Video blog

continued......

Dr. Henry broke me

That phrase drives Justin crazy. I've been saying it for weeks now. If you'll remember, Dr. Henry (Jack's pediatrician) took me off dairy for as long as I choose to nurse Jack. That was 2 1/2 months ago. It seems longer to me, but I posted about it on Feb. 15th, so I guess not.

The hardest thing for me to give up was chocolate. I had to give that up as well. I haven't had chocolate for almost 4 months. I was doing really well not eating anything dairy until Easter. It was a few days before Easter I guess, but the kids had some M&M's and I ate one. I didn't like it. You read that right, I didn't like it. It tasted bitter and yucky. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? The only thing I can figure is that Dr. Henry broke me. :)

On Easter I decided to eat a bit of dairy. I ate mashed potatoes, a little cheese, and this cool whip salad stuff I made. After I got done eating I felt like crap. I felt nauseous and sluggish. It wasn't long before I got a stomachache. Maybe I shouldn't have dairy either. A very large 'ah-ha' moment.

Not long after Nathan was born I had to have my gallbladder taken out. Not long after that I would have horrible stomachaches and then to follow 'stomach problems'. I'm obviously not going to go into that, but I think maybe dairy was the problem all along. I haven't had those kinds of problems AT ALL since taking dairy out of my diet. The only time I do is when I've had something with dairy in it. Ah-ha, right? Right!

Making meals are a bit harder now that I can't eat all the things that I had in the past, but I feel much better. I'm still able to eat some of the crap food that I've come to love. If I want ice cream then I have to have sorbet. I'd much rather have a blizzard, but having sorbet is better than nothing at all.

Oh, I almost forgot this. The kids got a Dove chocolate bunny in their Easter basket this year. Dove is my favorite kind of chocolate. Anyway, I was making supper one night and Claire came in the kitchen with this bunny partially unwrapped and wanted me to help her with the rest. I took the bunny from her and told her she couldn't eat it until after supper. She, of coarse, threw a fit and left the room. When she was gone I took a bite of the bunny. Again, yuck. YUCK PEOPLE? What on earth has happened to me? I'm broken, BROKEN I tell you.

Remember Claire's cake for her birthday? I ate some of that and it was chocolate. It was very good, but gave me one heck of a stomachache. Did I say broken? Good. Just checking. :)

Estelle's Photography

Here are some of the pictures we had taken at Estelle's Photography. She had an offer of a free sitting and a 4x5 of your choice for $5. Who could pass that up? These were 3 of my favorites. We didn't put Justin in there because it was a Mother's Day offer and I didn't want to rock the boat by asking if he could be added. Speaking of boats, it was POURING when we got there. That would be why my hair looks so ravishing.

Presenting.....Claire!

Hair

Calling all bloggers.....Calling all bloggers.....

What is your passion? I have a few. Of coarse if you know one single thing about me then you know that my #1 passion is my family. I do, however, have a passion for hair. I just can't help it. I feel like it speaks to me (not literally - I'm not crazy...my doctors told me so). It's the first thing I notice on most people. It started from a very young age, actually I could probably pinpoint it.

I don't remember exactly where we were, but I know exactly what my sister was wearing. She had on this sweater vest (oh yes you did!) that was black with hot pink polka-dots. I think she had on a black shirt under it with her collar pointing straight up. It was obviously the 80's. Anyway, I was already interested in hair, but it was this day that she curled my hair for me and people noticed. They told me how pretty it was and they went on and on about it. I'd always curled and feathered the front of my hair, but she curled the back and it really made me feel like a million bucks. From that day on I wanted to make other people feel like like a million bucks.

I did hair at least part time for 10 years. Most of the time I loved it, but there were some people that no matter what I did they hated it - yet they would request me each and every time. I'll never understand that I guess. I had one client that I swore had a life goal of seeing if she could make me cry. It never happened, but for the life of me I couldn't make her happy. She would come in the salon and she'd ask me to cut it exactly like I did the last time. People - don't ask this of your stylist. There is no way this is possible. A stylist can get close, but there is no way she's going to do it exact every time. She's probably only seen a hundred or more people since your last visit and now you're asking her to cut your hair the very same way. Probably not going to happen.

Anyway, she would come in and ask me to cut her hair the way I did the first time she came to me. Sure! (eye roll) It never failed - I would cut her hair and she'd need a little more off here or a little more off there. I would end up doing 2 hair cuts on her and running behind with my next client. Then I realized that it wasn't me - it was her. This is what I did (and it makes me giggle); it never failed that she wanted just a little more off the back, however, when I took that little bit off it was too short. Finally I started to PRETEND to cut more off the back when she asked. The end result? A happy client. SHE DROVE ME CRAZY! I don't know who does her hair now, but God help them. I hope they've also learned that she can't be pleased.

I had a few odd things happened to me when I first worked as a hair stylist. I'm not sure if all men get a crush on their stylists, but some of my clients had obvious crushes on me. A couple of them asked me out but one guy took the prise. I'd just started dating Justin and I was very happy about it. This guy, Jordan, was referred to me by another client. I'm sure she told him that I was single, but during our conversation I told him that I had started seeing someone. It just so happened that my water bottle was broken so I was using someone else's. The stylist needed it back and I joked about the fact that it was the cheapest thing a stylist uses, but that it was such a necessity - and mine was broken. The next day I got some flowers with a water bottle attached to it. Cute, right? Well Justin didn't think it was all that great. ;) He still doesn't like that story to this day. Jordan came back a few weeks later to get his hair cut and I thanked him for the flowers. He asked me if Justin was mad about the flowers and I told him that he wasn't (because that's what Justin had told me at the time). Jordan asked if it would be ok to send more. I obviously told him no.

Whether I'm watching TV or shopping in the mall, hair is the first thing I see on someone. After 9 1/2 years of hearing hair critiques, Justin just rolls his eyes at me when I point out someones hair. I just can't help it. Hair is just my thing.

Birthday pictures

Here are a bunch of pictures from Claire's birthday party. We had such a great time. Let's get started. Here is a picture of my mom holding Jack. Here are the kids enjoying pizza.

Here is Evie. She's being pulled two ways. I want to take her picture, yet she's more interested in what Dawson and Spencer are doing.Here's the birthday girl. She's not real sure why there is fire on her cake. We let the big kids blow out the candles. The house would have burned down had we waited for Claire to do it. The cake!

This is Izzie. She REALLY enjoyed the cake. :) Caymen and Jack are having a good time.
Here is Claire with Grandma Sharelle. She's a huge Grandma fan, as Nathan would say.

Claire with Mommy.

Claire with "Tacy". She loves Tracy. I had Tracy do her hair because if I do it she pulls it out. If Tracy does it she'll leave it there. Here is Tracy, me, and my sister, Shannon.

Princess Peach!

I got Claire this big Dora balloon. Does it look huge?

It is! It's as big as Claire!!

Lets open some gifts.

Caymen has one of these drums too. I think this picture is adorable of her.

Claire got this fun chair from Spencer. Elmo was a HUGE hit. Thanks Auntie Chelle!!! The big kids went outside to play. Evie got to drive Lightning. Well, sorta. She wasn't very good at it. She would hit the gas and squeal with excitement. While I was outside with them, she hit the step and the tree. She had fun but the car drove her, she didn't drive the car. I took this picture of Izzie. I love the natural lighting. I think it's a beautiful picture of her. At the end of the day, we all felt like this.

Happy Birthday Claire

Getting Ready

I'm staying up late getting things ready for Claire's party tomorrow. Justin snapped this beauty of me. Most days I'm just too hot to handle. It's very hard to type that with a straight face.

Anyway, I'm burning up the midnight oil because her party starts at 11:30 tomorrow morning. We'll have pizza and cake and then open some gifts. By that time she'll need a nap. More than likley we all will.

Claire got an early gift tonight from some friends of ours. Could she be any more proud? I don't think so.

Go ahead - call me crazy

I'm not going down without a fight. I'm talking about breastfeeding. My supply is low, very low. It couldn't even feed a new born, much less a 5 month old. I've decided that I'm going to pump every 3 hours. I'm going to set my alarm and get up to pump.

It isn't appealing, believe me. Today Natey and I went to Sioux Falls and shopped until we couldn't stand each other any more. We went to 2 supply houses, Once Upon a Child, Target, Old Navy and then Wal-Mart. I'm beat!

I will, however, be waking up every 3 hours to pump.

Go ahead - call me crazy.

Scary alarm

On Friday night, Jack had a scary alarm. I don't know what time it was, but everyone was asleep when his apnea machine went off. I ran to him and had to shake him before it silenced itself. That was the worst one yet. He's never had an alarm during the day. I think it's because he doesn't go into such a deep sleep. I don't know, but I'm probably not going to be willing to take him off this machine at 6 months like I was when I left Dr. Lundien's office last month.

Claire has started calling Jack "Jacksleeping". I'm not sure why or how this started, but she'll say "Hi Jacksleeping". Sometimes I say, "Honey, Jack is awake." She responds with "Hi Jackawake". Funny. She's something else. I call her "Claire Meyer Sassypants" which fits very well.

The family got to be outside this weekend. Justin took the kids for a walk. Natey rode his new Dallas Cowboys bike. I guess he took 2 falls, but nothing major. I'll be glad when we can be out there all the time.

After seeing myself in the Reza pictures, I've decided I'm done being fat. I can't handle it any more. I've started to write down what I eat so that I can figure out how many calories I take in. I've got 3 days under my belt and consumed 1500 the first day, 1553 the second and 1563 yesterday. After looking on the net, I've found that to loose weight I need to cut my calorie intake by 250 calories and exercise off 250 calories a day as well. It said that walking for 45 minutes a day would burn 250 calories. I'm sure I have 45 minutes, but I'm going to have to search for it. I also found that my 'ideal' weight should be between 115 and 129. I'm a long way from that people. I graduated high school at 120 pounds and got married (after losing 30 pounds) at 130 pounds. Holy cat smokes. I'm up for the challenge.

Milestone's and more

Milestone's are a big deal at our house. This comes with a pretty long story so get ready. Some of you are new to my life and don't know this story. Those of you that have been with me for a while (or always) feel free to skim over this post. It's ok, I won't be offended.

My pregnancy with Claire was less than stellar. The first trimester was filled with me getting sick 3 times a day and feeling like death warmed over. It wasn't fun at all. Justin has a genetic disease which meant many ultrasounds while I was pregnant. The first one we had with Claire turned our lives upside down. To make a very, very long story as short as possible, we were told that they thought she might have Down Syndrome. We did the testing which showed us that it would be a good idea to do an amniocentesis. We did that and the test came back negative - saying that the baby, which was for sure a girl, didn't have Downs. THANK GOODNESS!

I had a very hard time breathing when I was pregnant with her, so much that I had to take medical leave from work. Finally the day came that she was to be born. I had her via c-section on Friday, April 22, 2005. My doctor went on and on about how much she looked like Nathan. I agreed that she looked like him, but there was something different about her. I couldn't put my finger on it. Without a doubt she had my nose. Was that what made her different from Nathan? I couldn't quite figure it out.

She went the first 52 hours of her life without pooping. On Sunday, the doctor came in our room and sat down. He said that he needed to talk to us about the baby. He said that we needed to talk about Down Syndrome. I stopped him. I wanted to make sure he knew everything we'd been through in the pregnancy. I wanted him to know that if he was going to talk to us about her having Down's than he better be serious. We told him about the amneo that I'd had and that it was negative. He said that he wanted to look at the test results himself to make sure they didn't test my chromosomes instead of hers. Justin was instantly angry. For me it was different. I totally saw what he was saying. That was the difference I'd noticed myself. He said that she had 3 characteristics of a child with Down Syndrome:


1) A simian crease. (That's not Claire's hand, but that's exactly what her hand looks like)
2) Wide spaced eyes with a flat bridge nose.
3) Wide spaced nipples.

Many kids with Down's have bowel problems and he wasn't sure if this was the reason for her not pooping, but with the other characteristics she had, they had to explore the possibility. Someone could have punched my lights out and I would have been just as stunned.

They ended up doing an x-ray to make sure she didn't have some sort of blockage. That was clear. Then they did a suppository and that got her moving slowly but surely.

The doctors came in and said that they didn't believe that she had full blown Downs, but thought she possibly had Mosaicism. They could do a blood test, but it wouldn't tell us without a doubt if she was Mosaic or not. We finally did the test at the end of June (2005). The test came back negative. Due to the fact that the blood test wasn't 100%, the fact that she might be Mosaic never was far from the back of my mind.

Then when she was 10 1/2 weeks old she got sick and had to be put in the hospital. She was septic when I took her to the ER (Justin stayed home with Nathan). Neither of us had any idea just how sick she was. Unfortunately we never found out what was wrong with her. She spent 3 days in the hospital. Then a month later she had to be in the hospital again. This time she was dehydrated. Any time she started to get sick she'd stop eating. Due to the pattern, she was in the hospital a month and a half later. That's 3 hospital stays in 6 months. Ugh!

After all of this we noticed that Claire wasn't hitting milestones. Actually, she started to fall into the black. By 9 months old she was pretty behind. We contacted the people at Easter Seals and they came to our house to evaluate her. The results showed that she was borderline in need of their services. One of the people that evaluated her agreed with me that Claire's arms seemed puffy (notice picture). We took her to the Mayo Clinic to have her looked at. We were checking to see if she had Justin's genetic disease in her arms (his is in his leg). It turned out that she has a mild case in her arms, but the good news is that the doctor said that there is no way she has any form of Down's. She functions way too high to have Down Syndrome. You have no idea what those words meant to me. They were worth their weight in gold - and more.

The pediatrician we saw at Mayo was a wonderful doctor and such a nice man. He said that he thought Claire was too busy fighting to stay well to meet the milestones that she's missed. He said "I bet you within weeks she's walking." Sure enough, by the next week, she took her first steps. She was 15 months. After that, there was nobody that could hold her back. She just went crazy from there. It was like a total metamorphosis was taking place before our very eyes. Once she got caught up, she started to advance. She was meeting milestones before she was 'supposed to'. It was amazing.

The reason for this post was an e-mail that I got from http://www.babycenter.com/. I love this site. I get e-mails that I would guess many of you mothers of young children also get. It tells you what you can expect from your child (ie: milestones). I got one last week that said this: Your toddler can probably hum and sing songs such as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and make three-word sentences like "Cup fall down." I didn't need to read any farther to see if Claire was meeting her milestone. Before I'd sat down at the computer she said "I'm gonna get you mommy, I'm gonna get you." A full 9 word sentence. You've come a long way my sweet little Peach, you've come a long way.

Funny brother

The show

Remember my post about Reza? If you missed it, you can read it here. Tracy and I decided we'd leave the boys at home and go to the show ourselves. I'd gotten an e-mail from Reza a week or so ago making sure I knew how to get tickets and he asked that I made sure to make contact with him at the show. So last night Tracy picked me up and we were on our way.Natey was very sad that he didn't get to go to the show with us. I wouldn't tell him what kind of show it was because I knew very well that he likes magic and would have wanted to go. However, after watching the trailer of the show I just didn't think he would be able to understand it just yet. So Tracy and I left Nathan crying at the front door. I knew his tears wouldn't last long, but it's never fun to leave your child crying like that.

When we got to the Playhouse there were kids everywhere. I was feeling HORRIBLE about that little boy we left crying at the front door. I even saw a child from his preschool class there. Actually there were many children around. I said to Tracy "Maybe we are of the wrong age to be here."

Reza had an opening act. It was a college student from SDSU singing and playing the guitar. He was....his voice was....hmmm, I'm not sure what to even say about him. I couldn't understand a word he was saying when he was singing, but he had a nice voice and the guitar sounded nice. Then after a short intermission Reza came out and did his thing. I was surprised that he was funny. I didn't expect that. He did some great tricks. His card tricks were awesome. He called people up from the crowed which made it fun. He called kids up there which was very brave. We ALL know how unpredictable kids can be. It was a good show.

After the show, Reza announced that he would be in the lobby. Tracy and I went out there to wait. I spoke to his mother and told her that I remembered Reza from selling me candy at the salon and she said she thought I looked familiar. I'm not sure if she was just saying that or not, but she was very polite. It wasn't long and Reza came out. Tracy and I got to say hello and have our picture taken with him. We told him that we enjoyed the show and he thanked us for stopping by.

He also had one of 'his people' take a picture of us. I thought that was nice. This is us looking at that camera. Ok, so I could have totally left this out...but why? :)On the way home Tracy and I were trying to figure out the tricks. We were stumped. We were both VERY glad that we left the boys at home. We would have been answering questions the whole time I think. They would never have understood the card tricks, that's for sure. It was a good show and we enjoyed ourselves.

Curl? How?

Being the hair person that I am, I still don't understand how I went from stick straight hair, pre-children, to enough curl to look like I have a perm if I so desire. I'd been wanting a perm and Char was trying to talk me out of it as fast as I was trying to talk her into it. Finally one day I decided to see how much curl I could get by scrunching and I was amazed. Yesterday I decided to wear it curly which takes MUCH less time than any other style I wear. I thought it looked better with dark hair than it did when my hair was light. Anyway, I picked the kids up from Pam's yesterday and right away Nathan said "Mom - your hair looks wild". I had to laugh. Any time my hair is styled different, Nathan usually has something to say about it.

When I get the kids home from daycare it usually takes them a little bit to unwind. They all seem to need me and I'm being pulled in a million different directions. As you can imagine, yesterday was no exception. I was holding Jack and Claire wanted to sit on my lap too. Nathan was racing his cars on the table and wanted to show me everything that was going on with his race. I don't know if I've told you this before, but when he races and a big wreck happens, he wants to show me in slow motion. OH - LORD! It's like pulling teeth. Then sometimes you get real lucky and you have to see it in slow motion again because Natey didn't recreate it the way he wanted. (sigh)

Anyway, back to the story. I don't know what we were doing at the time, but Nathan and I had this conversation:

Nathan: Mom, you look beautiful!
Me: Do you know what that means?
Nathan: Yes. It means that you're very pretty.
Me: Oh! You think I'm very pretty?
Nathan: Yes.
Me: (so flattered) Oh, geesh, Thanks Natey!
Nathan: You're welcome....but not always....just today.

Figures!

On Friday I got off work at noon. It was very nice because Natey didn't have school and I was able to spend time with the kids. It would have been better had it not been so cold outside, but I guess we can't have everything. Here are some pictures of the kids. I put Jack in Claire's crib when she woke up from her nap. Some day this will be Jack's bed. For now he sleeps in his car seat or swing.

It looks like Claire is enjoying her company.

"Sometimes when I'm in here "sleeping", I try out new dance routines. Kick right....."

"You aren't going to tell on me are you Jack?"

Jack inspects those white thinggies in Claire's mouth.

And where was Natey you ask? After consulting Ralph Loren and Noah about his outfit, he played with a toy on the bed in Claire's room.

Easter fun

Thank you Tracy and family for inviting us again for Easter. We had a great time. Thank you Grandma Sandy for all the yummy food! Much love to all of you! I hope everyone else had a wonderful Easter as well.

Simply funny

I don't remember which day it was and thankfully it's not important. I believe it was last Saturday or Sunday, but again, not important. Anyway, Peach was being, well, just that, a real Peach, and wouldn't listen to a word I said. I wanted her to stop doing whatever it was that she was doing. I started simple, "Claire". Nothing. "CLAire" a little louder. Still nothing. "CLAIRE!" Still nothing at this point. My blood pressure was rising and I raised my voice to say "CLAIRE LEANNE!" There we go! Not only did she stop what she was doing, but so did Natey. Who doesn't love a two for one, right? Don't get too excited - they both looked at me as I'd lost my mind. Natey said "Why did you just call her that?" in his best 'I'm really a teenager trapped in an almost 5 year old boy body' tone. I explained that when I use their middle name that it means I'm serious. I also realized at that moment that I don't actually do what I'd just said. When I want to get Nathan's attention I say "Nathan Meyer" not "Nathan Lee". No wonder he was confused.

Tuesday afternoon Natey and I were watching TV, at least he was. I was sitting on the couch holding Jack. I don't remember what happened, but Nathan looked at me and said "Can you BELIEVE that, Kerrie Anne?" I was stunned. I said "Uh, no, I guess I can't." (pause) "Did you just call me Kerrie Anne?" He smiled - like this.....
and nodded as to say yes. I said "Did you call me that because you were serious?" He covered his mouth and giggled - and nodded again.

I need your help!

Everyone, I need your help. My friend is in the hospital and to say that she's 'in the downy dumps' (as Nathan would say) would be an understatement. She was in a car accident a few years ago and hurt her back. She's been trying every treatment under the sun using surgery as her last hope. A couple of weeks ago she had a procedure done to measure the amount of pain she's in. This past week was the worst she's ever had. She's 29 years old and having to walk with a walker due to the amount of pain she's in. Come to find out she got an infection in her spine from the procedure she had that I just spoke of. She was supposed to see a specialist this month to see where she goes from here with her back, but they have to take care of this before they can do that. She's having surgery today to scrape her spine in hopes to rid the infection.

I realize that many of you don't know her, but she's in serious need of some funny cards and some well wishes. Would you be willing to send her a card and let her know that you're thinking of her? She might not know who you are, but if you put 'Kerrie's blogging friend' on there she sure would.

Let me tell you a bit about her. Her name is Kristin Sanford...WAIT - I have a picture of her.

There she is. She's the one on the left and that's Tracy on the right holding Claire just an hour after she was born. Kristin used to work with me. She's now a full time dispatcher in Sioux Falls. Kristin lost her sister in a drunk driving accident a few years ago, prior to me knowing her. This family has been through quite a bit as you can imagine. I hate to see her suffering so much right now. I did talk to her foster sister this morning and she said that the doctors have Kristin heavily medicated right now due to her pain level. Kristin is a very loyal friend of mine and I really hope that you're willing to help me boost her mood by taking the time to send her a card.

If you're interested, here is the address:
Kristin Sanford
c/o Abott Northwestern
800 E. 28th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55407