Blogging stay at home mom...

Sometimes when you're a stay at home mom, the blogs come faster than you can think. But other times, there's nothing out of the norm to write about. Today's been a crappy day. Jamie is teething like a beast and for some crazy reason I keep forgetting to put his teething necklace back on after his bath so it's ten times worse than it should be. When Jamie is teething bad, all he wants is me so Marcus ends up getting ignored and so he acts out terribly to get my attention too.

It's not fun!

It wouldn't be so bad if it had been a sunny day. Or even just not a rainy cloudy day. Just clouds would be fine! Super teether and monster acting out on a rainy, windy, cool day is a recipe for disaster.

Time is speeding up now that the move is getting close. I loathe packing. Specially with kids. The worst thing though is that we're the last to move out of everyone that came from Sabe's unit so by the time we're ready to pack the Uhaul, everybody is already gone [days ahead of us]. I'm going to have to end up shutting the kids in Marcus' room and helping as best I can. At least I'm not some frail tiny thing that can't lift a toothpick.

I'm excited to stay with the rents for a bit though. Way excited! I'll get to take engagement pics of Nano and Dawn, maternity pics of Amanda and family.. spend time with the bestie and let the rents see the kids! It'll be nice. The only down side to that is that Sabe's not gonna be with us. I was so excited to have a few months of seeing Sabe on a regular basis and now that's not going to happen. Sad! Ok, I'm done with my pitty party. :)

Walking Parrots

Marcus has become quite the parrot. He's been talking up a total storm lately!! It's so cute! He's not put two words together on his own yet, only when he's repeating movie lines or something, but he's saying a lot of stuff. He's getting a lot of concepts now too. Like if I tell him we're going outside, he'll run go grab his shoes. If I ask him if he's hungry, he'll go to the fridge. He's so smart! It really amazes me! Here's a cute vid of him waving and saying bye bye.

Jamesen is amazing too. Just look here! If you want to know, he's 8.5 months. It's 2 months almost to the day before Marcus was doing this. I've been saying all along that he would start walking 2 months before Marcus and it looks like I was right :)

That's it for now! :)

What's in a name?

As you know from a few previous blogs, Marcus is able to write his letters. He's gotten really good at the first 6 or so. Yesterday we all went outside and he went straight for his chalk like usual, and went to town. Sabe and I have written his name out for him before but he kind of brushes it off. Well yesterday, I wrote it 3 times in a row, saying each letter as I wrote it. When I finished, he walked away so I thought he just blew me off again, but he went and grabbed a piece of chalk, found some bare sidewalk [there's not much left] and said/wrote the letters a, m, c, u and s. I thought he was just writing out the alphabet again until we got to the third letter and then I realized he was writing his name! Such a proud moment!


The A is obvious. The M is the four lines next to it, the c is the curvy line next to the M. The U looks like a V and the S is backwards with the top hump tiny and the bottom hump huge. So stinking cute!!! He makes me so proud! He's so smart!

In other news, Jamesen has hit the age where we started weaning Marcus into the crib. I'm at the point where I would like a bed free of kids again so last night we rearranged and decluttered our room so that Jamesen had a clean crib. He slept in it for a few hours last night, which is a great start! I did have to climb in there to get him to go to sleep, but whatever it takes! We hope to have him into his own room by a year like we did with Marcus. We're going to probably be going straight to a toddler bed when we switch rooms since he's like Marcus, he'll probably be climbing out of it in no time!

Marcus has become quite the singer! His memory for song lyrics amazes me! He kind of babbles when he sings like that other video I posted, but he gets a lot of the consonants right and it seriously boggles my mind. It makes sense though because I've got music going all day every day. I frequently leave the lap top open so we have music while we're playing. His current favorite song is Long Tall Sally by Little Richard. He does this crazy dance that Sabe taught him, it's hilarious! You can see his excitement in this video, but he doesn't dance, he just goes crazy at the pack n play, quite funny!

I think that's it for now! Until next time :)

Buddha Bellies

You know how when little kids are just standing there, they're bellies are popping out? Marcus lost that when he was really sick. It was really sad/scary how skinny he was. You could literally see his entire rib cage and they were popping out pretty far off his stomach. Not fun! Well in the last few days, he's gotten his Buddha belly back and I can't even tell you how happy I am! It's been about a month since I posted the picture of him eating pizza on my 365 blog and in that time, he's gained a pound and a half back! If you know Marcus, you know he doesn't gain a pound in 3 months, let alone a pound and a half in one single month! I've been throwing pediasures and other things at him any chance I can.

His eating isn't back to normal, but I think that's because he's getting picky. He'll eat certain things but not others even though he use to love those things. Like yesterday, he was refusing pizza, but eating the meat off the top. Crazy kid! I've tried so hard to make him not be picky so I hope he's not going to decide that he is now. I don't think I could handle a picky eater!

Jamesen is going to pass him up soon. Marcus is 27 pounds and Jamie is 21! Speaking of Jamie, he lost interest in walking for awhile there but he's picking it back up. He's taken 7 steps in a row. It's funny though, sometimes he'll take steps and sometimes he just crumples to the ground and starts crying if I stand him a bit away from me. Today though, he did a three point turn without holding onto anything! Pretty cool!

If you don't normally read my 365 blog, check out today's post for some St. Patty's pics!

"Those" Thoughts

All of the people I know [minus my stalker] on Fort Knox are either pregnant or JUST had a baby within the last month. A really good friend of mine is pregnant. Jake's wife is pregnant. I'm surrounded by pregnant women and I've not had any inkling to have another kid. I've been going back and forth about even wanting another kid, period. I even photographed one of my friend's brand spanking new babies and even though the cuteness was overwhelming, it didn't tug at my maternal strings at all.

I've got a friend who just happens to have the exact same life as me, seriously. We joke all the time that we've got parallel lives. There are so many similarities in our lives and we do the same things at the same time, it's ridiculous. The other day she said something about wanting another one soon and my reaction was, "NOOOO!!" because every time I've gotten pregnant, it was like two weeks after her.

It wasn't until another friend of mine posted their positive pregnancy test that I felt the need to have another baby. Today, I even considered getting pregnant a year earlier than Sabe and I have been planning.

It wasn't because of someone getting pregnant or a tiny baby either. It was Jamesen that did it. I was changing his diaper and tickled his tummy. His laugh and the way he moved and smiled looked SO much like Marcus at this age that I had a flashback of him. The flashback was followed by an extremely quick fast forward to 2.5 years and then a flash forward of me blinking and Jamesen being 2.5 and it made me sad. They grow so quickly.

I felt the pangs of needing another baby tonight. They were strong enough for me to almost go talk to Sabe about getting pregnant again in the next few months. Who knows, maybe Kim and I will be having babies together again after all.

The Verdict

If you haven't read yesterdays 365 post on my blog, please do so before reading this. It'll make more sense.

I went to the hospital after Marcus went down so Sabe only had to deal with Jamesen while I was gone. I knew my foot wasn't broken because I was able to walk around WalMart with Sabe earlier in the evening, but it still hurt and was swelling up into my other toe pretty good so I wanted to make sure I didn't have a hairline fracture or something. Plus I've got my other spider bite. It's a good thing we're moving soon because I would packing up and requesting to be moved anyways! 2 spider bites in a 4 month span is RIDICULOUS! Specially when it's a recluse and happens during the night and Jamie is right next to me! It's a good thing I keep him covered from neck to foot every night.

Anyways, so the nurse recognized me from Jamie's last visit and told me that they got rid of the dr that sent him home with pneumonia because apparently pneumonia's been showing it's ugly head around post and he sent some people home with nothing and they were hospitalized a few days later. They got another dr and he's really nice and actually listens to you!

So he came in and checked my foot and it's fine [other than MASSIVE bruising! It looks horrible today!] and I can actually walk normally today so that's good. My bite is going to need a few more days before they can open it though. He told me that the reason they have to do that is because if they do it early, the venom of the bite will keep doing it's thing and keep pussing up so they'll have to go in and do it a second time. They look for the bump to be a bit softer than it is for it to be ready to be opened. Right now it's hard as a rock.

In other news, if you remember this 365 post, I mentioned that he loves this thing and I was wondering if anything was going in. Well Sabe took Marcus out yesterday and he was writing the entire alphabet on the pavement in his sidewalk chalk. I got a video but photobucket isn't liking it. A lot of his letters are backwards and his B looks like a D but that's ok! He seriously amazes me! Such a little smarty pants!

You know you're a photographer when..

So, I'm really OCD about my scrapbooking. The two facing pages have to be made with the same kit. Even if that means I use that kit that doesn't really go with the pics. It irritates me to follow it, but it drives me INSANE if I don't do it. So every month I go through my pictures and sort them onto my EHD [external hard drive for those of you who don't know the lingo]. I put the pictures into separate folders and have a folder titled "Needs to be Scrapped" and that one is broken down into each boy since I make them each books, not ones together. I then number them all so that i know which pics go onto which facing pages so I get it in chronological order at the same time as matching facing pages. I figure out which pages I want to group onto a page and then the ones that fall next to those in the time line and those all have the same first number and then i number each pic. So the pics on the first two facing pages would be 01- however many pics there are for both pages. The next pics would be 02- however many.

Anyways, my point is, since I got my DSLR, I've noticed that not only are more pics being taken, the pictures are better so I end up getting a ton of good ones and I can't just not scrap them, so I end up having HUGE "needs to be scrapped" folders for both boys. I just did Feb's numbering for Jamesen. In the single month of February, I number up to 14. Times that by two since it's facing pages and that 28 pages for February. One page a day is typical for my books and sometimes I do more. January for Jamesen had 20 facing pages. 40 pages for January! No wonder both kids books are filled and Marcus has 4 books at 2.5!!

On another note, I've got another spider bit and it's looking to be just like my last one which freaks.me.out. The ER kept telling me I was dumb for thinking it was a bite [until it was obvious that it was] because "Spiders don't usually bite!" If that's true, why did I just happen to get TWO in 4 months? This one is on my side and very tender. It might not be the same kind of spider because it's not quite as big, but then again my other one had a staff infection on top of it, so... Needless to say, I'm very unhappy. Getting that thing cut opened, drained and dressed every day was a pain in the butt and very very painful! And now I have to do it AGAIN! I hate Kentucky!

Distracted

It's bad. I just came on here to write a blog about being distracted and I got distracted by the fact that yesterday I got too distracted to fix the heading on here so it says "the LaBares" like usual. *shakes head*

Have you ever wanted to write a facebook status but realized that it would end up being 3 paragraphs, so you blog it instead? Yeah that's what this is.

So I looked at the clock and it was close to nap time. Marcus got up early this morning so if I did that math, technically it really was naptime at that time. I look over at Marcus right as he lets out a huge yawn and it decides it for me. So I turn to get a diaper out of the basket and realize there's only a few left, which reminds me of the diapers I put into the wash this morning and totally forgot about that need an extra rinse. So I walk into the kitchen/laundry room and turn the rinse on and out of the corner of my eye, I see my dip/salsa bowl [still left on the counter from my half unloading of the dishwasher earlier] and it reminds me how I've been craving chips and salsa all morning. I'm already in the kitchen, might as well just get it now right? So I do and then I sit down with the boys and we start eating chips and salsa [well, not Jamie, but I've got some snacks for him] and it reminds me of how Marcus and I use to eat bean dip and chips before Jamie came along. We'd make the dip and then snuggle up on the couch and watch Cars while we ate. So of course I had to put Cars on!

So the boys and I are snuggled up, the salsa and Jamie's puffs are now gone, the washer is quiet, the movie is almost over and I smell a faint smell coming from one little Mister Man's diaper, and it clicks. Not only have I not changed his diaper in about 4 hours, I've now completely missed his nap! I look over at him in time to see an even bigger yawn.

Looks like we'll be having a late night tonight!

March 3rd

I have a love/hate relationship with March third. March third is the halfway point of Marcus' year. So today, he turned 2 years and 6 months old. I love it because he's getting so big and doing so much but I hate it because it means he's on the OTHER side of 6 months to his next birthday. My little man who I swear was just a baby yesterday, is officially 2 and a half. He's come so very far in that 6 months! He's started talking up a storm and made incredible progress with it. He's learned to be more self sufficient, to share his mommy and I could go on and on.


He's got such a little personality on him. He's so amazing. And while he drives me absolutely insane, he also makes my heart sing. The smile on his face could warm any soul that sees it.

Happy half birthday Mister Man.

Jamie has pneumonia

I can't even tell you...

He's had a cough for the last week, but so has Marcus, so we've just been coasting it out. Well Sunday morning at like 3 am, he woke up with a fever of 102.6 from the binkie thermometer, meaning it was probably closer to 103 or over. I gave him some ibuprofen and took him to the stupid ER on base. I HATE that ER. They always get it wrong, but tricare won't pay for another ER so I take him there.

Anyways, two nurses listened to his lungs and were saying he sounded pretty bad and that he needed an xray and then told me to be pushy because the dr was being an idiot and not even trying to help a couple other people that were in there. He came in and listened to his lungs with a "he sounds perfect" and then checked his ears/throat and said "all looks good. Well, he's not got a temp now and he sounds fine and looks good so go ahead and go home. the fever was probably just a fluke!"

I honestly almost freaked on him. You could HEAR the junk in his lungs just sitting next to him. I told the guy I wanted a chest xray and he said "he sounds and looks fine, he doesn't need one" and i told him I wanted one anyways and he said "well then you can read it yourself" and walked out.

I got the xray and the doc came in and said everything was fine and left. The nurse came in right after and told me the doc barely looked at the xray and that she was going to show it to another dr when he came in. Well they called us today and said he's got pneumonia. Luckily it's a mild case still. The nurse told Sabe "Tell your wife she's a wonderful mother. Had she not brought him in and stood up for him, it could have gotten bad really fast!"Seriously happens every time we go to that ER and I hate it!

I had made an appointment with Jamie's pedi but the ER got back to us before our appointment so we didn't go. I won't hesitate to take him in if he doesn't get better though.

And on a lighter note...

a vid

Three is his streak so far!