeling like we eat the same things over and over and over again.

Wanting an answer but not the one currently suggested.

For the last week my mind has been going a million miles a minute during every waking moment.  I have struggled for a long time having this very ill feeling in my stomach about Moo Moo’s development or lack thereof.  Since the time he was about nine months old he has stayed on the border line for about half of his developmental milestones.  Never falling far enough behind to be considered delayed yet enough that I, as his mother, can tell that he isn’t where he needs to be.  I have been struggling with this a lot here recently for reasons not understood by me.  Maybe this is just our time to deal with it?  I decided to make an appointment with a doctor in his pediatrician’s office because he regular ped. is booked thru mid March.  We needed to repeat lead tests anyway since last time he was a 10 and the maximum “normal” range is 9.  (That’s something I’m sure I will post about in another entry, on another day.) 

 We arrive for said appointment and my sister in law came with to assist since we had to do an arm blood draw this time (again due to last lead test).  While doctor and I are talking about the issues going on SIL is playing with Moo Moo.  Doctor observes for a short time and says that a speech evaluation was most likely in order and it would help calm my fears.  If only he knew how wrong he was.

Yesterday we went for his speech evaluation.  He is delayed, about  8 months to be exact.  However she noticed other things going on with him, along with some questions that I answered honestly, and she is now referring him to occupational therapy for an evaluation there.  Why?  Sensory problems which could be, but not necessarily are, related to autism- however high functioning autism.

This is not what I was looking for nor what I really feel is wrong with him.  Maybe I just don’t want to accept it?  He does exhibit some (probably more than average) signs of autism but I have this deep feeling within the pit of my stomach that it is something else.  I am willing to admit that something just isn’t quite right, which DH still hasn’t wrapped his mind around, but this just doesn’t feel like the right diagnosis.

Further testing will be done in either case.  We are going to go ahead with the speech therapy and the occupational therapy evaluation.  I’ve been busy reading, researching, talking with other moms about all of this and my feelings that I am trying to face.  What if it is autism?  Will I try to cut out all the things suggested out of his diet that some people suggest are factors contributing to autism or do we just figure out how to deal and move forward?  Either way we either have a diagnosis that is difficult to deal with emotionally or we are still left wondering what is going on, so it is a slightly trying time.  We try not to let Moo Moo in on the fact that something is wrong but I know he senses it.  He  picks up on how people who he is close with are feeling at any given moment though. 

Sorry if part or all of this is mumbled all together.  That’s just how my brain has been functioning for the last couple of weeks. 

WINNERS!!

Due to technical issues I was unable to post last night and today has been busy.  Nonetheless….. Due to the overwhelming number of entrants I decided to pick 2 winners to receive their choice of gift certificate.  I used a free number generator to determine the winners.  And they are….

(drumroll)

 Number 151-Mama Podkayne  and  378-Sarah!

Congrats to both of you.  I am heading to go write you emails right this moment.

 Thanks to everyone for playing along!  I never imagined the response would be this high.  Watch for more of these contests here in the future!! 

Why $17.50??

I’ve had a lot of people ask so I figured I would explain my reasoning behind the amount I chose for my giveaway.  It really is quite simple.  I couldn’t decide between $15 and $20, so I split the difference.  Also, this is the amount of money we (DH & I) are saving per day by being smoke free.  This is a special contest for me to host because I would not have been able to offer it had we still been smoking.  My prize for not smoking for a whole month is offering a contest to all of you to see how many comments I can get.   

It has been so much fun to see all the different people posting and I’m trying to keep up visiting as many fellow bloggers as I can.  The response has been phenomenal and I would like to thank each and every one of you for stopping by.  I hope you take a moment to look around a little bit.  Good Luck to Everyone!!

Just for fun! :)

      Even though I’m a little late on getting this going it still sounds like fun.  So here’s the deal: 

1. Post a comment to this post. 
2. On Feb. 3rd. at 10 p.m. CST I will randomly draw a winning number. 
3. Whoever “owns” that post wins a $17.50 gift certificate to your choice of the following:

• The Stork Wearhouse
• Target
• Amazon
• any other WAHM that you like to do buisiness with.

So…. comment away!!!!       

ETA:  If you want to know why the amount is $17.50, look around a little bit.  It’s not hard to find and the explanation is there. 

Out of the house

     This week I managed to drag myself and the boys out of the house.  Along with some friends we ventured to the Botanical Center.  It was a lovely site and warm on a very cold Iowa morning.  The boys had a ton of fun seeing, touching, and smelling all of the different plants that are all contained within the dome.  This is the one thing I love about the Botanical Center.  It is very hands on and we have never been told “not to touch” or “ssshhhhh”- very child friendly.  I do wish that the plants were labeled a little better so that I could explain more to Moo Moo but nonetheless it is a learning experience that he would otherwise not get to experience first hand.  Oh… and very cheap as far as things to do. 

Moo Moo and his friend C. had fun doing the scavenger hunt together.  Wrinkles was there with us too but he hung out in the Ergo on my back the whole time so we didn’t get any fun pictures of him even though he was having fun feeling the plants too.