jacob & his bike

and here's where i found jacob riding his bike without training wheels



http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=17968787

finally figured out how to get videos off my phone!

this is zach saying "what's up pimp juice" - for some reason you can't hear anything but pimp juice, but it's still cute

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=17968711

Happy 6 Weeks

wow. i know time flies by as you watch your children grow, but dang. i can't believe mikey is already 6 weeks old. we've stayed so busy lately too, so that has probably made the days seem shorter. there's just never enough hours in a day to do it all.

mikey is doing great. he weighed 7lb 13oz last friday. i'm anxious to see his weight this friday, i'm willing to be he's at least 9lbs. he seems to have really grown this last week or so. he's staying awake a little more and getting some control of that big head of his. his cephlahematoma is noticably smaller these days too, which is really great, i felt like that little bump would never start to shrink. he slept in his bed for the first time this past week. of course he was only there a few hours, until he woke for his 3am feeding, but its a start. he has slept there a little two other nights, and when i'm done blogging, i'll put him there and get a few hours sleep before he wakes to eat and i decide to be too lazy to put him back upstairs. (secretly i just love snuggling with him, but use being tired as an excuse for me and him to hog the bed and keep chris on the couch). he has this one little dimple on his left cheek, but only shows it to us occasionally in his sleep. the other morning his face lit up a little when i started telling him "good morning", it was nice to see what this mom will call some recongition - i'm telling ya the kid knows who gives him the good milk. breastfeeding is still going well, i can't belive i've stuck with it this time around - go me!

as for me. i have an appt with a new dentist on the 25th (thanks heather). and i had my 6 week pp check up today. all looks well. i'm only 2lbs over what i was when i conceived - of course everything shifted and my damn clothes still don't fit right. someone please tell me where this muffin top came from!?!?! i plan to hit the gym this week and get my body back - or as much of it back as possible after 4 kids right? for those wondering, i chickened out of the tubal. i just couldn't do anything permanent. period. and since i'm nursing my options were limited. so i took the depo for one round and will most likely go with the nuvaring in december, unless i happen to still be nursing. my ultimate goal was 3 months, so that will have come and gone by then. of course as well as things are going i may set myself a new 6 month goal. hell who knows, i can't even make up my mind what underwear to put on some days. my bp was up still, and i'm wondering if this is the cause of me being tired. some days i just want to crawl in bed and stay, but i know i can't so a few days i have left all my "to do" stuff to wait and endulged in a nap with mikey while the boys are in school - my problem is i sleep for 3 hours and still don't want to wake up, but i'm forced to.

the other boys are all doing well. neal got his first progress report, not what i'm used to seeing from him but we'll work on it.

jacob has his first girlfriend. even got her a ring out of the treasure chest today. he made me give him an envelope to decorate and wrap it in. awwwwwww. oh and today i looked out and saw him riding his bike without training wheels. what a proud moment.

zach is bustin' preK wide open. everyday he has a new song to teach me and when asked "what center did you go to?" i get the same response "kitchen". ok so he did go to computers a few times. and the only other kid he can remember in his class just happens to be zachary too.

chris is super busy with work. no big shock there. but they're tossing around some ideas for him. he's loving being in management and out of the shop most days. and in my opinion goes well above and beyond what he has to for terry. if only he'd been this dedicated to a job all those years ago, lol.

speaking of jobs. i need to go back to rome to help out with the breast program, but just can't bring myself to leave mikey yet......not even with my mom. i'm really struggling with even just a few hours. i don't remember being this bad before, but then again i didn't have a "choice" like i do now.

i'm also really enjoying the MOMS club. i've gone to a few things so far and have made some new friends, one or two that i click pretty well with. i really think this is going to be good for me and the boys.

i got a new phone and have a few videos to share but haven't figure out how to get them off the phone onto the computer yet.

ok, time to wrap it up and get a few hours sleep while i can. i leave you with new pics of mikey - not sure if he's saying "peace out" here or if that's "what's up pimp juice" which is zach's new greeting....

Dental Hell

I know I've really been slacking, Mikey and I have had a super busy week. SO yesterday was my dentist appt. Background, several months back I broke a very back tooth on the bottom right. Called the only dentist local for my ins. They got me in for a cleaning and to check out that tooth. They procede to tell me I have ELEVEN teeth that need work. Now, let me just throw out there the fact that NONE of my teeth bothered me in the slightest way, not even the broken one. Seriously not a single stitch of pain or sensitivity from ANY of them. However, I put my trust in her and tell her to fix them all. She does 3 on the top right. I am pleased with the work, have a little sensitivity to hot/cold in one of those. Next up are 3 on the top left and 1 on the bottom left. While there I ask about the sensitivity to which she tells me to use Sensodine Toothpaste and it will go away in a week or two, she then procedes with the four for previously mentioned. I leave. Now these teeth HURT. They ache, they are sensitive to hot/cold, and to pressure when biting. So I figure give it a bit like the others. My next apt comes and I miss it due to baby issues. Then I decide not to reschedule b/c of the pain and start looking for another dentist. Fixed teeth should not cause this much trouble...PERIOD! Well more baby stuff delays my search and here I am finally a few months later following up. Mom gets me an appt at the dental clinic on campus where she works. They don't do anything real serious there but I can at least get started and find out the "why" for the pain. I go last Thursday. She says all my composits look good, so she's not sure why I'm having so much pain and feels the most important thing to do is fix the broken - yeah the one I originally went in about that the other dentist didn't even work on! However I explain to her that I have to stop this pain in my upper right before we can even think about the broken tooth, since afterall it causes me no grief. SO yesterday I go back. The plan is to clean out the 3 composit fillings in the painful teeth and place in some medicine to "quiet them down" then refill them. Simple enough right? Yeah, would I be blogging about it if it were simple???? So there I am, my mouth all jacked open, a "rubber dam" across my face, numerous anesthetic injections, and she begins. She's cleaning the old fillings out, gets up, comes back cleans some more, gets up, comes back. She says "these fillings just keep going down down down. Then it happens, she hits a nerve. Now I about came out of the chair, but her reaction blew me away - she was so pissed by what she'd found that she actually threw her little dental mirror she was using. The last dentist had completely hollowed out my tooth and just laid a composit filling directly on my nerve. As the new dentist is explaining I start to cry. I am so fucking angry. All I can think is she's going to have to pull these teeth. We both calm down and she explains that she won't go any further on the other two, just put the med in ontop of the remaining filling and put the temp filling over that. Hopefully it will help for now. The 3rd tooth has to have a root canal, which she is not set up to do, but she has no choice at this point but to start it. I am finally done, and my mom comes over to check on me b/c we have to leave in order to pick the boys up in time. I am crying, shaking, and in so much pain my lips are quivering like it's 30 below in that office. Now, let me tell those of you who don't know, I have a massive pain tolerance. If I hurt bad enough to shed tears, then it's BAD. And shaking, I have never done due to pain before. The next step is to get me referred over to the other dentist in Rome that they work with and have the one root canal finished and the other two will probably have to have them as well. I honestly feel like I've been hit across the face with a baseball bat. And I am soooooooo fucking angry. Teeth that didn't bother me now have to have root canals????? WTF? All b/c some dentist decided to completely destroy my tooth. I will be going to get my records and original xrays Tuesday. If I find out that there was no cavity or a small cavity that didn't require the tooth to be so "hollowed" or that in fact it was so bad I truly did need a root canal, and that this dentist should have made other decisions for my treatment - GOD HELP HER! And to top it all off, the fuckin' broken tooth is still untreated, b/c now the immediate concern is the 3 teeth that the old dentist destroyed.

Way to Grow, Mikey!

mikey had his recheck today! he's up to 7lb 12oz!!!!!!! and his billi is down to 7!! finally we are seeing some major progress! we go back in 3 weeks.

it's hard to believe he'll be 4 weeks this tuesday. man the days have just flown by! of course i knew they would, look at neal, he's NINE already.

we had our first rough night last night, and it was on the low end of rough. he just seemed to have a little belly ache or something and woke more often, but he was easily soothed by nursing. or just snuggling.

i'm still having issues with low milk so i picked up a slew of herbs today at my favorite herb shop. it was $50 for what she set me up with but if it works it'll be soooooo worth it.
i also SCORED today at a church consignment sale. i got a medela pump in style for $20!!!!!!!! i was so freakin' stoked about this find. and it works great! i had all the personal parts b/c i had rented that other pump earlier on, so i am set! boy am i excited.

oh and i have to brag about my neal-bean! he auditioned for the chorus this past saturday. they only accepted 25 students from the 4th and 5th grades. we got his letter on thursday and i don't know who squealed louder, me or him. i was sooooooo afraid i was going to have to let him down gently. i kept reminding him that it was ok not to make it b/c there were so many trying out and only so few spots. so when i saw he made it i was elated!

ok here's two new pics of my sweet baby boy, wide eyed and semi-smiling!

what's new, gertrude???

let's see......i've been slack on blogging so i hope i can hit the highlights and not bore you to death.
friday night i went to my first moms club event. it was family night at CiCi's Pizza. chris had to work late so i said "what the hell". i took all four boys by myself and it was not at all as stressful as i had inticipated. the older boys met some new buddies in the gameroom and i got to chat it up with the moms. i am really glad i did this - thank you chelley! this thursday afternoon is a boys party at another girls house and i hope i can get everyone picked up and make it to that one. should be fun - and chaotic.

saturday mom and i took the boys and went shopping and to a bowling birthday party. the boys had a super time. who knew my kids were good bowlers?!?! jacob scored 122 and neal 99, i think zach was in the high 80's. i laughed saying this would be the one "sport" jacob was good at - look out bowling scholarship. they had never played before so i was pretty impressed. thanks again deska for the invite! this was also the first time i've ever had to pump or nurse in a public bathroom. i did both. i suppose there always has to be a first time for everything right?

sunday was a lazy day. boy was that nice. and monday was more shopping. we are trying to find mikey some clearance newborn sized clothes - the kid is so little he has nothing to wear - he wears the same 4 or 5 things over and over, lol. i'm just not used to have a small kid. i didn't score him anything great but i did score a pair of yoga pants for myself.

today i cleaned out my closet and brought back out the non-maternity clothes. i still have a ways to go to get back into my "thin" clothes, but all the "fat" clothes i didn't give away last year fit, so i'm good for now. i am counting down the days until i can get back to the gym - i'm so ready to get my body back to where it was this time last year.

it's been hot as hell here lately - i'm so glad i didn't suffer through those last 4 weeks in this heat - look at this on my car thermometer - yes that reads "131"















sunday - chris decided to clean up "big nasty" (his big ole jacked up jeep). he came in to get something and when he went back out this is what he found. jacob will do anything for daddy - he's such a suck up!





















and a few pics of mr. mikey, one just sleeping so sweetly taken on sunday and one taken yesterday in his one "outfit" that fits - everything else is a sleeper or a onsie, lol - score this at the carter's outlet on saturday for $6 - go me!

quick update

just a quick update. mikey had his weight check today - he is at 7lb 3oz - still 1oz under his birth weight but a definate improvement. however his billi count is going up, today's count was 11.2 up from 10.7 (8 days ago). this is concerning b/c it should be going down since he's peeing/pooping/eating well - so they are going to check it again in one week and decide what they need to do. so please keep those positive thoughts and prayers coming for my littlest man.
and i've got some new pics, but i just haven't had time to upload them to the computer yet. so watch for those in the coming days!