Trading Murders

I am absolutely fit to be tied! Last week, my orthodontist's office accidentally charged MY debit card for someone else's payment in the amount of FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETEEN DOLLARS. I called on Friday to talk to them about it and their office was closed for the weekend! They called me on Monday repeatedly apologizing for the error and told me they would credit my money back and here it is Wednesday and there is no trace of that money coming back to my account. I called and pitched a fit, but they do not seem to be grasping the fact that I NEED MY MONEY BACK NOW. All of my end of the month bills are past due, I need to go grocery shopping like nobody's business, and my account is overdrawn.

So I called up my mom to rant about it and she tells me what kind of trouble she has been having with her neighbors. Their big ol' dog knocked down her fence and has been terrorizing her back yard, causing her pets to be too afraid to set paw in the back yard, thus causing them to relieve themselves in the house. Her property management company won't fix the fence because it is a shared fence and the cost will have to be split between them and the owners of the other house. The tenants of the other house are teenage boys who will not accept responsibility for their dog nor the fence and won't give up the information for their landlord because it is a family member. No one seems to be grasping the fact that SHE NEEDS HER FENCE FIXED NOW.

We did a little thinking and decided it would be a good idea for us to trade murders so that they can't link us to the killings. She can go postal on my orthodontist's office, and I can go massacre the neighbors and their dog. I'm telling you... my friend Robyn has a chiropractor who says there is a vertebrae or something that goes out of alignment and makes you "want to kill people" and I am sure mine is out of whack. Keep your distance... I'm dangerous.

***DISCLAIMER: If my mom's neighbors or anyone at the orthodontist's office goes missing or turns up dead it is purely coincidental and is in no way connected to me or my mom, as this story was written in jest.***

Worrisome

Keira finally went to her first checkup at the doctor this morning. She was in between insurance for a while so she is now 4 months old and just now going to the doctor for her shots. We were fortunate enough to get her in with the same pediatrician that I went to since I was a baby, Dr. Jones, who is absolutely awesome. She weighed in at 12 lbs. 9 oz. and is 2 feet tall. Well, 2 feet horizontal that is, because she can't stand. We have tried to get her to stand and she has got really bad noodle legs. She can't support her weight at all. My mom said that each of her 4 kids could stand by her age, so we were a little concerned. Our concern went from a little to a LOT after the doctor's appointment today. He noticed a dimple above her butt called a sacral dimple which is often a sign of a spinal nerve defect called a tethered spinal cord. One of the symptoms is leg weakness... GREAT.

Everything I read about it says that the earlier you detect the problem, the better, so I am glad that we discovered it early, but it seems like the only solution for it is surgical which I am NOT happy about. It is well understood that in the majority of children with tethered cords neurological function will deteriorate with growth and activity. So even if your child does not have any symptoms, surgery is often recommended to prevent future neurologic deterioration and complications. It is considered a low risk operation, with a good chance of success for their future development, but some cases are more difficult and may require more surgery as the child ages. The doctor wants her to have an MRI done to get a better idea of what the problem is and how severe it is, then we will have to discuss what to do about it.

Here is a link to some pretty good information about tethered spinal cords-

http://www.boston-neurosurg.org/publications/faq/tethered_cord_MP.shtml

I am SO WORRIED about my little girl and I want her to be able to walk! Please say a prayer for her and our family.

Raspberries

What do you do when you are teething, don't feel like talking, and have lots of drool to spare? Make raspberries of course! Today is Keira's 4 month birthday and to celebrate she decided to put that drool to good use by making raspberries with her mouth. A couple weeks ago, she decided that "talking" was "so last month" and now she mostly smiles, giggles, and uses her newfound skill of making raspberries. I'm sure she will resume talking again once she can keep those hands out of her mouth. Right now she is constantly teething on them. Hopefully she will pop those teeth out soon.

UPDATE:

Here is a video of Keira doing raspberries during our trip to the coast this weekend. We were having lunch at Round Table in Morro Bay and she entertained herself (and us) the whole time with a chorus of raspberries. You can hear it if you turn off the music and turn up the volume. See all that drool? What a silly girl.

A year ago today...

Valentine's Day never had a special place in my heart a year ago today when I discovered I was pregnant with my beautiful baby girl after nearly a year of painful trying. Now it brings back the memories...

That Valentine's Day, I stayed home from work because I was sick with a cold. I had been trying to get pregnant for the past 10 months and had taken many pregnancy tests in my haste, all of which were negative. I wanted to know if it was safe for me to take cold medicine so I went to Rite Aid and bought a pregnancy test to take the next morning. That night I was awake until some time around 4:00 in the morning because I was too sick to sleep and I was fed up so I went in the bathroom to take the pregnancy test, expecting it to be negative, so that I could take some medicine and go back to bed. Much to my surprise, it was positive! No doubt about it, two dark pink lines immediately materialized in the display window, and I was home alone will no one to share the news with! Art wouldn't get home from work for another few hours and can't answer his phone at work. I texted my mom and told her the good news. She called me and we talked for a while.

I was so excited I couldn't go back to bed and since I had some time to kill before Art got home I devised a clever way to tell him I'm pregnant. Neither of us had exchanged gifts on Valentine's Day since we were sick so I decided to give him a "late Valentine's present" and wrote him a card. It said "Happy Valentine's Day. I'm pregnant!" When he got home I told him I wrote him a card since I didn't buy him anything and he read the card with a puzzled look on his face. He looked at me and said, "You're pregnant???" I said, "YES! I'm PREGNANT!" and the excitement sank in for both of us. It's hard to believe it was a year ago already.

This year, Art brought me home a little flowering plant of some sort and a beautiful card then took me out to lunch at Plaza Ventana. At the last minute I ordered his present online so it hasn't shown up yet, but I got him a wedding ring to wear out and to church or what not. I'm sure you're thinking Dang! She bought him a ring and he bought her a lousy plant! But before you get all worked up, it only cost me $27.00. He spent more on lunch than I did on his ring. I am of the belief that diamonds are way more expensive than they justify- especially when cubic zirconia is way prettier and a small fragment of the cost. If you have "real diamond money" to spare, be my guest and buy them to your heart's content, but I don't roll like that. I only have fake diamond money. It even has a lifetime warranty. If anything happens to it, I just stick it in the mail and they send me a new one. I've been scoping out a ring for myself because the ring I have now was actually supposed to be just a promise ring as a way to deter men from bothering me. Well, it ended up being large enough that people would ask if we were engaged and we looked at each other and said, "Uh, yeah. I guess." So, he never actually asked me to marry him, and he never bought me a wedding ring either. I don't know how he pulled that one off.


Admittedly, I was kind of mad at my dear husband this Valentine's Day which is why I didn't buy him a present until the last minute so I didn't have a card either. I decided to make him a card instead of trying to pick through the remains at the store. He wasn't sure whether he should laugh or be offended.

A little while ago I was changing Keira into her pajamas and she made sound like a dog panting. I immitated her and she thought it was so funny. She started LAUGHING! She has giggled a couple times before when you get her neck or something, but this is the first time she totally laughed at something. I called up my mom and let her listen and got a tiny bit on video, but by the time we got the camera out she didn't think it was that funny any more. Ohhh, I love this baby so much- and all the more when she laughs. I'm so glad I made her. :)

Valentine's Day 2009

She has been teething on her fingers and decided it would be a good idea to get that thumb in her mouth while she was drinking her bottle.

Wiggle Worm

Playing in the Jumperoo for the first time.

Keira has always been quite a wiggle worm, but now her skills are improving with her added musculature. I acquired a Rainforest Jumperoo for her long before she was ever born, which I stationed at my mom's house for her use when she got big enough. My mom was watching her the other day and decided it was time to put Keira's kicking to good use in the Jumperoo. Her little tippy toes just touched the ground, but she had a BLAST playing in it.

I had to take her to the doctor last week because of a persistent diaper rash that kept spreading. I laid her on the exam table long ways and she would kick and kick and quickly work herself around horizontally. I straightened her out and it wasn't a minute before she was turned around sideways again.

Last night, I was doing laundry at my mom's house while my mom played with the baby and she put her on her tummy to play. She absolutely despises laying on her tummy and used her new found strength to flip herself all the way back over onto her back. That was her first successful 180 degree roll. Prior to this she had only made it onto her side from either her back or tummy.

Keira has been sleeping in her crib for the past couple weeks. She usually goes to sleep by 9:30 and starts waking up between 4 and 5 in the morning. She isn't hungry yet, but just wakes up so I just pop her pacifier back in her mouth, cover the side of her face, and she goes right back to sleep. She will do this a few times until it's actually time to get up and eat. I'm determined not to get her used to eating at 4 in the morning, so I don't feed her until she is actually hungry. Well, this morning my alarm went off and I realized she hadn't woken up at all yet. I got up to check on her and didn't see her so I pulled the blanket down thinking she must have gotten her face covered and she wasn't there!!! I started to panic a little wondering if maybe Art got home from work early and got her out of the crib. Then I pulled the blanket down even farther and there she was, sideways, all the way down in the bottom of the crib! My next thought was "OH MY GOSH! IS SHE BREATHING!?" There is no telling how long she had been down there under the blanket. I rubbed her belly and she moved, so I was relieved. She scared the living daylights out of me! First I thought she wasn't there and then I thought she was dead!

Silly girl... I can tell she is going to be on the move once she gets crawling and walking. She is already getting pretty far with her wiggling! I am concerned that she won't crawl very soon due to the fact that she hates being on her tummy, but she is already doing an "upside down, backwards crawl" as I call it. She lays on her back and scoots herself up with her feet- which is the reason she couldn't sleep in her bassinet anymore. She would wake up with her head scrunched sideways against the top of the bassinet. So, as you can imagine it was a real shock when she scrunched down into the bottom of her crib instead of up to the top!

Playing on the Rainforest Play Mat.