Trying to Catch Up

You may think that I am taking a picture of my beautiful, dressed herself, don't judge me on the uncoordinating outfit daughter, but I'm not. That little piece of goodness she is standing next to is our new refrigerator!!!

After over a month we finally have a new refrigerator!!!! The only way we survived was by mooching milk from my mother's fridge. We now will have cold goods!!!

On another note, my grandparents came for a visit over the 4th of July weekend. I love when they come to visit for so many reasons. They love Regan to pieces and she gets absolutely spoiled rotten. My 94 year old grandfather plays and plays with her and that is so good to see....for both of them. I also love that it is one of the few times I get to know that there are several other pairs of eyes watching my little bundle of hyperness and I get to craft. My newest thing is trying to make handpainted clothes. Having a little girl who likes JoJo and knowing that all things JoJo are almost obsolete, I decided just to make my own stuff. My family has now decided that Christmas is going to consist primarily of hand made stuff and I am so excited! The following pictures are of my attempts at handpainting clothes. I can't draw worth a flip and so I cheated by following pictures, then just painted them.....it was really easy and didn't take very long at all. It was so much fun to do, now I need to get it together and paint the area around my new refrigerator. I had an entire month and didn't paint the space where the refrigerator sits. I thought there was no need, figuring my new refrigerator would cover the wall. This refrigerator is much smaller than my old one so of course you can see all around it and notice I didn't paint the wall behind uniformly. Arghh!!

Why did they have to take Bear off of tv? No one can cha cha like Bear can.

Below is my grandmother participating in the craftiness, I want her to teach me how to sew next time they come down.

Not so sure I like the shoes, and I absolutely think the socks look like a 1st grader painted them, but Regan likes them so that is all that counts. They started off as white canvas shoes and I bought the last pair. I wish I had thought of this sooner because I could have bought alot of white shoes and just painted them all different colors. Oh well, I am now on the lookout for cheap white canvas shoes.

My JoJo's? That is what she keeps saying.

What do you mean I can't wear them right now?!?!?

We had a good fourth of July just hanging out together and working on our different projects. We didn't make it to fireworks because of the bugs and Regan was scared, but we drove around the neighborhood and enjoyed all the neighborhood fireworks. I think alot of them were better than the real ones! It was really a good time and Regan got to where she really enjoyed watching them.

Our Summer So Far

Regan's new obsession is with sunglasses (gasses as she calls them)
Posing with two of her favorite things, gases and fwip fwops.
At the fishing tournament.

Whew!! It has been a pretty busy summer so far! I am working summer school, but that ends next week and so the great battle to pay bills begins in earnest as I won't get a paycheck for over a month! I am so sick of money and the lack of money being on the forefront of my thoughts every hour of the day, but then I realize I am so lucky compared to so many and so I need to stop my whining. Okay, I"m done!



I am stalling from going out into the humid, hot, humid, hot, humid weather to finish mowing my lawn. I turned off my sprinklers in the hopes that all my grass would die and most of it did, but unfortunately, the weeks are heartier than that and are taking over. Some of them are ridiculously tall and so I could no longer take it.....I had to mow. I. hate. to. mow.



We have done numerous library programs, including a magic show, reptile show, Ding Darling Animal Refuge Show, a funny singing play, and others. Konnor also got to play a Wii for the first time as they have Wii games on Fridays at the library. They sign up six kids for 1/2 hour slots, for three or fours hours in the afternoon. It was Wii sporting and had a bowling competition going. I was afraid he wasn't going to get how to do it because he had never played before and alot of the kids were very comfortable on the Wii. I shouldn't have worried as he was high scorer out of the entire day!! 586 pins on the game they played!



Regan and Konnor are both in swimming class. Konnor learned how to swim a couple of weeks ago when we went to Sunsplash for the $5 dollar days. He now needs to work on endurance and confidence and he loves it! Regan, not so much. I really need to get her in a pool more often. She loves, loves, loves, water and has a blast when playing in the pool, but hates, hates, hates swimming lessons and clings to me like a barnacle.



We also went to the Calusa Nature Center and went to a summer nights program where we saw more animals, watched a Planetarium Show (I loved it) and went to a camp fire and ate smores (and yes, it was over 90 degrees, but at least it kept the bugs away!). Regan did not like smores, I was quite surprised! They have a turtle tank there, and Regan continued her terror of turtles. We have a membership to the Nature Center so I think we are going to go quite often so that hopefully she will get over her fear.



Konnor went to a fishing tournament this weekend and had a blast! He caught one fish!



My grandparents are coming down for the 4th of July and so we are looking forward to their visit.



Okay, enough stalling, I need to go mow before it starts raining. Why is it that the rain isn't cooling, but just makes it muggy?!?!?!

I've Been Tagged!

My blogger friend, Amy, has tagged me, and I"m sorry it has taken me so long to finally get it together and answer the questions! I have never been tagged before, so this is a first!

5 Things I was doing 10yrs ago:

1. Let's see, 10 years ago I had just turned 23 (I had to think about that for a second!!) so I was in my first semester of Physical Therapy School. We started that summer.

2. I was working as a rehabiliation technologist making beans for money and so I also waitressed (Chili's - loved me that chip drawer that got my rear end expanding!) and worked at the vet's office (where I proceeded to try and adopt every stray animal that came through until I finally had to say "no more").

3. I was dating a guy that I had been going out with since I was 19.

4. I was driving my most favorite car - a black Del Sol, you know....the ones where the roof came off and it stored in the trunk. My little two seater stick shift that I loved, loved, loved. Several months later and a month before it was paid off, it got totaled.

5. Meeting new friends and starting a whole new avenue in life, and really enjoying college. About a year later, my new found life led to the extinction of the above referenced number 3 as he was the jealous, cheating type.

5 Things on my list to do today???

1. Clean this house!

2. Mow the lawn!

3. Fill out some paperwork forms

4. Call the state of Florida to see about getting a medicaid number so that I can treat patients privately (dorfus, computer illiterate me managed to lock up my application so that I can't move forward).

5. Research mini crabs as that it the next animal I think Regan would enjoy. We love watching them at the local PetSmart!! I love that Regan loves animals as much as I do!


5 Favorite snack foods????

1. Only five, what snack food isn't a favorite?!?!? Okay, let's see: cupcakes, homemade not the store bought ones

2. Cheetos, the puffy kind

3. Cheesecake

4. I am currently hooked on Chick-o-sticks

5. Sour Starburst


5 Things I would do if I were a billionaire????

1. Be a stay at home mom, I so desperately want to stay home with Regan, but seeing as how I am the only income I"m thinking that isn't a possiblity!

2. Take care of all my family's financial needs and let us all be debt free and move out to the country

3. Adopt another child or two (special needs)

4. Set up a fund for spaying and neutering animals and fund no kill shelters for all animals

5. Set up a scholarship fund for needy children

5 Places I have lived????

1. Sad to say, I was born and raised in Lee County and have only lived in three homes my entire life - one in Fort Myers, One in Alva, and now in Cape Coral.

I would move in a second if Konnor's mom didn't live down here. My whole family would probably move further north, the Carolina's, Tennesee or Denver would be my choice!

I am now supposed to tag five people, but can only think of four, so I tag:

1. Tricia

2. Carolyn

3. Anna

4. Darolyn, but since she is currently in China, she is allowed to take awhile to get back with us!!

Heartbreaking

Today has been pretty rough.....

My niece and nephew were unexpectedly picked up by their mother. This all happened within a 24 hour period and we are all reeling from the shock.

I can't grasp my head around the worry that I have for the future of those two children. I"m not sure they are going to grow up to be well adjusted adults and that breaks my heart and makes me feel so helpless. My nephew especially needs support and assistance that I"m not sure we could provide and I feel for sure he won't get when he goes back to his previous home. What do you do in a situation like that? What is the best thing for these children and how do we provide it? Every child needs stability and I am so upset we were blocked from having a relationship with them for over 10 years. I feel that at this point, we won't be able to have a lasting positive impact on their lives. Then I think of Konnor, and he also felt the impact of this on his life. He often was the butt of their jokes and would be ganged up on and belittled. What is right for his well being? I have been sick all day worrying about the the kids....my mom and I didn't even get to say goodbye as their mother was supposed to be here at midnight tonight and unexpectedly showed up around 4 pm before we were off of work and promptly loaded up and left. We didn't even hug them goodbye as we thought we would see them again. I am worried contact will be cut off again and we won't ever see them again. I wonder what could have been if we had only been given a chance to be part of their lives as they were growing up.

There are no winners in this situation.

The Doctor is in the House

I'm ready for my first patient. Okay Tiki, open up and say "ah".
Deep breath in.
Good job, Tiki. You were a wonderful patient. Please see my secretary, Marmie, for a sticker on your way out.
Whew! I'm beat after a long day at the office!

Regan's New Favorite Show

From So You Think You Can Dance: This guy is absolutely amazing! Down to his facial expressions he has got it all down!! He fascinates me!

Things Regan Loves

We had a pretty uneventful Mother's Day. I have to say something cliche in that everyday is Mother's Day for me! We actually spent the day cleaning, we took a nap together, and played together. All in all a good day.



I thought I would do a bullet post today with a list of some of Regan's favorite and not so favorite things!



Not so favorite:

• Sitting still



• Naps (and sleeping in general)



• Turtles



• Not getting her own way



• Meat



• Wearing clothes



• Swings

Favorite:

• Cantaloupe - the girl can eat her weight in cantaloupe



• Pasta of any kind - I think she has some Italian in her



• Her Ma, Mama, Papa, Uncle Jay Jay, Nemi, Agex and Angle (my mom, my grandmother, granfather, brother, Konnor, Alex, and Angelique)



• Her new obession is with Saurs (dinosaurs) and she loves watching the saurs on our back porch (lizards)



• JoJo's Circus, Micka, and Elmo



• Being naked....all the time and I usually allow it when we are home because hey, might as well enjoy it now!!



• Another new obsession is painted toe nails. LOVES her some painted toe nails and has to show everyone!



• Gymnastics



• Play doh



• Animals of all kinds except she is terrified of turtles



• Milk



• Carnation instant breakfast vanilla flavored



• Donuts



• Bikes and skateboards



• Doing the laundry



• Feeding the fish and ducks in the canal in our backyard



• Matchbox cars



• Dressing up, she can turn anything into dress up, Konnor's clothes included. Loves my shoes!



• Shoes in general, especially boots



• Taking showers



• Deuce coup cars



• Elvis



• Dancing



• Singing


• Playgrounds


• Her Twins (baby dolls)


• Going for rides in her stroller

Are ya kiddin' me?!?!

Please boycott Teleflora and the new NBC show "America's Favorite Mom". As part of the contest, they had the unbelievable gall to classify moms who have adopted into the category of "Non-Mom". In the same category with "neighbor". How in the He** do they think being a mom through adoption compares to being a neighbor?!?!?! They have since changed the category to Adoptive Mom, still segregating us into another category rather than just plain "mom".
The real kicker is that this is their "apology". You can read it here.

Somehow it does not make me feel better that the President of Teleflora is an adoptive parent and thought it was okay to list Adoptive Moms as Non-Moms. Is anybody else besides me worrying about the love and affection those "non-children" received while in that family?

I sent two emails to NBC and Teleflora expressing my disgust with the whole thing and urge you do to the same. Here is a copy of my email:

Dear Teleflora:

I sit here watching my daughter and can not believe the rage I feel inside. Rage that was caused by NBC, Teleflora, and its associates and sponsors for allowing a category "Non Moms" to describe mothers who have adopted. I feel sorry for all of you who think it takes biology and DNA to create the love between a mother and her child. My daughter is my daughter and I am her mother no matter that we do not share DNA. I would give my life for her and feel sorry for you that you will never feel that kind of love that is not dependent on shared genes, but rather is based in such deep emotions that they can not fully be described.

To see that you changed your category to "Adoptive Moms" still does not sit well with me. And in your "apology", you continue to classify adoptive moms and compare them to the neighbor. Where is your mindset that you believe a mother who has chosen to parent through adoption compares to a neighbor?!?!

I am a mother. Period. My daughter is my daughter. Period. There needs to be no descriptive word "adoptive" in front of the word mother. My daughter knows that I traveled half way around the world to have the blessing of being her mother. I spent over two years anxiously waiting for her to come home. I stay up night rocking her when she is sick. I'm the first one she sees in the morning and the last one she sees at night. We share the sticky kisses and the hugs that make your heart ache with love. I am a mother and I am incredulous and appalled down to my core that you would demean my relationship with my daughter. Shame on you.

Becky Newton
MOTHER to Regan

Skater Dudette

My internet has been down for over a week. Can I tell you I"m so sick of everything breaking around here?!?!? Anyway, we are looking for new things for the kids to do over the summer. We visited Eagle Skate Park and Regan and Konnor were amazed at all the kids skateboarding. We then went home and they got their skateboards out. Regan was pretty good! She will do anything to hang with the big kids!

I also spent some time today doing hair bows. I would love to figure out how to do JoJo. Regan's new obsession is JoJo's Circus. She has two pairs of JoJo pajamas (jammins in Regan talk) that she always wants to wear and she only wants to wear JoJo underwear. I have no idea why the obsession as she doesn't watch much tv, maybe 15 minutes a week. She loses all interest in cartoons after just a few minutes, but loves Matlock, Back to the Future, equestrian shows, and You've Got Mail remains her ultimate favorite. I don't have any clue as to why these are her favorites, but they are. Oh, and she'll watch Mickey Mouse Playhouse (Micka in Regan talk) when she thinks they are calling her name (you know when they yell out "Oh, Tooooooootles, she thinks they are calling "oh, Doodle"!!). My new favorites are the National Geographic and the History Channels. I used to only watch TLC and Discovery Health, but have watched them so often, I had to get a new fix!

The Tooth Fairy and Letterboxing

Konnor lost his first upper tooth this week. The other one was actually loose, but he was favoring it so much he bit down wrong on a sandwich and this one came out. The picture below is the next day when I pulled his original loose tooth!

I am sad to say that Spring Break is almost over :( Regan is also going to be upset because Konnor is no longer spending every night at our house. For the past week, he has slept at my house so that my mom didn't have to drop him off bright and early every morning on her way to work. Regan loved having him here and tried to convince me that she needed to be with him. For the last evening, she kept trying to sneak into bed with him:

Today, we headed over to Sanibel Island to bike through Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge and enjoy their Earth Day Celebration. As part of the celebration, the were offering free bike rentals. My mom left her bike and used my bike with the pull behind to carry waters and stuff. I had the brilliant idea that I would get a rental bike with a seat so that Regan could sit higher up to see all the nature and wildlife.

Obviously, that was not such a good idea as I fell with the bike about five minutes after getting it. As I was trying to get on! Me being so graceful and coordinated, I didn't realize there were no handbrakes. I tried to get on during an incline and my little petite girl weighed down the back so much we both tipped over. I was trying to engage the hand brakes to help stop us rolling and falling, but obviously that did not work so well as there were no handbrakes to be using! Regan didn't even utter a peep and somehow I managed to bang up my knee even though I landed on my bottom. Leave it to me! Please excuse the lack of make up. I figure that in the 90 degree weather it would melt off anyway, so why bother?We biked over 8 miles and she stayed in the above seat for about 1/2 a mile, the rest of the time she wanted to be in the pull behind. Figures. This area was so beautiful. Here is part of the gang. I'm behind the camera and Doodle was asleep in the pull behind. We tried a new activity today. It is called letter boxing. Letterboxing works like a scavenger hunt. The way it works is that you get together your own kit (Letterbox) that includes a stamp that has meaning to you, a notepad, pen, and a ink pad. You then can then go online at www.letterboxing.org and find hidden letterboxes. They are grouped according to geographic location. You look in your area and print off the clues as to where a letter box is hidden. Once you find a letterbox, you use your stamp to stamp in the notebook that should behidden in the letterbox. You also take the stamp that is in the hidden letterbox and stamp your notebook. You rehide the hidden letterbox so that the next person can find it. Basically, you are collecting stamps in your notebook from all the boxes that you find. You can also look up different areas when you go on vacation. If you want to hide your own letterbox, collect the stamp and notepad in a waterproof box, and you can set up clues on the website www.letterboxing.org. Our family is going to each create their own letterbox to hide! We tried it today while we were biking on Sanibel Island and although we didn't have our own kits made (because I wasn't sure we would actually find any boxes), we did have a blast finding the boxes. We found two out of the three we tried. The first one was hidden back in 2005 and probably is just no longer active. We are going to go back next weekend with our own stamps so we can "leave our mark"!!!! One of the clues was a hidden t-shirt that you take your picture with, rehide it for the next person, and then send a picture to the person who hid the t-shirt.
Finding our first letterbox! The kids were so excited. There was a letter, a t-shirt and some stickers. It was hidden by the Sanibel Lighthouse. So much fun!Here is the letter hidden in the box. Two people had already found the letter and stamped their names. Our picture with the t-shirt. We'll have to go back next weekend to stamp a stamp on the letter.
Alex is rehiding the box. This was our second letterbox we found. It was an old 35 mm film case with a letter and a stamp hidden inside. It was hidden on the boardwalk by the lighthouse. It was in a hole in a tree. Doodle and my brother's girlfriend hanging out and watching all the action. My brother is rehiding the canister. I also recently found out about geocaching. Sounds like a blast! If I ever have a GPS system, that is going to be my next adventure!~

Where Has the Time Gone?

It has been quite the hectic month. At Easter, my ex sister-in-law dropped off my brother's two oldest children. We haven't seen them in almost 10 years because she kept moving them around and changed their last names. They are now living with my mom and it has been quite the adjustment for everybody involved. It hasn't been an easy month. As a mother, I do not understand how you could drop off your children to virtual strangers and walk away. I just don't get it.

Anyway, we are trying to make it work, but it isn't easy. My nephew is changing schools already because his mother didn't mention until he was already in our neighborhood middle school that he had an IEP. Well, the IEP could not be met at the school he has been attending for the last three weeks so yet again, he is having to change schools. We would have tried to get through the rest of the year where he is, but he was failing 5 out of 7 courses with an average grade in the 40s. He just can't keep up and this was after we spent several hours each night trying to help him with homework. What was she thinking?!?!?

Okay, enough of the negative! We have tried to keep busy and have gone to Lakes Park, Sanibel, and a couple of neighborhood parks. The kids love to bike ride and so we have been taking bike rides and that has been good for everybody involved. It is currently spring break and I am just trying to spring clean my house. It is so in need of it! I have no idea how I manage to accumulate so much JUNK! I am also looking for more work as my outpatient patients have all graduated. Good for them, not so good for my bank account! My last patient's mom and I became pretty good friends as we would chat during her son's weekly sessions. I wish there was a home health company that serviced pediatrics in this town. I love home health because you truly get to know the families (both the good and bad!).

Regan continues to amaze me. I love that little girl so much it is unreal! She is really becoming such a little person. Her vocabulary is really coming along and she can hold entire conversations now. It has just "clicked". We played with play-doh yesterday and we are going to keep working on it....she has no idea what to do with it! I feel like I have been depriving my child of one of the basic skills of childhood - play-doh play! She also graduated in her preschool class. I resisted for a long time moving her because she is so desperately attached to her teacher and I hate to move her now, again in the summer for summer camp, and again next school year. Unfortunately, the children in her class were getting younger and younger and Regan was getting bored (according to the director and her teacher). I finally consented when two things happened within a two week period - Regan started sucking her thumb (from a former thumb sucker, I didn't care that she was sucking her thumb as much as I cared that she was mimicking her younger classmates' behaviors). Her behavior was also becoming babylike with more whining, crying, and temper tantrums. The second deciding factor was that she took a real dislike to her new teacher's assistant. I didn't care for her so much myself. She was always negative. Always telling me how she couldn't wait to get home and get away from work. From a parent's stand point, what you are really saying is that you can't wait to get away from my child. Regan also began crying hysterically if she was dropped off in the morning and this assistant was in the class. Her primary teacher doesn't get to work until 9:30 and that is not an option for me to start work at 10! The director got to witness this behavior one morning and had me drop her off in the mornings to a different class, but I wasn't happy with that...she would still have to go be with the assistant during the day. The director would then watch her in the mornings and take her in the afternoons to a different class and said she loved the older class. I said we would try it and I am so glad we did, the first day she went right in, said hi to her new teacher, and joined right into the class. This class is more structured, so hopefully, this will work! Next week will be rough because Doodle never does well with going back to school after a vacation.

Great Week!

I got into Mommy's eyeliner, don't I look wonderful! I do have to say, I love this picture of her eyes, aren't they gorgeous!!!

Posing at the fair!

Didn't I do a great job decorating!!

The last week has been loads of fun. And I mean it for real!

Last Sunday, we went to the park with friends of mine to allow the kids to play together. It was nice to hang out together and socialize.

On Wednesday, Regan had her gymnastics class and she did so well! She behaved so well, waited her turn nicely and hung out with a woman who is 8 1/2 months pregnant. I don't know why that particular woman was who she wanted to hang out with, but she wanted that lady to hold her the entire time. Luckily, this woman's husband helped their little girl with gymnastics as Regan had her occupied. I kept offering to take Regan because I didn't want to impose, but she politely refused and seemed to enjoy having Regan so taken with her!

Regan's language is also blossoming this week. She now refers to herself as "Doodle" (one of her nicknames) and when asked her name, that is what she wants to be called. Too cute! Her new words include: shower, efent (elephant), horsey, buck up (buckle up), corn (for corn or popcorn), Nessa (her friend Vanessa), gross, big gurls (underwear), watch (for a wrist watch), side (outside), Dondul (the cat, Donald), fun, let's ride, I want ride, I go now, and many more! She "talks" all the time (and loudly! we are working on inside voice), but now I am understanding more words in all her "talk". She understands stuff I never thought she would! I have to keep that in mind when I am talking. She copied her first bad word last week and I am ashamed to say it, but she copied it from me :( Luckily, it appears she is only going to repeat it that one time. Whew!

Oh, and she can count to four! I am so proud!

Yesterday, we headed to the County Fair. My mom had bought my nephew and me armbands so that we could ride the rides. Thank goodness because the ride tickets were a small fortune. Konnor is becoming quite the rider and he was thrilled he had a ride buddy. I will ride just about anything, and I was impressed with all the rides he would ride. As long as it didn't go upside down he was okay with it. I was also pleased because all the carnies let Regan go on rides without tickets. As long as I rode with her they let her on the little rides. She was so excited that she actually got to ride some rides because she used to cry when I would ride with Konnor. She is becoming much more adventurous and rode the flying elephants, the giant slide x5 times, the School Bus that goes way up in the air, and a fun house climbing thing. Konnor did ride The Zipper with me, going against his own upside down rule, and I thought he was going to have a meltdown, but he held it together! That one was scary for me too because if I hadn't held on to him during one spin, he would have hit the roof with his head. We are not going to be riding that one again, too unsafe. I bought him popcorn and we rode the Super Himilaya one more time since he was such a good sport! All in all, we counted them up and we rode at least 30 rides (not 30 different rides, because some we repeated, but we rode 30 times). Two $20 armbands got their money's worth! It was good for Konnor, because he sometimes has a hard time with being the oldest and not getting as much attention. Sometimes it pays off to be the oldest!

The video link for The Zipper is not mine, but one I got off of YouTube.

More great news is that they offered us PTs and the Occupational Therapists the chance to become employees. They have 10 slots open. I went for it....and became an offical employee on Friday! I have an initial paycut for the first few years, but my health insurance is $450 cheaper a month. I also got three sick days starting immediately. In the fall I get 7 more! Just the ability to have 10 sick days a year is amazing! No more contract work for me! Benefits are a beautiful thing.

Today is my mom's birthday and Doodle and I made her Rice Krispie treats. We decorated them with pre-made decorations......unfortunately, only about half of them ended up on The Treats. The rest were shoved into Doodle's mouth. Then I had to deal with post-decoration sugar high!

My New Hobby

After this post and this post, I decided to start a new hobby. I love doing little girls' hair (if only Regan would sit still for more styles!) and I love all the hair ribbons I see people making. So, I decided to try it myself. These are what I came up with last night :

Not perfect, seeing as how I got the ends uneven on the top bow, but it was fun to do! I had no idea you can curl ribbon by baking it.....I did have a picture of the ribbon baking, but when I saw my oven in the picture, I realized I need to clean it!! All in all, it took me about 30 minutes to do all three. I see some Christmas presents in Regan's future!!

It Just Keeps Getting Better

A picture from a year ago, hasn't she grown!!

As a sequel to my earlier post , the saga continues.

After trying to get the water pressure tank on the house, I couldn't get it done. I called my brother the next day and he helped me put it on. I happily go into the house to turn my water on and.....no water. I am totally bummed and over the whole thing by now. After three trips to Home Depot, we have replaced the switchy thing and still nothing. My brother calls about 5 different plumbers and nobody can seem to come out to help even though they are on 24 hour call. I guess the rule is, they are open 24 hours but don't expect any help until the next day about mid day.

I had gotten a phone call from Regan's daycare that she is running a high temperature and so she is not allowed to come back to school on Thursday. Great.

On Thursday morning, I have a sick child and my brother comes over in the morning to help me deal with plumbers. After spending an entire day messing with them, they determine it is my pump that isn't working. The pump that is located about 100 feet underground. Not something I feel that I can even begin to do on my own. Lucky for me, they will fix it for the amount of $1295.oo. Oh, and they were very pleased to tell me that they accept credit cards. Isn't that generous of them?!?! What do I do at that point? I have got to have running water in the house. After they make the diagnosis and shock me into a stroke with the price tag, they have my water running about two hours later. I am obviously in the wrong business, that amounts to $647.50 an hour. It must be nice. Not sure how I'm going to dig myself out of the debt hole I have crawled into in the past year.

I go inside to enjoy water taps that actually have water coming out of them and I get a phone call from my mortgage company. They had the great news that I didn't pay my mortgage last month. I nicely explain to them that I did pay my mortgage last month, I do it online through my bank. We get disconnected in the middle of the conversation and I use that time to go check online to prove to them they were wrong. I still can not believe what a moronic thing I did. I paid two bills online last month through my bank. A credit card bill and my mortgage. I did the most genius thing of accidently switching the amounts so that my mortgage company got paid $200 and my credit card company got my mortgage payment. Ughhhh! Now I owe two months worth of payment on my mortgage. Not quite sure how I am going to come up with the cash for that one. They also reiterated some news that I had gotten in a lovely letter a couple of weeks ago. That lovely letter told me that with rising taxes, my escrow account is low and if I don't want my mortgage payment to go up $500 a month, I can pay them upfront $1900.00 and then my mortgage payment is only going up by $100 a month.

I think I need to start playing the lottery.

Today, I am home again with my sick little one because she can't quite kick the horrible cough and high temperature that everyone seems to be getting. Did I ever mention I am a contract employee and if I don't work, I don't get paid?!?!? Well, Regan and I are enjoying watching America's Next Top Model and eating popcorn when the chair slips out from underneath her and she nosedives into the coffee table. Even now, when I think of the sound it made it still makes me sick to my stomach. Her nose gushes blood for a minute or two and slows down to an ooze that allows me time to call the doctor. They take a message and tell me the nurse will call me back. About 15 minutes later, Regan and I are in the bathroom and I am trying to clean her up when the phone rings. I had left the phone in the living room so I run out to answer the phone when that person hangs up. I am walking back to the bathroom when I hear more screaming. I run to find that Regan had slammed her fingers in the door.

It gets even better! After I get her loved up on so that she calms down, the phone rings again and it is our favorite nurse, Betsy. After getting a history and finding out what happened, she and I decide I'll watch her for a couple of hours and if she shows signs of decreased awareness, etc, I'll bring her in that afternoon. As I am talking on the phone with Betsy, Regan is rocking the cat in her little rocking chair. The cat decides she has had enough of that and she jumps out of the chair. This takes Regan by surprise and she lets go of the chair only to have the back of it go slamming into her face.

Oh, what a couple of weeks! I really could do without all the drama!!

Help!! I'm Sinking!

Do you ever have that horrible feeling that you are sinking under a pile of things that needs to get done, that your house and appliances are playing tricks on you and laughing behind your back, and you just keep going under and under and under?!?!?

I have really felt that way for the past two weeks. About two months ago I gave in and got a second job working at an outpatient therapy clinic. The kids have been cute, the parents sane, and it has been better than when I was practically paying the newspaper to get the pleasure of spending hours in the sweltering heat bagging and throwing papers. In the past two weeks, I had to get Donald the cat spayed. Then my refrigerator decided to defrost and flood my kitchen floor. Then my internet went down for several days. My car who just celebrated it's 6th birthday with 167,000 miles has decided that it is going to get tempermental and only start when it wants to. Nothing like a little rush of excitement wondering if you are going to be stranded somewhere until your car decides that it will indeed turn over. I have spent two weekends at continuing ed courses that have been less than stimulating and have eaten up my weekends. My refrigerator decided to start working again and then promptly stopped working a second time right after I had bought some groceries to put inside of it. The final straw was last night when in the middle of a load of laundry my water suddenly stopped. I thought it was my washer and after pulling it apart, disconnecting the hoses to clean the little filters, then trying to clean out the hose I went into the kitchen to wash my hands. Dork that I am, I never thought it was a well problem until I realized that NONE of the water in my house was flowing. At this point it is about 1 in the morning and I wander outside with a flashlight to find that my water pressure system had imploded on itself. Not a good sign. I have never realized how much I use water until it is gone! At about 2 AM, I jimmy rig the pressure pump so that at least I have a trickle of water coming into the house. I guess it could be worse and I could have been in the shower with a soapy head of hair when it decided to stop! Oh, and on top of it all.....Regan has decided that this past week has been the time to pull out of her bag of tricks the most amazing temper tantrums with full blown body contorsions, foot stomping, hand slapping and the most annoying (like fingernails on a chalkboard) squealing and shrieking. I jinxed myself years ago when I would see kids misbehaving and saying that when I had kids, they would never misbehave like that! Why is it that they always wait until we are in public and it is even better when it is in a nice quiet place like the library?!?! Needless to say, we have taken many a trip to the car to discuss her behavior. This is a phase, right?!?!? Please, pretty please, tell me this phase will pass......and pass quickly!! Tonight, I got to go shopping........at Home Depot to spend $130 on a pressure pump. Nobody can tell me I don't know how to have a good time! I am not going to attempt to install it in the dark with a two year old alone in the house so wish me luck that I have a successful shower. If you see me tomorrow and my hair looks a little soapy, you'll know I didn't have the patience to sit for hours under the drip of my shower trying to rinse my hair!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!!

Happy Chinese New Year!! We celebrated Chinese New Year by going to the library and listening to a Chinese New Year story and making an origami rat (the Year of the Rat) and a dragon craft. We met another woman who had a little girl from the Hunan Province. It is such a small world because several months ago we had run into each other in a Wendy's bathroom!

Last weekend, we had another "free" trip to Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. It was a good time.....Konnor got to ride all of his favorite rides and I even got to ride The Hulk. Unfortunately, we tried the babyswap option for the first time and it broke Regan's heart not to ride the rollercoaster.......but then, she hates the Caro Suessal and so I told her the rollercoaster was probably not going to be better. She wasn't buying it...